NEW FEATURES
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- EAX Support

Thief now supports Creative Labs' "Environmental Audio Extensions" (EAX). Using reverb, EAX allows the Thief sound engine to play sounds that give the player a greater sense of space. For example, large rooms will echo more than narrow carpeted hallways.

If your sound card supports EAX and you have enabled sound hardware acceleration, Thief will automatically use EAX. EAX can be disabled from the sound options panel.

- Joystick Support

Thief now allows you to use your joystick to play Thief. By default, joystick is not enabled. To enable joystick support in Thief, open the file "dark.cfg" in your Thief directory using a text editing program, such Notepad, and add a line with the text "joystick_enable".

- Cheats

Mission Skipping: If you're tired of a particular mission, pressing "Control-Alt-Shift-End" will cause the mission to end and allow you to move on to the next mission.

Money cheat: You can give yourself loot by adding the line "cash_bonus" to your "dark.cfg." If set to an integer, its value is added to your loot total for loadout purposes.

Starting Mission: You can start the game at a mission other than Lord Bafford's Manor by putting the line "starting_mission X" in your "dark.cfg," where X is the mission number to start at. When you select "New Game," you will start at that mission.

BUG FIXES
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In some rare cases, throwing lots of flash bombs could result in Thief crashing. This has been fixed.

Thief will now run in hardware with the riva 128 card, provided you download the very latest drivers from Nvidia.

Murus will now turn to speak to you, when he's talking

You can now bring the high priest to the take out window (the "take-out window" being slang for the hammer-shaped window where you talk to the hammers in the first place).

The door will not close behind you in the training mission when you go to the basketball court.

The Cathedral doors in mission 7 now make lockpicking sounds

The servant will now drop his tray in mission 5, when starled.

Miss 5 phase 3 room brushing has been cleaned up. ("Miss 5 phase 3" being the escape from the "Assassins" mission when pursued by guards).

It's quite a big package, at 6 megs, but it's well worth it, I'd say. You can pick it up from the Themes section in the Files Archive, or you can grab it right here.

One note, it sort of wrecks havoc with your desktop background. (Well, not really havoc, it resets it to a blank screen.) So before you use it, if you want to keep your background images, makes sure you know the filename so you can switch it back easily.

You're probably thinking, "As if there was any question as to who was gonna win this category." Well, in fact, there was. The big debate was between Half-Life and Thief: The Dark Project. Everyone here at Gamecenter loved Thief, and we really wanted to reward a development team that had the courage to step outside the mold and successfully redefine the genre. But in the final analysis, ingenuity couldn't beat out good old-fashioned fun--and that's what Half-Life has in spades.

But wait, there's MORE. GamerX of GameCenter awarded Thief Best Story Line:

Best Story Line: That's right: we didn't give this award to an adventure game or an RPG. We gave it to an action game. For those action gamers who are screaming, "Story line? We don't need no stinking story line!" your brains are obviously fried on Quake. Wake up people--there's more to gaming than shooting aliens at random and pulling levers to open so-called secret doors. Half-Life comes close--you really want your alter ego, Gordon Freeman, to succeed, but in the end it's just a clever twist on the tired alien-killing theme. But for sheer originality and the chance to play shifty, cynical, ruthless Garrett in a dark, strange world of machines, religious fanatics, and zombies, you just can't beat Thief: The Dark Project.

In an age of clones, wannabes, and all-around unoriginality, it's tough to find a first-person 3D game that actually lets you do more than run and shoot. Looking Glass' Thief: The Dark Project proves to be the antithesis to the traditional action shooter -- emphasizing stealth, silence, and actually not killing your opponents. This "first-person sneaker" steals our award for Most Innovative Gameplay.

Would anyone be shocked to learn that Thief also won Best Sound FX?

Maybe I've become spoiled by Thief: The Dark Project's great sound effects and digitized speech, but Eagle Watch just seemed to disappoint me, mainly because of the silence of the terrorists. I mean, you bark out orders to your team members, and they respond with their status reports. Why do the game's enemies have to seem like such lifeless automatons? Why couldn't the enemies call out to each other for help, or even exchange greetings to each other? To me, this absence makes a very realistic game seem entirely unrealistic.

Stagnation is a word I've often used to describe first-person action games on the PC. While certainly fine examples of the graphical power of today's computers, games like Unreal and Quake II just haven't cut the mustard for this gamer. Killing everything in sight loses its charm after about the fourth or fifth time, no matter how beautiful the game looks. The genre, however, is full of potential, and Thief: The Dark Project breaks through the monotony to truly accomplish something revolutionary.

The Hammer Temple in the mission "Under Cover" contained over a dozen book, each containing a Hammerite scripture or proverb. If anyone would be so kind as to write all of these down, and send them to me, I'd be a very, very happy Taffer. These books also, of course, are in "Strange Bedfellows".

We didn't expect to receive so many votes but we did. We are also amazed at some of the results. Thief, the best over all game was not voted top in it's category. Though I think the category I was most interested in was the Worst game of the year category. With Deer Hunter entertaining the second grossing game of 1998 and being voted as the worst was very interesting.

Also, again, thanks everyone for offering tips on how to do a screen capture. But I've got it already! Please stop sending tips!

This site is divided into three sections. Only one is operational.

Above, you see The Circle of Stone and Light. This is the site's main feature. You will not find a more complete collection of information, media, downloads, strategies, links, fanworks, you-name-it, anywhere. Period. As of now, it's still under heavy construction. Being the main feature of this site, extra care is begin taken to make it as good as possible.

What you are reading now is part of the Keepers' Annals. This is the only part of the site that is fully operational. This will serve the same purpose that TTLG did for Thief fans, minus the other LookingGlass Studios News.

At the very bottom, we have The Foot Pad. This section contains the site information, special projects, such as the Mission Builder petition, and Thief 2 Facts & Rumors, and a section devoted to tech help. This too is under construction.