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Thief |OT| Hide your valuables, Garrett is back in town

Sectus

Member
Yes that is possible. The minute you exit Thi4f though, you'll have to go the vpn route to restart it again though.

Hmmmmmm. And there's been plenty of people doing this without Valve going all ninja lawyer on them? I'm getting less and less hesitant to try this. I wouldn't mind starting my Thifourf playthrough now.
 

kazebyaka

Banned
Just beat the game on PC in around 6 hours. Story is amazingly bad. This writer should never get hired in the gaming industry again, it's that bad. Cutscenes were made by kids, animation and cinematography are laughable. The game looks awesome graphically, but all levels look alike. Gameplay is okay, but at the end there's a lot of cheap moments and it's very boring.
The game does the core gameplay okay, but that's not enough. Upgrade system and arrows are useless for people who play stealth. Money is useless = all thievery is useless. Maybe on the highest difficulty, but not on Normal.

I dislike Dishonored, but it's much better than this game.
6/10 at best
 

ys45

Member
For some reason the fly vpn trick is not working for me, Steam won't let me play the damn game even if I'm on the Japanese vpn server
It say play but when i click play nothing happen and the front page still say its coming in 8 hours
 
Hmmmmmm. And there's been plenty of people doing this without Valve going all ninja lawyer on them? I'm getting less and less hesitant to try this. I wouldn't mind starting my Thifourf playthrough now.

I just did it. I've done it for years too. It's like JaseC said earlier. You'd have to be the most unlucky person in the world of PC gaming for that to happen. It's not that it's impossible, but in all the years, I've not heard of a single case that Steam has banned accounts for this. They just don't want you to VPN into another country that may have cheaper games than your current country and get them for cheaper.
 

AppleMIX

Member
Been playing for a few hours now. Enjoying thus far, it does seem to be bogged down with previous gen baggage. Would like to see a next gen only sequel.
 
For some reason the fly vpn trick is not working for me, Steam won't let me play the damn game even if I'm on the Japanese vpn server
It say play but when i click play nothing happen and the front page still say its coming in 8 hours

It sounds like your not correctly VPN'd. If you are you'll see a big ol' play button and go through a lengthy 400mb download. It took me about 30 mins. to download the unlock portion. I'd close Steam completely. VPN into JP. Reopen Steam and begin the download portion of the unlock. Should be pretty simple from there.
 

ys45

Member
It sounds like your not correctly VPN'd. If you are you'll see a big ol' play button and go through a lengthy 400mb download. It took me about 30 mins. to download the unlock portion. I'd close Steam completely. VPN into JP. Reopen Steam and begin the download portion of the unlock. Should be pretty simple from there.

Thats strange because i downloaded something earlier (took like 15 mins to download) and then the play button was there I did not click it right away because i had things to do when igot back and tried to start the game it was just doing nothing.

Gonna try one more time otherwise il play tomorrow , no big deal

Thx
 
Thats strange because i downloaded something earlier (took like 15 mins to download) and then the play button was there I did not click it right away because i had things to do when igot back and tried to start the game it was just doing nothing.

Gonna try one more time otherwise il play tomorrow , no big deal

Thx

Are you using FlyVPN? It has a 20min. timer. So if you didn't click Play right away FlyVpn disconnected you. All you'll have to do is Connect again and restart steam and hit play, you'll be good to go after that.
 
Just beat the game on PC in around 6 hours. Story is amazingly bad. This writer should never get hired in the gaming industry again, it's that bad. Cutscenes were made by kids, animation and cinematography are laughable. The game looks awesome graphically, but all levels look alike. Gameplay is okay, but at the end there's a lot of cheap moments and it's very boring.
The game does the core gameplay okay, but that's not enough. Upgrade system and arrows are useless for people who play stealth. Money is useless = all thievery is useless. Maybe on the highest difficulty, but not on Normal.

I dislike Dishonored, but it's much better than this game.
6/10 at best

Yeah, that's kind of how I feel, and why I'm hesitant to jump on it.

I watched an hour-and-a-half stream of the first couple missions, and from what I saw:

+ The amount of loot you can get at least seems to be in line with previous titles, with lots of interesting ways to get unique trinkets.
+ Garrett's interactions with the game world are far beyond the previous titles (solving clues, the lockpicking/searching minigames), even if they're buggy at times
+ There seems to be a ton of side content to do

- Erin is a terrible and whiny character, and I didn't feel like anyone gave a shit about her after what happened in the first mission
- the story feels so irrelevant that it may as well not even matter at all
- bugs and strange AI behavior galore

I am waiting until the winter sale before I think about jumping on.
 

ys45

Member
Are you using FlyVPN? It has a 20min. timer. So if you didn't click Play right away FlyVpn disconnected you. All you'll have to do is Connect again and restart steam and hit play, you'll be good to go after that.

