Thief series catch-all

It has arrived.

http://thedarkmod.com/

ZOMGDOWNLOADING!!!

Great.... now I have to find my Doom 3 CD's urgh

Maybe I'm a dummy but after downloading the 3 fan mission zipfiles I can't turn them into the required pk4 format, whatever that is. I also can't find any info on the dark mod forums about it. Can anybody shed some light on how to do this?

Erm...dunno. They downloaded as .pk4 files for me ok from here:
http://www.mindplaces.com/darkmod/missions.php

Maybe just rename them to .pk4 if they've changed?

**
actually that link doesn't seem to work when you go their directly, you'd have to go to the main link above then click on fan missions link (but you've probably already done that anyway).

***

Played part of "the outpost". Awesome mod Getting things out of chests seems to be a little fiddly though, and it'll probably take me a while to get a keyboard layout that I like but I'm quite impressed so far.

Alright, I downloaded them again but put .pk4 at the end of the name and it works

At the moment its too bright in the living room to get the proper atmosphere so I'm going to save these missions til tonight. Kids at grandma's, strong coffee, and Dark Mod on a cold night. This is gonna be great.

I've just done a bit of the training mission but it's most impressive. I love using the rope arrow to swing across the canal.

But I'm busy tonight!
At least it'll be downloaded by the time I get back...

Finished all 3 (Outpost, Crown of Penitence, Chalice of Kings) tonight. All are worth playing once, at least. The AI in Chalice of Kings provided the best challenge, imho.

Malor wrote:

[*]Once the program is running, you will need to set its processor affinity to just one CPU. You must elevate privileges to do this from Task Manager if you're a normal user; "Show Processes from All Users" should prompt you for an admin password. (you can't set affinity for an administrator program without admin privs.) You need to do this every time you run the program, or it will crash immediately as soon as you start an actual mission.

Have you tried installing the DDfix patch? It takes care of the multicore/hyperthreading problem, as well as eliminating the resolution switching between menus and levels. It's supposed to be installed before the widescreen mod, so I'm not sure if you'll have to install Thief again.

Malor wrote:

[*]Once the program is running, you will need to set its processor affinity to just one CPU. You must elevate privileges to do this from Task Manager if you're a normal user; "Show Processes from All Users" should prompt you for an admin password. (you can't set affinity for an administrator program without admin privs.) You need to do this every time you run the program, or it will crash immediately as soon as you start an actual mission.

There's a MS utility out there somewhere called ImgConfig where you can set the affinity for a program permanently.

Malor wrote:

[*]If you have a multichannel sound system, you may need to set your number of speakers to 2 to get stereo sound. If you get the same bug I did, everything will come out of the center channel only.

If you have a SoundBlaster card, there is a program called Creative ALchemy that enables EAX for pre-OpenAL games on Vista, which I would highly recommend. The sound is really well optimized to work on a 5.1 system if you can turn EAX on and it's so awesome to hear the guard's footsteps tapping around you.

I've been catching up on all the PC gaming I've missed the past year and the Thief series is one that I've been told I need to check out. Where would you guys suggest getting the games from? Steam has the first title for a whopping twenty dollars and GoG has none of the games in its catalog.

Second, I have less and less time these days for gaming. If I wanted the best Thief experience, which one should I play? I remember Yahtzee saying that Thief II was the best, but I'd like to hear your opinions as well.

The one on Steam is actually Thief 3, and is probably the only one where the graphics and controls won't really jar you at first, but also not the best one (still damn good, though, definitely worth $20.) The only place I've ever found to buy the original game online is an obscure online game store called TryGames, though out of all the online game stores they are the one I'd recommend the least in terms of service. If you're willing to put up with them, though, that's probably the easiest way to get the game. Otherwise, I would check into eBay or Amazon Marketplace to get a used boxed copy.

SuperDave wrote:

I've been catching up on all the PC gaming I've missed the past year and the Thief series is one that I've been told I need to check out. Where would you guys suggest getting the games from? Steam has the first title for a whopping twenty dollars and GoG has none of the games in its catalog.

Let me refer you to the previous page. Buy all three games on one disc for $15. That's an imperative statement, by the way.

If you don't mind Thief 1 and 2 being old... and I mean, really old... usually old enough that only nostalgia brings people back... if you can get past the dated graphics and fix the controls yourself... yes they are definitely worth your time, and are quite awesome games.

