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    Thursday - 2.11.1999
    Thief a hit at PC Gamer UK - 09:30pm EST - James
Perhaps inspired by Grizzly's example, Kieron Gillen of PC Gamer UK met with us in a dimly lit pub, and from a shadow spoke to reveal that Thief got a 90% in his Christmas '98 issue review:
"Thief is a credible portrayal of what it's like to live in a dangerous world with only your wit, the darkness and a six-inch dagger as friends. It's what RPGs should be like, forcing you to enter a character, not a list of meaningless numbers. Put simply, the better you play the role of Garret, the better you'll do. Thief's greatest achievement is that it forces you to change the way you think, making you view the world through a pickpocket's slitted eyes."
Unfortunately there does not seem to be a way to read the review on the web.



    Info on the Thief Patch, Straight from the Horse's Mouth. - 06:00pm EST - Dan
Finally, word for LGS on the Thief patch. Should be any day now. He's a list of everything it does. It'll be a biggie!
NEW FEATURES
---------------


- 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
-------------

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).

Sounds to me like they put quite a bit of thought into this. I think it will be worth the wait!



    The Glyphs are Everywhere! - 04:00pm EST - Dan
We all recognize those 10 freakly little glyphs when we see them. They are just all over the place! They can be on your desktop now too. Mark George (Soulstripper from the forum) has whipped up a batch of nifty icons, based on these 10 glyphs. There is also an 11th icon, the game's logo.

Steal these trinkets from the Themes section in the Files Archive, or you can nab it right here.



    User Friendly: "Way to go, Looking Glass. You done good." - 04:00pm EST - James
Not only is Dan trying to muscle my posts into obscurity, he's also staying quite alert! But he still lets me post up the news he finds, so all should stay amicable in the Intelligence Section. His latest find: Illiad, of the User Friendly website, has written a review of Thief, complete with favorable comparison to another popular FPS game released just before Christmas. Thanks for the tip, Boss!



    @Monitor.ca: Thief "one of the best games of the past year" - 04:00pm EST - James
It's always nice when those you are watching decide it would be simpler simply to confess and save you some effort. Roger "Grizzly" Fingas humbly admitted that he wrote a review of Thief at the @Monitor.ca website. Comments such as "Thief marks the beginning of a new breed of games" and "it's tremendously satisfying to grab loot and slip away unnoticed" in the course of a good, critical review influenced even the Hammerite on the inquiry board to recommend that Grizzly be commended.



    Unpaid Game Players Online Up and Running. - 12:50pm EST - Dan
Seems to me that James is having a bit too much fun with his new post as media watchdog. Can't let him have all the enjoyment, now can we? Nope! Well, I'm back now!

Unpaid Game Players Online opened last night, right on schedule. Great site, by the way, you all need to take a look. Hopefully this site will become a steady source of income for me. I really need it, otherwise I'd actually have to get a *gasp* real job!! That would, of course, be bad news for the site, seeing as it would cut my time in half, or worse. (College is already takeing it's toll) Anyhow, I'm now finished with the construction of UGPO. This of course means that I am finally free to devote most of my time to this site. Hopefully it won't take me too long to finish her up!



    Ghost Unveils His Long Anticipated Screen Stealer- err... Saver. - 12:40pm EST - Dan
That fancy-pants screensaver that Ghost has been yabbering about in the forum has been released! It's pretty spiffy, if I don't say so myself. It cycles an image of every (I think every) pre mission briefing quote in the game, all while playing the introduction music. Definitely an attention getter at work!

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.

Oh yes, and I also have a new version of Ghost's startup/shutdown screens. It has a few minor improvements, most notably, the fact that it actually works now.





    Wednesday - 2.10.1999
    Playdevil: Thief "Truly Magnificent" - 08:00pm EST - James
Ryan Armstrong, after long hours manning one of our Observation Posts, sent word of a review of Thief at Playdevil. The review states, "Thief: The Dark Project, developed by Looking Glass Studios and published by Eidos Interactive is truly a magnificent game."



    Salon Magazine: Thief "A dark new twist on the old concept of virtual reality" - 08:00pm EST - James
Not all of the news comes from the streets. One of the shadowy Masters of our Order, Tom Leonard, pointed out that Salon Magazine has run a feature article on Thief. This article is well worth a read; it focuses on the ways in which Thief successfully generates a virtual reality: "As you leap out to a blackened cable and rappel toward your prize, you must become Garrett -- or die."





    Monday - 2.8.1999
    Life has a way of finding you... - 11:00pm EST - James
Yes, these posts have been put up by a new robe. I pestered Dan with so many tidbits of news about Thief that he eventually got tired of posting them up. So he caught me, and now I have to do it. I won't necessarily spot everything, so please write to me if you see Thief news that has not appeared on this board!



    Gamecenter Fails to Name Thief Best Action Game of 1998 - 11:00pm EST - James
Blinded by the glare of Half-Life, the blokes at Gamecenter failed to give Thief a first in their 1998 Awards. Despite saying good things about Thief as a runner-up, they awarded the first for Action to Half-Life. Nonetheless, they note that Thief gave Half-Life a run for its money:
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.
Disagree with that last bit? Then go and vote! Voting is open at Gamecenter for Action Games and for Game of the Year.

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.




    AVault Awards: Thief Wins Most Innovative and Best Sound FX - 11:00pm EST - James
Fongyee Long placed hieroglyphs in one of our drop sites indicating that Adrenaline Vault's 1998 Awards have arrived, and Thief has naturally come in for a few:

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?





