the dark project or gold? first playthrough

>>11842751 (OP)
Gold even if thieves guild is a very rough mission. Approach it like you're playing Ultima Underworld or something.

>>11842912
Thieves Guild is not even that bad. Maybe the most exaggerated "that level" ever. The Mage Towers and Song of the Caverns are also pretty fun.

Dark Project, no question.

>Adds mages to The Lost City, ruining the lonely atmosphere
>Thieves Guild is placed too early in the game and stumps new players.
>Mages Tower is just okay
>Song of the Caverns is good

The best addition is the giant room in The Sword, which is fucking awesome. But it's not worth having to deal with the other changes. Play with Gold2Dark first, then play the extra levels after you beat the game.

All the Gold shit was just a massive overcorrection because normies couldn't handle the tomb raiding and horror focused missions.

>>11842751 (OP)
neither
play Deadly Shadows the only worthwhile Thief game

>>11842751 (OP)
Gold. No reason not to play additional levels.

>>11843032
In 5 years people will suggest playing nuThief by the looks of it...

>>11843210
Last time I played Thief was in 2000, thinking about picking it up again and also play the sequels. Is Deadly Shadows just bad?

>>11843269
it's not the worst thing ever but it's just a boring game and not interesting. It also has a lot of quirks that haven't aged well because it was made for consoles, so everything had to be watered down.

>>11842912
I liked Thieves' Guild more than the last 3 missions, to be honest.
t. beat the game for the first time a few days ago

>>11843269
it's the best in the series, don't listen to that contrarian fag

>>11843269
Deadly Shadows is a clunky consolized mess that is heavily overrated by people who played it as their first ever imsim on their Xbox. I did re-evaluate it myself after Thi4f came out, ending up realising it's not THAT bad, but it's still worse than 1&2.

>>11843276
You're the contrarian with an opinion like that. Saying TDS is the best in the series is an extreme minority opinion among Thief fans, most of which prefer 1 or 2 heavily.

>>11842751 (OP)
I don't think you can even play TDP nowadays.

the one unforgivable thing gold does is ruin a mission called lost city by putting annoying gay mages in it. there is a mod that adhoc tries to restore the original atmosphere but it's not quite perfect, is missing a non human enemy present in the original.
aside from that the extra missions are ok, questionable from a pacing perspective.

>>11843269
Other anons already said everything, I'll just add that the main issue is the levels. They're very small compared to the previous games. And huge levels are essential for a gameplay that Thief 1&2 introduced.

>>11843269
Deadly Shadows has a good story, but when it comes to gameplay it's obvious they had to do a lot of compromises to make it work on the original XBox.
You'll get a lot more enjoyment out of the game if you mod it

If you're going to play Thief, do not play expert. It restricts your playstyle by forcing a game over if you kill anyone.

>>11842751 (OP)
>first playthrough
First thief introduction? Then probably better to play deadly shadows as >>11843032 said with that fan patch that stiches levels together .

Reasoning:
>the fact you haven't played it means you're probably still new to stealth genre
>deadly shadows did its best to appeal to newcomers while trying to keep thief complexity. It failed the latter but did well on the former.
>since you haven't played older ones chances are you may get filtered by graphics. Deadly shadows is fine in that department

Played thief 2 back in the day when it came out, couldn't get into it. Then played deadly shadows on xbox, got really invested and finished the first 2 games.
>>11843269
Its fine for what it is. It serves as a great introduction although it is quite "casualised"

>>11843273
>made for consoles
>>11843314
>clunky
>>11844221
>main issue is the levels. They're very small compared to the previous games
Thanks for clarifying. Thief Gold it is. It's been 25 years but I still remember how enormously huge some of the levels were, and how much fun that was.

>>11844505
who the hell plays Thief by killing people?

>>11844794
Well the game allows you to kill people, so I'd imagine people who aren't neurotically bound to what other people think they should do in video games did so because they found it fun to do.

>>11844816
>the game allows you to kill people
Not on Expert, as was stated.

>>11842939
>Thieves Guild is not even that bad
This. Return to Cathedral is way gayer.

>>11845109
Well that's why I said you shouldn't play on Expert since it just strips player agency.

>>11845275
I exercise my agency by choosing to play on Expert :^)

>>11842751 (OP)
Gold, TDP is missing features that gold added with zombies and general polish like sounds when dropping bodies. Also use TFix Lite and not Tfix.

