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| Sunday - 05.30.1999 |
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Very Busy Last Few Days
- 12:40pm EST - Nightfall |
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It's been a rough and exciting past few days for myself, and the Thief community. My construction crew is hard at work building The Editors' Guild, the addition to The Footpad. The main chamber is mostly completed, but some of the towers and wings are still under heavy construction. The Editors' Guild expansion to the Thief Guildhouse has already come into heavy use, as the more tech savvy taffers out there chat away in a language most of us would not comprehend.
As mentioned on the forum, I remind all of you ambitious soon-to-be dromed experts that if you do write a tutorial or FAQ, please send it to me so that it can be displayed prominently in TEG. The tutorial is very good for getting started, but much more documentation is needed! Knowledge is best when shared! I have a large bit of good news. A man who is an expert in the use of Dromed shall be joining the community in the Guild forum. His name is Matt "Toneboy" Boynton, and is one of the level designers for System Shock 2. He will be answering questions and offering help to anyone who needs it. I'm sure you all shall grant him a warm welcome! For reasons beyond me, I forgot to mention here the presence of the first "mission" created by a Thief fan. It's not really a mission, or a real level, but it sure is fun. Check out the TEG "Demos & Fun Stuff" page for more info, and the download. A new Thief outpost has made itself known in a distant area of The City. The Dark Project, is what the owners chose to name it, taking advantage of one of the earliest Thief; The Dark Project title images (before it was called Thief). The site is 99% in German. Getting a bit off topic, perhaps inspired by the amazing pod-race on Tatooine, I purchased myself a nice chariot (Nissan Sentra). It had some trouble with the security system (bloody thing protects itself from its owner), so I am having it fixed. Unfortunately due to a local holiday, it will be several days before I can use it. I suppose I will have to cancel that race I scheduled with Felix's brother-in-law. I am quite annoyed by that... Ah well, it's always nice to have a new vehicle, especially when you get to see the look on the dealer's face when you hand him a pouch containing the full price in gold. I do hate monthly payments.
An idea just came to me.... TEG should be moved to The Circle...
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| Friday - 05.28.1999 |
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Developments on the Dromed Front
- 1:00pm EST - Nightfall |
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This site is getting into high dromed gear! The revision of the Thief Editors' Guild is well underway. We are going with a heavy Hammerite Theme. So far only the "Getting Started" section is built. That will change as time passes, of course.
The Thief Editors' Guild Forum has been launched, and is already seeing heavy use. Go there for all discussion related to Dromed, and Thief Mission Building.
One last note. Many people have reported problems getting Dromed to work. Make sure the following things are true. |
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Two New Thief Reviews...?
- 7:10am EST - Nightfall |
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It's interesting to see that, almost half a year after release (has it been that long? Yikes, yes it has...) Thief is still being reviewed, and loved. I wouldn't have posted these, except for the fact that the authors themselves requested it, and well, it's always fun to read about someone praising the thing you praise too!
The first review comes from a site called GameStats, which says: Thief is repleat with moment of nervous anticipation. Moments where your heart stops, or your blood curdles exhilerate and frighten you noticeably. Wait till you sneak past a sentry, cross a hallway to seek shelter beyond a door, only to find it locked. You could pick the lock and risk detection in the open, or you could sneak back from where you came... In either case, when plans go wrong, you must decide quickly how to proceed, because no moment remains safe for long.He gives Thief a perfect score of 10/10! Smart man... : ) The next review is at a site called Salon 21, where the reviewer praises Thief with these (among other) words: The resulting experience entirely reworks your expectations for a first-person game, teaching you to prefer caution, observation and premeditated bursts of action over the usual lumbering ultraviolence. While other recent 3-D shooters have offered impressive innovations -- Unreal, say, with its visual design and animation, and Half-Life, with its artificial intelligence and narrative structure -- it's Thief that revolutionizes the form.Another very smart man... : )   |
| Thursday - 05.27.1999 |
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The Editors Guild is Now Operational
- 11:40am EST - Nightfall |
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The Thief Editor's Guild (TEG), a co-production between TTLG and Starfighter.net, is now operational.
