What the hell is a Taffer, anyway?

[Anonymous No.5230572]

New Thief thread.
What missions are you guys playing?

[Anonymous No.5230578]

[Anonymous No.5230582]

>>5230572
Retarded question. Is this from Thief by chance? Or I'm getting dementive?
https://soundcloud.com/user-22071752/z-jakiej-to-gry/s-ji7KZ

[Anonymous No.5230583]

>>5230582
It is. They're the sounds these guys >>5230572
make.

[Anonymous No.5230841]

>>5230572

Fuck Hammer Haunts and their creepy ass sound effects.

Im currently playing the Thief Gold Edition after reading the 20th anniversary article on RPS.

At the moment im at the strange bedfellows mission. Really looking foward to Metal Age and Deadly Shadows.

Is the second one really the best? Had lots of fun with the first part, but some levels are huuuuge (thieves guild) and tend to stretch gor no other reason than to have big levels.

[Anonymous No.5230848]

>>5230572
>>5230841

Also how the hell did one supposed to know about the torch puzzle in the bonehoard mission? Or did i overlooked an piece of paper

[Anonymous No.5230961]

>>5230841
>Is the second one really the best? Had lots of fun with the first part, but some levels are huuuuge (thieves guild) and tend to stretch gor no other reason than to have big levels.

Depends on what you're looking for. Some people think 2 is better because it does away with 99% of the supernatural aspects present in 1 and focuses almost exclusively on straight-up mansion heists or spy work.

>Also how the hell did one supposed to know about the torch puzzle in the bonehoard mission? Or did i overlooked an piece of paper

There is a parchment found near Adolpho that says he needs fire crystals for the Mystic's Soul, but the puzzle itself isn't explained.

[Anonymous No.5231007]

>>5230961

I like the straight-up thieving missions a lot more than the ones with supernatural stuff. Zombies und ghosts are fine but the game is called Thief for a reason.

By which i dont mean a few „unnatural“ thieving levels would be cool. As long as the second part doesnt have castle after castle after castle as levels i think im gonna have a good time.

Okay so you have to guess the torch puzzle... so im glad i collected all those bones to get a few fire arrows for free

[Anonymous No.5231060]

>>5230841
>>s the second one really the best? Had lots of fun with the first part, but some levels are huuuuge (thieves guild) and tend to stretch gor no other reason than to have big levels.
Speaking as a fan of the second installment, it has it's moments of outright thievery(why did it take so long for them to have you rob a bank?!? That happens in 2.), but it also has its share of supernatural(one mission gives you a possible entry point through a crypt, you will return to the Maw, and one level has a sub-plot involving ghosts). Biggest complaints are the last three levels(the last one is HUGE; get ready for flashbacks to the Thieve's Guild, and the previous two are the same map, different mission).

[Anonymous No.5231065]

>>5230572
I really want to play some thief. Is there any mission pack besides what Klatremus has already played on his Youtube? And I also played Thief 2X, is there any more stuff like that?

[Anonymous No.5231384]

>>5230848
>>5230961
in the chasm room just before you get into the big catacomb chambers, diving into the water and going to the end should take you to a thief corpse and a readable, with some fire crystals as a bonus.

[Anonymous No.5231984]

Christ, Rose Garden is fucking awful.

[Anonymous No.5232058]

>>5231984
What's so bad about it anon?

[Anonymous No.5232101]

>>5232058
'Over-designed' is the term I would use; it's technically proficient on nearly every level, but it's less fun to play than some of the first timers missions. There's no flow to anything, when you see place you haven't been on the thieve's highway you don't feel that rush you curiosity you get with most missions, you think "oh fuck no, not more fucking climbing". It's an 'open' city mission that is aggresively linear in its intent.

[Anonymous No.5232170]

>>5230572
>What the hell is a Taffer, anyway?
It's you.
You double Taffer.

[Anonymous No.5232198]

>>5211823
Man, sorry for the wait. After all those posts just for the first FM, I intended to play the next on in its entirety before judging it, but that didn't go as smoothly as I hoped. I hope I'll be able to keep up.
Knoss is pretty fun, and going in circles around the church in the first mission has been fun too, surprisingly. Every building has something specific to offer and, even when it's as simple as some loot and a guard, every new find is somewhat interesting, thanks to the way they're connected and the fact you only end up in the interesting rooms while exploring: I'd take this kind of limited over the big emptiness of the previous FM anytime. Having to look everywhere to complete your objectives doesn't feel taxing, since you rarely have to search a particular place more than once. The FM's pace slows down just right when it comes to searching the temple: while proceding just as swiftly as before, the player has to be a little more careful.
Not even going from challenge to challenge in the catacombs felt repetitive. There's a difference between a mission about trials and a mission intended as a trial. As opposed to An Enigmatic Treasure, this FM puts you to the test only when the time is right, when it makes sense. And between those moments there's time to explore, figure out the place and enjoy the atmosphere. When it comes to being challenged, your items can make the difference and the reward is always worth it, just like in any respectable dungeon. The reward is almost always a fancy looking key, sure, but the "fancy" part and the setting play a huge role in making this search interesting imo. What are you really bothering those ancient guardians for? What will happen when you gather all the keys? The premise is exciting and, all through the mission, it delivers.
Also some things never change, apparently.

[Anonymous No.5232298]

I remember reading a long time ago that you could pick up hammers from the mechanists and throw them at haunts to kill them, was that true? I don't have thief 2 installed so I can't try it

[Anonymous No.5232409]

>>5232101
My thoughts exactly. What the fuck was the author thinking?

[Anonymous No.5232442]

>>5230572
What class in Guantlet and Guantlet 2 would Garrett fit in the most?
>Warrior
>Valkyrie
>Bard
>Wizard

[Anonymous No.5232526]

>>5232101
funny. This is how I would describe "The Whistling of the Gears"

It's just all flash, and while impressive in what he was able to fit, not so much impressive in how it ends up playing honestly.

[Anonymous No.5232538]

>>5232526
That ones fine until you start doing the side objectives, and the main objective splits into more ones. People need to know when to stop.

[Anonymous No.5232585]

>tfw the Thieves Guild pleb filtered me out of my first T1 playthrough, at least insofar that I haven't picked it up for a couple months.

Is it really that bad or do I just blow boat people?

[Anonymous No.5233175]

>>5232585
Thieve's Guild is infamous for its sewers being a literal maze, and many objectives being cryptic.

[Anonymous No.5233408]

>>5232409
Probably that bigger = better.

[Anonymous No.5233691]

>watching a sorta big streamer playing thief on twitch yesterday
>he's on assassins, and looks like hes genuinely having fun sneaking around and messing with guards
>playing on hard and can't find the firepoker though
>literally looking for it for 15-20 minutes, his mood slowly going downhill and you can tell hes pissed off
>finally finds it after slashing the banner out of rage randomly and hes so mad that worked
>starts up thieves guild, dies in the first floor of the casino and rage quits the stream

I wonder if thieve's guild will break him

[Anonymous No.5233967]

>first time playing thieve's guild
>I only trust you with the key
>look for key
>lol I guess it's not in this room
>leave
>get stuck
>look it up
>it's hidden inside the fire pit
>oh

[Anonymous No.5234464]

>>5233967
That's what got me too.

[Anonymous No.5234737]

>>5232585
I'm on that mission now and cannot for the life of me get into the actual guild from the casino without being spotted. the girl's voice lines drive me into a homocidal frenzy every time but it's not like I can kill everybody in there so I haven't made progress for ages

[Anonymous No.5234750]

I don't think Rose Garden is actually a terrible mission, so far, but ugh... it's overwhelming. Maybe it would be less so if you actually read the two million pages of readables. However, completely relying on readables that feel like overlong flavor text, but actually explain level mechanics, isn't good design either...

It feels bad to criticize a mission that seems to provide an endless amount of nooks and crannies, but in this case less (less text, less story ambition, less tiny subsystems) would have been more.

[Anonymous No.5235110]

>>5232585
play TDP before gold. gold has some nice additions, but the original is more consistent in quality.

[Anonymous No.5235140]

>>5234750
Rose Garden is actively trying to throw you off track and have you think about what to do. In that I think it succeeds quite well, and feels like Garrett is crushed by the city. If you've played Melan's TDM missions, that one is rather similar.

[Anonymous No.5235191]

>>5235140
huh? the mission is pretty much on rails and the only difficulty comes from trying to guess where you have to climb to unlock the next bit of street. It's city autism taken to a whole new level.

[Anonymous No.5235261]

>>5232585
Thief Gold is unfortunately the only version of the original Thief you can buy these days. It adds 3 new missions: Thieves Guild, Mage Towers and Song of the Caverns, makes a few changes to Into Down in the Bonehoard and The Lost City and adds an entirely new secret area to Stealing the Sword.

Unfortunately Thieves Guild and The Mage Towers are kinda the worst levels in the game. The addition of mages to The Lost City is also kinda shit too. It's annoying because Song of the Caverns is one of the best levels in Thief 1 and the secret area in Stealing the Sword is legit amazing.

Use a guide to get through Thieves Guild. It is actually badly designed in a lot of places and a bit of a slog to get through. Thing is, it's followed by one of the best levels in the game with Stealing the Sword and you really should play that level at least.

[Anonymous No.5235270]

>>5235261
It's just The Sword, not Stealing the Sword. But yeah, pretty much agreed with The Lost City being kind of eh in Gold. It's also funny since the no kill objective didn't get added in that one, making it the only mission in the game where you can kill humans on Expert.

[Anonymous No.5235308]

I like the Mage's Guild mission, it was fun to have a change of pace and see some weird magic environments early in the game that are totally separate from the style in the later main plot missions with the pagans

Thieves' Guild is just hard as fuck

[Anonymous No.5235745]

Thief Series on Sale. Get it now, you taffer!

[Anonymous No.5235837]

>>5235308
I think Mage Towers main issue is how linear the progression is for the main objective.

[Anonymous No.5235893]

>>5235261
There is a mod called GoldToDark.

[Anonymous No.5236006]

>>5235893
I patched my Dark Project with Tfix, now I've got a weird version of Dark Project, so without added missions, but with the secret area in The Sword and flaming dudes in the Bonehoard and the Cathedral. Still, there are no mages in the Lost City, but craymen as usual. I'm kind of glad I don't have to go through Thieves Guild, but I'd love to play Song of the Caverns, maybe I'll borrow my friend's copy of Thief Gold for that.

[Anonymous No.5236578]

>>5233691
Which streamer? I'm mildly interested.

[Anonymous No.5236653]

>>5233175
>many objectives being cryptic.
You mean the mission being one linear sequence of secrets that you have to find that ends in frustration as the escape route is right next to the main objective but you've somehow missed 25% of the loot requirement and the place is filled with hidden worthless loot?

[Anonymous No.5236680]

I'm checking out the 20th Anniversary FMs a little late, what are some of your favorite levels?

[Anonymous No.5236708]

>>5236578
DraQu_

He's live now on twitch. He just said Cragscleft is his favorite mission which is cool, but then he also said he didn't like the sword so pic related

[Anonymous No.5236821]

>>5236680
For me they have been Downtowne Funk and Making A Profit. Heart and Soul is also good. Lost Among the Forsaken looks amazing but it's very confusing to navigate. It's like your first time playing Haunted Cathedral when you were 10 years old except instead of getting lost in one page of a map you get lost in several pages of maps.

[Anonymous No.5236823]

>>5236680
The Sound of a Burrick in a Room is fucking incredible

[Anonymous No.5236872]

>>5235745
don't. the money isn't going to anyone even remotely involved with the games

[Anonymous No.5236885]

>>5236872

So?

[Anonymous No.5236889]

>>5236872
How about GOG then?

[Anonymous No.5236892]

>>5235745
Was cheaper on GOG just yesterday, when they had their sales.
As always, Steam is for cucks.

Also, what >>5236872 said

>>5236885
So pirate it, you fucking imbecile.

[Anonymous No.5236903]

>>5236892
>using steam is the same as a cuckold fetish

[Anonymous No.5236908]

>>5236892

Oh, yeah, let's just get the game on GOG where they've already added unnecessary mods to it that you can't uninstall. Good plan, friend

[Anonymous No.5236976]

>>5236903
>>5236908

[Anonymous No.5237218]

>>5236892
Like on the ROM depot, Isozone, or Torrent sites?

[Anonymous No.5237328]

>>5236903
You guys think he's shitposting, but I know I'm scared of one day losing my games cause steam somehow goes under

[Anonymous No.5237334]

>>5237328
Why would steam go under anytime soon?

[Anonymous No.5237602]

>>5236889
The money still doesn't go to anyone affiliated with the development of those games but at least with GOG it goes to someone who sells you your games instead of rents you your games.