    Thief Strategy Guide at CDMAG - 11:00pm EST - James
CDMAG has posted up some Expert-Level Tips for Thief. It isn't terribly detailed, and assumes you have read the Eidos Normal-level walkthrough.



    Files Archive Has Been Opened - 8:30pm EST - Dan
The Files Archive of The Circle of Light and Shadow has been completed, and opened. This is where all non-multimedia related downloads for Thief will be located.

Currently, it only has three sections. Demos, which is basically a re-vamp of TTLG's Thief Demo Center. Themes, where fan-made desktop themes, winamp skins, and the like will be made available to the public. And finally a hole where I dumped the Thief trainers, and cheat utilities.





    Sunday - 2.7.1999
    Thief Raises the Bar - 11:00pm EST - Dan
This excerpt from a review of Eagle Watch, an expansion for Rainbow 6, was sent to me by the ever helpful, ever diligent, James Sterrett.
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.
Yup, Thief is raising all our expectations!



    Help Received, Many Thanks! - 10:50pm EST - Dan
Thank you Ryan Armstrong, Troels Busk Jepson, and especially Laura Baldwin for supplying me with all the Hammerite Proverbs I could hope for! You Taffers sure are helpful!

A little too helpful, please, everyone, stop sending me information on how to do a screen capture from the cut-scenes! I can do it! Thank you, but I don't need help anymore!





    Saturday - 2.6.1999
    THIEF: Revolutionary PC Game of the Year - 3:00pm EST - Dan
I just get finished being excited about the last award, and Thief goes and does it again! Game Revolution names Thief: The Dark Project Game of the Year. But that's not all. Our game nabbed the honor of the best Action Game of the Year as well! Rock on, Taffers! What did they have to say as to the reasoning behind this wise choice?.
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.
Somebody's got a good head on his shoulders! Click here to read their review. Thanks for the info, Donald!





    Friday - 2.5.1999
    A Request - Story Section - 11:30pm EST - Dan
I did not get as much done today as I had hoped. The Story section is well underway, but still quite a bit of work from completion. Seems I spent more time on the Hammerite page then expected (3 hours on the title image alone... ugh). I've a request that would, however, make my job much easier.

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".

Thanks in advance for any help anyone offers!



    Playtesters.com's Gamers' Choice Awards Thief - Best Game of 1998 - 3:20pm EST - Dan
I knew it would happen eventually! Yes, THIEF has finally won the much deserved "Best Game of 1998 Award".
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.
Great news, is it not? Take a look over at Playtesters.com and see who else won what!



    Problems with Netscape Fixed - 10:30pm EST - Dan
The problems netscape users were experiencing, such as the top image not loading, and the community & thief 2 pages loading the HTML code, rather then a webpage, have been fixed. The culprits were the lowsrc=../blah command, and the fact that those two pages were htm files, rather then html, and this being a Unix based server. Lame excuse, eh?

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

I'm going to start working on the Story section now...





    Thursday - 2.4.1999
    Thief 2 - Facts & Rumors Page Has Been Created. - 4:40pm EST - Dan
Again, for the reason of "It's easy to do, and people will find it useful", I built the Thief 2 - Facts & Rumors Page. This page presents exactly what the names implies: the facts, and the rumors about Thief 2. As this page grows, expect it to become a independent site of its own. But that will be some time from now, so it will work how it is just nicely for the time being.

As before, what part of the site should I build next?



    Problem Solved - Many Thanks! - 4:10pm EST - Dan
Big thanks goes to David, for telling me about Microsoft VidEdit. It works like a charm! Thanks also to everyone else who emailed me with suggestions.

Now that the obvious choices are done, what part of the site should I build next?



    Community of Thieves Page Created, Up, & Running - 3:15pm EST - Dan
Seeing it as a top priority, as well as easy to do quickly, the Community of Thieves Page has been created. It links to the Discussion forum, Thief 2 wishlist, and gives information about the IRC Channel. If anyone has any suggestions on how I could improve, or expand this page, feel free to send your input. Also, as always, please report any errors you may find.



    Urgent! Help Needed! - 1:30pm EST - Dan
I'm not sure why, but for some reason I cannot capture the contents of any of the Thief cut-scene avis, using the [Print Scrn] key, not work, nor any screen capture software I've tried. If anyone has any ideas on what I can do to correct this problem, please let me know soon! Continued construction of this site depends on it!

I understand that you can take screenshots by pressing [Print Scrn], opening an art program, and pasting the image. I've tried this. The avi window box comes up black & blank. It dosn't work on my computer. Help!



    Thief Mission Builder Petition Re-Opens - 1:20pm EST - Dan
Seeing as it was the easiest thing to do, I went ahead and linked it up. If you have not signed it yet, then please do!





    Wednesday - 2.3.1999
    Thief-TheCircle.com is Open, but Under Heavy Construction - 9:00pm EST - Dan
Welcome to Thief-TheCircle.com, the Internet's new Thief headquarters. The hub for Thief activity in the entire world. Up to this point fans of Thief: The Dark Project have had to make due with TTLG, the LookingGlass & Eidos Official Sites, and the various other fansites & features scattered about the web. This site brings it all together. This site will have it all. The Keepers would be proud.

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.

I hope that everyone finds this site to be as useful & wonderful as I've made it out to be. Enjoy!