Gravey wrote:
SuperDave wrote:

I've been catching up on all the PC gaming I've missed the past year and the Thief series is one that I've been told I need to check out. Where would you guys suggest getting the games from? Steam has the first title for a whopping twenty dollars and GoG has none of the games in its catalog.

Let me refer you to the previous page. Buy all three games on one disc for $15. That's an imperative statement, by the way.

The main reason for doing so is that this is the ONLY pack where they've re-released the GOLD version of Thief 1, which has three extra (and REALLY good) missions - robbing a thieves guild, an opera house and a mages compound - and a bunch of modifications and adjustments to some of the existing missions.

SuperDave wrote:

Second, I have less and less time these days for gaming. If I wanted the best Thief experience, which one should I play? I remember Yahtzee saying that Thief II was the best, but I'd like to hear your opinions as well.

Both Thief 1 and Thief 2 have a lot of amazingly cool missions but Thief 2 has a lot more "human" based heists - which are the strong point of the series.

Some people aren't that keen on the first game because of the reliance on the occasional "monster filled dungeon". However, a lot of the complaints aimed at that stuff are overblown I think - since a lot of people assumed that this meant you had to do a lot of toe to toe fighting to complete those missions (you don't, the majority of the creatures - even the undead - can be defeated by sneaky means).

Plus, the games all tell one on-going story (even through T3) so it is worth it story-wise to play from the very start (I don't remember Thief 2 giving you any sort of "previously on..." at the start of the game).

If you're absolutely set on just playing one of them though - Thief 2 probably has the best missions (especially an awesome "thieves highway" rooftop jaunt). And those mechanical guards are creepy as hell

T1 is really, really old now, and it looks, in a word, like sh*t. The gameplay is still excellent, and the voice work and cutscenes are first-rate, but the levels are really weird to a modern gamer. They're gigantic and sprawling and mostly empty, and have weird modeling bugs, like lampposts that are about two inches above the ground. There's still a lot of fun to be had, but honestly, parts of the levels look awful. I've seen many better builds by total amateurs in Second Life. Hell, I've done better builds myself.

To be fair, doing 3d modeling back then was really hard, and they didn't have a neat live GUI to walk around and inspect and tweak their progress, so I don't blame them, but make sure to ratchet your expectations way, WAY down before picking up Thief 1. The interface is frustrating, and the graphics are terrible. The game underneath is still amazing, but you'll have to do a lot of squinting to see it.

I haven't gotten into T2 yet, I suspect it'll be better. And T3 is perfectly playable and normal to modern eyes. It's also a LOT easier than the earlier ones. Thief 1 on Expert was damn difficult. Thief 3 on Expert isn't hard at all.

By the way, to anyone that doesn't like Thief 3 or doesn't think it's a worthy sequel, here's a giant raspberry, just for you. *thppppppt* It's a great game. The subdivided levels aren't really a problem for a sneaker.

I'm so glad I played Thief 1 and 2 back when they came out.
I don't think I could get past the dated graphics at this point, even with it (for me) being a nostalgia-fueled replay. So many good memories.

Remember to pause often and just listen to the conversations guards are having.

I think I need to check out this Dark Mod Q3 thing.

Thief 1 and 2 both need the same treatment Half Life is getting with Black Mesa: Source (assuming it ever sees the light of day, it's been in development sooo long).

Oh and yeah, Thief 3 was still a great entry in the series.
The Shalebridge Cradle is one of the most incredibly atmospheric levels ever designed for any game.

Uberstein wrote:

Thief 1 and 2 both need the same treatment Half Life is getting with Black Mesa: Source (assuming it ever sees the light of day, it's been in development sooo long).

I've said it before, but if Black Mesa Source comes out before Duke Nukem Forever I will eat my hat.

I think the ability to like old graphics is a worthwhile skill to have for gamers who want to be literate in the hobby. It's not that hard to put yourself back in a late nineties mindset and think about how awesome the lighting is in this game in the context of Quake and other first person games of that decade.

Switchbreak wrote:

I think the ability to like old graphics is a worthwhile skill to have for gamers who want to be literate in the hobby. It's not that hard to put yourself back in a late nineties mindset and think about how awesome the lighting is in this game in the context of Quake and other first person games of that decade.

