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We missed covered the last update to The Dark Mod back in February, and I'm glad someone emailed it in as its becoming quite impressive. They fixed up a few graphical bugs, added in some good looking new models and features and tons more.
I actually used to play a lot of Thief when I was younger, so I'm pretty happy this project exists as it's quite cool.
I've tried it, and while it is impressive it has a few minor issues I would like to see corrected. The first is alt+tab support, of which on Ubuntu it has none. It also turns off my second monitor, which is really rather annoying. It also starts up in a super low resolution, not sure what's so hard about detecting the current resolution, but a few games do it.
As for the game, the lighting especially is impressive and it really can look quite beautiful at times. It always amazes me when stuff like this is free.
I tried a few of the tutorial sections, and the mechanics all seem pretty well done. I don't know if I'm just tired or stupid (probably stupid), but I couldn't get to grips with the lock picking in the tutorial. Did anyone else struggle with lock picking?
Be warned: The updater will download the entire game into the directory it's currently in. Which was really quite annoying for me to then hand-pick all the files in my downloads directory and put it all in a folder. Make sure you use the updater in the directory you want the game to be in. I also suggest running it in terminal, as it just downloads with no UI.
About TDM
The Dark Mod is a FREE, first-person stealth game inspired by the original Thief series by Looking Glass Studios. In it you play a hooded figure slinking through the shadows of a gothic steampunk city, hunting priceless valuables while avoiding the swords and arrows of those hired to stop you.
The Dark Mod was originally released Oct. 17th, 2009. The standalone version, TDM 2.0, launched in Oct. 2013.
If you give it a go, be sure to come tell us what you think. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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17 comments
Ooh, maybe I'll give it another go, although the combat always threw me for a loop. And I believe you can Alt+Tab if you enter the game's console with ~
Dunno what you're talking about
Typo:download into the directly it's currently in
Dunno what you're talking about
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Typo:download into the directly it's currently in
It made sense in my head...I've clarified it some more.
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are they planning SDL2 support?.. its nasty to play windowed to be able to alt+tab.
playing fullscreen switches off other monitor and cant get out of the game.
playing fullscreen switches off other monitor and cant get out of the game.
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The first is alt+tab support, of which on Ubuntu it has none.
That's one thing I really like about the Steam client. I use it for non-Steam games just so I can shift+tab with the overlay and then alt+tab on games that don't otherwise support it. For an ongoing project, it's definitely something that should be corrected with the game itself, but using the overlay is a nifty hack for older fullscreen games that might not even be supported anymore.
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Finally tested with the Steam Controller, and it doesn't seem to work with it. :( Oh well, at least OpenMW does...
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ProfessorKaos64 Dec 1, 2015
I haven't come back to this for some time. Gotta try it again!
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Ugh, all I'm getting is a black screen on one monitor and a hugely enlarged file browser on the other, with no visible cursor and no clear way to shut it off. I ended up having to reboot to get out of it. The FAQ on the site tells me nothing, and I'm not seeing anything on the forums either. Guess this is another impossible-to-play game for me.
Edited to add: Okay, if I hit ~ and type "quit" it exits. However, all it does is dump me to my right monitor which is now in something like 640 x 480 mode and barely navigable. The left screen, where presumably TDM was running, remains black, and I need to log out and back in again to fix it all. But at least if anyone else has the same issue, they now have a way to get out.
Last edited by Nezchan on 1 December 2015 at 3:45 pm UTC
Edited to add: Okay, if I hit ~ and type "quit" it exits. However, all it does is dump me to my right monitor which is now in something like 640 x 480 mode and barely navigable. The left screen, where presumably TDM was running, remains black, and I need to log out and back in again to fix it all. But at least if anyone else has the same issue, they now have a way to get out.
Last edited by Nezchan on 1 December 2015 at 3:45 pm UTC
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Looks like they still haven’t switched to SDL2, they should do it, it’s not too much work in my experience. This is a game I’d like to play, but without alt-tab support it will just make me angry :p.
