I have only played thief 2 and 3 (both of which I loved). The first two in a set but thief one came broken. How does the first compare to the 2nd and 3rd? Is it still worth? Also I miss rope arrows so much.
I've never played the Gold missions myself but have heard they are excellent. Others can comment on the Gold missions, but I found the Dark Project not quite as good as Thief 2, but still excellent overall.
FYI, I just fired it up on Win7-64 and it works great.
Also, someone on the RPS comments has said that Thief 2 isn't far behind on GOG. Seems obvious.
There are various mods you can get to improve TG (I did it on my old copy), no idea how they work on the GO versions but you can get all the higher quality T2 assets in there, get it running on widescreen with anti-aliasing, etc. Search for the thief enhancement pack and DDfix, but "TGfix" is an all in one that should 'just work', at least it did for me. Links to the TTLG forum are good.
The one TG mission I ended up not liking so much was the thieves' guild. It was good stuff, but too sprawling, and probably a good example why sometimes constraints can be a good thing (such as making that level now would require a zillion times more work).
Location: Flipping over on his Betty Harper's and catching his can in the Bertie
Tuesday, January 31st, 2012 - 8:43pm
PaladinTom wrote:
master0 wrote:
I have only played thief 2 and 3 (both of which I loved). The first two in a set but thief one came broken. How does the first compare to the 2nd and 3rd? Is it still worth? Also I miss rope arrows so much.
I've never played the Gold missions myself but have heard they are excellent. Others can comment on the Gold missions, but I found the Dark Project not quite as good as Thief 2, but still excellent overall.
T1 is much like T2, but the levels are driven by the story whereas T2 is the other way around. What that means is expect an excellent story, but also some deviations in the level design from what you might want to do as a thief—basically, there will be lots of zombies. T2 addresses players' complaints about the zombies and sticks to more traditional thievery, like the stand-out thieves' highway level.
But to answer your question, nuanced differences aside, yes it's worth it. It's more Thief! And rope arrows. As for Gold, the Thieves Guild level is worth it alone, for the sheer size of the thing.
PaladinTom wrote:
Also, someone on the RPS comments has said that Thief 2 isn't far behind on GOG. Seems obvious.
Looking forward to that since my copy of Thief 2 (from the Mastertronic trilogy DVD) won't run because of a DRM issue (won't recognize that the disc is in the drive). That's just the sort of problem GOG can solve.
Veloxi wrote:
I likely will soon, don't worry. Already have 2 copies of it on disk already.
Same. But now I have a DRM-free cloud back-up! #anyoldexcuse
"Gravey, I'm never sure, on a scale of 1-10, just how serious you are when you post. " – Minarchist
"When Gravey wins an internet argument, it's like the whole internet wins." – oilypenguin
"I love you, Gravey, you taffer." – ClockworkHouse
Location: Trouble at the Spine of the World? Snow problem!
Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 - 8:39am
It also performs some surgery on some of the existing levels as well to make the new ones make sense - most significantly in a couple of the later levels where you are looking for a certain number of things...to open...somewhere....and gain access to THE CREEPIEST LEVEL EVER MADE IN A GAME EVER (at the time at least).
Honestly, I think they took a lot of the stuff they learned how to do in Thief 1 into System Shock 2. Return To The Cathedral is really quite frightening, and I remember it as being more intense than most of SS2. It's far shorter than SS, but it's outstanding.
If you've played Thief 3, I'd call Shalebridge Cradle superior in both atmosphere and execution; it scared me a lot more than RTTC did in T1. But for the time, RTTC was the grand slam homerun level, the experience that made Thief famous. The game is VERY good both before and after that, but it's the Cathedral that firmly moves Thief 1 into the pantheon of the all-time greats.
I haven't played it for a few years, but I suspect that RTTC is probably worth five bucks all by itself.
Elewis17 wrote:
I endorse any suggestion by Malor to put computer components in kitchen appliances.