>>11845343
Sure, if you want to do that. But what I'm saying is that for normal people, Expert limits player agency because again, it *artificially* restricts the player so they can't play how they want to and doesn't allow for experimentation. If Expert didn't have this stupid rule, it would be a fine difficulty to play on.

>>11842751 (OP)
TDP. Gold offers nothing positive, and ruins several key original levels (the lost city, etc)

>>11846003
Stop making assumptions about other people. Speak for yourself.

>>11847162
What assumptions you stupid fucking cretin? I am simply making an objective observation that PLAYING THIEF ON EXPERT RESTRICTS YOU FROM EXPERIMENTING BECAUSE IT CAUSES A GAME OVER IF YOU KILL PEOPLE.

>>11846105
>etc
nice try

>>11847375
Take your meds, sperg.

>>11847459
You're a retard and you should kill yourself.

>>11845260
>tfw the main objective was so short and simple that they had to throw in an overly long fetch quest to pad the length.

>>11844505
Violence is the mark of an amateur

>>11847162
I dislike killing and enjoy exploring so it was the perfect difficulty for me. Increased loot requirement only seldomly proves as a hassle, I think the Old Quarter first cathedral mission is one particular example.

>>11843319
Plays fine just like the Gold. Not sure whether it works with TFix, I have played it with barebones NewDark. You can even run fan missions with it if you apply resource patch. Haven't had much luck running the games with their original .exes though, maybe one could claim that I never truly experienced them because of that.

>>11846003
I dislike killing and enjoy exploring so it was the perfect difficulty for me. Increased loot requirement only seldomly proves as a hassle, I think the Old Quarter first cathedral mission is one particular example.

>>11843319
Plays fine, just like the Gold. Not sure whether it actually works with TFix, I have played it with barebones NewDark instead. You can even run fan missions with it if you apply resource patch. Haven't had much luck running the games with their original .exes though, maybe one could claim that I never truly experienced them because of that.

gold. as much as the bonus missions are questionable it has a suite of general improvements over vanilla and is more compatible with the community resources and updates. consider using the lost city mod mentioned earlier in the thread.

>>11842751 (OP)
IIRC, Its possible to softlock your game in some missions of TDP.

>>11843314
You can see a good game under all the consolized bullshit it has slathered all over it. Bit of a shame
At the very least I'm happy it exists just because of The Cradle.

>>11848052
>Plays fine, just like the Gold.
I think anon means you can hardly find any download links for TDP nowadays, just Gold.

>>11844794
What do you mean dude? Tricking as many people into dying and getting away with it is the best part of expert.

>>11842751 (OP)
The Metal Age (Thief II)

>>11843032
not really... I don't bash neither 3 nor 4 (!!!) but they simply don't have the replayability of Thief II (or Dishonored for that matter)

>>11843269
worth going through it once, maybe even twice...
the levels are very linear, and rather small... and "the city" has lost its charm, you could say that it's just "a town"
the reboot (thief 4) fixes some of these things but ruins a whole bunch of other things lol
both are worth playing, plus Dishonored

>>11844794
assassins creed faggots
I hate those games
>if you don't kill two metric tons of people, preferably bystanders, you fail the level amigo!
damn fremch/canadian muslim faggots

>zoomers too chickenshit to reply
getting ready to go to war huh

>>11850586
sybau unc

>>11850597
english, motherfucker, do you speak it?!

>>11847403
you lost TDSfag

>>11843269
DS is fine; it is a 6-7/10 experience.
It nether or only very rarely reaches the heights of the first two games in terms of level design (the cradle obviously being an exception to the otherwise very mundane levels).
Play through it once to see "the conclusion" to Garret's story and then forget it-

>>11842751 (OP)
Gold. Approach less like a traditional stealth game and more like a D&D rogue simulation. There are a lot of stealth levels, but there are also tomb levels and other fantasy things from D&D mixed in. The Metal Age is much more what you would expect.

>>11851916
>Play through it once to see "the conclusion" to Garret's story and then forget it-
Honestly, I just look at it as a separate game all together. The tone and general vibe is way off and it kinda retroactively ruins the previous games. Thief 1 & 2 was like seeing a bunch of elite rich guys doing fucked up occult free mason shit behind closed doors. Thief 3 has them throwing fireballs at eachother in the streets.

