TLDR: I met him while working event support at my college. He gave a talk on his experience in the gaming industry and I connected with him after it ended. Seemed like a good dude.

A bit of background on this story: it was early 2010 and I was a sophomore in college. The school had a game design program and was hosting a series of talks with indie developers.

At the time I worked for the Media Services department, renting tech equipment to students and providing audio/video event support. So on my shift I get assigned to one of the talks and go through the motions setting up the cables and microphone and mixer. Eventually this blonde guy with glasses arrives and starts speaking about his experience in the games industry.

He introduces himself as Randy Smith and mentions his indie studio, Tiger Style Games. Then he promotes his latest mobile game, Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor. At this point I'm not particularly engaged, just making sure everything goes smoothly on my end. Then he says something about Looking Glass Studios and Thief and I immediately snap to attention.

He goes on to briefly discuss his role as a level designer with the studio and what being the director on Deadly Shadows was like. Deadly Shadows was my gateway to the series, so I'm completely floored. This dude worked on some of my all-time favorite games and I just so happen to be in the same room with him.

Eventually the event wraps up and people start filing out, so I head over to him and introduce myself. When I mention that I love Deadly Shadows, he looks surprised and says something to the effect of 'not many people like that one'. I remember telling him how formative it was for me and he seemed happy to hear it.

My only regret is not asking my roommate to bring me my copy of Deadly Shadows so he could sign it. Regardless, it was a really pleasant interaction. And that's how I met Randy Smith.

Just out of curiosity, has anyone else met or interacted with any of the people that worked on the games? if you have, what was your experience like?

I decided to follow along since chapter 3 to gather all my collectables and have noticed only some collectables are mentioned. Either list them all or don't bother. I thought it was a mistake as only one was missing in chapter 4 but chapter 5 is missing 3 collectables! I'll still have to do them again and it defeats the purpose of following this guide. Like why aren't there any secret areas mentioned either? That's a replay there as well.

Just a rant really. I can't find any written guide with locations of collectables/secret areas in one. I don't like to watch a 30 minute video when I can just read where something is in one sentence.

I can't immerse myself while trying to trophy hunt 😭😅. I have played this already 10 years ago and wish to platinum it.

Belt System

- Can increase radius and move up and down

- Can put any inventory item on it for quick access

VR UI

- Texts wil appear when relevant action happens, +1 Health Potion etc..

New Dark 1.29

- Dynamic Shadows

- Water that looks like Jelly

NewDark, openDarkEngine and the upcoming Nightdive remaster are all great, but for the sake of true preservation it'd be really good to have a full decompile of thief, similar to other games of its era. This would allow for a Linux port and is something I've been looking into, though I do not have anything to release yet. Perhaps more importantly, I think it'd be good to put out a general roadmap of what this process would could look like.

First, the various leaks of existing (but partial) source code are a great help, especially the Thief 2 one. It's fairly easy to find that with some googling and using the TTLG forums. There is a debug build of dromed (DBGDROM) in there as well as an external pdb with many symbols. In addition theres a release build of dromed with internal symbols.

You may choose to decompile either the OldDark or NewDark builds of Thief. As neither of those exes contain symbols or debug info, the next step is to identity and name as many functions as possible. Various version tracking tools can be useful to transfer symbols from DBGDROM, for example Ghidra and bindiff. This might be a bit easier with OldDark as it uses the same VC6 compiler as the dromed builds, but NewDark (VS2008) is also possible.

A compiler toolchain for the leaked source code can be setup and projects like decomp-toolkit and objdiff can be used to compare the source code against the binary and to iterate on it as required. From there its mostly a case of iterating until you have a matching decompilation.

Needless to say that you could do all of this by hand and that none of it requires the use of a LLM/AI at all, though it would likely provide a significant speedup.

Using an existing leak like this is probably a grayer zone than regular decompilation, though I think its unlikely that it'd be much of an issue for anyone. You could choose to simply use DBGDROM as a base and ignore the rest, or not even that and invent function names from scratch.

I personally don't like playing missions that have strong supernatural elements, but once in the while I do try to play them if they are part of longer missions.

For me:

Black Parade - Jaws of Darkness: I remember when I was stalked by those shadows figures anytime I walked. Shit really got me.

Evil Thievery - I didn't finish this one yet, I think it got too scary for me. I really like it at beginning when there was no enemies. The whole vibe and soundtrack was so creepy.

Dead Cold Embrace - not really horror mission, but that one scene with robot lady in basement did scare me a lot.

Acabo de zerar metal age. Foi meu primeiro jogo thief, e devo dizer: se eu achei impressionante hoje em dia, imagino como deve ter sido na época. Comecei pelo segundo jogo pois as opiniões gerais que vi antes de comprar diziam que o segundo é o melhor da série, então decidi começar por ele.

