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Thief: The Dark Project turns 25

Will you be (re)playing Thief to celebrate?

  • Yes

  • No


Results are only viewable after voting.

Lemming42

Arcane
Joined
Nov 4, 2012
Messages
6,806
Location
The Satellite Of Love
Cragscleft Prison is one of the best levels ever in a game, can't believe how good it is. So many heartstopping moments during the vaunted no-saving, no-kills, no-blackjacking run.
 

arepo

Novice
Joined
Nov 27, 2019
Messages
16
The most ridiculous thing about The Cradle is that the designers apparently couldn't decide between cliché A, the haunted orphanage, and cliché B, the haunted asylum, so they made the cradle both, simultaneously, although that makes the place and its story look even more illogical and out of place.
 

__scribbles__

Educated
Joined
Jul 5, 2022
Messages
345
Location
The Void
Cragscleft Prison is one of the best levels ever in a game, can't believe how good it is. So many heartstopping moments during the vaunted no-saving, no-kills, no-blackjacking run.
Fantastic how the second real mission in the game is crawling your way through a zombie-infested mine to break into a prison ran by a group of technocratic cultists.

Cragscleft was when I realised that Thief was going to be something else. A masterpiece if ever there was one.
 

NecroLord

Dumbfuck!
Dumbfuck
Joined
Sep 6, 2022
Messages
14,417
Cragscleft Prison is one of the best levels ever in a game, can't believe how good it is. So many heartstopping moments during the vaunted no-saving, no-kills, no-blackjacking run.
Cragscleft can be a seriously nasty mission on Expert, especially if played for the first time.
There is little room for error, as the Hammerites patrol near constantly and there are alarms that can be triggered by them and make the whole damn prison go nuts.
I like the Bonehoard better though. A great and atmospheric dungeon crawling experience.
 

jaekl

CHUD LIFE
Patron
Joined
May 1, 2023
Messages
1,556
Location
Canada
I've been playing thief since I was a small child, I remember it had a big pyramid box which caught my eye at the game store. Probably played through the first 2 games about 20 times each. My favorite move is opening a door, chucking landmines in and closing it. Popping out around corners and shooting rocket arrows like medieval Rambo rules as well. Oh and finding a spot where the guards can't hit you and pelting them to death with broadheads... torturing the doofus guards never gets old.

My favorite level is the one where you wear a disguise in the hammerite compound. No idea how it's supposed to go because I always get caught pretty much immediately and it becomes a hectic sword/bow/gadget battle with hordes of fanatics. Then I strut out the front door with a bag of holy loot, passing an enormous pile of neatly stacked hammerite corpses. Wouldn't have it any other way.
 

Gahbreeil

Scholar
Joined
Feb 9, 2021
Messages
1,025
Location
Asarlaíocht
Actually, since the poster above mentioned what makes Thief good for the aforementioned poster...

I dig the snatching of an item, the theft. It's just so good. I wish Assassin's Creed was a Thief game with a choice of going FPP/TPP whenever you want to.
 

Latro

Arcane
Joined
Jun 5, 2013
Messages
7,382
Location
Vita umbratilis
Thief 1 is a masterpiece. Thief 2 demonstrated why the horror/tomb raiding was necessary to break the monotony of plain stealth in the original. Thief 2 still has Trail of Blood which I think is an amazing level tho
 

Beastro

Arcane
Joined
May 11, 2015
Messages
9,330
Location
where east is west
Found it one a disc of demos and fell in love with it. Played the hell out of that first level until I wound up playing it just for the combat and trying to survive with every guard in the level aggroed on me.

Only complaint was, between the family comp being in the living room backlit by the kitchen and how old our CRT was even with max lighting, it was rough to see around.
 
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JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2007
Messages
34,327
Location
KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Thief 1 or 2 Jarlo what you say?
I used to prefer Thief 2 but grew to prefer Thief 1. My huge amount of played FMs probably contributed to that somewhat.

Thief 2 is more consistent in quality and style. Most missions are heists, and decently executed. There are some worse missions towards the end but I don't hate them as much as T1's worst missions. The problem is that some of the missions will start feeling samey, and they lack the unique character of T1. There are plenty of fan missions that perfected the mansion heist and city rooftops, so T2's vanilla missions are eclipsed by what the community made.

Thief 1 has higher highs and lower lows, but everything is memorable. It never becomes samey, unlike T2. Its most iconic missions are so unique that fan missions can never surpass, only imitate them. How do you surpass something as unique as The Sword? Cragscleft and Bonehoard are my favorite missions in the official games, just pure excellence. Sadly the last couple missions - Escape and Strange Bedfellows - weren't fun to me at all.

Both are excellent games, but Thief 1 has more pure, raw soul.
 

