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StickySweater
Feb 7, 2008
:siren: UPDATE: For details on the new Thief (2014), skip ahead to the more recent posts.



Welcome to what I believe is SA's first Thief Thread. The trilogy of games has just recently become widely available on digital distribution services. Since a lot of people have been picking up the games in holiday sales, it seems like a good time to discuss them. At the very least, it'll be good to have one place where the best Theif resources can be referenced.


So what is Thief?
The original Thief was released by Looking Glass Studios in November 1998. It was one of the earliest games emphasizing stealth, coming out about three months after the original Metal Gear Solid. It features a light and dark mechanic that allows players to tell how exposed they are to passing guards. Sound is also an important factor, with the proximity and intensity of certain sounds raising the awareness of guards by a varying amount. If Splinter Cell is supposed to be realistic stealth and Metal Gear is "action stealth," then Thief is the best of both worlds, allowing the player to advance as they see fit.

Many Thief missions will have you robbing cathedrals, mansions, citadels and crypts. Many have multiple entry points and once inside, you can proceed toward your objectives in different ways. It's very much like Deus Ex in that it allows you to a number of different paths toward your objective, more so than simple violence or stealth.

Currently the series is a trilogy, Thief: The Dark Project (1998), Thief II: The Metal Age (2000) and Thief: Deadly Shadows (2004). A reboot titled "Thief" (2014) is out Feb 25, 2014, but early impressions are not favorable (skip ahead to the end of the thread for more on this).


What's so great about a 16 year old game?
For me, it's the setting and story. Thief takes place in a unique mix of dark-fantasy and the early Industrial Revolution. Elements of Steampunk are occasionally introduced as well, especially in the second game, but don't worry, its use is very modest. You won't see many giant mechanical spiders or other Wild Wild West influences here. Wikipedia defines it as "a cross between the Late Middle Ages and the Victorian era, with more advanced technologies interspersed."

You play as Garrett, a thief . He's a bit of an anti-hero, but not in the Wolverine sort of way. He's more of the quiet, occasionally smart-alecky type. He was raised by a mysterious group called the Keepers. By the time the first game begins, Garrett has left the group and gone independent. Like the the company's other brands (Ultima Underworld, System Shock), story is key. Reading is encouraged (although usually not essential) and can help players learn more about the world.

Moody cutscenes greet the player before every mission. For example, here's the cinematic for the first mission: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnITr3sv0Pc

Need more convincing? Just watch this then.


Where can I get the games?
Both GOG.com and Steam have all three games. Steam currently has all three on sale for $5.99 each. Of course, there's always boxed copies available as well. (As a side note, all digital version have Thief Gold, which includes three extra levels. There are other changes, but I've never played the original so I can't comment on them.)


So what should I do to make this work and keep it from looking like rear end?
Yes, vanilla Thief 1 and 2 have not aged well, with its 800x600 maximum resolution, no widescreen support and low-res textures, but unlike most games from this era, thanks to a super active fan community it's super easy to fix this! These two patches below have come out within the last few months and make it much easier than previous installs.


For Thief 1 and Thief Gold:
TFix_1.18 - This is the main file you will need. It comes with its own installer which allows you to pick and choose upgrades. It includes:
- widescreen support
- custom resolutions
- sky and water upgrades
- upgraded textures and models
- some bug fixes
- click the link for a more detailed list.

Thief Gold HD Texture Mod - This mod is pretty new and is currently receiving regular updates. I haven't tried it yet, but I hear it works with TFix. Currently only works for Thief 1 as far as I know.

For Thief II: The Metal Age:
TafferPatcher TMA 2.1.2 Beta: This works in a similar fashion, upgrading a number of different items with its own installer, again, allowing you to pick and choose upgrades. It includes:
- The unofficial 1.19 patch which removes all of the issues with modern hardware, including widescreen support, multicore support, triple monitor support, and a ton of other fixes.
- It also improves texture resolutions
- Improved sky and water
- More in the link.




What about Thief: Deadly Shadows (Thief 3)?
It uses the same engine that Deus Ex: Invisible War used and suffers from some of the same problems, although not as bad. It suffers from consolization, back when that word carried with it a lot of venom (justifiably in my view).

