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

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
Bummer, thought I was getting it when I bought it. Oh well. Any chance they will release this mission separately in the future? Also has anyone played it and is it any good?

Yeah, it'll definitely be released separately down the line: it has store subs in the Steam registry.

Is this game related to the others or is it a reboot? Is it worth playing through the 3 other games first?

A reboot. Some may recommend that you ignore Thi4f entirely but I think playing it first and then moving on to the The Dark Project, The Metal Age and (to a lesser extent) Deadly Shadows would afford you a greater sense of why most are disappointed. Having said that, though, the game's hardly worth full price, but I can almost guarantee you that the PC version will be half off somewhere within the next 4-6 weeks.
 

FlyinJ

Douchebag. Yes, me.
A reboot. Some may recommend that you ignore Thi4f entirely but I think playing it first and then moving on to the The Dark Project, The Metal Age and Deadly Shadows would afford you a greater sense of why most are disappointed. Having said that, though, the game's hardly worth full price, but I can almost guarantee you that the PC version will be half off somewhere within the next 4-6 weeks.

As a contrary opinion from a die-hard Thief fan I feel that Thief 4 (or "Thi4f" if you're really clever) is actually better than Deadly Shadows (Thief 3). I feel it's a great entry in the series.
 
People with the PS4 version...what's your impressions? Does it hit 30 fps more than not?

Sunk a couple of hours into this on PS4, I'm REALLY enjoying the game, so far.

I haven't played Dishonored, DEx:HR or the prior Thief games - so comparisons are lost on me - but I like (love) the atmosphere and presentation in this game.

The frame rates only dips during cutscenes (only the first one was quasi bad dips, still watchable) - so far - no frame rate, or screen tearing issues (no screen tear in scenes either), during actual gameplay.
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
As a contrary opinion from a die-hard Thief fan I feel that Thief 4 (or "Thi4f" if you're really clever) is actually better than Deadly Shadows (Thief 3). I feel it's a great entry in the series.

"Thi4f" was the name used when Squeenix announced the game:

8WbE8Cw.jpg


The name stuck with some people precisely because it doesn't make any sense (4 is A in "leet speak", so although the intention was obvious all Squeenix did was name a game "Thiaf"). It has nothing to do with trying to be "clever".
 
A reboot. Some may recommend that you ignore Thi4f entirely but I think playing it first and then moving on to the The Dark Project, The Metal Age and (to a lesser extent) Deadly Shadows would afford you a greater sense of why most are disappointed. Having said that, though, the game's hardly worth full price, but I can almost guarantee you that the PC version will be half off somewhere within the next 4-6 weeks.
I never played the older games, I already got the game after playing the console version for a bit. Hell, figured I could afford giving Eidos full price after getting all their recent games for like 5 bucks and I had some money to spend on stupid impulse stuff lying around lol

So I can just play the older games later and won't miss a thing right - aside from potential disappointment in the new game of course -? Have they aged well?
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
I never played the older games, I already got the game after playing the console version for a bit. Hell, figured I could afford giving Eidos full price after getting all their recent games for like 5 bucks lol

So I can just play the older games later and won't miss a thing right? Have they aged well?

It's been years since I've played the original games, but Thief and Thief 2 are largely considered to be two of the finest stealth games the genre has to offer, and while Deadly Shadows doesn't quite live up to the status of its forebears it nonetheless has its fair share of fans. There are plenty of texture mods and the like out there that bring Thief and Thief 2 up to a more modern standard, and there's also The Dark Mod, which is essentially a Doom 3 engine-powered remake albeit with fan-made missions.
 
You know, this game isn't so hot, but it's also an actual unabashed first-person stealth experience that isn't constantly suggesting you break out and do something insanely violent, and in 2014 I'll take that over nothing.
 

Moff

Member
You know, this game isn't so hot, but it's also an actual unabashed first-person stealth experience that isn't constantly suggesting you break out and do something insanely violent, and in 2014 I'll take that over nothing.

there is truth here.
I like the new thief mostly because I expected much much worse from the modern game industry

the most iorinic thing about it? garret kills people in both intros of dark project and the metal age, and in the new one he doesnt even have a sword or dagger.
 
