King No One on 20/2/2013 at 18:53

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Ok Taffers, though I have the feeling this question has been asked before on these Forums I feel enough time has passed for it to be asked again:

What is your history with Thief? (I'll include mine as an example)

I first became aware of the Thief series during my first year of Secondary School (Junior High to any American readers). The then brand new Dark Project was being examined in a gaming magazine article and the notion of low confrontation gameplay appealed to me. Picking up the tome-like box at my local Game retailer I played the game religiously, loving every minute of it. Then the wheels came off; during my play through of Escape! a combination of scare enhancing Gamma issues and a computer upgrade kept me from finishing The Dark Project. I still picked up The Metal Age the moment I saw it instore (also in Tome-like box) but never played past the first mission for fear of spoiling an ending I never earned from its predecessor.
Years passed and although I fully intended to come back to the gaming innovation that offered so much more than 90% of other titles I didn't make the time. After picking up the PCGamer Presents version of TDS, second hand for £1.50 (Even I think it's worth more than that) I realised I had to put up or stop calling myself a Thief fan.
By this time my Laptop didn't even acknowledge the existence of my old disk but the Soldout Software version of TMA only set me back £1 so I thought I was ok. Alas no! The game ran choppy and crashed anytime you opened a footlocker! Liberal application of Tafferpatcher finally got me going and I made up for lost time, finishing TMA last summer. TDS refused to run on my laptop but my Dad was ok with me using it on his office Desktop. I've been playing since and am currently starting the final mission. My completion of TDS will come just in time for my birthday which coincides with my Dad upgrading to a new Desktop. I expect that once I have inherited my Dad's old one my FM years can begin...

Seriously TLDR, didn't expect it to run on like this...but hey, if any responses are shorter than mine I'll owe you a Burrick Burger

infinity on 20/2/2013 at 23:30

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When I was ten years old in 2001, my Nana bought the original trapezoid for me from her flea market for $5, not knowing what it was, knowing only that I liked computer games. It still had the $44.99 Ames sticker on it. When I installed it, the only other game I had played extensively was Half-Life (which my dad had acquired by upgrading his video card in 2000), so I was confused at first about the idea of a sneaker. But damn, that atmosphere took a hold of me. The sneaking was more of a thrill than anything you could find in a shooter, and the music and sound really built the perfect immersion. I don't think I finished the game for several years (spending time to play the Sword over and over) because the levels eventually got too hard and I gave up. But the impact was lasting. The next great gaming experience I had was Morrowind in 2003, and I basically roleplayed Garrett for my first three characters.

Goldmoon Dawn on 21/2/2013 at 03:57

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It all started when I was 8, back in 1981. My uncle gave me a computer and Ultima was the program I wanted to use first, because I had watched him playing it and knew it was for me to complete. Anyways, yeah as you may know the Ultima and Wizardry series marked the dawn of crpg. When Blue Sky Productions created the first Ultima Underworld, I knew I would be playing their games for a long time. Which we were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to do. System Shock I was the next time this company blew me completely away. Granted, I just spent the last year and a half playing Might and Magic IV and V so System Shock was a natural progression. Considering that Might and Magic VI came out six months prior to Thief, I was more than in the mood for some classic LGS movements. Lets just say that the day Thief hit the shelves, I was one of those cloaked entities who was there one second, gone the next. Truth be told, it was my brother who did the deed. I was at home still completing MM6.

Such a memorable time for gaming, those days were...

:ebil:

edit - I want my Burrick Burger! :p

jtr7 on 21/2/2013 at 05:01

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At some time I can't pin down in 1998 or 1999, I was visiting a friend in another town to act as a recording engineer and run the 4-track cassette deck to get his latest song down, and to jam with him for the afternoon. When I arrived at his house, he was passing the time waiting for me by playing video games. What I saw on his monitor looked different than what I was used to seeing in gaming mags and on demo CDs, so I asked about it. He told me it was called "Thief".

