JPL on 17/8/2015 at 22:25
A while back I made a (
https://bitbucket.org/JPLeBreton/unreal1_tourism) tiny mod for the first Unreal game that removed combat (by hiding + silencing + killing enemies before they could bother the player), effectively turning the game into a (
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhYCywHJcxolZAegoL--Ua4mTYl0dI3ul) tourist stroll. I'm trying to assess how easily something comparable for Thief 1 & 2 (and Shock2 for that matter) could be done. To be clear, I think Thief is an all-time classic game and I recognize that removing its gameplay is sacrilege :]
Looking at the "No spiders" mod for Shock 2 as a starting point and using Thief Gold as my testbed, it looks like anything I'd want to change will be in DARK.GAM:
- I modified "Guard" in the archetype tree, gave them an Alertness cap of 0 so they never become aware of the player.
- I added a Knockout receptron and source, so they start KO'd (I realize this may break some missions, just trying to proof-of-concept right now).
- The main problem I have now is that I can't recover belt items from them, eg the key that the drunk guard behind Bafford's is holding, which is obviously a show-stopper. How should I work around this? Does Thief have an easy way to give the player a "skeleton key" that opens all doors and auto-equip that from the start? If not is there a way to have AI-held items drop to the ground once they're auto-KO'd? Some other method?
LarryG on 17/8/2015 at 23:21
Just change all the AIs to neutral (AI > AI Core > Team: Neutral) instead of Bad n. You may lose some of the fun AI to AI interactions when differing Baddies meet, but, hey, you're gutting the game anyhow.
I don't recall if the aiawareofplayer command works in Thief or if it is DromEd only, but that's a much easier way to walk through the game without any tension if it does.
Personally I think you are wasting your time, but it's your time to waste. Have fun.
nicked on 18/8/2015 at 09:36
Yep, Team: Neutral seems like the best way to make a tourist-stroll version of Thief.
Could make for an interesting level design tour version/Thief "museum" version or something. Interesting idea!
JPL on 18/8/2015 at 15:04
Cool thanks, Team: Neutral definitely does the trick. Seems like creating a depopulated-but-still-functional world would be a lot more work and probably involve editing all the mission files, so not worth the bother. Thanks folks!
nicked on 18/8/2015 at 17:51
Would be a little more work, but not impossible. Leaving the AI in but unalertable maintains some of the atmosphere though.
Yandros on 18/8/2015 at 20:16
Wouldn't it have been easier to just set Team to Neutral on the Garrett archetype instead of mucking about with all the AIs?
LarryG on 18/8/2015 at 20:36
Smart ass.:p
nicked on 19/8/2015 at 06:10
Wait, would that work??? :eek:
Yandros on 19/8/2015 at 11:37
It does in fact work, yes.
JPL on 12/9/2015 at 17:03
So I've played through all the missions in Thief Gold with this mod (set Garrett's team to Neutral) and every mission works fine except for one: Return to Cathedral. Brother Murus doesn't speak to me when I reach his first point of appearance in the courtyard, and so the mission goals never update (and he must be in the graveyard next to his grave to complete the penultimate goal). Any idea why a change in the player's team would affect this? I looked at the class properties for Murus in DromEd and didn't see anything that suggested his behavior depends on team, but I'm still a DromEd newb.