HAHAHAHAHAHAH OMFG you people!
Not too much work, just do it lol.
It's being talked about, but it's actually a HUGE undertaking, usually done by one person. If you have experience, please come by the dark mod forums and offer, it will be hugely appreciated!
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However, all it does is dump me to my right monitor which is now in something like 640 x 480 mode and barely navigable. The left screen, where presumably TDM was running, remains black, and I need to log out and back in again to fix it all.You might be able to get back your normal resolution by running "xrandr --auto".
Wow, that did some *really* weird stuff. Right monitor stayed the same, but left monitor came back with really weirdly sized windows. Mouse moved on both simultaneously, but wouldn't move off the terminal window until I closed it. Logging out and back in again reset everything to the way I had it originally, as before. Very strange. But at least I didn't need to reboot, that's progress.
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I suggest moving Darkmod.cfg out of the game directory to see if that helps with any graphical issues. I think the download comes with one, but the game is supposed to make a custom one for your computer when you start up the game.
@stan I think he laughed because it was sort of an insult to consider that an extensive task, especially done for free, would be considered easy. I'm guessing you're not a programmer in any way, so I don't see how you would put your estimate when you have no idea of what's involved. It's not saying you're "stupid" (I don't know why you would assume that in the first place), it's saying that you don't know at all. Don't be afraid to say "I don't know" or "I have no idea whatsoever", and don't say something when you don't actually know anything about it (It's called a ruse, bluff, lie, even false boasting). There's nothing wrong or insulting about saying "I don't know".
It might not have been too appropriate, but was laughing at your major understatement really insulting? (Play some MOBAs, then you'll see real insults. This is friendly banter compared to that!) I really don't see why a game has to have Alt+Tab and SDL2 to be good. Aren't you supposed to be playing the game, not multi-multi-tasking (obsessively checking facebook/twitter?). I think it's a bit disrespectful to the ones that developed the game to not devote time to just playing the game, so you can really get into it (like a good movie, and not stopping every few seconds to check your smart phone messages ... imagine if you did that while others were watching too).
It can be ported to SDL2, but is there any motivation to do so right now? Are people lining up waiting for the game? Is there a huge demand for something that SDL2 has that's imperative to have that SDL can't do?
@stan I think he laughed because it was sort of an insult to consider that an extensive task, especially done for free, would be considered easy. I'm guessing you're not a programmer in any way, so I don't see how you would put your estimate when you have no idea of what's involved. It's not saying you're "stupid" (I don't know why you would assume that in the first place), it's saying that you don't know at all. Don't be afraid to say "I don't know" or "I have no idea whatsoever", and don't say something when you don't actually know anything about it (It's called a ruse, bluff, lie, even false boasting). There's nothing wrong or insulting about saying "I don't know".
It might not have been too appropriate, but was laughing at your major understatement really insulting? (Play some MOBAs, then you'll see real insults. This is friendly banter compared to that!) I really don't see why a game has to have Alt+Tab and SDL2 to be good. Aren't you supposed to be playing the game, not multi-multi-tasking (obsessively checking facebook/twitter?). I think it's a bit disrespectful to the ones that developed the game to not devote time to just playing the game, so you can really get into it (like a good movie, and not stopping every few seconds to check your smart phone messages ... imagine if you did that while others were watching too).
It can be ported to SDL2, but is there any motivation to do so right now? Are people lining up waiting for the game? Is there a huge demand for something that SDL2 has that's imperative to have that SDL can't do?
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I suggest moving Darkmod.cfg out of the game directory to see if that helps with any graphical issues. I think the download comes with one, but the game is supposed to make a custom one for your computer when you start up the game.
Just tried it, but unfortunately no luck. Same result as before.
I have trouble believing I have some unique configuration, since I never tinker with anything "under the hood" on my OS.
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@stan I think he laughed because it was sort of an insult to consider that an extensive task, especially done for free, would be considered easy. I'm guessing you're not a programmer in any way, so I don't see how you would put your estimate when you have no idea of what's involved.Looks like you both missed the "in my experience" part of my reply.
