Thief: Deadly Shadows - FAQ and Information

[Azal]

There have been endless speculations about the upcoming Thief III, much of it based on old rumours or wild guesses.

So that we have a single, easily referenced, resource, this thread will contain all that is known for a fact (at least at the time of posting) about the game.".

The Circle also has a Thief III Portal – check there for updates as well.


The first item that needs mentioning is:

As of May 5th, the various release dates appear to be:

NORTH AMERICA: May 26th
EUROPE: June 18th
AUSTRALIA / NZ: June 30th


<s> »» Console ports of the game are probably inevitable at some point in time, but assurances have been made that the PC is the <u>first</u> priority and is what the game is designed around.</s>

»» Thief III will have real-time lighting (e.g. Splinter Cell) and shadows.

»» The AI will have facial expressions

»» You will be able to see Garrett's feet and hands during gameplay.

»» ISA has extensively re-written the entire game engine, except for UnrealEd (which probably has modifications to it as well)

»» As of July 2001, three missions were fully completed. As of that date, many of the core features (eg the bow, sneaking, base AI, and basic sound) were functional. Original text here.

<s> »» There will be no third-person viewpoint in Thief III.</s>

»» Ion Storm Austin (ISA) is currently working on both Thief III and Deus Ex 2, with DX2 to be released first. Because of this, they have reasonably decided to focus their efforts on DX2 and consequently most of the information available is about that game.

However, each game is utilizing the same engine – though extensively rewritten from the original Unreal – so when it comes to the technical aspects of the games, similarities can, when not otherwise explicitly stated, be expected.

There are to be several known differences between the DX and T3. In DX, the AI will not react to the player’s shadow, yet they will in T3.

»» Screenshots for DX2 can be found at Tiscali.cz and you can expect Thief to have similar graphics.


<h3>Quotes:</h3>


From Lead Designer, Randy Smith, at ThieveryUT quoted from PCGamer magazine saying that T3 will be single-player only

"Right now, we've got our hands full, trying to make the best single-player Thief experience of all time."


From Ion Storm's Kent Hudson, on the game engine, at the Ve3d forums:

dx2 and t3 arent using unreal any more, other than the editor. we rewrote the renderer (lighting/shadows/normal maps/specular, etc), the sound engine, the physics engine, and all of the game code (properties/weapons/game systems). not that unreal doesnt look GREAT these days. we're friends with epic and respect them a great deal. but we just have a focused design and felt the need to have an engine tailor-made for the games.


Found at gamestar.de: (Translation by Matt Kimmich)

On a visit to the Ion Storm offices in Austin/Texas we were allowed an - albeit very brief - look at Thief 3. The third installation in the thieving saga (better known in Germany as Dark Project) almost threw us off our feet due to the excellent graphics, fantastic shadow effects and extremely realistic NPC models. Talking of feet: While the jumping sequences in the first two games still were a nuisance since you never knew when Garret had actually reached the edge of a chasm, in part 3 you'll actually see the master thief's feet when you look down. This makes climbing passages so much easier. Another improvement: When picking locks there's a nice animation of Garrett's hands actually manipulating the lock. Unfortunately there are still no released screenshots.


From Paul Touzor, AI Programmer at Ion Storm (quoted in PCGamer):

In Thief III, the AI will have an evidence-tracking system, which means it will retain information about which events made it suspicious and where. The AI will be able to draw better conclusions about which areas should be searched for intruders. When the AIs say 'It must have been rats,' they'll have really deduced that, although if you're playing the game well, they probably won't be right.


Here’s a quote from the Xmas issue of PC GAMER UK in the preview of 2003 section:

The return of light-fingered lead, Garrett, is as eagerly awaited in our office as Warren Spector’s other project, DX2. A brief glimpse of the Xbox game engine is all that’s been offered so far, although plans are afoot for a show stealing unveiling at next years E3 in May. If they can improve on its predecessor’s crude combat and occasionally sprawling level design, this could turn out to be one of 2003’s most important games.

Anticipation level 5/5

OUT: Xmas 2003


From the February PCGames (Germany) DVD - That Thief III poster is hanging on a wall in Austin/TX:


Blown-up image of poster:




(what do <u>YOU</u> think the thing in the background looks like? I say it’s Cthulhu. Others have suggested a burning haystack/building/ship, dragon, giant rat, treebeast/Ent, a burrick, or a huge sweel. Even a Rorschach test has been suggested.)


