The Dark Mod 2.0 Standalone: Id Tech 4 GPL Yields a Free Thief-a-Like Game

An anonymous reader writes "After nine years of development, The Dark Mod is now a standalone game. Thief fans can now enjoy over 60 fan made missions which capture the essence of the Thief 1 / 2 games. Originally created as a reaction to Thief 3; with the upcoming release of Thief 4, many are comparing what was done here (a faithful extension of the old gameplay) to what Eidos has shown thus far. Can a little Doom 3 mod compete against a blockbuster AAA title? Should we even compare them?" All code in the The Dark Mod is GPLv3+, and the art assets are all CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 Unported which means it, unfortunately, cannot be distributed by even Debian. Still, an impressive feat!

Comments

"by even Debian"

[Sarten-X]

cannot be distributed by even Debian

I think that should say "cannot be distributed by entities that require commercial-use permission, like Debian." Debian has very strict rules on what it will redistribute, not because it must have those rules, but because it chooses to.

The -NC option prevents anyone from taking The Dark Mod's assets and publishing them in a commercial game. This annoys some pure-freedom-loving folks (like the Debian project and RMS) because they feel it's important that information be free for anyone to use in any way. On the other hand, for the "it's my work, so it's my choice" crowd, the -NC option ensures that nobody can copy their work and make a profit.

Debian's choice is theirs to make, as is any other distributor's, and has nothing to do with The Dark Mod. There's no reason to put such pointless slant in a summary.

Re:"by even Debian"

[Anonymous Coward]

cannot be distributed by even Debian

I think that should say "cannot be distributed by entities that require commercial-use permission, like Debian." Debian has very strict rules on what it will redistribute, not because it must have those rules, but because it chooses to.

The -NC option prevents anyone from taking The Dark Mod's assets and publishing them in a commercial game. This annoys some pure-freedom-loving folks (like the Debian project and RMS) because they feel it's important that information be free for anyone to use in any way. On the other hand, for the "it's my work, so it's my choice" crowd, the -NC option ensures that nobody can copy their work and make a profit.

Debian's choice is theirs to make, as is any other distributor's, and has nothing to do with The Dark Mod. There's no reason to put such pointless slant in a summary.

"by even Debian" is just dumb as it makes it appear Debian has the lowest standards when the reverse is true.

And you should consider learning just a little about Debian and Debian repositories. There's nothing to stop the game being distributed by Debian in the non-free repo except maybe the willingness of some one to package it.

Re:"by even Debian"

[Joining Yet Again]

But life itself is a game.

Re:"by even Debian"

[melikamp]

On the other hand, for the "it's my work, so it's my choice" crowd, the -NC option ensures that nobody can copy their work and make a profit.

It also ensures that the copyright holders can walk up to any non-trivial entity with non-zero assets (like Debian) and shake it down for cash or creative control, regardless of whether the entity is distributing anything "commercially". A fear of lawsuit will be more than enough to censor legitimate uses by entities that are not equipped for a legal battle. Every piece of non-free software is a liability both for the user and for the distributor, so Debian is wise to stay away.

Re:"by even Debian"

[Anonymous Coward]

The license restrictions are inherited from some of the assets we acquired from other vendors (texture sites, etc). Since there is no way to track down all the contributors, any commercial use of the mod could not be reconcilable. Plus, a non-commercial license ensures less risk for Eidos (et all) coming after the mod even though we do not infringe on their IP.

Re:"by even Debian"

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, for the "it's my work, so it's my choice" crowd, the -NC option ensures that nobody can copy their work and make a profit.

It also ensures that the copyright holders can walk up to any non-trivial entity with non-zero assets (like Debian) and shake it down for cash or creative control, regardless of whether the entity is distributing anything "commercially". A fear of lawsuit will be more than enough to censor legitimate uses by entities that are not equipped for a legal battle. Every piece of non-free software is a liability both for the user and for the distributor, so Debian is wise to stay away.

Ah, it wouldn't be Monday in Slashdot without blind, cynical hatred for the sake of looking cool!

Or Tuesday, for that matter.

Wednesday tends to get pretty bleak, too.

And Thursday... look, does anyone who visits Slashdot do anything important? Or do we all just sit around and search HARD to find new and exciting things to be miserable about?

