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Or: Let's Bumble Through Thief 2 Or: Let's Bumble Through Let's Playing Thief 2: Because nobody told me not to  Thief 2: The Metal Age is a first person stealth game that was developed by Looking Glass Studios and released in the year 2000. It's the sequel to 1998s Thief: The Dark Project, which was the first stealth game to be played from a first person perspective- I remember marketing material describing it as an FPS (First Person Sneaker). These games are also important examples of the immersive sim genre. The game and stealth systems are designed around a heavy focus on light and sound. The player character Garrett has a nearly supernatural ability to blend into dark areas and become invisible, so to remain undetected you have to stick to the shadows and sometimes create your own. Sound is how you know where guards are but if you're not careful it's also how they know where you are. A lot of attention was given to creating the soundscapes of these games both in the engine and the levels themselves. The sound design is so good that even today they make up for the relatively weak graphics to make each of these games a uniquely engrossing experience. What about the first game? Thief: The Dark Project is great but I'm skipping it because I think it will be much more difficult for me to Let's Play. The two games are very similar- same engine, same systems, same UI, same art style. Other than a graphical upgrade and some new tools the biggest difference between the two games is the level design. If you're familiar with Deus Ex Thief II feels like a prototype of that in terms of level design. Each map is big, detailed, and logically constructed. You have a lot of room to plan your own route and can often make informed decisions ahead of time. You're probably not going to get lost in most Thief II missions. Thief: TDP's levels on the other hand are much more abstract. They feel twisty and chaotic, and the in game maps contribute to this by being vague to the point of almost uselessness. You are going to spend a lot of time lost. This isn't necessarily a bad thing; I think TDP overall has a stronger and more powerful tone and atmosphere and that feeling of traveling deeper into madness plays a part in that. About the LP This is not a rehearsed, completionist LP and it's not a blind LP either. I don't know it inside and out and I haven't mastered the systems- I'm just good enough to make it through on expert. I just played through it about 3 weeks ago and I'm going to make it more challenging for myself by not constantly saving. I hope people will see that you don't have to be good at this game to have an absolute blast. I'm also learning all of this as I go so it's going to rough around the edges, hopefully less so as it goes on. Has this game been LPd here before? Yes! Bobbin Threadbare covered the entire series quite thoroughly. The game accommodates different playstyles well and his approach almost feels like a different game. I've heard about a blind LP of the series that predates that one but it's not in the archives. How hard is it to buy and get this game running? Very easy these days! It's available on both Steam and GOG, and the fan community has made some very useful unofficial updates. I've found the site pcgamingwiki.com to be a very useful resource for information and links to help get the game running and add improvements and tweaks. The only thing it doesn't tell you is that you'll need to install it outside of the Program Files directory- somewhere like C:\\Games . If you're using Steam you'll need to first create that folder and then make it a Steam library. For some reason Steam doesn't like having multiple libraries on the same hard drive so it's going to make you jump through a hoop or two- this page has instructions https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/5uqy2u/is_there_any_way_to_set_up_multiple_library/ I have T2fix installed with some optional tweaks and the Enhanced Pack 2 texture mod, and I think a mod that cleans up the audio. There are two other HD texture mods, I'll show them both as well as the vanilla textures. I'd encourage everyone reading to play along and talk about their experiences in the thread, or even record their own videos. I like the idea of emphasizing the Let's of Let's Play. My aim for average episode length is 40-55 minutes, like an hourlong TV show. It really depends on how it all divides up. My current plan is to release two episodes a week, possibly on Monday and Friday. Contents Running Interference Episode 1 (updated- skip to :20) Addendum: Basso's Rescue (with vanilla textures) Shipping... and Recieving Episode 2 (reworked) Episode 3 (reworked) Addendum: Hammerite Conversation (with NecroAge texture pack) Framed Episode 4 (with NecroAge texture pack) Episode 5 Ambush! Episode 6 Episode 7 Eavesdropping Episode 8 First City Bank and Trust Episode 9 Episode 10 Blackmail Episode 11 Episode 12 Tracing the Courier Episode 13 Blood Episode 14 Life of the Party Episode 15 Episode 16 Precious Cargo Episode 17 Episode 18 Kidnap Episode 19 Episode 20 Casing the Joint Episode 21 Episode 22 Masks Episode 23 Episode 24 Episode 25 Sabotage at Soulforge Episode 26 Episode 27 Episode 28 Soundtrack: Redd Kross- Stay Away from Downtown-- Used in episode 7 Shuggie Otis- Strawberry Letter 23-- Lyrics referenced in episode 3, used in episode 8 Television Personalities- The Glittering Prizes-- Used in episode 9 New Order- Ceremony-- Used in episode 10 Roky Erickson and the Aliens- I Walked with a Zombie-- Used