First look at Unreal Engine's capabilities. From Gamepsot

This screenshot is using the vanilla Unreal engine - without all the modifications the ISA team has added,






<hr>

Straight from the hot little hands our our mysterious new member with the IonStorm email address, Fodder.

New T3 concept art!




<hr>


More to come as more is found…



If you have something you wish to contribute - post it HERE


<hr>

<h3>UPDATE:</h3>

It seems we may really be going to get a look at T3 in May!

From HomeLanFed:

"Ion Storm and Eidos will release Deux Ex: Invisible War for both PC and Xbox but as far as a release date all they are saying is "sometime in 2003". As far as Ion Storm's other in-development game, the sneak-action sequel Thief III, we were told to expect a big publicity push for that game at next May's Electronic Entertainment Expo."

From the PC GAMER 2003 preview for Thief III

"The return of the light-fingered lead, Garrett, is as eagerly awaited in our office as Warren Spector's other project, Deus Ex : IW. A brief glimpse of the Xbox game engine is all that's been offered so far, although plans are afoot for a showstealing unveiling at this year's E3 in May.
If they can improve on it's predecessor's crude combat and occasionally sprawling level design, this could turn out to be one of 2003's most important games."

From Aint It Cool Games Interview with Randy Smith:

""Hi, thanks for these good questions and please accept my apologies for taking so long to get back to you folks. Game development is a crazy business, and there is always some pressing crisis to deal with. Also, sorry I can’t talk about Thief 3 right now, but stay tuned for more press around E3 time. - Randy"

[Azal]

<h1>FINALLY!</h1>


It's all happened today - we have a magazine with a preview of Thief 3


The June, 2003 edition of Computer Games can be found online at cgonline.com


You can read about what members think of all this in any and all of the following threads (list current only at time of posting):

In the T3 Anticipation forum:

Seen this? (Thief 3 pic on a magazine)
New Thief 3/Deus Ex 2 magazine scans. . .

In the ThiefGen forum:

BITCHIN' Computer Games Magazine Thief III Exclusive Preview!
possible mention of T3 in next months PC gamer...


And thus it begins!

[Azal]

Links to T3 screenshots:

Games Radar

Multiplayer Netowrk

Xbox World

Gamer's Hell


---EDIT: more screenshots.

From Gengamers:

image 1
image 2
image 3
image 4
image 5


At Tiscail.cz you can find all the screenshots, even the one of the castle used as background in the opening spread of the famous Computer Games magazine article.


So far, all the screenshots are repetitions of the same images. As such, until different images are available, I'll stop updating the FAQ as I'm just repeating myself.

[Azal]

Don't forget, Ion Storm have their own website - which has (finally, yay!) started to be updated.

Ion Storm

[Azal]

Two more links:


Gamespot has previews for T3 in both its PC and Xbox sections - each also contains several new screenshots.


Gamespot's preview for the PC

Gamespot's preview for the Xbox

[Azal]

Two more quick links:


From Yahoo News:


"Playing Garrett, gamers will use their skills to sneak throughout the City into castles, mansions, prisons, cathedrals, dungeons, and museums, past armed guards, hired muscle, angry thugs, hideous monsters, and much worse. Players must steal the City's oldest treasures in order to stop the darkness foretold in the prophecies. As Garrett, players have a wealth of thieves' tools at their disposal, including lock picks, arrows, wall climbing gloves, and flash bombs."


Another site with all the screenshots in one place:

Bonusweb.cz


EIDOS has released a teaser trailer for the game.

GET IT HERE

[Azal]

Okey dokey, here's some more:


Eidos has opened their T3 site HERE

With more information in this page HERE


Blues News has most of the screenshots of the game HERE



I'm hearing a lot of people saying that they can't see the screenshots in some of the links listed in this FAQ. Fortunately, most of the images are the same from one site to another. So, as long as you can view them on just one site, you're not missing much.


But if you must see them all (and who can blame you) then try accessing the sites from a different location.

[Azal]

EIDOS has opened a new site dedicated to the games they will be showing at E3.

EIDOS Interactive . E3 2003 . Fully Loaded

It showcases new concept art, screenshots and some details about the game.