[Anonymous No.5237616]

>>5236821
Maybe I was expecting too much after gems of provenance, which is probably my favorite mission ever, but I found heart and sould to be very disappointing.

[Anonymous No.5237653]

>>5237616
Well I thought it managed the rotting ruins aesthetic very well and it has sprawling mazelike catacombs that still manage to not get you lost because different areas were deliberately given distinct color schemes and architecture. Also lots of secret paths and unconventional navigation.

[Anonymous No.5238557]

>>5232101
>>5232409
>>5235191
I wasn't expecting to like this mission because I've heard the same criticism from other people, and I usually don't have much patience for really long missions where I get stuck, but I haven't been having such problems. It's long, but the only part that I had trouble with so far was the very beginning, since I didn't notice the vent in the throne room. Beyond that I don't see how it could be called particularly on rails. I've only made it a bit past finding Rose Garden, but before I did that I stole a side objective on the other side of the city and found a lot of areas that weren't part of the path to Rose Garden. And now that I've made it there and got a key to the city, I can only see it opening up more. Meanwhile there's been none of the usual annoyances from overly difficult missions such as rope arrow points hidden in shadow, or too hidden keys and switches.

[Anonymous No.5238667]

>>5237602
The Steam versions of Thief are DRM free.

[Anonymous No.5238724]

>>5231065
>He doesn't know about fan missions

[Anonymous No.5238849]

>>5238557
Finished it and still feel the same way. Even the escort objective which could have gone horribly wrong was fine.

[Anonymous No.5238853]

>>5238849
Good camo.

[Anonymous No.5238905]

Thief is a shit game

[Anonymous No.5238980]

>>5236908
for real?

[Anonymous No.5239002]

>>5238980
Not exactly. GOG comes bundled with TFix Lite which is basically a base NewDark install. The Steam version on the other hand is still running on the old engine.

[Anonymous No.5239119]

>>5238980

Yes, it has Tfix, which can't be uninstalled, changes the game, and is not necessary to make it run. Better to get the steam version so you can use Tfix or not according to your own choice

[Anonymous No.5239134]

>>5239119
See
>>5239002

TFix Lite and TFix are NOT the same. The Lite package is essentially just a repackage of the base NewDark releases. No other modifications are in it except .dml files that turn some objects non-mantleable if you play with NewMantle (such as torches and wall lights). Which you can delete.

[Anonymous No.5239137]

>>5238905
Wrong thread, mgsbaby

[Anonymous No.5239138]

>>5239134
>o other modifications are in it except .dml files that turn some objects non-mantleable if you play with NewMantle (such as torches and wall lights). Which you can delete.
I don't think that's in it, I've never had trouble mantling those things.

[Anonymous No.5239141]

Am I a bad person for stopping TG at Return to the Cathedral (honestly fuck the zombie fighting) or have I seen the best of the game and am safe to play T2?

[Anonymous No.5239176]

>>5239137
Kys thiefnigger

[Anonymous No.5239504]

I just started the Broadsword of Sheol.
What am I in for?

[Anonymous No.5239561]

What are some good festive fanmissions?
Is there something like a reverse home alone fanmission?

[Anonymous No.5239572]

>>5239504
spooky craymen

[Anonymous No.5239579]

>>5239572
Just passed the first one.
>mfw I thought I was safe once I put him down

[Anonymous No.5239615]

>>5230578
Thank you anon, I've just bought Thief 2 on steam sale and came to /vr/ precisely looking for that. Completed the first game just a few months ago and loved it, and I heard the sequel is even better

[Anonymous No.5239785]

>>5239504
>>5239579
Did you finish it?

[Anonymous No.5239992]

>>5239785
No I'm done for the day, will continue later. Really love the buildup of this mission. Those alcoves, the silence, smart use of light etc.

[Anonymous No.5241591]

>>5239141
Return of the Cathedral is a good mission. But it does fall apart after that, IMO.

[Anonymous No.5241594]

>>5239561
I want a mission where you're basically The Grinch.

[Anonymous No.5242068]

>>5239134

NewDark is an unnecessary modification that you can't uninstall. That's exactly what I'm talking about, thanks for agreeing with me.

[Anonymous No.5242090]

>>5242068
>just install windows 98 bro

[Anonymous No.5242168]

>>5242090
Windows 10 actually makes old dark run fucking clean as fuck

that being said, I'd argue newdark is still kinda mandatory nowadays, just through TFIX-Lite though

[Anonymous No.5242328]

>>5242068
There is literally no downside to using NewDark. None.

[Anonymous No.5243217]

>>5237328
then you just go and apply cracks to those bitches

[Anonymous No.5243341]

I've been playing this game for a couple of weeks now and I'm getting a feeling that allowing the player to save anywhere was a mistake.
Having fixed savepoints spread throughout the levels would make the player roll with their mistakes.
Instead the player is allowed to just quicksave their way out of any trouble they run into.

[Anonymous No.5243385]

>>5243341
Eh, save points would feel too gamey to me. I liked what the Hitman games did, which set a limit to how many quicksaves you could make per mission, with the limited amount depending on difficulty setting.

[Anonymous No.5243508]

I saw this and I thought of you /vr/.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vHRMHGvSlo

[Anonymous No.5243510]

>>5242328
the visual changes are fine but ai behaviors are different in a really obnoxious jarring way

for instance I swear they now have some kind of memory of hearing you move that takes a huge amount of time to reset, for a classic thief player this will prove extremely frustrating to adapt to

[Anonymous No.5243545]

>>5243341
Just unbind the save key and never save manually. Done.

[Anonymous No.5244136]

>>5243510
Newdark doesn't change ai at all, it's always taken an obnoxiously long amount of time for alert level to reset after an ai becomes fully alert.

[Anonymous No.5244625]

>>5239561
A Thief's New Year
https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=144858&t=144858

[Anonymous No.5244629]

>>5241594
I don't believe there is one

[Anonymous No.5244639]

>>5244136
i swear to god on olddark as soon as a guard said "must have been nothing" or whatever equivalent the timeout for the "suspicious" phase of making light noise/being seen in low light was fully reset

but i've mainly played FMs in it so i could be wrong, maybe some of those upped the guard difficulty

[Anonymous No.5244657]

>>5244639
btw gripes about engine aside my favs are the water contest entries from KOMAG in 2006 "Temple of the Tides" and "Sneaking Through Venice," "Eclipsed," the "Mine Affairs" series and "Acid Trip" for silly fun

I don't have Thief installed atm but these are the ones that jump to memory and I highly recommend them

[Anonymous No.5244876]

>>5244136
YES IT DOES. The AI in Thief 1 has been been replaced with the AI from Thief 2, at least in the full TFix. TFix Lite keeps the original AI. Technically you are right - it's not NewDark but TFix that changes the AI but you're still wrong. It's very obvious playing the two side by side and I think the original AI is better for Thief 1. It's like they dumbed down the guards in Thief 2.

[Anonymous No.5245625]

[Anonymous No.5245643]

[Anonymous No.5246105]

Merry Christmas, taffers.

[Anonymous No.5246620]

>>thief is a good stealth ga-

[Anonymous No.5246701]

>>5232198
No problem. I also take a long time to respond.

The city part in the previous FM was a corridor between sections. It had a couple of servants and a lot of guards, but apart from that, no life in the streets. In Knoss, the city part provides two ways to enter the church and along the way you stumble upon stories. The assassination, the man who screwed around with pagan magic, the noble looking for the cure, the stonecutter. The City breathes. You are also going around finding equipment, because there is jack in the catacombs. I'm starting to dislike the platforming part of city missions. Garrett won't grab the ledge. Garrett jumps off the top of the ladder. Garrett ricochets off a wall.

The second part of Knoss is a fetch quest. Get the four elemental talismans to enter the lower reaches of the catacombs. After that, get the parts of the desecrated corpse of Knoss to enter his tomb. Every part has its own challenge. One of the items, the Hand of Knoss, is found by finding all the 5 golden bones of Radok the Alchemist. Similar to the one in the Bonehoard. After you burn the parts of the corpse, you enter his tomb, grab his Grimoire while evading the haunts and the flying skull and get out. You finish where you started, near the entrance. Calling it a fetch quest is derogatory and reductionism. All the items are found in varied interesting areas. The traps are different. A feast for your eyes and ears. Truly a dangerous magical place. Something like The Zone. These areas are interconnected, for example the secret hallways in the tomb of a hundred heroes, the burrick tunnels and the Talisman of Atunement. It makes traversing the place a bit easier.

It is odd that I have to find all the keys to progress, but I can find the corpses of other thieves and mages who succeeded to reach the lower reaches without the talismans? How did they get in? And what happens to a tomb when it is raided?

A shame we haven't played Sepulchre of the Sinistral.

[Anonymous No.5246703]

[Anonymous No.5246709]

[Anonymous No.5246716]

GIT GUD OR PLAY MORE SPLINTER CELL

[Anonymous No.5247326]

What is the closest to a spiritual successor to Thief? Dishonored is not it.

[Anonymous No.5247338]

>>5247326
The newer Deus Ex games and the Hitman reboot.

[Anonymous No.5247481]

>>5247326
The Dark Mod

[Anonymous No.5248067]

>>5247326
Like it or not, the fundamental design of world interaction in Dishonored is in fact the closest thing to Thief right now. Its stealth mechanics are not as well designed, but still you will not find a game that's more like Thief than that is. The Splinter Cell games and Styx might have good use of light and sound in stealth gameplay, but they're not games where systems were designed due to certain possibilities being realistic to have. They're games where systems were designed in order to explicitly support, developer-intended gameplay features and officially recognized ways to finish levels. Dishonored was designed like Thief, it just wasn't designed as well as Thief. Not even the new Hitman games allow as much dynamic world interaction as Dishonored does.

[Anonymous No.5248068]

>>5248067
*addendum: Eidos Montréal's Deus Ex games are also a great contender but they're still more limited than Dishonored. Mankind Divided got one step closer by implementing geometry-based dynamic mantling.

[Anonymous No.5248698]

[Anonymous No.5248767]

>>5248067
Dishonored didn't feel like a real stealth games outside of some bonus challenges. Too many powers, too few audible and visible cues to go by. Nu-Thief, as gimped and soulless as it is, at least got the patiently hide in the shadows aspect right.

[Anonymous No.5248841]

I'm playing Haplo's submission and he mentions Gaahl the Deceiver. Has this particular name ever been mentioned before?

[Anonymous No.5248876]

>>5248841
Haplo's missions contain a lot of references to extreme metal

[Anonymous No.5249217]

>>5248767
I don't disagree. But Thief isn't just a game with good stealth mechanics. Splinter Cell is just a game with good stealth mechanics. Thief is a combination of many interlocking pieces of design all around to maximize players' ability to exploit every facet of the world to accomplish anything that makes physical sense. A level in Thief is more than a floor plan with a planned number of approaches. It's a place that consists of solid and liquid geometry that the player can navigate using 3-dimensional movement mechanics that exploit that geometry. You can climb anything that is solid and swim in anything that's liquid. Take for example Hitman in which levels are just floorplans. You can only climb things that were designated to be climbable, and a jump button doesn't even exist. Crates are for cover and visual flavor, you can't pick them up, throw them or stack them. Objects have pickup and interaction animations that only exist for very specific contexes. So levels can't have things hidden in obscured little nooks. Thief and Dishonored have these things that most games lack.

It's hard to explain, but it's mostly this: In most games, the world and everything in it exists because of the tools that the player has. Everything serves the gameplay. In immersive sims the world and everything in it exist and the player is part of that, and can do with it whatever they wish. Nothing serves the gameplay, unless the player makes it serve the gameplay using the systems that exist. It's intended vs emergent.

[Anonymous No.5249873]

>>5244876
>It's like they dumbed down the guards in Thief 2.

Can you go into detail on this?
When I played Thief Gold I used the full TFix patcher. Does this mean I did not truely beat the game?
Thief 2 did feel easier to me but I thought that was because of the new items like invisibility and slowfall potions.

[Anonymous No.5249941]

I am playing through T3 Deadly Shadows now and the enemies seem far more sensitive to light and sound than the first two games.
Youtube reviews told me DS was easier than the first 2 games. Is that only because of the plentiful gas grenades and arrows? I am playing on normal and only use the blackjack when I cannot get loot without alerting them otherwise.
Any tips to help me manipulate or understand the AI? Should I just drop down to easy difficulty so I can move through the missions faster than a snail's pace?