in episode 11 Angelo Badalamenti- The Pink Room (from Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me)-- Used in episode 12 Sonic Youth- Death Valley '69-- Used in episode 12 Stevie Wonder- Living for the City- Used in episode 13 Wussy- Jonah- Used in episode 14 Marvin Gaye- What's Going On- Used in episode 15 The Replacements- Skyway- Used in episode 15 Patti Smith- Free Money- Used in episode 16 Teenage Fanclub- Metal Baby- Used in episode 16 Meat Puppets- Climbing- Used in episode 17 Tom Waits- Singapore- Used in episode 18 The Soft Boys- Wading Through a Ventilator- Used in episode 19 Pixies- River Euphrates (artwork may be NSFW)- Used in episode 20 Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers- Born to Lose- Used in episode 20 William Bell- I Forgot to Be Your Lover- Used in episode 21 Camper Van Beethoven- Wasted- Used in episode 22 Black Flag- Wasted- Used in episode 22 Vic Chesnutt- She Doesn't Exist- Used in episode 23 The Dramatics- In the Rain- Used in episode 24 Wussy- Home- Used in episode 25 The Sound- Missiles - Used in episode 27 Husker Du- How to Skin a Cat- Used in episode 27 Wussy- Teenage Wasteland- Used in episode 28 drygear fucked around with this message at 20:51 on Sep 21, 2019 |
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Jun 22, 2019 18:34
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My first update is the first two levels. There's going to be a steady improvement in quality because I'm learning as I go. Running Interference Episode 1 (updated- skip to :20) Addendum: Basso's Rescue These first two levels are a little more rehearsed than the rest because this is at least my second time recording both. I decided to skip a scripted sequence in this mission and then decided to show it so I made a separate video. In the addendum video I used the vanilla textures so you can see what they look like. The differences can be subtle, especially on Youtube. This addendum video is the last I made of this first batch and I use some color grading to brighten the dark areas, something I'll be doing more from now on. Shipping... and Recieving Episode 2 (reworked) Episode 3 (reworked) Addendum: Hammerite Conversation In the second of these videos is the first time I try out color grading to brighten a dark area. I missed a conversation I really liked so I jumped back in and recorded it. In the next level I try out the NecroAge texture mod and I recorded that at the same time as the addendum, so I use it here. Also my microphone was plugged in and I didn't realize it would automatically pick it up, so I'm making a racket here, sorry. drygear fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Jun 29, 2019 |
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Jun 22, 2019 18:43
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That's cool! I think you're going to have the harder job, but other than waiting for things to process and upload this is a lot of fun. My overall approach can be summed up with this image  Except instead of chords it's shotcut, audacity, and my Nvidia capture
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Jun 23, 2019 19:19
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Oh wow, a blind playthrough on expert? You're setting yourself up for some pain with some of the levels, but on the plus side it can make for a fun LP. I think you'd learn more useful things from watching other blind LPs than you would from this. I don't know what is cutting edge these days but Slowbeef's Super Metroid/ Metroid Prime LPs are a good example of one way to do exploration based games blind Yep, shadowplay. Just one monitor drygear fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Jun 24, 2019 |
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Jun 24, 2019 23:30
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Framed Episode 4 This mission was a lot of fun. I've made some improvements to my process and am going to be fixing up the first three videos a little, one of the major things I do is apply color grading to the gameplay to make it easier to see everything in less than optimal conditions and through Youtube's compression. It's not going to look perfectly like the game, but I think the benefit of making it more accessible makes up for it. In dark areas I apply a stronger color grading filter to make those even more visible. I have the reworked first episode uploaded and I'll put the link in the OP and first post of this thread. Next episode might come on Sunday or I might hold off until next Wednesday, it depends on how much I can get done. Kangra posted:It's always fun to watch someone play the Thief games! That's great that you can wall off guards to have Basso ghost his rescue. I love how the Thief fans come up with crazy things like that. drygear fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Jun 26, 2019 |
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Jun 26, 2019 20:10
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Kangra posted:I'll see how the re-upped videos look, but yeah, a few dark areas might be improved by tweaking. Shipping & Receiving really shows the contrast in some parts. I found it somewhat harder to watch when my room was bright, but it was fine at night and with slightly dimmed lights. I went ahead and did the second and third last night. Second one is uploaded but still processing, third one is uploading now and probably won't be done until tonight. I'm leaving for work soon so I'll put the links here now in case you want to check them out later. When I'm in the editor the brightening I do seems like too much, but after exporting them I think they look ok. I don't know how the compression works but it appears that the darker areas of the screen get more heavily compressed so this might improve the final video quality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsErKpUzgZ4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdvN1hlmrv0 Okay, both are up. Youtube still seems unkind to the first of these, but it is what it is I suppose. Next update will be early tomorrow afternoon. drygear fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Jun 29, 2019 |
