Thief's Den

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

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

Important

We recommend you start the download then please read through this page and especially Thief's Den Gameplay while downloading. You cannot complete the mission without being aware of new features described on that page.

Download

Choose a download mirror below. The download is about 200 Mbyte and works for both Windows and Linux. It's a self-extracting 7-zip archive, not a fully-fledged installer.

Important
When the downloaded file does report errors during extraction, your download got corrupted, and you MUST download the file again. A package extracted only half or with errors will NOT run properly.

If you are unsure whether you got the right file, either use the torrent (it checks the file to be correct), or compare the md5sum of the download to d162dfdb7b1c9f9a9d0aaac915a75099.

Mirrors:

• Fidcal
• Darkmod FTP (might be slow)
• Shadowdark Keep (thanks to Komag!)
• moddb
• Torrent: thiefs_den_v1.0.exe.torrent (thanks to everybody helping to distribute)

Installation

Summary:

Don't be put off - all you need is Doom 3 installed with patch, extract our download into the Doom folder, then make/modify a desktop shortcut and you're playing!

You'll need the following to play the Thief's Den:

1. Windows or Linux
2. About 500 Mbytes free disk space
3. At least 512 Mbyte system memory, better are 1024 Mbyte or more
4. A grafic card with at least 64 Mbyte video memory, better are 128 Mbyte or more
5. A working Doom 3 installation
6. Doom 3 must be patched to 1.3.1. You can download the correct patch (20 Mbyte) here:
   • Windows: Doom v1.3.1 patch for Windows
   • Linux: Doom v1.3.1 for Linux: FTP BitTorrent

Already patched Doom 3 before reading this? Make sure you have the correct version of the 1.3.1 patch. See the FAQ‎ below.

Windows

Now proceed with the following steps. Substitute your own Doom 3 path for C:\games\doom3.

1. Download thiefs_den.exe and copy it to C:\games\doom3.
2. Run thiefs_den.exe. A thiefs_den folder will be created.
3. In C:\games\doom3\thiefs_den is a file called DevIL.dll. You MUST copy this into your C:\games\doom3 folder OR your C:\WINDOWS\system32 folder (where it can be shared by other applications. If there is already one there then use the newest date.)
4. Now you'll need to create a shortcut to the Thief's Den demo:
   1. Copy the existing Doom 3 shortcut on your desktop. Rename the copy "Thief's Den".
   2. Right-click, choose Properties and edit the command line. It should read

C:\games\doom3\DOOM3.exe +set fs_game thiefs_den

You're done! All you need to do is double-click the shortcut to run the demo. But before you do, please take a minute to read Thief's Den Gameplay for information on how to actually play The Dark Mod (many features will be familiar to Thief players, but there are important differences).

Linux

• Download thiefs_den.exe and copy it to the .doom3 folder in your home directory. This directory might not be visible if you use a file manager like Konqueror, so use a console, Midnight Commander, or type ".doom3" into the location bar in Konqueror to navigate there.
• Either:
  1. Right-click on thiefs_den.exe and select "Open with Wine Windows Emulator" from the menu. Click OK and wait for the package to extract.
• Or:
  1. Install the package p7zip
  2. In a console, type:
  3. cd ~/.doom3
  4. 7z x thiefs_den.exe
• Copy the existing Doom 3 shortcut on your desktop to a new one and rename it to "Thief's Den".
• Right-click, open the properties of that shortcut, go to the "Application" or "Launcher" tab and edit the command line. It should read:

/usr/local/games/doom3/doom.x86 +seta com_allowConsole 1 +set fs_game thiefs_den

• Install the packages libmng and libdevil1c2 (or libdevel1, depending on distribution)
• Double-click the shortcut to run the game.
  • If it doesn't start, please see the FAQ
• Open the Doom 3 console using the key below the Escape key (~ on US keyboards), and compile the map by typing: dmap thiefs_den
• Click "Start Mission" to start the game.

Playing Thief's Den, Settings

For information on changing settings, and on unique features of The Dark Mod and stealth gaming in general, see Thief's Den Gameplay.

Note that you shouldn't expect The Dark Mod to run at the same settings as Doom3. TDM does far more processing, and uses higher resolution graphics, than Doom3 did. If your computer is close to the minimum specs to play Doom3, you will unfortunately have a laggy experience (or will have to turn your video settings down) with the demo. In this case, please refer to the Performance Tweaks article.

The Mission, Objectives, Loot Count

You play a thief who has been double-crossed by another! Can you retrieve your ill-gotten gains and incriminate your adversary to divert the attention from you of the ruthless city watch? Full briefing and objectives are shown at the start of the mission.

You can play stealthily or use the weapons at your disposal to make it easier. There are no difficulty levels yet but as an extra challenge this mission can be ghosted without using any weapons including rope arrows.

End of mission statistics are not implemented yet. Total loot count for Thief's Den is 904. Good luck!

Feedback

Of course we're anxious to hear your impressions about our Thief's Den Pre-Beta Release. There is a public feedback & discussion thread open in our forums: Pre-Beta Discussion. Please drop by and let us know what you think.

That being said,

don't rush into the forums and spend an hour writing up detailed bug lists of what's working and what you think needs fixing. It's very likely that we are already aware of these problems. The list below is only a small sampling of things we have yet to address.