Re:"by even Debian"

[unrtst]

Did you reply to the wrong post or something? AFAICT, the AC did not make the assumptions you claim, and he/she was right.

"by even Debian" is just dumb as it makes it appear Debian has the lowest standards when the reverse is true.

And you should consider learning just a little about Debian and Debian repositories. There's nothing to stop the game being distributed by Debian in the non-free repo except maybe the willingness of some one to package it.

Re:"by even Debian"

[Sarten-X]

No. GPLv3 mainly protects against software patents, where the -NC option prohibits commercial use.

With the -NC option, someone can still hold a patent on an aspect of the software. Anyone, even non-profit and non-commercial entities, would then need separate permission to use the software (and redistribute it).

The GPLv3 includes that extra permission, but doesn't have the restriction on commercial use. It's completely legal to take GPLv3 software and redistribute it for profit, and not have to worry (much) about patents.

Re:"by even Debian"

[leomekenkamp]

You are right; the 'new' layout still confuses me every now and then. The reply should have been addressed to the post one level higher. Sorry for the mixup and thanks for bringing it up. Cheers.

Re:"by even Debian"

[Wootery]

GPL has done great things

Indeed. It wasn't its technical merits that made the Linux kernel what it is today, it was copyleft. That's why copyleft is popular (the 'herd mentality', as you put it). I don't think there's a 'lowest common denominator' issue here really, unless you're referring to over-strict copyleft.

GPL doesn't stop anyone from releasing code MIT/Apache/BSD/etc, but the most common code is GPL, so if you want to contribute to what is popular, then you pay the price of not having truly free.

Right, but that's the point - copyleft'ed software can 'snowball' in a way copycenter'ed software can't, precisely because no-one is allowed to release a closed fork. Compare FreeBSD vs Linux.

I think it was Stallman who put it this way: if you ban slavery, the total amount of freedom increases. So it is with copyleft (at least that's the intention, but I'd say it's been shown to work pretty well).

Re:"by even Debian"

[Sarten-X]

...but those aren't my assumptions, either.

Debian requires commercial use permission by their choice. The main repository is stuff that is properly licensed for use anywhere, including commercial uses, so that's why -NC is not suitable for inclusion. The GPL (which represents RMS's views fairly well) explicitly allows commercial use, by allowing any price for the software.

As I recall, there was fairly recently a court case establishing that GPL software is always commercial, in that there is "economic gain" in distributing it, even if the gain is not monetary (fame for the author, features for a distributor, etc). The CC license makes a point of specifying that the disallowed commercial uses are monetary or advantageous in nature.

As for RMS's views on copyright itself, I also recall an interview where he rightly lambasts the anti-copyright GPL-loving folks as hypocrites. The GPL is itself a license agreement, and it carries no validity without copyright law behind it.

[citations needed] and all, but it's well past my bedtime. Fading memories will have to do.

Re:"by even Debian"

[NickFortune]

As for RMS's views on copyright itself, I also recall an interview where he rightly lambasts the anti-copyright GPL-loving folks as hypocrites.

I've always thought that was a bit of an odd position. I mean, I think malaria should be eradicated. Am I therefore a hypocrite for thinking that malaria vaccine is a good thing?

Then again, I guess I'm not in the malaria vaccine business...

Re:"by even Debian"

[Sarten-X]

A more appropriate analogy is to be a hypocrite for pushing a law requiring all known malaria to be destroyed, including the samples used for vaccine work.

Copyright is the legal framework for a person who creates something to have some degree of control over it. With no copyright, it's completely legal to take any work and do anything with it. With copyright laws, it's still possible to do anything with anything, but you have to have the author's permission. That's where licenses come in. The license allows a particular use, such as redistribution, and it may place limits (actually exceptions to the permission it's granting) on that use, such as requiring that the source code be available with the binaries.

Without copyright laws, anyone could compile open-source software into a closed-source product, with no restriction. Since the redistributor has default permission to do anything (thanks to the lack of copyright), the GPL never comes into play, so it can't require that the software stays open-source.

This inextricable dependency is why it's silly to promote the GPL while arguing entirely against copyright. If you really want the anyone-does-anything environment that copyright law prevents, promote the BSD license, not GPL. The BSD license boils down to "do whatever you want, but don't sue us".

