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Thief: The Dark Project is 20 years old today


demagogue

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Thief: The Dark Project was released on November 30, 1998, making it 20 years old today.

Everyone here should take a moment to remember this masterpiece today.

 

Needless to say it was the primary inspiration for The Dark Mod, and I like to think that TDM is about upholding the original legacy set by TDP even as the series itself started to lose its own mojo with TDS & T4.

 

Also worth noting that TTLG is having a 20th Anniversary Contest. The relevant thread should be posted in the FM forum soon. http://www.ttlg.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=100 This contest has been in the works for almost a year, some of the entries have been getting rave early reviews, and there's up to 22 FMs for it. Playing them would be a great chance to celebrate the occasion.

 

So I didn't miss the anniversary after all ! :) Thank you for reminding me, all the same.

 

Here's to all the taffers and tafettes worldwide, and to our favourite stealthy antihero. :)Thief's all grown up...

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Happy Birthday, Thief - thanks for all the years of entertainment! Still have the box.
I miss the days of innovation over franchise.

It was also Left 4 Dead's 10th birthday two weeks ago. That went by without fanfare.

Also mine last week, which even I forgot about.

Just think - 80% of the USA play computer games regularly.
Half of them are not old enough to have been born when Thief came out.

We are lucky to have witnessed, on our CRT's and 386 DX's, the birth of a game that still receives as much love as Santa.

Thanks for the tip about the ttlg contest!

// also - what is this thief 4 you talk of? I don't believe it exists - I thought it was a dishonored clone with a character named Garrett, who didn't have magical powers of the same kind. I wonder when Deus Ex came out... Might have to install that again...

Edited by teh_saccade
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Maaaaaaaaaan, I remember SO CLEARLY talking about (&waiting for) it with my friends during the summer of '98.....

Edited by lowenz
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Task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody see. - E.S.

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I didn't know anything about it. My brother's friends told him about it, and that led him to get it for me for Christmas 1998. That was pretty fortunate for me, as it led me to explore other Eidos, LGS, & Irrational Games... Actually my brother got most of those games for me too, come to think of it. Now those have become my core games that set the bar for everything else, but especially Thief.

 

It became a much bigger deal for me when I discovered TTLG and fan missions around Jan 2003. It was a great game, but finding FMs made it historic. Until then, I tried making my old house & school in dromed, not very successfully, just following the tutorial on the CD... It didn't occur to me for quite a long time that other people might be trying to do the same thing. (I didn't have home internet access in that period, so that delayed my understanding.)

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What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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and here goes another amazing contest I just missed...

any way to be notified about all these mapping and modding contests?

Edited by Zen3001
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This game is the one to blame for me being a gamer today. When it came out I was getting bored at videogames. My last consoles were all from 16 bit generation, I didn't bother with newer consoles, and I was mostly playing on PC. And every game was starting to look the same to me. "yay, another FPS. How original". That same year half life came out too and it had no effect on me! today people hold it to such high standards, but I remember that back when it was released it felt like just another shooter to me. A well made one, and its main contribution is its story telling techniques introduced. But to me it was boring and samey (FPS were boring and samey to me 20 years ago, if I could go back in time and show myself a 2018 FPS it would depress more than impress me)

 

Thief on the other hand blew my mind so much. I realize that I'm still always bored with games but I keep playing because there might be a "thief" around the corner to blow my mind again. And there definitely were other games like that, so I'm happy Thief TDP came when it did.

 

Fun anecdote: I remember showing this game to a friend and said "this is a little harder than most FPS games if you never played it" and he scoffed at me, stating he was a Quake champion or finalist (and he was!) and it was going to be a piece of cake. So I sat there trying to repress my smile while he charged Bafford manor's front gates with a bow and arrow, jumping back and forth. Ah... fun times.

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I remember a class mate telling me about it, because I startetd playing pen and paper RPGs around that time and it was a medieval'ish game. I got it without any expectations, so it was all the greater to get such a gem. Boy, am I glad that he told me! Never would want to have missed that.

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and here goes another amazing contest I just missed...

any way to be notified about all these mapping and modding contests?

 

TTLG & TDM both have an FM forum, and they'll probably be near or pinned to the top.

Checking those two places periodically will probably do it.

 

For Thief FMs, there's a FB group for "Thief 2 Fan Missions" and contests might be announced there.

There's a group for TDM too but it doesn't post much.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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  • 1 month later...

I missed this thread till now - though I was aware it was about 20 years, and still remember the tv game program where I first saw it and was blown away by the gameplay: sneaking, extinguishing wall torches, and so on. Even more amazed when I bought and played it a few days later.

 

Thief is an 'open world' game where you are free to play it how you like, wander around, sandbox before sandboxing was thought of. That term 'open world' is not often used with Thief but that's what it is - and one of the earliest. ('The' earliest?) Shenmue on the Dreamcast is credited with being the first 'open world' game I think, but that didn't appear until the early 21st century. Now I'm bloody playing Red Dead Redemption 2 on the PS4 and wondering 'why the fug am I doing this?' It's the exact opposite of Thiefy games. Like being a movie actor where there is no rehearsal and the dumb director gives you a vague script and one line orders then you die and he calls cut and your are ordered to replay again and again until you accidentally perform exactly how they want you to perform. (Fortunately there is an option to skip the scene after dying 3 times. God bless you for that Rockstar.) You don't play these modern cinematic games such as 'Last Of Us' - they play you!

 

Thief is free play, free thinking, solving the challenges using your own initiative and strategies. I'm not sure the world is ready for it even yet!

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Modern AAA game industry is has numerous problems like that, although I think Thief FMs aren't free of their own problems. The biggest one for me is almost complete unawareness of how games moved on when it comes to QoL improvements and more player friendly design. To give example, I played several 20th Anniversary Contest FMs, apparently those most highly praised by the community. I haven't finished a single one of them, either because of ramping up difficulty, obscure puzzles and the like. And it's not like I have problems with finishing games, whether AAA or indie titiles.

Edited by Judith
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I hope that when Straight Up Films releases the Thief movie FINALLY, it is well done, and that the attention it gathers makes Eidos Montreal inspired to do a top-down remake of The Dark Project, similar to Spyro Reignited: just a complete remake with the only difference being better graphics.

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Still, what pisses me off is how Eidos Montreal wants to sweep Thief under the rug. Sure, Thief 2014 wasn't a blockbuster hit, but that doesn't mean you should hide the whole series! Today is the series' 20th birthday, and they have nothing for it on their Facebook page. No announcements of a remake of The Dark Project through Deadly Shadows, no news on the movie, not even a fanart! It's insulting, they nearly destroy the series, now they deny us any gratification of hope for the future.

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We've had a big hubbub about the anniversary on TTLG, so it's not like it passed unnoticed among the people that really care about it. The fans are really carrying the torch for this game. It's not even such a unique thing. There's plenty of other games in the same situation. Of course Thief is higher quality than the average game, so I like to think we have a higher calling carrying its torch than fans would have for just any old game.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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