baeuchlein on 28/8/2018 at 22:08
After bashing on Darkloader for a bit, let's get back to Tobey's problem for just a moment.:p
Tobey, I personally prefer using T2x as a FM (the zip version). I think that is also what nickie aims at. For that to work, the following procedure should have worked well:
1. Install Thief 2.
2. Download the zip version of T2x from (
http://www.bogadocious.com/thief/T2X.zip) http://www.bogadocious.com/thief/T2X.zip, just like Galaer said in a previous post. When your browser prompts you to save the zip file, create a folder for missions outside the folder with Thief 2, and save the
T2X.zip in there. I use the folder
d:\t2_newdark_levels, nickie probably uses
C:\Games\t2_fms or something like that. Select your own name if you wish.
3. Download and install the newest TafferPatcher. At the time of writing this post, it is version 2.0.18. Unfortunately, it's sometimes also written as 2.1.8, but that means the same.
You find download links for TafferPatcher (
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=131106) here. Select one of the links below the line "TafferPatcher v. 2.0.18". You should then receive a file called "tafferpatcher_tma_218_beta.exe". Start it to install TafferPatcher.
Menus will come up. Unna Oertdottir once wrote a post (
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=131106&p=2347464&viewfull=1#post2347464) describing how to install TafferPatcher 2.0.17; I'll now shamelessly copy and adapt that post.:cheeky:
3a. In the installation menu, select the folder where you installed Thief 2 before.
3b. In the menu list, select NewDark (this is the only important thing). It may also be called "Patch 1.25".
3c. All other patches can be installed, but it is not necessary. Leave them un-selected for now, you can always install them later on if you wish.
3d. Finish installation
3e. In the Thief 2 folder, open the file
cam_mod.ini with a text editor. Windows usually has something called "Editor" or "Notepad". Use that
3f. In that file, look for the lines
; always start the FM Selector (if one is present)
;FmRemove ";" in front of "FM". Save the file and close the editor.
3g. To verify that everything worked so far, run thief2.exe or make a shortcut to the desktop (if TafferPatcher has not already created one). The game should ask where your Thief 2 missions are located. Point it to the folder where you put the downloaded T2x zip file in step 2.
After a while, a table with fan missions should be displayed on your monitor. It will most likely just contain T2X, since you only downloaded that mission.
With TafferPatcher 2.0.18, there will be a line of text at the top of the window, saying "Thief 2 Final 1.25 -- [FMSel 1.1.2]". If that is the case, you are now ready to play Thief 2 as well as fan missions for it.
4. To play the original game, select the "Skip FM" button on the lower left of the window. Do this to verify that the game itself still works. Leave the game again afterwards.
5. Click on the line in the table saying "T2X" or maybe something like "T2X: Shadows of the Metal Age". I don't know how exactly it will be spelled, but you should not have too much trouble finding the right line. After clicking
once on that line, press the "Play FM" button on the bottom of the window. FMSel (AKA FM-Selector) will now prepare the T2X fan mission pack for use, and then it will automatically start it.
6. If the T2X FM pack starts up correctly, you should see a slightly different starting screen than the one you know from Thief 2. For example, there should be an image of a ship displayed, and a sound like waves rolling on a shore should be heard.
7. The options on the starting screen should not be very different from the ones of the Thief 2 game, so select "New Game" (or something similar) to start your T2X adventure.
As I said, that's what I would call an optimal procedure for installing and running everything in order to get T2X going on modern computers. Just like nickie, however, I am not certain what exactly you did before, so please tell us that. Or get in PM or E-Mail contact with nickie to sort out things.
Hopefully, you will soon have no trouble anymore with T2X or fan missions in general. I'm playing them for about 18 years now and still can't get enough of that...:cheeky:
And now for that Darkloader stuff.:p
Darkloader was a great way to play fan missions when Thief and Thief 2 came out nearly two decades ago. There have been a few other FM loaders back then, but most of them are forgotten by now, and I don't think most others were as popular as Darkloader was in the good old days of thieving before NewDark.
In 2012, Thief and Thief 2 were quite old, and did not work well with modern computers and modern operating systems any more. A mysterious person calling himself (or herself) "The Raven" (in French) updated the old game. The result was named NewDark, and it is in many ways better than the original game.
NewDark also came with its own built-in FM loader, called FM-Selector (or FMSel). Technically, FMSel has some advantages when compared to Darkloader, and one of them is that FMSel does not mess up the game when it crashes. Darkloader could easily do that. Although it happened only a few times for me, other people were plagued by that problem a lot more. For them, FMSel surely was a relief.
Furthermore, I noticed that language support in Darkloader was broken with many versions of NewDark. It would be difficult to change that, AFAIK, and since the last time Darkloader got an update was before 2013, Darkloader will most likely never be able to correctly handle languages in the future anymore.
There are other things which may go wrong with Darkloader, which is why I do not use it for NewDark anymore (except for testing something every now and then). My old Thief 2 setups (without NewDark) still have Darkloader, but for NewDark, I strongly recommend FMSel or R_Soul's NewDarkLoader. The latter is technically compatible with FMSel, so one can freely switch between these two.
I don't wish to punish or ban anyone still wishing to use old Darkloader. It took myself about a year to accept NewDark and FMSel, but after a while and some experience, I saw the advantages of this new game and FM loader combination. I think it's time to say goodbye to Darkloader (and furthermore, to Garretloader, if anyone still uses that one), for it's giving me and others more and more trouble, while its alternatives work well with NewDark.
Oh, and guessing from what I understood from looking a bit into the source code of Darkloader a while ago, I guess it would be difficult to implement an automatic detection for wheter a mission is for Thief 1 or Thief 2 into FMSel or NewDarkloader. I even believe that the detection method of Darkloader would only work for non-NewDark missions. One would probably have to invent a whole new detection logic for T1 NewDark missions.
I personally use two different installations for T1 NewDark and T2 NewDark, as well as two different folders for the missions for them. That removes the need for auto-detecting what mission is for which game.
Okay, time to end this post, before it gets longer than
The Lord of the Rings.:ebil:
