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Thief & System Shock 2: Major Patch fixes many bugs, extends editor capabilities

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rms

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Sep 25, 2012, 9:38:31 PM9/25/12
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Judging by this thread, this looks to be a big deal for running these
classic games on newer systems, and for modders creating new missions, etc.
Download links are shown too:
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140085

rms

John Lewis

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Sep 26, 2012, 10:07:09 PM9/26/12
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Thanks for the info. These hot-off-the-press patches are from a
mysterious French source. Speculation is that the originator is
somebody with access to the game source-code, considering the depth
and extent of the patch changes, including fixes for modern CPUs.
(Requires DX9 and Visual Studio 2008 SP1 C++ runtimes installed)

The TTLG forum is buzzing like a bunch of bees that just discovered a
vast new source of nectar.

Current guesses about the originator point to somebody at Arkane
Studios (Lyon, France). or maybe somebody who migrated to Ubisoft from
Looking Glass. EA has the current copyright rights for SS2. Since
Arkane and Ubi are not part of the EA 'stable', anonymity may be the
best policy and a bunch of SS2 and Thief1/2 modders seem hugely
grateful for the unknown developer's efforts..

John Lewis



noman

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Sep 27, 2012, 3:20:29 PM9/27/12
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On 9/26/2012 7:07 PM, John Lewis wrote:
> On Tue, 25 Sep 2012 19:38:31 -0600, "rms"
> <rsqui...@MOOflashMOO.net> wrote:
>
>> Judging by this thread, this looks to be a big deal for running these
>> classic games on newer systems, and for modders creating new missions, etc.
>> Download links are shown too:
>> http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140085
>>
>> rms
>>
>
> Thanks for the info. These hot-off-the-press patches are from a
> mysterious French source. Speculation is that the originator is
> somebody with access to the game source-code, considering the depth
> and extent of the patch changes, including fixes for modern CPUs.
> (Requires DX9 and Visual Studio 2008 SP1 C++ runtimes installed)
>
> The TTLG forum is buzzing like a bunch of bees that just discovered a
> vast new source of nectar.

It truly is an astonishing patch. Not only, the game fixes are there,
but the editors are also massively overhauled speeding up the world
creation by a factor of ten in some cases, and adding proper hardware
rendering in editor view-ports. The allowed visible poly-count was
increased from 1024 to 20480!

Simply amazing. I have Thief 2 in my backlog. The patch is much
appreciated. Thanks for posting the link.
--
Noman

rms

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Sep 28, 2012, 11:28:17 AM9/28/12
to
>> Judging by this thread, this looks to be a big deal for running these
>> classic games on newer systems, and for modders creating new missions,
>> etc.
>> Download links are shown too:
>> http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140085

BTW, GOG has all the Thief games onsale this weekend, yay!
http://www.gog.com/en/promo/square_enix_weekend_promo_28_09_12/

rms

John Lewis

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Sep 29, 2012, 12:53:12 AM9/29/12
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Thanks. I noticed that a few hours ago and bought the complete Thief
series and Deus Ex (1). All for $3.99 each and DRM-free. Have started
a thread on this GOG/Square Enix promo in the relevant newsgroups.

I have the original boxes, discs and manuals for all these games. Now
I have copies all playable on a modern PC/OS and completely DRM-free.
Lovely !! Thanks again GOG. You are THE best !!...

John Lewis
>
>rms
>

Tim O

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Sep 29, 2012, 9:56:08 AM9/29/12
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On Tue, 25 Sep 2012 19:38:31 -0600, "rms"
<rsqui...@MOOflashMOO.net> wrote:

Maybe I should re-visit System Shock 2... I bought it when it was new,
but didn't get very far. Can't even remember the specifics, there was
some section with endlessly respawning enemies, I got irritated by it
and just moved on to something else.

Mike S.

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Sep 29, 2012, 10:09:07 AM9/29/12
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On Sat, 29 Sep 2012 09:56:08 -0400, Tim O <timo56...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>Maybe I should re-visit System Shock 2... I bought it when it was new,
>but didn't get very far. Can't even remember the specifics, there was
>some section with endlessly respawning enemies, I got irritated by it
>and just moved on to something else.

Engineering level. The long corridor leading toward the cargo bays.
I've seen it referred to as 'The Gauntlet'.

I use a rebalancing mod myself but I am pretty sure there is a mod for
killing respawns as well.

Xocyll

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Sep 29, 2012, 12:06:34 PM9/29/12
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Tim O <timo56...@hotmail.com> looked up from reading the entrails of
the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs say:
Technically that's all areas since it used a "living environment"
scenario where eventually things would move into any are you
depopulated.

Like the weapon wear there was a configuration setting where you could
turn this down, but not off.

There were a few points of constant spawning enemies until you
accomplished something as well. You have to destroy X, they don't want
you to destroy X so they send waves of enemies against you until you
managed to do it.

Xocyll
--
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably,
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr

Tim O

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Sep 29, 2012, 12:29:38 PM9/29/12
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On Sat, 29 Sep 2012 10:09:07 -0400, Mike S. <Mik...@nowhere.com>
wrote:
Thats the spot! I was remembering it as a long hallway, but wasn't
100% sure. I probably would have stuck with it nowadays, but there
were a lot more distractions then.

Sometimes 2 or 3 great games would come out in a single month. It
didn't take a lot for an annoying game to get itself bounced.

Mike S.

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Sep 29, 2012, 1:38:40 PM9/29/12
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On Sat, 29 Sep 2012 12:29:38 -0400, Tim O <timo56...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>Sometimes 2 or 3 great games would come out in a single month. It
>didn't take a lot for an annoying game to get itself bounced.

I'm the same way now.

As a teenager, I was able to focus entirely on one game at a time.
Nowadays, once I find a reason to put one game down, I do so, and
immediately start on another one that was catching my attention.

Trimble Bracegirdle

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Sep 29, 2012, 5:14:45 PM9/29/12
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I'm thinking of re installing Thief II .
I have an old 'in a box' copy.
This new Mod Patch will be useful.
But does anybody know of any source for general upgrades / New Textures etc.
etc.
that will up the basic game ?
(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(") mouse (Ay a Sneaking & Snivelling fill a pocket well good)

JJ (UK)

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Sep 29, 2012, 6:00:00 PM9/29/12
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Just to clarify, are we/they saying that this patch (which costs...nothing?)
will let us play Thief on a contemporary PC (such as the Dell XPS laptop I'm
using here)?

JJ (UK)

rms

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Sep 29, 2012, 7:21:13 PM9/29/12
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Just to clarify, are we/they saying that this patch (which costs...nothing?)
will let us play Thief on a contemporary PC (such as the Dell XPS laptop I'm
using here)?

Yep! Mind you, I haven't tried it yet myself, but it looks like the
real deal.

rms

noman

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Oct 1, 2012, 2:51:55 PM10/1/12
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On 9/29/2012 4:21 PM, rms wrote:
> JJ wrote:
>> Just to clarify, are we/they saying that this patch (which
>> costs...nothing?)
>> will let us play Thief on a contemporary PC (such as the Dell XPS >>
>> laptop. I'm using here)?
>
> Yep! Mind you, I haven't tried it yet myself, but it looks like the
> real deal.

I tried it yesterday and it worked great, on Thief 1! Even though the
patch is officially (or unofficially..) for Thief 2, support for the
first game in the series is also there.

You need to install the base game and the last official patch.
Alternatively you can get the game from GoG, which is what I did making
use of the great promotional deals this weekend. The GoG version is
fully updated to begin with.

Once the game is installed and updated, you need to make the following
changes:

1) Unzip the patch and copy the *contents* of "contrib.zip" and
"new_dark.zip" wherever Thief 1 is installed.
2) Create a directory "patch" where Thief 1 is installed.
3) Unzip a file T1.7z present in new_dark/doc folder, and copy the file
interface.crf to the patch directory created in step 2.
4) In main Thief 1 folder, edit the file cam_ext.cfg and add a line
"dark1" (without the quotes) anywhere.
5) Run Thief2.exe binary (should be in main Thief 1 directory, after you
copy new_dark contents), and you'll see Thief1 using this new updated
engine.

Updating Thief 2 is of course much simpler. You need the base game,
updated with official V1.18 patch. Then just copy the contrib.zip and
new_dark.zip contents into Thief 2 main folder.
--
Noman


Message has been deleted

noman

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Oct 2, 2012, 2:13:48 PM10/2/12
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On 10/2/2012 8:15 AM, Zaghadka wrote:
> This is a great find. Beats the pants off of hex editing the binary to
> use ddfix.dll.
>
> I can't wait to try it out. Maybe I won't have to run Shock as admin any
> more.

It's just a great update all around and solves so many problems these
games had on modern PCs. The videos play without a problem; EAX can be
activated (using the OpenAl driver); wide screen is fully supported with
proper aspect ratio, FOV and a UI that's not stretched.
--
Noman

John Lewis

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Oct 3, 2012, 2:52:57 AM10/3/12
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On Mon, 01 Oct 2012 11:51:55 -0700, noman <no_...@zzzyahoo.yycom>
wrote:
Thanks for the info. I have downloaded the patch and was about
to hunt down the info here that you generously provided., having
purchased the Thief series in the recent GOG sale. DRM-free and
modern-OS compatibility and now this great new patch.

John Lewis
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