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#25: May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits.

#26: May you marry a ghost, bear a kitten, and may the High King of Glory permit it to get the mange.

#27: May you be rained on at some point in your life.

And FYI, here is a way to add HDR to Thief using ENBSeries and ddfix.

The work is already done in the form of the recent fanmade "patch" which improves things so much that it's obviously really a source port based on the leaked Dreamcast WinCE Dark Engine source. GoG would have legal and liability issues with using that as things currently stand, but perhaps something could be worked out.

How disappointing.

The game was waaaay ahead of its time with a large variety of weapons, alternate ammo and power modes, gobs of explosives and grenades and landmines, upgrades for the player (jumpjet boots, powered skates, night/infrared vision, a camera for the back of your freaking head!), stat boosting drugs with side effects, objectives/tasks, cyberspace in that laughable 1990's 3d style... Oh, it's glorious. AND IT WAS RELEASED IN 1994!

I suppose I'll just have to keep hoping to interest in remaking the engine or remaking the game using the System Shock 2 engine rekindles.

At least Thief got a decent remake of sorts on Doom 3 engine. http://www.thedarkmod.com/

Well, I found part of it. It's called the Guide to the Strange and Unusual and it's by Azal. Sadly, the image links haven't held up through the years nor does the link in his sig here go to any Thief related site.

There's a very interesting technique you can use to move pretty much anywhere you like in Thief 1 & 2 due to a physics bug or feature. Until it was discovered by Luthien, fans of the games (at www.ttlg.com) stacked enormous amounts of crates on top of each other to explore different places in levels but one player discovered a trivial method to move like that (crate stacking is somewhat difficult). For those interested, here's how to move through flare elevatoring (the same can be done with keys in Thief 1 but note that you must always have one object of the kind you use, in your inventory all the time so you need at least three). It's easier if you have very low mouse senisitivity so adjust it before trying this.

1. look straight up and drop a flare in the air so that it lands on your head (note: do not throw it but drop it, check your key configuration, if necessary)
2. look straight down and jump, the flare you threw will become "stuck inside you"
3. you can jump once or twice more to gain more height
4. again look straight up and drop a flare in the air like in 1.
5. look straight down, you should see the flare you dropped in 1. below you
6. jump and when doing so also pick up the flare below you
7. jump once or twice more to gain more height
8. goto 4.

You can climb as high as you like but if you're close to the edge of a wall, you'd better not face it since the result of jumping might become an attempt to climb (mantle) it instead. It's better if you wait until you're high enough to mantle it easily.

This technique can also be used to move horizontally in the air but it's quite difficult (at least for me).

A first suggestion of a place to visit is of course the roof of Angelwatch. In the demo they have even placed some AI there but it's not there in the full game version (in neither one are you supposed to actually get there). And in case you didn't know it: The Thief 2 demo is quite a nice playing experience otherwise too, it is a version of "Life of The Party" but with quite a lot of modifications. Very much worth playing, if you liked the full game. You can also try climbing the lighthouse in "Kidnapped" from the outside.

Beware that when you visit locations that you're not supposed to, the game might crash because the polygon limit might be exceeded. In the editor, it's possible to have more polygons on screen than in the actual game and thus some places like that have been possible to design and the level designers have only taken into account from what directions you should be able to see them.

More about the technique here.

Another location: In case you didn't know it, there's an easter egg in "Framed" in Thief 2: If you throw a scouting orb over the fence to your left in the beginning of the level, you'll see something funny (a couple of dancing zombies) and you can even visit them (without flare elevatoring). One of the buildings in front of you has a roof object instead of a real roof and that object has no physics properties so you can climb onto it even though it looks too steep and high to allow it. I don't remember exactly which building it is, probably the tavern you can enter. From its roof you can then jump over the fence. I don't remember if the zombies will care about you or not.

And one more: In Thief 1 (and Thief 1 Gold), you can enter the cathedral during your first visit to it too. If you go behind the cathedral to the window (which isn't even there when you visit it again in "Return to The Cathedral"), you can enter the cathedral through it like this: Jump up to it so that you're "in it" but can't squeeze through since you're not meant to. Turn 180 degrees and jump. You'll fly straight into the cathedral. This jumping backwards with higher force feature, is probably meant to stop you from getting stuck somewhere but you can exploit it like this. The haunts inside won't see you since the level has their vision off to reduce CPU load but they will hear you

You can make a backup of ClientRegistry.blob in the Steam folder to restore Offline use of Steam:

1. Log in to Stream, making sure that "store account details on this computer" is active
2. Exit Steam. Do not log out, just exit
3. Make a copy of the ClientRegistry.blob file in the Steam folder
4. Start Steam without an Internet connection, it should ask you if you'd like offline mode
5. If Steam decides that it doesn't want to start in offline mode anymore, copy the ClientRegistry.blob file that you have backed up back into the Steam folder

Sort of a pain, but once it's working it's not so bad. I agree that nobody should have to do this to play the games that they bought.

I wanted to play through that again to get over the vague sense of disappointment after I finished Bioshock. Unfortunately it looks like arse on a 1440x900 monitor. Fortunately, a couple of weeks ago someone published a widescreen patch. I'm busy at the moment fighting off the king of France's expeditionary force which is about six times the size of my rebel army, but once I've finished building my free state on top of a mountain of skulls I'll be back on the Von Braun in high resolution :-)

Last I checked, spouting outright lies is a key feature of trolling. 2 seconds of research would have found out that Poor sales of Thief did not kill Looking Glass and that 2D Boy has had no serious piracy. In fact, the Looking Glass post-mortem explicitly says:

This hasn't even a grain of truth. Thief sold well and, according to Tim Stellmach (Gamespy interview), Looking Glass made millions of dollars from it. If Thief had failed to be a hit, Looking Glass would have died. Instead, Thief kept the company going.

If his post acts like a troll, sounds like a troll, and smells like a troll, it's a troll.

Your post sounds perfectly reasonable and solid on the outset. Too bad it's complete nonsense.

On the matter of Thief, here is the Looking Glass post-mortem.

Looking Glass died because a series of problems compounded each other into a financially lethal situation. No single factor is to blame. No single person or entity killed Looking Glass. No one problem was enough, on its own, to kill the company. Nonetheless, the problems were deadly when combined.

Interestingly, you'll find that piracy isn't even mention. Piracy did not kill Looking Glass studios. Difficult financials did, same as Origin, Westwood, and a multitude of other classic studios.

And take "world of goo", an awesome game, that (like mine) ships totally DRM-free. It's pirated to oblivion, and they are no doubt losing tons of sales.

"No doubt" is not a real-world metric. In fact, 2D Boy EXPLICITLY shipped with no DRM on the honor system. So far, it has not hurt them. And with the recent release on the Nintendo Wii, 2D Boy is flying high with the first 10/10 review from WiiWare World.

As much as I'd like to believe your post is simply ignorant, I cannot ignore your posting history. All posts on copyright topics, all in favor of stronger copyrights. You are most certainly a shill. The question is, for whom do you shill?

Mod parent -1 Troll.

I have a dual-core and I have tried setting processor affinity. I've also used imagecfg.exe to make the affinity permanent but still to no avail. I've used an unwrapper for the copy protection. I've downloaded the "xp-fixed" exe's but they just have the affinity set in them. Thank you for the tip I really wish it would work on my machine but I guess I can't expect miracles from a game thats almost a decade old.

Through the Looking Glass has a comprehensive forum of things to try to get SS2 working but unfortunately none of it has worked for me.

That's not informative. Both your links are for System Shock 2.
The poster was talking about System Shock 1.

However, there is a hack for SS1 that enables high screen resolutions, (800x600, 1024x768) which were programmed into the original game, but never enabled as they would be ridiculously slow on the computers of the time.

Have a look here:
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=100041

http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=116049/

Slashdot should quit it with the tabloid news posts. There is no root-kit. http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=116202

The AI could see not only see in a view fustrum, but also by how much light you were lit by. The AI could hear depending on what surface you walked on, you could affect the light by putting out torches, affect the sound my mossing the floor. The AI notice bodies and things out of place, such as a climbing rope. The AI also had different alert states. I think that they are pretty good for a game made almost a decade ago.

