Thief 2 Alpha Demo

16 bit Color!

Some of the biggest knocks that Thief got were aimed at its graphics. Released well by the time that good 3D acceleration was commonplace, Thief was still bogged down by an 8 bit color graphics engine. 8 bit color? Yes, that translates into 256 colors. And people nowadays whine about the Voodoo's 16 bit! To be fair, Thief's 8 bit color was amazing - on par with StarCraft, but it, along with the low-polygon models couldn't hold a candle to contemporary 3D engines like Quake II or, especially, Unreal.

Stairway with light up top - a trap - noooo

Take that light out

Obviously one of the first changes implemented, the 16 bit color is really noticeable. The already amazing level design and architecture has become quite mind-blowing now with with 16bit textures which look very real.

The AI

The AI in Thief was quite revolutionary, reacting to unexpected sounds, ignoring Garrett when he's hidden and hunting him down like a dog when he makes a mistake. A guard, given sufficient provocation, might go from relaxed, through alert to actively searching for Garrett. If Garrett is spotted the guard will raise an alarm and now Garrett needs to get away and fast!

Another beautiful panorama

He's SO dead

Similarly, like guards were smart, zombies were utterly moronic - reflecting their mindless state and that their only motivation was hatred of life. They would follow Garrett into water, or they could be easily 'persuaded' off cliffs to their doom. If knocked down by him in combat, they would as often as not lose sight of him and when they got back up, if he was out of their 'detection' range they went on about as usual -completely forgetting about him.

Other creatures, like Burricks, were quite animal-like in their behavior. If undisturbed and their territory remained inviolate, they couldn't care less about Garrett.

Told ya

More sheep to the slaughter

Of course, there were a few exploits in the AI. One was that if you knocked out a guard on patrol with a blackjack, any other guards that he runs across in his patrol wouldn't notice that he's gone. Creatures don't hear doors being opened, even if right behind them (thankfully!), and Garrett could throw just about anything he picked up against a wall and send his (hearing-enabled) enemies off into that direction.

So what's been improved in the AI department? Well, so far in the demo none of the above have been fixed (phew), but there is some very impressive scripting being done. One scene in the demo finds Garrett running across two pairs of personal guards yelling at each other from two towers. They seem to be fighting over a dispute their masters have, and it's not long before arrows start flying between them. Aside from rewarding a player's patience, this scene also shows the powerful scripting available to Thief 2.