Maijstral

Make sure you spell thessalides correctly if you try to google it. I remembered the discussion but couldn't remember how it was spelled. Took me more tries than I care to admit to hit upon it. Haha

I think Viktoria could be a wood nymph or something very like one. The Trickster is obviously some Pan-like creature. I don't know if you remember the discussion on TTLG about whether thistle-aids might actually be thessalides(a type of water nymph.) The Thief wiki says a thistle-aid is a flesh-eating plant, but in the same cutscene we've been discussing, it looks like Viktoria gestures toward Dyan and Larkspur when she says thistle-aids. Larkspur is male which wouldn't be consistent with a nymph, but should that much consistency really be expected from a game? The Trickster doesn't say thistle-aids are plants in TDP, just that they need to feed.

People also forget that she didn't even let Garrett finish his sentence before she forced the blood/sap oath on him. Garrett doesn't say "I agree." He says "I agree that..." What would the rest of that sentence have been? "I agree that the Mechanists are a problem, but there's no way in hell I'm working with you, Viktoria"? Well, maybe not something that inflammatory since he was probably trying to figure out how he was going to get out of there alive, but it looked like Viktoria saw her opportunity to bind him and took it.

Yeah, Garrett's views on luck seem ambiguous or at least time dependent. It's possible that at some points in his life he believes in it and at others he doesn't. I can't attach much significance to him using expressions like "lucky" or "with my luck" in normal speech. I tend to talk that way, and I don't believe in luck. I've never really been sure what to make of the scene with Viktoria at Soulforge. By that, I mean how much of Garrett's feeling toward Viktoria was real? She did some serious work on Garrett in the Maw.

Yeah, "taffer" was Laura Baldwin's, and according to her there was going to be a lot more of that sort of thing in Thief but the playtesters didn't understand it so they took everything out except "taffer". :-D

I remember Dan Thron saying in one of the podcasts how responsible Terri Brosius was for much of the wonderful weirdness of Thief. And it sounded like she was the reason that we got TMA because she decided to stick the "beware the dawn of the metal age" line into the final cutscene of TDP.

Thanks for digging up the information. Yes, I believe Judith Lavoie was the person I was trying to remember.

Are there any women in key jobs on the nuThief development team? Seems like I can recall one lead artist or animator(whose name escapes me) but other than that?

I think B1skit said that EM making so many things optional was due to fan feedback, as well.

It's hard for me to judge TDS objectively. I was so caught up in the Thief world and so fond of Russell's Garrett from playing the first two games that I was willing to overlook a lot in TDS.

TDS is my 3rd favorite game ever. There was plenty wrong with it, but there was still enough right with it for me to really like it.

My reason for not buying it is that EM's take on the game would be causing me to experience what I'm sure would very quickly seem like an endless stream of reminders of what the new Thief game should have been. That just wouldn't be enjoyable for me when playing it. I'm glad that a lot of people will be able to enjoy it though.

LOL Would be funny if they thought SHAS was part of the Thief DNA. I'm thinking it may be reminding me a just a little of a Mechanist taking damage.

The grunt is when he jumps and the cowboy yell is when he contacts the tower, isn't it? Still kind of an odd yell. It reminds me of something from the original games, but I can't quite place it yet. I noticed the chessboard was set up wrong, too, and I was wondering about the guy on the roof, heheh.

Was anyone able to see if Garrett was wearing the glyph gloves in the early part of the Channeling the Primal trailer? I would expect him not to be, but I haven't checked.

I've considered that. Plus, they'd be paying for two people instead of one since Orzari is also doing the motion capture. Still, it would probably be a very small percentage of the game's budget, wouldn't it? I'm wondering if there's more to it than that. Creative differences, possibly? Stephen Russell still hasn't responded to the Eidos connected fan letter, AFAIK.

Not worried about it. In fact, I think I'll edit my post over there to identify you as the source just to see if I do get any flack.

That's how it looks to me. The handle of the claw looks like it's in the opposite direction, too. Maybe tremors from the ritual are causing it to skitter around or maybe she accidentally kicked it. They haven't given me any grief on the EM forum so far, and I've been pretty critical of the new game. I wouldn't expect to catch any flack for posting GIFs regardless of the source. Thanks.

For some reason I'm under the impression that "Swoop" isn't focus related. I don't think it burns focus points. It's just something that Garrett can do. I seem to recall something about how they may try to keep people from spamming it and I think it was going to somehow be stamina based. Not sure if that's the official word on it though. BTW, nice work on all the GIFs you've posted, jtr7. Would you mind if I linked to some of those during my discussions on the Eidos forum? I know you've had some conflict with EM, so if you'd rather I not, that's cool.

You forget that this is no ordinary Garrett. It's Swooper Garrett!

Another thing I posted at the Eidos forum was that maybe Garrett is so bothered by her death because he intentionally let her fall. Grabbed her wrist by reflex, considered his options for a few seconds, then decided "See ya, brat." Haha.

Another thing I don't understand about that trailer is the claw. The developers have been telling us that the reason Garrett is in such a funk in this game is that Erin died because Garrett took her claw which meant she didn't have it to save herself when she fell. But she does have the claw in that trailer, right? I don't know what else that would be that's near her unless it's some especially nasty version of a blackjack.

Could be a polished crystal at the center of that medallion, too.

Well, the book has something that at least looks like a gear on the front of it. And the Lost City was plagued by earthquakes(probably buried by an earthquake.) Doesn't the Awakened fooling with the book cause an earthquake that breaks the glass causing Erin to fall?

I was thinking perhaps the book the Brothers of the Awakened were using in that ritual contains knowledge/power from Karath-din that the Mechanists dug up and transcribed into it. And the Keepers might have sealed it. Hehe, it's probably nothing like that, but I enjoy speculating.