jtr7 on 28/7/2011 at 04:27

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Caps aren't even the problem. Traffic jams and insufficient equipment are. When an entire city is choked in poverty, every upgrade is years behind the curve, and it's years before the next upgrade. Whether I see five bars or one, it's a trickle, stutter, drip, and drop/time-out, and a car driving by can cut the signal. The libraries here are open for less hours than the download takes. There's also the phenomenon of the longer the download is taking, the longer it has left to go. :mad: And this is not including taffers here who have to go to a neighboring town for Internet until prices become reasonable and income is steady.

With parents dropping their kids off at the library to kill a few hours on the computers, and increases in new homeless who need a place to hang out and job search and research, and neverending problematic Internet porn addicts, there are time limits on the computers, and there are blocked sites (including Facebook and social sites), and there are places asking for credit card rental of time. All options suck or are still non-existent for many of us. Reliability is definitely non-existent.

irR4tiOn4L on 21/8/2011 at 08:39

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Hi all, very long time no post - I just wanted to alert the dark mod team that the website seems to be down, including the listing of missions. Any indication when/if we can expect the website back up or where else to find the missions?

Thanks for a great mod and any response

irR4tiOn4L on 22/8/2011 at 03:51

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Ahh thanks. Btw, sorry to bother you with another problem - ive been using the tdmupdate.exe to update and its taking quite a long time because it keeps redownloading files after the checksum is reported as corrupt.

But the checksum comparison often reads something like this;

should be - 266z588
is - 0266z588

As in, the checksum seems often have a 0 in front and the updater redownloads. Is this corrupt update files or some checking error?

EDIT: I have updated my tdmupdate.exe, i had the old command line version. Maybe itll work now


Btw, if any of you are ever in Syd, Aus we can have a beer (along with Dram) and i can thank you properly for this brilliant mod

irR4tiOn4L on 23/8/2011 at 16:20

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Everything works beautifully now thanks! Just playing through the 'training' mission which id never actually finished before but its really a full blown mission in its own right - and soo atmospheric.

This is just such a masterpiece. All it needs is popularity and missions - which im sure will come with time

EDIT - Just finished the 'training mission' that comes with TDM. Not much training, but then i didnt need any. I played on hard with no lightgem (frankly, you dont need one since its quite easy to tell which shadows are deep enough) and stealthed most of the mission although i did resort to copious amounts of blackjacking (blackjacked everyone except martha) and boosting the gamma in the more frustrating key hunts.

Great mission overall, very creative. Wont spoil anything for anyone but the story and design was just top notch and the whole mission was extremely immersive.

What i liked -
interior design, attention to detail, backstory, architecture and the sheer creativeness. I wont elaborate but dont let brevity be a guide to magnitude!

What i thought was fine but could be better -
The starting location is fairly weak; it is not immediately clear where you want to go and when it is (The gate) its not the way in. Even once you find the barrel, you are dumped into an alley where on the one hand you are herded (no room to deviate) yet dont know where. You just have to trust the game and not until youve gone through the sewer and back up do you realise 'oh, THATS what i was trying to do'. Its also quite weak visually, especially between the sewer bit and barrel, as it doesnt look much like streets with just sheer walls (and THOSE white, giant windows).

The parapet/guard towers are a bit of an afterthought. They are difficult to sneak through (without blackjacking), easy to get spotted in (from the mansion side) and filled with guards. Its the kind of thing a proper thief should stay away from, yet you are expected to go there (more or less, for the full story). Architecturally its also a bit strange (why are there towers facing a giant, sheer wall?) and visually, the whole courtyard is a bit weak - its an odd space, lacks interesting features or details and SEEMS bright, yet is filled with 'sneakable' shadows. Still, does the job fine.