Thief is one of those games that causes me to wish people would get over graphics for the sake of graphics in games, and the red queen's race it feeds. I played through all 3 games last year and they're still very playable, but could do with just a few tiny tweaks to improve the experience for modern times, things like using the mouse wheel (which you can do in T2) for quick item selection and sorting out mantling and climbing terrain so it feels better.
The core rules you play by in Thief and how it communicates with the player are still great, it's very... playable. It's obvious why things happen the way they do in the world, it has good feedback and response on player actions. It's a little depressing when a game from 13+ years ago has lessons that haven't been learned yet by contemporary games. We still think it's a great thing when an AI notices a door being open or noticing a fallen ally.
Thief is one of those games that causes me to wish people would get over graphics for the sake of graphics in games, and the red queen's race it feeds. I played through all 3 games last year and they're still very playable, but could do with just a few tiny tweaks to improve the experience for modern times, things like using the mouse wheel (which you can do in T2) for quick item selection and sorting out mantling and climbing terrain so it feels better.
The core rules you play by in Thief and how it communicates with the player are still great, it's very... playable. It's obvious why things happen the way they do in the world, it has good feedback and response on player actions. It's a little depressing when a game from 13+ years ago has lessons that haven't been learned yet by contemporary games. We still think it's a great thing when an AI notices a door being open or noticing a fallen ally.
I honestly haven't gone back and played many older games I missed, my most specific memory of doing this within the last few years is Fallout 2 through GOG. At first I thought I was put-off by the graphics, which I probably was a bit, but then I came to realize it was really UI issues as well as other conceits I've come accustomed to (such as being able to rotate an angled top-down view so that NPC aren't simply hidden behind walls). It ended up being enough of an issue for me that I quit 10+ hours into the game.
I don't want to take my being put-off as a rule, though. Considering what I've heard about the game I realize it's one that I need to purchase and play.
Everything that starts out as a cultural revolution ends up as capitalist routine.
-David Brooks
There's a large number of people who look at old titles, on this site and elsewhere, and say "Oh! The graphics are an eyesore I can't possibly play that." They don't know what they're missing out on. The gameplay hasn't changed over the years and there are titles which had phenomenally good gameplay that held up over the years.
It's something that rubs me the wrong way because while I like graphics I'll still go back and play old titles and find them compelling. Hell, I can still play the original Doom and get uneasy, or the original Quake and be mesmerized by the ebb and flow of action and movement. I can play Myth, NOLF, Giants: Citizen Kabuto, Baldur's Gate, or any number of games and they're still exceptional to this day with what they've done.
Perhaps I am just an exception to the rule, though.
Location: Flipping over on his Betty Harper's and catching his can in the Bertie
Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 - 5:37pm
What I don't get is when someone said something like "I can't believe I'll pay $10 for a 14 year-old game." I know games age fast, but $10 and 14 years? I've paid $100 for a 50 year-old book, whose story was no worse for its age. I've paid $10 for a ho-hum sandwich. And it's not like Thief belongs in the "Unplayable old games" thread. Sure it doesn't look great, but its sound and AI are better than so many modern games; and it's a contemporary of Half-Life, with controls and a UI that are totally familiar to today's players (it even has lean, even if it doesn't do mousewheel selecting).
In other words, I agree with Scratched, and should make better sandwich choices at restaurants.
"Gravey, I'm never sure, on a scale of 1-10, just how serious you are when you post. " – Minarchist
"When Gravey wins an internet argument, it's like the whole internet wins." – oilypenguin
"I love you, Gravey, you taffer." – ClockworkHouse
I think those who carp about graphics are the vocal minority. Even in the current generation there is such a wide range of different graphics that by and large no one really cares about.
I use my two kids as an example: I always thought that one or both of them would have a problem with graphics or old games. They are both well into their teens now and could care less about graphics and love most of the classics I have thrown their way.
Don't get me wrong, I love pretty graphics in a game. But gameplay has always come first.
Location: Flipping over on his Betty Harper's and catching his can in the Bertie
Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 - 9:30pm
If thou hast eyes to see the glory of the Thief series, but do not, then pluck them out.
