Thief series catch-all

So, jumped in and out of the game real quick and did a comparison of EP2 with and without NecroAge:

Level 2 beginning (NecroAge + EP2):
IMAGE(http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/34119431070782782/E4D5735F15208AC58DB65673904263D703688A54/)

Level 2 beginning (EP2 only):
IMAGE(http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/34119431070783197/68993DFE8E9AFD960406EEDAD3C0F34D79C0855C/)

The screens are darker than the game actually looks, but you can definitely see some of the detail differences.

*Legion* wrote:

ARISE THREAD

OK this thread was active in February, so not so much thread necromancy, but hey. Continuing the pattern.

I just kicked off a play-through of Thief Gold. I have only played about 3 levels of the first Thief before, and none of the following games, so I have a lot of shame to make up for.

For this run, I am using:
* The latest TFix (1.22) - fixes and NewDark engine
* The Thief Enhancement Pack 2 - higher res models/textures
* NecroAge - hires texture pack

Setup was as easy as running one installer (TFix's) and extracting two (large) individual files into the game's root folder (the latest config file from TFix is "aware" of EP2 and NecroAge, so no config editing required to load them). Please so far. Screenshots to come when I take something good.

Ohhhh, I might have to try all these. Thanks!

Ooh, this thread popping back up reminds me, I very recently finished up T2X after finally getting it working, seems like I really needed to have the latest Thief 2 version of TFix installed to get it to work at all.

It's a good successor to Thief 2, top notch level design, an excellent female protagonist called Zaya, and it even had the chutzpah to add a few new mechanics and concepts which fit in quite well with the existing lore. Unfortunately the voice acting was very hit and miss, although whoever did Zaya did a good job.

That NecroAge patch looks pretty good considering the engine's limitations. The guards look almost human.

Redwing wrote:

Ooh, this thread popping back up reminds me, I very recently finished up T2X after finally getting it working, seems like I really needed to have the latest Thief 2 version of TFix installed to get it to work at all.

It's a good successor to Thief 2, top notch level design, an excellent female protagonist called Zaya, and it even had the chutzpah to add a few new mechanics and concepts which fit in quite well with the existing lore. Unfortunately the voice acting was very hit and miss, although whoever did Zaya did a good job.

I should go back and finish that. The train level was pretty amazing given the engine limitations.

*Legion* wrote:

So, jumped in and out of the game real quick and did a comparison of EP2 with and without NecroAge:

Hey good lookin'. I suppose in terms of deciding which texture mods to use, EP and Necro Age win since they can just be dropped in and don't need an installer like HDmod. As for who wins between EP and Necro Age, well they're drag-in/drag-out, so let's call it moot.

I'm about halfway through Thief Gold, and it is an incredibly uneven game. I'm reminded of why all of my attempts before now were aborted: when the monsters and ghosts show up, the fun drops sharply.

Actually, I'm not sure if it's the monster enemies so much as the levels that they populate. The good levels give you a sense of where you are. The mansion and mage tower levels were laid out logically, and you could reason about where you are. The monster levels tend to just be rooms and hallways with little context, which is tough because the lack of visual variety makes it hard to mentally separate the places you've been and map out your pathways. The crypt level nearly killed this game for me entirely. I ended up running around the whole place looking for whatever turn I had missed somewhere along the line, with no logical reason to expect it to be one place versus another (compared to if I'm on a level where I know I need to go to the basement, I'm not running around the 2nd level looking for doors - I know I need to go down).

The mansions are usually easier to build a mental map of, true. And the more mundane maps generally do a better job of giving every little nook a context and purpose. Which is probably why there are some really excellent fan-map mansion-based missions.

I personally like some of the haunted levels. But, for example, Life of the Party is one of the best maps in the series because most of it is about the city's rooftops, so you have the context and the glimpses of other lives as you pass through.

I soldiered through the supernatural stuff, but it's the sprawling Downwind Thieves' Guild level that I stalled on. The thing is massive and you have to traverse it like three times, back and forth.

Gravey wrote:

I soldiered through the supernatural stuff, but it's the sprawling Downwind Thieves' Guild level that I stalled on. The thing is massive and you have to traverse it like three times, back and forth.

