The Dark Mod Halloween Competition is now on

It’s been dry over at The Dark Mod HQ for months now. The version 1.06 update was in June, and the last fan mission released was in July. And it finally happened: I finished almost all of the TDM missions out there, save for a few, which I didn’t like.

But I happened to check the main page yesterday, and noticed that there’s a new competition on. It’s the Halloween Speed Build Contest of 2011! I’ll be lazy and quote the text from the website, which explains it all perfectly:

“A new Halloween speed-build contest is underway! There are at least half a dozen mappers participating, including heavyweights Melan and Bikerdude.

The mission must have at least one element that evokes Halloween. Scary missions will be preferred but things like: playing tricks, finding candy, fall decoration (Gourds, Pumpkins, etc), Pagan harvest festivals, etc ... are all acceptable ways to evoke the holiday. Missions must be completed by October 31th.”

The “Halloween Speed Build Contest 2011” is the 4th contest hosted by the TDM team. The others in chronological order were “Grand Christmas Contest ‘09”, “Summer Vertical Contest ‘10”, and “Seasons Contest Spring ‘11” (which took place earlier this year).

At least this means that we’ll get some more good missions by the end of next month, and I have a reason to fire up TDM again! Like I said, I’ve finished most of them, even replaying them on different difficult levels, but I soon tire of doing the same mission again and again. My replays of Thief or Thief II were at least a year or two apart, until I discovered the FMs for T2, of which I’ve played a few.

Source:

TDM - TDM Halloween speed-build contest forum thread

The Dark Mod Halloween Competition is now on

New Review Published: The Dark Mod

You didn’t really think that verbose series of posts about this mod was the end, did you? Shame. You wanted a review; “ask and ye shall receive”. This will be the last time for the foreseeable future I post about this mod. Promise… until the next version of it comes out, anyway.

After playing Duke Nukem Forever last month, I decided it might be time to play something a little more intelligent – perhaps even subtle. What could be further from in-your-face, all-out action than a Thief title?

But The Dark Mod isn’t a Thief title – not officially. But it’s damn near the closest thing available out there for the time being, next to playing one of the original games or the numerous FMs for them, anyway.

Despite being released originally nearly two years ago in October 2009, I’ve only just played the mod - really a total conversion for Doom 3 – in the past month. This was version 1.06, released on June 19, 2011.

After spending some time getting reacquainted with sneaking through a place instead of shooting everything up, I set about writing a review of it over the past while, and assembling everything on HubPages just recently before publishing it. I’ve now got the piece up if you’d like to have a look – some of you all ready have. ;)

New Review Published: The Dark Mod

The Dark Mod Experience: Part II

After the reformat, I obviously had to get everything in working order on my system. After some trouble with some programs, including the ATi drivers for my graphics card (I eventually had to roll back to a previous version), I was about ready to install Doom 3, and then after that, put TDM on my HDD. So after about half an hour or so, I had it all set up, and then ran the TDM launcher. I was at the main menu of this mod, which had eluded me for nearly two years since its release – and I’d craved to play it for about twice as long.
The only game I’d wanted longer than this was Duke Nukem Forever, which I also managed to play last month – and if you were wondering, sort of inspired this two-part series in a way. Yatta over at duke4.net wrote a series called “The DNF Experience”.
But there were problems once I tried to actually play the game. After installing one of the FMs and attempting to play it, the screen froze once the game was restarted, and I also noted that the Doom 3 intro screen flashed in front of me at one point. So I had to hit alt+ctrl+del and go back to the desktop. I tried firing up the launcher again, but then I ended up with a blank screen.

After this, I ran Doom 3 itself, and tried loading the mod from there, but that was also a no-go. I couldn’t figure out what to do.

I perused the TDM forum online to see if anyone else had the same problem, and came across some similar ones, and there were several suggestions thrown out – some pertaining to ATi drivers and other similar issues.

I really need to get rid of this graphics card and go back to nVidia. I rarely had any problems back then.
But I thought that since I’m only running v 1.3, I should really update it to v 1.6 to see if that would fix the error – I’d read of others having fixed problems this way. So I waited nearly another month.

A month later; I hadn’t played any games for weeks and I was starting to feel the strain. I needed a break from reality. I had just under half of my data left, so I took TDM off my HDD and put a clean version on there in the Doom 3 directory and ran the updater. It was so slow; it would have taken hours to get the process done. Even though I’ve since learned that the updater can resume downloads, I didn’t know that at the time. So I cancelled, and instead waited until the next day.



