Brian T on 30/11/2012 at 19:33

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No joke.


12 years.

Well, not non stop trying of course.:laff:

I got Thief 2 as a Christmas present in 2000. Having enjoyed the original so much my brother got Thief 2 for me and I played it through. But I ended up skipping Soulforge halfway through. It was relentlessly grim, depressing, pretty "un-Thief" like, and above all so LOOOONNNGGGG that I think I just got impatient and did level skip to see what happens at the end. I have since replayed Thief 2 about or 9 or 10 times since, and frequently played single missions now and then. (Doing Bank with no saves is a favourite of mine) But again Soulforge always defeated me all those years. It's just so darn long and depressing.

But I finally decided to finish it today Of course I remembered some bits here and there from previous attempts. I'm by no means an unskilled player but playing on Expert really involved a lot of save -die reload routines. It was frustrating. It was fun at times. It was tedious.

Basically- GOD DAMN I hate Soulforge. But hey, I'm a member of an exclusive club now. Can I get a medal or something?:p

Constance on 30/11/2012 at 20:44

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Wow, 12 years ? That's pretty long indeed ^^'
I guess it must have taken me around 6 or 7 years… for my first multimedia PC from late 1998 lacked a bit of performance to play Thief 2 — I remember even the First City Bank and Trust was a bit difficult for it to handle… had to be sure to start playing on a fresh boot ^^' — and I only got a more decent one at the beginning of 2006.

jtr7 on 1/12/2012 at 00:35

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Congrats! Yeah, while I like to look at that mission, I do not enjoy playing through it. I played it first on Normal (TMA all the way through) and then on Expert all the way through, and that's how I was able to increase my enjoyment, speed up the tedium, and not get frustrated with not having a good sense of direction at times.

cast on 1/12/2012 at 16:04

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Congrats.
Try Elevator Mission now :ebil:

ultravioletu on 2/12/2012 at 08:07

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What a coincidence! After 1.19 came out, I started again playing some (old and new) fan FMs, then the OMs - this time with all loot, all secrets, zero mech measts disable and zero damage done/taken (not quite ghosting, since I ignore the "being noticed" part - I avoid it, of course, as much as I can, but don't care when it happens).

While playing Sabotage, I remembered that last time (~11 yrs ago) I Ctrl-Shift-Ended the campaign, out of frustration - and out of resources to disable all mech beasts.

Anyway, yesterday I also finished my campaign. After not quite 12 years, but about 11 and a half!!

PS: the original campain cannot be played entirely within the self-imposed criteria. One is required to do 9 damage (8 KOs in the first mission + Cavador). There is a nugget in the Maw (worth 50) that cannot be collected without taking damage - I left it there. Additionally, I had to use two gas arrows: one on the mechanist in front of Karras Office at Angelwatch (probably I could have lured it away, though) and one on the sleeping female mechanist at Site 5 in KD, who wakes up as soon as one starts lockpicking a crate containing a a purse (worth 100). Gasing someone doesn't count as damage done, so my stats were kept somehow clean, but having to KO someone feels a bit like cheating... The last "undocumented" secret in Sabotage (quote scroll) requires to disable some beasts, so it's not included in my official savegame...

Art of Thievery, here I come again - this time on "ghost" difficulty, I really want to see what's in that North wing!!!!