Thief Series coming to GOG

[betpet]

Someone posted an image in the forum of the Thief cover pixelated like one of the clues and they were pretty much an exact match. I'd say the Thief series will make an appearance on GOG. I just hope they use as much of the community fixes as they can or it will be a nightmare.

[New Horizon]

Shouldn't be necessary to use community fixes. Like I said earlier, Eidos has the source code. They can compile it against with up to date tools and the game will run fine on newer OS's.

[betpet]

True, but we all know what a company like this is like. They have spent 2 years wrangling over whether the source code for the engine can be released open source. Using it to make the games run on modern machines is probably time and money they don't want to waste on something that wouldn't likely reap back the expense of doing it in the first place.

 

Otherwise I totally agree, fixing the engine to do this would be ideal.

[jaxa]

Seriously not interested in software products that phone home. Doom3 phones home, but only to do a key-check AFAIK. This is acceptable. Nothing ambiguous about "how I am using the software product", I think... well... maybe i should read that d3 eula to be sure. But anyways, this sucks.

 

GOG advertises as no DRM etc etc. I'm wondering where they've actually done this, whether or not its an error reporting feature, or maybe the EULA mention is just some cover that slipped in.

 

True, but we all know what a company like this is like. They have spent 2 years wrangling over whether the source code for the engine can be released open source. Using it to make the games run on modern machines is probably time and money they don't want to waste on something that wouldn't likely reap back the expense of doing it in the first place.

 

Otherwise I totally agree, fixing the engine to do this would be ideal.

 

My thoughts at TTLG:

 

If they do a Thief release I'm sure they'll at least give some of the FMs a nod seeing as there's so much win around here.

 

I have a vision of "special treatment" that includes some kind of collaboration with the TTLG community and the peeps working on the source. We've already got texture packs, hundreds of fan missions with 3+ mission loaders, re-encoded cutscenes, widely tested widescreen support, technical support for many platforms and possible modernization of parts of the engine (I haven't checked "the thread" in a while). Licensing terms might allow some of this to be bundled or included as a bonus patch to the GOG release. Long shot, but no matter what happens, the GOG release will bring more people here and liven it up a bit.

 

It seems like the best way to me. They may have the full source, but does GOG really want to do that much heavy lifting when there's substantial community support for technical issues? I don't think so. The precedent: GOG's extensive use of DOSBox.

[betpet]

The precedent: GOG's extensive use of DOSBox.

 

My thoughts and concerns exactly. Saying that, there are a number of releases that utilise community patches and with the large Thief community still active, I'd be both surprised and disappointed if they went the DOSBox route.

Edited January 27, 2012 by betpet

[lost_soul]

Saw DX there this morning. Man, that is overpriced. If I didn't already have two copies of DX (for the computer and the PS2), and if I hadn't gotten it for that same price in 2002, I would just buy it used. Now I will fall over laughing if they ask that same price for Invisible War.

[ungoliant]

I got DX for $0 legally, along with TMA (also $0) with the purchase of a Creative soundblaster live 5.1. I had not even heard of either game. That was the best thing Creative ever did for anybody, EVER.

[lost_soul]

Well that's true. At one point Best Buy was selling both DX and Thief 2 for $20 together. It was a hell of a great deal. I probably played through DX 7 times though I've never completed T2 all the way. *ducks from a bunch of broadhead arrows*. Some day I will complete T2.

Edited January 27, 2012 by lost_soul

[demagogue]

That's 2/3 of the holy trinity of gaming right there. Those are good deals.

 

lost_soul, if you want encouragement to complete T2, you might play the multiplayer version they have working now with a friend. It's surprisingly fun playing coopy style with another person. (IIRC only the Bank mission flubs with MP so you need to skip it.)

[lost_soul]

I remember what playing DX was like. You would sit down and totally lose yourself in the game world. I would play for what seemed like an hour, and then realize it is six hours later.

 

I wonder if they will fix the bug where:

 

You can get stuck at the part where you have to send the signal to the NSF. I think if you talked to Paul, went to the compound and returned to talk to him again before sending, he wouldn't talk to you later or something. This made it necessary to cheat to continue.

 

[Serpentine]

Shouldn't be necessary to use community fixes. Like I said earlier, Eidos has the source code. They can compile it against with up to date tools and the game will run fine on newer OS's.