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Jun 28, 2019 19:19
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New update is here! Framed Episode 5 It might seemed desynced because about 2 and a half minutes in it takes me a couple of seconds to react to something on screen but that's just me being left speechless from surprise even though I'd just been editing and watching the video before recording commentary. It's hard to judge the quality of my own work but that tells me I'm onto something. I feel good about this one. Next update will be on Wednesday. Looking ahead I've decided to do a fan mission between Casing the joint and Masks as a palate cleanser. I haven't played any but I'm thinking of doing The Inverted Manse.
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Jun 30, 2019 19:27
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Covski posted:This is a Good LP, and it inspired me to install the game again! It's one of those games that I've started to play half a dozen times, but never finished. Possibly because I am bad at stealth. I used to be in the same boat with starting this a bunch of times. I bought the first two Thief games at the same time (in late 2001 at the Funcoland on the first floor of the Mall of America) and I mostly cheated and skipped my way around the first game and didn't actually play the second properly until the early part of this decade, and just played it the second time like a month ago. Anyway, thank you, hearing that this got someone to reinstall this makes me really happy. In fact, I think I'll use it as an excuse to post the next update a day early   New update!Ambush! Episode 6 I think with this video there's a chance everyone will take back everything nice they ever said, destroy their copies of the game, and want to forget it exists
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Jul 3, 2019 02:46
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I just finished recording the bank and I have two hours of footage before editing. I had to do it in two sessions over two nights because it was too intense for me to do all at once. Actually I just remembered that I recorded about half an hour of it a couple of days before that I scrapped and started over on too. Next episode will go up on Sunday. It'll be a short one so I may post the one after that a couple of days early depending on how much progress I can make. mortons stork posted:I think the problem you're having with the texture mods is that they tend to be made without much concern with preserving a game's art style, or colour palette, which ends up loving with the aesthetics and making it feel weird at the very least at a subconscious level. This is when they don't outright insert ill-fitting poo poo into the game for the hell of it, or just badly plaster their stuff over low-poly models that clearly weren't meant to handle that kind of stuff. Generally speaking I try to go with mods that just upscale existing textures, rather than substituting them.
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Jul 5, 2019 06:18
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Ambush! Episode 7 This one is short so I might post my next one tomorrow or Tuesday. Edit: The next one is going up tomorrow and then the one after will be on Sunday. It's tempting to post it now because I like how it turned out and I want to show it off, but I don't want to step on this one. Ambush! gave me some trouble when I played it and I considered scrapping the footage and starting over, but I feel like I did a pretty good job of editing them into something enjoyable even if it meant doing the most tired and hacky joke for the first video. Also I tried to play The Inverted Manse and LOL at the idea of me doing that one. I am really really bad at the combat in this game and I died over and over and over to the first couple of zombies. drygear fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Jul 8, 2019 |
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Jul 7, 2019 19:11
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Eavesdropping Episode 8 I made another mistake and so this has 5 seconds of nothing at the start. These can take over 12 hours to upload so it's not worth redoing for a small thing like that! This starts with my favorite cutscene if you couldn't guess by the thread title. I didn't mention in the video but the objectives say to be at the door at midnight to listen to the conversation. You don't actually have to worry about any of the timing for that- when you get to the door it rings midnight. There's nothing stopping you from exploring and clearing the rest of the map before going to the door, but it would probably make for a less interesting video. Audio is very important here and there's a place where you just have to listen to a conversation. I opted to darken the screen during that except for one particular moment. It wasn't intentional but I hint in this video at what my next project will be after Thief 2.