First and foremost, this site offers the download of Dromed, the Thief Missions Builder, which went public last night. Secondly, it offers an online version of the tutorial which was included with Dromed, for those of us who don't like to view MS Word documents. Eventually, TEG shall be the hub of all Thief Level Editing activity. When the fan-made Thief levels start pouring in, TEG will review & host them! Any tools and resources Dromed users come up with will also be made available (provided the author wishes to share them!) We know that the design of TEG is not perfect. Any suggestions to improve the site will be considered! We hope that it will serve you as well as The Circle has!
Click Here to Visit the Thief Editors' Guild
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Dromed Goes Public!
- 1:50am EST - Nightfall |
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It may be late, but I don't think the Thief fans who waited 6 months for this day will mind. The most anticipated event since Thief's release is upon us - Dromed has gone public!
When you have it, unzip into your Thief folder. Let it overwrite the files.
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| Wednesday - 05.22.1999 |
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Small Delay
- 11:59pm EST - Nightfall |
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My connection is being evil. Dromed is now uploading - slowly - very slowly. I don't think I will be able to get it up by 12:01. Soon afer, though.
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Something While you Wait - COT, Chapter 9
- 11:40pm EST - Nightfall |
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It being Wednesday, it's time to release chapter 9 of Correspondence of Thieves. Seeing as I have about twenty things to do, and only 20 minutes to do them, I am making this post brief. Only 21 minutes till dromed!
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Dromed to be released on Thursday, 12:01 AM
- 10:30pm EST - Nightfall |
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There is no easy way to say this. If I shout too loud, I may hurt myself. I'll take a deep breath and say it slowly.
*ahem* Dromed will be put up for public download in under two hours. It will be released on Thursday, 12:01, to be exact. The Thief Mission Builder Petition has been a success. The wait is almost over. It's almost here. The Thief Mission Builder. It's almost here. It's coming.
TAFFERS REJOICE!!! |
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"Gathering at the Bar" - Official Screenshot Release
- 1:50pm EST - Nightfall |
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"Gathering at the Bar" (GatB) is the first fan-made mission for Thief ever created. It was built by none other then the man responsible for creating the Thief Mission Builder Petition, Toni "Trimfect" Hollming! I am pleased to present the first official screenshot release from this mission, which is now almost out of beta testing, and ready for release!
View of the Bar
Sniper on the Rooftops
Power Generator
GatB is smaller then your average Thief mission, but is extremely detailed. I found many things that the author has done, especially the ones not found in the game, impressive indeed! This mission is scheduled to release shortly after Dromed (most likely latter in the same day). That date is approaching fast. Be prepared!
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| Tuesday - 05.25.1999 |
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Thief 2 Facts & Rumors Update
- 10:35pm EST - Nightfall |
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It's not a rumor, but it's also not a fact like one would think. It's a list of all known (at least by me) Thief 2 articles on the web. I admit, it was a cut-&-paste from the Official Looking Glass Site, but it was tucked away so deep, I felt that it was my duty to bring it out in the open like this. :)
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EvilSpirit's Homepage & Thief 2 Logo
- 10:20pm EST - Nightfall |
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The other day I visited, for the first time (thanks Hoe Muffin!), Tim Stellmach's, (a.k.a. EvilSpirit) homepage. It's a neat little page, with a neat little picture of himself, and a neat little section on becoming a game designer.
However my favorite part of the page would have to be his "Shameless Self Promotion" section, where we see, ta da!, a Thief 2 logo!
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"A Keeper's Tale" - Part 5
- 10:00pm EST - Nightfall |
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Solomon's Thief fanwork, "A Keeper's Tale," is now in its fifth chapter. Soon it shall be moving out of the "Thief Short Tales" archive and into its own home, where it belongs. I hope you are enjoying it!
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| Saturday - 05.22.1999 |
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Thief Fan Artwork
- 11:30am EST - Nightfall |
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For quite some time, I've been wanting an excuse to make a Thief fanwork art gallery. Unfortunately my chance had to come at a time when I have a gazzillion other things to do. Bah. Oh well, here is the nice bit o' work someone (Kite) sent me. Done with a mouse in forty minutes, it ain't half bad!
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| Thursday - 05.20.1999 |
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"Keepers Tale" - Parts Three and Four are Up
- 1:00pm EST - Nightfall |
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COT is not the only ongoing Thief tale in the FanWorks section. "Keepers Tale" has been continued with parts three and four. Soon this story, which is becoming quite long, will move to its own home on its authors site (similar to Candlefire).
