The Dark Mod 2.0 Standalone Release!!!

[nbohr1more]

We at Broken Glass Studios are happy to announce the release of TDM 2.0, a free, open-source, completely standalone stealth game!!

Standalone: First and most importantly, The Dark Mod is now completely standalone, which means you no longer need to own Doom3 to play it! We have spent a tremendous amount of time and energy replacing all the sounds, textures, particle effects, and models that we had been using. Hopefully this will open up a whole new audience of people who didn’t want to have to purchase a different game in order to try The Dark Mod.

In addition to going standalone, the following improvements have been made:

AI Improvements: There have been lots of additions and fixes to AI behaviour; characters will now greet each other more regularly, and will properly call for help when they’re in trouble. Guards can now hear slightly better, and we have included a new AI Vision slider to the menu, so the player can adjust how sensitive they want AI vision to be. Characters react to bodies in more varied ways now. A bug that made AI very easy to kill has been fixed. Archers will draw melee weapons if the player gets too close. Guards will turn towards doors that open unexpectedly. There are new vocals for specific situations, like when guards are getting shot at and can’t see their opponent. Searching behaviour has been improved. Plenty of old bugs, like the one where AI would sometimes attack with an empty fist, have been fixed.

New Gameplay: AI can now hear collapsing bodies, especially if the body is wearing plate mail and falls on a hard surface. No longer will a guard stand oblivious while his friend collapses to the ground two feet behind him. The player will have to give some thought to where they take down opponents if there are other guards in the area.

Audio Improvements: In addition to replacing dozens of Doom3 sounds, two new vocal sets have been added to the game. Footstep sounds have been improved. Big changes have been made to the sound propagation system that will allow mappers a lot more control over how players hear sound; for example, mappers can now make doors block different amounts of sound depending on their thickness, or can control how much sound passes through windows or small holes.

Graphical Improvements: You should notice a number of improvements to some character models, especially the skeleton, townsfolk, and beggar characters. Arrows will now leave blood-stains.

There have been plenty of other bug-fixes, like removing the ability to hide in the shadow of an object you’re carrying (no more sneaking under a crate umbrella). See the full change-log here.

http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?ti ... n_TDM_2.00

Updates to Missions:

Because of the removal and replacement of Doom3 assets, some missions that used them are no longer compatible with TDM 2.0. About two dozen missions have updated .pk4s to fix these issues. New players can ignore this, but if you’re playing missions that you downloaded before 2.0, you may have trouble trying to run them. Most are fine, but a few missions will just crash while loading, and others will load but will have odd visual problems. It is highly recommended that you delete all previously downloaded missions after updating to 2.0!

Going standalone has been a mammoth undertaking. There were literally hundreds of assets that needed to be replaced, and around seventy maps that had to be checked to see whether any of those replacements broke anything. We’ve been testing for months, but it’s almost certain that we missed something, somewhere. If you see a black texture, a model buried in the floor, or something else unusual in a map, please let us know. If it was caused by 2.0 changes, we’ll make sure we fix it in the next update.

To update your TDM installation, simply run the tdm_update.exe file in your darkmod folder. Your darkmod folder no longer needs to sit under Doom3, and you can move it wherever you like (though make sure it is still called “darkmod”). (If the updater fails to start, check to see if a _tdm_update.exe file (note the underscore) has been created in your folder. If it has, rename _tdm_update.exe to tdm_update.exe and run it.)

To download TDM 2.0 for the first time, please follow the download instructions on the website here.

http://www.thedarkmod.com/downloads/

Not sure what TDM is? Watch an introductory video here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNtUQ32eeRM

Enjoy!

[obsidian]

But I need my crate umbrellas to keep the rain off my head!

This looks awesome.

[kaustic]

I get 404 not found when clicking the d/l link.

[Bliccer]

Awesome shite! But why now? Why, when I have to finish my thesis :/
..same for me. 404 at dllink.

[obsidian]

Our servers are currently experiencing a heavy bandwidth hit. We're running this site in barebone mode now to offer basic functionality. We apologise for any inconvenience!

