Old news never dies, it just moves here. Beware of broken, or outdated links. Note that all of the information in the exclusive info section is here as well.
Thieves Can Swim
- 10:40am EST - the spy
I have eavesdropped on a brief interview on swimming in Thief
:How is swimming going to work in Thief?
:Will you have 360 degree freedom, like a real swimmer?
Yes.
:Will sound behave diffrently under water?
Yes. At the very least, it will be muffled.
:Will arrows?
Yes. Arrows entering water will be subject to buoyancy and drag.
:What kind of breath meter will there be?
There's currently a bubbly-looking breath meter at the bottom of the display, analogous to the health meter. I don't know if it's going to be the shipping breath meter, but I personally like it.
:How much will it be like Underworld's swimming?
It's *much* more realistic than Underworld's swimming. Without going back and looking at Underworld's swimming, I can't do a more accurate comparison than that. :)
:Am i asking too many questions?
No. ;)
- Chris
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Cause for Concern?
- 2:50pm EST - the spy
The following statement was delivered to me through not so ananymous sources.. (the TTLG news)
"BTW, I posted something on usenet about it, but in case it hasn't reached you,
Thief and Half-Life are due on the same day. And since Half-Life is targetted at the
exact same market share as Thief and has had the Sierra hype machine behind it for a year
the only conclusion is that once again Looking Glass is cursed to make a brilliant game
that is completely ignored. I mean, Half-Life may be good (or Sierra may kill it by
pushing the product out the door for Christmas), but Thief has had so little promotion
by Eidos that no one outside of the hardest of the hard core gamers even cares about it."
- Joel Mathis
Weather this is as truly the cause for concern as Joel makes it out to be, is questionable. I never trust release dates. Release dates area farce created by designers to appease the press and impatient gamers. I seriously doubt that both of these games will be released on schedule. And if they are? if they are.... I guess we get to see Thief kick Half Life's @$$ then don't we.. DON'T WE....
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Dark Engine and Lighting
- 11:00pm EST - the spy
Although this does not clearly explane any features of Thief, it does shed some light (pun intended) on the working of the dark engine, and how it deals with light... (am I sensing a paradox here?)
::Tim, what are the main features of the Dark Engine? Will it
::allow for HUGE enviroments, like the Jedi Knight Engine? (Don't
::worry, I'm not even comparing SS2 or Dark to Jedi Knight) :)
:
:"HUGE" environments are definitely possible in the Dark Engine,
:depending on what you mean by "HUGE."
:There's some cost for sizeable areas based on the maximum
:size of a light map, but you can change ...[the] scale
:in the editor so you can trade off size for lighting and texture
:resolution.
Gee, I hope I don't give away any company secrets here.
The "dark renderer" was originally being written before Quake came out, using the traditional computer graphics way of doing lighting, called "vertex lighting". Jedi Knight uses "vertex lighting", and it seems like the big advantage to vertex lighting as opposed to what Quake does is that you can make really big spaces.
Quake came out, and had these incredible shadows. While it might be possible to do shadows somewhat in a vertex-lighting game (heck, you can even see fake ones in Duke3d), it's nothing like the quality that "light mapping" (what Quake does) can give you.
So, we looked at the engine and said, "would we rather beable to do big spaces but no shadows, or not be as effectivefor big spaces but do really good shadows"? Well, we were doing a stealthy thieving game. So shadows it was. Out went the vertex-lighting code, and in went Quake-style light mapping.
System Shock 2 is inheriting this same engine, with that decision already having been made for Thief. However, one of the changes that I made to the renderer for Shock 2 is to allow for larger lightmaps, which means larger polygons, which means larger spaces. So... we'll see.
- Sean
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New info from Forum
- 3:55pm EST - the spy
Dan Todd has been asking some really good questions in our forum, another one was answered today.
:But what about stone, or rock surfaces? Will you be able to
:climb shear stone if the surface is rough enough? What about
:brick walls, utilizing the cracks between bricks. What about
:other rope climbing devices? such as a hook for grabbing onto
:ledges...
There are a number of attributes that can be specified on a per-texture basis. "Climbability" is among them.
- Chris
New Image for Download
- 3:55pm EST - the spy
I added a new image to the download section. It's the right page of Thief's two page advertisment. It also happens to be the graphic I baised this site's main image on. *grin*
Download Section and Other News
- 1:15pm EST - the spy
Hello everyone, how are you today? I decided to stop being lazy and finally added the download section. You'll be able to grab all sorts of neat stuff that I've lifted from the two official sites. I've even included all of the music files that I was able to pick-pocket off of the Looking Glass site.
But there is one thing that i don't have, and I really, really want.. the *original* thief trailer movie. The one that only showed cut-scene clips, and played music, ending with "The Dark Project" If anyone, fan, LGS employee, neighbor's pet dog, has or knows where I can get this file, please, tell me.
In other matters, The September issue of Computer Gaming World included a 3 page preview and interview on Thief. I'm not sure when this will be hitting shelves, but if you aren't subscribed to CGW, you should keep an eye out for the issue with the big "100" on the cover. You'll know it when you see it.
This site has been very successful, and I'm quite pleased with how it's going. Big thanks goes to LGS for helping me out! Thanks guys!
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New Thief Screenshots
- 3:20pm EST - the spy
The LGlass Thief Site has two new Screenshots;
Have fun storming the Cathedral
OOohhh... Pretty Building... Eeewww.. Ugly critter!!
Stealthy but wet
Wow, swimming while holding a bow!... I seem to remember something about U. Underworld.. that you couldn't swim and wield a weapon at the same time.. Hmmm...
