DRD Team

OK, I've really had no time what so ever to myself recently. I started an apparently unambitious project for my own amusement some time ago to distract me in the all too short gaps between piles of exam papers for me to mark. I hadn't really intended to bother releasing it, but I guess that's changed.

The project was just an update to my old NJTHIEF level. At the 11th hour, I decided to change the game it was for and re-did stuff for Heretic. This was because I hadn't edited for Heretic in the longest time and I felt the weapons and general atmosphere of Heretic probably was more suited to a Thief tribute. I think I was right. Also, I reminded myself about Heretic in the process and I can honestly say the game has grown on me hugely in the last few weeks. It's a much better, much more balanced game than I remember.

Anyway, the basic structure and logic of the level is the same as before. I've taken advantage of a bunch of GZDoom features to allow me to use lots of Thief textures in their own palette and 3D floors to enhance the architecture. However, I've tried not to go "over the top". Most of the areas won't appear significantly more detailed than before. I think that, generally, the use of 3D floors is quite subtle. A lot of the time they won't be obvious and in your face, yet there are 56 line type 160s (3Dfloor) in there. I've also used quite a few DECORATE features and Zdoom's ability to mix and match stuff from the games it supports.

Emulating Thief AI is impossible to do in any satisfying way in the Doom engine, so as a nod to Thief, there is a loot system. You can pick up items of loot that will do no more than add to your loot counter and give you a Thief ranking at the end of the level. The loot is counted on screen at all times by default, but "puking" script 300 will toggle this method of display on and off. It will give you a brief flash of your loot total when you pick up a loot item in "off" mode. It's just a bit of fun.

The level uses dynamic lights and reflective floors. both of these can be a frame rate killer. I noticed a little bit of slowdown on my machine when running at 1024x768 in some areas, despite the relative simplicity of the map. I've included some tips on getting it to run quicker in the text file, including a pukable script (script 666) to toggle on and off the reflective floors.

I've used loads of Thiefy sounds. A significant proportion of the 5MB download is due to sounds. However, it was a 30MB zip until I converted the sounds to OGG format.


Anyway, by now you may be salivating, or perhaps you have just fallen asleep, or clicked away. You maybe want to know where to get this re-hashed old level. Well, it's sitting in /incoming now. If Ty gives it the all clear, I'll post the archive link ASAP. You're looking for a file called njhthief.zip. If it doesn't get a clean bill of health for the archives, I'll upload it somewhere.

For now, you'll just have to do with some screenshots. I've lightened these to make them easier to see on teh intarweb.

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Oh, and if you want the back story (from the text file) just imagine Stephen Russell’s gravelly, sarcastic tones (the voice of Garrett) speaking these words over some sepia toned screenshots.

[spoiler]The keepers contacted me in their usual "subtle" manner.
Apparently some dark magic has been employed to take over
the old Bafford place. Quite why they thought I'd
care I have no idea but I guess they were right because
I started asking around...

It seems the streets around Bafford's place were closed
off a few days ago. Some people managed to get out,
the rest have bolted themselves into their houses.
Those who were caught out on the streets... Well, it
seems fair to say they won't be coming home any time
soon. The tales going round the Crippled Burrick Inn
spoke of golems, skeletal knights and all manner of
creatures stalking the streets at the behest of their
master. Apparently this master likes to go by the title of
"Arch-Heretic". Sounds like a lot of hot air to me.

I really should leave this sort of thing to the city
guard, or the hammers, or the keepers, or anyone really.
Taking on an army of who-knows-what simply isn't my style
and anything that keeps the city guard busy makes my life
easier. However, the tales also spoke of unusual gold coins
and jewels turning up on the market. My nose tells me
they've come from the old Bafford house.

Before he vacated the premises, Bafford had an electric
barrier installed on the front door. Getting in that way
will be impossible unless the barrier is deactivated.
However, Basso the Boxman tells me that a friend of his
was called to the Bafford manner a few weeks ago to submit
an estimate for a repair. Apparently, Bafford's kitchen
wall still has a hole through to the sewers in it. I used
the very same hole on my last "visit". I hope the new
landlord hasn't had the opportunity to fix it yet.

Taking on an army of monsters may not be my style,
but the chance of picking up some loot is, so I guess I'll
have to get used to making a little noise...

