Modding Thief Gold

I typed this out a while back but forgot to publish the post for whatever reason. This is the collection of mods that I am using the make Thief Gold tolerable on computer screens larger than a postage stamp.

My fellow denizens of the Internet seem to possess various opinions on whether or not the enhancement and HD mods remain true to the original spirit and look of the game, but I like them and I shall leave that judgment for your own personal preference. That said, I would highly recommend installing the TFix patch at minimum (enabled widescreen support, general fixes, patches, and the like). Also, as with any Steam game that you have to manually patch or mod outside of the Steam interface itself, I would highly recommend disabling automatic updates. You may do so by going to your Library, right clicking on the title -> Properties -> Updates -> Select ‘Do not automatically update this game’ from the dropdown menu. Mods used:

  • NewDark: An update to the Dark Engine to accommodate newer hardware. If you purchased Thief off of GOG, it already comes packaged with NewDark.
  • TFix: n all-in-one unofficial patch for Thief and Thief Gold. It improves compatibility with newer hardware, fixes miscellaneous issues, adds support for widescreen resolutions, and various other things. This update utilizes and comes packaged with the NewDark update.
  • Thief Enhancement Pack 2: Replaces some of the textures and models.
  • OpenAL: Enable EAX through the OpenAL library.
  • HD Texture Mod: Makes things HD.

1. Install TFix: Download and run the TFix installer (use 1.18a) or newer from here. By default, TFix will choose C:\Games\Thief as the destination folder. If you purchased Thief off of Steam or GOG you will need to change the folder path during the installation process to reflect your Thief install directory. For most people running Steam on a 64-bit installation of Windows it should be located at: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\thief_gold\

2. Install the Thief Enhancement Pack 2: This mod does not have an installer, Download the ep2.cr file from this forum post and drop it into the main directory. Ignore the installation instructions on ttlg.com by the way: You do not need to edit cam_mod.ini as that will be added later by the HD mod..

3. Install the HD Texture Mod: Download the HD Mod Installer and install it to your main thief directory.

4. Enable EAX through OpenAL: Extract the contents of the 7-zip files from this guide into your Thief Gold directory. Start Thief, options -> enable Hardware Acceleration until it shows OpenAL.

Tyrael, Aspect of Pizza

[video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6DE28DoXp4]

As pointed out by someone on /r/Diablo, the reason why he absolutely cannot stop talking about how much he did or did not eat today (same voice actor apparently).

Diablo 3: Monk Tempest Rush Farming

As depicted in the video above (torment 1), I have been tinkering with a Tempest Rush farming build. Running around constantly is a much more gratifying experience than my previous style of play which was effectively, staying in one spot, occasionally moving out of poop, and tapping a few buttons. However also as depicted in the video above, I am not quite geared properly for this build so it’s not really as efficient as it really could be to say the least. Bottom line: Yay, even more rerolling already rerolled stats. Yay more material farming.

Getting stunned into place is pretty much death. So, gingerly avoiding being on the business side of certain mobs is rather important but luckily not too difficult given that most hard hitters and stunners telegraph their abilities by a fair bit. I may replace one of my passives for Chant of Resonance so that I can keep Mantra of Conviction up. Once I get another piece of gear with spirit regen I can probably swap out exalted soul for something else.

Diablo 3 Post Level 70 Notes

keiyad3ros My monk is currently at level 70 paragon 53. We have been clearing through Torment 1 Adventure Mode content without any real difficulty, My damage is still fairly low (pushing not quite 300k), but moderately useful items have at least been dropping for me lately. Recent spoils: Xephirian Amulet, Fists of Thunder, and Vigilance.

This build is what I have been running with lately. I swapped out Deadly Reach and Sweeping Wind for Way of the Hundred Fists: FoF and Mystic Ally. If I recall correctly, WoHF:FoF is the highest DPS spirit spender at the moment, but it does not generate as much spirit as DR and does not synergize with elemental bonuses. Once the RNGesus chooses to favor me in my endeavor to acquire +lightning damage items, I shall swap my build over yet again. Fire Ally seems to be okay? I am unsure how it compares damage wise with SW:CS with my current gear, but I kind of got tired of repeatedly having to recast Sweeping Wind every time I lost momentum or had to stop to look at gear drops, go AFK, and the like.