Since you're so experienced and think it's so important, step up and contribute. Otherwise, I call bullshit on your "experience".
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Wow, you really know how to motivate people. I'm taking notes here. You should be a community manager of some sort. :)@stan I think he laughed because it was sort of an insult to consider that an extensive task, especially done for free, would be considered easy. I'm guessing you're not a programmer in any way, so I don't see how you would put your estimate when you have no idea of what's involved.Looks like you both missed the "in my experience" part of my reply.
Since you're so experienced and think it's so important, step up and contribute. Otherwise, I call bullshit on your "experience".
In reality the "cost" of migration from SDL 1 to 2 depends very much on the specifics of the project. I don't see how it would ever require any "serious" refactoring, but it is entirely possible there's something about The Dark Mod's codebase that makes this more difficult than it should be. Anyway, this is what the official migration guide says:
We think you'll find it's not as hard as you think, and often times, you'll be either replacing function calls with direct equivalents or undoing some hacks in your code to deal with 1.2 deficiencies.My personal experience with SDL is limited to say the least, but so far I have no reason to call bullshit.
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Wow, you really know how to motivate people. I'm taking notes here. You should be a community manager of some sort. :)@stan I think he laughed because it was sort of an insult to consider that an extensive task, especially done for free, would be considered easy. I'm guessing you're not a programmer in any way, so I don't see how you would put your estimate when you have no idea of what's involved.Looks like you both missed the "in my experience" part of my reply.
Since you're so experienced and think it's so important, step up and contribute. Otherwise, I call bullshit on your "experience".
In reality the "cost" of migration from SDL 1 to 2 depends very much on the specifics of the project. I don't see how it would ever require any "serious" refactoring, but it is entirely possible there's something about The Dark Mod's codebase that makes this more difficult than it should be. Anyway, this is what the official migration guide says:We think you'll find it's not as hard as you think, and often times, you'll be either replacing function calls with direct equivalents or undoing some hacks in your code to deal with 1.2 deficiencies.My personal experience with SDL is limited to say the least, but so far I have no reason to call bullshit.
That's great and all, but The Dark Mod doesn't use SDL at all right now. If it were such an easy task as you guys seem to think, it would be done by now.
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That's great and all, but The Dark Mod doesn't use SDL at all right now. If it were such an easy task as you guys seem to think, it would be done by now.Ah, implementing SDL support from scratch can be a whole different can of worms indeed. I don't know why I thought you were discussing migration from SDL 1. Sorry about that.
Still, I hope someone takes up the task, as SDL 2 solves several problems every cross platform game has to tackle anyway.
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I laughed because it's clear you have no idea of the monumental undertaking of porting an engine to SDL would be.
Others are correct, we're not using SDL at all.
It's being looked at as it would help a lot of issues, especially with *nix systems.
And my other comment was in fact due to your boast of "in my experience", which pointed to some sort of development role on projects that were upgraded to SDL.
If it is indeed not a lot of work in your experience, we could use someone of your talents absolutely.
I'm an asshole, the developers of the Dark Mod are all very friendly and patient, while I am not. So please don't be too insulted by my comments.
It does grate on my nerves that after almost 10 years of hearing people say "just do X...", with the assumption of either "how hard could it be?" or "it's not that much work", and that's it.
Others are correct, we're not using SDL at all.
It's being looked at as it would help a lot of issues, especially with *nix systems.
And my other comment was in fact due to your boast of "in my experience", which pointed to some sort of development role on projects that were upgraded to SDL.
If it is indeed not a lot of work in your experience, we could use someone of your talents absolutely.
I'm an asshole, the developers of the Dark Mod are all very friendly and patient, while I am not. So please don't be too insulted by my comments.
It does grate on my nerves that after almost 10 years of hearing people say "just do X...", with the assumption of either "how hard could it be?" or "it's not that much work", and that's it.
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