Objectives:
Get into Bafford Manor.
Kill the Arch-Heretic.
Grab as much loot as possible.[/spoiler]

No idea what Thief (with a capital "T") is -- an old FPS game? -- but the screenshots look very nice. I always loved Heretic so I'll have a look at this when it comes out.

"Thief: The Dark Project" is an older first-person game by the guys that made System Shock. The catch is that it's based around stealth - the first FPS game that did so. While you could fight, and possibly even win, it was a much better idea to play it slow and quiet. Great atmosphere too.

Enjay: How's about a few new Thief-y weapons? I bet gas bombs and fire arrows would be a nice alternative to explosives - only issue is graphics, really (though Witchhaven's bow ought to work - just add some ungloved hands to it and it'll fit with Heretic's weapons). I'd be happy to code them if need be.

I thought about alternative weapons and Items. I even got some of the way towards coding and looking for graphics, then I stopped. It was simply a direction I didn't want to go in. Despite the fact there are quite a few non-Heretic things in there, I came to like playing with the Heretic weapons as this project went on and I decided I wanted to keep them. They started to feel "right" to me even though, clearly, they are not. If you wanted to do a Thief weapons mod to compliment the level though, I certainly wouldn't have a problem with that.

Martin a good place to find out about Thief:
http://www.thief-thecircle.com/


Oh, and I forgot to thank Solarsnowfall and Sir_Alien (although they are duly credited in the text file). Solarsnowfall allowed me to use his fire effect sprite/particle and Sir_Alien OK'd it too. Sir_Alien had first shout on the effects for ZDForums.wad but both he and Solarsnowfall were kind enough to let me use them.

Looks good, though I really wish there were more ZHeretic levels

Enjay: Well, I'm already working on a Heretic mod, though it couldn't hurt to put some Thief-styled weapons in there (throwing gas bombs, perhaps). So long as this level doesn't have too many decorate weapons in it, my mod ought to be 100% compatible with it.

Enjay you're great at mapping to various games! this looks good
you inspired me to make zheretic level with scripts(finally i know acs)

Looking UBER! Gotta love the designs and the floor reflections.

'Bout time someone took advantage of GZDoom with Heretic. It would be nice if there were some Thief inspired weapons, even if it was just modifying the Ethereal Crossbow to fire more than one kind of arrow. Ooh, and a Thief inspired mod wouldn't be complete without some SPIDERS! >:)

Snarboo wrote:SPIDERS! >:)

[edit]As far as I can tell ATM (I can't check the archive directly from work) it has been moved to newstuff. I think this mirror will work. Enjoy.

http://www.gamers.org/pub/idgames/newstuff/njhthief.zip

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Enjay, this is without the doubt the best Heretic Wad of all time and beyond one of the greatest wads for the doom engine I have seen so far It's a great conversion from Thier to doom engine, looks beautiful, plays fine and is so damn fun that I just can't wait anymore for your ASPECTS TC

This looks really nice.

One small thing though: When you set your pickup messages to appear at the left border they overlap with the loot display so with my preferred setting it is not quite optimal.

Heh, I put them in the top left because I thought Heretic always centered its messages. I hadn't realised there was a left aligned option. If I had realised, I'd have lowered the loot display slightly. At least you can toggle the permanent display on and off by puking script 300. When the permanent display is off, you'll get a temporary hudmessage loot total display in the centre of the screen when you grab some loot and that display will be copied to the console too.


The Berlin mirror seems to have it now too...

ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/pc/msdos/games/i ... hthief.zip

Tormentor667 wrote:Enjay, this is without the doubt the best Heretic Wad of all time and beyond one of the greatest wads for the doom engine I have seen so far It's a great conversion from Thier to doom engine, looks beautiful, plays fine and is so damn fun that I just can't wait anymore for your ASPECTS TC

Well thank you kindly. That's very high praise that I'm not sure the WAD can live up to but thanks again, it's appreciated.

As for waiting for the Aspects TC, I'm afraid eternity is a very long time to wait.

Enjay wrote:As for waiting for the Aspects TC, I'm afraid eternity is a very long time to wait.

Aw c'mon ... what percentage is done on Aspects right now? If there is anything I can do to help you and speed things up, please let me know! Oh and yes, the wad can live up the high praise as I have played it right now the 3rd time on this day Don't know why, but I love it... the settings, the design...

9/10 that's my rating about this map!
The iron lich trick this scared me as hell!
only con is difficulty i'm having hard time with this!