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Jul 9, 2019 18:57
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^^^ I was kind of thinking too about how well designed Framed is. I know the environments were built first and then the story and missions were designed around them so I wonder at what point in the design of this they decided to make it a mission where you can't knock anyone out- did they conceptualize the police station as a mission with that restriction or did they realize somewhere along the way that the layout lends itself well to that? It also kind of deceptive because it isn't obvious that it's a place that's relatively easy to stay hidden in; there's no shortage of guards and most of the lights are electric. It's impressive how well they hid their work there. I'm with you on Ambush! I want to like it more than I do. It's cool to have a wide open city map like that and I like it better than the third game's city hubs but it doesn't do much for me. I do like the area in and around the apartment and the places you have to sneak to in the end. The other mission that uses this map makes Ambush! come off better but I'll gripe about that one later. Anyway, I hope you keep posting about how your playthrough is going.
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Jul 10, 2019 02:33
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Here begins one of the most famous missions from this game. To me it's one of the most difficult. It's in a well detailed realish environment like most of Thief 2 but it's still maddening like a lot of the first Thief game. Will Garrett and yours truly manage to survive the dangers of First City Bank and Trust Episode 9 Kangra posted:To me, Framed almost seems too much designed for a no-KO run. The layout is fine, but a lot of it feels empty, as if they took out stuff in order to make it more accessible to players who aren't used to that style. But with all the back and forth you have to do, it's a bit tiresome. I like the other one you mention as well, and the one after that. I do worry it'll get tiresome to watch both of them back to back, which is why I'm thinking of doing a mod in between. I'll get more into my opinions about that later. I like the city missions in this a lot better than in Thief 3 but I think both could use improvement. I tried out T2X right around the time I started this LP and found it very off-putting on a surface level. I hated the first mission where you walk in the city with an NPC because I was killed near the end and had to do the whole thing again. I suppose I should give it another chance for the level design if nothing else.
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Jul 14, 2019 19:06
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I think I get what you mean about Shoalsgate. I mostly just think about the 2nd floor hallway where all the guards are when I think about how well designed it is but when I try to see where you're coming from I think about that outside courtyard where you're free to run and jump around with no worries, and how there aren't many guards near the vault or secure records storage. When playing I found those all to be a welcome relief and didn't question them. I'm coming to appreciate First City Bank and Trust more and more. I said at the beginning of the LP that the first Thief is more atmospheric and now I'm not so sure. This bank is like a dream of a bank with its sprawl of offices. There's almost no symmetry except for a few rooms with walkways on both sides and no floor in between. There's danger all around and even though there are no real horror elements it feels like a place I shouldn't and don't want to be in.
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Jul 17, 2019 04:52
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I have to do something before work tomorrow so I'll post the next one 12 hours early. First City Bank and Trust Episode 10 A few things I want to mention about this:
Next one will be up on Sunday.
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Jul 17, 2019 07:02
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I played Thief 3 on the Xbox around the time it first came out and liked it a lot. I just played it again last month in between a playthrough of Thief 2 and starting this LP. I mostly didn't like it this time but I think I would have enjoyed it more if I played it on medium instead of hard. I don't know if it has a higher percentage of loot required than Thief 2 or if there's less loot so you need nearly every piece, but I kept having to scour the maps looking in every corner for loot after I'd cleared them out. I also disliked the city hubs. I love the idea of them and think they would have been really cool if the engine allowed for them to be more open but what they amounted to is having to sneak through the same alleys past the same guards. The Cradle is so influential that it doesn't have as much impact, but the mission right before that where you rob the captain's widow- that impressed the hell out of me. The atmosphere is so thick that I kept expecting ghosts to pop up, but the place is only haunted by grief. I actually enjoyed the reboot when it came out, but I haven't felt any need to revisit it or even thought about it much since.
