Thief II: The Metal Age Remastered Soundtrack up for Download

About two or three years ago if not longer, it was announced on TTLG and Thief-The Circle that the soundtrack for Thief: The Dark Project, originally written and composed by Eric Brosius, was available for download. Only this time it was remastered by Child of Karras, a forum dweller over at TTLG. It was called “The Golden Soundtrack”, and had 23 tracks all on one mp3, plus some fancy CD artwork and a booklet in PDF format with the entire tracklist.

I just read the other day that after a long while, the sequel, Thief II: The Metal Age’s soundtrack has received the same treatment and is now available online for free.

Quite fitting as earlier on this year, this classic title celebrated its tenth anniversary.

This time it comes in two forms. You can download the whole collection in one mp3, or you can get them separately. And the interesting thing I read about it is that it blends melodies from the English and German versions of the soundtrack. I likely haven’t heard some of those.

Thief 2 Soundtrack Gap-less MP3 [114 MB]
Thief 2 Soundtrack Single MP3s [100 MB]

You can bet that I’ll be recommending this some time for the NAG October 2010 Cover DVD Request Thread, which was opened recently. I’ll likely try my hand at downloading it myself as well though. Can’t wait a month until the next NAG!

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Source: Thief 2 - The Soundtrack Age [TTLG]

Thief II: The Metal Age Remastered Soundtrack up for Download

It’s Thi4f versus The Dark Mod...or is it?

Which would you rather have? Thi4f by Eidos Montreal, that has teased about the title for quite a while, and says that it’s only in pre-production currently, or The Dark Mod, which came into being after the last Thief, Deadly Shadows, was released in 2004. It’s been nearly five years and the team, a bunch of Thief fans working on it in their spare time with no funding, says they want to get a beta release out this year.

No points for guessing which one we’ll see first, then. It’s not a race, but rather preference over which you prefer: a big budget AAA title, using newer technology or a mod for Doom 3 which looks dated all ready. It’s not all about graphics, though, and besides, you’ll be sneaking around in the dark for most of the time, so you won’t even notice. It’ll just be black with different shades of grey, and the occasional light that needs to be extinguished. Doom 3, although it looked good, was never praised for its bright and cheerful appearance. Thief didn’t win awards for its pointy, harsh looking graphics back in the day either; it was the gameplay that people were after, and are still looking for.

The Dark Mod sounds as though it’s coming along nicely, when you take a long look at some of the features that the mod is promising, and if you’ve watched the videos, and seen the screenshots and artwork. There will be intelligent AI, realistic physics, great looking city environments, a great thief’s arsenal of tools and ingenious ways of using them.

Read this: You will be able to shoot moss arrows into windows, and they won’t break, but they’ll grow all over the window pane and make less sound when you smash it in order to break in- sounds excellent.

That’s what I want most of all, is more clever ways of using tools and weapons and not just the same old point and fire approach- sort of like the modern version of alternate fire that we all raved about for years when it first debuted in the 90s.

The Dark Mod, being made by Thief fans for Thief fans, aims to keep on adding and adding new features, and after the beta release which is all ready shaping up to be quite impressive, will keep updating and releasing new versions with new features for people to use. And since the team working on it is too busy to make more than a few maps, which look great to say the least, there’s also the DarkRadiant tool, which will enable people to make their own maps and campaigns, and take that task off the devs shoulders. It will most likely keep the Thief fan community busy for years until Thi4f even sees the light of day.

Recently there’s been another attempt at trying to get the source code for the Dark engine games, namely Thief, Thief Gold, and Thief II, so that the graphics can be updated just like every other well known and loved game of the nineties, like Doom or Quake. With The Dark Mod all ready looking much better than an updated Thief ever could, there’s really little need, unless you’re a purist who wants to stick with far outdated technology, or a masochist who likes a challenge.

I just hope that The Dark Mod doesn’t get shut down by Square Enix (Square Enix bought Eidos). Think about it- it happened to the fan-made Chrono Trigger sequel recently, and it has happened before to mods for games. Think of UDoom, probably a project which little of you know about which was issued a cease and desist order two years ago. It aimed to recreate Doom in the Unreal engine, and id Software promptly sought to shut it down, and the devs complied, knowing it would otherwise lead to a legal war that they had no chance of winning.

What if Eidos or Square Enix picked up The Dark Mod on its radar and decided that, because it’s a project using the Doom 3 engine and resembles or emulates Thief too closely, which practically fits the description of what UDoom was, it must be shut down. That would be bad.

Best we keep this project in the shadows then.

Sources and Resources:

http://www.thedarkmod.com/
http://www.thief4.com/
http://www.petitiononline.com/ThiefSrc/petition.html
http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/UDoom
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/05/12/square-enix-pulls-the-trigger-on-chrono-trigger-fan-projects/

It’s Thi4f versus The Dark Mod...or is it?

Thief Fans Running a Source Petition

Since Square Enix has bought Eidos,  the Thief fans are now pleading with Yoichi Wada to release the source code for the original games in the series, namely Thief: The Dark Project and Thief II: The Metal Age, which both use the Dark engine, the same as Thief Gold and System Shock 2.

"To: Mr. Yoichi Wada, Square Enix' President and Representative Director 

Dear Mr. Yoichi Wada!