Yeah I did that I reconnected to the vpn (I use Fly vpn) for some reason it's not working properly with steam only if i go to google it will send me to google.co.jp
 

Jubbly

Member
The PC version can look great, but quite often it looks sub-standard, with a few extra effects thrown on top. Here are two of the better locations I've come across so far:

shipping-thiefgame201cxkdj.png


shipping-thiefgame201pmkmw.png


Those are taken at 3840x2160 with High Supersampling AA, downsampled to 1920x1080 in Photoshop. Game runs 40-70 FPS on my 2x R9 290Xs in Crossfire with an i7-4770K.

So what's bad? Many of the character models are terrible, several of the main character faces look far too pristine (Metro Last Light's sniper lady suffered the same fate), the parallax occlusion mapping is messed up in many places, tessellation is barely used, and when it is it is nigh on unnoticeable, static/pre-baked shadows often look super low res, there are bugs and crashes everywhere, my first save was ruined by it auto-saving at the start of a level when I instantly fell through the floor, and there a great many low-res textures juxtaposed against high-res ones.

Away from visuals, the story is pretty stupid, the AI is dumb as rocks, and Nixxes decided to include pre-rendered video cutscenes instead of just rendering everything in game.

On the surface this looks to be a great game and port, but when you look closer you see legacies of its 4+ year development.
 
Yeah I did that I reconnected to the vpn (I use Fly vpn) for some reason it's not working properly with steam only if i go to google it will send me to google.co.jp

Okay. Do this step-for-step:

1. Shut off FlyVpn
2. Completely close Steam, do not restart it. Not minimize, completely close.
3. Log-in to FlyVpn and choose JP.
4. Open Steam, it may ask you if you want to log back in to Steam. Log-in if it does.
5. Check to see that the game is unlocked. Hit play.

That really is all you should have to do. I know I had to fiddle with it a bit to get Steam to take, but it does work, I did it exactly like that. I hope that helps.
 

ys45

Member
Okay. Do this step-for-step:

1. Shut off FlyVpn
2. Completely close Steam, do not restart it. Not minimize, completely close.
3. Log-in to FlyVpn and choose JP.
4. Open Steam, it may ask you if you want to log back in to Steam. Log-in if it does.
5. Check to see that the game is unlocked. Hit play.

That really is all you should have to do. I know I had to fiddle with it a bit to get Steam to take, but it does work, I did it exactly like that. I hope that helps.

Damn it, I was following your steps and when I tried to connect to FlyVpn I got the message I'm out of free tries (both accounts) .

Aawww well thx for your help anyway man really appreciate it !
 

FlyinJ

Douchebag. Yes, me.
Huge Thief fan here-

Got past the intro and about half way through the first mission.

Everything on the HUD is off except the light meter and interact prompts. Playing at hardest difficulty.

So far, I have no idea what the complaints are. This is a Thief game, and a good one at that. The atmosphere, the looting, having to scour through rooms to find all the items. The maps so far have been a bit smaller than T1 and T2, but I'm only on the first mission. I'm enjoying this much more than Dishonored so far.

It runs extremely well on my rig (i5 2.8, WIn7, 660ti, 12 gig ram).. 1080p, everything on high except no SSAA and shadow edge smoothing. Seems to maintain a steady 60fps.

Only two annoyances so far- The guards aren't nearly as funny as the original Thief games. No English accents? And I haven't heard taffer once. The writing has definitely taken a hit. Then again, what AAA game has had good writing in the past 8 years.

Second complaint is the slight flash that lights up the edges of the screen when you enter a light. I really wish you could turn this off. The light meter is feedback enough.

As a purist, I even like the addition of the "quickslide", which allows you to take a quick slide forward at any time.
 

FlyinJ

Douchebag. Yes, me.
Nixxes decided to include pre-rendered video cutscenes instead of just rendering everything in game.

You do realize this is a very difficult thing to do, and requires an extensive amount of development and QA right? It's not something they can just fire off. And I'm almost positive Nixxes couldn't do it if they wanted, as Eidos wouldn't foot the bill for it.