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Jul 19, 2019 02:36
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^^^ I like that it's enough to provoke a response from the seemingly stone cold Garrett, I think that's a big part of his arc in this game and I like where it goes. Karras has a lot of interesting thematic stuff going on, and he's really well built given how you can piece together a lot of small details- including the way he talks- to get an idea of his motivations. I forget if I said this already, but back in like my first video I said that the story of this game isn't great and it's mostly good because of how it's told; I'm going to go ahead and walk that the gently caress back because this game is full of great story. The plot as a whole and how it progresses mission to mission is the weakest part, but there's so much care in the writing of this game. Anyway I guess I'm a little premature because it's in the next few missions that it really starts to shine. Blackmail Episode 11 Oh jeez, I forgot that I let myself go on a mini rant in this one that culminates in me saying "gamers loving suck". I think I can trust the SA readership to know this isn't an attack on my audience- just because you and I are part of a plurality that I criticize doesn't mean that statement includes us individually. Anyway, I enjoy this mission a lot. There's some really cool stuff going on with the architecture and atmosphere.
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Jul 21, 2019 19:57
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^^^ Framed where you go to the police station suffers from this. The notes you read introduce some major characters and their stories so from that perspective it's important to the story of the game, but what you actually do has no bearing on anything. You never hear anything else about Lieutenant Hagen or whose agenda it served to frame him. It might seem like the whole thing was a setup for the city watch to come after you, but then that should invalidate the frame job on Hagen and he should be an active player in that case, and anyway the reason you get ambushed at the pub is because the mechanists hired Truart to kill you. And hell yeah, this game is still great to play. I think the clean lines of the architecture work really well as an aesthetic style but also make the environments easy to read from a player perspective. The guards too with their exaggerated animations for looking around- you can tell from far away just by their silhouettes what state they are in. Looking Glass made System Shock which has the busiest and most complicated HUD ever so Thief feels like a very intentional step in the opposite direction where you can get the information you need from observing the environment- you don't need special HUD markers. New update! Blackmail Episode 12 I guess it's turned into part of my style to use a lot of songs. I don't know if that's considered a bad practice around these parts because I don't see other people doing it, but I enjoy it. Anyway starting with the last update I've been making a list in the OP of the songs I use.
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Jul 24, 2019 20:26
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Tracing the Courier Episode 13 I was dreading this one but it actually was mostly ok. I looked at a guide beforehand for the early parts of the mission and after that it went well. I have more thoughts about it in the episode itself. I'm not sure everything I was trying to do with the editing of this worked as well as I had hoped, but that's why I tried it- to learn if it would work. This one is short but I have some longer ones coming up. I've been spending some extra time on an upcoming mission and have a guest commentator for that one as well.
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Jul 28, 2019 18:54
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Blood Episode 14 I like this mission a lot. As a Thief mission it's atypical- it's very linear and doesn't really try to hide it. It focuses on environmental storytelling across a wide range of tones. For Thief 2's story to work it needs to shift the sympathies of the player and believably shift Garrett's too, and in my opinion this mission succeeds with both.
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Aug 1, 2019 01:16
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That last room can be crazy if you explore it, I learned that the hard way my last time playing. I was surprised by how easily I got away this time because I remember a lot more running around before finding the corpse. I wonder if its location is one of those things that's randomized.
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Aug 2, 2019 00:58
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^^^ I'd heard that about Dewdrop but I thought the requirements were a lot more specific. I might have to show that off in another video. The zombie thing reminds me of one of the ways I liked to play Doom as a kid. I'd turn on invincibility and pick an enemy to follow me around and use enemy infighting to have it fight for me. I came here to post the new update and was really excited, but I just noticed that the video quality is *horrible* even at 1080p. I ran into technical issues where it wouldn't export and thought I'd fixed it, but I didn't realize it would compromise the quality so much. This one's gonna be late :-(
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Aug 4, 2019 19:09
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New update is done processing again! That's actually a lot faster than usual. Life of the Party Episode 15 This one might be something of a mixed bag. I've tried to make it something special. There's a famous archer scene that I wanted to present in a different way than anything else I've done, and it was a lot of fun to make. For the first time I also have my brother on as a co-commentator. I like what he adds in this and the next episode, and I think everyone will agree. On the other hand, I've run into a lot of technical problems with this and they all hurt the final quality in some way or another. There's a persistent background noise in my commentary track, and even though the video quality is better than my last attempt at uploading it's still worse than what I normally get. I hope you all can enjoy this one anyway. The next one doesn't have these problems.
