Thief: The Dark Project vs. Gold

[fantadomat]

Because T3 was limited by the consoles.
Although he dealt with them better than Desu Ex Invisible Walls.

The game itself is good,limitations aside.

I really don't get the hate for thief 3,it is a really good game. The only real decline is the difficulty doesn't give you more objectives.

Dude. Don't you see the difference in level design between T3 and T1/2!?
T3 levels are a lot smaller and more linear on average than T1/T2 levels.

The level design is fine,the levels are not that small,just cut in two halfs. From what i remember there is a mod that removes the loading thing and makes them in to a one thing. But yeah that was shitty thing because of consoles being shit. But i do remember every level of the game and like them,they felt natural and realistic. Tho i think that thief 1 have the worst level design and general gameplay. It have a few good levels but a lot of shit in between. Also it make no sense,the game is called thief and not indian jones with black robes. You do almost no thieving at all in the game.

The levels are small and linear, even after joining them. The control of Garrett is atrocius, due to the 3rd person inclusion to please the console players, while the movement and sense of presence in Thief 1&2 is pure perfection.
No rope arrows and swimming too.

I don't get the complaints about the lack of rope arrows in Thief 3... Were the climbing gloves not enough for you?

A rope arrows would have been better but still the gloves do the job.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Because T3 was limited by the consoles.
Although he dealt with them better than Desu Ex Invisible Walls.

The game itself is good,limitations aside.

I really don't get the hate for thief 3,it is a really good game. The only real decline is the difficulty doesn't give you more objectives.

Dude. Don't you see the difference in level design between T3 and T1/2!?
T3 levels are a lot smaller and more linear on average than T1/T2 levels.

The level design is fine,the levels are not that small,just cut in two halfs. From what i remember there is a mod that removes the loading thing and makes them in to a one thing. But yeah that was shitty thing because of consoles being shit. But i do remember every level of the game and like them,they felt natural and realistic. Tho i think that thief 1 have the worst level design and general gameplay. It have a few good levels but a lot of shit in between. Also it make no sense,the game is called thief and not indian jones with black robes. You do almost no thieving at all in the game.

The levels are small and linear, even after joining them. The control of Garrett is atrocius, due to the 3rd person inclusion to please the console players, while the movement and sense of presence in Thief 1&2 is pure perfection.
No rope arrows and swimming too.

I don't get the complaints about the lack of rope arrows in Thief 3... Were the climbing gloves not enough for you?

No, the rope arrow was one of the best part of Thief. Pure free-form kind of gameplay.

 

[Netch]

Because T3 was limited by the consoles.
Although he dealt with them better than Desu Ex Invisible Walls.

The game itself is good,limitations aside.

I really don't get the hate for thief 3,it is a really good game. The only real decline is the difficulty doesn't give you more objectives.

Dude. Don't you see the difference in level design between T3 and T1/2!?
T3 levels are a lot smaller and more linear on average than T1/T2 levels.

The level design is fine,the levels are not that small,just cut in two halfs. From what i remember there is a mod that removes the loading thing and makes them in to a one thing. But yeah that was shitty thing because of consoles being shit. But i do remember every level of the game and like them,they felt natural and realistic. Tho i think that thief 1 have the worst level design and general gameplay. It have a few good levels but a lot of shit in between. Also it make no sense,the game is called thief and not indian jones with black robes. You do almost no thieving at all in the game.

The levels are small and linear, even after joining them. The control of Garrett is atrocius, due to the 3rd person inclusion to please the console players, while the movement and sense of presence in Thief 1&2 is pure perfection.
No rope arrows and swimming too.

I don't get the complaints about the lack of rope arrows in Thief 3... Were the climbing gloves not enough for you?

No, the rope arrow was one of the best part of Thief. Pure free-form kind of gameplay.

I agree but it's not as if they're particularly different from the climbing gloves. Both items are used to achieve verticality on certain surfaces. Granted, the rope arrows have a bit more utility because they don't have to be used on a solid, scalable wall and can instead be shot at rafters or beams, but the principle is largely the same.

