demagogue

It's funny that so much drama recently has to be centered on the Editor's Guild. Man, drama and TEG go together like lapdances at Star Trek conventions. At least there needs to be a better outlet for airing these sorts of issues than there of all places. (edit: started my post before spar posted, so didn't see it. Yeah, I guess you sort of laid your cards on the table, didn't you? Oh well...)

Yeah, the way Digi worded it, it was like there's a string of stuff in the queue and he's rationing them out. Also, the name "mystery developer" makes you think this is the same person who kicked out the T3 music tracks. I wonder what made him/her so generous all of a sudden? It may have been like Emil's journal and it just occured to him/her one day.

I can see how once he started these things he couldn't stop making them. Trippy.

Do you know that the voice of Dante is our own Saturnine? From the readme: We don't see him much nowadays, but he does a great job as a voice actor I agree.

Yeah, it's a great one, although a little unconventional. It pushed Thief a little in the direction of an adventure game (inventory puzzles), which I liked although not everyone's cup of tea. I also really dug Dante's voice and attitude; he's the most (really only) credible successor to Garrett I've ever come across, IMO. Mission X, its sequel, is near completion and promises to be the next classic on the horizon.

Yeah, friendly almost to a fault. Re: Komag, I tend to think that it was actually fairness that was motivating them, since it's probably not cool for an admin to be accused of favoritism where they allow old members to bend rules and not newbies ... since if Komag got away with it, nothing could stop any guy and a bot from advertising this and that, since they'd all point to his thread in their defense. And it is their responsibility to be fair if nothing else. And the difference between what Komag did and a lot of the worse-seeming trolling going on isn't so much how *bad* what he did was, but how *clearly* it broke the rules, which pushed the admins in a corner where their decision was sort of made for them as a matter of policy, nothing deeper than that. So no one can blame them for the slap on the wrist. It's really the "permanent" part that seems excessive, since there's no reason to expect Komag to keep getting himself into trouble; although he was a little defiant like he expected special treatment, but that's just what slaps on the wrist are for. But there are so many cases where they've let people quietly slip back into the fold without a lot of fanfare when they seem to have demonstrated that they're off their old problem track and genuinely want to get back into the community and contribute, which Komag seems the poster-child for, and I think they even prefer that kind of outcome as the admins have suggested before. The catch here is that it's actually generating some fanfare, so I can see how the admins could be a little split between formally defending their decision for the same reasons mentioned above while informally acknowledging that things will be cool with a little time after K's learned his lesson. That's why I think the best thing is probably for everyone to be cool about it and let things work behind the scenes than to make a lot of noise about it. Still, one can't help but see it in symbolic terms, I guess, and try to find some bigger picture of what it implies. It's just the way the situation played out.

Haha! Well, it is a fan site ... we have to have something to bitch about since that's what fans do, and otherwise things would get boring pretty fast. Yeah maybe it's mostly an act, but what the fuck, why not... At this point, though, my optimism is wavering and probably they will end up being lackluster, forgettable additions to the corpus. But they don't have to be. Just because a genre is an old one doesn't mean fresh stuff can't come around and shake things up on occassion ... this is just one more opportunity to try to get a rise out of people. There are only so many chances you get to do that in a year or so, but it's still in the cards that the chance may be blown.

I was going to voice some concern about the self-appointed managers of the restoration project that were coming forward, but it seems New Horizon beat me to it in the TTLG thread. (I just today polished off some of my part of the Chain Project right next to nicked's part and ... hmmmf, it doesn't bode well, although in fairness his last FM was quite good, polished and fun, although then again he only registered at TTLG in Jan 2006.) I'm glad he (NH) brought it up the way he did, though. One thing, nicked seems to intend to canvass ideas from the general public and whatever dromeder comes forward to say s/he wants to help. His forum is already public and attracting trolls and what is probably worse: fans (or god knows where these people may come from...) whose enthusiasm for doing something for Thief might outweigh their better-judgment for FM making, which was the achilles heel to T2X I thought ... and while ok for a totally fan-driven project, there should really be higher standards set for this project, which touches on canon material. I mean, it would really be ashame if it's going to be as open as he is suggesting; I think he's overestimating the faith that "if it sucks we'll just keep working on it until it's good." Once a mediocre dromeder gets invested in their work, or the "group think" of very open projects sets in, it might not be such an easy thing to pull off. I think in retrospect Digi might have avoided the possibility that this could go sour by contacting a few veteran dromeders before he made the public announcement, so a team would already have been on hand right from the beginning. I hope the NH side carries the day here. It's not just about being a "newbie", it's about demonstrating a long-standing commitment to community before taking the liberty to take its rights. Or maybe that's not the right way to say it. A better way to phrase it, maybe, is that things are just happening too fast here when there should be a much longer, community wide discussion about what we should do with these missions, than for just a few newish dromeders to suddenly come out of the woodworks and start building on them the *next* day after they are released (I mean, I'd count myself in that category as well). The way he speaks it's as if he and his newly minted team pounded out the entire game plan not more than a day after release. Here's crossing our fingers that a little more modesty, patience and discussion prevails.