Completely agree. Being able to enjoy a game for what it was and what it still is, despite aged graphics might be a chore to some, but still possible.

Switchbreak wrote:

I think the ability to like old graphics is a worthwhile skill to have for gamers who want to be literate in the hobby. It's not that hard to put yourself back in a late nineties mindset and think about how awesome the lighting is in this game in the context of Quake and other first person games of that decade.

I do agree, but put the caveat on it that there has to be a fundamental level of good gameplay to really enjoy dated graphics.
I recently tried the original Red Faction in order to put some perspective on RF:Guerrilla, and while I didn't find the dated graphics particularly jarring, the mixture of graphics and gameplay didn't grab me in the way I imagine they would have, had I played it in the '90's.

I'm going to give it a whirl with the Thief series, because for £7, how can you not?

Red Faction was interesting back in the day. It was mostly cool in multiplayer to be able to put a rocket in the floor, make a hole, then jump down to the level below. It didn't add an amazing amount of depth, but it was cool in the same way that RF:Guerrilla is cool... blowing stuff up.

..... I want to buy RF:Guerrilla now.

A word of warning for those looking for a copy of Thief: Edios has all three games on their website for digital download, but it comes with three-install-only DRM and an encrypted exe, so the widescreen patch doesn't work. I was able to get the DDFix patch to work, after a fashion, but there's no way I'm ever replacing my Thief II CDs with this.

If you're still looking for a copy, I'd try Amazon first, actually.

I didn't know they had them available from their own website... that's kinda cool. Not sure why Thief 1 and 2 aren't available anywhere else for DD though.

Edit: They want $20 for Thief Gold?? No thanks....

Malor wrote:

T1 is really, really old now, and it looks, in a word, like sh*t. The gameplay is still excellent, and the voice work and cutscenes are first-rate, but the levels are really weird to a modern gamer. They're gigantic and sprawling and mostly empty, and have weird modeling bugs, like lampposts that are about two inches above the ground. There's still a lot of fun to be had, but honestly, parts of the levels look awful. I've seen many better builds by total amateurs in Second Life. Hell, I've done better builds myself.

Personally..doesn't bother me. I've played through to the end of the Bonehoard recently and the graphics didn't bug me at all (with the possible exception of the Burricks, they are a lot lower res than i remember).

I haven't gotten into T2 yet, I suspect it'll be better.

It's a good deal more polished around the edges and like I mentioned it has a lot more missions where you're stealing stuff from people rather than raiding tombs. It's also even more difficult than the first game, if that's even possible. Even on the easiest setting there are some missions where you're only allowed a MAXIMUM of 3 knockouts or you lose.

By the way, to anyone that doesn't like Thief 3 or doesn't think it's a worthy sequel, here's a giant raspberry, just for you. *thppppppt* It's a great game. The subdivided levels aren't really a problem for a sneaker.

It is a good game in it's own right (and they do an EXCELLENT job of wrapping up the story nicely). but it has some REALLY annoying problems.

Apart from the broken-up levels thing there is a constant split-second lag on movement (which i suspect is because some moron thought a third-person mode would be really cool, so when playing in first person when you turn you have to wait for the character model to physically turn as well). A small niggle but it REALLY gets on my nerves.

The "open world" aspect of it tends to grate on the nerves after a while as well. Eventually you just want to skip to the next damned mission and not have to run all the way across the city (through multiple load screens) to find it.

**
That said, I do need to be careful...on occasion, my (entirely justified) nerd rage at Deus Ex : Invisible War leaks over into T3 a little :D.

[quote=stevenmack]

Malor wrote:

That said, I do need to be careful...on occasion, my (entirely justified) nerd rage at Deus Ex : Invisible War leaks over into T3 a little :D.

IMAGE(http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/5234/nerdrage.png)

That was probably before I replayed the game a couple more times, Citizen86. Any lingering dislike I have for it has evaporated.