"Gravey, I'm never sure, on a scale of 1-10, just how serious you are when you post. " – Minarchist
"When Gravey wins an internet argument, it's like the whole internet wins." – oilypenguin
"I love you, Gravey, you taffer." – ClockworkHouse
That was me, Gravey, and I think, in an era when you can get games like Arkham Asylum, fairly regularly, for $5, then spending $10 on a 14-year-old game is fairly remarkable.
Remember, that game came out when the Hot Processor Du Jour was the Pentium II at a mighty 66Mhz.
Elewis17 wrote:
I endorse any suggestion by Malor to put computer components in kitchen appliances.
Location: Standing over a stained copy of an old Ronald McDonald ad, masturbating furiously screaming MY WAY!
Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 - 9:45pm
Gravey wrote:
What I don't get is when someone said something like "I can't believe I'll pay $10 for a 14 year-old game." I know games age fast, but $10 and 14 years? I've paid $100 for a 50 year-old book, whose story was no worse for its age. I've paid $10 for a ho-hum sandwich. And it's not like Thief belongs in the "Unplayable old games" thread. Sure it doesn't look great, but its sound and AI are better than so many modern games; and it's a contemporary of Half-Life, with controls and a UI that are totally familiar to today's players (it even has lean, even if it doesn't do mousewheel selecting).
In other words, I agree with Scratched, and should make better sandwich choices at restaurants.
Yeah but we're paying 99 cents for a game these days, and just-released AAA games with millions of dollars of development are considered expensive at 60 =)
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Location: Flipping over on his Betty Harper's and catching his can in the Bertie
Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 - 9:57pm
Malor wrote:
That was me, Gravey, and I think, in an era when you can get games like Arkham Asylum, fairly regularly, for $5, then spending $10 on a 14-year-old game is fairly remarkable.
Mex wrote:
Yeah but we're paying 99 cents for a game these days, and just-released AAA games with millions of dollars of development are considered expensive at 60 =)
Yeah, it's all part of the bigger issue of customer perception of wibbly-wobbly game pricing. When a Beatles album or a Dickens novel can still sell for $10, I've got no problem with a sawbuck as the baseline price for one of the titles from the canon of Western gaming.
"Gravey, I'm never sure, on a scale of 1-10, just how serious you are when you post. " – Minarchist
"When Gravey wins an internet argument, it's like the whole internet wins." – oilypenguin
"I love you, Gravey, you taffer." – ClockworkHouse
Well it could be worse. It could be a Blizzard game that's 10-14 years old. Those still sell for $30-40 regularly, and sometimes have a sale for $20, but never cheaper.
I personally never cared that much for the Thief series, so this is one of the few GoG games I will take a pass on. I'm just not a stealth guy and all my missions ended up with me dying while trying to sword fight. No matter how hard I tried I could never make the sneaky thing happen.
I can appreciate it and what it was trying to do but it was not for me.
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Well, if you're going to get into any of the games, it would probably be this one. A good 1/3 of the missions are zombie/dinosaur murder fests. Though they're still pretty leisurely paced.
Like Deus Ex, the Thiefs are games that I perpetually leave on my hard drive and fire up at least once a month. I'm glad it's on GOG (with the second to follow soon, I'm sure) so I can start gifting it to my buddies who never knew the joys of late 90's PC gaming. That's worth ten bucks a pop to me.
Yep. When I discovered gog.com a few years back, Thief was the first game I looked for. I keep T1&2 on my hard drive for a yearly spin too, but haven't been able to get Thief 2 running since upgrading to Win 7. It's a tough call to pick which Thief is better, but I guess it's natural to try to rate them. I give Thief 2 the edge due to the killer level layouts plus the ability to lean against doors for better listening.
I envy folks who will be playing these gems for the first time. They are tough and frustrating on the hardest difficulty, but so damn fun. Does the gog version include the hi-res mod?