On the Monday, I ran the updater, and it was much faster. I was able to get all of 340 MB down and installed within an hour and a half. It only took longer than that, because while I was in the bath that evening (it’s winter here now – I don’t shower this time of year), my firewall started blocking the TDM updater’s access to the web. After allowing it through, it finished up, did a bit of housecleaning and patching, and it was done.

I then backed up the full v 1.6 and all the FMs I had at that point (about 35+). I wasn’t too sure if this would fix the problems I had with it, and instead of trying it, I left it for that night, instead opting to play some DNF.
Then the following night I had the courage to fire up the TDM launcher, and got to the main menu again. It had been weeks since I’d last been here. I installed just the included training mission, without loading in all the FMs to the appropriate folder, and TDM restarted. I was anticipating yet another blank screen or something. Then I saw a loading screen for the first time.

“I haven’t got this far yet,” I thought.

I crossed my fingers and waited. Bloody long loading times.

To my amazement, it happened - I was in the game. I was in the training mission – in the room with doors all around me. I couldn’t believe that running the updater actually worked! I thought I’d at least have to try the torrent again, or perhaps run the updater and grab the full 2 GB of TDM that way – which I hear is the most painless way of going about it.

I played the training mission a bit, and exited. I wanted to see if I could get back to the main menu again and not see a blank screen. I could.
It was working just fine.
____

I always find that when I’m so eager to play a game or mod, then it’s like life chucks everything in front of me, not allowing me to have any fun. Whereas all the games I’m not so amped about work fine. Murphy’s, or Sod’s Law, I guess: if something can go wrong, it will.

But now I don’t play TDM. It sits there on my HDD. At first I didn’t want to play it or install any more FMs because I might’ve broken something, and I’d have to reinstall and it wouldn't work… again.
From the screenshots, you can obviously tell that I have played the mod, and at least several of the missions. But now I have TDM and all the FMs out there, and everything’s working – I’m not interested anymore. I spent nearly two years trying to get the mod - jumping through all sorts of hoops, getting around tons of obstacles.

The chase is better than the catch, as they say.

The Dark Mod Experience: Part II

The Dark Mod Experience: Part I

I finally played The Dark Mod the other night.

I first spied The Dark Mod as an interesting project back in 2007, after visiting Thief-The-Circle, which is part of the TTLG network of sites. But the project started way back in 2004, after the somewhat disappointing Thief: Deadly Shadows was released the same year.

I immediately began downloading all of the screenshots and videos that were made available, and viewed them continually for months.

Years passed, and in 2009 the first beta release was out, after approximately five years of work. I wanted it - but at the time, here in the third world, I still had a dial-up connection, which meant it would take at least a full month of downloading to get this mod – and the only way you could get this mod was by running one of those online updaters, which have to run while you’re online, obviously. It would have taken days.

So I had to put it on the backburner for a while.

At about the same time however, I started using data bundles with my Smartphone. I thought about how much it would cost to buy a 2GB data bundle to get the mod. I could easily afford it, but the only thing is that data bundles, with the network I was on at the time, had to last 60 days (it used to be 30). So after downloading the mod (which I think was about 1.2 – 1.5 GB at the time), I’d have to be very frugal with the rest of the data. I could have done it - barely - in hindsight, but chose not to.

Instead, I tried petitioning (or nagging) to get the mod on the Cover DVD of NAG – a local gaming magazine. The DVD is usually full of rubbish including mainly trailers and videos and the like. I thought they’d be thrilled to put something on the DVD. But no – it was the same excuse: “It’s in the queue”. I even tried to get NAG to do a preview of TDM before that, but there was absolutely no interest whatsoever.

If you were to dig around on this blog, you would see that I’ve written about all my frustrations in trying to nab it several times in the past. I do know for a fact that the TDM community stops by here every now and again. Even a TDM developer of sorts caught on and went over to the NAG forums, promising to get a proper direct download package up and running – even with some FMs. That still hasn’t happened.

                    Would you care for some screenshots, young thief?

Fast forward to 2011, and I was using 1 Day uncapped broadband bundles with my 3G provider. I found that not only do you have an option to run the updater to download everything, but you can also download the torrent. I gave that a try. Hell, it was slow – it was barely any  faster than my dial-up connection – partly because the network I was on throttles you after using only 150 MB of bandwidth. It said it would take 20+ hours to download. I had 24 hours until the data bundle expired. I gave it a try, but barely got half-way before calling it quits. I wasn’t going to get it done. When I bought another 1 Day uncapped data bundle and tried to resume that download, I couldn’t because version 1.5 was out, and the torrent I tried to download was v 1.4. The torrent was taken down or something, by the look of it.