There is a Dark Mod 2.0 torrent if you have a Bittorrent client:
http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-dark-mod/ ... ne-torrent

[nbohr1more]

Site is back up for now.

Also the moddb article has been updated with mission details and a full installer package is there too.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

[Kat]

Well done guys!

[Eraser]

Nice! Saw an article about this over on Kotaku as well.

[Pext]

Awesome! DLing right now.

[nbohr1more]

Experimental OSX version:

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/1512 ... _p__326355

[nbohr1more]

Please vote for The Dark Mod in Moddb's "Mod of the Year 2013" contest:

http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

(Note: Only registered Moddb user votes count so please sign-up if you haven't already done so.)

Thanks!

[nbohr1more]

Thank you!!!

We are now in the Top 100 ranking!

Please vote again.

http://www.moddb.com/events/2013-mod-of ... rds/top100

(Under Doom 3)

[nbohr1more]

The Dark Mod 2.02 is out now!

http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-dark-mod/ ... 202-is-out

Trailer for the recently release mission "Penny Dreadful 2: All the way Up"

[youtube]WmPfCfbeWvg[/youtube]

[nbohr1more]

Time for for some Necromancy!

On the cusp of the TDM 2.05 release, we have finally created a Greenlight page.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =858048394

Please visit and vote if you wish The Dark Mod to be a permanent resident on the Steam platform.

Thanks!

[Hipshot]

Voted.

[CZghost]

Voted.

[youtube]80kUed21j9s[/youtube]
Voted

Actually. I like the theme of Dark Mod. And I would like to vote for it. But, it's something I don't play. I like the visuals, I like the graphics, I like the sounds, but it's just not my style of gameplay, my cup of tea I like it, but I never actually get into playing it

To the video, it's just a joke I found funny at the moment

[Johnny Law]

Voted. :-)

[nbohr1more]

Thanks guys!

@CZGhost: Understood. Stealth is not everyone's cup o' tea. We have a pretty strange crowd at the forums: "Doom 3 players who like Stealth" though when we went standalone we gained more of the latter. Melan (one of our best mission authors) regularly posts about his admiration of Doom and Quake though. He went absolutely nuts when he found out about the Shamblers Castle mod for Doom 3.

[obsidian]

Voted. :-)

WTF! It's Johnny! Hi!


Also voted. I've played the Dark Mod. It's hard, but quite enjoyable.

[Johnny Law]

Hi guy. :-) I still like to see what's happening in here every now and then!

I remember playing Dark Mod in the pre-2.0 days, looks like I need to check back in with it again.

[nbohr1more]

Hey Johnny! Check this one then. 2.05 is out!

http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-dark-mod/ ... 05-is-here

[nbohr1more]

The Dark Mod 2.10 is out!



Moddb Article:

https://www.moddb.com/mods/the-dark-mod ... 10-is-here

We are proud to announce the release of The Dark Mod 2.10!


The Dark Mod 2.10 comes with considerable improvements to loading times as well as a slew of new visual and gameplay features for mappers to experiment with,
such as volumetric lighting (“god rays”) and more advanced security cameras!

Many of these new features are prominently on display in the six new missions released for the 2.10 Connections Contest that are now officially available in the mission downloader!

A full changelog can be viewed here, but some highlights include:

For Players

Loading Times
Considerable effort has gone into streamlining how textures are loaded, making more effective use of multiple CPU cores, and removing artificial delays. This even includes new handwritten algorithms for normalmap compression and mipmap generation so that TDM no longer relies on graphics card drivers.

Performance Improvements
As part of ongoing performance improvements, soft stencil shadows with anti-alising will be faster to render.

Object Handling
Afraid to grab a candle near a sleeping guard? Handling objects will now produce less noise, or none at all if holding down the “creep” button. You can also now control how far an item is thrown based on how long you hold down the “throw” button. Lastly, dragging unconscious bodies should feel better now (even if rats did their best to spoil the fun a little).

Main Menu Interactions
Tooltips have been added for many of the items found in the settings menu: a long-awaited feature! We’ve also reorganized the procedure for switching between missions to make it more intuitive for newcomers.