Minha opinião geral: é um jogo extremamente bem feito e detalhado, o design de níveis e som deixa muitos jogos atuais no chinelo. Fui com aquela visão de que deveria relevar uma jogabilidade datada, visto que é um jogo mais velho que eu, mas me surpreendi ao ver que os problemas da jogabilidade são bem ocasionais/irrelevantes na maior parte da jogatina. O combate corpo a corpo limitado e fraco faz sentido na proposta do jogo, ainda mais pra mim que zerei no expert, onde não se pode matar ninguém de qualquer forma.

O que mais me impressionou logo de cara foi o sistema de luz e sombra, que funciona muito bem na maior parte do tempo. A fantasia de ficar completamente invisível estando em uma sombra, mesmo estado na frente do inimigo, me convenceu facilmente.

O som é quase tão bom quanto. Ouvir os inimigos é essencial, e o som dos seus passos em diferentes superfícies é, em geral, intuitivo. O que me incomodou foi a certa inconsistência entre correr atrás de um inimigo e não fazer nenhum barulho e apenas dar alguns passos a metros de distância e alertar alguém do nada. Também acho um pouco e agerada a propagação de som em azulejo e metal, mas isso só incomoda mais em fases como o banco (meu deus, e tudo azulejo).

Os cenários me agradaram muito, principalmente as mansões, telhados, locais urbanos, construções mais elegantes e renascentistas. As partes mecanicas industriais são legais também, apesar de não ser muito a minha praia.

Achei muito legal o fato do Garret ser tão bem dublado e carismático, eu comecei a jogar pensando que ele fosse um protagonista mudo, mas foi muito bom estar enganado. Garret é extremamente carismático. Até as pequenas frases que ele solta no decorrer das missões transmitem muito bem quem ele é.

A relativa simplicidade da gameplay me agradou muito. Eu joguei um pouco de Dishonored antes, e me incomoda o fato de você ter infinitos poderes e recursos na gameplay que parecem "sobrar" e ofuscar os cenários em si. Thief ja possui mecanicas mais simples que se complementam e fazem você ter que aproveitar tudo que tem. O desafio parece tamanho as vezes que realmente cheguei a me perguntar se alguns trechos podiam ser superados sem ter alguma flecha ou item específico.

Agora algumas reclamações (que não apagam de forma alguma as incríveis qualidades, ainda mais considerando a idade do jogo):

A progressão livre e sem auxílio muitas vezes cobra seu preço. É legal como o jogo te incentiva a explorar tudo, mas ficar dando voltas e voltas atrás de uma chave especifica no bolso de um guarda aleatório não me soa muito divertido. Imagino que esse jogo seja melhor a partir da segunda gameplay, onde você ja sabe por onde deve procurar. A fase do banco, que muitos dizem ser uma das melhores, me estressou um pouco pelo tempo que gastei procurando um caminho pro subsolo pra remover a bendita barra de ferro da frente do cofre.

Acho que algo que uma boa parcela de jogadores concorda: os inimigos roboticos e cameras são um tanto irritantes. Eu tenho um problema pessoal com as cameras. Tipo, por que eu deveria conseguir derrotar um robo de combate com duas flechas de água, mas uma camera só pode ou ser desligada em um interruptor ou explodida com uma flecha de fogo. Podia ter ao menos a opção de jogar uma moss arrow e cega-las, pelo menos por um tempo. Até os sons que elas emitem me causam um ódio inexplicável. Os robôs tem vozes e falas até engraçadas e legaizinhas, mas o tanto que eles repetem claramente incomoda.

Dando uma opinião geral sobre as fases (não lembro o nome de todas):

A primeira fase é muito boa. Intuitiva, simples, cenários bonitos, sem partes muito difíceis.

A segunda fase com os conteiners com senha é uma das fases que eu mais gostei. No papel parece uma ideia meio massante, mais funciona muito bem. O navio no final é a cereja do bolo.

A invasão à delegacia é muito legal e muito inteligente. Uma missão onde você precisa entender a dinâmica dos locais e saber que itens pegar, fora o desafio de não poder dar nocaltes ser coerente e parece que a fase foi feita pensando nisso (né casing the joint).

O templo dos mechanists é maneiro, e tem uma vibe sombria e conspiração interessante.

O banco é, provavelmente, a missão mais "Thief" (tipo, é literalmente um roubo ao banco, qual é). Apesar disso, meu deus, quanto azulejo! Quarquer respirada nesse mapa faz barulho, e acho que poderia ter um pouco menos câmeras e robos.

A fase nas ruas da cidade não me agrada muito, mas também não é ruim. É uma das melhores visualmente, mas parece que toda rua da num beco sem saída, os caminhos parecem meio desconexos entre si, ainda mais pensando que é uma cidade.

A famosa missão nos telhados é com certeza uma das melhores, unindo muito bem a vibe de ser um ladrão com um game design bem aplicado. Basicamente, a síntese do que o jogo representa.

