/vr/ - Retro Games

>>8280120
dev cycles are imperfect, there are cases where devs either just made blatant errors they couldn't fix before the cashflow ran out or certain things became apparent after years of vanilla that they weren't able to grasp about the concept in the support window. With a very critical eye some mods are justifiable.

>>8280218
also if you're going to play thief gold at a minimum you need to get a mod that restores lost city, it's the one level in gold that gets changed to a point where it ruins the original design.

>>8280120
bug fixes - yeah
gameplay changes - no

I never use mods on a first playthrough unless I'm convinced that I wont be able to enjoy the game without them. In most cases though, if a game is not enjoyable without mods, then it's probably not worth my time to begin with.

>>8280232
>at a minimum you need to get a mod that restores lost city, it's the one level in gold that gets changed to a point where it ruins the original design
thanks! just bought it for $0.98 on Steam, so planning on trying it out. I do know there's an extensive set of well regarded mods for V:TM, so I've already installed those.

>>8280246
I should have specified that I'm only talking about mods that alter design and mechanics. Tfix and Sneaky Upgrade for 3 should definitely be used on a first playthrough

>>8280120
You still there OP? Here's a guide to setting up the Thief games. The steam version just doesn't work properly on modern systems. The GOG version does but that's only because it comes packaged with the fan patches and it's generally recommended to download the latest NewDark/TFix builds anyway. NewDark's a fan made source port that gets the game running properly on modern computers. To check it's running just press Intro on the main menu to check if the cutscenes work.

In the case of Thief I would highly recommend downloading either TFix Lite or just installing NewDark directly. Full TFix adds a bunch of changes, especially to the original game, and while you can opt out of a bunch while installing it will still change up a bunch of shit anyway. Mostly it's Thief 2 assets and graphics that honestly don't look as good in the first game (2nd game had support for colored lighting, Thief 1 did not and thus they look really bland when you stick them into the first game) as well as changing the AI to be Thief 2's AI which fundamentally changes how the game plays - for the most part for the worst In my opinion. Thief 2's levels were a lot bigger and more sprawling so the AI changes made sense there - in Thief 1 that AI comes off as being far dumber. People have complained about this for years but voodoo47, who makes TFix is a bit of an arse, thinks he knows better than the original devs and refuses to change it. TFix Lite is your best bet, it has barely any of the changes and is very close to the original game, or just install NewDark directly.

Also bear in mind that Thief 1 is half stealth, half horror and has always at least partially filtered a lot of people. You can even find reviews complaining about this from back in the day. If you like the stealth but fucking hate the zombie/tomb raiding/horror levels then maybe skip to Thief 2 and come back to the first game later. Thief 2 cut out almost all the horror shit and focused on pure stealth.

>>8281065
Continued:
It's worth noting I actually prefer Thief 1 but it can filter people. Also worth noting: the version you've got is Thief: Gold which adds 3 new missions and changes up a couple of the other ones. I'm very torn as a couple of the changes and at least one of the new levels are fantastic, however the rest is, in my opinion, a downgrade and really fucks up the pacing of the first game. Especially the first new level, Thieves Guild. Fuck Thieves Guild. It's the worst level in either of the first two games, it's incredibly frustrating, labyrinthine and full of bullshit design choices. So if you hate it and feel like dropping the game, don't worry everyone feels that way. Just get through it and enjoy the rest of the game.

There's a mod called Gold2Dark which is supposed to convert Gold to the original Dark Project but it doesn't quite work properly (especially The Lost City) and hasn't been updated in years. If you want to get the original campaign you're gonna have to find a copy in the wild. But since you've got Gold already just play that.

Same deal applies to Thief 2. Get either T2Fix Lite or NewDark. However the changes in full T2Fix aren't anywhere near as bad as in Thief 1. A lot of them are for fan mission content - there's a fuckload of good fan made levels for Thief 2 so if you enjoy the games you're going to be spoiled for choice. Some of them are even better than the original levels and there's even full fan made campaigns to check out.

If you're still interesting I'll tell you how to set up Thief: Deadly Shadows and a couple of other games if you want

>>8280120
Only use Tfix Lite, Tfix itself is shit.

>>8280235
The real answer.

Example: Deus Ex has a bug where putting a scope and a laser sight on the same weapon will prevent the laser sight from working as intended, and if the player does this before knowing how the laser sight is supposed to work, they won't even realize they're playing with a bugged laser sight.

That's the kind of shit a first time player shouldn't have to deal with, even if I did.

>>8280247
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=839934571
here's a mod besides gold2dark that I used that specifically just changed lost city. It's not a perfect translation but it's better than the default version in gold.

>>8281065
does gold2dark get rid of the miniature room in the sword?

>>8281198
It's not better than the default version in Gold, it's a shitty recreation of the TDP version whereas the Gold version is a perfectly working mission with patrol routes.

>>8281198
for what it's worth I don't think gold is so bad. one of the three new levels is pretty decent, another is one of the top thieving missions in the series, and it adds some variety to what would be a stretch of the game that's 100% horror levels.

>>8281214
the mages kill the appeal of the level.

>>8280120

I play the terrible Kingpin: Life of Crime with nglide and a patch that improves the game. no bullet sponges

another thing OP, you will get far more out of the game if you ironman the levels(with some exceptions for particular bullshit). blowing through them checkpoints in 30 minutes would be a shame. really ups the intensity when you're doing a one shot through to the mission complete.

>>8280120
I mainly use Vanilla+ mods to change minor things.
Bug fixes are OK, some QOL additions if they don't mess with the balance too much, rebalance mods only if they exclusively touch exploitable mechanics/ units/ weapons/ whatever, things that add back in cut content if it doesn't mess with the pace/ balance of the game,graphical/ audio asset replacement if they are of unusually low quality (like a messed-up texture or compressed sound).
Things like TFix full are kind of too much.
Z.R.P. for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is a similar mod that actually successfully does what TFix is trying to do because unlike TFix it's exclusively bug-fixes and any other changes are configurable and optional.
>>8281074
I never had issues with Gold2Dark, can you clarify? Using it on the GOG copy.

>>8281326
Lost City doesn't work properly. In the original Dark Project after you get the first talisman the level gets populated by craymen all over the place and it becomes a stealth horror level. With Gold2Dark the craymen just get dumped in the level and their pathfinding's all fucked up. You still get the ambush once you exit the tomb where the first talisman is but other than that the level doesn't work properly.

>>8281074
>If you want to get the original campaign you're gonna have to find a copy in the wild.
This has always puzzled me. We're talking about this on the internet and surely there are numerous websites where you can download the original disc image of Thief: The Dark Project. Is it hard to get it run on modern machines? Why are people settling for patching Thief Gold to resemble TDP? IIRC TG also changed some guard meshes or textures with something closer to Thief 2 and those are not replaced with patches either so safest bet would be to go vanilla.

>>8281472
I just wish GOG included TDP as an extra when buying Thief Gold.

>>8281472
Oh you can find it fairly easily. It's just that since it never got rereleased they never patched the installer which famously only works on Windows 98 computers and the workaround was a frontend that could take literal days to launch. You can just extract the files manually though with PowerISO or something similar. Also last time I played it TFix Lite fucked up the options screen for no fucking reason but that'll probably get patched at some point and is just voodoo47 being lazy.

>>8280120
Oh fuck didn't know that existed. I loved the Lost City in the original TDP, I genuinely have extremely deep memories playing that to the point I even prepared my room and snacks around it. Fucking hate the new Gold levels and the alterations they made.

>>8281569
Does anyone have a truly software renderer version of TDP working? At best I've seen people using some TFix shaders to simulate paletted textures.

>>8281996
What did they change exactly? I didn't play Thief for the first until after Gold had already come out.

>>8281065

This is something that really boils my piss about Steam. They release older games that are incapable of working on new systems with no patches, improvements or anything else of the sort.

>>8282040
Gold added humans to the lost city, retextured the Bonehoard so every wall is no longer the same in the whole mission, improved cragscleft patrols so they actually thoroughly patrol the mission, and there's general polish improvements like a sound when you drop bodies and zombies don't instantly get up after being knocked down with a sword. Gold is overall better.

>>8281346
Seriously? And no one tried to fix it since 2014?

>>8282756
There's nothing to fix, you can play TDP with NewDark, only suckers fall for GoldToDark.

>>8282173
>Gold added humans to the lost city
that's a bad thing.

>>8282768
I didn't say they were all improvements, those are some of the differences. I just think the package overall is better. I also forgot about the addition of little big world for The Sword. Here's a link to a TDP install. https://archive.org/download/thief-pc-redump/THIEF-PC-REDUMP/

>>8282762
Fuck this shit, I just want TDP instead of Gold, I didn't like any of the new missions or changes.
I only keep Gold installed for the FMs and it's been years since I've done a full playthrough so I never noticed the craymen patrol bug.

>>8282849
Then play TDP, it's that simple. If you're playing GoldToDark you're just playing Thief Gold with one broken mission and pretending you're playing something else.

>>8282801
So which one is recommended? USA rerelease?

>>8282893
I would just go with 1.33. And don't install TFix or it will replace the TDP maps with TG ones. You have to pick and choose parts from Tfix Lite, and the NewDark release.

wouldn't be smarter to make a mod that just re-adds the craymen to the lost city instead of bothering to fuck around with all of Thief gold's other changes?

>>8282939
Okay feel free to go recreate all the patrol patterns and scripts tied to the creatures and link them to the talisman that doesn't exist in the Gold version of the map.

>>8282960
If knew DromEd, I would.
I'd just replace the Water Talisman with a water arrow. lol.

>>8282969
I would simply remove all the Gold infetterance and make the map more gooder.

>>8282973
>>8282960
Or look at it this way. Just mod TDP Lost City into Gold's level list, Water talisman and all. Because the game isn't going to care once you get to RttC after looting both TDP Lost City and SofC.

>>8282939
Voodoo47 had done this with a simple squirrel script, look it up from ttlg. The problem was that their patrolling was broken in the game so maybe that would require some knowledge about editing in DromEd (I have no idea about Thief modding pls no bully)

>>8282930
I just dropped TFix lite over the gamefolder, messed with the .ini and installed the sound enhancement pack.
I'll keep this release on a USB or something for preservation's sake.