That said, the rendered cutscenes look awful. At least they could have rendered them at 1080p and not compressed them as much. Again, highly doubtful that Nixxes could have improved them as they were most likely done in Montreal.

Why is this game 22 gigs with super compressed 720p cutscenes...
 

JerkShep

Member
I'd really like to play a stealth game for a change, but I'm not sure what to do. What I'm hearing is not really pleasant, even if at least it appears there are some (...small?) redeeming qualities. Oh well, in the meantime I'm playing the Daud's "campaign" in Dishonored (the two dlcs) for the first time and it's definitely scratching that hitch for the moment.
 
Huge Thief fan here-

Got past the intro and about half way through the first mission.

Everything on the HUD is off except the light meter and interact prompts. Playing at hardest difficulty.

So far, I have no idea what the complaints are. This is a Thief game, and a good one at that. The atmosphere, the looting, having to scour through rooms to find all the items. The maps so far have been a bit smaller than T1 and T2, but I'm only on the first mission. I'm enjoying this much more than Dishonored so far.

It runs extremely well on my rig (i5 2.8, WIn7, 660ti, 12 gig ram).. 1080p, everything on high except no SSAA and shadow edge smoothing. Seems to maintain a steady 60fps.

Only two annoyances so far- The guards aren't nearly as funny as the original Thief games. No English accents? And I haven't heard taffer once. The writing has definitely taken a hit. Then again, what AAA game has had good writing in the past 8 years.

Second complaint is the slight flash that lights up the edges of the screen when you enter a light. I really wish you could turn this off. The light meter is feedback enough.

As a purist, I even like the addition of the "quickslide", which allows you to take a quick slide forward at any time.

I'm mainly with you here. I played past the prologue and it's starting to really feel like a Thief game. At least, more comparable to Deadly Shadows (which I liked and felt like a Thief game to me.) Same complaints you share as well. The guards chatter isn't as good. I heard Taffer used actually, but it was a non-guard NPC. Loved hearing it though.

Atmosphere wise, such a great feeling. Looks great, controls great. I think if people that really want a Thief game again do the best to challenge themselves by playing on the hardest difficulty and turning off all HUD elements, they can find some enjoyment in it. Don't get me wrong, would have loved to see a true Thief 2 predecessor, but, I guess it wasn't meant to be.

I also want to say I don't even mind the new voice actor for Garrett. It's not Stephen Russell, but it has a certain quality about it that helps ground the character.
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
Damn it, I was following your steps and when I tried to connect to FlyVpn I got the message I'm out of free tries (both accounts) .

Aawww well thx for your help anyway man really appreciate it !

TunnelBear has servers in Japan now, apparently, so give it a shot, though be aware that free accounts are limited to 500MB per day so if Steam starts downloading anything be sure to disable it (the VPN, that is, not the download ;)).
 
I'm mainly with you here. I played past the prologue and it's starting to really feel like a Thief game. At least, more comparable to Deadly Shadows (which I liked and felt like a Thief game to me.) Same complaints you share as well. The guards chatter isn't as good. I heard Taffer used actually, but it was a non-guard NPC. Loved hearing it though.

Atmosphere wise, such a great feeling. Looks great, controls great. I think if people that really want a Thief game again do the best to challenge themselves by playing on the hardest difficulty and turning off all HUD elements, they can find some enjoyment in it. Don't get me wrong, would have loved to see a true Thief 2 predecessor, but, I guess it wasn't meant to be.

I also want to say I don't even mind the new voice actor for Garrett. It's not Stephen Russell, but it has a certain quality about it that helps ground the character.

Yep. Even with the bad ending, the story never felt in the way and the atmosphere is great. I was just replaying it on a stream and really getting into it again. This game will find it's fans.
 
Ngurghhh.

Wanted to wait until a sale for this one. I loved TDP and TMA but was disappointed when I saw the previews.

But having watched EatChildren's review, I'm seriously reconsidering getting it now. I've lowered my expectations considerably now and the visuals look really amazing. It doesn't help that I have a couple weeks off between jobs starting Thursday...
 

forrest

formerly nacire
Okay. Do this step-for-step:

1. Shut off FlyVpn
2. Completely close Steam, do not restart it. Not minimize, completely close.
3. Log-in to FlyVpn and choose JP.
4. Open Steam, it may ask you if you want to log back in to Steam. Log-in if it does.
5. Check to see that the game is unlocked. Hit play.

