Hello everybody

I have been playing Thief Gold for a few hours now. I reached the level where you must steal the sword (level 7 if I recall correctly).

And I am already so booooooooooored with this game!!!!!!

I really enjoy stealth game. But levels are such mazes that you spend hours walking around, knocking guards because it's so easy to hide the bodies, running again.....

I think I'm done with Thief 1. But I bought Thief 2&3 during the eidos promo 1 or 2 years ago. I assume that Thief 2 is maze based as well (is it?). Is Thief 3 like this too?

Thanks
Gilou

Less maze but there are some nasty puzzles ahead of you. Later in the game there is a level where you have to break into a machine shop and build a beacon. To do that of course you need to make the individual parts themselves. Those individual parts in turn have their own individual parts that need to be built. You have to do this while avoiding psychotic sentry robots.

I love it. I think the series is one of the best out there, but it's not short and it's not easy. :P Good luck,

Thief Gold is not difficult (in normal mode at least) but it is so long.

It's been a while since I played #1 but (and this is not counting the add on Gold levels) getting that sword was the biggest pain in the ass for me in terms of getting lost. The cool thing is you get the sword for the rest of the game and it doesn't reflect light or make any noise so it's a handy little piece.

If you don't think it's hard then you'll be fine; when I first played the zombies were kicking my ass. :P I thought it was difficult but worth it.

ps. Is that "vote Aztec" referring to the old Apple // game?

It is not difficult because all you have to do is knocking down the guards and hide them in the shadow (and not even in the shadow, guards won't depart from their defines pathway). It is hard because you get lost in the levels for a very long time. For almost all the levels, I have had to check on a video walkthrough by the end.

Are Thief 2&3 alike?

NB: Aztec is a point & click adventure game from 1999
http://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/aztec_the_sacred_amulet

3 is good but it is the weaker of the series IMO. That 'beacon level' is in #2 (sorry if I didn't make that clear).
STUPID QUESTION and please don't be insulted by this, but you do know how to use the map don't you? That saved my ass on the 2nd prison level in particular letting me know if I needed to go up or down.

I know how to get to the map. But I have never felt that the map was useful. Like in Oblivion: nice but useless. So at some point I stopped using it. I will relaunch the game and have a look at the map. Maybe it will help.

I found the map to be essential. It's crude and doesn't show everything, so you still have to explore a bit and figure out where you are, but knowing your rough location and which direction you need to go to get to your objective is very helpful. I checked it often.

The mission to get the sword is definitely one of the weirdest and most maze-like in the game. Other missions, to me, felt more like real places rather than mazes, with layouts that made sense. But navigating these places is one of the main activities in the game, so if you're not enjoying that then maybe the games aren't for you.

I played the original Thief: The Dark Project rather than Thief Gold, which has a few extra missions in it. Still, my memory is that Thief 2 is significantly longer than Thief 1, with many more missions. But, it's my favorite in the series, since there's more of a focus on being a thief and sneaking around. The story is a great follow-up to the first game too.

Finally, it is very easy to just knock out guards all the time, but I think the game is more fun when you play with some self-imposed limitations, like only knocking out guards when absolutely necessary, or not knocking out any at all. You also might consider turning the difficulty level up, because this actually creates extra mission objectives, which can include things like not killing anybody or sometimes even not being able to knock out anyone. It makes the game a lot more challenging and interesting.

I will try again Thief 1 and see what happens. Thanks

Thief 2: Metal Age has better level design as well as detailed maps for each level that show (roughly) where you are on the map at any given time.

If you are bored of the labyrinth level design and lack of challenge in The Dark Project, you might as well not torture yourself and skip straight to Thief 2. I wouldn't say the first Thief game has anything that makes it a "must play", and it doesn't really have any narrative beyond the plot synopsis on Wikipedia.

Second this. I played Thief 2 first, back in the day, and then went back and played Gold. I enjoyed about a third of Gold, muddled through another third and hated the rest. However, Thief 2 is much better in terms of design and gameplay, and don't feel bad if you simply skip to it.

The problem is if you skip T1 you spend all of T2 trying to figure out how he got that cool eye. :D

True, but I didn't even think about it until I came across The Eye in Gold. It was just this thing.

It's more than just the eye though. I also played Thief 2 first, and regretted that decision once I'd gotten to a certain point in the story and realized I was supposed to know what had happened in the first game but I didn't. I think the story flows really well through all three games, actually.

So I always recommend playing the games in order. But if the OP is really not enjoying the first game, then skipping to the second might be worth it.

I've also found T1 also acts as a nice tutorial for T2. If you get good at sneaking around the relatively small levels of #1 then it makes you that much more prepared to handle the huge levels of #2 like the warehouse and factory. Plus, and back to your story point, MINOR SPOILER, I loved spending an entire game looking on Hammers as the ultimate evil and then all of a sudden find myself begrudgingly working with them.