Saint Lucia

From The DarkMod Wiki
Revision as of 18:08, 21 October 2008 by Greebo (talk | contribs) (fixed bloodgate link)
Jump to navigationJump to search

Welcome to the second demo mission of The Dark Mod: The Tears of Saint Lucia. If you liked the first teaser demo Thief's Den, you'll absolutely love Saint Lucia. It's a full-sized mission demonstrating the current state of The Dark Mod's development, packed into jdude's stunning world design.

The map for this mission is at least five times larger than our previous demo, Thief's Den, and is on par with the map sizes of Thief: Deadly Shadows. It showcases many features that were not present in our first demo, including the purchase menu, flashbombs, swimmable water and AI conversations.

This map demonstrates the progress that has been made on The Dark Mod over the past eight months or so since our last demo. Although the mod itself is still not ready for release, I think you will be impressed with how beautiful and immersive this map is. Although there are still some bugs and unfinished features, it is an excellent example of what fan missions for The Dark Mod will be like.

Important

We recommend you start the download then please read through the GamePlay Guide while downloading. You might not be able to complete the mission without being aware of new features described on that page.

Download

Choose a download mirror below. The download is about 450 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 cfa79dc83d5cfa8997a5e0888c893c1d.

Torrent:

Mirrors:

(mirrors will be updated constantly)

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 Tears of Saint Lucia:

  1. Windows or Linux
  2. Slightly more than 1 GB of free disk space
  3. At least 512 Mbyte system memory, better are 1024 Mbyte or more
  4. A graphics 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:

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 tdm_saintlucia.exe and copy it to C:\games\doom3.
  2. Run tdm_saintlucia_v1.0.exe. A saintlucia folder will be created.
  3. Now you'll need to create a shortcut to the Saint Lucia demo mission:
    1. Copy the existing Doom 3 shortcut on your desktop. Rename the copy "Saint Lucia".
    2. Right-click, choose Properties and edit the command line. It should read
C:\games\doom3\DOOM3.exe +set fs_game saintlucia

You're done! All you need to do is double-click the shortcut to run the demo. But if you're new to The Dark Mod, please take a minute to read The Dark Mod 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 tdm_saintlucia_v1.0.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 tdm_saintlucia_v1.0.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 tdm_saintlucia_v1.0.exe
  • Copy the existing Doom 3 shortcut on your desktop to a new one and rename it to "Saint Lucia".
  • 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 saintlucia
  • 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 Saint Lucia, Settings

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

Note that you shouldn't expect The Dark Mod to run at the same framerate 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.

Feedback

Of course we're anxious to hear your impressions about our Saint Lucia Pre-Release. There is a public feedback & discussion thread open in our forums: The Dark Mod Forum. 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 release until the mid-2009, so this demo has plenty of known issues/bugs. In addition, some AI behaviour might not be fully fleshed out yet. Here are a few of the more common issues you may encounter:

AI WIP issues: The vocalizations for the AI are partially placeholders. Some of the animations are also placeholders, and many animations are not yet included.

AI intelligence is far from perfect. They still have problems pathfinding sometimes, and may get stuck.

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

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.

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.

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.

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:
    • 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

Can I use the Demo version of Doom 3?
Almost certainly not.
How can I check whether my Doom 3 is correctly patched?
Open Doom 3 and hit Ctrl+Alt+~ (tilde, ^ on German keyboards) to open the console. You'll see the version printed in the lower left corner of the console. It should read 1.3.1.1304. If your version is ending on 1302, you've got the wrong patch installed.
Where can I get the right patch?
We have the patch hosted on our FTP. See above to find a link to it.
If you have version 1.3.1.1302, you may need to uninstall and reinstall before patch 1.3.1.1304 will let you apply it.
What's that issue with the 1.3.1 patch?
When the 1.3.1 patch was released by Id, they released it a bit too early. Some download sites picked it up quite fast though and started to distribute it. The problem is, that Id replaced that patch with a different one, and, probably thinking that it hadn't spread yet, didn't bother to change the version number. However, you can still find "wrong" 1.3.1 patches and these will not work with the mod. That's why it is important to check the version number in the console to make sure that the right 1.3.1 patch is installed if the mod doesn't work. The link provided here on our own page points to the correct patch, so if you downloaded it from here you don't need to worry about it.
Does it run with the Steam version of Doom 3?
Yes :)
Which Windows versions can I use?
Doom 3 needs at least Windows XP or Windows 2000. Saint Lucia was successfully run under Windows XP and Vista. Support for 64 bit Windows or Windows 2000 was not tested.
Does it run in Linux?
Yes, Linux is supported. You may need:
  • the package libdevil1,
  • either Wine or p7zip to extract the contents from the EXE file
  • recompile the map via the console, or the pathfinding of the AI is broken
  • use your package manager to install libdevil1 or libdevil1c2
Does it run in 64 Bit Linux?
Yes, Linux 64 bit is supported. In addition to the steps above, you need 32 bit compatibility libraries, since Doom3 is 32 bit only:
  • On SuSE, they should be included.
  • On Ubuntu/Kubuntu, install the package ia32.
  • Since you cannot install 32 bit libraries on a 64 bit system with the normal package manager, you should use getlibs to install libdevil and libmng:
getlibs libIL.so.1
getlibs libmng.so.1
Does it run in MacOS?
No. Or at least not yet. The Doom 3 game itself is supporting MacOS, but The Dark Mod is not - mainly because we don't have anyone developing on Macs. If you can help us getting it to run on MacOS, please apply at the forum.
Changing the screen resolution/aspect ratio does nothing!?
These changes require a restart of Doom to work. Currently, our GUI does not warn you about this. You can enter vid_restart in the console to restart the renderer without quitting the game.

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

It's probably occurred to some of you eager mappers out there that with Saint Lucia and Dark Radiant (our Dark Mod editor), it is possible to start mapping for The Dark Mod. Although we stripped a number of unnecessary files out of the demo release, it does have a large 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.

Retrieved from "https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Saint_Lucia&oldid=7233"