Grampy_Bone

Arcane
Joined
Jan 25, 2016
Messages
3,940
Location
Wandering the world randomly in search of maps
I played the heck out of Thief 1 back in the day, got into fan missions for awhile, and then just stopped and lost interest. I think the last few times I tried to play it I gave up sometime during the Ancient city mission or the Cathedral. No maps always bugged me.

Thief 2 was the sequel we thought we wanted but really didn't. I recall being bothered by the no-kill requirements (on harder difficulties), robots are annoying, levels were overly gigantic. Soulforge was a cool final level though.
 

Melcar

Arcane
Joined
Oct 20, 2008
Messages
36,484
Location
Merida, again
I still got my original Thief CD and manual, but I mostly just replay Thief Gold and TDM. The first Thief is among my favorite all time games. Nothing after that came close in the genre. I like blackjacking people and throwing them down sewers.
 

Unkillable Cat

LEST WE FORGET
Patron
Joined
May 13, 2009
Messages
28,497
Codex 2014 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy
My favorite level is the one where you wear a disguise in the hammerite compound. No idea how it's supposed to go because I always get caught pretty much immediately and it becomes a hectic sword/bow/gadget battle with hordes of fanatics. Then I strut out the front door with a bag of holy loot, passing an enormous pile of neatly stacked hammerite corpses. Wouldn't have it any other way.
The last time I played through that mission, I learned that the critter AI is coded to scan its environment for missing (loot) items as it moves about its patrol route. If it finds something missing, it would run and raise the alarm. (This may be accomplished in a different manner than I describe, but the end result is the same.)

The thing is, that particular mission is the only instance in Thief 1 and 2 where it's used. Even the Fan Missions seem to steer clear of it for some reason.

It is possible that this happened during that playthrough I was testing an 'advanced AI'-mod where everything and everyone got super sensitive, which would explain a great many things.

In general though, the best way to clear this mission is to secretly knock out all the Hammerites before touching any loot. That way there isn't anyone around to sound the alarm...
 

NecroLord

Dumbfuck!
Dumbfuck
Joined
Sep 6, 2022
Messages
14,417
In general though, the best way to clear this mission is to secretly knock out all the Hammerites before touching any loot. That way there isn't anyone around to sound the alarm...
It's what I always do.
There's way too many Hammerites as it is and they all will be after your blood after you steal the Air Talisman and the alarm triggers.
 

octavius

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 4, 2007
Messages
19,662
Location
Bjørgvin
Thief 2 was the sequel we thought we wanted but really didn't. I recall being bothered by the no-kill requirements (on harder difficulties), robots are annoying, levels were overly gigantic. Soulforge was a cool final level though.
The problem with T2 is that the robots are more cute than scary. Can't say that about the Zombies and Haunts in T1.
 
Joined
Feb 19, 2005
Messages
4,627
Strap Yourselves In Codex+ Now Streaming!
I know I‘m preaching to the choir here, but I think it‘s worth emphasizing just how good the story, world-building and writing is in Thief, additionally to the the great gameplay. The cutscenes are some of my favorite in any game. The one where Constantine reveals himself as the Trickster and takes Garrett‘s eye still creeps me out every time i watch it.
 

NecroLord

Dumbfuck!
Dumbfuck
Joined
Sep 6, 2022
Messages
14,417
Personally, I prefer The Haunted Cathedral/Return to the Cathedral over Robbing the Cradle, but maybe that's just me.
The ghost of Brother Murus having you pick up items for him never bothered me all that much.
 

Nano

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 6, 2016
Messages
4,817
Grab the Codex by the pussy Strap Yourselves In Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is.
Personally, I prefer The Haunted Cathedral/Return to the Cathedral over Robbing the Cradle, but maybe that's just me.
The ghost of Brother Murus having you pick up items for him never bothered me all that much.
The thing is that up to that point, the mission design and atmosphere in this game was so immaculate. And then out of nowhere Casper the Retarded Ghost comes out and gives you the most generic and banal of fetch quests in the middle of what's supposed to be an atmospheric horror level. It just feels like the designers are taking the piss out of me.

I'd legitimately prefer playing Escape or even Strange Bedfellows, at least those quests don't feel like they're making an effort to waste my time.
 

Lemming42

Arcane
Joined
Nov 4, 2012
Messages
6,806
Location
The Satellite Of Love
I think the problem with a couple of the supernatural/horror levels is that they sort of start to guide you away from stealth. You can stealth Haunted Cathedral but after a certain amount of backtracking and searching around it becomes way too tempting to just kill most of the enemies*, which is fairly easy and after which the tension (which, at the start of the level, is superb) dissolves entirely. Escape! is probably the worst for it, I don't even think they really intended you to sneak through that one.

*or worse, do what many players end up doing and just bunnyhopping past them, turning the game into a farce
 

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