It was this year that my dial-up deal was coming to an end, and I had to look elsewhere for options. I spotted a Wi-Fi deal that gives you a modem and 5GB of data per month. I thought that would be ideal seeing as I would be able to use up half through the month, and then have enough to download The Dark Mod as well as all the FMs available, which stood at about 40+ at that time.

I tried the torrent, but once again it said that I would have to wait about 20 hours or more to get the thing. There were barely any people seeding it, and no peers. It initially ran at about 100 KB/s, but dropped to half that, and less, in no time.

“Why can’t they put a direct download up somewhere for Chr*st’s sake?” I thought. Then I actually checked, just out of curiosity, to see if there really is such a thing. I saw that some people had uploaded versions of the mod to Rapidshare and MegaUpload and so on. But I spotted something even better: there was a download available at Gamefront through the Dark Mod’s ModDB page.

I downloaded that instead. It wasn’t the full version 1.5 (at the time), but it was v 1.3, which was close enough. I figured I’d just run the updater later and get it up to v 1.5. Anyway, the download took 4 hours instead of 20, which made me happy. The modem held up under a storm outside which lasted the entire time. I was on edge that afternoon because I wasn’t sure if the server supported download resume. If the connection was dropped, then I might have to start over. Luckily that didn’t happen by some miracle. That modem usually drops under even a hint of bad weather.

I downloaded about 30 of the FMs, until my data reset – it was the end of the month. I left it until the last bloody minute to do all this. I immediately set about backing up all the files, in case something happened to them. I was damned if I was ever going to do all that again.

I ended up making two or three discs with the mod on it. One or two of those discs had some sort of write failure, because there was an internet security program interfering with Nero. I uninstalled the interfering program, and then I managed to get one successful write out of three.

After that I reformatted my HDD, which I’d been planning for some time, after just getting fed up with all the issues I’d been plagued with.

___

End of Part I – look out for Part II soon.

The Dark Mod Experience: Part I

The Web’s Worthy Downloads #3 [Guide to Goodness]

For this issue of what’s best on the web, I have quite a good line-up.

First off, there’s a new version of the full free game known as Warsow (people tend to pronounce it as “Warsaw” – like the capital of Poland). The game is a first person shooter geared more towards multiplayer, much like Alien Arena or Red Eclipse, which were both featured in the previous issue in this series.

But this game is different from those games in several ways. Upon first seeing it, you’d think that it’s just another Quake III Arena inspired mod of some sorts. But it uses the Qfusion engine, technology based on the Quake 2 GPL engine. It features celshaded graphics, which lends the title a cartoonish or comic-like style, which gives it quite a bit of character.

But where Warsow really shines, is in its gameplay techniques. You are encouraged to learn these as you go along – they include bunny hopping, wall jumping, dodging, and the likes. It’s all about momentum – as long as you keep it going, you are more likely to have things play your way. Add in some weapons that are borrowed from FPSs from the 90’s such as Quake III Arena, and you’ve got a fun free game.

You can download the full game, which weighs in at over 400 MB. But if you have an existing copy of Warsow on your HDD, you can download and install a patch, which will upgrade it – and this is far less in terms of weight. The game is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac.

The next item on the list is the demo of a game called Black Mirror III. This is the latest, and apparently the final chapter in The Black Mirror trilogy – a series of third-person point-and-click adventures.

You take the role once again of Darren, who appeared in BM II, who is arrested as the chief suspect of a crime. After a few weeks, his bail is posted and Darren is released. He then sets out to once again try and get to the bottom of a “tangled web of riddles”.

I haven’t had the chance to play any of these Black Mirror titles, but apparently the first one was said to be pretty good. The only thing is that BM III is only going to be published in Oz, the UK, and Scandinavia. So it remains to be seen if there will be any plans for a release elsewhere in the world at some point. From what I’ve read, digital distribution might also be on the cards.

The game is set to be released in the aforementioned territories on the 22nd of April, 2011. The demo is up for download now and comes in at 823 MB.

Also out this month is the latest version of The Dark Mod. This chalks it up to 1.05. Within this release is a whole bunch of bug fixes and some new “assets”. The download comes in at just under 2 GB this time, and you have two chief ways of obtaining it. You should either download the small installer, and then you run the installer while online, so it can grab all the data – not the best way to go about doing this, but luckily there is another option. Usually a torrent is provided as well, a few days after release. And this has download resume and all – this is the option I’d consider using. It does kind of suck that once the new torrent is up on the official site, the old one doesn’t seem to function any longer. So if you had the download in your queue and were planning on resuming it some time – forget it. Rather try a torrent elsewhere.