[Azal]

Here're a few sites with information from the E3 showing of the game:


1) Games Domain

2) IGN

3) Gamespot

4) Gamespy


The information is coming thick and fast now

[Azal]

There's been a lot of fuss over whether the simultaneous development for both PC and Xbox has resulted in the game being "dumbed down".

I'll let the developers speak for themselves:



From the Ion Storm forums' thread Ion Storm PLease! abate a common fear!


DevoInc
Designer - Thief 3
------------------------

At ease people.....
yes, the controls are different (it's on a console), but the game isn't "dumbed down". We've been working on improving the game from where it left off. Changes to the game have been only to benefit both versions of the game, not just console.

[Azal]

Gamer's Pulse have several exclusive videos of the gameplay.

CLICK HERE - scroll to the bottom of the page.

A big thanks to Ripclaw and all the people at Gamer's Pulse for these shaky cam footages.

For up to the minute information, see the thread, First ever actual gameplay movie!!! in the T3 forums.

[Azal]

Phew! It's coming thick and fast now and I'm just hitting the highlights of what information I've been able to find.


Those great guys and gals at Gamer's Pulse have more T3 news - this time they talk about what it was like to actually play the game and some of the many new options to be found.


In news directly from the developers themselves, for over at the ISA forums:


Re: Climbing and exploring

Originally posted by Null, a T3 designer:

A thief is an explorer who fancies souvenirs.

Forbidden tourism. Let's face it; voyeurism.

I doubt I'll be clapped in irons for noting that Thief III will feature a plethora of secreted or otherwise low-access thematic locations to discover.

The game is about breaking rules, occupying clandestine space, indulging the urge to cross lines of privacy and property. If we failed to scratch that itch in any Thief release, it'd be ... well ...

criminal.

Re: Climbing Gloves:

Originally posted by Fodder, the great bloke who showed us the concept art from GDC:

In the demo, the gloves were always equipped, and could be used to climb any rock-type surface. (stone, brick, or rock) This may or may not be the case in the final game.

Re: the rainbow-like frobbing effect seen in the shakeycam videos

Originally posted by Fodder:

Hey guys,

Don't worry, the frobbing effect is still being worked on. That was just place holder.

[Azal]

In case anyone somehow missed this one:


Thief-TheCircle.com main page news:

Thief 3 Article in Print PC Zone

I got a great email from Joden which has some info straight ouf the PC Zone UK. It's a four page preview, with two new screenshots. One of the shots has an extreme closeup of an NPC's face, which Joden described as glorious. He also mentioned that it seems water arrows are called ice arrows now, and AIs are designed to notice when loot is missing and when doors are left open. And from the article:
"Rather than panicking, jumping out of the window and into the moat, why not carefully push a table, barrel or anything you can get your thieving mits on across the door to block it? With any luck the over-curious guard will think the door is locked or jammed and leave you to your job. If you're not so lucky the determined guard will be crashing down the door with 5 hammer guards also."
"We've got an advanced system to handle breakable objects, and you can watch objects fracture into their component parts, such as barrel which breaks into boards and O-rings" - Randy Smith Don't think this is all fancy aesthetics either. Once a barrel like that brakes up you can then pick up a bit of wood and knock out an enemy in the same way you might use a blackjack. Just like in the real world, what you do with objects you discover or create is limited by your imagination.

"Yet despite the main quest, T3 again retains the open ended nature of it's predecessors and presents a seductive list of targets; Churches, castles, shops, dungeons, ancient ruins, banks, prisons, museums and mansions are all there to explore, break into and rob blind."

"For us, getting into character invariably means spraying a variety of weird and wonderful arrows around the place. In fact, one of the things that always rather amused us was the moss arrow. Has Garrett finally sussed the idea of taking off his tap dancing shoes instead of firing this arrow into the floor? It's a question we put to Mr Smith who, after assuming we were taking the piss reminded us Garrett can tiptoe slowly across the room if he doesn't want to use his secret weapon. Talking of secrets, we're sad to say the rest of the gadgets and weaponry in the game is strictly under wraps at this stage. Our probing in this direction was met with a cheeky smile from Mr Smith and a rather unhelpful response of: "We've put a lot of thought into broading Garrett's toolkit and weapons and refining them from previous games."