Before trying anything else, consider giving Theif 3 Gold Beta a shot. It's new, so I haven't tried it yet. Additional changes will be added soon, but here's what they have so far:

TTLG posted:

This version has the following "features":
- No loading zones or blue fog in all nine proper missions (excl. the Inn tutorial)
- Re-designed transition zones (as faithful to the game as possible)
- Various fixes of broken/incomplete patrols, missing shadow-casting, un-ghostable AI positions
- Fixed Keeper enforcers, especially on HARD/EXPERT
- Reduced ambient fog
- Removed transition zone symbol from hand-drawn maps
- From the Sneaky Upgrade side the game was tweaked to allow slightly larger maps (content-wise) which was necessary for the Cradle and Museum maps

The Thief 3 Sneaky Upgrade adds widescreen and FOV support. It should also fix most of the performance or hardware issues you have. Like the links above for T1 and T2, this one comes with an installer.

The Minimalist 1.4.1 mod also looks very promising, altering some of the odd design choices made in T3. You should read the notes in their entirety and make sure you're OK with the changes. It also seems to make some pretty significant changes to the difficulty. If you want to change the difficulty back to something more manageable, open the DEFAULT.ini and change the values.

John P.'s Collective Texture Pack 1.0.3 A high resolution texture pack. Installer included. Seems to work OK, but may interfere with some of the other patches like Minimalist. Use common sense when deciding which features to install.

You can view a very lenghty tweek guide here. This should allow you to make all sorts of gameplay changes. Most of the other options seem to require more trouble than they are worth, but you'll need to experiment. Other posters may have better advice.


Fan missions?
Quality fan missions and mods are plentiful. Here are a few:

- Thief II: Shadows of the Metal Age is a mod for Thief II that creates a whole new campaign, complete with intro-movies, art, new characters, etc. Upon its release, it was considered extremely ambitious. Trailer here.
- The Circle of Stone and Shadow is an in-progress Theif II mod with some maps already released, again, complete with introductory cinematics. Impressive trailer here and a Lets Play here.
- The Dark Mod is a total conversion for Doom 3 that recreates the Thief feel in a modern engine. Apparently it's pretty good.
- ThiefMissions.com appears to be the most comprehensive Thief fan missions website. Its not pretty, but it does provide the ability to search by game, rating, name and size. Reading this you'll get a good idea of exactly how big the Thief community is. It's BIG.
- From the TTLG forums, Upcoming missions that are under development. Still being updated as recently as this month. Fan missions by type including by most recommended. Also, there's this if you need help loading fan missions.


Other resources?
The best site for Thief related stuff is this forum dedicated to Looking Glass games and other similarly immersive series like Stalker and Deus Ex. The Thief Wiki is good too, but inevitably is going to have some spoilers, so beware. The Steam Forums have a section for Thief as well, like this tweek guide, but beware, some of these links are outdated. There are much easier ways to patch these games up. Here is GOG.com's Thief series forum. Finally, Here's an odd little thread that accumulates a sort of "best of" thread discussions on Thief.


Technical Problems?
If you're having trouble getting something to work, chances are someone has already encountered that problem, so search around or post here. Also, make sure your saves are actually saving once you begin a new game, otherwise you'll find yourself very upset once you die 30 minutes into a level. If they aren't saving, it's probably because its a write protected folder. Either run the game as administrator, or install to a location not write protected.

EDIT:
- Added missing link to TafferPatcher.
- Added High Resolution Texture mod (T3) and info about difficulty customization for T3.
- Added link to Thief Gold HD.
- Updated version numbers.
- Added info about Theif 3 Gold Beta.
- Some info about T4. Other changes.

StickySweater fucked around with this message at 06:03 on Apr 6, 2014

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An Actual Bear
Feb 15, 2012


Incredible games. I played them for the first time this year (in fact I beat Deadly Shadows a few days ago) and was astonished at how well they held up. Although I'm massively in the minority in that my favourite is the original and my least favourite is the 2nd. Contrary to popular opinion I loved fighting enemies like the Hammer Haunts and Zombies, although it could have done with a few more missions against regular humans just for balancing reasons really. The 2nd game takes this too far though, I struggle to remember half of the missions from it.