Window / Input Changes
The Linux build now relies on the GLFW library to create windows and handle the keyboard & mouse, eliminating many of the issues with OS integration on Linux.
On the Windows side, some minor changes were made to fullscreen/borderless modes.

For Mappers

Entity limit is no more!
What was once the bane of TDM’s most ambitious mappers, the entity limit has now been raised eight-fold to 65,536. No longer will mappers need to spend long hours merging entities.

Compilation Times
To complement the faster loading times, compilation times have been brought down too. Optimizations were made all over the dmap code, adding new algorithms and data structures to improve both speed and precision.

Advanced Security Cameras
Security cameras have been reworked from the ground up with the aim of bringing them to the same level of polish as TDM’s AIs, both in stealth gameplay and customizability. Most importantly, security cameras in new FMs will track the player or AIs and react to bodies. Wiki

Volumetric Lights (“God Rays”)
Unlike adding fake translucent geometry around lights, volumetric lights automatically match their source light, including light volume geometry, projection & falloff textures, and even shadows. Note that shadowcasting currently only works in “shadow maps” mode. Wiki

Xray Screens
Xrays are a Doom 3 feature that has been reintroduced to TDM and developed further. The screens are able to change the appearance of entities seen through them, even making them appear or disappear if desired. Look out for them in future Inventor’s Guild or magical-themed FMs. Wiki

Subtitles
Subtitles can now be assigned to sound files and have been added to the pre-bundled mission “Tears of St. Lucia”. Note that we did not consider localization of subtitles yet. Wiki

Tracking Secrets
Secrets are now easy to designate, with no custom scripts required. They’ll also be shown on the mission statistics screen at the end of the mission if the FM uses the new system. Wiki

Main Menu GUI Customisation
Mappers can change much of the main menu from a single purpose-built “customisation” .gui file instead of having to replace core files. You can find more details in guis/mainmenu_custom_defs.gui inside tdm_gui01.pk4.
Since several missions had to be updated to this new system, their customisations will no longer work in 2.09 or earlier versions.

Location Diagnostics During dmap
Location overlaps should now be much easier to find and fix thanks to new console output and pointfiles created during compilation.

Image Formats
As a compact alternative to TGA for uncompressed images, PNG images can now be used in materials. Note that loading PNG images may be slower than TGA.
DDS images can now be used in image programs, although doing so is discouraged because of the additional quality loss due to compression.

New Script Events
The mapper’s scripting repertoire has been expanded by new script events for dealing with vectors and bounds, setting solidity, detecting surface type via trace, and reading more properties about entities and the player, such as “notarget” or the calibrated light gem value.

New Assets

Fancy Wooden Furniture
A whole new suite of fancy wooden furniture pieces including prefabs has been contributed by Wellingtoncrab. They can be viewed in the release thread.

Automaton AI
The semi-robotic AIs from Sotha’s Ulysses mission have been added to the core mod, together with new prefabs for cosmetic recharging stations to include in patrol routes as well as a camera screen showing what the automaton sees.

Programming

Tracy Profiling
TDM’s rudimentary GL profiling has been replaced with the Tracy profiler, which has its own cool viewer. It has already greatly helped the TDM development team in their optimization efforts.

Mission Database
The mission database has been moved to an SVN repository which automatically synchronizes all mirrors and makes backup copies of old versions of missions.

More Technical Stuff
A generic hash table has been added. “Clear” in the idlib method now works as most programmers expect and unit test integration has been improved.

To update, simply run the tdm_installer.exe file in your darkmod folder. Note that tdm_update.exe is no longer supported, but you can download the new installer from the Downloads page if you don’t have it yet.
Please be aware that old saved games will not be compatible with 2.10, so finish any missions you might be in the middle of first!

[nbohr1more]

We are proud to announce the release of:

The Dark Mod 2.11 !



Moddb Article:

https://www.moddb.com/mods/the-dark-mod ... 11-is-here


The Dark Mod Trailer:

[youtube]https://youtu.be/brJqHnXmpgE[/youtube]




The Dark Mod 2.11 is primarily a bug-fix release. The majority of development time was dedicated to fixing or improving long-standing bugs or problem areas with the project rather than focusing on new features.