Sunk a couple of hours into this on PS4, I'm REALLY enjoying the game, so far.

I haven't played Dishonored, DEx:HR or the prior Thief games - so comparisons are lost on me - but I like (love) the atmosphere and presentation in this game.

The frame rates only dips during cutscenes (only the first one was quasi bad dips, still watchable) - so far - no frame rate, or screen tearing issues (no screen tear in scenes either), during actual gameplay.



Thats great to hear. I can live with some dips here and there as long as i see no tearing. Screen tearing totally takes me out of the experience.
 

RedSwirl

Junior Member
So far I haven't seen anyone here who's touched or seen the current-gen (PS3/Xbox 360) versions so I thought I'd chime in from a couple hours with a rental of the PS3 version.

By most pixel-counter standards they probably shouldn't have even released a PS3/360 version. Muddy textures (even by PS3 standards), what looks like no goddamn AA, and a slightly choppy framerate make THIEF a visually basic game on PS3. I think most gamers though will find it tolerable. I find it "tolerable" even right after playing the PC version of Crysis 3 on high settings in 1080p. The actual "detail" in THIEF is still there even on the weaker hardware. The art direction is still very much present, but it does feel like that art was designed with PS4, Xbox One, and PC in mind. That said, even in the high-end PC screenshots I've seen I still don't like the color palette in this game which is almost entirely graysclae.

The game itself? More on that later, and I'm one of the people who's generally agreed with people like Derrick on games like this.
 

lucius

Member
I am new to the Thief series, but not to stealth games I played through Deus EX HR a few times. I like the game so far, started on Master and quickly turned off in Display-

Object Highlights(off by default)
Interaction prompts
Waypoint Makers
Reticle Feedback
Object Highlights
Lock-Pick Helper
Frame-Search Helper

Those should have only been on for easy mode. I left Focus on but don't really use it, may turn off some other things but it seems to be really fun now without too much frustration. I plain on doing a Custom run after, I really don't find the AI worse than Deus Ex:HR, I am not getting in combat though but a no alert run is too much for me right now. Playing on PS4
 
Disclaimer: My exposure to the Thief series is playing about 3/4's of Deadly Shadows.

PC Version thoughts:

Game looks and runs fantastically. Controls are tight and intuitive. Lots of the 'Game & HUD' options should have been only enabled on the easiest difficulty. Story is 'meh', but then this isn't a game I'd play for plot and dialogue and so on.

I'd definitely recommend this to any PC owner.
 

bumclot

Member
Bummer, thought I was getting it when I bought it. Oh well. Any chance they will release this mission separately in the future? Also has anyone played it and is it any good?

I've played worst pre-order bonus content, but you're not really missing much. The biggest draw is probably the high-value loot throughout the map.
 

justjim89

Member
tumblr_n1ms4urKsn1rp5coao2_1280.jpg


Just finished Chapter 3. What a long, precarious, disjointed ass level. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I feel like it could have been divided into two separate missions and the whole thing would have felt better paced. A heist taking place in an opium-fueled brothel? Fun. A navigation-focused section in an ancient underground library? Fun. A secret wall in the brothel that leads to an ancient underground library? Now you’re just fucking with me.

Pacing and cohesiveness misgivings aside, this was a fun mission. Though I keep forgetting on Master difficulty, you can’t knock out civilians in any capacity. So when I’m crossing the rafters in kitchen devoted to cooking opium and Garrett makes a remark about pumping it through the air ducts to knock everyone out, I’m all for it. Then I promptly get the good ol’ “Mission Failed” screen for my efforts. Great. There was also a puzzle in the library area to get apparently an extra piece of loot and it seemed inaccessible without focus mode to highlight runes on the wall. Is it possible to get that without using focus? Oh well.

By the end of this, I was definitely beginning to run out of patience, but I wanted to get through the level. Managed to not knock anyone out, though I did finish with a rather high number of alerts, I’m not sure if it’s counting alerts I reloaded after triggering. The story seems to get a bit more absurd with every cutscene, but I’m not too put off by it. Garrett as a character is very solid and consistent with the old Garrett, who seemed to be a bit of a voyeuristic creep anyway. Voice acting is still very solid, with Garrett’s actor in particular being very good.