[Anonymous No.5250134]

>>5249941
Did you play Thief 1 or Thief 2? Because as good as the audio design is in those games, the balance of footstep volume on different surfaces is fubar. In Deadly Shadows it's much better balanced, so you'll actually have to pay attention to moving on top of stone or wood. Never run near enemies, even if it's on grass or carpet. Dropping down is only silent when you do it on top of moss patches created by your moss arrows. And if you're sneaking up on somoene to knock them out, you can't "walk", you have to "creep" or crouch because even stone floors make enough noise when you walk to alert your target. People didn't like it when this game was released but yeah, creep and crouch are 100% silent on all floor materials.
When it comes to visibility, remember that in TDS enemies will stop and look into the direction in which they saw something. If they continue to see something they go into first alert stage. They're more sensitive because that alert stage exists. It didn't in previous games. The AI in Thief 1 and 2 immediately draw their weapons if they're searching for something, and they won't look into the direction of a detection to confirm it. In TDS they can search with uncertainty and certainty. So you don't need to worry about having been "seen" if you cause an uncertain search. The AI will admit to having been seeing things and accepting that nothing was there once they give up. Speaking of giving up, one of the biggest flaws of the AI in TDS is that even after a confirmed sighting and a chase, even combat, they will return to normal, put away their weapons, and their alertness level will not be elevated in the slightest. They'll vocally comment on finding you again, but they're not any more alert to be able to.
If you're having trouble with being seen, maybe try using the Splinter-Cell-esque wall hugging mechanic. It should make you less visible in some situations. I personally dislike using it because it glues you into the walls.

[Anonymous No.5250345]

>>5244629
Shame.

[Anonymous No.5250369]

>>5247338
Deus Ex is not really the same genre, even if it has stealth elements.

Hitman reboot is Great, but the franchise is less about thieving, and more about Assassinations. Not to mention, it's disguise mechanic also sets it apart.

>>5248067
Dishonored definitely takes from Thief. But alongside its stealth system being inferior, it's not even a game about Thieving.

[Anonymous No.5250393]

>>5248767
This is true. Dishonored was kinda like Deus Ex in that Stealth is just one of the play-styles you can do, rather than being the way the game is meant to be played.

[Anonymous No.5250407]

>>5230572
hol up why aint them haunts got swords

[Anonymous No.5250410]

>>5250369

But Dishonored is actually good.

[Anonymous No.5250423]

>>5250410
Don't get me wrong, I like Dishonored. I just personally don't see a game as a true spiritual successor to Thief, no matter how much the game takes from it, if it's not a game about Thieving.

[Anonymous No.5250427]

>>5250369
>Dishonored definitely takes from Thief. But alongside its stealth system being inferior, it's not even a game about Thieving.
I know. It's about letting the player loose in a non-linear level with tons of interactivity and properties that allow the player to experiment and use every aspect of the level to their advantage. Or not. Nothing is there explicitly for the player. Everything exists for an in-lore reason, its interactivity exists because such interactivity is sensible, and the player's toolset includes those interactions because you're playing as a human and humans are capable of doing it. Objects have properties not so that the player could use them, but because things in reality have properties, so they should in a game as well. The fact that the player can exploit those properties is incidental. That's how Dishonored is like Thief, not in the slightest in the way it implements stealth.

[Anonymous No.5250696]

I put a tiny lever on a secret door and I get this message.
ASSERT: [PGRPPROP.CPP@1694] obj 33, linked with DetailAttachement, has physics model which is unsupported
Pic related.
What is going on?
Can I just ignore it?

[Anonymous No.5251137]

>>5250696
Objects attached with DetailAttachement can't have physics models.

[Anonymous No.5251190]

>>5250423
>>5250427
dishonored's really more of a deus ex game in an off-brand thief universe than a thief game. it has that deus ex "and if you don't like this you can do that instead" maximalism. thief's more focused and expects a specific careful attitude towards the level which in deus ex/dishonored is also an option but not any more valid than just pounding your way through all problems with a superpower.

[Anonymous No.5251484]

>Haunted Cathedral
>emerge from the Fire Shadow tunnel
>get spotted by a burrick
>lol I'm fine there are boards on this doorway
>burrick walks through the boards
>panic and pause the game

[Anonymous No.5252876]

I'M GOING TO SAY THE T-WORD!

[Anonymous No.5252897]

>>5251137
Why not?

[Anonymous No.5252947]

>>5252897
^ty

[Anonymous No.5252954]

>>5252947
?
Let me rephrase it. The lever has a physics model which is unsupported, because objects attached with DetailAttachement can't have physics models. I don't understand this. It may not be necessary to create a peephole, but I just want to know the technical background.

[Anonymous No.5252957]

>>5252947
?
Let me rephrase it. The lever has a physics model which is unsupported, because objects attached with DetailAttachement can't have physics models. I don't understand this. It may not be necessary to create a peephole, but I just want to know the technical background.

[Anonymous No.5252972]

>>5237334
>it's too big to fail
>it won't happen for years

[Anonymous No.5253009]

>>5252972
Not him, but it's really too big to fail at this point. Not in sense of bail-out, but simple financial reserve to burn. They could be at this point financially unsolvent for well over 40 years and still won't even be close to bankrupcy.

[Anonymous No.5253134]

>>5253009
There is no "too big to fail". It's a myth that bankers, economists and politicians planted into your fickle little mind.

[Anonymous No.5253374]

>>5252957
Ask Le Corbeau

[Anonymous No.5254103]

>>5253374
Okay. Thanks anyway.

[Anonymous No.5255171]

>>5250134
Thanks.
I've been playing T3 on Xbox so I am working with analog stick for movement speed and I don't use 3rd person view because Garret looks just a bit edgelord in this game. I like the wallhug because it doesn't make any noise and you can grab things (but not attack) and NPC's routes rarely touch walls.

Tell me, what is the "proper" difficulty to play on? I know in T1 and T2 the community consensus is that Expert is the only real way to play.

[Anonymous No.5255274]

>>5255171
>the "proper" difficulty to play on?
In T1 and T2, the Expert difficulty was the one that contained the most content, with unique extra objectives, extra security, more locked doors etc. In TDS the difficulties are much more "gamey" and inexplicably standardized into a very specific format that all missions refuse to deviate from. So even missions where Garrett is dealing with life and death circumstances, there is always a loot requirement because the format says so. So if "Escape" from Thief 1 was in TDS, you couldn't escape the murderous demons hunting you before finding at least 1643g in loot.
-Normal has you find 40% of all loot, including 1 special loot item.
-Hard has you find 60% of all loot, including 2 special loot items.
-Expert has you find 90% of all loot, including 3 special loot items.
The expert loot requirement can get a bit ridiculous sometimes. In fact one optional bonus objective in one of the missions is impossible to complete on expert difficulty because it requires you not to steal a treasure. That treasure happens to be worth exactly 11% of the total loot, so even if you find every single other piece, you're 1% short of your loot goal.
The expert difficulty in TDS doesn't even have a killing restriction, and you can still find all the special loot items without being mandated to. So it doesn't really matter which difficulty you choose in my opinion. As long as it isn't easy, which shouldn't even exist.

[Anonymous No.5256270]

>>5255274
I've noticed difficulty in T3 affects how much damage I take from guards and the number and HP of guards.
Does difficulty really affect the hearing and sight of guards?

>As long as it isn't easy, which shouldn't even exist.
Is easy difficulty different than the standardized gamey format in some way? What about easy makes it pointless/unworthy?

I just finished Rutherford Castle. Any tips on keeping a low profile in the city streets? Everyone here is really sensitive and even non-guards start attacking me for no reason.

[Anonymous No.5256390]

>>5256270
If anybody finds a body whether dead or unconscious, they'll become alerted. If that NPC has a weapon, it'll become aggressive, maybe to you. I'm not entirely sure how that works out but I've been attacked for murders I didn't commit.

[Anonymous No.5256459]

Hmmm, I wonder if this cardinal is a shady guy.

[Anonymous No.5256475]

>>5256459
He studies his enemy 24/7 so that he'll be ready to fend off any temptation whne the time comes

[Anonymous No.5256654]

>>5246701
What happens to a dungeon once it's defiled is a classic RPG question, and the classic answer is that new occupants repopulate it and turn it into a new kind of dungeon. Sometimes it happens in the City, with craymen and burricks invading ancient tunnels, but in general the Thief universe lacks the kind of industrious monster that builds its squallid hideout inside tombs and ruins. Ape beasts seem fit for that role but they're usually someone's servants, hence patrolling their domain. Incidentally we'll see them invading a ruin on their own in the next FM. On the other hand, Hammerites have a knack for trying to holify again certain places, and we see them doing just that in this mission.
In this case, the advanced security system prevents any of that from happening, so I guess that this tomb in particular will just stay empy once Garrett sweeps in. That's as depressing as tombs go. I suppose that the talismans magically go back to where we first found them after they've been used. I doubt that someone like the noble who tried to rescue his daughter (and got so close to the grimoire too) managed to get there through means unknown to Garrett.

His story and many others, ancient or recent, compose the main narrative bulk of the two missions: nothing changes for Garrett as he just completes the job he started but on the way there he learns about how the Catacombs of Knoss changed, and often ended, numerous lives. The story isn't about a thief, but the place he steals from, from the sleeping city to the lively catacombs. The architet's tomb is also part of this kind of narration.

I feel the same about city FMs, but I gotta admit that in these two missions each point of interest is connected to the others in a way that makes it easy to reach almost every part of the FM. No grueling crawl was needed to climb the highest towers (I even thought one of them was just part of the scenery at first) and I never ended up chasing my own tail while in the catacombs.

[Anonymous No.5256658]

>>5256270
>What about easy makes it pointless/unworthy?
The original games only have normal, hard and expert because it's never supposed to be easy. Garrett doesn't do easy jobs because he's an egomaniac.

>Everyone here is really sensitive and even non-guards start attacking me for no reason.
Don't have your weapons out. When you have your weapons hidden the only people who will attack you are guards, hammers and pagans. Of course you could make it so that hammers or pagans are on your side but Garrett wouldn't do that. Street thugs should leave you alone and civilians won't freak out as long as you aren't waving your dagger around.

[Anonymous No.5256718]

>playing TDS
>walk down the street
>three guys and a girl
>guys surround me
>pull out dagger
>stare at me
>leave
>girl says real tough guy
>knock them all out

[Anonymous No.5258492]

bump dont die

[Anonymous No.5258519]

>>5255171
>playing it on xbox
nigga WHY

[Anonymous No.5258665]

>>5258519
Isn't the PC version basically identical? I mean, you're not going to get any extra performance out of a game that is hard-locked to 60fps. Even the loading screens on PC are just as slow as in 2004 because the progress bar needs to complete and has a static maximum fill speed.

[Anonymous No.5258867]

>>5258665
there's a fan made patch for it that removes most loading screens and fixes the moria bug mentioned above

[Anonymous No.5260526]

[Anonymous No.5261393]

>>5256654
And the dead roam where they always have roamed, not caring about the treasures. Garrett is an observer in this FM. He will always be a Keeper. There aren't tons of mutant guards in your way.

In the beginning there is a puzzle that irritated me. To enter the wine cellar you need to use the elevator. Part of the floor has a pool of water and is electrified. You need to turn off the generator. You can't use the crates to create a makeshift bridge. You can't shove a barrel to climb on. You can't mantle on the machinery to cross the electrified water. No, shoot a rope arrow in a conveniently placed wooden beam, turn on the generator (or else you can't use the elevator), and use the rope arrow to cross the deadly water. I seems you are only allowed to frob the fireplace gate when you read the scroll. Why can't I break open the door of the painter with my sword? Very restrictive.

Now the tomb is all about finding an item and finding the place where to put it. Whenever you get to a new area in the tomb, you are rewarded with a new route. As you traverse the tomb it becomes more easy to navigate. You can move more quickly from one place to another. At some point I started to walk in circles. What step did I miss? I noticed the pillar with the statue head. I stepped on it, but it didn't go down, like in the Haunted Cathedral. What use is it? After a while I figured out you had to place another head on the pillar. There are several pages on TTLG with people trying to figure out what to do. Then I quicksaved when I fell in the red mist. Oops!

Do zombies move their head and watch you when they lie down on the floor in the OMs?

[Anonymous No.5261525]

>>5256654
At the dawn of the new year it may be a good moment to get something off my chest. You may have noticed one of the submissions called 'Station to Station' has been withdrawn from the contest. I made it. I posted a self reflection on TTLG, more elaborate compared to the one included with the FM, explaining what went wrong, why it went wrong and how to prevent it. One thing was missing. An apology to you. I feel I betrayed you in a way. As if our conversations we have had so far meant nothing at all. As if I didn't learn anything from it. I am sorry if I hurt you.
As I am writing an outline of a FM I have in mind, I realize our conversations are observations about the story, about the gameplay, about intent, about what works and what is fun. I also realize reviews alone are not enough to create a FM. What else do you need? I don't know. Step by step I may get closer to the answer. What is a useful structure when creating a fun FM to play and worth replaying?

