The Dark Mod 2.11 is HERE!!!
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 game-play 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
It was discovered that the default Thief Player def contained head-bob settings. These have been removed so that players who experience nausea \ discomfort with head-bob can properly disable the settings in Darkmod.cfg or the console.
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 (dithered and low sample count):
After ( new blur algorithm ) better performance and less artifacts:
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.
( All performance improvements courtesy of stgatilov ! )
Included mission improvements!
Mission 1: A New Job now features subtitles! ( Thank you boissiere and Dragofer )
Mission 2: Tears of Saint Lucia has been improved with EFX reverb and a few bug fixes! ( Thank you JackFarmer and datiswous )
Asset fixes and additions!
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. ( A big thank you to Dragofer, Bikerdude, Epifire, RPGista, and WellingtonCrab for many of these new high-quality assets! )
GUI improvements!
- The in-game downloader now supports "sort by release date" ordering.
- The in-game downloader shows translation and updates in front of the Mission name so they are not obscured by long names
- "New Mission" has been replaced with "Missions List".
(Traditional Thief and TDM players will no longer accidentally choose it when trying to play the installed mission.) - The Downloads and Save \ Load menu headlines have been converted from characters baked into the texture into fonts that can be translated into other languages. Italian and Spanish translations were created as examples
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!
There is now a Full Download of the entire game
right here on Moddb:
Unofficial Add-Ons
I have created a new 2.11 compliant version of my Fresnel Mod.
It has the following features:
* Ambient lighting has enhanced ( increased ) specular reaction
* Ambient lighting has Fresnel brightening on glancing angles ( modulated by specular )
* Ambient lighting gets darker the further geometry is from the player
* Ambient lighting is now darker on the underside of geometry, matching the look of TDM 1.03 to 2.05 ( ARB shader era )
New Download:
Snatcher's "TDM Modpack v2.6"
A lightweight, non-intrusive, mission-friendly Modpack for The Dark Mod that includes some enhancements and a new set of abilities for our protagonist: peek through doors, blow and ignite candles, whistle to distract enemies, mark your location, an invisibility-speed combo and more.
This pack does not alter your game or any of the missions in any relevant way. The pack includes enhancements to the core game and additions that can be used in missions but at the same time respects the vision of the mission creators.
The Dark Mod Unofficial Patch v1.7 02.09.2022
An extensive number of enhancements and changes that Wesp5 has created to tailor TDM to his preferences. TDM members have assisted in the creation of this pack with the acknowledgement that other players may prefer these types of changes even if they might not be agreed on as part of the core project. Wesp5 has made similar unofficial patches for many games including Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, White Gold: War in Paradise, Half Life, Quake and Quake 2
"Seeking Lady Leicester" coming soon!
Grayman's final mission donation is being worked on by the powerhouse team of Bikerdude, Dragofer, Amadeus, and WellingtonCrab. You won't be ready for this one...
Mission Releases since 2.10
2.10 was a little lob-sided with regard to it's mission release schedule as many of the biggest missions were scheduled to coincide with the 2.10 release. Here are the missions that arrived after the initial packed release schedule:
"By Any Other Name" author Joebarnin
A wonderful stealth mission combined with lots of puzzle solving! Get ready to put on your thinking cap!
"Sam Wilson 1: Eastbound" author jonri
All aboard!!! What happens when a Thief must do their work on a moving cargo transport? This is one of the most inventive missions in recent memory and one of my new favorites!
"Who Watches the Watcher?" author DeTeEff
Don't let the username fool you! This author is an "experienced" mission designer and has released an excellent new mission with lots of visual flair.
"The Adventures of Thomas: Lucy's Quest" author gg
New author gg was very ambitious and created a mission so large and with so many AI that it inspired the new AI optimizations in 2.11. That said, Dragofer came to the rescue with a script that would allow this mission to play without melting the CPU's of weaker systems under 2.10. A promising start by gg with lots of places to explore that will keep players occupied for much longer than most introductory missions!
"In Plain Sight" author Frost_Salamader
Frost_Salamander returns with another handsome mission with a great story and overall design! Like Bienie (author of the Chronicles of Skullduggery missions), Frost_Salamander seems to be exceptionally talented with using modular assets to make beautifully arranged scenes.
Frost_Salamander has made a Flickr page to showcase this mission:
( If I had made such a gorgeous mission, I would too! )
Thanks for lettingus know about the update! I haven't played TDM in a few years, seems like a great time to get back into it
Thank you Taffers for yet another amazing update :)
The new shader improvements are easily visible, I love that new volumetric detail. Making it so the shadows don't use anti-aliasing will be a huge performance boost I'm sure.
Those new assets look fantastic, I hope we get to see some amazing missions made with it today.
The new minor changes and the like are also great, I like the ladder one since I had an issue once and it almost made me quit in madness, it's just a little nitpick but you know...Sometimes small can be big.
Awesome work! These changes sound really great, downloading.
Thanks for supporting it for so long. Truly a fantastic project.
Nice to see updates!
Will you release TDM engine on github some day?
Here is our official repo:
Github.com
Awesome work this time around. I thought the last update was great, this one is still great. Particularly the blackjack improvements, GUI improvements, new fan missions and AI detection changes.
This updates changes to the blackjack are much appreciated. Its like the combat difficulty slider, creep button and bow aimer attachment, I can't see myself playing the game any other way from now on.