/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.5484870]

Thief thread
Started replaying Thief 2 yesterday night, currently at Shipping Receiving. Let's talk about this great game series.
Which game is your favourite and why?
I'm also interested in which game has the better atmosphere in your opinion? I love the dark surreal atmosphere of the original but also enjoy the much more down to earth, still slightly horror orientated atmosphere of the second.

Where else could one discuss Thief? TTLG moves even slower than /vr/.

[Anonymous No.5484920]

Deadly Shadows with the Sneaky Upgrade is my current favorite, of the original pair, I prefer the second.

The first goes a little too far into high fantasy and monster fights after the first part. The second is the true "be the best thief" experience. The third? That's the final fleshing out of Garrett as a character... and the best thing they ever did with the Deus Ex Invisible War engine.

[Anonymous No.5484949]

>Shipping and Receiving is my favorite Thief 2 mission
>have yet to unlock all the rooms
Fug bros, why is it so good?

[Anonymous No.5485467]

>>5484870
>Where else could one discuss Thief?
In the shadows.

[Anonymous No.5485743]

>>5484870
I only play Dark Mod nowadays. It's what Thief 3 would've been if it didn't have to placate the console kiddies.

[Anonymous No.5485761]

>>5485743
Is it alive? Any good maps released recently?

[Anonymous No.5485795]

>>5485743
Taffer

[Anonymous No.5485894]

>>5485743
The Dark Mod isn't even half as good a Deadly Shadows though. Thief 1 is still my favourite, but DS was great.

[Anonymous No.5485965]

>>5485894
The Dark Mod - It has rope arrows, you can swim in it & it doesn't have "blue teleport zones."

But, please, do defend T:DS.

[Anonymous No.5485974]

>>5485761
Still alive. People are still making missions for it.

[Anonymous No.5486197]

Started playing T:DS w/ Sneaky Upgrade and I can't use any of my weapons. Anyone else experience this?

[Anonymous No.5487012]

>>5485965
TDS with the newest fan patches no longer has blue teleport zones either. Except in the city levels because the districts are separated by miles and miles of cityscape.

[Anonymous No.5487105]

>>5487012
>Except in the city levels because the districts are separated by miles and miles of cityscape.
and until all that awful padding is removed, Deadly Shadows will never be a good game

[Anonymous No.5487162]

>>5487105
going by a lot of the most popular fms for thief 1 and 2, most players seem to think that those pointless city filler sections is what thief is all about and that you can never have too much of it.

[Anonymous No.5488105]

>>5464000
Man, I'm hooked. Hard to describe why, but it's a feeling not unlike the one I felt while playing Bafford's Manor for the first time. It was like being lost in the middle of something mysterious and somewhat unsettling. At the time it was because I didn't know anything about the game, what I was supposed to do and what the game was gonna do to me. Now the mystery is gone and, while I still like the mission, it's hard to find that really subjective kind of feel again.
A lot of FMs have something special about them, but in this case this one share quite the strong connection with Bafford. It's partially thematic, but it's not just about that. There's no grand scheme behind our simple thieving, it's all about just relieving a lord of a certain shiny thing he keeps somewhere. It doesn't go deeper than that and I'm fine with it: it does what it does efficiently. The manor oozes opulence while still realistically containing in its average, as if all that gold had to be squeezed between those walls. The result creates an opressive feeling. The halls may be eerily beautiful but they are still patrolled by guards and you can hear their steps almost everywhere, never knowing which room will be a safe one and which one will leave you exposed. The lord's quarters complete the picture perfectly.
All this, combined with the unhortodox layout of the building, the details and the use of music creates a believable setting that raises some old questions: what is our thief supposed to do and what will happen to him? At the end of the day it's just Thief we're talking about and we know how it works, so even if all the mystery will disappear from this one too, the fact it's been there is enough for me.