Three chapters down, about 11 hours into the game. Perhaps I’ll conquer the fourth tomorrow.
 

timkunedo

Member
Wow what a great game so far. I'm on chapter 2 and am loving it. The atmosphere and immersion are top notch.Load times aren't bad. Looking forward to more action tomorrow.
 

GavinUK86

Member
it's a pretty decent game overall but i'm getting terrible performance on my system. got an i7 2600k, 8gb ram & a gtx 660 and it's one the choppiest games i've ever played. stuttering all over the shop. tried multiple gpu drivers, resolutions, settings. even tried reinstalling it to my ssd and it still didn't fix it. another thing, which is admittedly more of an ocd thing on my part, is i can't seem to find a good balance between the difficulty settings and what hud items to show. after about 10 hours and multiple restarts, i think master with most hud items disabled is about right, still not happy though. bah, damn ocd. opinions?
 

RedSwirl

Junior Member
I just finished the first actual mission. Are they all as linear as this one?

The main thing I've noticed here, is that your main objective in this game is usually to reach the next waypoint. Contrast this with old Thief which gave you all the objectives right at the start -- find and steal a thing, steal a certain amount of loot, destroy this other thing, escape -- and let you plan it from there. Dishonored did this to a lesser extent but is still basically structured the same way. This is precisely what Derrick was complaining about whenever threads popped up about this game and Deus Ex or whatever.

Otherwise though new THIEF certainly functions as a standard stealth game with a stealing mechanic. I just miss the old objective-based games nobody seems to make anymore.

Oh and on second thought about the graphics, in much of the game they look nigh unacceptable on PS3. Maybe it's because of the game's general lack of color, but the whole thing looks extremely barren a lot of the time. In the first in-game cut scene where the General dude shows up for instance there are basically no real textures on his clothes. PS3 THIEF looks a lot worse than other PS3 and 360 games. It looks like they took a PS4 or modern PC game and just slid down all the settings. THIEF is definitely an 8th generation game trying to run on 7th generation hardware. I felt the same about Far Cry 3 and Battlefield 3 by the way.
 

grimmiq

Member
Just cleared chapter 3 on Master, not going for any special runs/conditions. Noticed the lip synching is really bad..sometimes 2-3 seconds off. A few awkward animations, was looking down at my feet as I slowly crossed a balance beam..one of his steps just hung in the air for about 2 metres. Hating that stealth just a matter of light/shadow, was about 3 steps in front of a guy in a slightly shadowed hallway and didn't alert him at all. LOTS of frame drops on PS4, I would forgive the slideshows at zone transitions if there weren't so god damn many of them, long load times too.

Going to try and clear this by tomorrow and trade back...I'm in the middle of Persona 4 and it's hard not to go back to it halfway through a level.
 

Tygamr

Member
So as someone who enjoyed playing Dishonored non-lethal only, would I enjoy this? The gameplay trailer make it look pretty good, but actual gameplay by YouTubers hasn't kept my attention for long, and reviews are all over the place...
 

luxarific

Nork unification denier
Is there anyway to figure out what the thieving challenges are before finishing the level (like obviously not getting caught will always be a challenge, but things like
snuffing candles
are also challenges occasionally(?)).
 

UnrealEck

Member
I was just playing there and quit from frustration. I pick up a valuable, Garrett is looking at it, meanwhile I'm trying to hurry because a guard is coming round behind me but I can't do anything until he stop looking at the object he just picked up. So naturally I get caught by the guard.
So fucking annoying. I had to start way back at a previous checkpoint and I had spent ages looting a bunch of stuff.

So as someone who enjoyed playing Dishonored non-lethal only, would I enjoy this? The gameplay trailer make it look pretty good, but actual gameplay by YouTubers hasn't kept my attention for long, and reviews are all over the place...

It's slower than Dishonored. Thief is more about sneaking constantly and stealing stuff. Dishonored is about assassination and it's more action-oriented.
 

Wag

Member
This game is pissing me off. I was sneaking around trying to do one side mission for an hour, until I finally found that 1 spot in the level where it let me use my rope arrow. Who planned that bullshit?