It's up to the developer/publisher to provide the game, GOG themselves will only help out if they need to use community patches, in a lot of the cases they will just use community patches anyway.

 

There's not a chance in hell that they'll release a new compile. The thing is that it's not a matter of just hitting compile, it essentially needs a full blown port, and not just a simple port like most of todays stuff, it uses a number of completely deprecated libraries and software methods which would require rewriting to use modern Windows.

 

I'll just be ddfix.

[New Horizon]

The thing is that it's not a matter of just hitting compile...

 

Oh, I know...I know.

[lost_soul]

I'm as much a GOG fan as anyone, but some of their releases have been less than stellar. Take Blood 2, which chugged on a GeForce 6xxx series card (which is orders of magnitude more powerful than the cards around the time B2's release). Then there was Shogo MAD which had problems accepting mouse input in Windows and ironically worked fine in Wine. Someone's solution for that was to hook up a PS/2 mouse. Are you joking?

[betpet]

Thief Gold released on GOG for $9.99 *instabuy*

[Robbeasy]

Beaten to it - but yay! Its arrived on GOG!!

[jaxa]

Whoa that was fast. "compatable with Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 (32 & 64 bit)". What did they change? Time to hit TTLG.

[lost_soul]

I too am wondering what changes they made. Maybe this will result in more TG FMs. That would be awesome.

[Bikerdude]

$9.99 for one game.....wtf

 

I paid £4.99 for Thief: The complete collection (Thief:Gold, Thief:The Metal age, Thief: Deadly shadows) all of which are patched and install correctly on windows 7 x64. All you have to do then is run taffer patcher to install the relevent patches etc.

 

I just emailed GOG and left feedback on the game page

 

I have been am member of the ttlg.com forums for probably longer than GOG has been in existence.

 

There are 2 issues:

 

# The price takes the piss when compared to the "Thief: The Complete Collection" which is all 3 games which can be had for the same price of $9.99

# More importantly are your thief games multi cpu patched and gpu patched? Thief 1/2 looked crap on any DX10 gfx card and the thief community came up with a patch to get around that.

 

And regarding the above patches, if gog are found to be using any of the opensource/freeware community patches for commercial gain we are going to have a problem.

 

regards

 

b.

 

I will come back with their replay, in the mean time has anyone bought a copy to see if they have infringed on any of our IP?

 

I would imagine Eidos has fixed up Thief Gold with the source code given to them by the former LGS developer two years ago. They have certainly had enough time to have someone get it into a useable state. If they left it up to GOG to get the thing running with community patches, that would just be shameful and lazy.

 

Well I am curious to see a copy of thier copy of the game to see how they fixed it.

[betpet]

Thief 2 now on GOG. Woo!

[GameDevGoro]

I paid £4.99 for Thief: The complete collection (Thief:Gold, Thief:The Metal age, Thief: Deadly shadows) all of which are patched and install correctly on windows 7 x64. All you have to do then is run taffer patcher to install the relevent patches etc.

 

Woo, me too!

'Cept my copy cost about 18 - 20 bucks, I forget how much it was exactly.

It was a damn steal for me at the time so I bought it then and there. So happy I did too.

The only game that absolutely doesn't work under Win 7 64 bit is Thief: Deadly Shadows... It doesn't want to work... (._. )

[AluminumHaste]

I also purchased the complete set from amazon. I also just purchased Thief Gold and Thief 2 from GOG because I love GOG and I want to support them. I now have a digital copy that should exist as long as GOG is around that I can download at any time from any computer.

[betpet]

Woo, me too!

'Cept my copy cost about 18 - 20 bucks, I forget how much it was exactly.

It was a damn steal for me at the time so I bought it then and there. So happy I did too.

The only game that absolutely doesn't work under Win 7 64 bit is Thief: Deadly Shadows... It doesn't want to work... (._. )

 

I've had no problems with it myself.

 

I also purchased the complete set from amazon. I also just purchased Thief Gold and Thief 2 from GOG because I love GOG and I want to support them. I now have a digital copy that should exist as long as GOG is around that I can download at any time from any computer.

 

My thoughts exactly. GOG are doing great things and I want to support them as much as I can. Simply having Freespace 2, Thief Gold and 2, and many old favourites DRM-free and playable on a modern system is good enough reason for me.