[Anonymous No.5488209]

>>5485761
two missions came out in the past couple of months

-cleaning up the neighborhood
Great mission, multiple ways in, multiple ways out, some verticality, can be ghosted

-Shadows of Northdale act II
not as good as Act I which came out last year but I can't really blame the author since the first one set high expectations, it was very well done.

Unfortunately it looks like the "official" campaign (Crucible of Omens) will never be finished, its a pity because from what Ive read on the forums all the mapping was finished, just needed some scripting work and minor details. Looks like the team imploded from some drama.

[Anonymous No.5488367]

>play DS in first-person because fuck you I'm not playing a goddamn thief game in third-person
>gameplay was obviously designed for the console-friendly third-person perspective so moving around feels clunky as hell
I'm not sure I can do this bros

[Anonymous No.5488483]

>>5488367
Whenever you need to turn on a dime you need to first turn about 45° extra and then back, so that Garrett's legs are oriented to the direction you're trying to move. Otherwise he swerves around to orient himself and if you do that on a narrow path he'll fall off.

[Anonymous No.5488503]

>>5484920
I didn't expect the first reply to be this correct. I agree 100%, anon.

[Anonymous No.5488790]

>>5484920
i'm stealing this reply.
seems appropriate somehow...

[Anonymous No.5488879]

>>5484920
>>5488503
>>5488790

yikes

[Anonymous No.5488893]

>>5485894
TDM shits on Thief 3 in every way from mechanics to levels.

[Anonymous No.5489154]

>>5488893
there's no point comparing DS and TDM. DS is a great game with awesome missions but it's done. There are almost no FMs for it and it never had much of a modding scene

[Anonymous No.5489507]

>>5489154
TDM only exists because of how disappointed people were with DS.

[Anonymous No.5489557]

>>5489507
And the reason why people are coming back to TDS isn't just the fact that Thiaf was bad. TDM was also disappointing. TDM exists because TDS with it's shitty engine couldn't be modded enough to fix all of its issues. TDM was supposed to be as good or better but its basic mechanics fail to stand up to TDS. It did plenty of stuff better but the most important parts fall short.

[Anonymous No.5490032]

>>5489557
There's nothing to go back to. You can only replay the same missions so many times... again I'm not saying it's a bad game, I've played it many times, but TDM is getting new missions and content

[Anonymous No.5490419]

tds feels really mediocre after playing the first two
i've been having fun running fan missions because i just can't bring myself to complete tds

[Anonymous No.5491345]

>>5490032
>You can only replay the missions in a Thief game so many times...
Look at this camel-mannered tunic-wearing mollycoddle

[Anonymous No.5491381]

What's everyone's favorite FM
I've always like Broken Triad.

[Plutonia No.5491443]

>>5491381
A Question of Knowledge. The Hammerite cathedral mission in T2X. Not exacly a complex mission but supremely comfy and atmospheric.

[Anonymous No.5491461]

I like the fantasy parts of Thief. What’s a good FM about stealing catacombs?

[Anonymous No.5491905]

>>5491381
Great mission but I could never finish it. There was some kind of bug where the card with the wife's name becomes unreadable when you pick it up. Apparently it has something to do with the script that randomizes the name, its not compatible with some versions of the game.

[Anonymous No.5493803]

>>5491461
Sepulchre of the Sinistral
Catacombs of Knoss

[Anonymous No.5494408]

>>5490419
tds is mediocre hence why tdm was made

[Anonymous No.5495565]

If TDM was actually great then this one anon wouldn't need to spend every waking moment of his life defending it here. And yes it's blatantly obvious that it's just one person. The one with the stupid figures of speech that literally no one but him uses.

[Anonymous No.5495571]

>>5495565
TDS will never be good.

[Anonymous No.5495728]

>>5495571
Wrong. It will never be great.

[Anonymous No.5495731]

Try playing an actual good game, like MGS, you faggot.

[Anonymous No.5495767]

[Anonymous No.5496186]

>>5485965
It is still a soulless, empty Doom 3 mod with shitty AI, sound design and no story, music or atmosphere.
DS was flawed, but TDM has nothing of value compared to it.