At first I was upset that there wasn’t a proper download package, but the updater makes sense if you all ready have an existing build of the mod. You just run it and update it, rather than having it download a whole massive amount of data. It is kind of convenient in that situation.

Note that you’ll need Doom 3 for this mod to work, and it also has to be patched to the most recent version 1.3.1. Also note that no maps are included except a training mission. The FMs, or fan missions, you’ll have to grab separately. All in all, it’s a lot of stuff to download, but I’ve read that it’s probably worth it in the end.

Then there’s one last thing here to be featured. There’s a huge mod compendium for The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, and it’s fittingly called the “Morrowind Overhaul mod”. To quote the text on the website where it’s featured, it’s a “massive compilation mod project that encompasses the work of over 80 mod authors and almost a decade of modding”. And what the mod does is basically overhaul (what were you expecting?) the graphics and sounds in the game. It is quite hefty, but not as bad as The Dark Mod – slightly over 1 GB.

And there’s also a patch that you should probably consider getting as well, which will update it to version 1.1.

That’s it then for this edition. Check back later on in the month perhaps when issue #4’s out. See you then!

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Black Mirror III PC Demo [823 MB]

Warsow v0.61 Free Full Game for Windows [442 MB] – website

The Dark Mod v 1.05 [2 GB] – website

Morrowind Overhaul mod [1.2 GB]

Morrowind Overhaul – Sounds & Graphics v1.1 Patch

The Web’s Worthy Downloads #3 [Guide to Goodness]

The Dark Mod Coming to A DVD Near You… Hopefully

I decided I would put the now occasional post up here. I went over the NAG forums today and saw that the August DVD request thread is still open a month later, probably soon to be locked and the key thrown away.

Anyway, I saw an interesting post there that talked about The Dark Mod – something I’ve wanted on the NAG DVD for months now, since last October.

The poster is a member of the TDM development team, who arrived over at the NAG forums, likely thanks to one of my posts here on the blog talking about wanting the mod on the DVD.

This poster talked about putting the mod into a more accessible form – right now it’s one of those install while online things which I dislike, so I understand. But that might change seeing as they might make a regular installer that can be downloaded in its entirety and run offline, which will come bundled with some of the current maps available off the website.

Related to this, a version 1.03 is on the way, likely to be released within the next few months, which will have even more fixes and so on for the mod. And there’s also talk that after id Software releases the source code for Doom 3 or id Tech 4 engine, likely next year after Rage comes out, the mod will be looking at running standalone, without the player needing Doom 3, like it currently does. And of course there will be messing around with the graphics, features and so on too.

“I noticed thanks to referrer traffic that NAG had a few posts over the last few months asking for The Dark Mod (TDM) to be put on the DVD, and as I don't exactly follow NAG, but seeing as I'm part of the TDM dev team, I'd like to offer to put it into a more accessible form if you guys are interested. At the moment the maps are separate from the installer, and the installer requires internet access. I'd be happy to roll an installer and include a handful of the 25 odd missions (40 hours+ gameplay) that we have so far had released.

It would however most likely be left for a later date when you can spare the space and once 1.03 comes out, we should have HDR and a lot of AI/gameplay fixes. Failing that, Carmack has told us that the Tech4 source will be released shortly after Rage (he seems to have permission from Zeni, yay), so early next year we can look at a full distribution, without the need for doom3 and with increased graphical goodness and performance.

Just an offer if people are still interested.”

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Source: August DVD Request Thread [NAG Online Forums]

The Dark Mod Coming to A DVD Near You… Hopefully

The Dark Mod Version 1.02 up for Download

By now you’ve surely heard of The Dark Mod: a Thief-inspired mod for Doom 3. Recently another update for the mod was released, bringing it up to version 1.02 now. What’s in this new update: new textures, models, AI fixes as well as some new vocals for the guards and so on.

The download weighs in at 500 MB. There’s a mew trailer to show off some of the new features as well.

There’s also some new Fan Missions [FMs] that have been released, including most recently “Alchemist”, just the other day.

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Source: The Dark Mod [via Doom world]

The Dark Mod Version 1.02 up for Download

MTN’s “Uncapped” Broadband: The 24 Hour Rush

Last month I started seeing these adverts on TV, advertising MTN’s new data option: pay R50 and get a whole day’s worth of broadband access.

