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RatFink

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yep wouldnt say that either but thieves guild mission is a bit tedious
 

Unkillable Cat

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I was "lucky" enough to grab Thief Gold when it was released. I had heard about the Dark Project and played the demo, so when the Gold Edition was released I didn't hesitate for a second and bought it.

There are three extra levels and slight changes to the pre-existing ones, such as a new enemy type in the Bonehoard* and architectural changes. And bug fixes, of course. The first of the new levels (Thieves' Guild) is a large sprawling underground complex that you WILL get lost in and you WILL be struggling to complete all the objectives on Expert the first time round. The other two are seperate levels for two of the elemental keys, a Mage's Guild that has a heavy emphasis on the four elements, complete with puzzles and some platforming, and then an opera house. The opera house is sheer brilliance through and through, while the Mage's Guild reminds me a bit too much of the 90's adventure games in its logic.

There's also a "blooper reel" of a mission that cannot be accessed by normal means, where you get to see some "behind the scenes" bits of the Dark Engine, like how messing with item parameters can lead to hilarious results, like the Gas Arrows that just sit there in mid-air, or the Fire Arrows that have a blast radius equivalent to the Hiroshima bomb.

If you have the choice of playing either Thief TPD or Thief Gold, I would recommend the Gold Edition, but finding it is a bitch, so some people may be stuck with playing TDP.

Good thing this was released recently then.



* The new enemy type is an unkillable flaming undead. Its addition to the game was so well received that it does not appear in the sequel, nor in any single Thief FM I have ever played. So yeah, Thief Gold is not all smelling of roses.
 

Antagonist

Liturgist
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Okey, downloading now. Damn, looking forward to playing this gem again. I'll also try to hunt down all the patches here unless someone has already the links close-by :wink, wink, nudge, nudge:

EDIT:

@Unkillable Cat

Thanks for the link. At this price I really can't excuse not buying it even if it's just for Thief:Gold. I'll still download it from TBP while waiting for the DVD to arrive. :)
 

MetalCraze

Arcane
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RatFink said:
yep wouldnt say that either but thieves guild mission is a bit tedious

Huh? It's the one with a huge sewer maze right? It was great. Required strong memory and a sharp eye but it was great.

Unkillable Cat said:
* The new enemy type is an unkillable flaming undead. Its addition to the game was so well received that it does not appear in the sequel, nor in any single Thief FM I have ever played. So yeah, Thief Gold is not all smelling of roses.

Flaming undead was an extremely hard bitch to live with yeah.
 
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Nice thread. The Thief Games are indeed aswesome, some of the finest peace of gaming ever. It was not only the superb gameplay and level design. It was everything. I will never forget those awesome cutscenes, this one from Thief 1 still gives me the fucking creeps after all these years. Spoiler alert:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYOeHevFUKI

Personly, I liked Thief 2 TMA more, because it made you feel more like a Thief then TDP. Also, it had :steampunk: .

And I thought Thief 3 was, despite its flaws, a nice ending to the series. Obviously the leveldesign was hampered by retarded x-bawks limitations. Thats a pretty big flaw for a Thief games, but they still managed to design some nice levels. Everything else in this game was well done, the atmosphere was superb. Mind you, it's nowhere near the first two installments, but in no way it was such a failure like say, Deus Ex: IW.
 

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
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Thief 3 was to the originals what the Godfather 3 was to the first two. Passable, could have been worst.
 

SCO

Arcane
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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Melcar said:
I remember the first time I came across zombies. I was sneaking around all :smug: like when suddenly I see this humanoid figure slightly hunched by a door way. I say "oh, a guard" and proceed to blackjack his ass. It was incredibly scary when that fucker turned around and started moaning at me.

First times i encountered haunts, getting the serpentile torc.

:smug: blackjacking guards. Quite the chain mail they have, very noisy.
*boink*
AHAHAHAHSHAHSAAAHAHAHAHA JOIN USSSSS JOIN US NOW!
 

SCO

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The game engine needs to run with core affinity set to one if you have a dual core.

Get and use ddfix (and the official patch for thief 1 and thief 2 (thief gold doesn't need it)).

Beware, there are different patches for different releases. You can get some texture enhancements. I originally played thief gold with the defaults, but the 16 bit textures in the dark ended up tiring my eyes later on.
 

Lyric Suite

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SCO said:
First times i encountered haunts, getting the serpentile torc.

:smug: blackjacking guards. Quite the chain mail they have, very noisy.
*boink*
AHAHAHAHSHAHSAAAHAHAHAHA JOIN USSSSS JOIN US NOW!

Haha, i did the same thing. I had to change my underwear afterward.
 

Calem Ravenna

Scholar
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Messages
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If the game runs, plays the intro videos and doesn't freeze after 2-3 minutes, then no patches or modifications of any kind are needed.

If it doesn't work properly, ttlg forums have a FAQ on how to fix all those issues. Alternatively, get ddfix which seems to fix them all.