 

[Cross]

Thief 3 is...not good. Half the game is spent in a generic city hub where you're constantly chased by guards who are always on high alert because they blame you for dead bodies from NPC in-fighting. This becomes particularly stupid (and hilarious) in the finale, where the guards are still focused on you while there's a Lovecraftian monstrosity roaming the streets. Oh, and the guards remember your position when you pass through a loading screen into another district of the city so if you return there the guards will still be there and instantly kill you after the loading screen. Brilliant design.

The other half of the game consists of a series of serviceable stealth missions that aren't remotely as good as the missions from the first 2 Thief games. And no, the mod that removes the loading screens doesn't remedy the downgraded level design. There's no swimming, and the climbing gloves are a poor substitute for the rope arrow since the game is very restrictive about what walls you can climb on. Sound seems to matter way less than it does in the first 2 games: often I found I could run up to an enemy and knock them out without my footsteps alerting them. Mission objectives are less interesting too, with a generic 'find 3 special loot items' objective being reused for every mission. There's a variety of non-human enemies but it doesn't matter because almost all are interchangeable with human enemies, to the point that even zombies can sprint. And I never liked that Garrett's sword was replaced with a shitty dagger.

Story is another major downgrade from the first 2 games. After the Pagans and the Builders, we were supposed to get an exploration of the Keepers, but they completely botched it and ruined the mystique the Keepers had in the first 2 games. I couldn't even tell you what the story of Thief 3 is about because it's so dull and unremarkable. Equally bad was the decision to have pre-rendered cutscenes that look worse than the in-game graphics and have some of them occur in the middle of gameplay. They should've stuck to the storytelling style of the first 2 games.

Even if the missions were amazing (they aren't), I still wouldn't replay it because of the slog that is the city hub.

 

[TripJack]

unlike invisible war i dont think deadly shadows is bad but it’s not great like the originals— weaker levels, the city hub gets tedious, wonky movement, perfectly silent crouching, no briefing videos (i loved those), the gloves are more of an afterthought i think you only need them once (?) and levels are less vertical anyways

Dark Project. Gold's version of Down in the Bonehoard is lame. They basically easymoded the fuck out of it.

you’ve got me curious to play the original game, only played Gold and Bonehoard is one of my favoritest thief missions

 

[Child of Malkav]

Thief 3 is...not good. Half the game is spent in a generic city hub where you're constantly chased by guards who are always on high alert because they blame you for dead bodies from NPC in-fighting. This becomes particularly stupid (and hilarious) in the finale, where the guards are still focused on you while there's a Lovecraftian monstrosity roaming the streets. Oh, and the guards remember your position when you pass through a loading screen into another district of the city so if you return there the guards will still be there and instantly kill you after the loading screen. Brilliant design.

The other half of the game consists of a series of serviceable stealth missions that aren't remotely as good as the missions from the first 2 Thief games. And no, the mod that removes the loading screens doesn't remedy the downgraded level design. There's no swimming, and the climbing gloves are a poor substitute for the rope arrow since the game is very restrictive about what walls you can climb on. Sound seems to matter way less than it does in the first 2 games: often I found I could run up to an enemy and knock them out without my footsteps alerting them. Mission objectives are less interesting too, with a generic 'find 3 special loot items' objective being reused for every mission. There's a variety of non-human enemies but it doesn't matter because almost all are interchangeable with human enemies, to the point that even zombies can sprint. And I never liked that Garrett's sword was replaced with a shitty dagger.

Story is another major downgrade from the first 2 games. After the Pagans and the Builders, we were supposed to get an exploration of the Keepers, but they completely botched it and ruined the mystique the Keepers had in the first 2 games. I couldn't even tell you what the story of Thief 3 is about because it's so dull and unremarkable. Equally bad was the decision to have pre-rendered cutscenes that look worse than the in-game graphics and have some of them occur in the middle of gameplay. They should've stuck to the storytelling style of the first 2 games.

Even if the missions were amazing (they aren't), I still wouldn't replay it because of the slog that is the city hub.

The story would have been the same if LGS made the game because it was planned and from this https://thief.fandom.com/wiki/Emil's_Journal we find out that it was also going to feature an open city. I agree with what you said about it being a downgrade from 1 and 2 regarding gameplay but the story, AI and dynamic light and shadow system are unquestionably the biggest advantages of the game, the latter 2 being superior to those in T1 and T2.