Know that I am grateful for being able to talk to you for so long. We have been doing this for one and a half year already? It feels like a long time. Playing games with you makes it so much more fun. Thanks. I hope we can continue this. I am sorry I don't reply quickly enough.

Happy new year taffer. I owe you one.

[Anonymous No.5261529]

>>5256654
At the dawn of the new year it may be a good moment to get something off my chest. You may have noticed one of the submissions called 'Station to Station' has been withdrawn from the contest. I made it. I posted a self reflection on TTLG, more elaborate compared to the one included with the FM, explaining what went wrong, why it went wrong and how to prevent it. One thing was missing. An apology to you. I feel I betrayed you in a way. As if our conversations we have had so far meant nothing at all. As if I didn't learn anything from it. I am sorry if I hurt you. As I am writing an outline of a FM I have in mind, I realize our conversations are observations about the story, about the gameplay, about intent, about what works and what is fun. I also realize reviews alone are not enough to create a FM. What else do you need? I don't know. Step by step I may get closer to the answer. What is a useful structure when creating a fun FM to play and worth replaying?

Know that I am grateful for being able to talk to you for so long. We have been doing this for one and a half year already? It feels like a long time. Playing games with you makes it so much more fun. Thanks. I hope we can continue this. I am sorry I don't reply quickly enough.

Happy new year taffer. I owe you one.

[Anonymous No.5262290]

>>5261529
autism

[Anonymous No.5262438]

[Anonymous No.5262706]

>>5262438
Very nice.

[Anonymous No.5262875]

>planned to finnish my FM over the holidays
>going back to work tomorrow and only added 2 rooms

anyone else get this?
you're working on something then feel like the whole thing is horrible and you just delete everything and lose a entire days worth of progress?

Fuck

[Anonymous No.5262907]

>>5262875
Get used to it cause you'll lose more time in the long run by trying to work around things that really should be deleted.

[Anonymous No.5262984]

>>5262907
good advice :)

[Anonymous No.5263050]

>>5262907
Why did they destroy their own artwork??

[Anonymous No.5263071]

>>5263050
It's a metaphor for the transience of life

[Anonymous No.5263075]

>>5262907
All we are is dust in the wind.

"Dust. Wind. Dude."

[Anonymous No.5263106]

Which FM is this?

[Anonymous No.5263184]

>>5263106
Tears of Blood

[Anonymous No.5263248]

>>5263184
Thanks

[Anonymous No.5263576]

>>5261529
Don't worry man. Like I told you a year ago, you're the one putting in work and I admire you for that. I'm in for the fun and for curiosity so I never expected to be of any help with my ESL ramblings, but I'm really glad this retrospective of ours can help you shed light on the many forms Thief can take through FMs. Just don't worry about carrying the weight of everything on your shoulders: proving yourself with the contest was already quite the challenge, cherishing what we've learned so far is something you can add later. It's the next step, not something you missed.
As trivial as it sounds, mistakes are important too. Not just as tough lessons we accidentally give ourselves, but also as something we actually wanted at some point, and that we may still want. Sometimes it's worth it to salvage that drive that led us into a dead end, sometimes it's important to acknowledge why and how we let it go. For better or worse, they're part of what we've done and what we'll do.


Now, for another round of puzzling catacombs. Gotta say I loved this one's premise, Garrett staying at the inn where his target is. It's simple and it doesn't change much in terms of gameplay (it's less work actually, since we don't have to find a way to enter), but it sets up a very clear picture: the thief has his eyes set on the objective, and as the night falls he's ready to strike. We start at the climax of his mission, even if it won't take much for things and thieves to go down, but I'll cover that after replaying some parts of this mission.
For now, happy new year to you too.

[Anonymous No.5264563]

what was her problem?

[Anonymous No.5264567]

>>5264563
being ded

[Anonymous No.5265383]

>>5264567
Also being too cute

[Anonymous No.5266138]

>>5246620
>stealth game with high emphasis on sound
>webm with no sound is supposed to prove anything

[Anonymous No.5266248]

anyone else think T3 and T4 are better than the originals? not trolling. I love everything about T3 specially the daily "commute" and being able to explore the city and tackle the quests you're given in whatever order you want, looking for special loot, sidequests, etc. the museum mission IMO is 10/10, the villain is awesome, and the final mission is great.
T4 has a lot of flaws but I like the worldbuilding (T4 has more readables than all the other games put together, probably) and the subtle references to the previous games like the run down hammerite church (one of the previous barons banned all religions), the keeper hideout, etc.

i played both games so many times I lost count

[Anonymous No.5266291]

>>5266248
Not really, to me it's TG > TDS > TTMA > T4, even though TMA's gameplay is better than TDSs.
The only thing i liked about T4 is when it references the previous games and lets you explore locations from T1 and T3, but that wasn't enough for me, the gameplay was hald-assed.

[Anonymous No.5266401]

>>5246620
>the AI vision trigger hitbox of corpses is in the middle of the body
>hitbox only spawns once the falling animation has finished
>hitbox lands precisely behind the stone railing of the staircase so the hammerite wouldn't see the body even if it was full bright
All I'm seeing is all of the systems working as intended. The hammerite has eyes on his head, and they can't see through stone brick. Blackjack makes only a level 1 alert amount of noise as it hits and the hammerite is in a zero alert stage.

[Anonymous No.5267349]

>>5230578
Why don't you tards make a pastebin of these images instead of posting a picture of a link? It's mind boggling, did you really need to put those logos on?

[Anonymous No.5267490]

>>5267349
this is an imageoard

[Anonymous No.5268089]

>>5230572
Hunted cathedral a shit. I'm still in that mission where you infiltrate the hammer temple.

[Anonymous No.5268341]

>>5267490
Links to pastebin are not impossible.

[Anonymous No.5268343]

>>5239002
GOG version is bundled with TFix Lite, and also includes the OldDark executable file

[Anonymous No.5268356]

>>5230572
>tfw still waiting for a Dark engine version of BloodGDX(ie DarkGDX) to become reality to offer more choices besides NewDark or 86box.

[Anonymous No.5268508]

>>5268356
I just want a better editor.

[Anonymous No.5268760]

TDP's worst missions are cathedral and return to the cathedral. Brother Marius breaks everything.

[Anonymous No.5269003]

>>5263106
Second mission of Shadow of Doubt I believe.

[Anonymous No.5269517]

>>5237602
>development of those games
The same with every goddamn game. Once it goes gold the publisher pays the development crew a fee and that's it

[Anonymous No.5269809]

I can never tell if I like or hate soulforge.
It's so long, difficult, tedious, confusing, foreboding, scary etc. But that's what makes it so satisfying to beat. It's a perfect final level in that regard.

[Anonymous No.5269824]

>>5268760
Nah. Escape! or Strange Bedfellows are far worse. Haunted Cathedral and Return are at least atmospheric as fuck.

[Anonymous No.5270115]

>>5269517
If Eidos and Looking Glass still existed, then giving money to Eidos for Looking Glass products would give Eidos incentive to let Looking Glass make more products for them to publish. Therefore paying for Looking Glass products now doesn't help anyone who deserves it.

[Anonymous No.5270663]

>>5269824
Its not atmospheric if you have to kill those haunts. Seriously who thought that was a good idea?

[Anonymous No.5270850]

>>5270663
it's not too hard though, almost the same as blackjacking guards

[Anonymous No.5270932]

>>5270663
Are you playing with ambient sound volume at 0?

[Anonymous No.5271136]

>>5270850
It breaks the atmosphere and the tension. I try to never blackjack a guard and be as stealthily as possible. At first RTC was great, superb specially when you listen to those haunts speaking or saying "join us", but then you get the eye and you have to meet this brother and it all goes downhill from there.

[Anonymous No.5271146]

>>5261393
In this case, the catacombs are the riddle itself instead of being a succession of trials. The player has to figure out where to go, what to look for and what certain items are for. Sounds like a recipe for a key/pixel/everything hunt, but luckily the mission flows well and it makes it pretty clear when you're close to something important. More than simply hidden, the keys are well protected, and I think it's the best of the two approaches.
I don't even know if the problem I had with it is really a problem, but I found the whole place confusing. It's not chaotic and everything makes more and more sense the more doors and passages you open, but a lot of the key items and places are really close to each other or connected in unpredictable ways. It's hard to tell if a certain room has fulfilled its role or if it still has to lead you somewhere important. There's no way to really guess where those keys are if not by looking everywhere. You're knee-deep in the msytery the instant you drop in that tomb.
The good news is it can all be solved by exploring the place. Since nothing is hidden too well (pixel hunt kind of "too well", of course), once you find it you immediately know if you have what it's required to proceed or not. Certain tasks can be completed in any order so wherever you go you'll have something to do, find or take, and that's always satisfying. The dead ends only begin when you have to figure out how to use what you've found, and that's fair enough.
What I'm wondering is: does this kind of design hurt the FM's identity? If any room can be the room you're looking for, will the player still see those catacombs as a place with its own shape and role, or just a chinese box with tons of doors to open to get out? I have no problem visualizing it as a very contrived system to protect that book now, but I remember finding it a little frustrating as I was playing through it.
It's almost Knoss' opposite, but a little variety can't hurt.

[Anonymous No.5271343]

>>5271136
Isn't killing the haunts the very last thing that Murus asks you to do? You've had plenty of sneaking around haunts before that if you were playing full stealth. Also, the last ten seconds of the mission involve you detonating a MOAB so you'll break that stealth streak anyway. Might as well be heard by nine less creatures while you're at it.

[Anonymous No.5271668]

>>5271343
>wanting to backtrack after that fetch quest.

Yes, I really love that. At least in escape you have to get your stuff back, and I think the trickster's minions are creepier than haunts. Why does everybody hate escape! It looks fine

[Anonymous No.5271931]

>>5271668
>he dislikes backtracking in Thief games
Every self-respecting Thief player plays on Expert and almost every mission on Expert requires you to backtrack to finish the mission.
Speaking of Escape, ironically I've learned to both like it more and like it less. Due to actually having a better understanding of the layout and AI behavior I've learned to like it more, but due to also having started almost exclusively ghosting I've learned to dislike it because it includes a single piece of level design with completely unavoidable knockouts and very likely unavoidable alerts. There's a well-lit room with multiple bugbeasts and frogbeasts, and you somehow need to get past them twice to find out about Constantine's plans.
Strange Bedfellows though, that mission almost seems like it was designed by someone who ghosts Thief missions. There's even a chore penalty for sandman players because the blackjack deals 1 point of damage, and dealing a single point of damage on one bugbeast gives you an objective to murder all of them.

[Anonymous No.5271960]

>>5271931
I first scout out the map and try to remember everything important concerning the mission... Like for example the sword or assassins. Grantee I never played those two in expert because its my first thief run, but later on I place it in expert because why not.

I've just started escape! So far I like the bugmen and monkey men, they sound actually horrifying to me, and the place looks like a woodsy hell. I wonder if I'll hate it later on since you can't 100% ghost it?

Also a quick question... How did Garrett fall for such a obvious trick? The eye was a dead giveaway that something really fishy was going on.

[Anonymous No.5272003]

>>5271960
Well, Garrett is not a perfect character. He's flawed in multiple ways. He's an egomaniac, always jumping at the chance of doing the most difficult thing he can just to pat himself on the back. Secondly he's amoral, as his avoidance of murder is only based on his egomania and the difficulty of nonlethality and being more skilled than other criminals. Finally he's greedy, therefore a hundred thousand for a nearly impossible task whose negative consequences are not his business is a dream come true. Too good to be true, but too little too late.
When he went after Constantine, it was for revenge. Not to save anyone. Just like how not killing is not to spare anyone. -Or those things are what he keeps telling himself because he can't admit that he does care.

[Anonymous No.5272463]

>>5272003
I can see him like that, but its weird because he seemed pretty concerned or maybe even possessive of cuddy. Of course he owned him money, but if he was truly amoral why not leave him to rot in the hammerite prison? He could have sold the scepter on his own or maybe even get another dealer.

I can now understand why people hate escape, but I find it pretty interesting place since it's Constantine's mansion in its true glory. So I guess the "human" guards in The Sword where these bunch of pegans. Honestly, those bug men are creepy as hell.

[Anonymous No.5272891]

>>5272463
>I can see him like that, but its weird because he seemed pretty concerned or maybe even possessive of cuddy. Of course he owned him money, but if he was truly amoral why not leave him to rot in the hammerite prison? He could have sold the scepter on his own or maybe even get another dealer.