He restarted the mission I'd interrupted and showed a few minutes and some of the tools of the trade. This guy was your typical loud run'n'gun and hack'n'slash aggressive player, the kind who would use cheats to max out his Diablo character and go grief other players online 'cause he found any earned progress boring after playing through a game, so it struck me when he was enjoying a game where he wasn't in a big damned hurry, calm, quiet, not given over to daredevil tactics, and especially when he said "I love Thief," in response to a surprised comment I made about how clearly immersed he was and enjoying the game. It simply flew in the face of what I'd seen in the previous several years, including playing competitively with him, so his endorsement made an impression. I didn't yet know it, but he was playing Assassins!, from the beginning through to standing just inside Ramirez's Estate, where he fired a moss arrow on the gravel, and I was intrigued by what he'd told me and what I'd seen. But, since I didn't have a computer that could run it, and had no idea if and when I'd ever get a new computer, let alone one that could handle the requirements, I tucked that memory away and didn't pursue learning any more about it at all. It was just an interesting memory of learning something new about my friend.

In 2001, another friend of mine bought a new computer, and he had it built to be compatible with the programs I was running, so I could work on stories and MIDI compositions on my computer and hand them off to him. Thief II: The Metal Age came bundled with his sound card, along with several other interesting programs I had a lot of brief fun with. I installed it on his computer while setting his system up with all the other apps he'd need, along with the newer stuff my own comp couldn't handle, and played through it once. I'd already burned out on gaming, and found the trends of the last decade not to my liking, even though I liked looking at them in magazines, or if I played them, they were at least more interesting than Solitaire, but I really had grown to loathe quite a lot, and had gone from being a gamer, to one who could almost not care less, yet I wanted to have that kind of fun again without just playing the old games on old platforms until they shorted out.

I really got into TMA, and since I'd never get to play it on my own system, and my friend liked it well enough that he wanted to mix it into his pen & paper RPGs, which are his huge obsession, so I made copies of the gamefiles, but not the game, so I could watch the movies, listen to the sounds, look at the textures (especially the ones with visible words and pronouns), and read the readables, and I bought the strategy guide. I played through it one more time, and noticed how the game had changed since the guide was written.

But anyway, as I was playing it that second time, in Soulforge I heard Karras say his line about giving Garrett his eye. Having wondered what past history Garrett and Viktoria were angry with each other over, too, having heard Garrett's response to the Keeper telling him there was more in the prophecy he had to know, and having been caught up in that universe enough to be hooked, it was the tipping point. I had to know the rest, and especially the backstory. While playing the game, I kept wondering, too, if I'd see the mission my other friend had showed me. I didn't know the original game's full title, just "Thief", and the fact that Thief II used very similar graphics, had me thinking it was possible I'd play for myself what I had been shown before.

By this time, time was running out, and he would be moving, and we would soon be going separate ways, but he would be around long enough for us to go in together and pick up Thief: The Dark Project. I played it through just twice, and made copies of the gamefiles, but not the game. I had been making lists of pronouns and groups and studying the factions, making Thief-style hand-drawn maps for his D&D, GURPS, etc., or whatever rules book flavor he would get turned on to. He was addicted, and got a job at our tiny local gaming store, so of course, the owner kept feeding the addiction, and the friend would steal his mother's credit card and rack up $3000 in books and figurines. I never cared for any of it, but I did like world-building, character creation, and writing stories, and so he would come up with an idea, and I would flesh it out with Thief-style visuals, flavor text, fanfic, city sections, etc.

I would go to the university library and go online once in awhile, but I really started going online a lot to find out more about the other Thief titles. I found Thief: The Dark Project, and my friend ordered it through the gaming store, and while looking for TMA's sequel, found TTLG, and found out that LGS had been shut down. At that time, it really fueled the imagination for possible fan continuation, and I channeled that into the last stories I wrote for my gaming friend, and was a registered member here when that ended and my love of TTLG and Thief took over from there, so 2001 was an intense year.

In the last month before my friend moved, we had picked up Diablo II and Thief Gold at separate times. I played Diablo II through twice, and because of the timing, I only played through to Thief Gold's Thieves' Guild mission. I didn't make copies of TG's gamefiles, but I had TDP and TMA. Since I had no idea if and when I'd ever get a new system, and it was only a matter of time before my old computer died (and it was starting to go), and I was so caught up in story writing, script writing, composing, world-building... and with an unending stream of questions for the future of Thief had LGS been able to make the sequel, and the making of these games, I determined to get as much of what could be known into a series of documents that could be printed out, a sort of Thief Bible, like a portable Thief Wiki, with stuff you'd see in a strategy guide but way beyond that, before there was a Wikipedia site (or only the seeds of one), and a resource that would not need electricity, no computer necessary, like being at a library in the Thief section, or having the full collection of Tolkien's stories and drawings for Middle Earth, or all of a favorite musician's works in sheet music with all parts written out, etc. Some people have their action figure collections, card collections, guitars, firearms, etc., I collect Thief info (but not merchandise, though if money and storage weren't an issue, I'd be interested in the promo materials and original packaging).