I was inspired to pick up the UK Thief compilation that was linked upthread. They've done some of the work, but T1 will not run on Vista/Win7 without a little more work. Edit: I've updated the instructions below to work better:

  • Installing in a place that's not under Program Files, and for which you have Full Control permissions, is a good idea, both because it saves in that directory, and because you will be altering the installation with two mods. This is useful for many programs. I use C:\Progs for any program that gets updated regularly, or which saves data in local directories.
  • Run the program as an Administrator, or the videos will not play, which completely ruins the experience. Win7 accounts default to admin privs, so you shouldn't have to worry about this unless you're being smart and running as a User. You can set the desktop shortcut to always run as Admin, so you don't forget.
  • Install DDFix. If the GUI program works for you, skip the next step.
  • The GUI version crashes on my machine under "Win7" (actually Server2k8r2). If that also happens to you, you will have to manually hex-edit the Thief executable. I use the payware program HexEdit. It has a two-week trial period, so it should work well enough to get you patched. Search for the first instance of 'ddraw.dll', and replace it with 'ddfix.dll'. This will force Thief into 32-bit rendering mode.
  • If you don't install DDFix, the graphics will look like ass. Both NVidia and ATI have totally screwed up their 16-bit rendering paths.
  • DDFix also fixes Thief's bug with multiple processors. With it installed, you don't have to fool with setting processor affinity anymore.
  • It may also restore true 3D sound. This may require more fooling around on your part; see the notes below if you have more than stereo speakers.
  • Take a quick look through the DDFix INI file to familiarize yourself with its settings; if you have graphics trouble, this is probably where to look first.
  • Just in case, I set DDFix.ini for my intended resolution, but as far as I can tell, you don't actually use DDFix to force higher resolutions anymore. It now relies on the:
  • Widescreen Mod, which you should copy into your Thief directory now. Run the provided batch file. Tell it your intended resolution, and it will patch your Thief executable with a few hex bytes in the right places, showing it how to set multiple widescreen resolutions up to your maximum limit. This is ALL it does; most of the heavy lifting is done by DDFix. The Widescreen mod handles just this one issue.
  • Note that you run the Widescreen Mod to set any resolution above 1024x768, not just wide ones. If all you need is 1024x768 or lower, you don't have to bother with it.
  • Check your cam.cfg file with Notepad to make sure it lists your chosen resolution, just in case. The widescreen mod probably does this for you automatically, but take a quick look.
  • Run Thief, and set your intended resolution in the options. Double check that the sound test plays out of both the left and right channels.

Some notes on sound:

The simple fix to sound problems: drop back to stereo mode. Tell Windows you have just stereo speakers before running Thief, and you'll get basic stereo sound, which is fine. The game is better with full surround; it's one of the first games that actually used it. So if you want that running, press on.

DDFix repairs some old calls to Direct Sound that Thief 1 uses, but Windows 7 has removed Direct Sound, and you may not be able to get multichannel sound with most cards. You may be limited to just stereo. You'll have to experiment with it.... you can report back to this thread with what you find.

I was able to get it working on an Asus Xonar by turning on their software Direct 3D emulation, which is pretty cool, but I found an odd bug. I run my user account with just User privileges, and then was running Thief as Administrator to fix the videos, but this didn't fix the sound. I had to log out and log in as the actual Administrator account for multichannel sound to work.

I know for sure that this one scenario works:

  • Log in as Administrator;
  • Turn on Direct3D emulation in the Xonar control panel (it goes DARK when it's on, so stupid)
  • Make sure your speaker config and output are both set to multichannel in the Asus control panel.

That setup works fine for me.

Two additional notes:

  • I have, as yet, been unable to get 2560x1600 mode working; I dropped back to 1280x800 instead.
  • Expert mode is very difficult on T1, and you may prefer just regular or Hard mode if you haven't played it in a long time. The early levels are pretty brutal in Expert.

Thanks for the tip on DDFix; it's amazing how much better Thief looks when it's not running in what looks like 256 colors. I extensively updated my instructions above.

With actual dithering, it's really not that offensive anymore. Without DDFix, it looks rather like Doom. But I hadn't played in so, so long that I didn't realize it was broken.

Malor wrote:

Thanks for the tip on DDFix; it's amazing how much better Thief looks when it's not running in what looks like 256 colors. I extensively updated my instructions above.

With actual dithering, it's really not that offensive anymore. Without DDFix, it looks rather like Doom. But I hadn't played in so, so long that I didn't realize it was broken.

Should probably sticky that post you made.. its a great place that centralizes how to get Thief running on modern hardware.. one day I'll have time to at least play through T3