Hellow!

I bought this yesterday and figured that I'd give it a spin.
The first thing that I noticed was that the control scheme is a nightmare - akin to that of SS2.

Does anyone have a good config file they could send me, or have any recommendations as to what to bind where?

Cheers.

It's hard to make a suggestion without knowing what you think it's wrong with the default controls - do you have a problem with WASD?

All in all you're not going to need a lot of keys. For movement I just use the default WASD, Q and E to lean (leaning is not exceptionally useful to peek behind corners, but is crucial to overhear what's going on behind closed doors - wich is very important later in the game), shift to run, X to crouch and spacebar to jump/climb. That's all I ever needed.

Walk slow and creep - you can safely unbind them, they are not very useful in T2. It's better and safer to stay crouched if you want to move silently, and if you need to move faster than that just tap W repeatedly, you shouldn't make a sound unless you hold down the key for too long. Likewise, Z, C, T and G can be rebount to something more useful than keyboardturning, I use them for those few items need to reach quickly or use often. I have C for lockpicks, F for Flashbombs, G for Gas bombs, and use the mouse wheel to browse through the rest.

It depends on why you find the game poor.
- If you find the graphics poor, then I would say that they don't get better, but you should install the v.1.19 patch which allows much higher resolutions.
- If you find the level design poor, then it does get better, and the storyline evolves nicely too.
- If you find the gameplay poor, then I would say that the rest of the game is pretty much the same style as the first 2 levels. Play those through, and then see how you feel.
- If you find the audio poor, then I will throw things at you :) Thief's Dark engine was light-years ahead of its time for the audio.

The main difference between Thief 1 and Thief 2 is that there are much less "tomb raiding" missions in Thief 2, and much more emphasis on the core gameplay of stealing things from enormous buildings :)

in that case, I have an excellent suggestion for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_duty#Modern_Warfare_series

Hey, thanks a lot for the binds. Turns out that I didn't even need all that many! The SS2 like interface really put me off because I spent a lot of time screwing with binds in that game.
Then all of my movement buttons stopped working all of a sudden - apparently a common bug - and after screwing with it for a couple of hours I simply stopped playing. A real shame, because I enjoyed that game a lot.

As for why I'm thoroughly unimpressed by this game thus far:
-I saw the mod, but don't care about graphics so didn't bother installing it.
-Yup, the level design. The first mission was... it was ok, but I was expecting more. Too many corridors with no apparent purpose. Too hard to tell where you are, etc. Lots and lots of useless backtracking just trying to make sense of where you are because the level design is so bland.
-Yup, the audio is pretty damn poor. Mind you, I was even playing with headphones on and it's impossible to tell anything by the footsteps. They always sound the same.
-But in general I was just really unimpressed by the stealth mechanics. Mind you, I have finished Deus Ex for example as a pacifist a good half a dozen times. I'm currently on my 3rd playthrough of Human Revolution, also as Ghost and Pacifist. I'm used to taking my time, saving and loading a lot, etc. But in Thief... Guards will spot you unless you are directly behind them (270 degree vision), the smallest step on the wrong surface will make noise, etc. Hiding in ridiculous places is possible just because there's an arbitrary shadow there. A big meh. I understand that this game was monumental for its time, but the gameplay is simply way too outdated for me to be able to enjoy it. I will try out the sequel and see if that will offer a slightly better experience. Hey, thanks for the tips but can only give rep to one person :(
But yeah, it turned out easier than I had anticipated.

Balance and guards' awareness is different in every game and depends a lot on the difficulty settings. Knowing how to move on different materials is something you need to learn pretty fast, I know it can be difficult to learn, but there are many tricks you can use to distract a guard, and you also have moss arrows.

I think Thief 2 is the best in the trilogy in terms of balance and level design, loved it back in the day and still love it now. T3 introduced some interesting features, but movement was a bit clunky, and even on max difficulty it was too easy.

Thief 1... I couldn't really get into it, mostly because I couldn't get the controls right after playing the sequels. Quit playing halfway the first level.

I'd suggest giving Thief 2 a go, the level design in there is much better (LGS wrote the levels first and then tried to plug them together with a story). I would be interested to see what you make of the level design of the Assassin's Guild level in Thief 1 though :) (Throws cushions at you ;) ) To each their own. The EAX is a bit dodgy, as it was really cutting-edge when it was released, but you should be able to tell tthe proximity, direction, and walking surface of the guard's footsteps. Plus they get blocked by walls and doors, and doorways provide a proper diffraction pattern. Yes, you need to be behind the guards (or at least, out of their 270' field of vision), and you also need to look out for what surface you rapidly approach them on. Thief 2 takes this to the extreme in places, with ridiculous floor surface choices (e.g. huge amounts of marble floors in First City Bank and Trust), but there's always a way :)

It's also worth pointing out that Thief, more than any other game I know, even Deus Ex, rewards non-linear thinking and explorative gameplay. This is where the level design shines through. There's always about 4-5 ways of doing things, from full-on attacking, to sniping with arrows, to causing diversions, to usually 3 ways of performing each task (with the obscure or difficult ones tending to get you extra loot).