"But 2004 might be ancient for a teenager, with their hippin' and the hoppin' and the bippin' and the boppin', they don't know what the jazz is all about." - Gravey
tboon: it's way easier than spying in TF2. If you can play a spy in TF2, you can prosper at Thief.
Quote:
It's a tough call to pick which Thief is better, but I guess it's natural to try to rate them.
Personally, I still think Thief 3 is the best. Great graphics, good story, and the chopped-up mission areas don't matter very much for Thief, where they were super-distracting for Deus Ex 2.
Shalebridge Cradle would carry the game alone -- everything after that is icing.
Elewis17 wrote:
I endorse any suggestion by Malor to put computer components in kitchen appliances.
It's been a crapshoot as to whether or not my original Thief: TDP installs on Win7 or not so this is a blessing.
Also; my poor, poor wallet.
I likely will soon, don't worry. Already have 2 copies of it on disk already.
If it has a spaceship in it, I'll play it. - http://www.spacegamejunkie.com/
Remember to get in behind the guard you do sword training with to get the quotes scroll and do some lay-ups.
I have only played thief 2 and 3 (both of which I loved). The first two in a set but thief one came broken. How does the first compare to the 2nd and 3rd? Is it still worth? Also I miss rope arrows so much.
I've never played the Gold missions myself but have heard they are excellent. Others can comment on the Gold missions, but I found the Dark Project not quite as good as Thief 2, but still excellent overall.
FYI, I just fired it up on Win7-64 and it works great.
Also, someone on the RPS comments has said that Thief 2 isn't far behind on GOG. Seems obvious.
Google+ | Steam | Xbox Live
There are various mods you can get to improve TG (I did it on my old copy), no idea how they work on the GO versions but you can get all the higher quality T2 assets in there, get it running on widescreen with anti-aliasing, etc. Search for the thief enhancement pack and DDfix, but "TGfix" is an all in one that should 'just work', at least it did for me. Links to the TTLG forum are good.
The one TG mission I ended up not liking so much was the thieves' guild. It was good stuff, but too sprawling, and probably a good example why sometimes constraints can be a good thing (such as making that level now would require a zillion times more work).
T1 is much like T2, but the levels are driven by the story whereas T2 is the other way around. What that means is expect an excellent story, but also some deviations in the level design from what you might want to do as a thief—basically, there will be lots of zombies. T2 addresses players' complaints about the zombies and sticks to more traditional thievery, like the stand-out thieves' highway level.
But to answer your question, nuanced differences aside, yes it's worth it. It's more Thief! And rope arrows. As for Gold, the Thieves Guild level is worth it alone, for the sheer size of the thing.
Looking forward to that since my copy of Thief 2 (from the Mastertronic trilogy DVD) won't run because of a DRM issue (won't recognize that the disc is in the drive). That's just the sort of problem GOG can solve.
Same. But now I have a DRM-free cloud back-up! #anyoldexcuse
"Gravey, I'm never sure, on a scale of 1-10, just how serious you are when you post. " – Minarchist
"When Gravey wins an internet argument, it's like the whole internet wins." – oilypenguin
"I love you, Gravey, you taffer." – ClockworkHouse
So, I have some game knowledge deficits and this is one of them: So is this the first in the series? I know the first game is especially loved.
Everything that starts out as a cultural revolution ends up as capitalist routine.
-David Brooks
Yes, Thief Gold is roughly a GOTY equivalent of Thief: The Dark Project which is the first in the series.
TG was a whole new release, those 3 extra levels weren't available to T:TDP.
It also performs some surgery on some of the existing levels as well to make the new ones make sense - most significantly in a couple of the later levels where you are looking for a certain number of things...to open...somewhere....and gain access to THE CREEPIEST LEVEL EVER MADE IN A GAME EVER (at the time at least).
3DS: 4983-4918-2993 | Backloggery : stevenmack -> Feel free to leeeloo daallas multitap
Creepier than System Shock? Really?
