[New Horizon]

Broken Glass Studios is proud to present Thief's Den, a short alpha demo of The Dark Mod. Thief's Den is just a few rooms but it is a complete, fully playable mission, and includes a good selection of the main Dark Mod features. Keep in mind that The Dark Mod is still a work in progress and this is reflected in the demo. Voices are temporary placeholders, for example, and AI behaviour is not yet fully developed. You will certainly find bugs and glitches but we hope that doesn't spoil your enjoyment too much.

Any flaws or failings in this demo do not necessarily indicate limitations in The Dark Mod's potential but just this particular demo — which was originally begun as a very rough accompaniment to a mission development tutorial. It was never intended for release as a playable mission but was modified into a workable game so everyone could see the current state of progress and have some fun.

Instructions for installing the alpha can be found here.

http://modetwo.net/d...p/Thief%27s_Den

Further gameplay info

http://modetwo.net/d...7s_Den_Gameplay

Dark Radiant info, for anyone who is smitten and would like to look into TDM mapping.
http://modetwo.net/d...php/DarkRadiant

Beginners Guide:
http://modetwo.net/d...e_Start_Here%21

Without further delay, here are the links!

http://www.shadowdar...fs_den_v1.0.exe
http://bloodgate.com/mirrors/tdm/
http://208.49.149.11...fs_den_v1.0.exe
http://www.southquar...fs_den_v1.0.exe
http://www.thirdfilm...fs_den_v1.0.exe
Torrent:
http://bloodgate.com...1.0.exe.torrent

[STiFU]

Uhhh very nice!!!! This absolutely made my day and it started of real bad! How about a countdown on your mainpage? ;)

[New Horizon]

Well, as the announcement states, it's tentative...so we don't want to build up expectations too much with a count down. Time will come of it's own accord.

[Vadrosaul]

Thanks for the opportunity :) What's the exact version of patched Doom3 required?

[greebo]

You'll need Doom 3 patched to 1.3.1. There are bogus versions of that patch out there, the one linked on the wiki is correct: http://modetwo.net/d...hp/Installation

[woah]

Sounds great :)

Now just to find my Doom 3 CDs

[Izeman]

Great news indeed!

I'm looking forward to try this demo out as soon as it's released.

[demagogue]

Happy to hear about it.
We knew it was "playable", but I wasn't sure exactly what that meant, so I guess now we'll find out.
I can expect it's going to generate quite a bit of discussion ... if you had any questions as to how it will perform on different systems or how people will take this or that decision, you'll know soon enough.

[Ombrenuit]

Glad I bought Doom 3 anticipating this release one day. Keep up the great work guys.

This post has been edited by Ombrenuit: 29 December 2007 - 06:46 PM

[New Horizon]

Everyone needs to keep in mind...this is "Pre-Beta". Just a small taste. The Mod is far from a finished product, but it's getting there. :) We just don't want people expecting this to be flawless.

[Inimitable]

Very cool. Looking forward to this "small taste" indeed!

[OrbWeaver]

The term "technology preview" is probably appropriate: the demo will show many of the technologies and features available in the Dark Mod, but won't necessarily be a bug-free release-quality whole.

[Springheel]

Quote

but won't necessarily be a bug-free release-quality whole.

That's probably understating it. :)

[Land-Vogt]

Nice! Is the AI already working properly?

[Tels]

Land-Vogt, on Dec 30 2007, 09:57 AM, said:

Nice! Is the AI already working properly?

The parts we will release, yes :P

[Land-Vogt]

Tels, on Dec 30 2007, 04:34 PM, said:

The parts we will release, yes :P

So the "go to toilet every 5 minutes" script isn't implemented? This is very disappointing!!11 :angry:

I see, I'll have to wait till i can test it myself :laugh:

[Springheel]

The AI are in a serious WIP state, as are lots of other things. I think the AI are about at a T2 level of intelligence--smarter in some areas and dumber in others.

[Springheel]

Quote

I can expect it's going to generate quite a bit of discussion ... if you had any questions as to how people will take this or that decision, you'll know soon enough.

That's the part I'm looking forward to the least. We've had enough internal debates about a lot of these things already. Take that and multiply it by about 20, with people who weren't privy to any of the reasoning behind those decisions, and that's likely what we're in for. Hopefully we won't spend the next month explaining and debating each and every feature decision rather than working on that end-of-the-year release date. :mellow:

[Vadrosaul]

Perfect timing with the tenth anniversary of TDP ;)

[sparhawk]

When is it?

[New Horizon]

According to some of the internet sources I've googled...Dec 3rd, 2008. Doesn't really put our Pre-Beta Demo in the same area, but our Beta Release of the full Mod next December will be much closer to the mark. :) If we can make such a release that is.

[demagogue]

It's still in the general neighborhood, sort of a cool coincidence.

The one thing about AI that we haven't seen in any of the videos yet is whether they can sword fight, and how the whole range of aggressive behavior is handled.
I remember digging into T2 sword fighting behavior in dromed once and it's still one of the least documented parts, so it was hard to make heads or tails of what was actually going on ... people just want to leave it be. It's one thing I'm particularly curious about in TDM at this stage.

[Nyarlathotep]

demagogue, on Dec 30 2007, 04:20 PM, said:

The one thing about AI that we haven't seen in any of the videos yet is whether they can sword fight, and how the whole range of aggressive behavior is handled.

They own you before you can pull your sword out. Proper melee combat (read: blocking) hasn't been implemented yet, but most people won't even get a chance to put that to the test. Even the regular city watch are complete badasses. I recommend archery if you intend to take them head on, and with gas arrows or fire arrows at that. Actually, scratch that; don't take them head on at all--flash bomb your way the hell out of there.

All in all, melee combat is pretty realistic right now for a scrawny thief in leather armor (soft, not boiled or studded) who doesn't have three days' training on how to use a sword. Hey! That describes the player character exactly!

[SplaTtzZ]

Fantastic news guys! I can't wait to play the demo/tech-preview/whatever :D

I'm just wondering though whether you may want us to report bugs or errors or anything like that? Or have you already got it covered?

[greebo]

SplaTtzZ, on Dec 30 2007, 11:40 PM, said:

Fantastic news guys! I can't wait to play the demo/tech-preview/whatever :D

I'm just wondering though whether you may want us to report bugs or errors or anything like that? Or have you already got it covered?

In 97% of all cases we know them already, so don't bother with searching for bugs. Take and enjoy it as it is. :)