Apparently PC Zone usually puts their articles on their website, so hopefully we can see those new shots soon! Thanks Jodan!

[Azal]

Here's lucky 13 - and it's a good one!

There's a new (33Mb) video available for download and it shows a good deal more of the gameplay.

T3 Movie from 4gamer.net.


It shows the use of flashbombs, the climbing gloves, guards with sheathed swords pulling them out when alerted and a lot more.

Over at the IonStorm forums, one of the designers, Null, who was the one actually playing the game you see in the movie had a lot more to say about it:

I can recognize my play-style from E3. I'm always the sociopath who likes to chuck bodies off cliffs to bother the AIs patrolling below and force them to talk out loud about a murderer on the loose.

Incidentally, the fast bow shots are just practice. The zoom feature is completely intact.

The guard, if you had been able to hear him in the video, muttered, "huh? what the heck?" or something similar when his torch was doused, and turned around to check the area behind him.

They don't immediately go berserk, they're just a little unnerved when the torch goes out.

That's the reason he appeared to go back on patrol, he had checked back there while I waited, and then resumed his patrol by the time he found me out on the terrace. I thought he'd seen me, so I spent some time trying to lay an ambush back out there. When he got a good look at me, even in the half-light, he drew his sword, et cetera.

This video is a bit washed out, but I'm glad someone caught the moments of gameplay. What I *should* have done is climbed up the wall, waited for him to pass under me, and backstabbed him. I just like a good fight, I suppose.

At the moment, they're pretty much reacting as if the torch was inexplicably doused in front of them; it is more akin to a phantom super-soaker-blast from the Lurking Beyond than a real arrow with a crystal just strapped onto the end -- but that's early E3 tuning anyway.

Given the raw power & tension of a guard with a torch in T3, a more prolonged or disturbed reaction may occur when the same action is taken against a veteran guard.

All AI reaction times and alert states are subject to further tuning by the time we ship.

[Azal]

Interview with Randy Smith over at Computerandvideogames.com

[Azal]

Update:

Thief The Circle has a short article with Randy Smith (Thief 3's project director) answering a few questions put to him by the TTLG staff.

Good stuff

[Azal]

Many people have been wondering what the system requirements will be for the game. Chris Carollo, one of the moderators at the ISA forums, was kind enough to reveal the following information in the thread Can a dev confirm this?.


To sum up:

1) You'll need pixel and vertex shader 1.1 support in hardware. Which means GF3-class and up.

2) You'll need a card that fuly supports DX8 in hardware.

And on a general note, for those who will be upgrading soon:

3) A GF4mx is typically WORSE from a feature point-of-view than a GF3. Thank you nvidia marketing.


So, if you're going to buy a new video card before the game comes out, make sure you don't get bitten by buying the wrong one (read: just about any card with "mx" in its name).

[Azal]

The Thief 3 movie from E3 has been re-released with higer resolution, new music, sound effects and a few seconds more footage.

You can get it from the nice people at 3D Gamers

[Azal]

There are four new Thief movies to be had.

You can get them from IGN.com:

Here

OR

Here


Thanks to Kaleid for finding them

[Azal]

Trawling through the threads at the ISA forums lead to this little tease from Jerome "Faceless" Graves, one of the developers:

I think very soon though we will have some great screenshots to show all of you, believe me it will be worth the wait.

Goodie

[Azal]

Time to dust off the FAQ now that (finally) some new information has been released.

The third in the Thief series will be called Thief: Deadly Shadows and will contain an optional third person view.

See the articles here:

Blues News article with screenshots

Yahoo News

Gamespot

[Azal]

Screencapture from the Eidos website today:




With any luck T3 seems set for a midyear release.

[Biohazard]

The official Thief: Deadly Shadows website went live today.

I must say it looks very impressive with new game info and screenshots.

Go now!

[Azal]

Gamespot has released a new preview of the game:

HERE with a bunch of new information not availlable anywhere else.

There is also a video interview available for those with a Gamepsot Premium account.


IGN also has a preview of the game (in their Xbox section):

HERE with new screenshots from the PC version promised for tomorrow.


1Up.com wades into the fray with their preview:

HERE

[Azal]

More linkages:

Gamespy article previewing T3 HERE

Gamer TV interview with Mr Spector HERE that comments on T3.