Yeah, there's a reason the original game cut that one.

I like it, but only in the sense that it's nice to come back to a Looking Glass map after playing the entire original game, the sequel, and dozens of fan maps.

Yeah, the Thieves Guild level is probably the most tedious. I usually just put that one on Easy and blow though it. What did you think of The Sword? One of my favorites.

I'm reminded of why all of my attempts before now were aborted: when the monsters and ghosts show up, the fun drops sharply.

That was one of the knocks against Thief 1, so Thief 2 has less of that. I didn't really enjoy them til subsequent playthroughs.

The Sword is brilliant, one of my favorite maps in the first game. Though if you're hoping that you'll be able to anticipate the logical interior layout, that's not the one I'd pick.

The Thieves' Guild was a bit trying too, yeah. By the end I ended up sprinting around aimlessly until stumbling upon someone who was still conscious/alive.

The Sword was neat, and I didn't feel too frustrated with the navigation of that one. It was confusing (by design), BUT unlike the dreary sameness of the crypt one, the weird areas were so distinct visually that I could differentiate them, and thus recognize if I'm accidentally backtracking (or successfully backtracking when trying to), etc.

I didn't have trouble with the Bonehoard itself, but the rest of the level was certainly a Rat's nest. Once inside the tomb itself I was able to divide it into "blocks" and check each of them out systematically. At one point you have to move up to level 2, but that had distinct branching paths and it was hard to get lost.

Gravey wrote:

I soldiered through the supernatural stuff, but it's the sprawling Downwind Thieves' Guild level that I stalled on. The thing is massive and you have to traverse it like three times, back and forth.

Argh that mission. I got stuck early on in the casino part because my OCD wouldn't let me leave behind this one stack of coins. They are almost impossible to reach because they are on a shelf in a small cashiers box on one side of the room. That box has a hole on the side that you SHOULD be able to fit through, and the coins are just out of reach through it. Thief has a mantling system where you can grab ledges and pull yourself up. But it also does the thing where some gaps are too big to fit through unless you crouch. Neither of those methods worked here because the hole was too low to stand in and elevated off the ground meaning you had to jump first. Getting through the hole is obviously what you are supposed to do, but since it's impossible the only other methods left are really cheesy and stupid. Like running through the room and flashbanging 5 guys, dashing into the cashiers box and running off with the coins zoidberg style.

I should really go back and finish that. The Steam release of the game works fine and already has the screen res mods installed although it does do some resolution weirdness whenever you look at maps and notes because those were never HDified. By comparison I've beat Thief 2 several times, once with a walkthrough guide so I could find and admire all the Clever Bastard places they hid treasure. The only bad level for 2 was that mission where you have to infiltrate and scout a mansion before coming back and robbing it "for real" this time. That one seemed a bit pointless.

Tamren wrote:

The only bad level for 2 was that mission where you have to infiltrate and scout a mansion before coming back and robbing it "for real" this time. That one seemed a bit pointless.

The idea is kind of clever, and a bit of a recapitulation of the level from 1 where you infiltrate a Hammerite monastery. Only that level gave you control of when to switch from casing to stealing. Plus, if you do the casing mission right in Thief 2, you've basically discovered all of the secrets and the next mission is going through the motions, more or less.

I really enjoy all the supernatural levels, but I think I'm in the minority there. Down in the Bonehoard in particular feels like a very gothic Indiana Jones style mission, which I love. I've been playing through Thief Gold again on Expert, trying to ghost as much as possible, although I'm reloading a fair bit to make that happen. Up to Return to the Cathedral now, which is still really freaking creepy.

I can close my eyes right now and see Return to the Cathedral, so I'm with you there. Especially because I went through most of the game not knowing that there was a (difficult) way to kill the haunts, which make them that much scarier. I'm also fond of The Lost City and Maw of Chaos.

On the other hand, one of my least favorite missions is T2's Precious Cargo. Though it has some nice individual moments I felt like it was overall too deliver-the-plot linear.

Overall, the Thief games are some of the few games that I've dreamed about. And not just the Looking Glass levels; there are fan missions that are imprinted into my memories. I don't know if its something about the engine hitting some kind of sweet spot between abstraction and representation, or the way that the gameplay makes you care intimately about the details of the spaces you sneak through, but very few games have architecture that gets so deeply embedded in my psyche like they do.