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| Wednesday - 05.19.1999 |
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Correspondence of Thieves, and Other Ramblings
- 02:30pm EST - Nightfall |
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Greetings Taffers. I have returned, after a short much needed break. The Thief 2 / Thief Gold rush sorta burned me out, to so speak. Though I have had several more reports come in concerning Thief 2, non have presented anything we have not already heard before. The conversation in the forum is, I must admit, rather similar to the early conversations dealing with System Shock 2. People take one little comment someone made, over-analyze it, and before they know it, a debate has erupted. As Evil Spirit said, take most of the things you hear reported at this early stage with a grain of salt.
Correspondence of Thieves Chapter 8 is now online. In case you missed the announcement that Chapter 7 was up, it happened this Sunday, while this site was on the blink. After I got it working again, I sorta forgot to re-announce it. So now you get to read two chapters, which are, coincidentally, two of the longest chapters in the whole story. This time we get to see (or read), some zombie action. Jyre asked me to deliver to you all a letter on the subject. Fellow Thieves,The same goes for all of us, of course. You all may notice the sad state of editing that the story is in. This is for a reason. It was called to my attention that actually publishing a book is quite hard when it's already free to public access online. The only way to remedy that is to have the version you publish be a revision of the one already out. This is not to say that we are plotting to publish this, I just want to keep the doors open. If you would like an edited version, (but still by no means perfect,) just email me and I'll send you the document. If you are curious as to how the writing is coming along, then I'll just say that we are on chapter 21 and not even close to wrapping it up. We have mostly the entire plot mapped out now, but still plenty of ground to cover before we call it done. It pleases me to no end how much you all are enjoying it. Especially since the best is all yet to come! Furthermore, it has also been decided (by me, of all people), to go back to only releasing one chapter per week. Think of it as a TV show with an ongoing story, with one episode per week. Moving right along, I have a letter from the webmaster of Thief.TheSiteMaker.com The keepers came unto me and informed me of an undesireable situation:I discovered what he is talking about to be no less then a "Find Garrett in this picture" game. Watch out, Waldo, Garrett's after your job!
On a totally un-related note - I did indeed See Star Wars 1: The Phantom Menace last night, or, this morning rather. Don't worry, I shan't spoil it for you. Just note that it is indeed an awesome movie, but not without its flaws. I give it 4.5 stars (or of 5). That's a very high rating for me…. :)
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| Sunday - 05.16.1999 |
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"A Keeper's Tale," by Solomon Kostenko - Updated
- 01:25pm EST - Nightfall |
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Solomon Kostenko has sumbmitted the next section of his short Thief tale, "A Keeper's Tale." I urge you to go read it, it's quite enjoyable!
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Thief 2 - Agent Lowder Reports In
- 01:10pm EST - Nightfall |
Our spies continue to bring to us better information then any of the official press sources. Here is the latest sampling.
I am not sure about what other reports you will hear about the Thief 2 section in the Eidos booth at E3. LG was a little unorganized with only one of their four computers working when I talked him on Thursday. It was wasn't because of their unorganization it was due to they weren't sure if they were going to attend and didn''t know until last minute. I tried to get back to them on Saturday to see if they had everything going but I was swamped with appointments and couldn't make it. All in all Steve Pearsall was a nice guy and did answer all the questions I asked him. You could also tell he was very excited to be there. I saw him interviewed by a TV crew and he was very nervous with that. Now the questions and answers...It is true. We have heard tell that a totally new Thief engine is in the works - possibly for Thief 3. |
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Thief 2 at E3 According to Games Domain
- 06:00am EST - James |
Bruce Geryk of Games Domain has written up his Impressions of Thief 2. Interestingly, he claims that:
I asked whether the new game would address the fact that some people felt that even with the "stealth" focus to the game, there were too many times that players were forced to "FPS" their way through a level. The response I got was that it was actually the opposite: at the hardest level settings the game was quite unforgiving of even sporadic combat, and Thief 2 might actually reverse this a bit to keep the game from becoming too much of a "hide-in-the-shadows" experience. The game is at such an early stage that I'm sure these level-design decisions are some way off still, so these are just musingsSo will we have fewer explorations levels (Lost City) and less sneaking? Sounds like somebody is telling porkies. In other news, GameCenter has up an E3 Preview of Thief 2 as well, though it includes no information we did not already have. |
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