 

[mindx2]

Thief 3 is...not good.


Even if the missions were amazing (they aren't), I still wouldn't replay it because of the slog that is the city hub.

Shalebridge Cradle is worth admission alone.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

The level design is fine,the levels are not that small,just cut in two halfs. From what i remember there is a mod that removes the loading thing and makes them in to a one thing.

Does it work well? I remember trying it many years ago but is was janky and didn't seem to work. I don't even remember it's name or link.

Yes it does. Thief 3 sneaky upgrade. It removes the loading screens inside the levels, and adds the briefing videos in the style of thief 1 and 2. It does include optionally the minimalist project, and old mod that makes the HUD similar to the original thief (smaller health bar and gem and no gear frames around items). The bad thing of minimalist project was that it changed gameplay, difficulty, that it differs a lot from thief gameplay. I always wanted the vanilla style of gameplay with only the graphic changes of minimalist. It was possible to do that but you had to do it manually and restore some original files, but after some insistence by me, they managed to make that an option in the latest version, so you now can use only the graphics changes of minimalist project.

It also includes the JohnP textures, and quality of life improvements regarding installation, monitor resolution and some tweaks.

https://www.moddb.com/mods/thief-3-sneaky-upgrade

https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=138607

 

[Darth Slaughter]

Thief 3 is a better sequel to the originals than DE: invisible war is for the original Deus Ex. Although T3 uses the same engine as IW, the structure of the game is very similar to the originals. The atmosphere is the same, the sound design, voices, the cutscenes, it preserves the style of thief perfectly. The main complaints is the small levels with loading and the city hub system, the lack of swimming and rope arrows. Swimming and rope arrows are out still, but all the other problems have been fixed. The Hub is still somewhat meh, but it acts only as a nexus for the actual levels, which are self-contained and similar to a normal thief original level, once completed, you're done with it. Oh, these thief3 patches also adjust garrett's animation to be closer to the originals, but there's a dumbed down gameplay element that makes garrett silent while crouching. No more loud tiles/metal.

Thief 3 also have the "body awareness" system which is something that deviates a lot from the originals. This is probably because the game can change to a 3rd person view (not possible with Minimalist project installed). But now this is very commom 1st person games, and even games that follow the lineage of thief gameplay now use some form of body awareness.

Oh, and the guards remember your position when you pass through a loading screen into another district of the city so if you return there the guards will still be there and instantly kill you after the loading screen. Brilliant design.

This is fixed in the sneaky upgrade gold levels. I believe it's still present in the hub area, though. In any case, I remember the original deus ex had this problem.

I remember being drunk in one map in hong kong, I go to another section (maggie chow's apartment) where my status effect is not present anymore. I finish what had to do there, and when I get back to the first area, my drunkness resumes.

 

[Pentium]

Since T3 was brought up in this thread, I always thought Dark Mod was exactly what T3 should have been like. As much as I hate D3 engine, it had really good (best?) dynamic lighting for it's time which is essential for any Thief game. DM is just a pure light-dark play without the irritating gay soup in menus, HUD and levels that plagued T3. Yes, you could get rid of it to an extend messing with the files or using mods but the game was just graphically designed around it and made me so sick. And most importantly, DM is the good old Thief gameplay-wise unlike that watered down casual sheet Eidos threw up. The demo mission Tears of Saint Lucia alone is pretty much worth it and several fan missions I've played were very good as well. Unfortunately there were no completed campaigns when I was trying it out.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

The darkmod is great. I it as the T3 FMs hub. Like, you play T1/G, T2, T: DS, then you mess with FMs for all these games. T: DS has some FMs, but It's just better to play TDM instead.

 

[Beans00]

I'd probably play gold but genuinely disliked the thieves guild(imo it's the worst level in the game). If people enjoy it that's fine, personal preference and all that.
Song of the caverns is great.
Mage tower is pretty solid but some parts drag on a bit(as people have mentioned).
As people have said lost city is better in TDP
Also the sword is better in gold.
All in all I like the additions but understand that some people would rather play TDP.



Also thief 3 is bad except a few horror levels in the middle, its been a long time but you guys know the ones I'm talking about.