Surprise!

[Davehall380]

Ok, so I was watching the wonderful adventures of Khad last night (I seriously, seriously cannot get enough of this - surely we have all been here at some point? http://letscrosby.com/index.php?page=articles&s=view&id=184) and I could not stop laughing at the moment he realised that Haunts could run, will run and wont stop running!

I thought it would be cool to recollect your fondest memories of utter suprise, bemusement or horror when playing through Thief for the first time.

For me, the stand out moment came in the Bone Hoard. Meandering through the tombs, I came across a zombie that was slowly shifting patrolling at the top of a ramp. It sees me, and starts its painful shuffle down the ramp. The system I was using at the time was a little slow to say the least, and after a good 5 second screen freeze (frozen half-way in the animation of withdrawing my water arrows), the game 'catches up' with itself, and for a split second the frame rate spikes and the zombie hurtles towards me in terrifying speed. I think I almost feel of my seat in terror, shouting an undignified 'wooooo oh dear god'. :(

[Platinumoxicity]

I remember the first time I got the kung-fu-servant glitch in the TDP demo around 1998. And after I got the full TDP, I remember what happened when I took Bafford's from TDP and replaced Bafford's in the TDP demo with the full version mission. Spiders were invisible. Instead of the female servant there was a male servant whose all body parts were squeezed into a single point down on the ground. And the rest of the servants did kung-fu.

The system I was using at the time was a little slow to say the least, and after a good 5 second screen freeze (frozen half-way in the animation of withdrawing my water arrows), the game 'catches up' with itself, and for a split second the frame rate spikes and the zombie hurtles towards me in terrifying speed. I think I almost feel of my seat in terror, shouting an undignified 'wooooo oh dear god'. :(

Reminds me of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Only Ukranians are able to program a game that has AI that continues to function in real-time speed while the game is freezing or stuttering badly. Sometimes the game freezes to load a missing sound file or something, during which dozens of monsters gang up on you, as if they don't care about the fact that your computer isn't fast enough to allow the game to function while it loads resources. The AI must be haunted or something.

[Psychomorph]

When I played Thief Deadly Shadows for the first time, the only fact I knew about Thief was that I'm a thief and actually thought I'm playing some sort of a historical type medieval game untill I saw a Kurshok in custody of the City Watch and realized it's a fantasy game, lol. I must admit that was one of the coolest things I experienced in a game, because usually you know what you're playing, but here I was clueless and suddenly everything wrapped around 180 degrees and the game changed into something else right in front of my eyes.

[Musk of Ephesus]

The AI must be haunted or something.

That's something I really love! Sometimes certain games just seem secretly alive. I mean its always circumstantial; that's the power, it has to be otherwise it's just another letter between A-Z.

[Black-Adder]

I remember once in TDP when this servant got all freaky on me; Must've been a gitch with his animations and AI because as soon as he saw me he started sliding after me with his arms stretched out, I tried to escape, but he kept following me around (even when i was stealthed), yelling bloody murder and alerting everyone to my presence!

[jtr7]

Playing Cragscelft for the first time--and this has happened to others, as well--I slipped down the elevator shaft to the lowest level and met the Huge Spider in the deep dark the hard way. :p

I didn't have the common Cragscleft first Thief zombie possum scare like a lot of taffers, since I had played TMA first and suspected it wasn't just a corpse, but that spider shock ensured I had a memorable Cragscleft Mines surprise moment.

[Platinumoxicity]

Speaking of Cragscleft, I'm one of those people who hadn't played Quake 1, so when the first zombies in Thief started pursuing me, the fact that they can't be killed with normal weapons surprised me.

[wildandcrazyguy]

I'd have to say the first time I played the Shalebridge Cradle mission and didn't realise that the puppets behave as undead. I backstabbed one of them thinking I had killed it and then it jumped up a few seconds later.

[Davehall380]

I never thought that they could improve on RTHC, but the Cradle was immense.

http://gillen.cream.org/thecradle.pdf

Article by a journalist that worked for PC Gamer UK for a long time, and summed up Thief beautifully in his reviews for TDP, TG and TMA.

[Psychomorph]

I love the logo in the background. As there an unobstructed picture of it anywhere?

http://i42.tinypic.com/2z7516d.jpg

[Platinumoxicity]

I love the logo in the background. Is there an unobstructed picture of it anywhere?

No, that is actually the full picture of the logo. The missing part just isn't visible. The reason why part of it is missing is because Thief III was never finished. :D trololo, massi

[theBlackman]

Mine was in TMA, Life of the Party, when I (Garrett) was walking over the pipe to cross the street to the armoury.

When Garrett spoke to himself I almost jumped off the pipe.

[DJ Riff]

My first videocard was not rendering transparency at all. So hammer apparitions looked exactly like humans. Of course I tried to blackjack the first one I saw in the Sealed Section. :whistle:

[Platinumoxicity]

One of my best surpises in Thief was last week. After installing Tafferpatcher, I was surprised when the unused conversations were functioning. In Masks, there's a creepy one-way "conversation" between a mechanist and a Servant, and a hilarious conversation between Benny and Smartguard, and Smartguard has caught a cold. Hearing this missing material was like a good substitute for missing Thief 4 news. :)

[ToMegaTherion]

Playing Cragscelft for the first time--and this has happened to others, as well--I slipped down the elevator shaft to the lowest level and met the Huge Spider in the deep dark the hard way. :p

I did exactly the same. I had no idea what was attacking me, but I managed to kill it by running around slashing wildly. Then I pressed the elevator button and was crushed to death.

[Wakawl]

This Khad guy sorta turned me off when he said he doesnt like to think in a game....

[Platinumoxicity]

This Khad guy sorta turned me off when he said he doesnt like to think in a game....

Yet he still is always thinking about things in the game in videogame logic. For example, if he goes through huge trouble to take out a guard, only finding an empty room with nothing of value to him, he complains: "why would the game designers create a challenge without a reward?" Not even for a second does he stop to consider that maybe a game world where everything doesn't revolve around the player is more realistic.

[Psychomorph]

This Khad guy sorta turned me off when he said he doesnt like to think in a game....

Yet he still is always thinking about things in the game in videogame logic. For example, if he goes through huge trouble to take out a guard, only finding an empty room with nothing of value to him, he complains: "why would the game designers create a challenge without a reward?" Not even for a second does he stop to consider that maybe a game world where everything doesn't revolve around the player is more realistic.

That's the "Casual Gamer". The one who destroyed good games.

If there was a game where you have to hunt down evil casual gamer characters, equipped with XboX controllers, hell I'd pay for it.

[Tryst]

The first time I encountered a zombie, I hit him several times with the sword until he went down. To my surprise, he got up again and I had to hit him with the sword the same number of times to drop him. The third time around and severely low on health, I figured the sword may not have been a good idea after all. :mad2:

[veilur]

Some kind of surprise for me that I had in TDP (it was more a strong fright) was in Down in the Bonehoard after I came down stairs to the burricks caves when I was catched in a trap - that huge stone that crashed in my head killing me instantly - beeing very surprised at that moment about what might kill me so suddenly without seeing anything!