[Anonymous No.5496424]

Play The Dark Mod

It's Free as in Beer

[Anonymous No.5496687]

>>5484870
Which is the most active of the modding communities aside from UT99, DOOM and Quake: Thief, Elder Scrolls, System Shock, or Build Engine?

[Anonymous No.5498471]

>>5496687
Are the Source or GoldSrc communities alive at all anymore? Those were all the rage back when Valve still made games.

[Anonymous No.5498694]

>>5488105
A good birthday present!
Bloodstone Prison was next?

[Anonymous No.5498879]

>>5484870
What made LGS go broke in mid-2000?

[Anonymous No.5499021]

>>5484870
>Which game is your favourite and why?

1/ Gold because it's more of a "thief simulator" rather than a "stealth game".

>which game has the better atmosphere

That question is probably impossible to answer.

[Anonymous No.5499024]

>>5498879
Their golf game bombed. Eventually the losses they took on that caught up with them.

[Anonymous No.5499025]

>>5499024
*Thief Gold

[Anonymous No.5499253]

>>5498879
They got acquired by a company which in turn was acquired by another company who shut LGS down and auctioned off their assets because they didn't care to make videogames.

[Anonymous No.5499634]

>>5496687
Scrolls > Build > Thief > System Shock I guess

[Anonymous No.5499649]

>>5484870
Any good horror fan missions from that anniversary contest?
The lists of missions sorted by genre on the forums doesn't list by date, so I don't know which are new.

[Anonymous No.5499716]

>>5499649
Lost Among The Forsaken is great. But only if you have really good sense of direction and spatial awareness. It's basically The Haunted Cathedral except amped up to 11 and with also some human enemies.

[Anonymous No.5499773]

>>5499649
This site lists releases chronologically
http://www.taffersparadise.co.uk/thief1missions.html
Lost Among the Forsaken was already mentioned. Catacombs of Knoss, Tombs of St. Tennor, and Heart and Soul are pretty great too but they're not really horror missions, just dungeons.

[Anonymous No.5499910]

>>5489557
>>people are coming back to TDS
No they aren't. Stop lying to yourself and others.
TDM has more of a modding scene than DS ever will.
TDM is free as in "You can download and play it right now" free. DS is not that.
TDM is constantly being updated and maintained. DS is not.

[Anonymous No.5499920]

>>5499649
Lost among the forsaken was okay, it just goes on for a little long despite the main objectives being very straightforward because of the high loot goal (on expert, at least) and finding special items. It also plays more like a bog standard modern city mission rather than the haunted cathedral, so expect lots of "verticality" and time wasted looking for anchor points for your rope arrows.

Also I don't get why people love horror missions so fucking much. They are linear, scripted garbage most of the time and authors just can't seem to grasp the concept of subtlety even if it fucked them right in the ass.

[Anonymous No.5500021]

just bought thief gold and thief 2
..what am i in for bros?

[Anonymous No.5500024]

>>5500021
From the sound of it you're in for Thief Gold and Thief 2.

[Anonymous No.5500096]

>>5500021
First: technical difficulties. Then: key rebinding. Finally: good games.

[Anonymous No.5500126]

>>5500096
>technical difficulties
Its a Looking Glass Game not post-Morrowind Besthesda.

[Anonymous No.5500160]

>>5500126
I know for a fact that retail Thief 1 and 2 do need some third party patching to get rid of the compatibility issues in modern operating systems. Hell, the setup for the games have required a command line argument -lgntforce ever since Windows XP.

[Anonymous No.5500382]

>>5500160
What about the PCem or 86box emulators?

[Anonymous No.5500418]

How can japanese games even compete?

[Anonymous No.5500419]

>>5500382
The only thing I know about those is that very few people use them.

[Anonymous No.5500579]

[Anonymous No.5500581]

[Anonymous No.5500587]

[Anonymous No.5500596]

[Anonymous No.5500743]

Who's posting from 1999?