Incredible High-res Thief Pics
- 12:00am EST - the spy
The Eidos's Thief Site is host to some fantastic highres Thief images. They are calling them backgrounds, but to me, they are no less then an awesome display of the incredible talent of Looking Glass Studios. Head on over to their downloads page and take your pick of 1024x768, 800x600, or 640x480 resolutions. I suggest the 1024x768 versions, where you get a full, uncropped picture. Another Bravo to the LGS artists!!
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More Exclusive Info
- 10:41pm EST - the spy
I have more exclusive info for all you anxious gamers, this time from our own Thief Discussion Page, directly from Chris Carollo
"You will be able to lean, crawl, jump, and pull yourself up onto ledges, just off the top of my head. And any other things we decide to add. :)
Separate head movement is kind of a control nightmare...I wouldn't bet on it."
- Chris
Exclusive Thief Info
- 12:00pm EST - the spy
I have spotted some exclusive thief info on the System Shock 2 wishlist, which I have been "observing". Here it is, in it's entirety.
:Tim, what are the main features of the Dark Engine? Will it
:allow for HUGE enviroments, like the Jedi Knight Engine? (Don't
:worry, I'm not even comparing SS2 or Dark to Jedi Knight) :)
Wow. That's a big question. I'll anser your specific question first.
"HUGE" environments are definitely possible in the Dark Engine, depending on what you mean by "HUGE." The two measures you might apply are sheer physical size and actual complexity of the space (in terms of poly count, number of portals, and such). There's some cost for sizeable areas based on the maximum size of a light map, but you can change texture map (and hence, light map) scale in the editor so you can trade off size for lighting and texture resolution. One prototype level (which, sadly, we're not doing in the final game for reasons not relating to the size of the space) included a canyon about 200' deep and 500' long.
I'd have to say, though, that the main features of the Dark Engine are not in the renderer, but in the AI and object behavior system (act/react, physics, our scripting infrastructure, and our property system... usually in our marketing materials we just use the term "act/react" to refer to the whole shebang). We want our renderer to be competetive with other products on the market, obviously, but object behaviors are where the gameplay is.
Like the example that started this thread, where sound travels from room to room (instead of in straight lines) and sounds can carry information content with them that the AI's know how to interpret. That gets us AI's hearing footsteps, plus alarm bells, distracting noisemaker arrows, etc.
Or take the rope arrow, for example: when you shoot it into wood, it sticks and deploys a rope from the nock of the arrow. It won't stick into other materials. Given the scripting and property systems, once we'd implemented ropes in the first place, it was literally only about half an hour's work for me to do rope arrows. It was all basically about a dozen lines of script code.
It took us a lot of work to get the system up to the point where the designer has this kind of expressive power, but now that we've got it we can implement all sorts of behaviors really easily. It's lots of fun to work with, which in this business is the way you get really good work done.
- Tim Stellmach
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Project Diary Updated!!
- 1:05pm EST - the spy
YES!! We finally have more info straight from the developers!! Better yet, they mention not only Through the Looking Glass, but Saam Taraverdi and Dan Todd! (whoever the hell he is...) Everyone will definitely want to check this out. What are you waiting for??
View the Thief Project Diary NOW!
Possible Dates
- 11:10am EST - the spy
I have some sketchy dates as to when things are happening with Thief. The beta test is scheduled to begin in about 6 weeks, putting it in mid September. The game release, as some of you may have already heard, will be in October, but that's probably just being optimistic. I'm guessing Christmas. These dates can, and most likely will change.
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Beta Test Soon to Begin
- 7:15pm EST - the spy
Thief beta test will begin within he next few weeks. For those of you who are sketchy as to what that actually means; Thief is almost finished, all that's left to do is search for bugs. That's what a beta test is- a bug hunt. Saam Tariverdi, the guy from TriOptimum and TTLG, will be one of the beta testers. As soon as it begins, I plan on hunting this man down and interrogating him. He will most likely be under some accursed nondisclosure agreement, but I will do my best to sap any info I can out of him. Keep in mind that even though the beta tests are beginning, I have no idea how long they could take. This game may still be many months from release. This is not a bad thing, for we all hate it when a game is released buggy, or incomplete. This will safeguard against that possibility. Let's all hope that this upcoming beta test will be thorough and efficient. From a company like LookingGlass, I doubt we have much to worry about.
New Thief Screenshots
- 7:00pm EST - the spy
The Official Thief site has two new Screenshots;
Here's Holy water in your eye
From this shot I believe we can gather that there will be some type of holy water arrow, most likely for an extra punch on undead. Also note the cool transparency effect.
I wouldn't stand so close to those crates
WOW! Look at the way the explosion from your fire arrow has an actual shock wave, not only pushing other 3D objects away, but into the air!
PreOrder Thief for $30(!)
- 6:50pm EST - the spy
Chips & Bits already has Thief slated for pre-order, and at a shockingly low $29.99. Please go to our parent site, Through the Looking Glass and pre-order your copy today!
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Welcome Wanderer
- 12:00pm EST - the spy
Welcome wanderer, for you have stumbled upon me. Who am I? I am he who watches the watchers. I am the spy. This is my hall, the hall of Thief: The Dark Project. I spy on those who investigate Thief, so that they may risk life and limb to bring forth the dark secrets behind this project, and then I, as any thief, steal it from them, and present it to you here. You will find links to Thief’s official Sites, and well as direct links to specific Thief resources on these sites. I will provide links to all of the previews, and later reviews, on Thief that I can find. And finally I will allow you access to another hall, where you, and your fellow curious minds, may discuss Thief related issues. Your visit is appreciated. Now, join us as we await the coming of Thief: The Dark Project.
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