That really is all you should have to do. I know I had to fiddle with it a bit to get Steam to take, but it does work, I did it exactly like that. I hope that helps.

I downloaded the Free Trial Client at Flyvpn.com and when trying to connect it said I needed to update something and now after doing that its telling me I need to download a driver? Did you have to go through all of these steps as well?

*Edit - finally got it working, thanks for the info
 

Gammacide

Member
Good news...

This paragraph from the Edge review seems to not only highlight why it is getting some bad reviews, but also give us some great tips on making the game much more enjoyable. Which explains why an outlet that is nefarious for giving low scores, gave it such a favourable score (by their standards, a 7/10) -

People looking to enjoy the game should take note, especially fans of the original -



They sum up with -



Source - http://www.edge-online.com/review/thief-review/
See now *this* actually makes it feel like a good purchase to me. I have been waiting to immerse myself in the Thief atmosphere for ages now so I cannot wait to pick up a copy for PS4 tomorrow morning at Target (I have a gift card too which cushion the blow just in case). Once I get rid of all the casual settings I should be able to settle in for some serious motherfucking taffing.
 

neoism

Member
I downloaded the Free Trial Client at Flyvpn.com and when trying to connect it said I needed to update something and now after doing that its telling me I need to download a driver? Did you have to go through all of these steps as well?

*Edit - finally got it working, thanks for the info

which server did you use been trying for an hour
 

parabolee

Member
For some reason TunnelBear connects to UT when trying to connect to Japan??!

Which is obviously useless. And FreeVPN is full! :(
 

xAlias

Member
Got the game activated via VPN. After unlocking , dont need the VPN anymore to launch it.

Played about 30 mins and liking the game so far. And this is from a one who has played the previous Thief games.

Yes, the pathway is linear but the atmosphere seems to be pretty good so far. And it does feel like a thief game. Considering all the game bashing, I had pretty low expectations so the game seems to be performing much above my current expectations :)
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
Got the game activated via VPN. After unlocking , dont need the VPN anymore to launch it.

The Play button will revert back to Pre-load after about 10-15 minutes.

Taiwan, had to spam the connect button to get it and I was having a problem connecting in general until I unticked the box option that says "Enable IPSec for L2TP"

Yeah, disabling IPSec is one of the suggestions that's mentioned in the connection error message. I've never had connection issues in the past but quite a few of FlyVPN's servers have just been spitting back errors lately.
 

xAlias

Member
The Play button will revert back to Pre-load after about 10-15 minutes.

Disconnected from the VPN and played and after quiting and 2 hours later, I can still load without the VPN. So not sure about that.

And yes, I am in US so still not reached the release date.
 
As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I'm starting out on Master difficulty with over 700 points in custom modifiers. I just completed Chapter 1, and I have to say that playing with no knockouts allowed makes the stealth really satisfying, especially when trying to 100% each chapter. Rather than just accumulating a heap of bodies, you actually have to carefully track NPC paths and find the right moment to grab each piece of loot. Some excellent tense moments from the first chapter:

-Grabbing items just one or two at a time from under the jeweler's nose each time he switches between tables.
-Carefully picking the 5-tumbler lock on the wall safe in the dark with a guard walking back and forth behind me, knowing a single failed pin set will create enough noise for the guard to notice me.
-Cleaning out the entire jeweler's display room without drawing the attention of the circling guard once.

Really Thiefy stuff, even in smaller levels. And I'm now pretty surprised by the AI complaints; it's been pretty solid so far, and there have been multiple instances in which they've noticed open safes or display cases, which I found impressive.

Oh, and I really really like the swoop button. Feels so good to snatch an item and them swoop away just in time to avoid detection.

It's still early on so my impressions may be invalidated later, but I'm having a ton of fun so far. No defending the writing though; the dialogue so far has been just terrible.
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
Disconnected from the VPN and played and after quiting and 2 hours later, I can still load without the VPN. So not sure about that.

And yes, I am in US so still not reached the release date.

Weird, there must be an issue with Steam phoning home then. In the past the button would revert in less than a minute but last night it took longer than usual and in your case much longer still.
 

thefil

Member
Anyone know how to fire an arrow? In the tutorial trying to fire a water arrow, and it just relaxes the bow when I release the left mouse button.

*edit* I turned off reticule in the custom settings, not sure if that's having an effect.
 

Raven77

Member
You know, I wish developers would just leave my favorite old games alone. Its like, why not make 4 sequels to Citizen Kane? Why not clone Gandhi 14 times and send them out as ambassadors of peace?