I'm still stuck on 2 side missions on lvl 2. The maps are really no help because they don't really show you how to get where you need to be.

If the rest of the game is like this I'm just going to throw in the towel.
 
it's a pretty decent game overall but i'm getting terrible performance on my system. got an i7 2600k, 8gb ram & a gtx 660 and it's one the choppiest games i've ever played. stuttering all over the shop. tried multiple gpu drivers, resolutions, settings. even tried reinstalling it to my ssd and it still didn't fix it. another thing, which is admittedly more of an ocd thing on my part, is i can't seem to find a good balance between the difficulty settings and what hud items to show. after about 10 hours and multiple restarts, i think master with most hud items disabled is about right, still not happy though. bah, damn ocd. opinions?

Hmm, I'm getting almost flawless performance with settings maxxed on my i5 2500k, 670 & 8 gb of ram. I noticed a bit of chop for the first 1-2 seconds when you visit Stonemarket for the first time, but that's it so far.

For the options, I've kept the ammo counter and light gem on, and just recently turned on the mini-map toggle. I might disable the mini-map again however because I just realised that I can view the map on the journal menu. I'm playing on Master - no attacking civilians, and guards will kill Garrett in 1-2 attacks.
 

Orca

Member
Finished the first level on Xbox One and I was impressed by the size of the environment and the possibilities for sneaking through. I thought I'd explored everywhere and only had 48 out of the 60+ loot available.
 

justjim89

Member
Are the sidequests constant, or do they disappear if you move the story forward? Have had trouble activating them, cause Basso is never at the Burrick when I go.
 

malfcn

Member
So how are people feeling about it? Did it receive hate similar to Ryse, and gamers are enjoying it? Or likely a 50/50 split?
 

Tygamr

Member
It's slower than Dishonored. Thief is more about sneaking constantly and stealing stuff. Dishonored is about assassination and it's more action-oriented.

I didn't play Dishonored as an action game though (on my first run). I did a non-lethal ghost playthrough first, and had the most fun doing that. My question is, would this be kind of like a non-lethal ghost playthrough of Dishonored?
 

Dead

well not really...yet
By the end of the game I should be able to open the greatest fountain pen and letter opener store the world has ever seen.
 
I didn't play Dishonored as an action game though (on my first run). I did a non-lethal ghost playthrough first, and had the most fun doing that. My question is, would this be kind of like a non-lethal ghost playthrough of Dishonored?

I honestly preferred my playthrough so far to my non-lethal Dishonored run because Thief is enitrely built around playing the game non-lethally.
 

UnrealEck

Member
I didn't play Dishonored as an action game though (on my first run). I did a non-lethal ghost playthrough first, and had the most fun doing that. My question is, would this be kind of like a non-lethal ghost playthrough of Dishonored?

Thief is still going to be slower than Dishonored. The way you control your character in Thief is very basic too. There's not much too it. There's not as much freeflowing fluidity to the controls and movement in Thief as there is in Dishonored. The use of the environment is very restricted.
Here's a post from above as an example:

This game is pissing me off. I was sneaking around trying to do one side mission for an hour, until I finally found that 1 spot in the level where it let me use my rope arrow. Who planned that bullshit?

The game's level design is very restrictive. It's not as fun to traverse the environments as it is in DH.

Dishonored's set pieces are a bit more interesting too. Plus the dialogue is better. I can't think of how to describe it that well but Dishonored's world just seems more fun to explore.
Thief does have a good atmosphere though.

I think a lot of what bugs me about Thief is thinking of what it could have been. If they had opened the city up, given more control to the player instead of having triggered prompts everywhere and having more variety and complexity to the environments, it would have been a better game.
 

UnrealEck

Member
I never played the older games, I already got the game after playing the console version for a bit. Hell, figured I could afford giving Eidos full price after getting all their recent games for like 5 bucks and I had some money to spend on stupid impulse stuff lying around lol

So I can just play the older games later and won't miss a thing right - aside from potential disappointment in the new game of course -? Have they aged well?

Thief (the original) is free on Amazon (includes Steam key). Check here for details.
 

RedSwirl

Junior Member
The game's level design is very restrictive. It's not as fun to traverse the environments as it is in DH.