StickySweater
Feb 7, 2008
Just found this QuakeCon 2012 panel on Looking Glass Studios (System Shock, Thief, etc), which went out of business in 2000. Lots of big names came from Looking Glass and you'll no doubt recognize some of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1zTTNBwZiY

Lt. Danger
Dec 22, 2006

jolly good chaps we sure showed the hun

An Actual Bear posted:

The 2nd game takes this too far though, I struggle to remember half of the missions from it.

As I heard, with the second game they designed the missions first, then wrote the story to fit (kind of explains the disjointed narrative of the first half or so). I agree the mission quality ended up more variable - sometimes, it's Life of the Party, and sometimes it's Casing the Joint.

Recommended reading:

Doug the Eagle's anti-walkthrough
Thief: The Dark Project - Guide to the Strange and Unusual

texting my ex
Nov 15, 2008

I am no one
I cannot squat
It's in my blood
For anyone on the edge of getting only the first two games, or all three I'd say get all three. The third game is a worthy successor to the series, comparable to what Human Revolution was to Deus ex. A few minor gameplay tweaks, but the core of the game is intact.

First game is still my favorite of the series. It features the biggest levels which you can get completely lost in. And obviously it has the best level of the series, The Haunted Cathedral. I still haven't mustered the courage to completely check out the flooded basement.

SNARF SNARF SNARF
Apr 23, 2012
i don't understand what you're talking about, but it makes me mad as hell! Listen to me, as I spout gibberish, and know that I. I am MAD. :mad:
I was bored to tears by the third game. The disjointed areas, the lovely plot, the loving atrocious city sandbox which was a huge chore to explore, the uninspired levels, how streamlined the gameplay felt even with some cool additions and change to the mechanics. There were like two good missions in that entire game, and one of them was good purely because its an amazing horror level (That and the Hotel level at Masquerade still are the most memorable moments in videogames I have ever experienced)

The second one was really good and took a lot of what was good from the first game and improved it, however, a big problem I had with it was that we lost on good exploration areas, I realize a lot of people enjoy the Thief series to be, well, a stealthy thief infiltrating a house stealing and running away, but I really enjoyed the Tomb Raider levels Thief 1 had too.

Thief 1 was great and I still play it once in 2 years or so, its great fun.

One thing I have to say is that every single game of the Thief series has an unfun last level that throws everything good about the games away and is a chore, hopefully that'll be fixed in Thief 4, if that ever comes to life.

Edit: Oh, by the way, this is about the fifth Thief nostalgia thread we've ever had, not counting the Thief 3 official thread way back.

Ravenfood
Nov 4, 2011
Thief 3 is worth it for the Shalebridge Cradle. Other than that, its a relatively uninteresting addition to the series that could safely be ignored.

CharlesDexterWard
Apr 25, 2012
Thief 3 was my first Thief game. I didn't have a computer when I grew up so I didn't have access to Thief 1 or 2. I absolutely loved Thief 3 back in the day and would probably spend hours in the hub areas once I got to the end game messing around with the end game changes.

I made up for not playing Thief 1 and 2 by playing them a couple of years ago and absolutely loved them. This year I replayed Thief 1 and Thief 2 and they still hold up. Despite the aging graphics the gameplay and atmosphere is spot on.

TerminalSaint
Apr 21, 2007


Where must we go...

we who wander this Wasteland in search of our better selves?
I'm surprised there hasn't been a Thief thread before. This is one of my favorite game series, and Garrett is one of my favorite anti-heroes in any medium. Honestly the thing that has me most excited about Bioshock Infinite is that the protagonist is voiced by Stephen Russell who did an amazing job as Garrett.

Playing the Thief series has had a significant impact on my playstyle in a lot of games since, specifically the "You're a thief, not a murderer" bit. It's the main reason I've done no-kill runs in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and most recently Dishonored, which cribs heavily from Thief, and has a reference or two thrown in for good measure.

For my money, Looking Glass produced some of the best games ever made, and it was a shame to see them close their doors.

Fruits of the sea
Dec 1, 2010

Skilleddk posted:

First game is still my favorite of the series. It features the biggest levels which you can get completely lost in. And obviously it has the best level of the series, The Haunted Cathedral. I still haven't mustered the courage to completely check out the flooded basement.