Republicans being against sex is not good. Sex is popular. -- GOP political strategist Alex Castellanos
Well, this is technically pre-System Shock 2
...but yes. Really
3DS: 4983-4918-2993 | Backloggery : stevenmack -> Feel free to leeeloo daallas multitap
The RTTC level can bite me. Thief should be a study of how to make fairly boring elements combine to be really tense.
One thing I like about Thief though is that it doesn't play it straight and serious with it's world. They're happy to be weird and let magic be odd.
Honestly, I think they took a lot of the stuff they learned how to do in Thief 1 into System Shock 2. Return To The Cathedral is really quite frightening, and I remember it as being more intense than most of SS2. It's far shorter than SS, but it's outstanding.
If you've played Thief 3, I'd call Shalebridge Cradle superior in both atmosphere and execution; it scared me a lot more than RTTC did in T1. But for the time, RTTC was the grand slam homerun level, the experience that made Thief famous. The game is VERY good both before and after that, but it's the Cathedral that firmly moves Thief 1 into the pantheon of the all-time greats.
I haven't played it for a few years, but I suspect that RTTC is probably worth five bucks all by itself.
Elewis17 wrote:
Thief is one of those games that causes me to wish people would get over graphics for the sake of graphics in games, and the red queen's race it feeds. I played through all 3 games last year and they're still very playable, but could do with just a few tiny tweaks to improve the experience for modern times, things like using the mouse wheel (which you can do in T2) for quick item selection and sorting out mantling and climbing terrain so it feels better.
The core rules you play by in Thief and how it communicates with the player are still great, it's very... playable. It's obvious why things happen the way they do in the world, it has good feedback and response on player actions. It's a little depressing when a game from 13+ years ago has lessons that haven't been learned yet by contemporary games. We still think it's a great thing when an AI notices a door being open or noticing a fallen ally.
Get your hundreds of custom Thief maps here. Man I miss Looking Glass Studios.
SteamID: mrwynd Starcraft 2: mrwynd.954 Diablo 3: MrWynd#1658 How to record a video game
I honestly haven't gone back and played many older games I missed, my most specific memory of doing this within the last few years is Fallout 2 through GOG. At first I thought I was put-off by the graphics, which I probably was a bit, but then I came to realize it was really UI issues as well as other conceits I've come accustomed to (such as being able to rotate an angled top-down view so that NPC aren't simply hidden behind walls). It ended up being enough of an issue for me that I quit 10+ hours into the game.
I don't want to take my being put-off as a rule, though. Considering what I've heard about the game I realize it's one that I need to purchase and play.
Everything that starts out as a cultural revolution ends up as capitalist routine.
-David Brooks
There's a large number of people who look at old titles, on this site and elsewhere, and say "Oh! The graphics are an eyesore I can't possibly play that." They don't know what they're missing out on. The gameplay hasn't changed over the years and there are titles which had phenomenally good gameplay that held up over the years.
It's something that rubs me the wrong way because while I like graphics I'll still go back and play old titles and find them compelling. Hell, I can still play the original Doom and get uneasy, or the original Quake and be mesmerized by the ebb and flow of action and movement. I can play Myth, NOLF, Giants: Citizen Kabuto, Baldur's Gate, or any number of games and they're still exceptional to this day with what they've done.
Perhaps I am just an exception to the rule, though.
What I don't get is when someone said something like "I can't believe I'll pay $10 for a 14 year-old game." I know games age fast, but $10 and 14 years? I've paid $100 for a 50 year-old book, whose story was no worse for its age. I've paid $10 for a ho-hum sandwich. And it's not like Thief belongs in the "Unplayable old games" thread. Sure it doesn't look great, but its sound and AI are better than so many modern games; and it's a contemporary of Half-Life, with controls and a UI that are totally familiar to today's players (it even has lean, even if it doesn't do mousewheel selecting).
In other words, I agree with Scratched, and should make better sandwich choices at restaurants.
"Gravey, I'm never sure, on a scale of 1-10, just how serious you are when you post. " – Minarchist
"When Gravey wins an internet argument, it's like the whole internet wins." – oilypenguin
"I love you, Gravey, you taffer." – ClockworkHouse
I think those who carp about graphics are the vocal minority. Even in the current generation there is such a wide range of different graphics that by and large no one really cares about.