Dishonored's set pieces are a bit more interesting too. Plus the dialogue is better. I can't think of how to describe it that well but Dishonored's world just seems more fun to explore.
Thief does have a good atmosphere though.

I think a lot of what bugs me about Thief is thinking of what it could have been. If they had opened the city up, given more control to the player instead of having triggered prompts everywhere and having more variety and complexity to the environments, it would have been a better game.

Dishonored's environments certainly feel more systemic, even if only slightly. Structurally, Dishonored is less driven by prompts and strict planning and more by simply putting things in the environment for the player to exploit.
 

Dezzy

Member
I'm glad I ignored reviews and bought Thief.(not that I had a choice, since I preordered.)

This game is extremely enjoyable so far. I have it set to Master, with Focus and Minimaps both disabled. It nearly forces you to never be seen, and it's a ton of fun just waiting and watching guards and sneaking by at the perfect time, or knocking them out and stashing bodies.

Thief 1-3 are my favorite games of all time. This new one isn't quite as good especially in level design, but it's still a very good game and very enjoyable if you're into the slow paced gameplay. And honestly, there just aren't many games of this type, so we take what we can get.

I only paid about $30 for the PC version, and it was well worth it.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
I finished the second story mission and I think I'm leaning towards this game being bad. It's too bad, because I really like the art style and the idea of the game. There's just so much "jank" for what is supposed to be a polished big-budget game and, so far at least, the game feels horribly disjointed to the point that it's affecting my enjoyment.

The worst part is that there seems to be a distinct lack of options in how to tackle a level. Hopefully it opens up a bit more later on. I'll give it at least a few more missions before deciding whether or not I'll play this to completion, but right now I'm fairly disappointed.

What were they thinking with this story, by the way? The world seems like it's ripe for a cool story, but nothing shown so far has been the least bit interesting.
 

UnrealEck

Member
I'm giving up. This game's movement frustrates me so much. I put a rope into a beam of wood so I can climb onto a ledge, I climb up, get stuff I need, then want back down. I go on the rope, climb down the rope and I can't get off of it. It will not let me off the rope. I need to go back up the rope and back onto the ledge. Then I need to jump off the ledge, taking damage because of its height.
Then, 2 minutes later, I shoot a rope arrow into another beam to cross a gap. When I try to jump onto the rope, it doesn't grab it, so I fall to my death.

This restrictive triggered movement system is garbage. I can't understand how developers make stupid decisions like this over something so simple.
 

golem

Member
Is there anyway to figure out what the thieving challenges are before finishing the level (like obviously not getting caught will always be a challenge, but things like
snuffing candles
are also challenges occasionally(?)).

Go to your Objectives and/or Character progression screens
 
I'm giving up. This game's movement frustrates me so much. I put a rope into a beam of wood so I can climb onto a ledge, I climb up, get stuff I need, then want back down. I go on the rope, climb down the rope and I can't get off of it. It will not let me off the rope. I need to go back up the rope and back onto the ledge. Then I need to jump off the ledge, taking damage because of its height.
Then, 2 minutes later, I shoot a rope arrow into another beam to cross a gap. When I try to jump onto the rope, it doesn't grab it, so I fall to my death.

This restrictive triggered movement system is garbage. I can't understand how developers make stupid decisions like this over something so simple.

WTF? Seriously? How on earth could they limit agency in an already restricted gameplay style? This is something the original Thief have already resolved. Jesus.
 

Moff

Member
I'm giving up. This game's movement frustrates me so much. I put a rope into a beam of wood so I can climb onto a ledge, I climb up, get stuff I need, then want back down. I go on the rope, climb down the rope and I can't get off of it. It will not let me off the rope. I need to go back up the rope and back onto the ledge. Then I need to jump off the ledge, taking damage because of its height.
Then, 2 minutes later, I shoot a rope arrow into another beam to cross a gap. When I try to jump onto the rope, it doesn't grab it, so I fall to my death.

This restrictive triggered movement system is garbage. I can't understand how developers make stupid decisions like this over something so simple.
getting off the rope is an extra button, its not "jump" or "cancel", its "drop down" and can be used to drop down ledges, too.
 
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