In addition to this, there’s also a R25 option which gives you three hours of unlimited “uncapped” broadband. And there are also new pricing options when it comes to broadband, with 75 MB and 300 MB data bundle options now available. They’ve also done away with out of bundle rates, which meant if you didn't either buy a once off or subscription bundle, you paid a lot more out of your airtime.

But I think more than anything, it was this R50 uncapped access that got everybody talking, and it made me think about what I could get in 24 hours.

Now, my Nokia E90 isn’t top of the range – it puts out a connection at about 115 kbps, which at least trumps dial-up, for sure, and I’ve seen it go up to about 70 kbps while downloading. On a good day it can download 4 MB in one minute, compared to dial-up which would take about 20 or 30 minutes to do the same. Now take 4 MB and times that by 60 and you get 240 MB in an hour. Then times that by 24 [hours] and you get 5760 MB in a day.

I don’t know if this is at all correct. Like I said, it’s just in theory. I’ve read others’ calculations and they think you might be able to get 1 – 1.5 GB in 24 hours, and they have better broadband connections than mine, likely, with one guy saying he can get 150 MB in 6 minutes! That’s about 25 MB per minute, but this is at 4 mbps or something.

The only thing is that there’s a bit of a lie when it says “uncapped”, which you’ll notice I’ve put in inverted commas almost everywhere in this post. This is because you can download up to 150 MB with unlimited speed – as much as you can go. But after 150 MB, it is limited to 128 kbps. But this isn’t a problem for me, because like I said – my E90 doesn’t put out that much anyway.

But consider that MTN’s normal 1 GB data bundle is nearly R300, and the 2 GB one is nearly R400 - a 1-Day R50 option doesn’t sound too bad. In fact, it’s less than what you’d pay for a 100 MB data bundle: R80. And those data bundles also have to last 60 days now, or two months. Before it was just 30 days, but people complained.

I think what I have to do is try and prove the theory by downloading 1 MB and seeing how fast it downloads, do my calculations,  and after that, try out the R50 option and see how much I can get in 24 hours. I reckon I could download The Dark Mod in 24 hours, seeing as NAG won’t put it on the Cover DVD.

MTN’s “Uncapped” Broadband: The 24 Hour Rush

Thievious Update: Medieval Magical Mayhem

Thievious is another Thief-inspired mod for Doom 3, much like The Dark Mod. Except it’s aim is to be a multiplayer coop game, and in addition to this, the latest update for the game sees you using magical powers, perhaps inspired by the Pagan Shamans and Hammerite Priests from the Thief series, or even the Imps from the Doom series. Who knows? Maybe both.

These powers include the conjuring of fireballs, like the picture shows, as well as manipulating the environment with telekinesis.

The picture above likely looks a little fuzzy because it might well be a screen taken from a clip of the gameplay. Either that or it’s a LQ screenshot.

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Sources:

Thievious Work In Progress Update 3 [ModDB]
Thievious Update 3 [PlanetDoom]

Thievious Update: Medieval Magical Mayhem

Visceral And Thievious: More Thief Inspired mods [Mod Watch]

I happened to have an occasional glance over at ttlg again, and there was a thread bashing some new Thief mod, started late last year, called Visceral.

“Visceral is a stealth-action game in a medieval/fantasy setting with steam punk elements. It takes place primarily in the city of Cressport, a dismal place rife with secrets and those who would seek control at any cost.”

It’s a mod utilizing the Unreal 3 Engine, in which you play Slater, “a hired mercenary specializing in stealth assassination.”

Taking from the website’s pages up so far, I can tell you:

The game supports first and third person views, and allows you to switch between the two. It has the stealth elements from Thief, but has some RPG elements in it, with side-quests [more like Thief: Deadly Shadows, which inspired the team behind it]. The player can trade and sell artefacts and loot. The game takes place in a “Rich medieval & fantasy atmosphere blended with steampunk elements, uninterrupted, vast mission areas.”

Factions in the game borrow from Thief too, with the City Watch mentioned, thieves, Pagans, and the Beggar’s Guild, which is more from The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, where the beggars worked closely with the thieves, as “the eyes and ears of the city”. The Penumbrals faction sounds a lot like the Keepers, and the Esoterians sound like the Hammerites.

There’s also ruins of an ancient lost city, called Gordion, likely inspired by Karath-Din from Thief or perhaps the Kurshock city from Deadly Shadows.

In addition to comparing it to the Thief games, it does look quite like The Dark Mod as well.

And that’s not all. I was over at Planet Doom the other day where they talked about another mod in the making, using the Doom 3 or id Tech 4 engine, called Thievious. Development on it has just started this week, but it’s set to be a co-operative Thief-inspired mod, where you can play with a friend.

The author, Oneofthe8devilz, was keen to see if he could make a multiplayer based mod much like was done with the Thief II Multiplayer mod.

This mod is also inspired by Thief: Deadly Shadows. And on the Doom3World forums there’s a discussion going on about it, where surprise, some Dark Mod fellas rocked up and started talking about the mod, and offered to lend some support, like letting him use their source code, seeing as both use the Doom 3 engine. Some said that The Dark Mod could even use his help on their team, and so it went.

Speaking of The Dark Mod, a new Fan mission was released for it just the other day, called the Builder’s Influence.

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Sources:

http://www.visceralgame.com/ [Visceral]

http://www.moddb.com/mods/thievious [Thievious]

Visceral And Thievious: More Thief Inspired mods [Mod Watch]

Mod Watch: Dark Mod Version 1.01 Released

On this day: March 14, 2010 - Steak and BJ day; March 14, 2004 - Battlefield Vietnam

Yes, so that it isn’t he most original title there: Mod Watch. It’s all ready been used before by others. I just couldn’t think of anything better.

But what is better is that version 1.01 of The Dark Mod, a mod or total conversion for Doom 3 based on the original Thief games, has been released. This is the first update for the game since it came out last year in October.

“At long last, the TDM 1.01 update is ready for download! This is a BIG update, that adds dozens of new assets for mappers (including 6 new AI types, new models, and new ambient tracks), as well as fixing numerous bugs. New features for players, like a crouch indicator and combat difficulty levels, have also been added. We've also responded to the many player requests to reduce the volume of the player footsteps.”

You can grab the new versions of TDM and Dark Radiant, the editor, by visiting The Dark Mod’s official website.

I still haven’t managed to play this mod. NAG magazine won’t download it and put it on the Cover DVD because it’s too big. We’ll have to wait for NAG to upgrade to two DVDs, which they might or might not do this year.

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Source: thedarkmod.com

Mod Watch: Dark Mod Version 1.01 Released

NAG Forum Dwellers Pushing to get The Dark Mod on the March DVD

There are two threads over at the NAG forums, and the topic being discussed is The Dark Mod. Every update on the main site has become a teaser- reminding us just how badly we’ve all wanted this mod for nearly the past three months since the beta release.

They’re saying that the more people who vote for it, the more chance it’ll get to be put on the NAG March issue cover DVD. So if you’re a member on the forum and you buy NAG, now’s your chance to get over there. You need to suck up to a guy called GeometriX.

By the way, it’s old news anyway, but there are some new maps and stuff available for the mod, some of which were done for the Christmas Contest held a while back, last month. These maps include “The Parcel", "Too Late", "Trapped!", “Return to the City”
”The Sons of Baltona 1”, and “Living Expenses”. You can find a list of all the maps available for the mod here.

They’re also putting more zombies in the game, like the original Thief games.

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http://forums.tidemedia.co.za/nag/showthread.php?t=13038

http://forums.tidemedia.co.za/nag/showthread.php?t=13037

NAG Forum Dwellers Pushing to get The Dark Mod on the March DVD

Black Mesa Source Delayed Some More

An interesting mod that I’ve been following for years, Black Mesa Source, was destined for a 2009 release. Big Download posted recently news that the mod has been delayed into 2010, after reading a forum thread over at the website’s forums.

Black Mesa Source, if you’re not in the know, is a mod for Half-Life 2, whereby using the  source engine, the original Half-Life is being recreated. Nicer graphics, better physics, better gameplay, and some cool weapons if you check out the screens in their media section.

“We come to you once again with an update. It's now the end of 2009, and we know many of you have literally counted the days down until this fateful month. We are floored by the level of support you have given us and are very excited we're so close to reaching our goal.

Unfortunately, to our great disappointment, Black Mesa will not make a 2009 release.

Once again we apologize for what has to be very disappointing news. We placed a 2009 deadline on ourselves to motivate us and bring this 6 year project to a close. And while we didn't quite make it, we have come very close, and you can expect a complete, polished game to hit your hard drives in the near future. We'll be sure and update if anything changes. Until then, hang tight, it's coming!”

6 Years! That’s longer than the Dark Mod which recently saw a beta release. Some people are all ready re-naming this mod “Half-Life Forever”. Yes, there’s a full 20 pages of b*tching over at the thread if you’re interested.