WHY?

BECAUSE IT WOULD BE SHIT. Just like this game. About two hours in and its just nothing at all like the original. Oh, it has a thief in it, but the game just screams Deus Ex: Invisible War. A poor mans version of an amazing game.
 
As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I'm starting out on Master difficulty with over 700 points in custom modifiers. I just completed Chapter 1, and I have to say that playing with no knockouts allowed makes the stealth really satisfying, especially when trying to 100% each chapter. Rather than just accumulating a heap of bodies, you actually have to carefully track NPC paths and find the right moment to grab each piece of loot. Some excellent tense moments from the first chapter:

-Grabbing items just one or two at a time from under the jeweler's nose each time he switches between tables.
-Carefully picking the 5-tumbler lock on the wall safe in the dark with a guard walking back and forth behind me, knowing a single failed pin set will create enough noise for the guard to notice me.
-Cleaning out the entire jeweler's display room without drawing the attention of the circling guard once.

Really Thiefy stuff, even in smaller levels. And I'm now pretty surprised by the AI complaints; it's been pretty solid so far, and there have been multiple instances in which they've noticed open safes or display cases, which I found impressive.

Oh, and I really really like the swoop button. Feels so good to snatch an item and them swoop away just in time to avoid detection.

It's still early on so my impressions may be invalidated later, but I'm having a ton of fun so far. No defending the writing though; the dialogue so far has been just terrible.

Most probably just played on the normal settings. The no blackjacking seems tedious though in your description. If you are having fun with it though, more power to you.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
You know, I wish developers would just leave my favorite old games alone. Its like, why not make 4 sequels to Citizen Kane? Why not clone Gandhi 14 times and send them out as ambassadors of peace?

WHY?

BECAUSE IT WOULD BE SHIT. Just like this game. About two hours in and its just nothing at all like the original. Oh, it has a thief in it, but the game just screams Deus Ex: Invisible War. A poor mans version of an amazing game.

The sequel conundrum is different for games than it is for films or literature, the latter defined by their narrative and thus harder to structure sequels around as a narrative can have a "complete" arc and structure. Games are different, because they're primarily built from systems and logistics of play that won't necessarily peak at a design singularity. They can always evolve and provide more, much in the same way any "game" outside of a digital, virtual world can.

So there's always going to be room for another The Metal Age simply by definition of the systems existing. Issue is developers look at the systems and rework them for a modern audience, relative to budget and projected revenue, and that doesn't always work to the favour of old fans.

Honestly, I think Thief's reviews are scattered over such a wide spectrum of opinions that it's probably worth a look from everyone with an inherent interest. We've seen reviews from series fans trash it as a disaster, yet others say it's still a really solid stealth game. And we've seen reviews from those unfamiliar with the franchise failing to get drawn up in the game systems and world, yet others who thoroughly enjoyed it.
 

Raven77

Member
I see what you're saying, and I do agree. I guess the point I was trying to make, and making it poorly probably, was that they should just stop trying to draw fan interest by relying on legacy titles (I mean that literally, the names of these games) like Thief - Wolfenstein - Deus Ex.

Developers and producers, etc. instead should quit being hampered by the expectations that the title itself draws and instead just make something original and in their own vision for the game.
 

thefil

Member
I think I shot a water arrow by quickly releasing and pressing left mouse again. My 660Ti is struggling to keep up with the screen space reflections and tesselation, which is sad because I was really excited for those. Just barely beats out 30 FPS in the benchmark with AA off at 1080p. Honestly considering dropping the resolution just for the cool visual effects. Anything else I can turn down first to help? Also took shadows from Very High to High, but that had minimal impact.

I realize I sound like a complete tool prioritizing graphics in this discussion, but this is the first game with this level of visuals that also is potentially interesting to me from a gameplay perspective. I don't buy many AAA games.
 

DVCY201

Member
Games ending is terrible, and makes little sense. I'd put it right up there with Rage imo.

I still don't really understand the ending. Rhianna really dropped the story for this one, not nearly as good as I was hoping. Disappointed, I'd figured she would've done a better job.
 

Casimir

Unconfirmed Member
The fact a 6 or 7 out of 10 is some how "really bad" really, really shows how flawed and broken modern game review ratings are.

In the American academic system, 7/10 is only average and a 6/10 is a passing fail(or general fail depending on course). I figure a lot of people tend to apply the same system to all grading outside of academics.
 
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