*Legion* wrote:

The Thieves' Guild was a bit trying too, yeah. By the end I ended up sprinting around aimlessly until stumbling upon someone who was still conscious/alive.

I hate that level with a burning passion. There are some very good parts to it, but the overall layout is just a total mess. I skip it on almost every playthrough of the game.

That said, I love a lot of the levels that are generally maligned in Thief Gold, particularly Down in the Bonehoard, Mage Towers, and the Lost City.

Gremlin wrote:

I don't know if its something about the engine hitting some kind of sweet spot between abstraction and representation

It can't be overstated how important that is to the Thief experience. Of course, after Looking Glass nailed that part, they still had plenty of work ahead of them with sound design, art design, writing, and awesome gameplay systems -- all of which they nailed. But I do strongly believe that the Dark Engine itself is super, super important to the -- take a drink -- immersive feeling of Thief (and System Shock 2).

That sounds about right. Nothing really to add to it, just that it's accurate.

I still think the sound design in particular is so good in all the old Thief games and so key to why they're considered classics. Even right back to Thief Gold the sound is still completely immersive, it never knocks me out of that feeling of being present in the world.

And it doesn't seem to be a trivial task, hell, big name developers like Blizzard still fail to give villains decent voice acting and scripts, but I dare you not to be a little bit chilled every time Constantine and Viktoria double cross you and reveal their true nature.

Bottle wrote:

That said, I love a lot of the levels that are generally maligned in Thief Gold, particularly Down in the Bonehoard, Mage Towers, and the Lost City.

I just played through Mage Towers and Lost City this weekend, and I thought both of those were great. I think Lost City's map was really good, as it was a single high-level indication of the layout. You could see what area you were in, and in what direction that area connected to another area. So none of the fine details of the area, but you knew which compass direction you needed to head in order to progress. That one was pretty frustration-free in navigation even though it wasn't a familiar logical layout like a mansion.

Redwing wrote:

And it doesn't seem to be a trivial task, hell, big name developers like Blizzard still fail to give villains decent voice acting and scripts, but I dare you not to be a little bit chilled every time Constantine and Viktoria double cross you and reveal their true nature.

Spoiler alert!

Oh wait... we're past that 10 year barrier for spoilers, aren't we..... :troll:

Finished Thief Gold tonight. That was a good time. Installing Thief 2.

Going to have to decide again on choice of texture pack (TFix and EP are a given). Really liked NecroAge for TG, it made the game look fantastic, especially when I peeked in on some YouTube videos and saw how the game looked in non-NA setups. But NA is apparently a stark style departure in T2, which makes me wonder if I should give the HD pack a try instead. Maybe I'll glance at a couple YouTube videos of people using each and decide...

Grats on finishing. I can't remember, have you played T2 before?

Running Man wrote:

Grats on finishing. I can't remember, have you played T2 before?

Nope, only the first couple levels of TG.

*Legion* wrote:
Running Man wrote:

Grats on finishing. I can't remember, have you played T2 before?

Nope, only the first couple levels of TG.

Oh right, I forgot you hadn't played them before. I will try to tone down the spoilers then. There's a whole heap of levels that are great the first time through, especially one in Deadly Shadows that's fairly infamous.

Apparently TFix is T1/TG only. The T2 equivalent is Tafferpatcher.

Enhancement Pack is the same file for both games, just moved it from one folder to the other.

Decided to stick with NecroAge, as HDMod's patching of the game still chases me off.

I'll be interested in hearing your reaction to the way T2 distributes its levels and develops the plot.

I'll be sure to share them. Ran through the first level last night, just making sure the mods were loading and setting up my control bindings. Looking forward to diving in for real this weekend.

So, I'm through the first 6 missions (the last being First City Bank & Trust).

As much fun as I ultimately had with the first Thief, this has (so far) been the game I was expecting when I started these playthroughs.

The first couple of levels weren't too compelling, as they were easing players in and I was coming fresh off of completing the first game.

But starting with Framed, the game has had me. I like the less restricted freedom of movement, and the greater opportunity to make my own path through the space to find and hit the spots I need to reach.