There are over 400 Thief series fan missions. Last night, I played "Ominous Bequest"
http://southquarter.com/?p=131
One level change for 6 hours of gameplay! Yes, Thief 1 and 2 graphics are quite dated, and low-poly, but if you can forgive that, the gameplay and atmosphere compensates for it.

Lately, there's been a reinsurance in Thief 1 and 2 add-on missions. There's a updated version of 680mb Thief2X add on. Missions like "Ashen Age," and a "Night in Rocksburg" have breathed a little life into T2 visually.
http://forums.eidosgames.com/showthread.php?t=5526 3
http://southquarter.com/?p=131

Someone is working to refresh the Thief Series Engine, but the source code would help. I wish that Eidos would release the source code--for an eight year old game.
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=102289 &page=11

The Seventh Crystal by "Saturnine", for Thief 2. Not only is it a well-designed, challenging mission with an immersive, dramatic storyline, atmospheric and spooky setting, and an innovative use of scripted cutscenes, but it contains the single most startling, adrenaline-pounding moment of any level of any game I've ever played.

Can't help with the sequel but System Shock has been packaged up nicely to work with XP. There's a thread about it here.

Mind you, I'm running just the CDSHOCK.EXE and not !START.EXE. The mouse cursor is a little slow but it works great. If you have issues, try both. More trouble? Check the thread.

Can't say I understand the Fire Emblem saves (never played). You get a main save at the start/end of each chapter and, basically, a save anywhere so long as you quit which, upon loading, gets wiped? Sounds like it works.

This is all well and good, but what I'd really like to see on Steam is the "ancient school" games that used to run on Win95/DOS running under Windows XP and available $5-$10 a pop. It seems like an ideal situation for Valve; small download sizes, minimal work, and I would think a high demand. As for the gamers, we could get games like the original System Shock running no hassle under WinXP, with possibly some minor graphical improvements (i.e., unlocking higher res video modes in this example).

I know games such as these are widely available on abandonware sites, but I would gladly pay for true support. Referring to System Shock again, I managed to get it to run fine on my old laptop with Windows XP, but my current system is unable to play it reliably, despite trying to use Dos Box, VDM Sound, etc. I would gladly pay for these games if I could easily run them, and would like to support the developers who made them. We could have Lucasarts Adventures, classic DOS games, and older FPSes at our fingertips without delving into a legal quagmire such as abandonware. Is this just a pipe dream?

For System Shock 2, see this thread on the TTLG forums.

As for the original System Shock: I have tried for many hours but could not get it to work. There is a thread on it at the TTLG forums, but for me the tips there did not work. It is a pity, because System Shock is among my favorite games of all time, and I would love to play it again, this time in 640x480 mode.

For System Shock 2, see this thread on the TTLG forums.

As for the original System Shock: I have tried for many hours but could not get it to work. There is a thread on it at the TTLG forums, but for me the tips there did not work. It is a pity, because System Shock is among my favorite games of all time, and I would love to play it again, this time in 640x480 mode.

We don't need to be scared at all to enjoy a game. Many years ago the most popular games around, and arguably some of the most inventive, were adventure games, a la Lucasarts, including Grim Fandango, Curse of Monkey Island, etc. These games were engaging, funny, and downright pleasant to play. Immersive as hell, too. I recently tried Quake 4 and was blown away by the stupidity of the game. Get bigger guns. Get ammo. Throw grenade. Shoot and kill. How bloody novel. Hour after hour after hour of the same old sh*t. I haven't like a first person shooter since I played Theif. Boy, what a rant, but games today suck ass because idiots think that adrenaline is needed or it won't sell. So we end up with shelf after shelf stocked with the same f*cking game in fifty different boxes. Hell, at this point I'd be happy to play Zork :(

What exactly seems to be the problem? Maybe give this FAQ a whirl, it might have the answer. Otherwise you'll have to post some specifics, either here (where it'll probably get lost in the shuffle) or over on the TTLG forums, or their IRC.