 We are the Thief-community and are inspired by the fact that your company, Square Enix, has bought Eidos. Your corporate slogan, «It is the mission of the SQUARE ENIX Group to spread happiness across the globe by providing unforgettable experiences», has brought hope to us, who are pained for ten years by the futile, but at the same time ineradicable, dream. Let us share it with You. 
The games Thief: The Dark Project and Thief 2: The Metal Age, which were released in 1998 and 2000, opened for PC players a door to the mysterious and mythical world based on Medieval Europe. The world that is tissued from steam and magic, made by the geniuses of Looking Glass Studios, became so attractive to Thief players that they began to create their own missions by themselves, and these missions enlarge and fill up the original games (now there is more than 800 of them). Not few among them are better in quality than the original games (see, for example, rating at http://www.keepofmetalandgold.com/fmarchive.htm). 

The world of Thief still lives over a decade after its initial release through the efforts of its fans – isn't it proof of the fact that the game is a work of genius? However, time passes by, and the technology, made for the base of Thief: The Dark Project and Thief 2: The Metal Age, can no longer provide enough freedom for the activities of those who want to enlarge and improve the original games. We, as the Thief-community, dream of receiving in our hands the original source code of Thief: The Dark Project and/or Thief 2: The Metal Age in order to make changes and improvements to it. By releasing the source code to us fans, it would give more scope to those who continue to create the world of Thief. 

We are by no means calling on Square Enix to release the games Thief: The Dark Project and Thief 2: The Metal Age as freeware. We are only requesting the original source code for the graphics engine to these games, not anything more. More than ten years has passed since the release of Thief: The Dark Project and more than nine years since the release of Thief 2: The Metal Age. Because of this, we realize that these two titles are likely to be of little technological and/or commercial value for publisher. That's why we charitably ask you, the new owner of the "Thief" brand, to make the Thief-community happy and publish the original graphics source code of the games Thief: The Dark Project and/or Thief 2: The Metal Age, thus confirming Your corporative slogan. 

Publishing the original source code of an old game is a widespread demonstration of good will to players - it is done by known of PC game developers: id Software (Wolfenstein 3D, Doom 1&2, Quake 1-3), Raven Software (Heretic 1&2, Hexen 1&2), 3D Realms (Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior), Volition (Freespace) and others. We cherish hopes that Square Enix will do the same with Thief: The Dark Project and/or Thief 2: The Metal Age as well. 

We understand that it has been nine years since the closing of Looking Glass Studios, and that it is possible that the original source code of Thief: The Dark Project and Thief 2: The Metal Age does not exist integrally and ready for compilation. If this is true, we understand this but then, please, publish everything that is left, and we will try, like archeologists, to rise the great past from the ashes! 

Sincerely, 

The Undersigned"

This has been provided as is, and there are bits and pieces that look as though it wasn't proofread,
but the message is clear. I agree that it's about time that the source code is released and those enthusiastic about it can get to work with giving Thief a bit of a face lift.

If you're interested, and want to know more, and sign the petition (I all ready have), then head on over to http://www.petitiononline.com/ThiefSrc/.

Thief Fans Running a Source Petition

Games I want: Thief 4

There have been rumours ever since the last Thief game, Deadly Shadows, was released in 2004 that there will be a fourth game in the series. It’s true that Ion Storm was working on it before they went bang years back, and that they planned to make a modern version of the game.

For years, Eidos has teased gamers with news of Thief 4 in development and even advertising for positions to work on the game, their next ‘AAA’ project, probably after Deus Ex 3 comes out.

The thing is you just can’t do that to Thief! You can’t modernize it, otherwise it just isn’t Thief. It might be okay if it goes off in a separate direction as a spin-off series, but don’t bastardize the main series that all ready suffered a blow from Deadly Shadows, that some don’t even recognize as a true Thief game due to its dumbing down for the Xbox. It could use a different name or the same name but with obvious indications that it is different, like having a new character to play as.

A modern setting could work for a Thief-inspired game, but not Thief, if you know what I mean.

At the moment there is The Dark Mod, a thief-inspired mod for Doom 3 that looks pretty good, and the thing here is that it is being developed by fans for the fans- a real DIY project that has taken a lot of time and labour of love. 

Other than this, people are still ‘taffing’ around with Thief, Thief Gold, Thief 2, and T2X; replaying them, modifying them or making new FMs (fan missions).

I don't know about a sequel, as far as Thief 4 goes, seeing as Garrett became a goody-two-shoes keeper at the end of T3. Maybe a prequel could work. If you've ever read the fan-fictions 'A Keeper's Apprenticeship' and 'A Thief's Apprenticeship' among others at thief-thecircle.com, there's a lot that could've happened before, during, and after Garrett’s training and even before Lord Bafford’s Manor, the first mission in Thief: The Dark Project. Perhaps there might have even been events in the gaps between T1 and T2 or T2 and T3 that could be explored.

 I think TDS started something though, even though it was called ‘Thief Lite’ by some, and that would be Thief meets GTA. I'm not talking about riding on horses and doing ride-bys, although it's quite a laugh- that was all ready done by GUN. I mean a main storyline, and then LOTS of side-quests, either for gold or new equipment, possibly other incentives, like an unlockable feature, ala Chronicles of Riddick: EFBB, like a map of The City, which fans of Thief have waited for and some have even devoted every waking moment to, creating their own versions.

Some ideas that I’ve read about on forums, specifically on TTLG.com, have suggested that 
they make a game based on the thief series, but more like Command& Conquer. You could have the hammerites versus the pagans; maybe have the mechanists and the keepers, possibly the city army, all the factions. It might be a good idea for a mini-game- a trading card like game, like trumps or magic.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Thief-The-Dark-Project

Games I want: Thief 4