Thief still has the most terrifying zombies in any game. It also has some absolutely bananas level design. The Bonehoard, and Constantine's Sword are good examples. Not only are the levels huge and sprawling, but they subvert the normal flow of rooms and corridors that you get in most games. Surfaces are sloping and uneven, spaces alternate between being wide open and incredibly claustrophobic and vertical spaces can be traversed almost as easily as the horizontal. It all contributes to creating a weird sense of unease. If you've ever had to camp out on a mountain, you'll know what I'm talking about. There's something very strange about an environment that's missing the flat surfaces and 90 degree angles that we spend most of our time in.

I think most games these days eschew that kind of detailed level design. There's a focus on adding detailed textures and shaders, which looks great, but takes up a lot of memory, leading to smaller, less grandiose level design. That's not necessarily a bad thing depending on the game though. I remember being lost for hours in the Bonehoard. If it was an fps, and not an exploration-based stealth game, I would have promptly quit and looked back. Still, I wish more developers took inspiration from Thief. It's 2012, and we're still running endlessly through the same corridors and randomly generated wilderness, just with bigger textures.

StickySweater
Feb 7, 2008

Lt. Danger posted:

As I heard, with the second game they designed the missions first, then wrote the story to fit (kind of explains the disjointed narrative of the first half or so). I agree the mission quality ended up more variable - sometimes, it's Life of the Party, and sometimes it's Casing the Joint.

The mission I really welcomed in Thief 2 was the bank heist mission. Citadels and cathedrals are all well and good, but that was one of the big things missing from T1. There's nothing quite as intimidating (and important for a thief) as a classic big bank heist. Couple that with some interesting internal squabbles and social commentary and you have a pretty good level. I only wish there'd been even more loot scattered about. It seems like that should be the biggest haul Garret ever brings in. It's actually third after Life of the Party (2853) and Casing the Joint (2685), which considering the setting at least makes some sense.

Shart Carbuncle
Aug 4, 2004

Star Trek:
The Motion Picture
I loved the bank level as well. It felt really cool to go straight where the money is.

Shipping and Receiving made a huge impression on me. It seemed like a functional place, rather than a level in a game, something which the Thief games are very good at when they're at their best.

The first game is better at giving me the willies, but the second has more places that I actually want to poke around in. Down in the Bonehoard… I just want to get out ASAP, whereas in the more substantial Thief II levels, I want to see every nook and cranny. They're both great sensations that I wish more games facilitated so well.

:frogsiren: edit:

If you give a poo poo about these games, you should listen to this podcast series: http://gambit.mit.edu/updates/audio/looking_glass_studios_podcast/

Shart Carbuncle fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Dec 26, 2012

StickySweater
Feb 7, 2008
For the next 8 hours, you can get all three Thief games for $6.74 on Steam.

Mystic Stylez
Dec 19, 2009

All those patches and levels work normally with the Steam versions or should I get the GOG ones?

3 Stacked Midgets
Jul 29, 2004
Triple Threat
Also recommended reading: feature on the Life of the Party level from Thief 2.

I also disagree with the technology trade-offs that developers have made since Thief 2. I could see it taking another five years before we see another game that features the kind of immersive level design from this game series.

If people are still writing essays about a level ten years later, there's a good chance that it's worth examining what made these games great.

Hank Morgan
Jun 17, 2007

Light Along the Inverse Curve.

VisAbsoluta posted:

All those patches and levels work normally with the Steam versions or should I get the GOG ones?

Yeah they work just fine since they are just .exe replacements plus data files.



3 Stacked Midgets posted:

Also recommended reading: feature on the Life of the Party level from Thief 2.

I also disagree with the technology trade-offs that developers have made since Thief 2. I could see it taking another five years before we see another game that features the kind of immersive level design from this game series.

If people are still writing essays about a level ten years later, there's a good chance that it's worth examining what made these games great.

Considering how evil a program DromED is I have nothing but respect for anyone who can wrangle together a great Thief level.

Hank Morgan fucked around with this message at 23:15 on Dec 26, 2012

coyo7e
Aug 23, 2007

by zen death robot
No "taffer" in thread title, thread is doomed to failure.