And it's sort of cool to be able to open the .mis files in dromed, hit info_window, and see LGS developers names that we recognize. Also, a way to carry the torch of LGS's memory. I hope whatever team decides to restore them takes it seriously, though. They shouldn't be amaturish.

Haha Virtual reality and alter egos are things of our generation (or at least of MMO players) that just seem unbridgable over the gap with our parents or those otherwise out of the loop -- there's just nothing from their world that can serve as any kind of analogy. It seems perfectly natural to me as well, because the whole idea of all gaming is that you are adopting a persona, a player character, as an avatar, and taking on a very foreign persona is just part of that. I haven't lived with my parents in a long time, but even if I did, they are so far out of the loop by now that there'd be no point in even trying to catch them up to speed.

I'm almost certain you are talking about Adventure, which is the first IF and was also making the rounds on Arpanet (early military version of the internet) in the period you're talking about. From wikipaedia for interactive fiction:

@Ombrenuit You can play them (The Pawn and Guild of Thieves) on both the Amiga emulator and C64 emulator. Both emulators are very easy to find online and set up, as are both games for both systems; Google is your friend here. Amiga has much better graphics (relatively speaking here! NB, The Pawn and Guild of Thieves have "graphics" in that the text is accompanies often by a picture of the room you're in, sometimes nice for atmosphere, but not necessary to the game at all, which is entirely text based) C64 is how most everyone played it originally, so it has the nostolgia factor, maybe not so important to you. Also, setting things up is a little easier and more user friendly for the C64 emulator than the Amiga, so since the graphics don't matter so much it maybe worth just sticking with the C64. But then again if the graphics are there, may as well go for the best. It's a personal preference thing, anyway. I agree these two are the best choice for trying out IF, though. A lot of people like Infocom, which was very prolific and over a wide range of themes (zork and Hitchhiker's Guide), but Magnetic Scrolls (makers of Pawn and GoTs) were the best in my book; only a few games but all of them quality and you can feel how much love they poured into them.

victoly! \o/

YES!!! God, I loved Guild of Thieves (and its prequel even more, The Pawn). Man, it was Thief before Thief ... it had you looting the castle/manor with the guards, the temple, the crypt, the bank, the cemetary ... it was hilarious, a great set up and story (being watched by the Master Thieves while you apply for the Guild by stealing everything in the region), and the puzzles were logical and tiered (for lack of a better term, e.g., went from easy to harder over the course of the game, so it gives you a learning curve). And best of all ... lots of stealing stuff. The back of the game read: Why buy this game when you can steal it? This and the Pawn were hands down the best IF games ever in my opinion. It is a text adventure (IF) with graphics, but I think you shouldn't knock it just because it's IF, at least in this case (or unless you just really hate IF). But if you like Thief, you should really give it a shot, I think, since it really is uncanny at places, being a medieval thieving game after all. If time and initiative are on my side, I hope to remake this as faithfully as possible as my first TDM FM (I mentioned this months ago: clicky). So you might wait for that and get the same experience in FPS-adventure style.

Oh, I'm surprised I forgot to mention that when you asked the direct question. I've been playing these games for years using Dosbox, right down to Space Quest 1. Note that in some cases you may still need MoSlow (to slow the processing down, esp for pre-1990 games) and something to emulate an old soundblaster (VSound? I forget the name just now), even using Dosbox.