[Anonymous No.5501359]

If you haven't played it yet Making a Profit is a good mission. Kind of ugly with some open barren areas but is fun to play.

[Anonymous No.5501386]

>>5484870
What if Robin Hood, Garret, and Batman met each other.

[Anonymous No.5501446]

>>5487162
>he doesn't enjoy Skacky levels
they're just as much as what Thief is about as crypt levels

[Anonymous No.5501629]

>>5501446

I don't. They have more in common with something like Assassins Creed with its open world bullshit and its "quantity over quality" philosophy than any mission in the original games, where the challenge and fun came from moving through a level while actually having to avoid enemies that could pose a threat to you rather than sleepwalking through an empty shell of a mission until you stumble across your objective by accident 15 minutes in, and then realize you'll have to spend the next fucking hour aimlessly wandering around boring city streets with zero gameplay in them while you mindlessly look up to see where you can attach your next rope arrow so you can maybe find +15 gold and hopefully meet the loot goal and finish the fucking mission.

[Anonymous No.5501638]

Dark ambient is so fucking good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD35b8NpB80

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bDqdFjxCrQ

[Anonymous No.5501697]

>>5501629
Life of the Party was the first to do it. And all kinds of FMs have that sort of rope arrow bullshit. I particularly hate how people jizz over levels that require you to find tiny hidden switches.

[Anonymous No.5501938]

>>5501359
It is an excellent mission, though it does have some parts that are completely contrary to LGS design. Cinematic restriction of player movement to accommondate a conversation scene is just a big no-no in any LGS style game.

[Anonymous No.5501945]

>>5501697
The Haunted Cathedral did it first and did it worse. At least Life of The Party is blatantly obvious about its pathing, with the sheer drops showing players where to definitely not look for things. THC is a dark sprawling maze with random loot strewn about like garbage in a rock festival.

[Anonymous No.5501987]

>>5501629
Judith it's time to stop posting.

[Anonymous No.5502093]

Apparently the anon who makes these doesn't come to these threads https://vocaroo.com/i/s1jhyG4clARV

[Anonymous No.5502337]

>>5502093
moar

[Anonymous No.5502737]

Have you been dromeding lately, anon?

[Anonymous No.5503226]

>>5498694
Indeed it was. Two minutes in and there's already a zombie servant who acts like a zombie and a servant. Not to mention the haunt bowmen. I love it.
Happy birthday, taffer.

[Anonymous No.5503292]

>>5503226
Oh no, I meant a good birthday present in the context of the Thief 20 year anniversary.

[Anonymous No.5503319]

>>5503226
I did mean a "good birthday present" as in: the game is 20 years old and this FM is a fine celebration of TDP.
Happy birthday, taffer!

[Anonymous No.5503325]

>>5503319
Heh, my bad. But yeah, just like you said, there's stiil no reason not to celebrate. Of the few I've played from the contest, even if most of them have their own distinctive qualities, this is among the ones that truly captured the TDP spirit in its own way, as a little tale from the City. Maybe my favorite in that regard, on par with Knoss.

[Anonymous No.5503328]

Playing Thief Gold and it's been great until I got to the Thieves Guild mission. I had to look up what the fuck its problem was and it confirmed my assumption that it wasn't part of the original game. It's so out of place and it's such a slog. It's probably the longest sewer level I've ever encountered.

[Anonymous No.5503335]

Funny, I just tried play Thief 1 for the first time today. By modern standards the game is nearly unplayable. How to fuck are you even supposed to know where to go?

[Anonymous No.5503337]

>>5503335
Map and compass. If an area is really too mazelike try dropping objects around to mark where you've already been.

[Anonymous No.5503340]

>>5503337
There's no way to know where you are on the map because it doesn't even have a radar.

[Anonymous No.5503368]

>>5503340
>radar
Zoom zoom.

[Anonymous No.5503452]

>>5501629
Out of curiosity, have you tried The Sound of a Burrick in a Room? If not you may like it better than the others.

[Anonymous No.5504017]

>>5503335
I agree anon, it aged like milk.