>>11844524
>>11843032
>Play Deadly Shadows first
Is this the latest meme some retard is pushing on here?

>>11852125
first game is dogshit so they might as well
I still recommend thief 2 though, the only "keeper" game in the series, no pun intended
Dishonored comes close

bros, any similar games to thief series? I'm talking about the environment, not the mechanics, so System Shock 1/2 or Prey or Bioshock 1/2 or Alien Isolation or Far Cry series don't really fit (even if good games)
Bioshock Infinite and Dishonored 1/2 are more like it... I enjoyed "Sir, You Are Being Hunted," and playing Blood West now

thx

>>11852160
>first game is dogshit
It's not. It has some of the best levels in the series.

>>11852803
You say "not in mechanics", but I'm still going to recommend Filcher. The atmosphere is closer to Thief 2 than 1.

>>11852803
Arx Fatalis

>>11852817
thanks, played it, very enjoyable
>>11852820
thanks, finished it, great game

>>11852816
yeah maybe I was a bit harsh
funny thing is that I played the demo (which quite generously included the entirety of Lord Bafford's Manor) but when I put my paws on the full game I had no stamina of playing through it again, and the save files were incompatible... so I moved on to Thief 2 which was the second game I purchased (first one was Red Baron 3D)

>>11852803
Stalker Shadow of Chernobyl has really thick atmosphere and feels relatively isolated if that's what you mean by environments.

>"Sir, You Are Being Hunted,"
Did they patch it? It felt very procedural and bare bones when I played it.

>>11852160
>first game is dogshit so they might as well
The first game just subverts your expectations. You go in thinking it will be pure stealth and suddenly you're raiding tombs and stuff. Once you know what to expect it starts to have higher highs than 2 but also lowers lows.

>>11854650
I have the assumption that, at the time, the developers had the assumption that players were going in with the idea that they were a thief in a more tabletop setting. You're gonna get your hands dirty and deal with the undead, because the undead exist in the world and they have trinkets worth robbing.
I never really cared for Thief 2 or Thief Gold's more human-enemy based missions, because that's what the lowest common denominator wanted, not me. In fact, the clockwork technology bullcrap was way more aggravating than any zombie or spectre.

>>11854660
>the developers had the assumption that players were going in with the idea that they were a thief in a more tabletop setting
This is pretty much how I see it to.

I still like the human levels. I just like the games overall old school D&D vibe. The only levels I hate are the ones that are clearly rushed Escape or Casing the Joint.

>>11854650
having to slog through endless dungeons with low-effort design is a bit too much, no matter your expectations
>>11854660
from what I remember the idea for Thief (TDP) came from Warren Spector who worked on it only for a bit; when he was a teen (imagine the late 1960's NYC) he waited in a dark corner for a museum guard to pass by... kinda surprising that Sol Yurick's book which inspired The Warriors movie (and xbox game...) was written in the same time and place Spector got inspired, and also ended up as a blend of sneaking and violence... now that's a time & place I want to see a GTA style game focused in on lol
>I never really cared for Thief 2 or Thief Gold's more human-enemy based missions, because that's what the lowest common denominator wanted, not me.
good insight, actually it motivates me a bit to look into the first game again

>>11854660
for me I've just gotten tired of the stealth game tropes thief originated. clunk guard, hide body, repeat, I've done that too many times at this point, 20 years of playing stealth games. thief as a more general im sim adventure game has way more novelty for me even if those levels don't always make good on the potential.

>>11855090
>having to slog through endless dungeons with low-effort design is a bit too much, no matter your expectations
It's a mixed bag. Mage Towers is a slog. Bonehoard is one of the best dungeons of all time.

>>11855113
I also experienced this. When I first played stealth games I could really get into it, but after playing enough of them I never feel like a stealth master infiltrator like I used to.

>>11855710
Mage towers is cool whomst'vethougheverbeit though.
t. playing thief for the first time and just got the key in the earth tower.
I like the way the different towers have weird elemental themes. Bonehoard is giga top tier, I agree. Along with the sword.

>>11855782
I really like Mage Towers because it has that old school D&D vibe. The idea there's just a secret tower civilization in the woods made the world seem so big. It's cool on the first playthrough, but if you replay the game it is kinda sloggy, which is why so many fans dislike it.