Thief: The Dark Project turns 25

[Melcar]

Blackjack is EZ mode, the sword takes more skill because you have to charge it up for an overhead, it makes noise and it leaves incriminating bloodstains.

Garrett is a thief, not a murderer. He does not kill.

Ya right, how do you explain this then pal??

As we see here, Bafford's Buffoons learned the hard way not to fuck with master thief Garrett and are now blowing bubbles in hell. A lesser thief would do some dumb shit like take a few trinkets and scurry off into a gutter. As a seasoned professional, Garrett steals a whole mansion by right of conquest.

Looking at the stats, we see that Garrett has killed 17 people, or stole their lives as a thief would say. I don't expect you to know the lingo, since you're a noob as far as thievery is concerned.

I always fill that pool with the servants. It's a bitch lugging around the unconscious bodies, but well worth the satisfaction.

 

[rêve]

Garrett plays for sport. The arsehole's got enough to retire on already, he just keeps going into people's houses for a laugh.

On the contrary, he is poor despite being a master thief since his landlord is coming to collect.

 

[Nano]

You guys think Viktoria and Garrett ever got around to doing it before she got offed?

 

[NecroLord]

You guys think Viktoria and Garrett ever got around to doing it before she got offed?

Garrett only does Basso's sister.

 

[std::namespace]

You guys think Viktoria and Garrett ever got around to doing it before she got offed?

spoilers you faggit!

 

[DemonKing]

Still one of the greatest video game cutscenes ever:



First game was crazy good. Probably liked the atmosphere in Down in the Bonehoard the best but there were plenty of other good levels.

1998 was actually bonkers for great games - Half Life, Baldur's Gate, Starcraft...

 

[JarlFrank]

Garrett plays for sport. The arsehole's got enough to retire on already, he just keeps going into people's houses for a laugh.

No, Garrett steals to pay his landlord (rent is due again)

 

[std::namespace]

why is bunny hopping in this game? this is not based on the quake engine is it? are the devs retarded? ...

edit

also, people have been praising how sound works in this game... wat
as far as i can tell, walls dont attenuate it even a bit, it propagates simply spherically
its shit?

 

[Eirinjas]

why is bunny hopping in this game? this is not based on the quake engine is it? are the devs retarded? ...

I don't remember bunny hopping in the original release. I'm wondering if NewDark introduced it. I'm too lazy at the moment to install from the original discs to find out.

 

[Ash]

Bunnyhopping was in the original.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

And has been removed in the sequel.

std::namespace Welcome to playing a 25-year old game that's been praised so much you think it's a modern-day masterpiece using modern-day tech.

It isn't. It's still a 25-year old game. You go faster if you move diagonally as well (motion along two axis)... a problem that's also present in some modern-era games BTW.

You're experiencing retro shock, and a normal reaction to that is to act all indignant about the game. You have to grow beyond that.

Thief has normal sound propagation just like any other game: A sphere. Furthermore the sphere's reach can disrupted via the in-game editor, so as to avoid sound reaching where it shouldn't.

Thief also has some sound distortion that was cutting-edge at the time, but getting the EAX-aspect of the sound to work can be tricky.

Where Thief excels with sound is how in-game critters react to it. Many of the player's actions (like walking) creates sounds, which can be detected by others, and they change their behavior. Most of the game revolves around creating as little sound as possible. It's impossible to play Thief without headphones or a good set of speakers - by contrast, how many games are so shallow you can skip the aural element completely?

What Thief accomplished in technical terms isn't that hot, strictly speaking. And yet it is still the No. 1 game in its genre, 25 years later. Because as much as technology and computer hardware has progressed in a quarter-century, it is the human element that has stagnated, the capability to innovate, create and inspire. To dare. Thief dared to go where very few other games had gone before... and far too few games have gone since.

 

[Icewater]

I'm reasonably certain that std::namespace is a Thief fan who is just trolling.

 

[Tweed]

25 years of bunnyhopping at mach 5 and crashing into a wall.

 

[Dave the Druid]

edit

also, people have been praising how sound works in this game... wat
as far as i can tell, walls dont attenuate it even a bit, it propagates simply spherically
its shit?

It has support for hardware accelerated sound, supporting both Creative EAX and Aureal A3D 2.0. The A3D in particular was stunning, not just for its time but even now. It's 3 dimensional, binaural sound propagation back in 1998:


Playback on this next video's disabled on other sites but just skip to 24:56 for the Thief footage


Sadly it doesn't work anymore because:

1. Creative sued Aureal for copyright infringement, they were found not guilty in court but the lawsuit bankrupted the company in 2000 and most of their tech was bought up by Creative in bankruptcy court. Who then discontinued the API immediately, sat on the tech for the next decade and either sued or bought out anyone else who tried to bring any similar 3D audio tech onto the market. This also wasn't Creative's first rodeo, look up what they (allegedly) did to AdLib in the early 90s and Sensaura in the 2000s
2. Microsoft killed DirectSound, and by extension DirectSound3D starting with Vista/the Xbox 360, killing hardware accelerated audio in the process (lmao take that Creative you buncha cunts - have fun being the kings of an industry that doesn't exist anymore)

It's still there in Thief: The Dark Project and Thief 2 though. It's not like Half-Life where Valve forcibly removed support for it decades ago. Thief 1 and 2 still support binaural, 3D audio. You just have to play it on a Windows 98 machine with an Aureal Vortex 2 soundcard

 

[Eirinjas]

edit

also, people have been praising how sound works in this game... wat
as far as i can tell, walls dont attenuate it even a bit, it propagates simply spherically
its shit?