[Anonymous No.5504165]

Why is there suddenly so much bait in these threads?

[Anonymous No.5504746]

>>5504165
>anything I don't like is bait
go back to ttlg and stay there

[Anonymous No.5504823]

It's not possible to simultaneously care enough about immersive sims to find threads about them on /vr/ in order to post on them and to think that those games are suffering from the absence of an automap radar. And since it's not possible for anyone to be stupid enough to think that's possible, you don't get any (You)s either.

[Anonymous No.5504827]

>muh immersive sims
you can fuck right off

[Anonymous No.5504834]

whats the matter? thief is too much for your little zoomer brain?

[Anonymous No.5504882]

I really want to get into thief but I could not get past the controls, is there a modern controls mod somewhere?

[Anonymous No.5504961]

>>5504882
What controls do you need? As far as I'm aware the only problems with the controls are that vanilla TDP does not support mouse wheel (can be fixed) and use world object and use inventory item are bound to the same key (cannot be fixed). Other than that the controls are as intuitive as you want to make them via rebinding.

[Anonymous No.5504968]

>>5504961
I just remember briefly testing it and I remember wasd being binded to turning and stuff like that

[Anonymous No.5504986]

>>5504968
Those can be rebinded easily.

[Anonymous No.5504993]

>>5504968
Wait... after all these years, have I just been living under the illusion that people start every game by checking that the key bindings are correct for them just because I grew up playing Thief? Do people actually blindly jump into new games without rebinding keys according to their preference?

[Anonymous No.5505032]

>>5504993
It's wrong mindset but I just try to get used to it, I've pressed C and CTRL for crouch equal amount

[Anonymous No.5505329]

>>5505032
I think the last time I used c to crouch was when I didn't yet know that FPS games could be played with a mouse so I steered with arrow keys, ctrl was fire and c was crouch.

[Anonymous No.5505507]

>>5504823
Most people seem to forget that the first immersive sim, Ultima Underworld did indeed have automap, and so did System Shock 1 and 2.

[Anonymous No.5505738]

>>5505507
I think an automap takes away from the game. When you get a player accustomed to constantly having access to positional and directional information they will never internalize the actual structure of the world around them. They will look at a map wondering "now where am I" instead of the environment around them to find that out. And if that map was gone they'd be fucked. The environment is never gone, so the problem doesn't exist for games that have no automap.
It's kinda like the problem of games that are too linear. After just a little while of traversing levels where there is only one way forward the player gets used to that and simply shuts off their sense of direction and spatial awareness entirely. Then if the game throws a curveball and actually connects the level to an earlier part the player is genuinely confused as to how it was possible because they never paid attention, and god forbid the game ever expect the player to figure out another connection like that by themselves when their perception of the game world around them has been destroyed by the bad design of the levels.

[Anonymous No.5505783]

>>5484870
Which has a steeper Learning curve: DromED Doombuilder, Forge( for Marathon Infinity) or Trenchbroom?

[Anonymous No.5506437]

>>5505738
It depends on the level design. Ultima Underworld, System Shock 1 and Arx Fatalis would be really annoying if they didn't have an automap, dungeons aren't as recognizable as Thief's cathedral or Deus Ex's Hong Kong (btw some levels in Thief 1 and 2 also had a vague automap system, Thief 3 was the first Thief to not give you any automap at all).
The difference is that in most immersive sims, the map only shows rooms you already discovered, so you are still encouraged to pay attention to your environments, and I think that's totally fine.

[Anonymous No.5506454]

>>5505783
Doombuilder is probably the easiest to come to grips with cause its just a flat map drawing essentially. Dromed and TB are in a category above just because of actual 3D.

That being said, I think making maps for thief is the hardest of them all because there's a certain expectation of quality and attention to small details in missions. All rooms must be built meticulously and with purpose. In Doom and most others, I feel you can get away more with a lazy mentality of just making an open space to shoot things with some pillars for line of sight breaking and maybe elevated platforms for stuff, and you can just be more random with the layouts.