Re:"by even Debian"

[NickFortune]

A more appropriate analogy is to be a hypocrite for pushing a law requiring all known malaria to be destroyed, including the samples used for vaccine work.

That word: I do not think it means what you think it means. Merriam-Webster defines hypocrisy as follows:

the behavior of people who do things that they tell other people not to do : behavior that does not agree with what someone claims to believe or feel

According to that definition, I don't see anything hypocritical in your analogy. In fact the poisition you suggest is admirably consistent. Now if your hypothetical malaria researcher was keeping his or her own stash of the disease for purposes of later backmail and extortion, that would be hypocrisy. But unless you think I'm capable of keeping a breeding culture of legislation in a test tube somewhere, it's really, really difficult to see how your analogy is more appropriate in any way at all.

Of course, M-W also defines the word thusly:

a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not; especially : the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion

But the only way I see that applying is if you're considering Free Software as a religion (which may be well be the case for rms, of course). But I still don't see how it applies to me, since I don't claim to subscribe to the religion in question.

Without copyright laws, anyone could compile open-source software into a closed-source product, with no restriction. Since the redistributor has default permission to do anything (thanks to the lack of copyright), the GPL never comes into play, so it can't require that the software stays open-source.

On the other hand, we gain the freedom to decompile closed source, patch it and redistribute it as we see fit, distribute abdandonware and orphan works without any legal impediment. Obviously, it requires an opposition to software patents as well, but I don't see any inconsistency in that.

And, of course, that's just considering the benefits for software.

This inextricable dependency is why it's silly to promote the GPL while arguing entirely against copyright.

Only if you assume that ability for force a small subset of all software writers to publish their source code is worth more than freeing the 70 years of culture from creeping privatisation. Otherwise, it seems like more than a fair trade.

Re:"by even Debian"

[Sarten-X]

I guess I'm dealing with a first-class pedant here.

In the malaria example, I felt is was unnecessary to say that what you feel is that eradication of malaria as a disease. Vaccine research is a vital part of that effort, so to destroy lab samples before the job is done is akin to shooting oneself in the foot.

Yes, eschewing copyright gives us certain abilities, but that serves little purpose. To make decompilation more difficult, cautious vendors will turn to obfuscation, encryption, and compression techniques. Abandonware can be assured perpetual commercial value by including (equally obfuscated) time locks - gotta buy that latest version to have anything.

The main aspect of RMS's open-source religion is that freedom is a choice. Forcing short copyright (though not necessarily shorter) terms on an author is no more free than forcing long terms on the rest of us. There must be a balance between the rights of the public and the rights of the individual, and the ability to choose a license gives us the ability to pick where on that scale we wish to be.

Re:"by even Debian"

[NickFortune]

I guess I'm dealing with a first-class pedant here.

I strive to be clear. Perhaps if you did the same, you would find me less pendantic.

Vaccine research is a vital part of that effort, so to destroy lab samples before the job is done is akin to shooting oneself in the foot.

And at the risk of being pedantic, you didn't say anything about destroying the lab samples before eradication. Although even if you had made that stipulation, it still wouldn't indicate hypocrisy. A foolish extremeism, maybe, but then we're disucssing your words rather than mine at this point.

Yes, eschewing copyright gives us certain abilities, but that serves little purpose. To make decompilation more difficult, cautious vendors will turn to obfuscation, encryption, and compression techniques.

Hmmm, ok. Explain to me how that is different from what commercial software houses already do. And why it would be more effective post-GPL than it is at the moment. If you can do that I may have to concede the point.

The main aspect of RMS's open-source religion is that freedom is a choice.

Sure. Which means that you're free to choose the freedom of a small subset of software over the freedom of all creative works in the whole of our culture. Does that really sound like a good deal to you? Really?

Forcing short copyright (though not necessarily shorter) terms on an author is no more free than forcing long terms on the rest of us.

Are you really saying that continuing under the current restrictions on creative output is "freedom" while abolishing those restrictions constitutes "force"? Does that not seem more than a little Orwellian? "War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength" and all that.

There must be a balance between the rights of the public and the rights of the individual, and the ability to choose a license gives us the ability to pick where on that scale we wish to be.