Party Plane Jones
Jul 1, 2007

by Reene
Fun Shoe
Just a note: The Thief 2 Demo is actually a wholly different (beta) version of Life of the Party. Might be worth checking out.

Boogle
Sep 1, 2004

Nap Ghost

StickySweater posted:

Moody cutscenes greet the player before every mission. For example, here's the cinematic for the first mission: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnITr3sv0Pc

Need more convincing? Just watch this then.

I prefer this version of the first briefing. :v:

User0015
Nov 24, 2007

Please don't talk about your sexuality unless it serves the ~narrative~!

TerminalSaint posted:

Playing the Thief series has had a significant impact on my playstyle in a lot of games since, specifically the "You're a thief, not a murderer" bit. It's the main reason I've done no-kill runs in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and most recently Dishonored, which cribs heavily from Thief, and has a reference or two thrown in for good measure.

I think part of the reason Thief has become such a classic is primarily this right here. Games coming out around that time were all normal FPS'. Quake, Half life, etc... And here comes an FPS where killing on higher difficulties is strictly forbidden. Before Thief, "first person" was synonymous with "shooter", and mostly still is. Deus Ex bucked the trend somewhat, but Thief was one of the few games I'd ever played that was first person, but directly forbid you from harming people. Thief (and Deus Ex) essentially created a completely new gameplay style. Not only allowing you to engage opponents without being lethal, but strictly expecting you to do so, and in first person.

The cutscenes were also fascinating to watch when I was younger. The different text and voice over was part of my favorite thing about the game. The only other game that really hit me with its voice over cutscenes was Myth (which is also a Classic).

Fruits of the sea
Dec 1, 2010

Thief inspired me to tranquilize targets in Hitman and toss their unconscious bodies off the nearest building/cliff. :smugdog:

Enos Shenk
Nov 3, 2011


Definately pick the pack up on Steam since it's on sale. Such a fantastic series of games...

Looking Glass was one of the first game companies to really focus on the importance of sound design in games. Half of the reason some of the more unnerving levels were so scary was the devilishly good sound quality. And the cutscene style is still one of my favorites of any games. The style they pulled off with everything looking like paintings in motion is incredible.

I don't understand people saying Deadly Shadows wasn't as good though. The first missions are pretty dull, I agree with that. But once the plot really ramps up to a good clip I thought it was definately a worthy successor to the series. The Shalebridge Cradle was easily the high point, but I enjoyed the rest of the game just as much.

A fun fact, Steven Russel, Garret's voice actor, did voices for a couple characters in the Thieves Guild in Skyrim as well. He does a fantastic job with the Guild leader, and also a random thief that hangs around the headquarters. The funny part is he just flat out does the Garret voice for the random mook.

Hank Morgan
Jun 17, 2007

Light Along the Inverse Curve.

And linked to this is a panel from QuakeCon discussing Looking Glass. I don't think they ever made a game that didn't totally suck me in. Even their biggest commercial flop Terra Nova was an absolute classic. I mean look at this list of their PC releases:

Ultima Underworld 1 & 2
System Shock & System Shock 2 (developed by Irrational)
Flight Unlimited 1*,2 & 3
Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri
British Open Championship Golf*
Thief 1 & 2

*I've never played their golf game or Flight 1 though so I have no idea how good or bad it they are but Flight 1 was a pretty well regarded I think.

And here is Tribe. A band comprised of some prominent LGS devs from the early 90s including the voice actress of Shodan

Fortuitous Bumble
Jan 5, 2007

I gave Thief a try and I'm not sure if it's better to just play through on the higher difficulty levels, I did the first mission on normal but I was kind of pissed that it ended before I could even make an escape. It look like it's kind of like Perfect Dark where higher difficulties have more objectives.

Ravenfood
Nov 4, 2011

Fortuitous Bumble posted:

I gave Thief a try and I'm not sure if it's better to just play through on the higher difficulty levels, I did the first mission on normal but I was kind of pissed that it ended before I could even make an escape. It look like it's kind of like Perfect Dark where higher difficulties have more objectives.
Ohhhh yeah. You'd better believe it.

magimix
Dec 31, 2003

MY FAT WAIFU!!! :love:
She's fetish efficient :3:

Nap Ghost
After doing three back-to-back playthroughs of Dishonored, and still being hungry for more stealth, it was drat handy for Steam to have a flash-sale on the Thgief games :dance:

As bought from Steam, Thief Gold absolutely refused to play ball, but became more cooperative once I'd put in the latest version of DDFIX. Hell, I even found some re-encoded versions of the cutscenes so I could those in-game without needing to trust dusty old codec packs.

There is one wrinkle, alas[1]; the gamma settings are all messed up - deepest, darkest shadows appearing perfectly well lit, and the like. By default, DDFIX's config has gamma correction enabled, but changing the correction value (be it ingame, or directly in the config) appears to have no impact.

If it comes to it, I'll just adjust system-wide, or my monitor's, settings, but on the off chance, has anyone else run into this gamma-correction issue, and know of a fix? I've had no luck finding any useful leads on the TTLG forums, or elsewhere, so far.

[1] Aside from default key-bindings that tie my fingers in knots! :haw:

happyhippy
Feb 21, 2005

Playing games, watching movies, owning goons. 'sup
Pillbug
Posted this in the last Thief thread, still pissed off they half ruined Thief 3 by doing a quick console money grab on it.
No rope arrows and butchered maps to fix the xbox memory limitations at the time. :dogout:

Only thing that saved it was the story line and the Cradle.

Ramagamma
Feb 2, 2008

by FactsAreUseless
The only thing I'll ever tell anyone about the Thief series is just loving play Thief 3, don't read about it lest you do what I do and let several years of build up ruin a little level called the Cradle which everyone twitters on about. I think I literally expected a Freddy Kruger glove to escape the screen and castrate me after all I'd read and I ended up a little disappointed. Apart from that it's my favourite PC gaming series.

Edit: Forgot to mention, I bought up the steam bundle last night, I already own all the games physically but I might lose those discs one day, they deserve to be on my steam list dammit. I might have to go back and start re-playing them tonight because playing Dishonored just inevitably makes me want to murder everyone, it's far less time consuming and stressful with those sweet blink powers.

Ramagamma fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Dec 27, 2012

Fintilgin
Sep 29, 2004

Fintilgin sweeps!

SNARF SNARF SNARF posted:

I was bored to tears by the third game. The disjointed areas, the lovely plot, the loving atrocious city sandbox which was a huge chore to explore, the uninspired levels, how streamlined the gameplay felt even with some cool additions and change to the mechanics. There were like two good missions in that entire game, and one of them was good purely because its an amazing horror level (That and the Hotel level at Masquerade still are the most memorable moments in videogames I have ever experienced)

Yeah, it had some bright points, and it was no Invisible War, but it fell well short of the first two games.

Even though I thought Human Revolution was a pretty good successor to Deus Ex, I'm not letting myself hold out much hope for Thief 4. I'm just certain that there's going to be a much stronger focus on action and ~Extreme Stealth Kills~. :smith:

As long as I can ghost the game with no kills, no knockouts, and no spottings though I'll be willing to accept the game without cursing. I'm not expecting the sort of big amazing, non-linear levels I really liked from the first two games though. Those big explorable spaces are part of what makes Thief so great. If we're sneaking through a series of loosely open but still linear hallways like much of Human Revolution, I'm going to be pretty sad.

Give me Life of the Party, Shipping and Receiving, or the Bank or get the gently caress out. :mad:

coyo7e
Aug 23, 2007

by zen death robot

Fortuitous Bumble posted:

I gave Thief a try and I'm not sure if it's better to just play through on the higher difficulty levels, I did the first mission on normal but I was kind of pissed that it ended before I could even make an escape. It look like it's kind of like Perfect Dark where higher difficulties have more objectives.
On the highest difficulty you can't kill any humanoids (although, iirc, leading them into monsters works fine,) so you may want to go through on the next to highest first, so you won't have to reload when you gently caress up and drop someone into a pool or off a wall, or just shoot them in the head.