Crashes and installation help requests are of course something different, feel free to contact us, but be sure to check the FAQ on this page first.

Known Issues and Bugs

Please read before posting feedback!

The Dark Mod is not slated for a beta-release until the end of 2008, so this demo has plenty of incomplete features and known issues/bugs. In addition, many values (like mantling height, walking speed, volume of sounds, visual acuity of AI, etc) are not necessarily at their final settings. Here are a few of the more common issues you may encounter:

AI WIP issues: The vocalizations for the AI are placeholders, so don't expect much. Many of the animations (like the walk animation) are also placeholders, and many animations are not yet included. The Thug model has some imperfections that are known issues. The Thief model has a field of view that is oriented improperly, meaning he can sometimes see things at angles he shouldn't be able to.

AI intelligence is far from perfect. They still have problems pathfinding sometimes, and may get stuck on doors and KO'd bodies. They are also missing a ‘searching’ animation, so they will sometimes walk, run, and then walk again while looking around.

AI do not react to some environmental factors (like getting a crate thrown at them or hearing an elevator) that they should.

AI Weapons Float: It is a known issue that AI weapons don’t always stay attached to the AI’s hands when attacking.

AI Shadow: The shadows of AI occasionally get cut-off, usually at the head, making the shadow look weird. This is particularly noticeable with characters carrying or standing near a lightsource.

Sounds: Some sound effects are placeholders. Collision sounds (where things bump into other things) are especially poor. It is a known issue that the player’s footsteps are somewhat irregular.

Bow Aiming: The lack of a bow-sight is intentional. However, the bow currently is offset slightly—the arrow actually goes up a bit from where you are aiming, as if you were ‘lobbing’ your shot. This is a known (minor) issue that needs to be fixed, but it shouldn't cause too many problems in the meantime.

Subtle Highlighting: The "froblight" effect that highlights an object is occasionally difficult to see, especially on bright-coloured objects. This needs to be tweaked individually, eventually.

Objects Not Moving: Not really a mod issue, but in the map there are objects that look like they should probably move if you bump them (like the boots or the wine-bottles), but they don't. Many objects have intentionally been left as static for this map.

Particle effects cut off: Sometimes particle effects (like splashes from water arrows or gas clouds) are cut off or flicker when they occur at particular angles to the player. This is a purely cosmetic issue we have yet to track down.

Menu issues: Changing certain graphic settings, like the resolution, requires a restart of Doom 3. However, there is not yet a message that tells you to do so.

More importantly, occasionally navigation breaks down and you might get 'trapped' in a blank menu background. Rather than delay launch further we had to leave that unfixed. If this happens to you then Alt+F4 will exit the program (in Windows.)

Saved Game issues: Loading saved games works well during a single play session. If you quit Doom3 and then run the game later, however, you may experience some strangeness when attempting to load saved games. The Thiefs Den map can be completed in less than half-an-hour, so try to complete it in one sitting for best results.

Keyboard mappings: They default mapping of keys is for American/English keyboards. This means that some keys are inaccessible when you use a different keyboard layout. For instance "[" cannot be reached on a German keyboard as the required pressing of ALT GR+8 will toggle crouch instead due to Doom not making a difference between the two ALT-keys.

The used fonts do not contain any special characters beyond ASCII. This means if you for instance have a German keybord and bind the key "ü" to a function, it will show up empty in the settings menu. The key will still work in game, though.

Missing Texture: The logs in the pot near the fireplace are black because a skin file was left out of the package at the last minute (oops!).

Troubleshooting

If (and only if) you're experiencing problems, here are some things to try:

1. Make sure Doom 3 is patched correctly. You need the correct version of the 1.3.1 patch. See the FAQ below.
2. Make sure that the install path for Doom 3:
   • does not contain any blanks (e.g. C:/doom3 is ok, C:/Program files/Doom3 is not)
   • is in all lowercase (e.g. /usr/local/lib/doom3 is ok, /home/username/MyDoom is not). This is especially important for Linux.

Performance Tweaks

In case you experience slowdowns, see Performance Tweaks.

FAQ

See this article: FAQ (Demo Releases)‎

I've finished all objectives except for the last one (leaving), and I can't find this "front door". Where is it?

Look at your map (default: M). The front door is inside the main building (on the far side from where you enter). You came in through the back door.

Ok, I've finished the mission. Now what?

It's probably occurred to some of you eager mappers out there that with Thief's Den and Dark Radiant (our Dark Mod editor), it is possible to start mapping for The Dark Mod. You're right. Although we stripped a number of unnecessary files out of the demo release, it does have a number of models, textures, and code (not to mention the great tutorial on the wiki that explains how much of the map was made) that can be used as a starting point for mapping.

Feel free to start experimenting now. Although there is no promise that maps made using the demo assets will be 100% compatible with the mod when it is released (as many things will no doubt be added/updated by then), you certainly can get a good start. It's also an excellent way to earn a spot as a beta-mapper with the team, which gives you access to the full mod.

See also

Current version

• Thief's Den 1: Thief's Den - The current iteration of the demo as an official Fan Mission, reworked for standalone TDM. The reworked version of the mission is also the first installment in a short series of missions.

Discussions on the demo

• [ TDM forums thread] (2008)
• [ TTLG forums thread] (2008)