LTK:SS and DS are more or less staples for any of my builds.

Diablo III: Reaper of Souls

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Yes I bought it and yes it is fun. I haven’t though yet had a chance to try out adventure mode because we are still poking our way through the new act. From what I hear, it’s the new cool thing to do and it appears to be really the only thing that anyone else on my friends list other than Dave and myself ever does in the game.

The new enchanting ability is probably one of my favorite additions to the game. I can’t tell you how any drops I have received were literally off by one stat or buffed the wrong ability. Enchanting is kind of like WoW gear reforging with an RNG element. Don’t like that one shit stat on that legendary drop? Well, you can now reroll any one property on any piece of gear for crating material costs. You have the ability to preview what the possible outcomes are before spending the materials. After you enchant, two random picks will be selected and you will have the option of either keeping the original stat or selecting one of the two.

We have been progressively lowering the difficulty down from torment III to master as we have progressed through Act V and have subsequently discovered that we are way undergeared for expansion pack torment difficulties. Well that and, we kind of what just casually make our way through the new content at least once without being too worried about getting reamed by an elite mob. We’ll worry about the finer art of gear farming and what not at a later point in time.

ACNL: More Frog People

I have had good luck breeding black roses this week; Quadrupling my black rose inventory even! Despite having used the fertilizer on my pear trees every day, I have still had no luck with growing a perfect pear. Don’t sell your perfect fruit kids (by default all towns have one perfect fruit)! If you do, you aren’t going to get it back for a while unless you are super lucky.
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Puddles moved into town on Wednesday. We like puddles because she is cute and has for once, moved into a plot that does not interfere with any existing path or plant. On a similar note: Does anyone else have a villager that they kind of dislike but don’t want to move out because their house is located in literally the perfect spot? This is the way that I feel about Chester.
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I do not however share the same feelings about Rowan, who’s house has destroyed the one and only apple tree in Chulak. I unfortunately did not realize that villagers could spawn so close to Re-Tail as well as another player’s house (immediately to the right). Oh well :/
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ACNL: Monthly Picture Dump (Yay Spring)

Huzzah for the snow finally being gone and not having a dejected looking town tree. I really wish that the ability to remove ground patterns was locked to each character. If only I was given a dollar for every instance in which I had kicked one of my paths off of the ground while picking up a piece of fruit or shuffling flowers around.

I finally built enough public works projects to obtain perfect town status and the golden watering can. Still no new exotic hybrids.
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Gaston is my new favorite villager because he is the only one thus far who has chosen to wear my custom designs (yay the Wesley Crusher sweater).
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Yay flowers.
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Freckles came and Freckles went. No villager picture sadly.
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Yes Gaston, your banana.
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Layed down flowers, trying to make town pretty.
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Sadly Ava, one of my favorite villagers moved this morning. I have been preoccupied with other activities and had not even noticed that she was moving :/. The vast majority of my PWPs have been unlocked by Ava. On the upside, I can finally fix the paths (her house was placed in the exact wrong place).
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Thief: Flirting With Average

I caved in and ended up purchasing the new Thief game at release. I am actually having quite a bit of fun with it (despite having put it down to fawn over Diablo 3 once again). So in other words, it’s not the gaming anti-christ as portrayed elsewhere. However, I can’t quite shake the feeling that Thief is merely a shittier version of Dishonored, which is kind of ironic given that Dishonored was influenced by the Thief series. I am pretty sure though that this feeling stems from the blink-like swoop mechanic (hit the space bar to move rapidly from shadow to shadow) and the fact the world that thief partakes in is quite different; It’s more Victorian than steampunk if that matters all that much to anyone. Graphically the game looks and performs nicely, but is aesthetically lacking and probably one of if not the most ‘brown’ game that I have played to date this year.

The levels are way less open to the point of being literally scripted in a few portions of the game. The parts of the game that are fairly open are based off of a path based design reminiscent of Deus Ex Human Revolution in that the multiple points of entry are presented in the form of conspicuous pathways (conveniently placed wooden overhangs shootable by rope arrows, vents that you can unscrew, ladders that can fall down, etc). The problem is that these points points of entry are WAY too conspicuous to the point of being blatantly highlighted and pointed out to you even when you are not using the focus skill. There’s not a whole lot of room for creative thinking there.

Between missions, different parts of the game are accessed through a hub world, which aside from a few guards who patrol the street level is more or less dead. I mean, I can see why there wouldn’t be many people out and about in the middle of the night in shit town amidst a plague ridden city, but the odd thing is that it is as if absolutely no one lives in the city. The hub world has lootable houses and areas strewn about the city but they are all for the most part, generically decorated rooms that are absolutely void of life and personality. I think the greatest challenge that I faced thus far in this area was one or two traps? There’s just not a whole lot of fun sneaking around if there’s no one to hear or no threat for that matter.

Thief however despite its flaws, is probably the crowning jewel of all PC ports in terms of what the game allows you to change. It’s seriously the one place in which this game shines above virtually all others is the sheer amount of customization that you can make to the game settings. If there is a UI element or a game mechanic that you dislike, odds are that you can just turn it off. This includes but is not limited to the focus system, navigation waypoints, the light meter, etcetera.

If you are expecting a modern rendition of Thief the Dark Project then you are most likely going to be sorely disappointed. Yes, it does fall way way short of its predecessors. So is it a bad Thief game? Undoubtedly so as it doesn’t really add anything positive to the series and arguably detracts from it. Is it a bad game overall? Not really. Completely ignoring the Thief tag, I would probably rate it as a decent average game. Oh by the way: I would recommend playing on the highest difficulty with the waypoints and focus system turned off right off the bat. These are the settings that I feel are as close the spirit of the previous games as possible.

Odds and Ends: March 8th 2014

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I have a few things to say about the new Thief game, in which I am still working my way through on-and-off when I find the time. But for now, as you can all see per the screenshot posted above, we have hopped on the Diablo III train once again now that patch 2.0 is in the wild. I have been hearing a lot of buzz about it lately amongst various groups, so we caved, patched the game, and gave it another whirl on Friday. Loot that I could use (decent loot at that) actually dropped more than 0 times when we were playing last night. That in itself is pretty amazing. I am still pretty iffy on the expansion pack which is set to release during the later parts of this month, but mostly because I am not certain that I really need to buy yet another new game. Other things:

  • Picked up Animal Crossing New Leaf yet again, finally unlocked T&T Emporium, finally created a pattern mule, unlocked the QR code reader on said pattern mule and laid down patterns (new project is to make my town look less ass).
  • Threes is my new favorite iOS game.
  • Finally purchased a new camera: A Sony NEX-6 with a 16-50mm lens. Greatly looking forward to taking photographs of absolutely everything.
  • Also: Camera things are frickin’ expensive and for some reason, all of my newer hobbies seem to involve A. Shooting things with various precision instruments and B. Spending money.

ACNL: Out With the Old and in With the New

Only one villager (Tutu) had moved out as a result of mostly neglecting Animal Crossing for a few weeks for Bravely Default and other activities. I guess that isn’t too bad, given that she mailed me her picture. Why can’t I seem to get any villager pics unless they move out?
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I was pleasantly surprised to see that Lucha had moved into town as he was on my dreamie list.
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After speaking with Ankha last night for about 20 minutes straight, I finally got her to move into Chulak. She better be worth it since getting her to move in cost me about 20k and my Saturday night K.K. Slider boot (left it in my inventory, whoops). When campers agree to move in, is that guaranteed or is there a chance that they will bail out? About a month ago, Skye agreed to move in but never did.
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Woot woot, an actual visitor.
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