I'm probably wrong though, I haven't played a ton of doom WADs so I can't say I'm an expert.

[Anonymous No.5506459]

>>5506437
>some levels in Thief 1 and 2 also had a vague automap system, Thief 3 was the first Thief to not give you any automap at all
I suppose you're right. I completely forgot the fact that Thief does have that blue glow around the general quadrant of a map that you're currently in. But I wasn't really referring to maps and position indicators in general. I was talking about a constant real-time automap in the corner of your screen. With a separate map screen you still have to check your compass, look at what's around you and then open the map menu to figure out where to go. With an real-time automap the player is encouraged to keep an eye on that easily digestible information the game constantly provides, which diminishes their true perception of their surroundings. I bet people would have had much more trouble with navigating The Sword if they had an automap. It creates an illusion of giving you proper information, but it's a partial 2-dimensional representation of a 3-dimensional structure. With your own eyes and a compass you can more easily form a 3-dimensional awareness of that 3-dimensional structure.

[Anonymous No.5507398]

>>5484920
trash opinion desu. Deadly Shadows (yes even with the fan patch) is fucking terrible.

[Anonymous No.5507404]

>>5488367
TDS has one of the worst gamefeels in all gaming

[Anonymous No.5507473]

Free
as
in
Beer

[Anonymous No.5508346]

>>5507404

[Anonymous No.5508494]

>>5488367
This is by far the worst thing about TDS aside from the loading times and loading zones. Holy fuck it was so frustrating just moving around in TDS, Garrett controls like a fucking limousine.

[Anonymous No.5508497]

>>5508346
This fucking glitch in TDS ruined my day so many times.

[Anonymous No.5508508]

beer isnt free

[Anonymous No.5508515]

>>5508497
Why hasn't anyone patched TDS for that and similar glitches?

[Anonymous No.5508581]

>>5508515
I might be misremembering this but I think modding one of the ini files to remove headbobbing either disables the glitch completely or reduces its probability drastically. Also because the player's movements in TDS are tied to the character model's movements, disabling headbobbing makes the control about 25% smoother. Too bad looking at the shadows you can see Garrett's perfectly level head as he runs.

[Anonymous No.5508645]

I love the way they did the cutscenes in this game so much.

[Anonymous No.5510279]

>>5499920
>I don't get why people love horror missions so fucking much
A good horror missions, I feel, ends up combining everything I like about Thief and rolls it into one mission.
Using Rowena's curse as an example, it's a regular thieving mission that also has a target person to find while traversing a large mansion with every type of tileset to walk on, there are guards and a few machines, tons of secrets and crannies, atmosphere that plays off of being alone, mysteries, ambience that keeps you on your toes, and eventually nestles into an ending with paganism, monster enemies you can fight or stealth around, and a "boss" you can defeat by fighting or being quiet.
If I could somehow cram Thief 1 into a single mission, it would be that.

[Anonymous No.5510343]

>>5484870
Played both Thief 2 and Shadows Of The Metal Age recently, anybody got reccs for fan expansions?

[Anonymous No.5511023]

>>5510279
I see Rowena's Curse as a mansion mission first with a few horror elements to spice things up a bit. Same goes for missions like Ominous Bequest and The Den to name a few. The horror elements work well in those missions because they were fun to play to begin with. Other missions will focus almost exclusively on the horror aspect and simply ignore or downplay the importance of fun or interesting gameplay. Deceptive Perceptions, Rose Cottage and the Rocksbourg series fall into this category.

[Anonymous No.5511025]

>>5484870
Thief but its an action RPG.

[Anonymous No.5511093]

Who art thou...? THOU ART NO NOVICE!

[Anonymous No.5511190]

>>5484870
I wonder if Thief could work on a Linux PC ever?

[Anonymous No.5511434]

>>5511190
Wine runs it pretty well

[Anonymous No.5511543]

>>5511434
This, Haplo does his dark engine wizardry on loonix+wine and said he's never had a problem.