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Aug 5, 2019 06:56
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I've taken pride in keeping to my schedule but this next one is going to be late again because I've hit some snags with uploading it. I started before I left for work on Monday and it was only at 2% when I got home so I started it over. Tried to upload overnight and when I woke up it was at 75% and seemed to have stalled. I restarted my router, made sure it was going, and left for a couple of days and it must have stalled again because 12 hours later it's not on my channel. I'll have to start again on Thursday morning when I get home, maybe reupload the whole thing.
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Aug 7, 2019 06:16
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Next episode is processing now, Youtube says 6 minutes left so by the time anyone sees this it should be up! Life of the Party Episode 16 For better or worse I can't resist the chance to get a little arty so I did that again with the intro to this. My brother is in this one as well, once again I like what he adds. This one is probably overall louder than my other ones, I'm figuring out my sound levels. I do all my work with headphones on and I've come to realize that it makes me hear things better than most people will.
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Aug 8, 2019 19:13
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Honestly... yeah, killing Longdaddy the second time was kind of a dick move! I think I did it to get at my brother because I knew he'd be co-commentating. In the past there'd be a spider in the room and I'd be like  "kill it!" and he'd be like "no, it's cool" I always forget which came out first between this and SS2. Oh yeah, and speaking of System Shock, the first one will be my next LP after I finish Thief 2. I decided that like a month ago and was waiting until this one was almost done to say it. I haven't had a chance to watch the last one after uploading until now, I didn't realize how bad the video quality is. On the plus side, I solved the issue I was having with exporting, so this new one will be better. Precious Cargo Episode 17 drygear fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Aug 23, 2019 |
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Aug 11, 2019 19:37
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Happy Wednesday! Precious Cargo Episode 18 This one picks up straight off from the end of the last one, I hope it's not too jarring. I'm a fan of this mission. Kind of interesting the space you travel to. You begin way underground and then go up and spend some time at the surface, and then you go back down possibly even farther. It would be interesting to see the 3d space of this mapped out to see where everything is relative to each other. I did a quick search and didn't find anything. My favorite part personally is outside with the lighthouse. There's the visual and aural rain effect and it feels mysterious as you wonder where Cavador is. Then you get into the freezer and there's a defining moment for Garrett, then there's that cool elevator ride in the lighthouse. It's easy to forget that that's all the same mission as the subaquatic base and submarine stuff.
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Aug 14, 2019 18:37
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Cool! I was poking around in it last night but had trouble finding an angle to see it all at once. The space works better than I expected except for the place you row into being too low, but I realize you don't need to open the map to see that because you climb way up and then see the coast. I made a Haunted Mansion joke but now I'm thinking of another Disneyland ride Pirates of the Carribean. Maybe Garrett took a waterfall down to find the pirates. I was wondering too about the next one, if the map lines up at all with the other one in the same location.
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Aug 16, 2019 22:40
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Hi everyone, new update time. Kidnap Episode 19 This one is a little more manic than usual in both my use of music and my commentary. Also my phone rings at one point in this, so I'm sorry to everyone who has the same ringtone and thinks it's theirs!
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Aug 18, 2019 18:58
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Hello, everyone. Kidnap Episode 20 Probably boring LP making stuff for this next paragraph This is the first time I've had trouble with using music. I didn't check most songs first to see if youtube would block the videos and they all were good. This time I wanted to use "Lucretia, My Reflection" by The Sisters of Mercy (it has the words "machine" and "the city" in it!) but just knowing the personality of the band I had a feeling I should check it first and it was blocked. Then I kept trying to come up with other suitable songs and each one was blocked in a bunch of countries or outright unusable. I finally found one that works well enough that I can use. The second song in this also took me a couple of tries but I'm glad I did because the one I ended up using *belongs* in this LP. Ok, so I keep wanting to mention something around this part of the game, because the characterization of Garrett is really well done here. A few months ago I watched a little bit of an LP of Thief 2014, and it's Garrett's characterization in this part of the game particularly that the newer one completely misses. In the 2014 game Garrett says he doesn't steal because he needs the money, but for the thrill. The beginning of this game obviously shows how wrong they get that character, with lowering his standards so he can pay his rent. But this part also repeatedly shows that he strongly dislikes making unnecessary risks. He makes it clear multiple times that he would prefer not to be sticking his neck out like this, and is angry with Victoria when he thinks the risks he took in Life of the Party went to waste. In the bank mission you can see that Garrett gets some enjoyment out of displaying his mastery, but he still needs a good justification. He says he's always wanted a good enough excuse to rob that bank, and even though there's a lot of money there it's when his life is on the line that he feels it's a justified undertaking. drygear fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Aug 23, 2019 |
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Aug 21, 2019 19:46
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Happy Sunday! Casing the Joint Episode 21 If you're not familiar with the game, this mission and the next one have the same map. It's not the exact same experience due to different loot and guard placements and different rules and objectives, but it is considered by many the nadir of the game. I was originally thinking of doing a fan mission in between, but I've decided what I'll do instead is have my brother come back on as a guest commentator for the mission after this one. I think that will add some variety for the audience.
