Any advices for new member of this community?

[Mikko!]

Hey!

I am complete newbie to mission creating for Thief game(s). To get things rolling I've decided to go for Thief 2 in addition with TFix. Initial plan was to create relatively small and simple mission with focus on layout design and narrative, while keeping things simple.

After finding some rocks in my shoes (despite the fact that I read some freaking amount of nomenclature on dromeding), I started to doubt the usefulness of chosen approach, so I'd like to ask more experienced fellas:

1) Are there any cons in using T2, and what kind of setup would you recommend?
2) Would it be better to start with something more massive to learn scripting and technical stuff grom the get-go?

If you have any other advices, I'd like to hear them. Merci

[Tomi]

It's been years since I last did anything with Dromed, so some things may have changed. But my best advice is to keep things simple indeed. The basics of Dromed are easy to learn, but anything a bit more advanced can be a bit tricky to pull off, and demands more time and effort. So maybe start with a smaller mission, something that won't take months or years to finish. Back when this forum was more active it wasn't uncommon to see newcomers to Dromed with grand plans for a 10-mission campaign or something. Of course, if you're confident that you're able to do some more advanced stuff, then go for it. Still, I'd say that starting with "something more massive" is a terrible idea.

Anyway, good luck and welcome!

[skacky]

There are no cons in using Thief 2. The choice of game is really down to preference and the kind of resources readily available from the start (and a couple of other subtle things that won't really matter unless you want to do very specific things). As a rule of thumb it is always far more preferable to start small especially if you have no prior level design experience. Making missions for Thief isn't that simple and it's easy to get burnt out as a newcomer if you try to compete with the very experienced FM authors from the get go. So, yes, build a small but well made mission and you'll learn a lot this way.

[Hit Deity]

I thought at one point that everything that T1/G had that wasn't included in T2 was "ported" over, either through NewDark or more likely maybe it was DEDX? Memory fails me.. But pretty much everything you could want had been converted, and weren't the textures brought over as well? Someone help me here, I'm flailing. :-)

[Christine]

DEDX includes all the Thief1/Gold stuff.

But using the DEDX-gamesys cam cause problems.

[Hit Deity]

Ok, glad I didn't completely misremember it then. Thanks, Christine.

[Hit Deity]

Well, Mikko!? Any luck yet?

I would also add: you can't have too many backups. I recently discovered I've lost a TON of work due to reinstalling Windows and thinking I had made backups of everything.

I had some extensive work done on 3 small contest missions (never finished) and one big one that is parts of other smaller ones, combined (but nowhere near finished). I only have the big one now, and I really wanted to add the stuff from at least 2 of the smaller ones...

My only hope is that I might find a CD I made with some on there.. but I've looked and I'm about ready to give up on finding them.

Just go ahead and get you a cloud service and keep at least the latest version of what you're working on, in there.

Disaster (often self-inflicted) can strike anytime.

[Mikko!]

Plausible realease date of my 1st mission is 30th of March. Despite the fact that I haven't started building mission yet, my notebook is already fulfilled with scratches and design notes. For last 2 months I've been mostly studying dromed and exercising in my polygon-mission. So far so good, I'd say. Postnote: no doubt, mission is going to be pretty short, but I have something interesting to show y'all in my very 1st project. Of course, the main thing is how much you, players are going to enjoy it

[Hit Deity]

Awesome. Short first ones usually make better starts.. or something like that. HUGE first releases rarely go well, but it does happen occasionally.

Good luck!

[Lord Taffer]

Hello Mikko! I really recommend that you start by building a small and simple mission. I think it's good way to learn basic stuff. My first FM is very simple and rough but I learnt quite a lot along the way (I had zero level design experience). Beta testing is very important. My FM changed a lot during that time. So just start building and ask questions and most importantly enjoy building!

And also, remember to look how others have built their missions. It's probably one of the best ways to learn.