I don't know how you got that impression. For me it was obvious that Cutty had a job and a buyer lined up beforehand and Garrett took the job because Cutty is reliable and there would not be a better or safer deal. And Cutty wouldn't tell Garrett who his buyer is so that Garrett wouldn't go directly to the buyer.
After Bonehoard we hear nothing about the scepter. Garrett's payment was the Horn of Quintus instead, which he was able to sell for 4000 gold. There was nothing he could do with the scepter without Cutty's contacts. The only course of action would probably be to detach the jewels and smelt the silver, then take that stuff to a stonecutter for a measly sum.

[Anonymous No.5272894]

>>5272463
>So I guess the "human" guards in The Sword where these bunch of pegans
well

[Anonymous No.5273451]

How were you introduced to thief?

[Anonymous No.5273473]

>>5273451
Magazine articles/magazine videos(CD) about an early alpha of the game

[Anonymous No.5273561]

>>5272894
the fuck, i didn't even notice this

[Anonymous No.5273912]

>>5262706
As it turns out it fucking sucks to build natural terrain (mountains and a lake) in broad daylight.

[Anonymous No.5274560]

>>5273451
General interest in the stealth genre. After realizing that the sneaky stuff was my favorite part of most games that had some in them, I started looking for more of it and soon enough I noticed how many people held this series as their source of inspiration and gold standard. Not only I played a few good stealth games on the way to Thief, but I've also got into immsersive sims thanks to it so the whole thing ended up being quite the win win.

[Anonymous No.5275116]

>>5273451
iirc memes about the cradle and maybe just a stray /v/ thread or two.
I can't even remember the moment I decided to try out the games, I just suddenly was playing them one day.

[Anonymous No.5275363]

>>5236823
Thief still stands out with the amazing sound design imo

[Anonymous No.5275368]

>>5243341
except for when you slip, miss a jump or fail to mantle because of movement jank

[Plutonia No.5275390]

>>5273451
A friend of mine had a magazine subscription and the mags came with demo CDs. TDP was on one of them and I played and replayed the demo for probably a year before I got the real thing.
I wonder where I could still get that demo, and how I could get it to work on a modern PC? I don't think TFix can be installed on it.

[Anonymous No.5275421]

>>5273451
By accident. My classmate bought a new computer, with capacity of burning CDs. So naturally, every game he had and could get his hands on was what everyone in our class was playing. That's how I got myself into Tomb Raider, too.
And then one day that friend had this brand new game about being a thief. He didn't like it (he was expecting a swordfighting game) so I was the first to play it all through. Then he played it again and we play it ever since from time to time

tl;dr glorious pirate mustard race

[Anonymous No.5275648]

Installed Thief Gold from gog. Do I need to additionaly install TFix? If so normal or lite version?

[Anonymous No.5275674]

>>5275648
>>5268343

[Anonymous No.5277938]

[Anonymous No.5279152]

>>5277938
Is he from a major FM?

[Anonymous No.5279306]

>>5273451
Bought Gold on a whim in 2012 after hearing many good things about it. Probably the best gaming purchase of my life.

[Anonymous No.5281086]

>>5279306
BUMP OF LIFE!

[Anonymous No.5282720]

>>5279152
Unrelated question: now that the contest done, apart from the voting, do you want more Thief Gold FMs?

[Anonymous No.5282724]

>>5282720
Why an unrelated question?

[Anonymous No.5282726]

Now that the contest done, apart from the voting process, do you want more Thief Gold FMs?

[Anonymous No.5282729]

>>5282726
Why should they stop after the contest?

[Anonymous No.5282997]

Whats the normal hours invested:hours of gameplay ratio in fms? I was just reading a thread on ttlg and a guy said 100:1 is reasonable. about to hit 80 in mine and I can finish it in maybe 15 minutes. Feels like I really didn't plan this through

[Anonymous No.5283121]

>>5282997
That's a really odd thing to worry about. I'd rather play a mission that takes only half an hour to complete but is actually fun over one that takes hours and feels like a slog.
If you want to make your mission artificially longer at the expense of fun, here are some ideas: try locking every door in the mission and make it so that it takes literally minutes to lockpick; hide progression critical items/switches in the most obtuse places you can think of; set an absurdly high loot goal; make in-game "cutscenes" where you stand in place for minutes and are not allowed anything else; make the player backtrack as much as possible; make optional objectives where you have to collect random bullshit scattered around the map, just because.

[Anonymous No.5283565]

will you fags play my mission?

[Anonymous No.5283654]

Does garrett smoke weed?

[Anonymous No.5284119]

>>5283654
Garrett is a boomer wine sippp pansy

[Anonymous No.5284557]

Do you just stand around and wait for guards to move out of the way or is it better to knock people out and hide them in the shadows?

[Anonymous No.5284560]

>>5283565
Do you need playtesters?

[Anonymous No.5284732]

>>5284119
>>>/v/

[Anonymous No.5284804]

>>5284732

[Anonymous No.5284809]

>>5284804
TCH! Like you even know of Thief very much beyond shitposting and inane complaining on >>>/v/

[Anonymous No.5285486]

>>5273451
"ComputerBILDSpiele" CD way back when.

"Dark Project: Der Meisterdieb"

[Anonymous No.5285739]

i'm almost done with my first attempt at a TDM mission. it's been a huge learning experience, I had no idea how the sound system worked when I started and I had to redo most of it several times. kinda hard to tell from the pic but it's supposed to be a catacomb being used by smugglers to move under the city. I'm planning to add a short city section at the end (probably as a separate map) but i'd like to test this part before moving on, anyone interested? going to post some more screens

[Anonymous No.5285763]

pic rel is the starting spot, originally the player was supposed to navigate a series of vents and pipes to reach the catacombs avoiding spider nests and such but it didnt really add much to the story so I got rid of most of it, I still have the whole thing saved though so I might re use it in some later mission.

[Anonymous No.5285785]

I mostly tried to copy some catacombs I visited in rome a few years ago

[Anonymous No.5285842]

>>5237328
>but I know I'm scared of one day losing my games cause steam somehow goes under
I have a pro tip for you:
download your games

[Anonymous No.5286151]

>>5284809
Garrett would be ashamed by your inability to recognize sarcasm. Check the chad picture again

[Anonymous No.5287941]

>>5285739
Why did you choose to work with TDM?

[Anonymous No.5288503]

>>5285763
>>5285785
Looks cool.

[Anonymous No.5288627]

>>5287941
I got the urge to make my own mission after playing A house of Locked Secrets and seeing what TDM can do. IMO the portal-based sound system is great. also I think dark radiant is a little easier to use than dromed, specially creating curved shapes like cylinders and arches for doorways and such, and you can do more stuff with the scripts. the biggest problem I have with it is the lack of werecreatures and cameras, at some point they were in the game but they removed them to fix some bugs and havent added them back yet. It has a lot of potential, just needs more content and missions.

>>5288503
Thanks, i also added a small keeper bunker

[Anonymous No.5289218]

>tfw you whack some taffer

[Anonymous No.5289867]

why does every rowena mission feature at least one man who kills his wife?
seven sisters even featured two.

[Anonymous No.5289962]

What do you think of the Thief games someday having a gore mod comparable to Instagib, droplets or nashgore? I hope Darkgib or "NashDark" happens someday.

[Anonymous No.5290051]

[Anonymous No.5290068]

>>5290051
WHAT??

[Anonymous No.5290081]

>>5290068
FaceApp is a Builder's blessing.

[Anonymous No.5290096]

>>5289867
What are the best Rowena fms? Only played curse, was pretty awesome just too many loud tiles

[Anonymous No.5290114]

>>5290096
personally I liked the seven sisters campaign a lot. some people don't like that she reused the same city for two missions, but I think it worked out well. gave a feeling that the world had substance.

there's also that massive city mission that was released posthumously.

[Anonymous No.5290237]

>>5290096
The Tower is my favorite.

[Anonymous No.5290353]

So I finished thief 1 some days ago and I'm almost finished with thief 2. I gotta say, thief 1 is much better in the mystery department; the mechanists are boring as fuck. They're like hammerites but just worst without the charm they had in the first game.

[Anonymous No.5290371]

>>5271146
Maybe? If you compare Darkness with Knoss, one thing you can notice is the size of the tomb. It is not a gargantuan underground structure where wealthy nobility and saints are laid to rest. There is little sightseeing to coat the puzzles. If I was going to nab the Phlogiston Wand or the Book, I would have liked to see a giant temple carved in the caverns, lava seeping through. Not just some stepping stones and a staircase. It's an emergent memory game made by the Keepers to protect an item, with an subdued undead theme(?). At least, the first part is. After you grab the hammer, you enter a cave system that leads to a small pagan hideout and part of the Lost City. It is a varied environment, but it feels like panning. At that point your only goal is fulfill your lootgoal.

The scale in general was off. The tomb is a couple of meters apart from the hotel. If you open this mission in Dromed, you can see the various sections are placed on the same x-axis. You would expect the Lost City to be buried deep down in the ground, even deeper compared to The Bonehoard or a similar place. No, it is out in the open. All these areas are very close to each other.

If you check the thread on TTLG, a lot of people seem to like this submission. Some of them need to close the game and ask for a hint to progress, but they still enjoy it. They don't seem to care what the identity is, but whether it was fun. We both found it to be a bit frustrating.

[Anonymous No.5290372]

>>5290353
Oh yeah also quick question, why is thief 2 so much easier than 1?

[Anonymous No.5290392]

>>5231060
>that moment in the bank where you see the tree and the music changes ominously.

Details

[Anonymous No.5290619]

who else /buildan/ here

[Anonymous No.5291237]

>>5290619
still trying to finish my first FM. I got the urge to delete 60% of it today and went through with it. at this rate it probably wont be finished before christmas

[Anonymous No.5291428]

>>5290372
probably because Thief 1 was made as a D&D rogue simulator, where you're supposed to utilize everything, including combat to accomplish your goals. LGS noticed the popularity of full stealth so the sequel was built around the idea that people are actually trying to sneak. You're not really supposed to sneak around all those zombies, haunts and ghosts in Return to The Cathedral, and it's difficult because of that. You are supposed to sneak around all the guards and security in Masks, and it's not that hard because of that. You are given no choice but to sneak past everything in Casing The Joint, and that's why it's easy as taff so that anyone can do it.

[Anonymous No.5291580]

>>5290619
Is that part of the mechanist church I saw on TTLG?

If I'm working in Dromed, I'm trying to figure out technical stuff and writing it down. How do you create a gasbomb? How do you edit the texture of an object with a Hex editor? How to make a wardrobe that looks like an armiore? Right now I'm still planning. I'm making some sort of a portfolio. Writing an outline of the FM and gathering reference material. After everything is clear in my head, I may start with the building process.

[Anonymous No.5291743]

>>5291428
Masks is tights as hell on the third level if I don't wanna use the black jack which I try to not use. But yes I agree, sneaking through the cathedral and and the haunted cathedral, where you traverse the city, was hell and back. There's also no mission in 2 like the sword, the one that combines important plot points of the game without actually saying anything.

How's thief 3? I'm excites for it because it's centered around the keepers.

[Anonymous No.5291785]

>>5230572
I just can't play the game due to autism. I don't want to save scum but it seems that I need to since I can't beat the Cathedral mission that way. Hell I've used a 3 saves only policy with The Sword and I barely scraped through

[Anonymous No.5291806]

Anyone remember the anon who was asking for a Thief Gold object viewer?
https://darkfate.org/forum/index.php?topic=6535

[Anonymous No.5292672]

>>5273451
>2014, steam sale
>hungry for games that are like that one long sneaking section in Metro 2033. Complete noob, didn't even know "stealth" was a genre
>Google how you call that cool video game thingy where you evade enemies
>Find list with the best stealth games of all times, Thief Gold is somewhere up there
>is like 3$ or sth
>"Eh this looks like some kinda dumb retro sword fighting game. But guess I'll try it"
>alienated at first
>addiction

[Anonymous No.5292915]

>>5285739
>>5285763
>>5285785
Cool idea, senpai. Keep working on it. I hope it has success.

[Anonymous No.5293267]

>>5291743
Thief 3 isn't bad, it's just not as good. Levels are more restrictive and controls are clunky. It's got the same atmosphere and you can tell that the devs really wanted to do the best they could with what they had. The story is probably the best of the three, even though it is missing most of those cool cutscenes. There is a mod that adds those monochrome slideshow briefing videos though.

[Anonymous No.5293720]

>>5291580
yes it is my man. also the same mission as >>5283565

I feel like I post screenshots too much, should relax on the attentionfagging

[Anonymous No.5294038]

>>5293267
Oh man, this is getting me hyped as fuck. I'm almost done with 2. The monochrome cut scenes where the best thing implemented in these games, the atmosphere is just everywhere and those cut scenes are always the icing on the top. 2 wasn't that strong in terms of plot compared to 1, but I enjoyed it for what is was. Still, Garrett was a little out of character at the end, or maybe he grew as a character?