Yeah, I did this very fast and wasn't really paying close attention at all. I can now see it's the trunk of a car with buildings being reflected on it. When I first saw it I didn't know what it was on first glance so just clicked as fast as possible, taking the advice to just gut-call it when in doubt. When I said it was an airplane, I was looking only at the thumbnail, and even then not very closely, where it looks a little like an airplane wing in the background ... but not close up.

Yeah, it sounds so much like Quest for Glory. By the way, QfG1 was the first game I remember playing that featured breaking into someone's house and sneaking around like a thief to steal something. I loved that thrill and was one of the first things I thought about like 8 years later when Thief came out.

8:10. I was just about to push CG for the car too, for largely the same reason: the bricks didn't have any realistic caulk or dirt between them and were just too clean, but then I saw one little weed poking out from a groove so hit real at the last second. The airplane also threw me off because I didn't really know what I was looking at and just guessed 50/50.

This is quite the tongue-twister. I tried to say it aloud three times fast and it took me a while.

Ever think about publically archiving the team forums when everything is finished? Just to see its genesis. It'd probably be valuable to see these debates years down the road when future people revisit certain ideas. Anyway, another question for after it's done.

Yes, of course.

This isn't a request by any means, this is just thinking aloud. There was an old (2004?) press release re-posted recently that if they did make Thief 4, it wouldn't be medieval but in a different time and setting, and some people balked. But at the same time I think there is untapped potential here as well. I remembered that one of my favorite Contest Missions was Thief Noir, which had a 1930s-1950s flavor which I thought was cool, and there are parts about thief gameplay that could really fit well in a more modern setting... I particularly thought about like pre-WWI London (or like some synthesis of 1880s-1950s, the City 200 years on), like Jack the Ripper turf, or Sherlock Holmes style badguys, and the PC is more like a cat-burglar, wall climbing and jumping, and the watch are like old school bobbies with nightsticks and in an emergency maybe have a small pistol (maybe they go for tackling and handcuffing the PC, not sure?), and tommie guns might make an appearance, and gangsters, and the PC still has lockpicks, a grappling hook (effectively just like a rope arrow), maybe a swtichblade for an emergency, no gun, and still the blackjack of course. Not sure about working vehicles, but maybe just models. Mostly stylistic differences, I wouldn't want to change the gameplay, but new objects and AI. Not sure how flexible the toolset will be to add this kind of stuff, sounds like a lot of work. But anyway I was just thinking aloud about how it'd be cool to have the ability with TDM to start adapting thief gameplay to a variety of different periods and settings once the core gameplay is under wraps; at least the potential is there. I mean, if work grew on trees, it'd be cool to have a Jack the Ripper thief, Noir thief, contemporary thief, SS2 period thief (ZB already brought this last one up in TTLG using dromed, but TDM seems the way to go IMO), etc. At this point, though, I'm just thinking aloud about it, putting it on the table to deal with much later, "After Dm Is Done" as the topic says.

Maybe they're trying to oust the competition so they'll have a monopoly on Thief fandom...

I don't want to laugh but the situation seems kind of absurdly funny... With all the tards they have floating around TTLG why on earth would they want to pick on Komag? I'm sure it has to be temporary. I mean for god's sake they let Blue Haze back in (under the awful name Beauty Man) after he'd gone through 8 altnicks and a monthly spamming ritual. And everybody knows you and your site are one of the backbones of the community. I agree, they just like laying down the law sometimes; so I guess take it in stride. Vent a little here about how ungrateful they are, and realize that most people in the community are going to be on your side. Also, at least now you are in good company with ?Noid, Oddity and ZB ... the last of whom iirc, to give you an idea of just how arbitrary the whole thing is, was temp-banned recently (apparently by one of the "softy" mods; not hard to guess which one) only to be made moderator for a day while he was banned! (for April Fool's, although it might have been as soon as he came back.) Also, I never got the feeling people, David or GBM, hated you ... CommChat can be harsh to everyone, just part of its culture; you really have to stick to your guns and take things in stride if you actually find it fun to post/read there. And it may just be a personality thing; I've found it's more about the conversation and having fun with a topic than what's really "right", so there's no use trying to be too reasonable (of which apparently I am guilty a little too often for my own good) ... so maybe you just went in with the wrong expectations. Anyway, if you want we can start a "Free Komag" campaign for you over there. I'll make the t-shirt.

Komag selling the Dark Project. Say it ain't so.