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Aug 25, 2019 19:07
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Next one's going up a little early Episode 22 I think this episode turned out well. I had fun making it, and I hope that lightens it a little for people who aren't as into this stretch of the game. Rough editing is done for the next level, and that one is going to be three episodes instead of two. I might still all release them in the same week if I can make progress this weekend on the final level. I got a little confused in this video on the sequence of things I had or hadn't done yet due to working on so many episodes in the same map.
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Aug 28, 2019 09:32
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Hello, this one is a little later today because I got slowed down a little between exporting and uploading this one. The audio quality isn't great but hopefully you will find it serviceable. Masks Episode 23 Here we return to the same mansion to properly rob it. My brother is with me for this video and the others for this mission. We had fun making it, hopefully you will enjoy watching it.
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Sep 2, 2019 03:43
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^ Thank you! I really appreciate feedback, especially when it's nice. I get the impression that it's the same for most of the people watching these, that they're going at their own pace. For those few that are keeping up, it's likely that tomorrow's update won't be up until evening or later because these videos with my brother take a lot longer to edit and export
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Sep 4, 2019 03:43
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Episode 24 Finally done uploading! There is one more episode for this mission after this one. Once again, the sound quality for the commentary isn't great. That seems to happen when I record with my brother even though I use the same microphone. I hope I'm understandable enough that the trade off is worth it, because I think our commentary is a lot of fun in this one.
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Sep 5, 2019 09:37
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I think it's time to get out of that mansion for good. That's right, it's time for Episode 25 The good news is the commentary audio is better, the bad news is there's some persistent noise on my track that I wasn't able to filter out. It seems to diminish over time at least. I think this is a cool map so I don't really mind being here for two missions. It probably gets more tiresome to watch than it does to play.
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Sep 8, 2019 19:00
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Sabotage at Soulforge Episode 26 Here we are, the final mission. I'm going to be adding a subtitles file that I'll upload to youtube. I considered enabling them for this mission and decided against it, but someone requested them and I think they're right that they should be available.
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Sep 12, 2019 05:49
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I kind of hate Sabotage but I wouldn't disagree that it's better than Into the Maw. From what I remember of the latter you can just run through most of it, which I appreciate. It seems like a lot of immersive sims have bad final levels where they just throw a bunch of enemies at you; at least the Thief games, Deus Ex, System Shock 2 (before the actual final section). Maybe my problem with Sabotage is it's just where the difficulty of the game outpaces my skill level and I can't just "nope" my way out of the challenges. Casing/Masks is where it's most obvious that they ran out of money and had to rush to finish the game. I'm surprised modders haven't taken to improving it because there are lots of interesting ways it could be done. I have to laugh about the clock working because it did leave me confused why it kept closing on me. I love that kind of stuff they do with this game. Mid Post Update! Episode 27 In which I make stuff and get killed by robots a lot. I think I'll push back the release of the final episode a little, so instead of Wednesday I'll release it next weekend.
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Sep 15, 2019 19:21
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Here it is, the final episode. Episode 28 Overall I think it's a good note to go out on. Not one of my better episodes in terms of my playing performance but I hope you will enjoy it all the same. I don't know the standard protocol for finishing these but I suppose I'll leave the thread open for a week for anyone who might want to post.
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Sep 21, 2019 20:50
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 11:38 |
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All right, time to wrap this up. I'll begin my Let's Play of System Shock in a few weeks. For now, I'm about to head over to the Sandcastle to post the first video, so if you're so inclined check it out and give some feedback.
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Sep 29, 2019 18:53
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