Darth Roxor said:
I'm pretty sure The Metal Age has a grand total of two zombies, and they are in the Necromancer's Tower along the Thieves' Highway

There's also one hidden in Truart's mansion and another one in a different mission (can't remember which). There's also the easter egg mentioned.
 

ironyuri

Guest
The Metal Age is one of my favourite games of all time. Much love to Serious Business.

The Thief lore was amazingly well-crafted, the levels so well designed. The continuity between games worked well.

Everything about the Thief series rang of excellent design. Atmospheric to a hilt and it never suffered from too much melodrama. Your missions were properly situated within a narrative so you always felt like you were undertaking something with a purpose, yet inside the missions you could free form to steal loot without worrying about the grander narrative of which they were a part.

The mechanics were brilliant, and the aiming system must have been a precusor to more modern "realism" shooters. The physics involved meant arrows didn't go straight but curved in flight, so aiming required some attention. Lockpicking mini-game worked quite well (to all the haters of minigames gtfo).

Anyway, Thief was one of my formative gaming experiences and has helped to define my tastes in playstyle in alot of other genres as well.
 

poocolator

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Unkillable Cat said:
Turning off the lights is optional.
I play with default gamma settings/slightly adjusted to brighter, and I can't play any of the thief games with any lights on. So, this is a must for me.
Yeah, I played the Cradle in Thief3:DS this way, too. It took me an entire day to muster the courage to beat that fucking shit.

My god was that pleasurable.

I do recommend playing through Thief 3:Deadly Shadows, even though it's reputed to be the worst of the series. I enjoyed it, neverthless. In fact, if you haven't tried any of the thief games, you might want to try thief 3 first, so that your experience with thief 1/2 can only improve ;)
 

MetalCraze

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poocolator said:
I do recommend playing through Thief 3:Deadly Shadows, even though it's reputed to be the worst of the series.

Don't worry. Soon Thief 3 will be one of the best.
 

Darth Roxor

Royal Dongsmith
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Djibouti
Also, I loved the streets of the Old Quarter in TDP when you have to get to the Cathedral. There were so friggin many hidden places there.

like, I remember there was this huge inconspicuous wall somewhere, so I thought 'heck, let's try getting to the other side'. Turned out, that there was some extremely dark, hidden, uh, alley out there, with a single mansion full of haunts and a couple of chests. And as I said, it was... completely dark. Absolutely no torches whatsoever, hell, even raising friggin gamma didn't work.

T'was awesome.


And yeah, get Thief: Gold. I thought all the missions added were p. cool (Opera House was excellent, Thieves' guild was cool, so was the Mages' Guild (those talking statues in the library, WHAT THE FUCK) )
 

Glyphwright

Guest
Thief 3: Deadly Shadows was the most atmospheric, mysterious and mind-blowing part of the entire series. I mean, we barely knew anything about the Keepers from the first two games, and the horrible graphics didn't help. And Garret wielding a sword? Really? It took them two whole games to realize how awkward and inappropriate it looked? If I lived in a perfect world, Garret would have only three weapons: a club, a dagger, and an arm-mounted compact crossbow, like in Deus Ex.

Also, fuck Unkillable Cat. Fuck him/her/it. I played exclusively in Expert mode and have no idea why anyone would choose a lower level of difficulty, with fewer objectives, fewer areas, dumber NPCs, and less incentive to be attentive to loot laying around. I mean, if you can't play the game without being noticed by any human character, there's something severely wrong with you. I never used the club, nor did I find any use for the sword/dagger in any of the three games.
 
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Anyone that tries to turn game difficulty into some issue of sophistication and morality is quite simply the bigger moron than one who insists on lowering the difficulty in games.

That way of thinking is not even slightly compatible with intelligence or rational thinking.

Pathetic.
 

Unkillable Cat

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Excommunicator said:
Anyone that tries to turn game difficulty into some issue of sophistication and morality is quite simply the bigger moron than one who insists on lowering the difficulty in games.

Well said. But for my part I'm not insisting on it, merely recommending it.
 
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Indeed, I wasn't directing it at you. It was a comparison of those who hold onto difficulty level as some kind of affirmation of their own superiority versus those who insist the entire game should be easier because they don't want to be seen as someone who only plays on lower difficulties.

The same self insecurity complex exists in both.

Don't die stupid, kids. Repent.
 

Antagonist

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Excommunicator said:
Anyone that tries to turn game difficulty into some issue of sophistication and morality is quite simply the bigger moron than one who insists on lowering the difficulty in games.

It's not about morality. I strongly believe that one gets a worse experience when playing Thief on anything other than expert and since the first time is always the sweetest I also strongly disagree with the notion that one should play on expert the second time around. As I already mentioned, unlike many other games the difficulty in Thief does not just boil down to "enemies need longer to die", the whole game is designed around expert level.
 