I've honestly never tried, but I found this link that might help;
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=69578

I own SS2 still, but sold my SS1 along with my old P90@100 back in 95. Kind of wish I hadn't done that now. But things worked out I guess. :p

I have Dosbox on my Macs. I own PCs also of course. :) I would like to pick up a copy of SS1 on eBay, or wherever and give it a try.

I didn't know that SS1 was being updated. I hope it pans out.

I'll have to pull out my copy of DX and give it another try. I felt the same way about NPCs. But I have to say that being led on with the possibility of others to assist, but then hear them killed added to the game for me, since it really let me know that I was truly alone on this space station. :) I just recall Shodan always contacting me at the worst times possible and scaring the crap out of me.

Same here about UW, I put weeks into it. Unfortanely I encountered a bug at the very end. I know this, because after getting completely stuck and not being able to open the last door, re-tracking all of steps many-many times, I finally gave-up and bought the strategy guide. I learned that I had everything I needed, had flipped the levers in the correct order, but could never get the last door opened no matter how many times I tried.

I played UW2 about half way, the game was great to that point, but it also glitched on me. :( I got to a point that I couldn't go any further, decided to buy the stradegy guide, since I had encountered a bug with UW, and sure enough, it was another bug. *grumbles* I would like to finish UW and UW2 some day, I just need to find the time and pickup the games again. I regret selling all of my old DOS games, they're still some of my favorites.

<]=)

Wish I had the link to the original article/interview where this was mentioned... (Again, I'm only recounting this from memory, I've been looking on the Through the Looking Glass forums and the SS2 fan sites to find the quote, but with no luck).

I think it boils down to when Looking Glass Studios went under.... the company portfolio was sold piecemeal to the highest bidder. It was inferred that in order to create System Shock 3, then someone would have to find out who owns each bit of the System Shock rights and relicense or buy those pieces back in order to legitamately create and release the game. EA owns the trademarks to SS3, I don't know what SS portfolio pieces EA owns and/or whether they would be willing and able to make a proper version of SS3 (In getting Irrational/Take Two to develop it rather than internally themselves, but then again this is EA we're talking about :-( ).

if not, why not?

Here's your answer to that question!

Wish I had the link to the original article/interview where this was mentioned... (Again, I'm only recounting this from memory, I've been looking on the Through the Looking Glass forums and the SS2 fan sites to find the quote, but with no luck).

I think it boils down to when Looking Glass Studios went under.... the company portfolio was sold piecemeal to the highest bidder. It was inferred that in order to create System Shock 3, then someone would have to find out who owns each bit of the System Shock rights and relicense or buy those pieces back in order to legitamately create and release the game. EA owns the trademarks to SS3, I don't know what SS portfolio pieces EA owns and/or whether they would be willing and able to make a proper version of SS3 (In getting Irrational/Take Two to develop it rather than internally themselves, but then again this is EA we're talking about :-( ).

if not, why not?

Here's your answer to that question!

Hear, Hear!!

I second that emotion. I've played Thief, Thief II, and Thief III. Not only were the games great fun and engaging the first time around but the tremendous fan support made it even better. The original missions in Thief were, for most, more entertaining and engaging but the improved Dark enging in Thief II took the play to the next leve, I thought. Thief III, released after the untimely demise of EIDOS, is a different game entirely...it lacks the original spark of the first two...but it will scare the weak-of-heart into cardiac arrest if you aren't careful.

For both The original Thief and the improved engine in Thief II, hundreds of fantastic fan missions are available. My aging CD's from Thief are going on six years old, they are _both_ loaded on my current systm, and are fully playable.

http://www.ttlg.com/
http://www.thief-thecircle.com/

Thief 1 & Thief 2 have no problem with WinXP, it's the installer that does not work. See the Thief FAQ for a workaround.

Irrational was known to be shopping for a publisher -- especially to EA, since it had been made clear they no longer wanted to work with EA.

A quick google, and it turns out the rumors of Take2 publishing BS (sorry, couldn't resist the pun) were seriously around as early as 11/30/05, which fits our timeline pretty nicely -- Take2 filed for the Bioshock trademark on 11/16.

Also, see this thread from last November, there's a post from 11/12 that gives a tip:

I think Irrational will avoid EA at all costs. Shock fans are rather ticked at them, and Bioshock is not permitted to have explicit connections with those games because EA isn't letting anyone near the IP. -TheGreatGodPan of TTLG. Don't know if he's an insider or not, but it's checked out well.

You need Dungeon Siege 1 or Legends of Aranna to play this. Just FYI. I like the Thief add on stuff for Unreal Tournament. I don't remember where I got it but this site has a lot of Thief info

Looking Glass Studios is gone, although many of the employees did wind up working for Ion Storm Austin on Thief 3.

Big congrats to the the T2X team though, who started all this back when we weren't sure there'd be a T3. I look forward to playing this (and the Circle of Stone and Shadow, if that's ever finished....)

Looking Glass Studios is gone, although many of the employees did wind up working for Ion Storm Austin on Thief 3.

Big congrats to the the T2X team though, who started all this back when we weren't sure there'd be a T3. I look forward to playing this (and the Circle of Stone and Shadow, if that's ever finished....)

I tried to load adblock in, and was informed it was not compatible with Netscape, which is fair enough. Not to be putoff I copied my Firefox "extensions" folder into the Netscape one and saw them all appear in the Netscape Extensions window, which suprised me. Clicking on any of them caused Netscape to lock up, which was fabulous, although I guess not entirely unexpected!

Another gripe was that I couldn't select all the "trusted sites" and remove them all at once. Instead I had to remove each one manually and click YES I AM DAMN SURE I WANT TO REMOVE IT THAT'S WHY I CLICKED THE BUTTON every time.

Anyway it doesn't seem too bad all in all, although switching from a gecko engine to a gecko/MSIE (what's the name of that engine? It alludes me at the moment) seems like a step in the wrong direction.

Planetside was and is a Sony Online Entertainment production.

As for Turbine, the real question to ask isn't how many subscribers did the game have, but what was the return on investment for the game? We know that games like WoW and EQ make money hand over fist, and that the bulk of their expenses in the long term roughly scale with the number of users (there may be an economy of scale at work, making a large number of subscribers even more profitable, though). MMOGs also have an advantage over non-served games: if the long-term income for a MMOG from subscriptions is high enough, it can even make up for a shortfall in game box sales, if the servers are kept running long enough. Non-served games can't do that - if the game flops, the company loses money because the box sales didn't offset the initial production costs.

This brings up another thought - that for all those companies that went under because of the very rough seas in the games industry, at least a few of them could have been saved, and could have made those games they always wanted to make (and on their own terms, too) if they just have a running MMOG in their portfolio to ensure long-term company profitability.

In any case, I'm glad to see Turbine taking steps to make itself less dependent on its publisher(s). Internet distribution is another important (perhaps the next for Turbine?) step in making one's game development company self-sufficient.

Never had a C64, but I'm totally with you on Thief. Once you finish the main missions, hit TTLG for some killer additional levels. Some of the unofficial expansions have top-notch art and voice acting. Really makes you wonder how so many major studios manage to fuck those elements up. Must be because of the fans' dedication to the series.

For a site I run Firefox is nearing 30% usage for Feb-Mar 2005 (some 20 million hits) Internet Explorer 59.3 % Firefox 28.5 % Opera 6.9 % Mozilla 3% Netscape 1 % Safari 0.5 %

i always liked the music, of both shock1 & 2, for the overall atmosphere.

theres a nice compilation of Shock1 and Shock2. The TTLG Jukebox. Still rocks.

and remember to salt the fries!

i always liked the music, of both shock1 & 2, for the overall atmosphere.

theres a nice compilation of Shock1 and Shock2. The TTLG Jukebox. Still rocks.

and remember to salt the fries!

i always liked the music, of both shock1 & 2, for the overall atmosphere.

theres a nice compilation of Shock1 and Shock2. The TTLG Jukebox. Still rocks.

and remember to salt the fries!

theres a nice FAQ on TTLG to get it working, if you havent tried this already.

With the VDMSOUND thingy, i got it running with midi/sound, no problems.
And it still kicks ass, after a few minutes adjusting to the graphics. :)

How can you challenge a perfect, immortal being like me, puny hacker?

theres a nice FAQ on TTLG to get it working, if you havent tried this already.

With the VDMSOUND thingy, i got it running with midi/sound, no problems.
And it still kicks ass, after a few minutes adjusting to the graphics. :)

How can you challenge a perfect, immortal being like me, puny hacker?

I'm surprised no one has gone back and remade it, or touched it up.

They have. The folks over at http://sshock2.com keep up to date on all the information. One of the upgrades is an increase in detail to the models of the AI figures. It's called Rebirth. I love it, it really gives an upgrade to the "ghosts" you see in the game who have pointy hands (anyone who's played SS2 knows what I'm talking about).

On the heels of Rebirth came the hi-res texture mod called SHTUP (pronounced shtoop).

There was also an upgrade to the cutscenes in the game, by a group called Wuggles Unlimited, but they seem to have disappeared (lack of hosting).

Look around, there are still fans of SS2 doing work with it!

Some cool SHODAN's quotes to give you the chills and flashbacks:

"Step right into my trap, little hacker!"

"Look at you hacker. A pathetic creature of meat and bone, panting and sweating as you run through my corridors. How can you challenge a perfect immortal machine?"

"Welcome, to my DEATH MACHINE, interloper!!"

The rest of cool quotes can be found here: http://www.ttlg.com/ss1/archive/voice.htm

http://www.sshock2.com/ is still an awesome Web site. Don't forget its forum.

I never did get to play co-operative play with SS2. I heard it is pretty cool. Did anyone play it?

Here's a link to a page that has how to get System Shock 1 working. (I haven't followed the steps yet, but I have no reason to believe they won't work.) http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threa did=69578/

Link for SS1 audio files front page is here. Enjoy!

P.S. It's a pity that SS3 isn't on the horizon, but we can dream though! (Unless Eidos wants to give Warren a whole load of cash to do it).

Link for SS1 audio files front page is here. Enjoy!

P.S. It's a pity that SS3 isn't on the horizon, but we can dream though! (Unless Eidos wants to give Warren a whole load of cash to do it).

with Looking Glass Games, the ill-fated makers of Thief, System Shock, etc.

There's a lot of help out there for that - try Dromed Central and Komag's Introductory Tutorial. There's also the Editors' Guild at TTLG.

Because there is no way to patch the XBox version, an updated gamedisk is going to be re-released, according to the Through The Looking Glass Forum Admin (who I can only assume is a reliable source). It is currently unknown whether or not people who bought the unpatched version will be able to trade the game in.

Granted, star control 2 had some of the best mod's to ever grace my ears. more recently, however, the baldur's gate series, planescape torment, system shock 2, the fallouts, and the "newer" lucasarts adventures like grim fandango or curse of monkey island all have tunes permanently lodged in my brain. if you think all video game music has to be dull, lifeless, or uninspired, please do yourself a favour and buy these games or leech their soundtracks.

inertplay had, up until a short while ago, an online mp3 collection of the soundtracks to a good chunk of the games they put out. not sure why the page was taken down.. used to be here .. anyone know what happened to it?

Double-Rubbish on that... I tried exactly that and got it to install and run...It just wasn't playable.

Oh? Sorry! I have Thief Gold and Thief 2 installed and working via DarkLoader for my fan missions. System Shock 2 works as well. There's an unofficial patch for SS2 to make it work. I can't find it at the moment but google should help.

Ah, if your machine has Hyperthreading or is a dual-cpu unit you should look at this link for a program called Process Loader which helps. Also make sure you patch your game binaries to the latest versions, that solves some problems.

My game machine is a P3-500 (OC'd to 566) with Win2K. Not the best but I'm waiting for Thief 3 and Doom 3 before I do the big upgrade. :)

Hope this helps!

ps: we can carry this thread offline, mail grub@grub.net (hotmail/msn/aol/yahoo accounts are only accepted from a whitelist..)