It's a question of what you value most. From what you've written so far I'm not at all sure I share your priorities in this matter. I'm not sure many people would.

Just out of curiosity, does the term "goal displacement" mean anything to you?

Slashdotted link text

[Anonymous Coward]

Free, Standalone TDM 2.0 Now Available!

Posted on October 8, 2013 by Springheel
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 didnâ(TM)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 theyâ(TM)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 canâ(TM)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 youâ(TM)re carrying (no more sneaking under a crate umbrella). See the full change-log here.

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 youâ(TM)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. Weâ(TM)ve been testing for months, but itâ(TM)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, weâ(TM)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, an

Re:Slashdotted link text

[Koookiemonster]

Also readable here.

here's a torrent

[Anonymous Coward]

http://thepiratebay.sx/torrent/9024163/THE_DARK_MOD_Version_2.0_-_Standalone_Release

Make sure to rename the folder containing the files to "darkmod" for now, until it is fixed in 2.01.

Missions can be found on the website or the in-game downloader. Or this torrent I guess. Have fun!

Thief!

[grub]

Oh yes, more Thief is always good.

Thief Gold, Thief 2 and Thief: Deadly Shadows are available DRM-free on GOG.com. Those plus DarkLoader for fan mission and you have a virtually unlimited amount of gameplay.

Go get it, you taffers!

Bah!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Obviously the EA version is going to be better!

I mean, yeah, it'll have gameplay that would make calling it "Battlefield: Sneaking of Honor" more honest, and actually-useful arrows will be consumable DLC items you purchase with real money, and you'll have to install Origin for it to work, and the game will demand the right to post promotional messages on any and all social media accounts you have access to; but it'll be AAA, man!

Re:Bah!

[Anonymous Coward]

EA isn't developing Thief 4.

Re:Bah!

[gl4ss]

it's square-enxxyxyyxyx.

the company that did the deus ex reboot. soo.. it's probably going to be ok maybe.

Re:Just buy the game like everyone else...

[X0563511]

At some point you get sick of playing in the original engine(s). The games were great, but they are showing their age.

Re:Just buy the game like everyone else...

[Sarten-X]

I've recently started going through the "extra" half-life games again, namely Blue Shift. The low-poly graphics are pretty distracting now. I've been spoiled.

can't wait

[X0563511]

Unfortunately I had not had to run tdm_update.exe previously, so I had no mirror data saved away. So, now I have to wait for the site to come back up so I can update my installation :(

Re:Just buy the game like everyone else...

[Jmc23]

Try going back and playing the original Alone in the Dark!!

Re:Is their site down?

[Cyfun]

Interesting. A site is listed in a Slashdot article, and is so overrun with traffic that it's inaccessible. We should call this the Reddit Effect!

Re:CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 Unported?

[X0563511]

Here you are, your highness.

I don't know why Debian can't package it, but I think it has to do with the fact that Debian is extraordinarily picky about licensing.

Re:Just buy the game like everyone else...

[i.r.id10t]

On the other hand, it is kinda fun to load up an old game and crank the settings all the way up, turn on all the eye candy, and still get hundreds of frames per second.

Re:here's a torrent for UK Censored peeps

[Anonymous Coward]

For most users this will work:
http://pirateproxy.net/torrent/9024163/THE_DARK_MOD_Version_2.0_-_Standalone_Release

For Virgin and other shitty ISPs that illegally block websites and censor what you can view online:

http://malaysiabay.org/torrent/9024163/THE_DARK_MOD_Version_2.0_-_Standalone_Release

Re:Just buy the game like everyone else...

[Black LED]

Bah, you and your FILLED polygons. Try going back and playing Battlezone.

Re:Just buy the game like everyone else...

[Black LED]

If the game uses Direct 3D 9 or later, you can try out SweetFX and/or ENBSeries for an extra graphics bump.

Re:Just buy the game like everyone else...

[X0563511]

The renderer was written in 1995, game released 1998. Your comment is entirely useless in this context.

The "non-commercial" clause is overrated

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

I think a lot of people just reflexively tack the "noncommercial" clause on there without thinking about it, because exactly as you say, they figure "nobody will make money off my work this way".