At that time, I was very much used to books as a main resource for all questions outside of talking to the people, or traveling to the places, or being hands-on with the things, so I didn't want to have to have a computer to enjoy learning and expanding on what I found in Thief. I was also as burned out on the Fantasy genre as I was gaming. Thief took aspects of Fantasy and made them palatable to me, as well as fed me Sci-Fi, and I also was intrigued enough by the production of live-action Lord of the Rings movies that I went ahead and read Tolkien, and getting it from the source that so many have derived from made that more exciting to me than I thought it would. TTLG and information from the devs led me to more stories and authors and I've embraced more Fantasy. I can still handle bad bad Sci-Fi more than even mediocre Fantasy, 'cause I'm looking for that spark that opens doors in my imagination, when the writing and delivery typically aren't delicious themselves.

By the time TDS was announced, I was already content with just learning what LGS had planned for it, and continuing to study what they had established, where they were coming from, etc., and was adding more and more to my made-for-print database. It wasn't until late 2006 that I finally got a new computer, 11 years after I got my previous computer, and I played my own copies of TDP, Gold, TMA, and TDS for the first time. TDP and TMA were different the third time around because the versions I played in 2001 were the very first release versions, so it made them feel fresher and kept me confused when an old trick I'd learned no longer worked, or a gamespace or AI type was very different.

As for DromEd (and T3Ed), I'd dabbled enough back then to get some bright ideas for it, outside of FM-authoring, that I'd wanted to put into action for the stories I was writing, but that never happened. I have a couple of rudimentary terrain builds. I'd wanted to use it like theater and lighting directors and set-designers, where they might build the sets virtually, place the lighting and stand-in actors, and test ideas out before expending the money and effort on the real thing, only in my case, I wanted to design the gist of set-pieces for major story moments, where I could keep my narration straight, building 3D sketches of places, choreograph action, test layouts, and revisit them without forgetting details I'd described in earlier chapters, and just as a memory and imagineering tool--But that requires a computer and electricity and a place to set up and work, which the database does not, once a hardcopy is made, and I still have graph-paper. I mainly use DromEd and T3Ed to get answers to questions I have or that someone has asked, so I can get right to the place in the game without having to play up to it, remove interfering variables (like turning off AI Awareness at times, or stopping the flow of water so there's no fighting against the current to study something submerged), or compare changes in difficulty levels, or excavate remnants of pre-release versions of missions, and I usually learn way more than I meant to in one little excursion, and often end up having a lot more to add to my database.

I've hardly properly played Thief, and have never played Thief the way I did in 2001, where I could have the sound the way I want it, the room dim, and not disturb others or be disturbed. I long for that chance.


That's the story of how I met Thief and why I'm here and why the two are inextricably entwined.

Nightwalker on 21/2/2013 at 15:30

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My son asked for Thief for Christmas the year it came out. It wouldn't play on our computer at the time so I never got to see it. He took it home and raved about it on the phone then I forgot about it afterwards. That spring, he built us a new computer (he's a computer nut, loves the tech stuff and works as programmer) and sent along Thief for us to try on it. My husband gave it a go first and I watched him for awhile. I thought it looked like fun but he plays more "kill everybody" so I wasn't sure it was for me. I started very timidly as I'd never played anything like it before and almost quit while trying to get through the metal floored forge rooms in the basement of Craigscleft but I called my son and he helped me figure out how to sneak through it. By the time I finished that mission, I was totally hooked. Thief Gold was on my Christmas list that year and I discovered Fan Mission at some point not long after they started making them when I stumbled onto TTLG while looking for help. I've never stopped playing it since then, except for very brief periods when I get into another game but even then, I usually end up playing a bit of Thief. I've never found anything that provides the same level of immersion but I'm the only one in my family who still plays. My son keeps pointing out or lending me new games and cannot understand why I'm still so hooked on such an old game. All I can tell him is that there's a lot more to it than having the newest or the best games out there. It's special and I hope the FMs keep coming for a long, long time.