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http://forums.blackmesasource.com/showthread.php?t=2416

Sorry; no Black Mesa Half-Life 2 mod in 2009

Black Mesa Source Delayed Some More

Possible NAG January Edition DVD Highlights: The Dark Mod

Well, I was on the NAG forums just now having a look around, because I wanted to see if a new thread was open for NAG DVD suggestions. Seeing as the website has a policy that you must post 20 posts in existing threads before being able to post new threads on your own, I'm still a junior member. It cuts down on the spamming, apparently, but it's damn irritating.

Well, I had a look at the thread, which is now closed unfortunately, but I saw that somebody managed to notice The Dark Mod, and requested it be put on the January Edition of the NAG DVD (which is available in December), and put a link to ModDB before I could say anything, which is cool. The guy said it reminded him of Thief. You don't say...

This doesn't mean it will definitely be on the DVD, but I'm hoping it does make it, seeing as I am not downloading it myself. It's too big, and I'm all ready struggling to get a hold of the Duke Nukem 3D Special Polymer Edition HRP which is large enough as it is.

Other good possibilities that were suggested were:

Metal Gear Solid Philanthropy (fan-made movie)
Left for Dead 2 demo

Possible NAG January Edition DVD Highlights: The Dark Mod

Dark Mod Fan Mission Competition, New FM out, Update

The Dark Mod beta was released last month, and since then a contest has now started this month, called the The Dark Mod Grand Christmas FM Contest. See here or here for all the rules and regulations if you're interested in following it or participating.

More on the Dark Mod, there's a new FM out all ready, called "Patently Dangerous".

Also on the main site, is a post regarding mainly positive feedback on the mod, and mention of an update for the mod which will arrive by the end of the year, which should coincide with the end of the contest if all goes well.

Dark Mod Fan Mission Competition, New FM out, Update

More on The Dark Mod Public Beta

I've covered it a few times on this blog, especially recently, with the public beta v 1.0 being released a few days ago.

I've been on to a number of other websites that have covered the story lately, and I've gotten more of the story about the mod and its included missions, particularly from RPS:

There are four missions- the training mission is included with the big download, and there are three others, "The Chalice of Kings", "The Crown of Penitence", and "The Outpost" that you can download.

You can get more info about all this at the site, which has received a visual makeover lately.

I noticed that originally some people were complaining about the downloading procedure offered on the mod's website. But now there are more mirrors for the download. These are the ones that are available. Note that Shacknews has put it up on FileShack now too:

Update: BigDownload has put up a link too.

http://www.bloodgate.com/mirrors/tdm/pub/pk4/tdm_update_win.zip
http://www.keepofmetalandgold.com/files/tdm/tdm_update_win.zip
http://www.fidcal.com/darkuser/tdm_update_win.zip
http://www.southquarter.com/tdm/tdm_update_win.zip
http://roggen.jmnet.us/darkmod/tdm_update_win.zip
http://www.fileshack.com/file.x/15468/The+Dark+Mod+Beta+1.00
http://www.bigdownload.com/games/doom-3/pc/doom-3-the-dark-mod/
http://www.strangebedfellows.de/torrents/torrents/darkmod.torrent

More on The Dark Mod Public Beta

The Dark Mod v 1.0 Released

I only talked about this the other day when I read an update on the official site of the mod, and when I followed a link from The Dark Mod discussion thread on the ttlg.com forum, I saw that it had indeed been released today! I thought it would take at least another two months or so.

The bad news: this sucker is 1.4 GB to download. That's more than twice as big as T2X was. The Dark Mod is free though, in a way. BTW, I've read so far that to download the thing is a b*tch.

Anyhow, to play this mod, you're going to need Doom 3. Now stop whining- you can get it in a lot of places if you know where to look. There's Amazon and Steam. I managed to pick it up at BT Games for about R 100, 2 or 3 years ago. So if you look around, you might get a good deal. Doom 3 isn't a bad game either, so it will be worth it. You also need to get the 1.3.1 patch for Doom 3, last time I checked. See here for more installation notes and stuff.

And I will try to get NAG magazine to put this on one of their next cover DVDs, because as much as I want it, and I have data to spare at the moment, this is a bit too big.

http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88654&page=80
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1918675#post1918675
http://www.thedarkmod.com/

The Dark Mod v 1.0 Released

The Dark Mod Might Be Released by the end of the Year

There's a mod I've been following on and off for about the last the last two or three years, and that's The Dark Mod, a thief-inspired mod for Doom 3. The beta is going to be released possibly this year, but you never know, there were mutterings about that last year too. There will be 3 FMs that will come with it, but I'm not sure if these will include the two missions that were put online at one point, "Thief's Den" and "The Tears of St. Lucia". If it does, then there's at least one other mission, and from what I've read on the site, this might be the training mission talked about.