The "Share Alike" clause all by itself should prevent any profit abuse, while allowing (for example) someone to charge $0.10 to cover the cost of burning the CD with the creative-commons work on it, or in the case of music it would allow a restaurant to play the work as background music for their guests (but require them to share it if the guests ask for it!).

(To be fair - those cases are arguably not "primarily" about making money and therefore are arguably okay within the scope of the "Non-Commercial" license clause, but that "arguably" part is a big problem in an era with so much litigiousness going on over people's and corporation's Intellectual Precious, so I think most potential users - like Debian - will just stay away anyway because it says "non-commercial".)

If some dork wants to take the game, make fancy new labels, and "sell" copies commercially for $60US each as though they'd written it, the Share-Alike clause still means that anyone who "buys" a copy can legally give out free copies to their friends and everyone else anyway. If they're worried that EA or somebody will trespass on the artwork and they'll find one of the character models wandering around in some unrelated blockbuster game at GameStop(tm) someday, consider that the Share-Alike clause would almost certainly stop a company like EA from doing that, since they hate to share.

And if you figure "but they'll just ignore the Share-Alike clause and make a fortune from my work!", consider that if they're willing to ignore "Share-Alike", why wouldn't they also be willing to ignore "Non-Commercial" anyway?

(In a lot of cases, the "No Derivatives" clause would be a better substitute for "Non-Commercial" with the share-alike clause, I think (i.e. "You can distribute my amazing genius musical works but you cannot incorporate them into the soundtrack for your $500,000,000 blockbuster Hollywood movie"), but that's probably not appropriate here since I assume The Dark Mod developers intend for people to be able to remix and add to it.)

Obligatory Disclaimer: I Am Not A Lawyer, so if anyone reading this is unsure about whether their intended use of a CC-BY-NC-SA work counts as "non-commercial", go find a professional to pay a few hundred dollars an hour to figure it out for you (which is why don't really like the Non-Commercial clause for most uses at the moment...)

Re:The "non-commercial" clause is overrated

[tlhIngan]

(In a lot of cases, the "No Derivatives" clause would be a better substitute for "Non-Commercial" with the share-alike clause, I think (i.e. "You can distribute my amazing genius musical works but you cannot incorporate them into the soundtrack for your $500,000,000 blockbuster Hollywood movie"), but that's probably not appropriate here since I assume The Dark Mod developers intend for people to be able to remix and add to it.)

Technically, ND and NC are both Non-Free.

ND because it defeats the entire purpose of sharing - that people can get inspired or use your work in their work, as long as they incorporate the other license terms.

SA is perfectly fine - if the music gets incorporated in that blockbuster movie, well, share away!

NC is thornier and also non-Free in that it restricts usage in ways that are potentially unintended, including putting the content up on a for-pay website. Like YouTube - perhaps you have a blog that you create content for and use a bit of music to. You put it up NC because it's a hobby, then you start making money off it (get popular enough an YouTube will split profits with you). Damn, that just violated the terms on the music you've been using forever!

It's not unusual that the CC folks have been getting a bit of pressure to remove ND and NC - if you really et down to it, ND+NC is only a minor variation away from "all rights reserved", so it's misleading to say it's a "free" license. ND violates the whole purpose CC because it's a "look but don't touch", and NC is so tightly worded to basically become practically useless - and a huge source of potential violations if you decide to distribute your software incorporating NC artwork and some commercial site picks it up for mirroring and such.

Re:The "non-commercial" clause is overrated

[gl4ss]

the nc clause isn't used tightly enough.

that is, any site offering the download and that has ads should not use any of it... or can't be mentioned on a commercial magazine with screenshots and shit like that? if being strictly non commercial art.

Re:The "non-commercial" clause is overrated

[AvitarX]

Screenshots in a magazine mentioning it sound like a clear case of fair use (in the US), this is completely allowed with any license pretty much.

Re:The "non-commercial" clause is overrated

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, in Germany anything with ads is considered commercial for example. So if you put a mirror on a site where you also have your personal blog with ads, you'd be in violation. And that's one of the more clear areas, there is a huge grey area with courts potentially considering anything you do full-time "commercial", no matter how much money you might lose.