I use my two kids as an example: I always thought that one or both of them would have a problem with graphics or old games. They are both well into their teens now and could care less about graphics and love most of the classics I have thrown their way.
Don't get me wrong, I love pretty graphics in a game. But gameplay has always come first.
Google+ | Steam | Xbox Live
If thou hast eyes to see the glory of the Thief series, but do not, then pluck them out.
"Gravey, I'm never sure, on a scale of 1-10, just how serious you are when you post. " – Minarchist
"When Gravey wins an internet argument, it's like the whole internet wins." – oilypenguin
"I love you, Gravey, you taffer." – ClockworkHouse
That was me, Gravey, and I think, in an era when you can get games like Arkham Asylum, fairly regularly, for $5, then spending $10 on a 14-year-old game is fairly remarkable.
Remember, that game came out when the Hot Processor Du Jour was the Pentium II at a mighty 66Mhz.
Elewis17 wrote:
Yeah but we're paying 99 cents for a game these days, and just-released AAA games with millions of dollars of development are considered expensive at 60 =)
--
Come Play Team Fortress 2 with the cool kids! GWJ's Stan's Lounge Pub: 63.209.34.11:27015
7-8pm central time, every day. It's free! =D
Yeah, it's all part of the bigger issue of customer perception of wibbly-wobbly game pricing. When a Beatles album or a Dickens novel can still sell for $10, I've got no problem with a sawbuck as the baseline price for one of the titles from the canon of Western gaming.
"Gravey, I'm never sure, on a scale of 1-10, just how serious you are when you post. " – Minarchist
"When Gravey wins an internet argument, it's like the whole internet wins." – oilypenguin
"I love you, Gravey, you taffer." – ClockworkHouse
Well it could be worse. It could be a Blizzard game that's 10-14 years old. Those still sell for $30-40 regularly, and sometimes have a sale for $20, but never cheaper.
Steam: Nyx Stele PSN: Nyx_Stele XBL: Nyx Stele
I personally never cared that much for the Thief series, so this is one of the few GoG games I will take a pass on. I'm just not a stealth guy and all my missions ended up with me dying while trying to sword fight. No matter how hard I tried I could never make the sneaky thing happen.
I can appreciate it and what it was trying to do but it was not for me.
Podcast:The Easy Button with Duoae
Steam
Call me Tboon cause you just got burned! = FlamingPeasant
Well, if you're going to get into any of the games, it would probably be this one. A good 1/3 of the missions are zombie/dinosaur murder fests. Though they're still pretty leisurely paced.
Like Deus Ex, the Thiefs are games that I perpetually leave on my hard drive and fire up at least once a month. I'm glad it's on GOG (with the second to follow soon, I'm sure) so I can start gifting it to my buddies who never knew the joys of late 90's PC gaming. That's worth ten bucks a pop to me.
Yep. When I discovered gog.com a few years back, Thief was the first game I looked for. I keep T1&2 on my hard drive for a yearly spin too, but haven't been able to get Thief 2 running since upgrading to Win 7. It's a tough call to pick which Thief is better, but I guess it's natural to try to rate them. I give Thief 2 the edge due to the killer level layouts plus the ability to lean against doors for better listening.
I envy folks who will be playing these gems for the first time. They are tough and frustrating on the hardest difficulty, but so damn fun. Does the gog version include the hi-res mod?
"But 2004 might be ancient for a teenager, with their hippin' and the hoppin' and the bippin' and the boppin', they don't know what the jazz is all about." - Gravey
tboon: it's way easier than spying in TF2. If you can play a spy in TF2, you can prosper at Thief.
Personally, I still think Thief 3 is the best. Great graphics, good story, and the chopped-up mission areas don't matter very much for Thief, where they were super-distracting for Deus Ex 2.
Shalebridge Cradle would carry the game alone -- everything after that is icing.
Elewis17 wrote: