Thief Deadly Shadows 1.1 Patch Fixes AI

Lemmus writes "A patch for the PC version of Thief: Deadly Shadows is now available. The patch fixes the AI skill level being reset whenever a level is reloaded, the major bug previously reported in a post at Slashdot Games. This is apparently the only thing that the patch fixes, so users with other problems have to wait for another patch. Although Ion Storm warns against installing the patch on installations with user-modified .ini files, most users don't seem to be having any trouble with it."

Comments

Thief 3 Editor Petition

[Phoenixhunter]

http://www.petitiononline.com/t3editor/petition.ht ml If you like the game, sign on up. The community will do the rest.

Re:Thief 3 Editor Petition

[Phoenixhunter]

Perhaps a little html would help me out here.

Thief 3 Editor Petition

If you're at all familiar with Thief 1/2, you'll know that there is a great community that to this day makes Thief 2 missions.

Re:Thief 3 Editor Petition

[GlasWolf]

If you're unsure about the petition, please have a look at the parent site at http://www.thiefpetition.com/. If that doesn't convince you then nothing will.

Re:Thief 3 Editor Petition

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny coincidence. Just a week ago i got hold of Thief 2 and i started making levels for it. Great game, but the editor needs some more documentation.

Re:Thief 3 Editor Petition

[AllUsernamesAreGone]

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.

Honestly... (Ironic, I know..)

[Metallic Matty]

No offense to Ion or any other fine producer of games out there, but should these kind of patches really be necessary?

I mean honestly, do they HAVE testing? You'd think something like this would be noticed ahead of release.

All I can think of this Penny-Arcade in reference to Splinter Cell.

Re:Honestly... (Ironic, I know..)

[Zorak Man]

I'm not bashing you here, but its alot of work to test a game, there are so many problems that could arise. It seems very obvious once we see the bug and it is patched, but its a whole different story after you have been testing the game for weeks on end and you are being pressured by your publisher to meet the deadline.

Re:Honestly... (Ironic, I know..)

[kokij]

The first release of Thief was accepted by Eidos - this is pretty rare in the games industry. Usually the publisher will ask for revisions / fixes etc and wait for a new copy.

Having played the game and having hung out on TTLG.com, this is pretty much the only major problem anyone has reported - and it isn't game breaking or anything. You can still play fine.

And it does only affect those playing on Expert difficulty. All in all, it's a very polished game. Ignore what people are saying about Invisible War (which I liked btw) - it's a very different game.

Re:Honestly... (Ironic, I know..)

[It'sYerMam]

Glad to hear it - I'm ordering it post haste. I loved Thief 2, and the promise of similar atmosphere and better AI/Graphics makes me foam at the mouth.
I'm not too disappointed about the lack of rope-arrows, but I'm concerned about the dumbing down of the game - climbing gloves would appear to make escaping very easy, and portals might utterly ruin the atmosphere.
That said, with a game such as this, it will take a lot to ruin the game, even if it is sliced into chunks for XBoxes. I'm a firm fan of these hand-shakingly tense games.

Re:Honestly... (Ironic, I know..)

[DrMrLordX]

Humor always has been, is, and always will be subjective.

example:

IN SOVIET RUSSIA, story ends YOU!

Re:Honestly... (Ironic, I know..)

[LoocSiMit]

No offense to Ion or any other fine producer of games out there, but should these kind of patches really be necessary?

I mean honestly, do they HAVE testing? You'd think something like this would be noticed ahead of release.

Ah, so you must work work on one of those perfect software projects that always produce bug-free software on time and on budget then. What is it? We know it can't be for Microsoft, Apple, Sun, Novell, IBM, Linux, BSD, Apache, Mozilla, KDE, Gnome, Samba... Hell, even NASA get it wrong sometimes and their code costs orders of magnitude more than most commerical software.

So, please enlighten us as to what major software projects you produce and educate us as to your methods.

Re:Honestly... (Ironic, I know..)

[Anonymous Coward]

"and educate us as to your methods."

Well, true that the most elusive method is Testing. Seems most shops use the test as you code philosophy. This may not apply in this case, but testing has _always_ been the most difficult. And, if a project's budget is ever cut, you can be assured it will drop from testing first.

Basically, testing is compared to the arts when the economy goes sour. :D

This problem, though, could be they have TOO skilled Thief players doing the testing. They could have been TOO good to notice the differences. I found Thief 2 really hard, so I played on the easiest level, so I would notice a jump in difficulty. Probably the only game since Zork that I wrote notes while playing!

Re:Honestly... (Ironic, I know..)

[Sancho]

Hate to ruin/spoil it for you, but climbing gloves don't make escape easy /at/all/. They are highly limited in their use (unfortunately) and can't be used like you would imagine them, such as climing around things or onto extended ledges. As such, except for a few specific purposes in the game, they are virtually useless.
Overall, however, I'm very pleased with T:DS. Best $35 I've spent in a long time.

Re:Honestly... (Ironic, I know..)

[Anonymous Coward]

So what's your idea of funny? Red Meat or User Friendly?

Re:Honestly... (Ironic, I know..)

[fireduck]

But this is not an obscure problem. Game being promoted as having advanced AI that really makes things difficult for the player. The AI breaks whenever you save your game, or go back to a previously entered zone. The players picked up on this bug fairly quickly after the game was released; indiciating it was not all that difficult to discover.

Compare this to a bug in Starcraft; the invulnerable drone. It took players months and months to discover that if you morphed a drone at just the right time, he'd end up with 0 hit points and could never be killed. This is incredibly obscure and the conditions leading up to it are fairly unlikely (hence, the long time after release before it was discovered).

As for the severity of the thief bug, someone incorrectly points out in this thread that it only affects expert difficult. It actually affects every difficulty level but normal (as it resets the AI to normal.) Still a playable game, but not at the difficulty you wanted.

Re:Honestly... (Ironic, I know..)

[ksiddique]

Don't forget this classic from back in the day...

How does this deserve to be on the front page?

[mtrisk]

No offense, but...

Akamai gets attacked, and the story gets rejected from slashdot, yet a minor patch about a game I've never heard about makes the front page? They must be feeding bat guano to the editors down there in the locked basement.
Slashdot usually manages to post good stories, but there's always a quirk now and then.

Re:How does this deserve to be on the front page?

[strider_starslayer]

The Akamai attack, while huge is all speculation- there's nothing really 'concrete' to report; save that it happened, or seemed to happen... Also the attack only lasted two hours, those were all probabally contributing factors to an Akami story not being accepted (and maby, just maby, all the submitters made really bad posts!).

That said- I think an Akamai story should have made post. But Thief 3 is a great game in a lineage of great games, your ignorance to its existance is, I apologise, irrelivant. Its important to nerds, so it makes slashdot (as I agree that the Akamai story should have)

Background: The Thief engine was used sucessfuly in thief 1 and thief 2, which were first person shooters that focused NOT on combat, and killing (in fact your charecter would loose against individual opponents quite easily), but on stealth, guile and tricking the (very inteligent) AI. The same theif engine was used in System shock 1 and 2 (with some modifications to allow for level gaining), since you've never heard of thief I won't expect you to have heard of those either; they were one of the first FPS/RPG hybrid games, and focused on a very intence storyline; that was, damned horrifying to play- Another hallmark of both thief and system shock, perhaps an artifact of an eninge that dose not focuse on combat, is that they are SCARY to play- your heart beats faster, and you find yourself holding your breath, wondering if that enemy will miss you. Or in system shock, you turn the corner only to walk head on to some horrid mutant beastie that will drop you in a few seconds unless you think fast- NOW!

They are very good games, and thief three represents what could possibly represent a resurection of the 'thief type' engine, allowing for more 'thinking FPS' games. I kinda wish that the Bethsheda softworks guys would license the morrowind engine/editor for that same reason.

Re:How does this deserve to be on the front page?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maby is not a word. Maybe is.

Re:How does this deserve to be on the front page?

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, i wonder if my dong is patched will /. carry the story?

Re:How does this deserve to be on the front page?

[Osty]

The Thief engine was used sucessfuly in thief 1 and thief 2

Technically, it was the Dark engine used in those games, not the "Thief engine". It's also fair to note that the latest Thief game is based on the Deus Ex 2 engine (which in turn is ultimately based on Epic's Unreal engine, as with so many other games these days).

The same theif engine was used in System shock 1 and 2

System Shock 2 was based on the Dark engine (IIRC, it shipped between Thief 1 and Thief 2), but System Shock 1 certainly was not. Thief shipped in 1998, while System Shock 1 shipped in 1994. Graphically, System Shock is akin to Doom or Marathon.

Another hallmark of both thief and system shock, perhaps an artifact of an eninge that dose not focuse on combat, is that they are SCARY to play

This is no side effect. It's good game design. The Dark engine pulled this off very well, since it was purpose-designed especially for that feel (developed for Thief, and put to excellent use in SS2), but SS1 was able to pull of that creepy feeling just as well.

They are very good games, and thief three represents what could possibly represent a resurection of the 'thief type' engine, allowing for more 'thinking FPS' games

The Thief and System Shock series have always been closer to cult classics than mainstream, and I don't expect Thief 3 to change that much. However, the proliferation of stealth games these days with the Metal Gear Solid series, Splinter Cell, and even Manhunt (below the snuff film exterior, the game is another 3rd person stealth game) owe a lot to Thief (Splinter Cell's light meter is straight out of Thief 1 circa 1998), and their success is only good news for the Thief franchise.

Now let's see System Shock 3, please!

Re:How does this deserve to be on the front page?

[Soul-Burn666]

I've just got Thief3 a few days ago and I must say... this is one of the most immersive games i've played in a LONG time.

I played Splinter Cell and had a lot of fun, but the level of immersion in Thief3 was (still is, i'm scared to play some part here ;) an order of scale greater. The story is very detailed and downright creepy at some points.
The game isn't perfect, there are glitches here and there (sometimes shadowing problem or getting stuck in the world), but in the whole, the graphics, the maps and the sound are very immersive. You actually feel a part of the world!

Also, finally when you look DOWN, you see your body and legs!! It may seem a stupid feature, but it really adds to the feeling that you really are there and not just a spirit floating like in most other games.

Not only that, but there are so many ways to solve each area... u can be stealthy, you can kill the guard, make noise to make them go away, blow out the light with a water arrow, knock the guard out, shoot moss arrows to run on noisy floor and obviously to climb on various stuff and just get where they can't see you. Oh! u can also throw a flashbomb and make them blind for a while ;) There are more ways than that and prolly ways I can't even think of.

I told a friend of mine started playing it that I get scared by it (sometimes so much that I'm urged to play 3rd person, to see if someone comes from behind). He said "what's so scary about the game?", I told him: "keep playing". hehehe...

This game isn't in the mainstream of games which is why I didn't really bother aquiering the two first titles, but now I can completly understand the large communities behind this game series.

Re:How does this deserve to be on the front page?

[Trejkaz]

Perhaps the assumption was that people had heard of the game. It is afterall one of the biggest titles of this year... unless your head is stuck up Valve's arse. :-)

Re:How does this deserve to be on the front page?

[null etc.]

No offense, but... Akamai gets attacked, and the story gets rejected from slashdot, yet a minor patch about a game I've never heard about makes the front page? They must be feeding bat guano to the editors down there in the locked basement. Slashdot usually manages to post good stories, but there's always a quirk now and then.

If you were a master of economics like me, you'd know why.

Typical ./ readers are geeks who don't have significant others. Therefore, any distraction that allows them to become blissfully aware of their status as single will have great demand.

./ obviously realizes this, and is doing its best to disseminate information about a vital patch to a problem that, if left unresolved, would detract from the typical ./ reader's ability to remain ignorant of their status.

Or, the committee that reviews submitted posts must have been paid off by Ubisoft.

I understand your frustration. I have often made posts concerning newsworthy evens, only to have them eternally rejected because for some reason, certain types of breaking news just don't need to be relayed to the audience who could use it the most.

But, armed with my frustration as motivation, I turned that anger into the effort to learn economics so that I could gain the spiritual insight into the mechanisms of supply and demand of those ever crucial karma points.

Keep this under wraps, okay, but I think I've discovered the formula for whoring myself under multiple personas in order to gain karma-loaded ./ accounts, which I will then sell on ebay to schmucks like you whose submitted posts get continually rejected.

Re:How does this deserve to be on the front page?

[wamatt]

Thats the first thing I thought when I fired up my browser this morning. I would think the majority of /. feel the same way. In an ideal world the frontpage should represent the most interesing and BROADLY relevant topics available. I think something went wrong here.

Re:How does this deserve to be on the front page?

[Anonymous Coward]

No offense, but... Akamai gets attacked, and the story gets rejected from slashdot, yet a minor patch about a game I've never heard about makes the front page? They must be feeding bat guano to the editors down there in the locked basement. Slashdot usually manages to post good stories, but there's always a quirk now and then.

You mean the story about Akamai that was on Slashdot 4 days ago.

Re:How does this deserve to be on the front page?

[Luscious868]

Fuck you is two words, so is cock sucker. Perhaps I'll combine them. Fuck you cock sucker!

Re:How does this deserve to be on the front page?

[Xanlexian]

I was thinking the same thing. Haven't come here in a while -- this is my first time hearing about any news in the world in over two weeks. I'm expecting some exciting news from Mars. Or how the Cassini/Hyughens(sp?) spacecraft is fareing. Maybe something new politically and globally -- maybe Texas did drop from the Union, Russia managed to get back together, or some crazy pro-American (which I am...*sigh*) scheme about how we hate the middle-east THIS week...

No. I find some exciting news about some patch, to some game. Hell, I check for patches for the few games I do play.

Would it be front page news if "Anachronox 2: Boots is Back" was announced to be released next week? No. Probably not.

This is why I've foregone other forms of media.

--Xan

Re:How does this deserve to be on the front page?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thief 2 has some of the scariest enemies in a game i've ever seen. They might almost beat the facehuggers from avp.

"I hast seen thou..."
"Hostility and... A-a-anger"

Add to that their constant ramblings and the sound when they're approaching behind a corner. And their faces... @_@;

I love this game.

Re:How does this deserve to be on the front page?

[Sigma 7]

(in fact your charecter would loose against individual opponents quite easily),

Actually, combat is quite easy to perform in Thief when you know what you're doing. Against the inexperienced guards, you can easily cut them down with a few sword hits.

The only problem would be with Wraiths and other enemies with an ability to perform rapid attacks - those opponents can hit you twice in succession before yuou can even land your first blow. However, I did finally manage to take out those opponents by exploiting a weakness in the AI (they can't attack unless they're in melee range.)

They are very good games, and thief three represents what could possibly represent a resurection of the 'thief type' engine, allowing for more 'thinking FPS' games.

Thief 1 and 2 were good when they were released - even though I recall quickly discovering that blackjacking every single enemy on the level makes thngs very easy. I wouldn't recommend them in this day for a good experience, but they do represent the better games that were released in the past - a good nostalgic experience.

Re:How does this deserve to be on the front page?

[osu-neko]

I wouldn't recommend them in this day for a good experience

Agreed for Thief I, disagree strongly for Thief II. If you see Thief II: The Metal Age around, grab it, it's worth it. At $49.99, it'd be a better buy than most games on the shelf today with that cost or more, the fact that it's likely to be heavily discounted as an older game only makes it an even better value. Within the FPS genre, no better games have been produced to date (don't know about Deadly Shadows yet...)

Re:How does this deserve to be on the front page?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know, why don't you ask your mother? I know she just finished patching my dong. Oh wait, that's sucking on my dong.

Re:How does this deserve to be on the front page?

[System.out.println()]

How good the game is is, I apologize, *irrelevant*. I can't remember the last games story I saw on the main page, and they choose a MINOR PATCH THAT ONLY FIXES ONE ISSUE as one to go on the front page? WTF?

If it was 'Theif 3 breaks sales records', or 'Theif 3 introduces a revolutionary kind of AI', or anything to that effect, it'd be frontpage-worthy. but this is a fucking PATCH. The 2 recent Starcraft patches are more newsworthy than this ('Blizzard still cares about eight year old games' is news)

Re:How does this deserve to be on the front page?

[88NoSoup4U88]

"Also, finally when you look DOWN, you see your body and legs!! It may seem a stupid feature, but it really adds to the feeling that you really are there and not just a spirit floating like in most other games."

The only thing that takes away from the experience of 'really being there' would be the (from what i read) possibility to change to a third-person view.

Re:How does this deserve to be on the front page?

[Prune]

Worst of all, in first person view you lost the ability to lean and look around walls from the previous games.

Ion Storm to blame? Go poke Eidos some.

[Phoenixhunter]

When the people who invest the money want to cash out, they get to choose, not the people they invested into. From the publishers point of view, they know they'll make almost as much money (99%) with an almost perfect game. Every single month extra they wait, they lose money however. So they cash out when *they* choose.

why don't they test before release ?

[kiwipeso]

Honestly, it's pretty damn stupid to not test before releasing as it makes it look unprofessional.
I just wish it was only microsoft who did this kind of thing, but stupidity reigns everywhere...

Re:why don't they test before release ?

[blincoln]

Honestly, it's pretty damn stupid to not test before releasing as it makes it look unprofessional.

Yes, I imagine they took undebugged code straight from the intern who wrote the entire game and slapped it on the gold master.

How did this get rated insightful?

So is the patch available for the X-Box?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well?

Re:So is the patch available for the X-Box?

[Phoenixhunter]

There's word of a possible recall on Thief 3 for the Xbox. Microsoft has the ability to make that call as part of their agreement with the publisher (Eidos).

Re:So is the patch available for the X-Box?

[Anonymous Coward]

well X-Box games are hard to patch, as you can't patch them through X-Box live.

so as the other user wrote - recall or nothing more or less.

they could of course make a patch and then send it out through magazines etc - or on the internet for those with hacked boxes, but that is probably a no :)

Re:So is the patch available for the X-Box?

[santiago]

>well X-Box games are hard to patch, as you can't patch them through X-Box live.

I'm certain you could patch a game through XBox Live if the game itself were designed with that functionality. You can download content for a game, which is just files that get stored on the XBox HD and can be loaded by that game. Those files could contain executable code which could be run by the loader on the disc. Some of the downloadable content for certain games includes new gameplay types, which may already involve small hunks of executable. Now, it's quite likely that Thief 3 and most other games weren't designed with code-level patchability, but that's another matter...

Not to mention 400 mozilla stories this week

[caitsith01]

Come on, there must be more than this happening on earth???

This week we've seen -

New Firefox
New Mozilla
New Thunderbird
New Firefox again
Patch for some game the majority of people reading the article have absolutely no interest in

Re:Not to mention 400 mozilla stories this week

[Anonymous Coward]

Interest is relative.

Now what was that you were babbling about? I'm sorry, I lost interest it.

Re:Not to mention 400 mozilla stories this week

[ozbird]

Patch for some game the majority of people reading the article have absolutely no interest in

In the past, I would have taken you to task over this point.
However, having tried Thief 3 (Deadly Shadows) it seems to me that Ion Storm have missed the point
(i.e. lost the plot) and spoiled the wonderful Thief series. :-(

Bring back Looking Glass!

Re:Not to mention 400 mozilla stories this week

[osu-neko]

...the majority of people reading the article have absolutely no interest in

You must be new to Slashdot if you think what you say here has the slightest bit of relevance towards the selection of a story.

First of all, Slashdot has always selected stories based on what interests the editors of Slashdot. This is how it is, always has been, and always will be. People read Slashdot to the degree that their interests coincide. But story selection has never taken reader interest into account.

Secondly, your comment here is contradictory -- obviously anyone reading the article has some interest in it, the action of reading rather than skipping it proves they either do, or they're no more intelligent than wild monkeys clicking links at random. Of course, judging by some comments...

Re:Not to mention 400 mozilla stories this week

[caitsith01]

Well, I'm not _that_ new. But sometimes the selection of stories is somewhat baffling - and I think the existence of sub-sections for minor interest items somewhat undermines the view that there is no account taken of reader interest levels. Surely this story should be under 'games' and not on the front page.

Furthermore, and although its audience may be only approximately as intelligent as "wild monkeys clicking links at random" (which I personally think tends to underrate the skills of wild monkeys), ./ does provide an important, independent news function, even if it's mainly meta-news. As such, I think a certain responsibility arises to maintain editorial standards somewhat above "you'll read whatever crap we post and you'll like it, or alternatively, get lost."

Incidentally, I see ANOTHER F&&*^g Mozilla story has been squeezed out onto the front page by an editor.

By the way, I don't really take things as seriously as it might sound...

Re:Not to mention 400 mozilla stories this week

[caitsith01]

It's just part of a new strategy they have called 'fucking up great games.' On an unrelated topic, have you played Deus Ex 2: The Death of Deus Ex?

Re:Not to mention 400 mozilla stories this week

[osu-neko]

By the way, I don't really take things as seriously as it might sound...

Neither do I. I post on Slashdot because ranting is fun... ;)

Good...

[theirishman]

Good as I am going out to but it to day.. :)

Re:Good...

[Anonymous Coward]

You know you have to buy it if it touches your ass, right?

Or are you just a really committed shoplifter? Ouch!

Try playing Raven Shield sometime..........

[Anonymous Coward]

You should see the mess that Ubisoft has made of this 3rd installment of Rainbow six. Crappy Unreal build, released when still beta, and about 6 patches so far, 3 of which actually caused more problems then they rectified. Plus there is zero response to any community issues from the Devs.... Practically a primer in how NOT to release games and treat your customers.....

Re:Try playing Raven Shield sometime..........

[Pyrion]

You should see the mess Ion Storm made with Deus Ex: Invisible War. Hearing that Thief: DS would be based on the same engine was all I needed to hear to decide not to buy it.

Re:Try playing Raven Shield sometime..........

[tono]

That's too bad you made a decision based on a completely seperate game. Yes, it's the same engine and it has a couple of the same problems, mainly getting stuck to things. It's actually a much better game than Invisible War ever was and ever could be. Think of it as if Invisible War had never been released.

Re:Try playing Raven Shield sometime..........

[Pyrion]

I consider "practically nonexistant support after a couple of half-assed patches" to be one of its problems.

Re:Try playing Raven Shield sometime..........

[Moonshadow]

Wait, you're pidgeonholing a game because of the engine it uses? That's like pidgeonholing a book because of the paper it's printed on.

Re:Try playing Raven Shield sometime..........

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently purchased Steven King's new Gunslinger book (Wolves of the Calla) in hardback. It comes with a dust cover (like all hardbacks), which I removed (like I do with all hardbacks) because I don't want to ruin it. The cover of the book is black. After reading the book for 30 minutes, I noticed my palms were black. The ink from the cover rubs off on your hands everytime you read it. I finished the book, but I had black crap on my hands for the week I was reading it. I think this is a good reason to pigeon hole the hardback edition of the book. The story was great, but the book sucked.

xbox fix

[contagen]

if you have a modded xbox, you can copy the game to hdd, and just edit the DEFAULT.ini file so that the AI settings for normal mode are equal to whatever difficulty you want (it is also fun to boost the numbers a little more than the highest difficulty settings)...this is the same workaround that was possible on the pc i know this isn't a possibility for most people though since it requires a modchip, hopefully they will create an updated gamedisc and let us send our old ones in (or at the very least, fix the game for all those in EU and UK so they don't have to deal with the problem.

Re:xbox fix

[Froug]

That wouldn't fix the problem. The game ignores the .ini setting as well. It always resets the difficulty to normal on any zone transition or savegame load.

It's probably a hard-coded default on load, and they simply neglected to apply the user-selected (or even .ini-specified) difficulty setting.

Re:xbox fix

[contagen]

odd, b/c you can definitely tell that it's working if you boost them pretty high, especially the hearing settings...are you sure that zone transitions cause the problem too? i rarely save/reload...if i die, i generally restart the mission, so maybe that's why i wouldn't notice it that much...either that or it's just a really good placebo :)

Re:xbox fix

[Froug]

It's been confirmed that the difficulty settings only get applied on the initial start of the mission. The moment you transition to another zone in a multi-zoned mission or load a saved game, you get set back to normal.

It's pretty easy to test, too- On normal difficulty, you can run up behind a patrolling guard across a wood or stone floor and blackjack him before he can turn around. If the game's actually operating at expert difficulty, you won't reach him in time.

Re:xbox fix

[TitusC3v5]

Sorry, but this was one of the first things that was tried when the bug was discovered. It works on neither the Xbox or the PC version. When the save game is loaded, it loads what are apparently hardcoded AI values.

Scariest ... Level .... Ever.

[unsigned integer]

That's what Thief 3 has. It might have been worth the purchase just for this level.

Re:Scariest ... Level .... Ever.

[Anonymous Coward]

Motherfucking cradle! Fuck those zombies! Fuck those flickering lights! Goddamn!

Re:Scariest ... Level .... Ever.

[Soul-Burn666]

I don't wanna spoil for others if they didn't play the game yet, so I'll just ask about a tiny part from it...
u mean the level with the fuse?

If so, then i'm currently somewhere in the middle of it and I had to tell myself repeatedly: "this is just a game..."
Didn't help, I had to leave the game and i'll return to it when i'm ready ;)

XBox version is going to be re-released...

[Granos]

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.

Re:XBox version is going to be re-released...

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

There is a way. Xbox Live. When you connect with a game that needs patching, Live informs the console, and the console makes it mandatory to download the update (to the HD) before finishing connecting.

Of course, that's assuming that the game supports Xbox Live and Live-based patching. Crimson Skies, the Xbox dashboard, etc. support these. I haven't played Thief, so I don't know if it has Live...

Re:XBox version is going to be re-released...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. Microsoft will only allow companies to patch the multiplayer portion of a game through X-Box Live. This way they didn't have to worry about companies relying on the "release-in-beta-and-patch-later" strategy for single player games.

Re:XBox version is going to be re-released...

[SmittyTheBold]

That, and because they don't want to be providing patches to those who are not members of XBL, as non-members present no continuing revenue stream. The assumption is that if you're not using Live, you're not using the multiplayer portion anyhow, so there's no reason you'd need to update.

Patch problems

[Big Nothing]

Although Ion Storm warns against installing the patch on installations with user-modified .ini files, most users don't seem to be having any trouble with it.

In fact, users with modified .ini-files are the only ones who seem to have problems with this patch.

Re:Patch problems

[Big Nothing]

Ummkay, parent post is currently scored "4, Interesting". My intention was to go for "Funny", but I guess I'll have to work a bit on my sarcasm...

Re:This is important because......?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try the game, then you'll know.
And fuck you and the horse you rode in on.

Not that I like consoles, but still

[Travoltus]

if they did release PC games that were, by a rule, as well tested and debugged as console games are, PC games would top out well above the $49.99 hard limit I have seen so far for PC games.

Re:Not that I like consoles, but still

[crazney]

The bug also exists in the XBox version, so I hear.

Re:Not that I like consoles, but still

[Travoltus]

That's interesting, actually.

Suppose a patch is released for the Xbox. What if Ion Storm goes out of business and the patch for Thief isn't available anymore? I as a PC user can burn my copy of the patch to CD-rom... what can Xbox owners do to archive patches for their games?

Re:Not that I like consoles, but still

[gl4ss]

from what it looks like no patch will be released, it would need transfer by discs. live is only for multiplayer related patches.

what's bugging about this is that MS doesn't keep leaches on it's licensees, back in the day a console game with an obvious bug such as this wouldn't get a license(not that it kept crappy games from being published but still)..

Re:Not that I like consoles, but still

[wheresdrew]

"back in the day a console game with an obvious bug such as this wouldn't get a license(not that it kept crappy games from being published but still).."

What about Gran Turismo 1.982?

If you don't catch the reference, it's about the bug in GT2 that prevents you from getting a 100% completion stat. 98.2% is the best you can do.

Bugs can exist in any game, good or crappy.

Re:Not that I like consoles, but still

[Anonymous Coward]

back in the day a console game with an obvious bug such as this wouldn't get a license

Er, which day? Surely not the mid-90s, when FF3 was released with the infamous Vanish/Doom trick among many bugs.

Re:Not that I like consoles, but still

[Mynt-E]

They fixed that in the Greatest Hits version. My copy is at 100%.

Re:Not that I like consoles, but still

[Beeswarm]

Are you sure the Vanish/Doom trick was a bug? I thought that was just an incredibly cheap tactic. Now, once in a while crashing the game while using the Sketch command, that was a classic bug.

What,

[Inoshiro]

you mean this story?

Side-effect...

[Anonymous Coward]

You can set the difficulty level when you accept the mission (in the briefing). The difficulty level only changes when you (1) save mid-game, (2) reload from that save.

One of my friends has been telling me that he absolutely loves this bug because it's more challenging. He's been playing on a hard difficulty level - the catch being that in order to play it that way, he has to get through an entire level without saving. This can take two or three hours! He says that he's been enjoying it greatly because the pressure to not mess up adds so much tension.

Re:Side-effect...

[igrp]

Hmm, that's an interesting perspective. It's a valid point and I guess it's making the best of the situation but isn't this challenging in the same sense as driving a car with no brakes is?

I mean sure it makes it harder to complete the game but couldn't your friend achieve the same result by just playing the game and chosing to not save?

I mean making mistakes is just human and all but shipping a product with such a blantantly obvious bug is, at least in my humble opinion, just ridiculous.

Re:Side-effect...

[RKone2]

Well, the difficulty changes only after loading. Saving isn't a problem.

However, travelling across a level divide and back again will lower the AI difficulty as well. Most levels require you to do this.
With the patch, you can still play the game using the self-enforced no-load rule. Other ways to increase difficulty include:

Playing without being seen
+ without ko/killing anyone
+ and not dousing any lights
+ using thiefbot to increase AI difficulty even higher than expert (and have it remain high even in the city)

Re:Side-effect...

[osu-neko]

I mean sure it makes it harder to complete the game but couldn't your friend achieve the same result by just playing the game and chosing to not save?

Ah yes, you're one of those rational types who doesn't really have knowledge of (or at least doesn't admit to) real human nature...

Re:Side-effect...

[MrScience]

Unfortunately, I've seen it confirmed that the difficulty reverts also on zone changes... not just saves.

Just AI?

[Azari]

It's a shame that this only seems to address the AI bug (according to the download page, anyhow), when there's a save game corruption problem that's been noticed by a few people in the forums as well. Considering the speculation about whether they were even going to bring this patch out, I hope they do something to fix some of the other more irritating problems and don't just leave it at this.

Be nice if they'd change the default away from running as well. What sort of thief runs everywhere in preference to walking or creeping? (Fixable with some minor ini tweaking, but still).

The Bugs Which Remain...

[Hecateus]

...fall mainly on the plain. Seriously, about the only noteworthy bugs which remain are: an uncommon savegame crash which ruins the saved games, forcing user to start over. Not common, but should be fixed anyway. A sound bug which when leaning into a door to listin in on an adjacent room causes the sounds present in 'Garrets' room to die down...thats not the bug part; the bug is that the sound level does not come back immediately when 'Garret' is done listening at the door. This can cause some wierdness, and possibly an exploit or two. These are the most noticable bugs. More are likely present. But, all in all I am having fun with this game. I hope you do too. (and sign that Editor Petition!)

Join Us!

[Anonymous Coward]

Join us now! Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!
But seriously, beware of disapearing treasure with the patches! In Thief 2 the patch made some treasure impossible to get, though somehow still there so you could NEVER get ALL the treasure by the end of the level.

Re:Join Us!

[HogynCymraeg]

It was IMPOSSIBLE to complete thief 2 WITHOUT a patch. The toolbox to open up the grandfather clock didn't exist in the hall until it was patched. It's at this point in the game I gave up as I only had a 56K modem then and the patch was 30+M.

Yup, thats the place.

[MachDelta]

Thats the one. Generally known as "The Cradle", since that's actually its (nick)name, and doesn't really spoil anything for people who aren't there yet.

And yes, its by far the freakiest, weirdest, and most creative level in all of Thief 3. The ending is a real teeth-clencher too. Enjoy! ;)

Triumph

[Omroth]

There seems to be an air of triumph among the PC gamers here that the xBox version is unpatchable. However, if Eidos have to re-call xBox thief 3 it could be disasterous for them and Ion Storm. Should we really be happy that an absolutely brilliant game could lose people jobs because of one bug?

Re:Triumph

[wibs]

I guess there's a lesson to be learned in this, and that's if you don't want to lose your job don't screw up in a way that a billion people will notice.

Bugs happen. Big bugs happen. But developers are paid to make sure the big bugs stop at happen, and don't continue on to release.

Re:Triumph

[Luscious868]

Should we really be happy that an absolutely brilliant game could lose people jobs because of one bug?

Yes we should. I'm sick and tired of companies that decide to push their products out the door early and force us all to be beta testers. Take the proper time to test your products before you release them. I hope they have to recall every X-Box game produced and a whole bunch of people get fired. Maybe that will teach these executives that are always rushing things to slow the fuck down and give the developers the proper time to develop and QA the proper time to test.

Re:Triumph

[Anonymous Coward]

If that's what they get taught, I'm all for it. However, I just not sure they won't get "taught" not to make original, complex games. You know the industry...

Ian

Re:Triumph

[Sigma 7]

Yes we should. I'm sick and tired of companies that decide to push their products out the door early and force us all to be beta testers.

You know, you can always create your own game company, write your own product, test to ensure that there are absolutly zero bugs in the game, and then ship it. Imagine all the sales you could get based on the fact that you have absolutly no bugs in the game.

Take the proper time to test your products before you release them.

You can test as long as you want to - however, something like this won't get fixed unless:

1. It is within the test plan.
   
2. There is a tangible difference caused by the bug.
   
3. The tangible difference can be measured in a way that indicates that the difficulty level has been reset.
   
4. The enemies are rigidly designed so that the tangible difference can be isolated without having random attributes affecting the measurements.
   
5. And finally, that there is a suspicion that the difficulty level could change when writing the test plan. Most test cases don't include this, but rather simply check that the game is usable immediatly after a saved game.
   

It's difficult to predict which bugs can potentialy occurr in a game, let alone find all of them. The amount of time required to guarentee that there is absolutly no bugs would be astronomical - there needs to be a comprimise somewhere in order for games to be released.

Re:Triumph

[Luscious868]

I'm still not buying it. Do these developers even play their own games? I'm asking because if they actually did, they would have found out about this one pretty easily. I noticed it almost right off the bat. Loading a saved game on high difficulty level isn't exactly an uncommon thing for someone who plays games to do you know.

Re:Triumph

[osu-neko]

However, if Eidos have to re-call xBox thief 3 it could be disasterous for them and Ion Storm. Should we really be happy that an absolutely brilliant game could lose people jobs because of one bug?

If it puts Eidos or Ion Storm out of business, we should be unhappy. If it convinces them that the risks of working with the X-Box platform are not worth the rewards, I'll be jumping for joy. Virtually every stupid little problem with DX2 and a lot of the changes for the worse between T2 and T3 ('scuse me, T:DS) are due to the dumbing down of the game for X-box. This would have been a much better game if it had been PC only. It does the claustrophobic side well, but count on no more agoraphobic levels (like the rooftop mission in T2) while X-box compatibility is an issue. It is my profound and feverent hope that the X-box version loses money. Just not enough to put the company under...

Re:Triumph

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with you almost completely. However, if the xBox meant that Thief could turn a profit in the first place, and without it the game would never have been made, then I accept the changes. This Thief 3 is better than no Thief 3 at all.

Ian

Re:Triumph

[rebelcool]

actually a couple of weeks ago, half of ion storm austin was laid off.

Payne in the ass

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Now if we could just get the Max Payne 2 people to fix the bug where you can only play on baby easy mode the first time through.

Note to slow moving minds out there: I know it's not really a bug. It's called sarcasm.

Do these petitions _ever_ work?

[Anonymous Coward]

Really: is there even one instance or these online petitions did a damn thing? One?

Re:Do these petitions _ever_ work?

[AllUsernamesAreGone]

Yes. If you read the main site for the petition you'll learn that the original Thief editor - dromed - was released as a direct result of a similar petition.

Game testing

[mratitude]

I've noted a lot of "why weren't the games tested" statements. And its a valid question in the face of what appears to be a bug many encountered during play.

During the bad ol' days of BBS door games, my board beta tested a new game and my users thoroughly wrung every cheat and bug out of the game they could find. They were so thorough, the game author noted design flaws rather than just programming bugs. It made the game better and far more challenging. I even demonstrated an unintended "God mode" that Sysops could abuse (or use) to interfere with play and standings.

The conclusion that not enough beta testing occurred seems to be valid.

Re:Does it run on Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that the real question that you meant to ask was:

"Who cares if it runs on Linux?"

Re:Does it run on Linux?

[Nosf3ratu]

Has anyone ever seen a worthwhile reply from an AC? Why are AC's still permitted?

Re:Does it run on Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

why should they bother? only a trivial percentage of geeks run linux. Its never a commerically sensible decsiion to port to some obscure geek platform.

Well

[segfault7375]

I had never heard of Thief: Deadly Shadows before, and my first reaction was: What kind of idiots release a game where the AI gets reset every level? How the hell does that make it thru QA?. Then I saw the 2 words Ion Storm, and it made sense. I'm pretty sure they blew the QA budget on 51st story office space and conditioner for Romoero's hair.

Re:Well

[cherrycoke]

Yep. Would'a been funny in, say, 1999, back when Romero still worked @ Ion Storm. Warren Spector, however, has a whole different reputation in the game industry. Next up: Macarena jokes, and all your base are belong to us!

To be fair

[Digitus1337]

A lot of people seem to be upset over this being posted on slashdot, because they've never heard of the game. It is the third in a trilogy of games that started the sneaker genre. It has a cult following and is made by some of the same people as Deus Ex and System Shock 2. It's not 'just some game' by any means.

Re:To be fair

[Anonymous Coward]

I was a fan of Looking Glass. I still remember the feeling I had the first time I saw the demo of Ultima Underword. Even though I prefered Deus Ex and System Shock to Thief, I still loved it a lot.

But, let's be honest, the "cult" behind Thief is nothing compared to the ones behind Quake or Unreal Tournament. Thief may be your favorite game, but it IS just some game.

what's funny is..

[Pfhreakaz0id]

have you noticed console games don't need patches? I mean, I think they test a lot better because they KNOW they can't update them. with PC, I think there must be a mentality of "oh, well, we can always make them download a patch".

It's pretty bad, because the very first thing I do when I buy a piece of software is go download the patch. It's so rare I get something that DOESN'T have a patch out already. Even hardware, there is almost always a patch out for the driver never than the one that shipped with it. ... and thanks to broadband, I don't even really care that much. I don't even bother saving the download in case I have to reinstall. By the time I need to reinstall, a new version will be out, so why bother? I just run it and delete it.

Re:what's funny is..

[WarPresident]

have you noticed console games don't need patches? I mean, I think they test a lot better because they KNOW they can't update them. with PC, I think there must be a mentality of "oh, well, we can always make them download a patch".

Well, first off, some of the PC game patches have to do with hardware incompatibility issues. A problem that a fully-specced and documented closed system console doesn't usually have. How much testing can a company do for their PC releases? If you write a game to DirectX 8 spec, shouldn't it work on all DirectX 8 compatible video cards without having to create a patch so it can work with Brand X video card? Then there's Windows Update's potential for creating ever changing OS incompatibilities...

Granted, something as stupid as this Thief bug should have been caught in playtesting, but bugs are here to stay no matter what.

As far as console games being better tested, I have 3 PS2 games (I'm not much of a console player since my 2600 died years ago) and two of them have annoying bugs. Simpsons Hit & Run crashes occassionally for no reason (not a fun game if your reflexes were post-adolescent when "The Simpsons" were shorts on the Tracy Ullman Show, btw), while the camera in Dynasty Warriors 4 has gotten stuck and left me looking at a blank screen.

Re:what's funny is..

[Snowmit]

Uh, the Xbox version has this bug too. The only difference is that they can't patch it. In fact, if you pay careful attention, you'll find that quite a number of console games have bugs that they *can't patch* for the most part. See: Enter the Matrix, Tomb Raider:Angel of Darkness etc.

Re:what's funny is..

[Grym]

You're kidding, right?

Champions of Norrath, an admitedly fun game, was absolutely ridden with bugs. I was able to run past nearly every NPC whose purpose was to block a path. I was able to skip quests by doing this and even found myself able to hit the level boss and a Peles (a guy whom you aren't supposed to fight until much later) as they stood there motionless and invunerable. Not only that but some of the NPCs that were supposed to follow you would repeatedly get stuck on terrain or even become invisible. In another section of the game, me and my girlfriend wandered around for an hour in a lavapit before I realized that the much-touted "random-level generator" had randomly generated a dead-end where it shouldn't have. Don't get me started on the cutscene-lockups. (Although, I'm willing to overlook that because my PS2 is old.) But these technical bugs aside, one of the biggest insults was the sheer imbalance of characters in the game. Abilities/spells... hell... even entire classes are completely gimped.

So why all of these obvious bugs? Because, in typical SOE style, Champions of Norrath was rushed out the door to compete with Baldur's Gate 2.

The problem is an industry problem--not just PC games.

-Grym

Re:Does it run on Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because loging is not worth my time. Let's be honest, the /. crowd is not an elite group of people. I read /. to have fun, not to seek an intelligent discussion. Anyway, with the short lifespan of subjects, most posts are of the "fire and forget" type.

Very fun game overall

[Fiz Ocelot]

I got this yesterday and have been playing a bit. I really like how there are always different ways to do the same thing. Like in one early level you can ring the church bell to get the high priest to leave his room. Or just sneak in like I did, or throw a flash bomb or gas grenade to steal the item. And yes I did pay for it, it's certainly worth the bucks.

Yup.

[sp0rk173]

My university was going to force all business majors to have graduation indoors. In Southern California (the inland empire, to be specific), any kind of large indoor gathering in late spring/early summer is never EVER a good idea. The business majors felt jipped, so they started an online petition to have graduation outside. They got enough signatures to make the administration move their graduation from inside to outside. So, yes, they can work. Will they work for this kind of thing? Fuck if i know.

Deja Vu...

[marinebane]

Deus Ex II: Invisible War all over again? when will they release some decent games?

I admire your ability to get paid for this.

[scrytch]

Must be a slashdot editor has this game, which is why everyone has to hear about it. In my warped way of thinking ... now hear me out ... people who have this game, and are interested in patch issues like this, are probably following it on the news and forums on the publisher's site. Now isn't that just nutty?

Thief Deadly Shadows 1.1 Patch Fixes AI?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Thief Deadly Shadows 1.1 Patch Fixes AI from the shadows-now-30%-more-deadly dept." - Every day I have more troubles with understanding Slashdot headlines. This gay color scheme of games.slashdot.org doesn't help.

Whinge, whinge, whinge...

[SoulSkorpion]

Oh noes! It's not Open Source\ the latest in Microsoft\SCO flaming\ the umpteenth story of the latest Mozilla build! And I don't play decent games, so obviously they're not worth mentioning!

"News for Nerds. Stuff that matters." Gamer nerds are nerds, too. If you haven't even heard of the Thief series then quit your whining and go back to discussing the latest release of Mozilla FlamePidgeon (or whatever today's build happens to be called).