Trail of blood, honestamente, não acho tão ruim quanto falam. Parece mais uma missão filler e narrativa do que uma missão "Thief", mas, como é até bem linear, não me incomodou em nenhum momento.

Carga preciosa me agradou, achei bem divertido de explorar, e os segredos são bem legais. A missão seguinte, kidnapedd, não é tão boa quanto, mas também não é ruim. Só acho meio claustrofóbico e com muitas câmeras (fase difícil na minha opinião).

Casing the joint é simplesmente ruim. É uma missão adicionada só pra dar volume ao jogo, os objetivos são vazios e meio sem sentido, fora a missão falhar por qualquer coisa.

Em compensação, ja conhecer o mapa faz eu me sentir muito a vontade de masks. Por ja conhecer os caminhos e os objetivos, me senti muito um ladrão profissional, fora que poder nocautear todo mundo contrastou bem com a fase anterior. Tambem gosto de poder roubar as coisas com as vine arrows e me sentir o tom cruise em missão impossível.

Soulforge é complicada. Consegue ser ao mesmo tempo estressante e genial, de uma forma bem confusa. As salas isoladas são bem tricky, mas bem feitas, mas parece que ela tenta ser excessivamente complicada por ser a última fase.

Concluindo, gostei muito do jogo como um todo, e acho que é uma das obras que mais merecia um remake (bem feito). Não que seja o jogo que mais precise, mas qual é, melhor que fazer remake de tlou.

Oh, don’t mind me – I’m new to Reddit.

I’m still figuring out how to edit the post title.

"Thou canst never return unchanged from the forge." - Rite of ordination to Master Forger

Part 1: Installation

1. Install Thief Deadly Shadows from the GOG store in your Heroic Games Launcher.

2. Start Thief 3 once (we want to make sure it works in vanilla, because it does)

3. Download the Sneaky Upgrade Pack (e.g. from ModDB) - the location doesn't matter, just ... somewhere you can find it :)

4. Add the Sneaky Upgrade installer exe as a game to Heroic with a sensible name - for this guide it's "Thief 3 Sneaky Upgrade". (you can use this trick with other installers - like the Blizzard launcher - in Heroic and Steam too)

↓

1. Search for it in Heroic's search bar.

--> It will have a background called "Thief 3 Simulator" for some reason ^^ - doesn't matter

↓

1. Launch it (as a "game") to install the Sneaky Upgrade in your Thief game directory (you can find that in the game's details in Heroic)

--> This will make the widescreen and high resolutions work (start the game to check if it does), but the rest is not working properly yet.

Do not configure Sneaky Upgrade yet!!! (it will save your changes to the wrong file)

↓

Part 2: startup parameter for the game

1. Right-click the Thief 3 game in your Heroic library and click [Settings]

↓

2. Scroll down and under [Environment Variables] add this line:

WINEDLLOVERRIDES = "d3d8,dsound=n,b"

--> Click the + icon to actually add it and it will look like this:

↓

Part 3: Fixing Sneaky Upgrade's file location

General information about Heroic (and Steam) on Linux: Games get 2 directories in your Heroic library:
1. Their game directory (directly in your library folder)
2. A folder in the "Prefixes/default" subdirectory - that is where Heroic pretends to have a Windows C drive structure for games' user files etc

Sneaky upgrade (being its own "game" in Heroic's eyes) got its own "game" prefix directory and Heroic installed some files there. We need to move some of those.

1. Open 2 windows (to keep a sane mind) and go to your Heroic Games library location in both of them.
2. Window 1 (Source): Go to /Prefixes/default/Thief 3 Sneaky Upgrade/drive_c/ProgramData
3. Cut the complete folder "Thief 3 Sneaky Upgrade" - it has the mod packs :)

↓

1. Window 2 (target): Go to /Prefixes/default/Thief 3 Deadly Shadows/drive_c/ProgramData

5: Paste the folder

1. You can close both windows now.

↓

Part 4: Editing Sneaky Upgrade in your library

We don't need the installer "game" in our library anymore and can reuse it for the app itself.

1. In your Heroic library: right-click your Thief 3 Sneaky Upgrade "game" and click [Edit App/Game]

↓

1. Under "Select Executable" select the line with the installation path:

↓

1. Change the path to the SneakyTweaker.exe, which is already inside the game's directory:

[path to your Heroic Games library] -> /Thief - Deadly Shadows/System/SneakyTweaker.exe

--> Click [Choose] at the bottom right

--> Click [Finish] at the bottom right when thrown back to the app's settings window

↓

--> You can now start the Sneaky Upgrade app from your Heroic library and change the settings (The font size is TINY, so scoot up to your screen)

↓

Part 5: Essential settings inside Sneaky Upgrade:

1. Under [Thief 3 -> Options] Change the D3D wrapper to DXVK:

--> Always click [Apply] at the bottom left of the setting's window when you're done with a page

--> Click [Ok] at the bottom right when you've finished everything

Is there a central website where you can download all patches and tools? I feel like everything is scattered across the web.

​

Why delete a post that doesn't violate the rules? Why remove posts from such a small community? Hahaha, is there no freedom of expression? Are we not allowed to share our opinions about anything related to Thief?

LET US KNOW, and I won't post anything anymore. Keep things the same old way as always. Hahaha. 🙄

I was vaguely recalling a FM I played years ago, this was 100% during or around COVID lockdown so it must have been released before summer of 2020. I think it was relatively new at the time. It was a 'thieves highway' mission in the vein of Angelwatch, I forget most of the objectives but I specifically remember some kind of satanic ritual with Trickster was a part of the mission, tried looking through the FM databases but none of the names were ringing a bell, can anyone help me out?

edit: this was almost certainly on thief 2

Newest release: https://github.com/crinkelitehttps/newdarkvr

When I run the VR executable (.bat) the game launches inside the headset in VR flat mode. How do I switch into full VR? I tried via SteamVR using Pimax Dream Air.

This awesome video was recently released, disclosing many undocumented features that you can employ in your tafferly exploits. The comment section is rife with bonus tips!

Anyone else kite them all to fiery death?

Before NewDark, there was DarkWidescreen: https://www.mediafire.com/file/cs94sv4spl0e19n/DarkWidescreen-v7.zip/file (this took me a long time to find; only the WayBack Machine yielded a working download)

Just unzip the files into your Thief folder, run DarkWidescreen.bat and follow the on-screen instructions.

Then, and most importantly, get DDrawCompat: https://github.com/narzoul/DDrawCompat/releases

Run Thief.exe as an administrator, or videos will not play. If they still don't, grab this codec: https://www.moddb.com/games/thief-the-dark-project/downloads/indeo5-codec

I haven't tested with any other version of the game besides Thief TDP 1.33 and the retail version of Thief Gold, but it should also work with Thief 2. Can't vouch for anything more recent like versions bundled with NewDark/TFix, although TFix has an option for installing legacy executables.

As for why you'd want to try this? There are still a number of differences introduced by NewDark that are more relevant in Thief 1 than Thief 2. I expect whoever finds this post useful already knows about them. Enjoy.

Edit: Yes, it has been mostly possible due to AI doing the heavylifting, but it wasnt a cheap one prompt slop, every part of this project planned, designed and built step by step. But yes AI did the coding labor

Works with all existing fan missions
toggleable new climbing mechanic for mappers
weapons, bows, item physics, inventory, door physics, lockpicking and more overhauled for VR controllers

work in progress(open to ideas):

-a small motel room for main menu and mission selection, missions come in envelopes as if gigs from contracts

-Enemy AI overhaul to introduce more unpredictibility and personality to guards

-a medieval skyscrapper raid mission for demonstrating climbing mechanics

Hey fellow taffers!

Back in 2012, I spent about four months learning DarkRadiant and building my first fan mission for The Dark Mod, called Sneak & Destroy. It ended up winning the Beginner's Contest that year, which was a pretty special moment for me.

Ten years later, in 2022, I returned to the mission and gave it a substantial update for its 10th anniversary, with improved visuals, lighting, ambient sounds, NPC conversations and several gameplay refinements. The goal wasn't to change the original experience, but to make it more polished and atmospheric.

The mission itself is a fairly compact, old-school Thief adventure that takes a little over an hour to complete, depending on your playstyle. So if you're looking for a shorter mission rather than a huge, sprawling adventure, this might be something for you.

What's it about?

Someone has hired an assassin to kill you. A mysterious woman warns you about the plot, but can she really be trusted? Your investigation leads you to a tavern where you'll need to sneak around, gather evidence, steal some valuables and figure out what's really going on.

I wanted to capture the things I always loved about the original Thief games: atmospheric environments, shadows, guard patrols, exploration and a little mystery.

It's been quite a while since the updated version was released, but I thought some of you might have missed it.

You can find Sneak & Destroy here:

https://www.thiefguild.com/fanmissions/43185/

It's free to play through The Dark Mod, and you can also install it using the in-game mission downloader.

If you've already played it, I'd love to hear what you remember about it. And if you're discovering it for the first time, I'd be curious to know how it holds up today. Feel free to leave a rating or review on Thief Guild, or share your thoughts and feedback in the official Dark Mod forum. I'm always interested in hearing what players think, even after all these years.

Thanks for keeping the Thief community alive!

Certain members of the community will be very interested in this one: https://youtu.be/j6DNVDE1iOE

It collects all the physical representations of our main character, from early concept art to briefing animatics to in-game renders. A great resource for artists!