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Message: [quote author=ToxicFrog link=msg=45599 date=1348670452] For players, the main significance is that installing T1/T2/SS2 just got a lot easier. Install base game, install patch, play. The cutscenes just work, widescreen just works, bloom and HDR just work, you can rebind the mousewheel, etc, etc. It runs a lot better, it looks and sounds a bit nicer, and it requires no effort to get working. For art modders, builtin support for DDS textures and the like makes both creating and installing the mod a lot easier. It also supports DML patches for the missions and gamesys, which should make patches like Straylight's ADAOB patch easier to deploy, and also makes it feasible to have multiple gamesys and map mods that coexist peacefully with each other (without needing to be manually merged in ShockEd). I don't know if that was previously possible with the maps, but it definitely wasn't with the gamesys. And for FM designers, it's christmas every day. The editor has been massively improved and a lot of built-in limits have been greatly relaxed. The Thief FM designers on TTLG are already talking about reviving old projects that had be scrapped because the Dark engine of the time couldn't handle them - either running unbearably slow, or just crashing outright. Mappers are reporting factor-of-ten improvements in map compilation times, and the game loading maps that would previously have been impossible to play almost instantly and running them with buttery smoothness. It's not just T2 DromEd that's gotten the upgrades, either - ShockEd has gotten the same upgrades. A lot of the issues that made making SS2 FMs a pain are just [i]gone[/i]. I suspect we won't start to see the true benefits of this patch until after the modders and mappers have had a while to sink their teeth into it, at which point we'll start seeing maps that would never have been possible in the old engine, and graphical overhauls that look better than ever. [/quote]
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