[Anonymous No.5294114]

>>5294038
>Garrett was a little out of character at the end, or maybe he grew as a character?
Garrett and Viktoria hated each other's guts but Viktoria recognized the gravity of the situation and created a two-way blood curse for the both of them. That they'd work towards a common goal. The curse did its job when Viktoria died and compelled Garrett to finish the job.

[Anonymous No.5294240]

>>5291806
Cool, I assumed the plant cameras in Whistling of the Gears were custom but I guess not.

[Anonymous No.5294249]

>>5294038
>>5294114
I like to think that in keeping with Thief's ambiguity and complexity in world design that Garret's and Viktoria's relationship was more complicated than friend or enemy. They might not see eye to eye or get along or be from remotely similar paths of life but their paths crossed and they had a strong relationship, even if it wasn't completely friendly. Garret shows lots of complexity in his motivations and emotions, he breaks an old friend out of prison but makes sure to collect on his debt. Then he helps that friend get married and even pinches rings. He doesn't hate the keepers, he just doesn't want to be one and will listen to reason when the keepers speak it.

He doesn't like the hammerites because they uphold law and punishment and he's a criminal, but damn it when the city is under attack from forces representing the metaphysical alignment opposed to the hammerites he'll team up because it isn't personal.

These kinds of things are what make Theif's world so believable and Garret so memorable. Garret is not just a handful of traits personified he feels like a real dude.

[Anonymous No.5294304]

>>5293720
What's your building process like? Lots of improvising or not so much? Does speedrunning give you insights when you design a mission?

[Anonymous No.5294597]

>>5294304
Well, I haven't really done much ATM besides a shitty mansion mission (Dewinder), so I can't give an expert answer.

But right now I'm kinda just taking things one step at a time. Before I do anything I just get the general concept of what I want to do in my head. Is it going to be a Hammerite/Mech mission? A mansion heist? Some sort of weird trippy pagan fuckery? I look to OMs in this case as a guide to the structure of what I want to do.

Then for layouts I try to plan out everything in advance with crude paint.net maps just for a feel of what I would want to play. I learned with Dewinder that huge shoebox manors can be boring, so I'm trying to make the layout less cubicle. I build one room at a time and just improvise on what I hope would look nice/interesting, I guess? In regards to stuff like textures and decals, I'm not artistically inclined so sometimes I need tips on what textures would look neat.

I get a lot of inspiration from OMs I want to capture the feel of (in this case I'm trying to get an Eavesdropping vibe with this Mechanist church) and a few standout FMs I get told of, like Hidden Agenda in this case. I try to also keep my limitations in regard to skill in check. I would love to add in a city section for this mission, and I plan on it, but it won't be as impressive and sprawling as other recent missions. I looked at early Skacky missions or Yandros' "Downtowne Funk" for inspiration for this.

Also, funny you ask about speedrunning, I'm surprised you know of my degenerate hobby. I know of a lot of dumb glitches with the engine, even the more polished NewDark, and I do kinda subconsciously build around them. For example I'm making all my walls 2 units thick so you can't wallclip through them, even though I know that only 5 people in the entire world even know how to do this and wouldn't do this in a casual playthrough. It's kinda funny thinking about it now.

[Anonymous No.5294602]

>>5294304
I'm also now curious as to your build process and such, as this conversation is pretty interesting and is getting my noggin joggin' now on building.

[Anonymous No.5294938]

>Finally discover the fucking Cathedral
>Get that not-so-cryptic message to get to the Hammerrite's area
>See that you have to collect 4 talismans in the fucking city now.

OH NO NO NO

[Anonymous No.5295845]

>>5294938
The talismans aren’t in that mission. They’re spread out across the following four missions. One each.

[Anonymous No.5296461]

>>5293267
>There is a mod that adds those monochrome slideshow briefing videos though
Yeah, that's pretty nice. There needs to be one that changes those fucking terrible in game rendered scenes.

[Anonymous No.5296463]

>>5294249
Agreed on all points.

[Anonymous No.5296471]

>>5258665
MODS

[Anonymous No.5296473]

>>5260526
Is that accurate?

[Anonymous No.5296531]

Would Viktoria smoke weed?

[Anonymous No.5296798]

>>5296473
No. The opera house caverns have been placed in an arbitrary spot and the hammerite temple in the original map is about 20 times smaller in scale than all the parts of the map that correspond with the New Market locations.

[Anonymous No.5297485]

Just did my first ever blind run on The Haunted Cathedral on Expert with saving only at Objective Completed. Pls gz

[Anonymous No.5298251]

>>5294602
I haven't done much either.

Following the steps laid out by GayleSlayer, I am (still) considering what FM I want to make. My first step is writing a general outline. What is this FM about? How many missions are there? What are you going to do? Who are you playing as? What is happening in and around The City? In short, I have an assassination FM in mind, consisting of three parts. In the first part you get introduced to the contract. The second part is a city mission like 'Assassins'. The third part is the outro, where the player is faced with the consequences of his actions: payment.
Then I go into more detail regarding every part of the FM. I describe the space, the story, the intended gameplay and some technical details. The second part of the FM is a city mission, and I have (again) divided the outline into several parts:
- Before arriving at point a
- Point a
- From point a to point b
- Route 1: The rooftops
- Route 2: The streets
- Route 3: The sewers
- Point b
- Entering point b
- Killing target at point b
- Returning to point a
- Optional adventures
- point 1: Kurshok offshoot temple in sewers
- point 2: ????

It is very elaborate, maybe too elaborate, but I don't want to frustrate myself again thinking about the placement of a rectangle brush for an entire week. Meanwhile I try to familiarize myself with Dromed solving technical issues and writing the solutions down. I gather pictures, figuring out what look I want for my spaces and trying to nail down an atmosphere. Regarding atmosphere, I really don't want to look at other FMs, because I fear I'm going to copy them again. I log decisions and considerations.

Supreme ghosting is worse.

[Anonymous No.5298258]

>>5294602
I haven't done much either.

Following the steps laid out by GayleSlayer, I am (still) considering what FM I want to make. My first step is writing a general outline. What is this FM about? How many missions are there? What are you going to do? Who are you playing as? What is happening in and around The City? In short, I have an assassination FM in mind, consisting of three parts. In the first part you get introduced to the contract. The second part is a city mission like 'Assassins'. The third part is the outro, where the player is faced with the consequences of his actions: payment.
Then I go into more detail regarding every part of the FM. I describe the space, the story, the intended gameplay and some technical details. The second part of the FM is a city mission, and I have (again) divided the outline into several parts:

- Before arriving at point a
- Point a
- From point a to point b [Route 1: The rooftops/Route 2: The streets/Route 3: The sewers]
- Point b [ Entering point b/Killing target at point b]
- Returning to point a
- Optional adventures [point 1: Kurshok offshoot temple in sewers/- point 2: ????]

It is very elaborate, maybe too elaborate, but I don't want to frustrate myself again thinking about the placement of a rectangle brush for an entire week. Meanwhile I try to familiarize myself with Dromed solving technical issues and writing the solutions down. I gather pictures, figuring out what look I want for my spaces and trying to nail down an atmosphere. Regarding atmosphere, I really don't want to look at other FMs, because I fear I'm going to copy them again. I log decisions and considerations.

Supreme ghosting is worse.

[Anonymous No.5298429]

>>5298258
>It is very elaborate, maybe too elaborate, but I don't want to frustrate myself again thinking about the placement of a rectangle brush for an entire week

I can't stop doing this. I could have finished months ago but I'm still trying to get started, must be some kind of mental illness.

[Anonymous No.5299185]

>>5298258
>>5298429
It's good that you guys are aiming real high, but try to minimize the goals imo. Small missions like the recent "Order of the Dew" or "Madness of Wolfgang Hanspeigal" are decent example of short missions that get to the point. Obviously, they're probably only small because the authors were just trying to get them out in time for the contest (both started working on them like 10 days before the deadline), but you get what I mean. Learn the editor and engine, get used to making nice looking rooms and layouts. Just keep it simple and use it to learn.

If you must go all in, which is fine btw, try to just compartmentalize the mission, like you sort of did. I've been told it's best to just focus on one area at a time, starting with what you deem the most important. What is the endgame of your mission? Is it to get into some dude's mansion and rob his shit? Steal some priceless hammerite relic buried deep in the catacombs? Build that shit first, make sure THAT is fun to play before going anywhere else. Then move on from there as you see fit. Like the streets around the final area, any enter-able buildings/apartments, and so on. Don't look at a mission like one grand task every time you work on it, just focus on the one thing you need to finish NOW.

There are no deadlines if you're making missions just to make them, go at your own pace. I try to finish one room a night. My mission isn't huge, cause I know my place and don't aim for the heavens when I'm still a noob on the ground.

[Anonymous No.5299637]

Whats your opinion on using Garret's hideout as a starting spot? A lot of fms do this, some even make you look for his stash as a warm up. I think it can be useful since leaving a safe zone and venturing out into the city adds substance to the story and can help set the mood if you're going for a horror/mystery themed fm. On the other hand it artificially extends the length of the mission without really contributing much to the story, specially if you have to map the entire 'commute' (thief 3 had this problem)

[Anonymous No.5299781]

>>5299637
Which are the best horror/mystery FM missions?

[Anonymous No.5301554]

>>5299781
Shunned: Fistral's Story is a fun little carnival ride
Broadsword of Sheol
Selpulchre of the Sinistral
Seeds of Doubt

[Anonymous No.5302635]

>>5301554
thanks for the rec list

[Anonymous No.5302713]

so who tried assassinating Garrett in 2? Not Karras since he wanted him on his side. Viktoria wanted to ally herself with him... so who sent the assassination request? they just dropped this after garrett met viktoria...

The story of 1 was a lot better than 2.

[Anonymous No.5302725]

>>5302713
the uhhhhh
fuckin cop
the one whose body you find in his room

[Anonymous No.5302749]

>>5298258
Exactly how I feel towards making FM's.
I made a concept and finished about half the mission, but never got to finish it.
Started out drawing a map; the mission was a burglary into a smuggler's warehouse located next to the wall of the Haunted Cathedral section of the city.
I had the actual wall as main visual feature of the mission, you have these quiet small streets but you know there's evil and death behind the wall. At a large fortified barrier you could catch a glimpse of the other side through the gate, but never reach it.

[Anonymous No.5302971]

>>5302749
this looks great, and that's a pretty good idea too. could work well with tunnels going under the wall (maybe connected to the sewers) which the smugglers use to avoid the watch. I would add two small city sections, one should be relatively normal and peaceful and other should be gloomy with all the houses bricked up.
personally i've had tons of ideas but whenever i try to put them into practice I always run into some technical issue and give up.
always wanted to do a spider themed mission: an abandoned keeper facility that is actually a prison for some kind of demonic spider creature from the Other Side. the facility has been overrun, so there should be corpses everywhere, spiderwebs, lights should have gone out in some parts and so on. I couldnt get the spiders to behave like I wanted to so I gave up after a while.

[Anonymous No.5302979]

>>5302971
ewwww its a spiiider

[Anonymous No.5303459]

>>5302725
Sheriff truart? But why? He wasn't sent by karras to kill Garrett. He tried to ambush Garrett but he got away. And all his scum cleaning was done to provide karras with subjects.

[Anonymous No.5304186]

>>5303459
Karras tried to recruit Garrett right after the Maw of Chaos by bribing him with a mechanic replacement eye. Garrett just took the eye and ignored Karras' wishes. That was in Thief 1. In Thief 2 Karras ordered a hit on Garrett because he wouldn't cooperate. They were not trying to arrest him. He was wanted dead, not alive.

[Anonymous No.5304261]

>>5304186
Right, I know about the confection of the eye by karras to try and sway Garrett's loyalty, but why didn't we hear anything about the hit when karras was talking to truart? Karras is a megalomaniac man, he even keeps talking alone about his intentions and plans when truart leaves. Its odd that, if he actually requested the hit, he never actually mentioned Garrett to truart or to himself. I just find it odd.

[Anonymous No.5304425]

>>5304261
Isn't this conversation in the context of "Thief 2 is not a well written game"? Well, there you go. Garrett just casually mentions that the sheriff is out to kill him in a briefing cutscene but it never really connects in the story properly. It's there to give you an excuse to pilfer a bank. Thief 2 only had a basic framework for its story and a load of great mission concepts, then they finished those missions and tied the story threads together within those missions. That's why Thief 1 makes more sense than Thief 2 even if its levels from a gameplay perspective are not as good. Thief 1 was written first and then they made the levels after. That's why the most story-significant missions in that are are the worst ones to play, namely Escape!, Strange Bedfellows and Into The Maw of Chaos. Thief 1 forced the gameplay to fit the story and Thief 2 forced the story to fit the gameplay.

[Anonymous No.5304936]

>>5304425
>>5304261
IIRC, LGS built their missions first before even deciding on the order of them or even the overall story of the game

[Anonymous No.5304951]

>PRAISE KARRAS
>and the builder

[Anonymous No.5305745]

>>5304425
Yeah, to my personal taste and opinion I think thief 1 was the best one. Even those missions you named, I found them enjoyable specially escape! Since it was really frustrating to get through that level... But when you see what really is constantines mansion; the guards are literally monkey men in disguise, the lower door in the stair case doesn't open because the "garden" is down there. Its just mind blowing honestly. To me anyway. Thief 2 has great cut scenes, specially those concerning the keepers, and great missions like the bank, the one where you use the thief's highway to mention a few. Thief 3 is there but doesn't compare to 1 in terms of just pure atmosphere, creepyness and story.

[Anonymous No.5305753]

>>5304951
Builder fuel us

[Anonymous No.5306757]

>a huge crazy FM with lots of challenges and puzzle

[Anonymous No.5306897]

Since I don't have any place to post this... Anybody has slash fics? I think there's a lot of fics over at the circle, but I was wondering if any old blood taffer around here has any recs?

[Anonymous No.5306931]

[Anonymous No.5307350]

what mission is this?

[Anonymous No.5307596]

>>5307350
i think i recognize this, it's the one made by a finn who got a job at remedy isn't it?

[Anonymous No.5307606]

>>5307350
looks like circle of strain, mission 2.

campaign had top tier aesthetics, but felt a bit too linear for my taste. in mission 3 it's possible to fulfill your obectives in the wrong order.

[Anonymous No.5307678]

So is Thief really so great that it warrants constantly having a thread up just like Doom does?

[Anonymous No.5307693]

>>5307678
maybe

[Anonymous No.5307875]

>>5230578
I get that we're on /vr/, but for general purposes, this should really be updated to include T3 since the Gold mod has been out for like 3 years now

[Anonymous No.5307912]

>>5236872
>>5236892
>Not buying Steam versions of games for Steam Controller support
Yeah yeah I know about renaming the exe but that's such a pain in the dick.
The Steam Controller is legit amazing for playing PC games with a controller, and I've beaten Thief 1, 2, and most of 3 with mine.

[Anonymous No.5308053]

>>5307350
It is Circle of Strain 2.

[Anonymous No.5308074]

>>5273451
Don't make fun of me
>Literal 19 year old zoomer
>Wanted to play DayZ with my pal
>Mom one night wants to watch Breaking Dawn part 2 in theaters
>I tell her I'll do it if she buys me Arma 2
>She looks up a gameplay video to make sure it's safe for her precious one
>Tryhard teenager in YouTube video starts RPing as an epic swearing badass
>Told no
>Winter sale is on
>See Thief trilogy on sale
>Really liked Dishonored, heard it was based on Thief
>Asked her for Thief instead
>Screenshots on Steam made it look like LOTR in her eyes
El rest was history. I can't go back to Dishonored now. The stealth is just so much worse in comparison.

[Anonymous No.5308083]

>>5308074
Should mention that I'm 19 now, not 19 then.
I also later went on to watch every Twilight movie with my pals. Twilight 1 is a hilarious unintentional comedy, 2 is alright, 3 I remember being terribly boring, 4 I barely remember, and 5 is mildly entertaining for how stupid it is but it doesn't reach the sheer heights of 1.

[Anonymous No.5309206]

>>5306897
I'd like to know if you find anything.

[Anonymous No.5309543]

>>5309206
Literally nothing. Someone told me there was a arty/Garrett fic on ao3 but the author deleted it. There's zilch... Or if there's any they're pretty underground. I've been dying to read something along those lines but can't fins anything.

[Anonymous No.5311000]

How did the pagan religion cope with the death of their main God? How do you recover from that?

[Anonymous No.5311113]

>>5311000
I always assumed constantine was just an avatar of the trickster

[Anonymous No.5311173]

>>5311113
Same as with viktoria I presume as well.

[Anonymous No.5311374]

>>5311000
Is there any indication that the pagans even knew about the Trickster being on Earth? I figured that anyone who knew about him was Garret, Victoria, and a bunch of animal monsters.

[Anonymous No.5311392]

>>5311374
Aren't the animal monsters just normal pagans turned into animals after the trickster returned? Makes sense what with the normal guards in the sword and then they turn into monkey men.

[Anonymous No.5311394]

>>5311374
were pagans even in T1?

[Anonymous No.5311415]

>>5311392
It does make sense that the monkey men are transformed humans, but I always thought that the monsters were transported from the Trickster's dimension on account of the last level of Thief 1 showing them being made from some kind of organic factory and shoved through a teleporter. I can't remember if any ape or monkey men were a part of that, though, so maybe. I always thought that the ape men were their own thing since they have their own little society in Thief 2.
>>5311394
Come to think of it, I don't think so, no. Unless the wizards are pagans.

[Anonymous No.5311518]

>>5290371
I don't know how to feel about the last part of the mission. The final objective is not hard to complete but, after all that fetching, going after two more keys to get two key arrows can feel a little unnecessary. But it's nothing more than an outro, an epilogue, and I personally like the kind of escape where weird and weirder things happen (from ape beasts to riddle-giving creatures) just as our hero is almost out of the darkness. Not having to look in every single corner of this area makes it easier to appreciate the remix of some classic TDP elements and the peculiar juxtaposition of enemies and places makes the whole thing feel out of place, but in a lively, surreal way. Apes and burricks, an underground tree right next to an ancient ruin that still leads you back to the inn, why not? So, it's another non-issue: while I enjoyed going through it, does throwing weird new stuff to the player right after the climax of the mission and before the ending complement the main part of it or is it just jarring?

Chaotic catacombs or not, some of the loot was placed in interesting ways. Looking for it is even more fun when it's hidden in plain sight or in fitting places. The two fights against the guardians surprised me: I was worried about the scripted encounters I had read about, but they turned out alright. In general, challenging your ability to tell how a room will "work" as you step into it is what most of the puzzle do well in this FM. All of these things, from stealing the gems that adorn a column to fighting a ghost in unconventional ways that suit a rogue, greatly improves the thief factor of this whole thief thing.

Also, about this one
>Do zombies move their head and watch you when they lie down on the floor in the OMs?
I think they do. But what about sleeping zombies freezing on the spot when you load (or just quickload, not sure) the game near them? I think it happens just in certain missions (OMs too), this one being one of them. What's it about?

[Anonymous No.5313435]

bump

[Anonymous No.5314736]

>>5309206
Have you found anything?

[Anonymous No.5316323]

>>5314736
No, I don't know where to look other than the obvious places.

[Anonymous No.5316364]

>>5316323
Not even wayback machine helps here. What a bummer.

[Anonymous No.5317121]

>>5316323
I'll just share with you what someone told me existed back then.
Someone on Ao3 actually did write a decent, well characterized Garrett/Artemus fic once but it's disappeared. I can't remember the name of the author or the fic. Here's a basic rundown tho: Artemus has had a long running casual relationship with another Keeper. Garrett walks in on them at some point.

[Anonymous No.5318231]

How would you combine stalker with thief?

[Anonymous No.5318514]

>>5318231
I mean, how would you combine roadside picnic and its various adaptations with Thief?

[Anonymous No.5319347]

>>5318514
Well the obvious thing would be to have Garrett infiltrate the Zone to steal the Wish Granter. But there isn't much sneaking to be done after you're past the perimeter because it's the world that wants you dead, not things living in it. At least I'm pretty sure the Zone itself isn't alive.

[Anonymous No.5319454]

>>5311518
I don't mind a twist. It is kind of fun seeing all the thematic references, but looking up clues for progression on TTLG disrupts the flow of playing a story.

Dealing with the second guardian was quite exiting. I ran across the room trying to get the thing in the right position. I climbed on top of the tomb to catch my breath for a few moments, thereby confusing the creature, and I jumped forward. It was very pleasant turning on the trap when the creature was standing on top of the false slabs.

Both loading and quickloading works, but it is still weird.

[Anonymous No.5319543]

>>5319347
I don't know much about Roadside Picnic aside from hearsay, but I suspect you could do it a bit like that part in the Bonehoard where you encounter burricks for the first time.
I had no idea what those things where and what the fuck was going on in that section until I did some googling after. I thought they were aliens at first and that the game was going full gonzo.

[Anonymous No.5319561]

Alright guys, not sure about anyone else but I've been noticing a few flame-war threads over on /v/ concerning hitman / sc / mgs / thief. It's getting a bit tiresome as whatever faggot is making these threads is more than likely samefagging or dare I say using a discord group to false-flag the hell out of the

With that out of the way, was I the only one to use garrett's eye item in thief 2 a bunch? I always seemed to buy one when I could along with as many water arrows I could possibly afford.

[Anonymous No.5319639]

hitman > thief
just letting you guys know

[Anonymous No.5320129]

>5319639
>killing

[Anonymous No.5320528]

>>5319561
>I've been noticing a few flame-war threads over on /v/
Yes, someone was trying really hard to force it in a otherwise alright stealth thread, not sure why people do this

[Anonymous No.5320645]

>>5319561
I've only found one place in the game where the scouting orb is very useful. The third floor of the bank has a hallway with two watchers right next to one another. The best way to traverse is to throw a scouting orb into the hallway and determine the right moment to move using that without ever breaking cover.

[Anonymous No.5320824]

>>5319561
I never used the scouting orb (other than to look at the dancing zombies) because I always felt it was kind of imprecise to aim. It can be lobbed a short distance fairly reliably, but then I'm usually better off leaning or using the eye's built-in zoom functions, which I also don't often use. Tossing it further is a challenge that I've never gotten the hang of, however.

[Anonymous No.5321036]

>>5320824
Dancing zombies?

[Anonymous No.5321065]

>>5321036
at the beginning of framed

[Anonymous No.5321158]

>>5321065
This is great.

[Anonymous No.5321475]

>>5319639
>>>/v/
>>>/vg/

[Anonymous No.5322239]

anyone know how to make it so when I hit a switch (or in my case it will be an npc hitting it when you alert him) and it will wake up this bot?

[Anonymous No.5323283]

>>5322239
Does the Dark Engine even support changing a corpse into an active NPC?

[Anonymous No.5323436]

>>5322239
Didn't deceptive perceptions II have something like that? Your action triggered a bot?

[Anonymous No.5323541]

>>5322239
ugly hack: teleport the corpse away to some inaccessible room and then teleport another living robot to its position.
the boss fight of the second mission of ruins of originia had something like this if I remember correctly.

[Anonymous No.5323691]

>>5273451
I actually disregarded it for a few months was very young, I had a friend ( actually boyfriend of a relative) that bought tons of games much older than me and had a job.
A really nice and honestly weird friendship I miss him, he was like 35 and I only 12, he tolerated me because I was a quiet kid and people say I was never boring so he let me play Quake, Thief Doom etc into the wee hours of morning and let me take back home some games. We also played a lot of driving games together.
He bought games on a whim and tried a lot of shit, also introduced me to good music. I don't see him much these days because of work.

Thief was a slow burner, I only really got into it when I had nothing more to play, but as soon as I had finished The Sword I was completely in.

[Anonymous No.5324219]

>>5322239
Why did you choose The Metal Age instead of The Dark Project for your second FM?

[Anonymous No.5324965]

>>5323283
It's a corpse for the time being because idk how to make it activate. If I put it to sleep or give it MSleepingServant it can be walked through and it feels kinda of retarded.

>>5323541
I was thinking of doing this, but the sudden change of animations might be a little jarring? My other idea was having its senses all set to 0, and then the button turns them only and maybe activates a patrol? Or puts an AIAttack link to the player? idk

>>5324219
Not sure, just wanted to work with thief 2 dromed and see which one I like better going forward. so far its thief 2 dromed as long as I can use thief 1 textures

[Anonymous No.5326876]

>>5273451
Must've been like 2002-2003, I was like 12 when I read a cope of GMR magazine and they listed Thief 2 as their top PC game. "Not killing people has never been so much fun". And that stuck with me. Waited a few years and begged and pleaded for it.

[Anonymous No.5327393]

>>5230572
>What missions are you guys playing?

Return to the Haunted Cathedral. I got the eye but ran out of fire arrows and holy water

[Anonymous No.5327438]

so how do I disable texture filtering and does it work with Tfix lite?

[Anonymous No.5327462]

>>5319454
To assign a couple more of bonus points, it's always nice when a mission takes you back to the starting point in an unexpected way, especially in this case where it's hidden in plain sight. It emphasizes the idea of having been through a journey and finally being back to safety.
And finally, it's been a while since I saw the fire mage's scorching plates being used. But as usual it could be that I just don't play enough FMs.

Having said this, we're done with our catacombs phase, at least for now. The next one is a classic: a mansion, two floors and something weird to steal from it, something that makes everything a little more weirder. And if that's too much, the other well protected treasure provides a more mundane option. Not much to say, maybe, but what isn't broken doesn't need a fixing.

[Anonymous No.5327472]

>>5327462
I like your posts. They feel really comfy, like a tour guide of sorts.

[Anonymous No.5328882]

>>5324965
>If I put it to sleep or give it MSleepingServant it can be walked through and it feels kinda of retarded.
I don't know how to use DromEd but would it be possible to spawn a collider box around the bot while it's asleep and remove it once it wakes up?

[Anonymous No.5330136]

>>5247481
Dark Mod is great

[Anonymous No.5330743]

Do you people have some nice high res wallpapers or do just have to disable the HUD and use screenshots?

[Anonymous No.5331270]

>>5330743
If you take screenshots and post them, then we will have some nice high res wallpapers
assuming you have photographic bone in your body

[Anonymous No.5331837]

>>5330743

[Anonymous No.5331839]

>>5331837

[Anonymous No.5331841]

>>5331839

[Anonymous No.5331874]

>>5331841

[Anonymous No.5331893]

>>5275390
Was probably the pcgamer demo. The internet archive probably has it. July or August of September 1998 is my best bet.

[Anonymous No.5332051]

[Anonymous No.5332058]

[Plutonia No.5333162]

>>5331893
Sounds about right. Though I borrowed the demo CD from a friend and I remember playing the game during summer. I must have gotten it pretty quick since that issue of the magazine was released. Maybe my friends were excited to show it to me.

[Plutonia No.5333178]

I found the PCGamer one, March 1999, but it's not the disc I had. I must have had a disc from a different magazine. The demo must be the same though.

[Anonymous No.5333339]

>>5331270
I have a /p/unnybone, but Windows seems to decompress my screenshots.

[Anonymous No.5333852]

EP or EP+necro?

[Anonymous No.5334046]

>>5333852
No.

[Anonymous No.5334239]

>>5333852
Neither.

[Anonymous No.5334381]

>>5327472
There's just something about the way Thief works that makes it comfy even while you're exploring its darkest corners. The fact you can always find a way to explore and learn to know those shadows is one of my favorite aspects of this series. I'm glad some of that found its way into my posts.

[Anonymous No.5334431]

>>5334381
Also as I was thinking about that I ended up replaying the blooper reel and now I wonder: are there other missions that try to work in a somewhat broken way while still not being broken?

[Anonymous No.5335368]

>>5273451
I guess Thief is one of those series I really want to like, but there is always something in the way.
I always knew about Thief series existing since it first came out and I've read some reviews back in the day, but I could never get around to play it.

None of my friends had it, shops weren't selling it and it was almost impossible to get otherwise in late 90s/early 2000 Central Europe. And even then I was busy playing System Shock 2 and Deus Ex. The first game in the series I actually played was Deadly Shadows. I liked it and loved the gothic atmosphere but then I was told that it's "the shitty one". And it doesn't help that the Dark Project/Metal Age refused to work on my Win XP back then.

I haven't played The Dark Project properly until I was in college. I admire this game, the atmosphere is spot on, sound design is great and it's a fun game but I usually get mercilessly stuck on third or fourth level and lose my patience.
Sucks to be me.

[Anonymous No.5335409]

>>5335368
>it's "the shitty one"
Shitty is relative. It's not the best Thief game, but it's better than Thi4f and still a decent game on its own merits.

[Anonymous No.5336591]

>>5327462
It felt as if the pagan beasts were planning for a raid or something.

Dewinder Manor has a theme we are also going to explore in Shadow Play and Mother Redcaps' Last Request: manors.

[Anonymous No.5338071]

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131762/postmortem_thief_the_dark_project.php

[Anonymous No.5338708]

>>5247326
The Dark Mod is the only correct reply.

[Anonymous No.5339473]

>>5318231
There's nobody to hide from in The Zone.

[Anonymous No.5339720]

>>5339473
There would be two levels. One with stealth, the other with environmental hazards. You need to first get through the military blockade afterall.

[Anonymous No.5339787]

Would work as a (sort of) open world, given how one guy dropped and they shot at him for about 2 hours before giving up.

[Anonymous No.5342119]

Where can I find the unstripped missions of thief GOLD en the Blooper Reel?

[Anonymous No.5342131]

[Anonymous No.5342443]

>>5342131

[Anonymous No.5342447]

So, a long overdue question, but how are the Shadows of the Metal Age?
Worth checking out?

[Anonymous No.5342458]

>>5342447
Definitely. Far from perfect but good fun.

[Anonymous No.5342460]

>>5342443
EMERGENCY
EYE
WASH

[Anonymous No.5342620]

>>5342131
PLEASE BE WARNED
A MISGUIDED SOUL

[Anonymous No.5342701]

>>5342460
Great, now I have a new fetish

[Anonymous No.5343169]

>>5230572
anyone got a higher res version of pic related?

[Anonymous No.5343224]

>>5343169

[Anonymous No.5343231]

>>5343224
thanks man

[Anonymous No.5343459]

Do I need Tafferpatcher with the GOG Thief 2 version?

[Anonymous No.5343502]

>>5343231
What mission pls

[Anonymous No.5343604]

>>5343502
it's not a real mission

[Anonymous No.5343645]

>>5343604
>implying
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rMDWGJI4Z8

[Anonymous No.5343662]

>>5343645
>all those tier whores picking Haunt
Poster boy still best boy, the Ape Beast is a close second.

[Anonymous No.5343725]

>>5336591
>It felt as if the pagan beasts were planning for a raid or something.
And I really wanted something bad to happen as I stole the painting, but nothing came out of it. I don't even know if there's a way to wake up Dewinder that isn't killing him (the infamous Morpheus upgrade, a Keeper technique). Being insane and cursed must have also turned him into a heavy sleeper.
I can always appreciate a mission that teases darker projects beyond what you're witnessing, but it's a form of storytelling that comes at a price: the teasing shouldn't be more interesting than the mission itself. They should complement each other, otherwise it'd feel like the mission fell short of its potential.
Having said this, it's not something that detracts from the fun and the overall quality of the mission (extreme cases aside). It's just something the player has to accept: Thief can't always pull the crazy stuff some readables mention. The trick is to make them believable, make the player believe that that stuff could happen in the small world of that mission, by having the tone of readables and gameplay match through the use of well placed suggestions. Not an easy task when your resources are limited to what TDP has to offer (even if when've already seen some little miracles here and there) so in this case the mansion feels pretty normal compared to the madness they describe in the journals. The beast is sleeping, but it can't be woken up. But aside from that, it's an alright mansion, with its tiles in the right places.

Also it's interesting how the servant who helped us get in can be found and interacted with like any other npc. Even killed, since there's no restriction in that regard. It's already rare enough to meet friendly characters, let alone to have the freedom to do whatever we want to them, but Garrett's informants and allies are usually completely absent. Coincidentially, this is the kind of stuff that closes the gap between gameplay and storytelling.

[Anonymous No.5344032]

Are there any games that have the same level of interactivity as Thief/System Shock/Ultima Underworld but are linear for brainlets like me?

[Anonymous No.5344610]

I just noticed that in the first cutscene of Thief 2, Gamall must have freaked out when Caduca made her read a mysteriously out of place paragraph that points to her and is entirely unrelated to the rest. Apparently she didn't manage to steal all the pages that reference her conspiracy.

"My hand is copper. My brow is lead.
Suffer me in a red patina swept along in a molten flow to a sad eternity.
My stride interrupted. My thoughts untimed.
My tears are become drops of silver and shattered the crystalline fern.
I plead the wind to sweep us away.
My alabastrine limbs, useless and tired.
My carnelian heart, beatless and mired.
The Earth rejects me. Foul and changed.
The wind refuses me. Unsightly and maimed.
My voice is corrupted. My tongue unwind.
My pulse is mercurial, sickened, it slows.

>Destiny and danger are still focused on the one.
>The renegade who is both brethren and betrayer.
>Beware the spider for he weaves both labyrinth and lair.

My heart it ceases, my breath undrawn.
My eyes forever focused on the sanguine metal dawn."

That middle part has nothing to do with the prophecy of the Metal Age. No metallic metaphors either. It talks about Gamall. Why is it there of all places?

[Anonymous No.5344960]

>>5343725
Is pic a photoshop edit or an actual screenshot?

[Anonymous No.5345030]

>>5344960
Screenshot. You ask because of what it says or because of how it looks?

[Anonymous No.5345062]

>>5345030
What is says. It reads a tad like it was written by someone from the DC Bizzaro worlds.

[Anonymous No.5345102]

>>5345062
Makes sense. The guy this journal belongs to has been influenced by a cursed pagan painting, so that's supposed to be their dialect. Not exactly Bizarro level of crazy, but still crazy.

[Anonymous No.5345124]

>>5344610
>>The renegade who is both brethren and betrayer.
I thought that line referred to Garrett

[Anonymous No.5345432]

Which one is better to start playing? 1st or 2nd? I already know the plot of both, so it's not like it really matters. Still, which one is better to play? Nope, I don't plan to play all four games either, I just want to try a one-off stint

[Anonymous No.5345705]

>>5345124
I suppose you haven't finished Thief 3 yet.
The Keepers at large accuse Garrett of being the brethren and betrayer, but Gamall is revealed to be the baddie of the story.

[Anonymous No.5345718]

>>5345705
oh. I'm impressed that the plot of thief 3 was actually fully planned out in 2.

[Anonymous No.5345738]

>>5345718
oh well shit, I don't know about that, but considering they namedropped the metal age in TDS, they probably had some idea what they wanted to do after that, and could have similarly done that with the brethren and betrayer.

[Anonymous No.5345995]

>>5345432
1st

[Anonymous No.5345997]

>>5345738
I remember in an interview someone said they actually just mentioned the metal age as a last minute sequel hook without any real idea of what it would entail.

[Anonymous No.5346073]

What do you think of "The Dark Mod"? Worth playing?

[Anonymous No.5346670]

>>5345718
I doubt it was, but even so it all fits retroactively, especially since that one line is completely disconnected from the rest of the prophecy.

[Anonymous No.5346680]

>>5346670
I dunno. They very clearly introduced the Caduca and the little girl just to have them in another game to me.

[Anonymous No.5346956]

>>5343725
I did have grander plans for the mission and to actually give more story satisfaction rather than "just believe it ok he's going insane" and general memery, but since I was learning dromed whilst making everything and only had a a short time frame to do it I just couldn't realize it in time.

There's always TMA20AC to look forward to, however...

[Anonymous No.5347394]

I'm looking through the object folder with the Dark Engine Viewer and I see an unused arm with a bow called 'bowarm_r'. Can I replace the current bow arm with this?
Surprised there is also a bed specifically tailored to Lord Bafford called 'bedbaf'. There is this thing called 'fuckoff'. Object 'sandbag3' is HUGE.

[Anonymous No.5347617]

Didn't Thief use a similar animation style as this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-J3nJerAyQ

[Anonymous No.5348454]

>>5346956
For what it's worth, I believed in what was there to believe. I love the TDP pagans, mysterious and wicked as they are, and the way you get to know them only as a semi-extinct faction desperately revived by the madness of their god, so I may be a little biased, but I think you did them justice. Your teasing&hinting game can only improve as long as you keep the barrier that separates it form the gameplay thin. Working on the player's senses (sound can do wonders, especially when it comes to deceiving, I think) is important, but so is some of the stuff that has an impact on one's imagination. For example I liked what you did with the painting, which is presented as something evil and dangerous and ends up looking harmless, normal. I don't know if that was the intention but I imagined it as a mediocre art piece, especially if compared to the others exposed in the mansion, hence unsuspected. A simple object hiding a great evil but, aside from that, it's really just a simple painting when it comes to stealing it. After all, the appeal of Thief is also treating mystical items of every kind like the rest of the loot you've been grabbing since the start of the mission.
On top of all that, few things in games where I'm supposed to be sneaky get me like knowing that someone or something has been sneaking around, prowling like I'm doing now, but before me. Even if it's only written, that trick is easily landed on me.
Speaking of readables, scattering clues for the riddle solution through different journals was a good idea. Even if the player can find the solution by applying a little logic, reinforcing the idea of what this lord's obsession is about and then confirming it in the end, without ever spelling out the whole word, is another good way of setting a theme while also helping a taffer out. The final clue in the secret room was great.

That being said, I wish you luck with dromed and your next mission, bet it about hints and shadows or crazy shit happening.