poroshin on 9/3/2007 at 17:26
Most here must've read already the Postmortem on Thief: The Dark Project from way back in 1999. What caught my attention most was how different the game was in its "Dark Camelot" state, and even sometime later still. Searching the forum, I stumbled upon an interesting post by Digital Nightfall, from August 21, 2001:
Quote Posted by Digital Nightfall
Dark Camelot was a project that died before it got very far. It was to be a swordfighting adventure game designed for general market appeal. When it was decided that their swordfighting engine was, in two words, kinda lame, they changed the idea around into a game where you had to avoid fighting. ;) When they did that, they realized that they also had to totally change the entire plot and universe to fit the new gameplay style, and thus Dark Camelot was ditched in favor of The Dark Project.
I was following the development of Thief all the way back in '96, when it was first being talked about on the LGS website. I remember thinking how cool the first screenshots looked ... and how much nicer they were then that silly Quake 1 engine id was working on. ;) At the time I was praying that the game would be an unofficial Underworld 3. Maybe I got something better? Yeah, I think maybe I did. At any rate - don't go by the old Dark Project gameplay trailer you can dig up on The Circle. The person who is playing the trailer while the video was recording is playing the game like a First Person Shooter ... not because Thief used to be a first person shooter, but because it was still a paradigm yet to be broken. They were not really sure HOW to show off the game as something not a shooter at that time, since they were still afraid that if they showed sneaking, then everyone would look at the trailer and think ... "well shit, that looks dumb". Heh. ;)
Yeah, I remember those days. Back when a question I would ask the designers would be something like ... "when you swim, can you swim all around, kinda like you're flying, or do you just hover on the water's surface?" ;)
I wish I still had those first two screenshots they released. 640x480, 32x32x8 textures, with software rendering, and the best shadows I had ever seen rendered in a game. It was love at first sight.
So, naturally, this made me wonder: are there still any early media extant, other than the above-mentioned trailer on The Circle as well as the Production Diary?
clearing on 10/3/2007 at 02:34
Quote:
I wish I still had those first two screenshots they released. 640x480, 32x32x8 textures, with software rendering, and the best shadows I had ever seen rendered in a game. It was love at first sight.
(
http://darkfate.ru/index.cgi?thumbs=files/images/screenshots/thief1) Screenshots Dark Camelot, Dark Project and Thief: The Dark Project.
"Thief: o Projeto Negro" - Brazilian title
"Dark project : La guilde des voleurs" - French title
"Dark Project - Der Meisterdieb" - German title
"Dark Camelot" - Original name of the project
"The Dark" - Worker name.
Vogelfrei on 10/3/2007 at 15:23
Quote Posted by clearing
"Dark project : La guilde des voleurs" - French title
This is even more fucked up than ours. :wot:
I like the crossbow-thingie. If it is a crossbow-thingie. Maybe he is just holding the bow in a weird way.
Anyways, sometimes it comes to my head that this Dark Camelot idea wasn't that bad and maybe someone should do something with it. As far as I remember it was about Mordred being not such a legendary bugger after all but merely a Garrett-like person who cares his own business but gets in trouble with his dad. The rest would be the Artus-legend but from another point of view. Or maybe I made that up from something. Were there plot-details?
By the way: That Dark Fate is a great site, there is so much stuff on it. Maybe I should learn Russian to just understand what I'm clicking at. =D
clearing on 19/4/2010 at 08:36
(
http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/thief-the-dark-project) Alternate Titles
"Thief: o Projeto Negro" -- Brazilian title
"The Dark" -- Working title
"TDP" -- Informal name
"Dark Project - L'Ombra del Ladro" -- Italian title
"Dark project : La guilde des voleurs" -- French title
"Dark Project - Der Meisterdieb" -- German title
"Dark Camelot" -- Working title
Digital Nightfall on 19/4/2010 at 16:35
It's odd reading something I wrote one day back in 2001 and thinking... "That was me? That doesn't sound like me." Maybe it's all the winky faces. :erm:
Neb on 19/4/2010 at 16:50
Find some ancient ZylonBane posts and you'll even see the odd emoticon among them. :cheeky:
TheCapedPillager on 19/4/2010 at 17:24
Quote Posted by Vogelfrei
I like the crossbow-thingie. If it is a crossbow-thingie. Maybe he is just holding the bow in a weird way.
Nah, it's just a regular bow, held 'gansta-style'. There's an early video on (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG9C4ouE1Fw) youtube (though I think this is already an early version of Thief rather than Dark Camelot, since it's titled 'The Dark Project').
Digital Nightfall on 19/4/2010 at 17:31
I'm under the impression that Dark Camelot gave way to Thief long before any media was released.
TheCapedPillager on 19/4/2010 at 18:10
Quote Posted by Digital Nightfall
I'm under the impression that Dark Camelot gave way to Thief long before any media was released.
That was my understanding as well, all of those screenshots at Darkfate look pretty much like Thief to me.
Nephthys on 20/4/2010 at 03:36
gangsta Garrett looks like he'd have a hard time getting through tight doorways, holding his bow like that.