It's worth to playthroughs, just don't try to 100% it on the first play.

happyhippy posted:

Posted this in the last Thief thread, still pissed off they half ruined Thief 3 by doing a quick console money grab on it.
No rope arrows and butchered maps to fix the xbox memory limitations at the time. :dogout:

Only thing that saved it was the story line and the Cradle.
And it was in loving Third Person.

Party Plane Jones
Jul 1, 2007

by Reene
Fun Shoe
There's actually a way around the whole no-killing thing: full speed hammerite hammers to the solar plexus usually kill guards without much issue and don't trigger a Game Over.

Sexpansion
Mar 22, 2003

DELETED
Thief 3 is good. Not nearly as good as one or two but a pretty good game on its own right.

This is coming from someone who counts the second game as one of the five best games ever made.

coyo7e
Aug 23, 2007

by zen death robot

Party Plane Jones posted:

There's actually a way around the whole no-killing thing: full speed hammerite hammers to the solar plexus usually kill guards without much issue and don't trigger a Game Over.
You mean picking them up and tossing them? New players may not understand what you're referring to.

It's also the cheatiest way to deal with enemies that I can think of, on the higher difficulty.

Party Plane Jones
Jul 1, 2007

by Reene
Fun Shoe

coyo7e posted:

It's also the cheatiest way to deal with enemies that I can think of, on the higher difficulty.

You can open up one of the cfg files (Dark.cfg from what I recall) and add a line that removes the no-kill gameovers while still allowing you to play on the higher difficulties which is a bit cheatier.

coyo7e
Aug 23, 2007

by zen death robot
I don't think of hacking ini files to remove basic difficulty settings because I'm not 12 years old any more. I outgrew the need to cheat, aside from the occasional glitch etc that's in-game and possibly fun to use on its own. Throwing hammers gets old really quickly. :(

Hank Morgan
Jun 17, 2007

Light Along the Inverse Curve.

magimix posted:

After doing three back-to-back playthroughs of Dishonored, and still being hungry for more stealth, it was drat handy for Steam to have a flash-sale on the Thgief games :dance:

As bought from Steam, Thief Gold absolutely refused to play ball, but became more cooperative once I'd put in the latest version of DDFIX. Hell, I even found some re-encoded versions of the cutscenes so I could those in-game without needing to trust dusty old codec packs.

There is one wrinkle, alas[1]; the gamma settings are all messed up - deepest, darkest shadows appearing perfectly well lit, and the like. By default, DDFIX's config has gamma correction enabled, but changing the correction value (be it ingame, or directly in the config) appears to have no impact.

If it comes to it, I'll just adjust system-wide, or my monitor's, settings, but on the off chance, has anyone else run into this gamma-correction issue, and know of a fix? I've had no luck finding any useful leads on the TTLG forums, or elsewhere, so far.

[1] Aside from default key-bindings that tie my fingers in knots! :haw:

From the sounds of it you haven't tried the 1.13 patches that came out recently. They don't need DDFix to be in place anymore so maybe that will work for you.

Fortuitous Bumble
Jan 5, 2007

Thief kept crashing on my system and apparently not playing any videos until I downloaded the TFix thing from here: http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134733


It said something about improving some textures and models too, I don't know what the difference is but I just installed everything and it looks decent to me and runs perfectly with all the movies playing and everything.

Dr Snofeld
Apr 30, 2009

coyo7e posted:

And it was in loving Third Person.

Well then press the first person button. Problem solved.

Honestly, Thief 3 is well worth playing, all of its problems are the fault of the lovely hacked-together Frankenstein engine that the devs got saddled with, it's still Thief deep down.

The_Franz
Aug 8, 2003

Dr Snofeld posted:

Honestly, Thief 3 is well worth playing, all of its problems are the fault of the lovely hacked-together Frankenstein engine that the devs got saddled with, it's still Thief deep down.

That, and they were targeting the Xbox which only had 64 megs of RAM.

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TerminalSaint
Apr 21, 2007


Where must we go...

we who wander this Wasteland in search of our better selves?

Dr Snofeld posted:

Well then press the first person button. Problem solved.

I'd forgotten that it even had third person until he mentioned it.

On an unrelated note, I just remembered that my copy of The Dark Project was effectively stolen from a friend (he lent it to me and I never remembered to give it back).

So meta. :cool:

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