That said, some of the improvements that were introduced to address these issues could very well be classified as new features in terms of the amount of changes required to bring them to life.

A full changelog can be viewed here, but some highlights include:



Major gameplay improvements!


For players, Stealth Score and AI alert behavior has been improved to better detect tactile contact with AI and proximity.

An older TDM release introduced a grace period feature that was overly broad and made some AI ignore players that were right in front of them. This has been substantially improved so stealth scoring and AI reactions should be a lot more consistent and logical.


Players will also have a new Blackjack experience with better cues about whether a blackjack attack will succeed and improvements to the way that the blackjack attack is executed.


Players can more smoothly transition from climbing as the player is now permitted to be crouched during the climb.


There is a new multi-loot feature which allows you to pickup multiple loot pieces by holding down the frob button!




Performance Improvements!


The new volumetric light feature has been improved via a new blur phase. This means that you no longer need to increase the samples to reduce or remove banding and performance should be substantially improved.


Before 2.10 ( dithering and low sample count):

[lvlshot]https://media.moddb.com/images/members/ ... her210.jpg[/lvlshot]



After 2.11 ( blurred and higher default sample count ) :

[lvlshot]https://media.moddb.com/images/members/ ... lur211.jpg[/lvlshot]



Soft Shadows now utilize scissors and tile-based evaluation in stencil mode so that Anti-Aliasing no longer need be applied to the entire shadow buffer.


Shadow Maps have improved mipmap, LOD and texel utilization. There should be fewer artifacts and better performance.


Large models are now evaluated via a BVH structure so that they can be split for lighting and culling optimizations.


AI think cycles have been optimized and perform less work per-frame.


GLSL programs have been rewritten to have better performance on AMD graphic cards.




Included mission improvements!


Mission 1: A New Job now features subtitles!


Mission 2: Tears of Saint Lucia has been improved with EFX reverb and a few bug fixes!




Asset fixes and additions!

[lvlshot]https://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/4/4000/A.jpg[/lvlshot]



Dragofer has fixed hundreds of assets that were missing setup definitions or other components that would cause the console to flood with errors on TDM launch or on the launch of missions. In addition, he has added hundreds of new and old assets from both TDM team members and members of the TDM community.




Improvements for Mappers!


The Engine now supports Obj model format


Material Shaders no longer require you to add frob stages. Frob is now auto-generated. You can still add custom frob effects to materials if preferred


Missions can now include decls that override those in the core TDM without using an override file to replace the entire core file.


GUI scripting has been overhauled with better syntax and error reporting


Dmap precision has been increased and Dmap T-junction performance has been optimized



To update, simply run the tdm_installer.exe file in your darkmod folder. Note that tdm_update.exe is no longer supported,

but you can download the new installer from the Downloads page if you don't have it yet.


Please be aware that old saved games will not be compatible with 2.11, so finish any missions you might be in the middle of first!

[Hipshot]

Why don't you release this as it's own game on steam? Because it's some Doom 3 engine mod or?

[nbohr1more]

Why don't you release this as it's own game on steam? Because it's some Doom 3 engine mod or?

We use too many 3rd party freeware textures that are not allowed in commercial projects. We would need to replace 1000's.
That said, too many contributors have left the project so we couldn't get permission to commercially release from all of them anyway.
We are just an open source project for Thief fans and will likely remain that way until the bitter end.

Someone could take what we've done, and make a commercial game using the AI and Engine code improvements we made.

In my wildest dreams, Embracer Group ( the current owners of the Thief series ) decides to use The Dark Mod as a base for the next
Thief title and just hires some coders to improve the engine further ( requiring them to share the source ) and asset creator to make
all new commercial grade assets. Fan missions made in this new TDM variant might be backward compatible and likewise people who own this
theoretical new Thief game could play TDM missions with better looking models, etc.

Commercially I think it makes a lot of sense. It could be similar to the Amnesia series and it's modest Open Source engine and niche of survival horror fans
who make fan missions.