It has support for hardware accelerated sound, supporting both Creative EAX and Aureal A3D 2.0. The A3D in particular was stunning, not just for its time but even now. It's 3 dimensional, binaural sound propagation back in 1998:


Playback on this next video's disabled on other sites but just skip to 24:56 for the Thief footage


Sadly it doesn't work anymore because:

1. Creative sued Aureal for copyright infringement, they were found not guilty in court but the lawsuit bankrupted the company in 2000 and most of their tech was bought up by Creative in bankruptcy court. Who then discontinued the API immediately, sat on the tech for the next decade and either sued or bought out anyone else who tried to bring any similar 3D audio tech onto the market. This also wasn't Creative's first rodeo, look up what they (allegedly) did to AdLib in the early 90s and Sensaura in the 2000s
2. Microsoft killed DirectSound, and by extension DirectSound3D starting with Vista/the Xbox 360, killing hardware accelerated audio in the process (lmao take that Creative you buncha cunts - have fun being the kings of an industry that doesn't exist anymore)

It's still there in Thief: The Dark Project and Thief 2 though. It's not like Half-Life where Valve forcibly removed support for it decades ago. Thief 1 and 2 still support binaural, 3D audio. You just have to play it on a Windows 98 machine with an Aureal Vortex 2 soundcard

You can use OpenAL to enable EAX in Thief.

 

[Dave the Druid]

You can use OpenAL to enable EAX in Thief.

I know. I was talking about A3D, not EAX. EAX was neat and all but it was really just a bunch of echo and reverb presets at the end of the day, NOT binaural audio.

 

[std::namespace]

You're experiencing retro shock

what i am experiencing is larper garbage, broken design and fugly graphics
panzer general 2 holds up just fucking fine
as does counter strike
as does street fighter 2
as do a bunch of titles

the only thing propping thief1 up from ABSOLUTE FAILURE are the non-linear maps and their exploration
- bunnyhopping broken
- combat broken
- enemy ai broken
- blackjack broken
- arrows broken
- grenades broken
- economy broken

the gameplay in this title is on the level of a shoveware tier shooter
whats left is crawling though labyrinths where you cannot tell the left corridor from the right one, cause they are fucking mirrored and have the same shitty texture

 

[Melcar]

Bullshit

 

[std::namespace]

It's 3 dimensional, binaural sound propagation back in 1998:

every shooter on the market had this fake 3d sound in stereo headphones via reverb shit going on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_audio_effect

the question is if th1ef actually used a3d to any meaningful extent and i doubt it

now i of course cant test it cause no audio card but i choose to believe that it was marketing shit just like all of it

 

[Dave the Druid]

- blackjack broken

Have you tried whacking on the head when they're unaware that you're there?

 

[std::namespace]

pinnacle of stealth gameplay

last post best post

 

[std::namespace]

- blackjack broken

Have you tried whacking on the head when they're unaware that you're there?

.................thats the broken part! where is the challenging gameplay?

 

[Dave the Druid]

It's 3 dimensional, binaural sound propagation back in 1998:

every shooter on the market had this fake 3d sound in stereo headphones via reverb shit going on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_audio_effect

the question is if th1ef actually used a3d to any meaningful extent and i doubt it

now i of course cant test it cause no audio card but i choose to believe that it was marketing shit just like all of it

There is a way to test it on modern hardware! You could watch those 2 videos that I linked in that post you quoted, would recommend watching them with headphones though. Also, the "fake 3D sound" you referenced is actually EAX, which is really just a bunch of echo and reverb presets and not what I was talking about. But, yes! Nearly every 3D game on the market (not just shooters btw) had support for A3D between about 1998-2000. And Thief was probably the best game to play with it.

EDIT: Can't believe I missed this but your Wikipedia screenshot literally proves my point: that A3D could accurately model 3D world sound whereas EAX was just a bunch of reverb presets that the devs set depending on what type of room you were in and doesn't "calculate any actual reflections off 3D surfaces." Like, your quote literally proves that what I said was correct

 

[Unkillable Cat]

what i am experiencing is larper garbage, broken design and fugly graphics
panzer general 2 holds up just fucking fine
as does counter strike
as does street fighter 2
as do a bunch of titles

Then go and play those titles, shut up, and stop wasting our time.

 

[catfood]

You're experiencing retro shock

what i am experiencing is larper garbage, broken design and fugly graphics
panzer general 2 holds up just fucking fine
as does counter strike
as does street fighter 2
as do a bunch of titles

the only thing propping thief1 up from ABSOLUTE FAILURE are the non-linear maps and their exploration
- bunnyhopping broken
- combat broken
- enemy ai broken
- blackjack broken
- arrows broken
- grenades broken
- economy broken

the gameplay in this title is on the level of a shoveware tier shooter
whats left is crawling though labyrinths where you cannot tell the left corridor from the right one, cause they are fucking mirrored and have the same shitty texture

The most broken out of all is your brain, nigger.