Hoaxmetal

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Weird, hadn't used my Thief1 gold installation for two months or so, sound now only works in menu :/
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Talking about difficulty level, I found them to be awesome. Played on normal first, then hard and expert, and I like how it just changes the amount of guards a bit and basically adds new objectives that require more careful and attentive gameplay.

This is how difficulty levels should be made. Not the stupid "enemy got more hp and do more damage lol" that 99.9% of games do nowadays. There is actually a difference in gameplay than merely taking longer to fuck up an enemy.
 

SCO

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Hoaxmetal said:
Weird, hadn't used my Thief1 gold installation for two months or so, sound now only works in menu :/

That is one of the symptoms of the multicore bug. The other is the game hanging, normally when a AI attacks you. Do you have multicore?

(Or wine, to have sound, you have to set sound to emulation instead of "hardware")
 

Glyphwright

Guest
Excommunicator said:
Indeed, I wasn't directing it at you. It was a comparison of those who hold onto difficulty level as some kind of affirmation of their own superiority versus those who insist the entire game should be easier because they don't want to be seen as someone who only plays on lower difficulties.

The same self insecurity complex exists in both.

Don't die stupid, kids. Repent.
Butthurt detected.
 
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Divinity: Original Sin
Aaaah, thief.

I remeber the first time I just tried the demo on a slow computer and I couldn't play it well, so after the first death, I just gave up.

Later, when i got a better computer, without anything new to play, i decided to install some demos from a lot of magazine CDs i had. Then thief demo would run properly and so I loved the game.

I had just graduated and with my first salary I bought thief gold and thief 2 metal age.

That's why I can nevere really classify which one is better, since I played the first game and jumped right to the second, and to me, it just feel like they're just one big game.

And thief 3 has only engine limitations against it and some bad gameplay decisions, but other than that it's the same game and has the same feel of the originals.

there are some mods that make the 3rd more like the originals, but with minimalist mod you have to be careful that it raises the difficulty level to a different way than the originals. But that can be changed in the .ini file, so you still have the "deconsolization" and original difficulties levels.

One thing: I AWAYS played on expert, even on my first playthrough. Difficulty in thief only imposes limitations, like no killing, get more loot. I believe the AI is the same, damage is the same. On expert, you have the true experience of being a thief. It's the proper way to play, and it's not that difficult. And yet, you could technically "kill", since blackjacking an enemy would just invalidade the guy for the whole level. So, you really don't lack any options.

There's just one level in which you can't even blackjacking anyone, but it's on thief 2. And it's great that way.

Other advice: some one said upthere that turning off your lights is optional. In fact, it's not. Turn it off aways. Some levels are very dark, and a lit room may force you to raise your gamma, which breaks atmosphere and feel of the game.

EDIT:

About mods, the enhancement pack only rises the poligons count of jars, cups, chairs, and with installed or not, you hardly notice. I believe some new mods required then to be installed, but some already come with it.

I'd recomend the AI meshes from thief 2 to be installed over thief 1, though. I doesn't change a lot, but it's better on the eyes for someone whom never played.

Going to the difficulty problem: Well, I think someone new can be bored with the game if they play killing everybody. You finish levels faster, get to the objectives, but will miss a lot. You won't feel like a badass thief you're suppose to be.

And yet, you can blackjack everyone on expert, save for some thief 2 missons. And by the time you reach there, you're probably good on the game already.

You can even backstab zombies. Oh, and you CAN kill zombies, since they're already dead. Playing on expert I never had problems with ammo and items. You start the level with enough ammo and items, you can find more on the level, plus you can buy more before entering the mission.

I see no point playing on easier difficulties, most of the surprises and awsome moments happen when on expert.

I had once let an uncouscious body fall underwater in cragscleft prison. The guy died 1 minute afterwards and game over. I didn't realized that he felll on the water, and I was amazed the game recongnized this. If it was on diffcult, the guy would die and I wouldn't notice.

About a new thief or thief clones:

I think the first 3 splinter cells are the closest clone of thief we ever had. Splinter cell was more forgiving, but gameplay mechanics was about the same. It's funny that I played conviction recently, and finish the whole game in ONE day. At the same time, I was replaying splinter cell 1 and even knowing all the background, what to do, it took me two weeks to finish the game. I repleyed conviction and finished it again before that playthrough of SC1.

I believe that if thiaf follows this trend, we're doomed.
 
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Darth Slaughter said:
I think the first 3 splinter cells are the closest clone of thief we ever had. Splinter cell was more forgiving, but gameplay mechanics was about the same.

Sorry dude, but I can't agree with you here. I only played the first Splinter Cell, but it was a huuuuuge dissapointment (back then I was still naive enough to believe that "next-gen" games could be worth a damn). The ULTRA linear level design and the limited possiblities of your character destroyed the game completly.
The game was railroaded like Max Payne, while pretending to be a Thief-inspired stealth game.
 

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