At one point I sent an e-mail to NAG magazine to try and get them interested in the mod so that they might one day put some FMs (fan missions) and such on their Cover DVD. They promised a preview in their October 2007 issue, but that never came to pass. If they don't bite, then I'll have to try PC Format, one of their chief rivals.

The Dark Mod Might Be Released by the end of the Year

New Dark Mod Update

The guys over at http://www.thedarkmod.com/ have been working some more, and still believe that a beta release of The Dark Mod should make it by the end of this year, with no set date yet.

There's also a new video showing off a combat demo with some Hammerites(copyrighted)...whoops, I mean "Builders" .

New Dark Mod Update

It’s Thi4f versus The Dark Mod...or is it?

Which would you rather have? Thi4f by Eidos Montreal, that has teased about the title for quite a while, and says that it’s only in pre-production currently, or The Dark Mod, which came into being after the last Thief, Deadly Shadows, was released in 2004. It’s been nearly five years and the team, a bunch of Thief fans working on it in their spare time with no funding, says they want to get a beta release out this year.

No points for guessing which one we’ll see first, then. It’s not a race, but rather preference over which you prefer: a big budget AAA title, using newer technology or a mod for Doom 3 which looks dated all ready. It’s not all about graphics, though, and besides, you’ll be sneaking around in the dark for most of the time, so you won’t even notice. It’ll just be black with different shades of grey, and the occasional light that needs to be extinguished. Doom 3, although it looked good, was never praised for its bright and cheerful appearance. Thief didn’t win awards for its pointy, harsh looking graphics back in the day either; it was the gameplay that people were after, and are still looking for.

The Dark Mod sounds as though it’s coming along nicely, when you take a long look at some of the features that the mod is promising, and if you’ve watched the videos, and seen the screenshots and artwork. There will be intelligent AI, realistic physics, great looking city environments, a great thief’s arsenal of tools and ingenious ways of using them.

Read this: You will be able to shoot moss arrows into windows, and they won’t break, but they’ll grow all over the window pane and make less sound when you smash it in order to break in- sounds excellent.

That’s what I want most of all, is more clever ways of using tools and weapons and not just the same old point and fire approach- sort of like the modern version of alternate fire that we all raved about for years when it first debuted in the 90s.

The Dark Mod, being made by Thief fans for Thief fans, aims to keep on adding and adding new features, and after the beta release which is all ready shaping up to be quite impressive, will keep updating and releasing new versions with new features for people to use. And since the team working on it is too busy to make more than a few maps, which look great to say the least, there’s also the DarkRadiant tool, which will enable people to make their own maps and campaigns, and take that task off the devs shoulders. It will most likely keep the Thief fan community busy for years until Thi4f even sees the light of day.

Recently there’s been another attempt at trying to get the source code for the Dark engine games, namely Thief, Thief Gold, and Thief II, so that the graphics can be updated just like every other well known and loved game of the nineties, like Doom or Quake. With The Dark Mod all ready looking much better than an updated Thief ever could, there’s really little need, unless you’re a purist who wants to stick with far outdated technology, or a masochist who likes a challenge.

I just hope that The Dark Mod doesn’t get shut down by Square Enix (Square Enix bought Eidos). Think about it- it happened to the fan-made Chrono Trigger sequel recently, and it has happened before to mods for games. Think of UDoom, probably a project which little of you know about which was issued a cease and desist order two years ago. It aimed to recreate Doom in the Unreal engine, and id Software promptly sought to shut it down, and the devs complied, knowing it would otherwise lead to a legal war that they had no chance of winning.

What if Eidos or Square Enix picked up The Dark Mod on its radar and decided that, because it’s a project using the Doom 3 engine and resembles or emulates Thief too closely, which practically fits the description of what UDoom was, it must be shut down. That would be bad.

Best we keep this project in the shadows then.

Sources and Resources:

http://www.thedarkmod.com/
http://www.thief4.com/
http://www.petitiononline.com/ThiefSrc/petition.html
http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/UDoom
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/05/12/square-enix-pulls-the-trigger-on-chrono-trigger-fan-projects/

It’s Thi4f versus The Dark Mod...or is it?