Guard and civilian patrols - they are fine (apart from the overcrowded guard towers and parapet) but not exactly 'lifelike'. In terms of patrol design, compared to thief the patrols are limited and short - the guards generally follow loops around, for example, the bottom hallways, or just along a stretch of hallway. But none take long, winding patrols that could catch a player by suprise or keep them on edge - and make the guards seem more likelike. Thief is also an old game and while TDM clearly supports complicated patrols to add 'lifelike' behaviour, this is more of a missed opportunity in the mission. Neither guards nor civilians do much beyond move between a few rooms/set areas endlessly - which doesnt create an impression of lifelike behaviour. Even lady edgridge has a rather short 'wander' (despite the tantalising clues of the window and her night activities). On the one hand the texts and readables bring the characters to life, on the other the characters do nothing but stand around. Im not suggesting full blown, animated reading and playing (thief didnt have this either) but some timed 'toilet breaks', waking, sleeping and wandering would have been relatively simple compared to the other details that went in the mission and gone a LONG way to making the characters come alive. Speaking of which - i would swear some characters just dont make an appearance at all, either asleep or wandering (and a heck of a lot of people are awake). Where are they?

What i didnt like -
As youve probably heard many times, the 'key hunts' (and some 'lever hunts') are just too much, too often. It doesnt always make sense why you can lockpick most doors but not the garden, maintenance opening, library or housekeeper's, to name a few. One door in particular remains locked the entire game and does not appear possibly to unlock (the final door between the bath and staircase hallway, although it is easily bypassed). It is irritating how often you come across things that cannot be unlocked with lockpicks or your current keys and for which the location of the key (or the location of the person from whom to steal it) is not readily apparent. Related to this are certain switches, levers and all kinds of secrets, many of which are extremely creative but just downright difficult to find. I appreciate such detail - but there is a limit to how MUCH of it can be in one mission. It took me almost 9 hours to finish this mission, and that was with the aid of a walkthrough! (I missed the second exit from Martha's)

At times the mission also took on a bit of a linear structure, which was a bit inexplicable even in the context of the story presentation. Surely, with how well S is hidden, the interrogation room could have been lockpickable and the key hidden elsewhere? Likewise, the garden could have been lockpickable and the spare room and library accessible/lockpickable (after all, most would miss the martha detail). Eleanor's bedroom, while challenging and creative, is also a bit inexplicable given the ease with which other bedrooms are picked. By comparison, the lady and lord's bedrooms are picked easily - difficult to comprehend. Similarly, having to find the maintenance hatch AND the key for it (located nearby no less) because a HATCH is not pickable smacks of artificiality and needless complexity (though its still cool and creative).

Because of these decisions, a lot of time is spent running around, backtracking and retracing steps literally just looking for keys, which soon detracts from the sneaking and turns it into a bit of a circus if you start blackjacking to make it easier. On that topic, the sneaking is generally satisfying but a bit on the easy side, particularly blackjacking, because guards are not sensitive enough to light (sound is fine), none are set up with 'anti blackjacking' helmets or other features designed to make it more difficult to blackjack and there is no limit to the number of people you can knock out (and honestly, it needs one. Knocking out 25 people makes the mission's difficulty a joke). A serious consideration might be enabling guards' sensitivity to opening of doors (that would catch me out on many an occasion) and some basic (nothing all knowing) patrol checkpoints so that if half the guards go 'missing' someone notices and does something about it. Speaking of which, guards relighting SOME important lights SOME of the time would help (nothing too drastic, but enough to stop them patrolling or standing in darkness) At the moment, guards are too happy to have half their colleagues go missing, half the lights turn out, have doors open and close randomly and yet still do nothing - the game is skewed a little too much to the easy side (but maybe its just too much experience). Again, all this without a lightgem.



But all in all the criticisms should not detract from a fantastic mission (aside from the key hunting, which gets genuinely frustrating). This was a very creative, enjoyable and well crafted mission. Well done!

Melan on 25/8/2011 at 21:25

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This is definitely Heart! Why don't you repost this review in the (http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=124349) Fan mission review and discussion megathread, maybe with a few screenshots if you feel like it? :)