[PC] Thief: The Dark Project

[christian]

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Tools of the Trade - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoi-DikIyhk

[christian]

http://gillen.cream.org/wordpress_html/676/doug-church/

Looking at games and talking to other developers, they’re still struggling with issues we were struggling with then. We don’t as an industry seem to move very far. It’s so weird. I hear words about the influence [of Thief] occasionally, but I don’t see a real drive towards doing that sort of thing. That’s reasonable, but it makes it harder to feel there’s a real influence.

It’s something that tends to be namechecked rather than actually be a concrete influence, I think.

This was said in 2005. Does it still hold today?

[christian]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/01 ... about-love

She let me into his apartment once, late at night. I knew his bodyguard was in the apartment next door or had been told that. And as I was sneaking around inside looking for what I needed, taking a photograph of it when I found it – and those damn Japanese phones always make a fucking shutter sound as do many of the cameras – I thought, ‘Jesus Christ, this is a lot like being in Thief.’ Really terrifying. I felt like every noise I made was amplified ten thousand times. I couldn’t turn on the lights either. I had a very limited time frame.

This is the testimony of Yakuza journalist Jake Adelstein recounting a time when he had to sneak into an apartment for some information he needed. What I find interesting here is his perception that his every move "was amplified ten thousand times." Now even people who love Thief make fun of the exaggerated sounds that Garrett makes while moving. But for anyone who has ever experienced something similar in real life, the sound design in Thief isn't too far from the truth.

[christian]

From Crime and Punishment

He unhooked the door, opened it, and began listening on the stairs. He listened for a long time. Somewhere far away, downstairs, probably in the gateway, two voices were shouting loudly and shrilly, arguing and swearing. "What's that about?" He waited patiently. At last everything became quiet all at once, as though cut off; they went away. He was on the point of going out when suddenly, one floor below, the door to the stairs was noisily opened and someone started to go down humming a tune. "How is it they all make so much noise?" flashed through his head. He again closed the door behind him and waited. At last everything fell silent; there was not a soul. He had already stepped out to the stairs when again, suddenly, some new footsteps were heard.

The sound of these steps came from very far away, from the very bottom of the stairs, but he remembered quite well and distinctly how, right then, at the first sound, he had begun for some reason to suspect that they must be coming here, to the fourth floor, to the old woman's. Why? Could the sound have been somehow peculiar, portentous? The steps were heavy, regular, unhurried. Now he was already past the first floor, now he was ascending further, his steps were getting louder and louder. The heavy, short-winded breathing of the approaching man became audible. Now he was starting up the third flight ... Here! And it suddenly seemed to him as though he had turned to stone, as though he were in one of those dreams where the dreamer is being pursued, the pursuers are close, they are going to kill him, and he is as if rooted to the spot, unable even to move his arms.

[christian]

From Crime and Punishment

He couldn’t even rob, all he could do was kill!

[christian]

The Secret of Immersive Game Worlds - http://www.theastronauts.com/2014/03/se ... me-worlds/

The convincing, immersive game world needs to be indifferent to the player and the player needs to feel like an intruder.

[christian]

The Black Parade - https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=152429

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- 10 huge, open-ended and meticulously crafted missions with varied themes packed with content.
- A brand new protagonist thrown into a dark, intricately woven story of crime and conspiracies.
- 4 new tools happily supplied by the undermarket, at a price.
- Many tweaks to the AI to make the game a bit more challenging but still fair.
- A brand new "banter" system where AIs greet each other during their rounds and nightly life.
- 28 voiced characters totaling roughly 1,800 new lines of dialogue.
- 30 minutes of gorgeous hand-drawn briefings and cutscenes.
- Brand new AI motions making the denizens of The City look more alive.
- Full English subtitles.

Release trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0gGqkbZQc0

[christian]

Prior to The Black Parade, every time that I'd heard anything about Thief's fan mission community, I couldn't help being overcome by utter skepticism. It all sounded like so much DOOM WADs to me. From my perspective, this was a community more fondly spoken of than whose creations were actually played and enjoyed.

But this one, The Black Parade, finally caught my eye, thanks in no small part to all the news sites writing about it. There were warning signs, of course, the chief being that almost nobody reported on anything substantial, but only on the remarkable effort over many years to release it on the game's 25th anniversary. Regardless, I spent the other evening playing it for a couple of hours, and I'll probably play more. It's an impressive work, for sure, but the mark of the amateur is still present everywhere, which gave me a somewhat negative first impression. The writing, in particular, stands out as being wretchedly modern. When not even 1999's System Shock 2 could compare with what Looking Glass had written for its predecessor only 5 years earlier, what hope could there have been for an online modding group to write to a comparable standard in 2023? Even the title itself fails to inspire any enthusiasm from me.

But there is some good here. I'll keep playing the missions and analyze them here as I complete them.

[christian]

2023-12-09 11_54_42-Thief 2 Final 1.27.png (1.56 MiB) Viewed 26424 times

Completed the first mission, and I was very impressed with it.

I'd explored most of the area except for a couple of locations, the North due to a violent tavern brawl spilling out onto the streets, and the Northwest on account of the unexpected Hammerite presence there. Perhaps if I'd tried looking for a path higher up off the streets, I could have explored more at ease. But as it was, I was getting nervous about having finally looted enough to complete the mission, so rather than risk getting caught up in something nasty, I headed straight for the orphanage instead.

I was also impressed with the scarcity both of resources and of loot in this mission. For instance, there's really not very much loot in the Cattermole Manor. And most paths don't tend to lead to more than a single valuable at a time. But when it does happen, such as when you finally manage to break into the pawn shop, and you've got a bunch of shining goodies to pick up in front of you all at once, it's altogether glorious.