Question about missing text for bonus objectives in Thief the metal age - by Samantha1
Samantha1 on 17/2/2024 at 13:32
Hello fellow Thief-fans :) I installed Thief 2 on my laptop, because for a change of pace I wanted to play it on laptop instead of pc (cause of higher graphics quality), only to find out that in some missions the bonus objectives suddenly have no text.
In running interference it does work, the text with the wedding rings is shown, but in blackmail and trail of blood they are missing. Instead only a ticked off box with no text is shown.
Does anyone know why that is and what I can do about it?
voodoo47 on 17/2/2024 at 15:45
language version? T2Fix patched? running any other mods?
Samantha1 on 17/2/2024 at 21:34
German. T2fix yes. No other mods.
voodoo47 on 17/2/2024 at 21:42
then ask Jax64 about DE compatibility in the T2Fix topic.
Jax64 on 18/2/2024 at 05:21
German is one of the supported localizations in T2Fix, so no worries there. From your description, it looks like the pre-patched versions of some of the interface resources are taking precedence over the patched ones. The patcher should detect out-of-date resource sets and update them, however. One thing that may be causing the problem in spite of this is outdated resource files in the root installation directory. If you see 'intrface.crf' or other '.crf' files in the same folder as the game executable (Thief2.exe), you can try removing or renaming them to ensure the resources in the RES directory take precedence.
Samantha1 on 18/2/2024 at 10:44
There were four .crf files both in the RES file and in the folder in which the .exe is. I removed the four files (books, interface, strings, objects) from the file in which .exe is, but it didn´t do anything. I replayed "trail of blood" and it still only shows a ticked box instead of the text for the loot bonus objective.
Any other ideas? :/
baeuchlein on 18/2/2024 at 19:50
Samantha, what is the date and size shown for intrface.crf in the RES directory/folder? The date/time "stamps" should be from the time when you used T2Fix, not from somewhere around the year 2000.
Jax, the default setting for installing the v1.18 resources with T2Fix v1.27e (versions with and without mods) is "don't install" (checkbox not checked), and the checkbox for it also is somewhat hidden - one has to press the "Configuration Options" button in the 2nd installation screen to get there. It is easy to miss that and then fail to install these updated resources. And on some occasions, re-running T2Fix again afterwards and selecting to install the v1.18 resources does update the files intrface.crf, books.crf and strings.crf in RES, but fails to remove the older files of the same name in the main game folder. The game then ranks the contents of these older CRFs over the updated ones in RES. I have just checked this with a german Thief 2 v1.07. However, renaming or deleting the old CRFs from the main game folder does fix the problem for me since the resources in RES have been properly updated. Their date/time stamps are from the time when T2Fix was run, not from the year 2000, so it's easy to check whether the resources need to be updated, or only the excess CRFs have to be removed.
Maybe this explains why it is easy to overlook the "v1.18 resources thing". I'm not sure what exactly should be done about this - maybe mentioning this in a Readme file would be enough, or maybe the player should be informed if T2Fix detects a situation where it's not sure that the resources are/will be properly updated. Something to think about for v1.27f, I guess.
Samantha1 on 18/2/2024 at 20:33
It´s the year 2000, so it was not updated. So should I just reinstall the T2fix so everything is updated properly and then it should work, right? I have to try it out tomorrow.
Jax64 on 18/2/2024 at 21:31
Yes, given that, the next thing you could do is to run T2Fix again and ensure the "Always Install 1.18 Resources" checkbox in "Configuration Options" is checked. This will install the updated resources even if they were not determined to be necessary.
Quote Posted by baeuchlein
Jax, the default setting for installing the v1.18 resources with T2Fix v1.27e (versions with and without mods) is "don't install" (checkbox
not checked), and the checkbox for it also is somewhat hidden - one has to press the "Configuration Options" button in the 2nd installation screen to get there. It is easy to miss that and then fail to install these updated resources. And on some occasions, re-running T2Fix again afterwards and selecting to install the v1.18 resources does update the files
intrface.crf,
books.crf and
strings.crf in RES, but fails to remove the older files of the same name in the main game folder. The game then ranks the contents of these older CRFs over the updated ones in RES. I have just checked this with a german Thief 2 v1.07. However, renaming or deleting the old CRFs from the main game folder does fix the problem for me since the resources in RES have been properly updated. Their date/time stamps are from the time when T2Fix was run, not from the year 2000, so it's easy to check whether the resources need to be updated, or only the excess CRFs have to be removed.
Maybe this explains why it is easy to overlook the "v1.18 resources thing". I'm not sure what exactly should be done about this - maybe mentioning this in a Readme file would be enough, or maybe the player should be informed if T2Fix detects a situation where it's not sure that the resources are/will be properly updated. Something to think about for v1.27f, I guess.
I suppose the option is hidden away, though it should not be necessary to use it under normal circumstances. This option just forces the installation of the new resources regardless of whether the patcher found old resources present; having it unchecked does not prevent them from being installed. The idea here was to install the new resources if and only if they were necessary. As of now, T2Fix does not touch resource files in the root installation directory. This is because some other localizations of the game, notably some US distributions, include the old resources in the RES directory and the patched resources in the game directory.
All of that said, I will see to it that future versions of T2Fix are more resilient to this issue. In the event that the resources in the RES directory are updated, there should no longer be any need for any additional resources in the game directory, so they can be safely removed.
baeuchlein on 19/2/2024 at 00:03
The german version of Thief 2 I use also puts the old and complete set of resources in the RES directory, and any updated ones in the root installation directory. It gets confusing when one notices that v1.07 already places updates CRFs in the root directory, and the patch to v1.18 places an update for that update in the root directory as well, overwriting the updated v1.07 CRFs, but not doing anything to the yet older ones in RES. On the other hand, I remember some rather old advice - all OM resources should be placed in the RES directory especially once it comes to playing fan missions.:rolleyes: