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.

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.

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?

[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.

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).

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!)

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! ;)

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!