Naked on 8/2/2007 at 17:32
There is most probably an answer to this question about the board but I don't have time to search all the threads right now to find the answer, and I think someone here might know off the top of their heads.
What month/year was the idea proposed and when did the production of TDP commence?
My logic puts it around 1995-1996. ???
Muzman on 8/2/2007 at 21:51
Most sources put it around early 1997. Prior to that it was a different game, called Dark Camelot, which had been in production for about a year (presumably the reworking had begun in late '96).
Digital Nightfall on 9/2/2007 at 03:04
You're thinking of the name change from "The Dark Project" to "Thief: The Dark Project" I belive, Muz.
As early as '95 I saw it promoted as "The Dark Project" ... not Dark Camelot.
It had to have been started as early as '94 but it could have been even before that. Sometimes game ideas come about years before work is started.
Muzman on 9/2/2007 at 07:25
Hmm, Tom Leonard wasn't so sure when he wrote (
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/19990709/thief_01.htm) this
[INDENT]
The project began in the spring of 1996 as "Dark Camelot," a sword-combat action game with role-playing and adventure elements, based on an inversion of the Arthurian legend. Although development ostensibly had been in progress on paper for a year, Thief realistically began early in 1997 after the game was repositioned as an action/adventure game of thievery in a grim fantasy setting. Up to that point we had only a small portion of the art, design, and code that would ultimately make it into the shipping game. Full development began in May 1997 with a team comprised almost entirely of a different group of people from those who started the project.[/INDENT]
(curiously he's putting it in concept at early 1996 as well as Dark Camelot. Doug Church has suggested in interviews that DC didn't get very far along, but it sounds like it was fully in production. Leonard goes on to talk about level designs and architecture from DC that ended up in Thief, somewhat reworked)
There was another source that said the development time for Thief wasn't much longer than Thief 2 (but I can't find it at the mo'), that seemed to confirm (or maybe just drew from) Leonard's vague dates there.
I only knows what I reads
bikerdude on 9/2/2007 at 12:16
I think my pc was based on a either a K6 500 or same such or a Duron 750.......and I was dating a lovely girl from the USA at the time....
biker
Gingerbread Man on 9/2/2007 at 16:43
Quote Posted by Muzman
There was another source that said the development time for Thief wasn't much longer than Thief 2 (but I can't find it at the mo'), that seemed to confirm (or maybe just drew from) Leonard's vague dates there.
Yeah, that's ringing bells with me, too. I seem to recall someone saying something about a 30-month development period.