Re:The "non-commercial" clause is overrated

[adolf]

It's not unusual that the CC folks have been getting a bit of pressure to remove ND and NC - if you really et down to it, ND+NC is only a minor variation away from "all rights reserved"

After reading your commentary, I think it means more that "this content is afraid of money," than "all rights reserved."

Re:Just buy the game like everyone else...

[X0563511]

Try a few -thousand- FPS. There's not much eye candy to turn on...

I get the feeling you (and Black LED) know nothing about Thief 1 and 2?

Re:CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 Unported?

[compro01]

The non-commercial licensing violates the first of the Debian Free Software Guidelines, so Debian won't package it.

The license of a Debian component may not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license may not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.

Re:CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 Unported?

[X0563511]

I wonder if Debian would consider asking for a wavier. It's in the license - any part of it can be dropped with a wavier from the holder.

Re:CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 Unported?

[Anonymous Coward]

Grow a neckbeard or GTFO.

Moddb Mirror

[nbohr1more]

Since the site is down, you can also checkout the moddb presence: http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

Re:Just buy the game like everyone else...

[Black LED]

I actually still have my disc of Thief: The Dark Project, thank you very much.

What is your problem, anyhow? You seem angry. Did it occur to you that we might not be talking about those games specifically?

Thanks from The Dark Mod

[AluminumHaste]

We appreciate the exposure folks, thank you for stopping by and considering all our hard work. :)

Re:Thanks from The Dark Mod

[Anonymous Coward]

thanks for the work! i plan to try it out soon. I played the original Thief years ago and look forward to trying it out again in your format and with user maps etc.

Re:Just buy the game like everyone else...

[Black LED]

And FYI, here is a way to add HDR to Thief using ENBSeries and ddfix.

Re:Just buy the game like everyone else...

[0123456]

On the other hand, it is kinda fun to load up an old game and crank the settings all the way up, turn on all the eye candy, and still get hundreds of frames per second.

That's because Doom 3 just renders everything in black.

Re:CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 Unported?

[compro01]

Debian had, at least in the case of Firefox, avoided Debian-specific waivers as that would make the life of downstream distributions like Ubuntu hard.

A Debian-specific waiver wouldn't be acceptable under guideline #8.

8. License Must Not Be Specific to Debian

The rights attached to the program must not depend on the program's being part of a Debian system. If the program is extracted from Debian and used or distributed without Debian but otherwise within the terms of the program's license, all parties to whom the program is redistributed should have the same rights as those that are granted in conjunction with the Debian system.

Re:Just buy the game like everyone else...

[Jmc23]

ah, the hours I spent cursing the refresh rate in Stellar 7, one second enemies pop into existence, the next you're stuck inside them!

Re:Just buy the game like everyone else...

[X0563511]

No, it didn't. Which clears quite a bit up. I thought you were talking about the original two games, and then the mentions of eye candy and such made it sound like you didn't know anything about them. Apologies for the confusion.

Enjoy the link, though.

Re:Just buy the game like everyone else...

[X0563511]

Oh. I was talking about the Thief series specifically, which this is a modern "remake" of. Go back to the start of the thread where the idiot made the comment about buying it already? I said some of us may not be able to tolerate the age of the engine anymore. From the start -we- have been talking about those engines specifically.

Re:CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 Unported?

[Carewolf]

Debian had a waiver for Firefox. There was a few years between the first Iceweasel project, and the modern reincarnation when Debian shiped Firefox (2004-2006), but Mozilla changed the rules so that Debian was no longer allowed to support and maintain stable versions of Firefox, and this they could not get a waiver for.

Re:multiplayer id Tech 4?

[Hsien-Ko]

A lot of it has to do with how bare the Doom3 GPL code package was. You didn't get scripts or anything related to gameplay of Doom3 (unlike past source releases which included code for the game). It's as bare and only good for improving Doom3 itself or making a completely new game.

Deb package

[phorm]

This does not, however, prevent others from packing the .deb and putting up a repository that you can add to your apt config (or just download/install the .deb for that matter).

Re:Just buy the game like everyone else...

[fafaforza]

Yup, just reinstalled T2 and updated to 1.19, and albeit wide screen and high res, it does show its age. But Thief 3, albeit very pretty, was not as difficult. So Dark Mod might bridge that gap.