The Sneaky Upgrade

[Doc_Brown]

Until the 2014 reboot, my least favorite Thief game was Deadly Shadows.  Not that it was completely lacking in value, but with The Dark Project being my favorite and The Metal Age being home to the best FMs, it just didn't really seem necessary.  I ditched my copy and moved on long ago, and thus didn't have much reason to keep track of any goings-on related to it, but now I find out there's a massive fan patch called The Sneaky Upgrade that does things like remove the loading zones and reintroduce the classic style briefings, and I've got to wonder if the equation hasn't suddenly changed.

So my question is, has anyone played Deadly Shadows with the Sneaky Upgrade?  I'm wondering if enough has been overhauled to actually make it worth going back and revisiting.

[Silver Sorrow]

Uh...yes and no. When I went on a frenzy a couple of years ago and reinstalled the original games (with their modernizations for Win10), I installed TDS with the Sneaky Upgrade, but I didn't actually play it for some reason. (Who knows what zephyr distracteth my mind...) Thing is, I still have it installed, so I'll take a look at it and see what, exactly, I had going on back then in the deep, dark, murky past.

[Starfox]

I must say I didn't give it a try either. But then last time I actually installed TDS was before I bought my computer (not the new one but the one before that) so several years ago. If I give it a try in the near future I'll let you know. However I had my own mods for TDS that I very much liked and I'm not sure if they will conflicts with this one. I'll have to test.

[Doc_Brown]

However I had my own mods for TDS that I very much liked and I'm not sure if they will conflicts with this one.

For what it's worth, The Sneaky Upgrade is one of those all-encompassing mods that packages the other "essential" mods, which in this case includes:

• The Minimalist Project
• John P's Collective Texture Pack
• GarrAT (Garrett Animation Tweaks)
• Thief 3 Gold (the one that removes loading zones)
• Briefing Videos

Or were you referring to mods that you yourself had made?

[Silver Sorrow]

Well...so far, a couple of things that bugged me most about the game are now tweakable. By adjusting the head-bobbing crap downwards, Garrett's not lurching about, making me feel like throwing up. Nausea managed, I suppose. Movement speed is also fixable. I'll be digging deeper...I mean, it's not exactly life-changing in the grand scheme of things, but it definitely makes for a quality-of-life improvement.

...actually, "life-changing" would be a full remake of TDS with the original engine...

[Doc_Brown]

...actually, "life-changing" would be a full remake of TDS with the original engine...

I've been watching videos of playthroughs to refresh my memory, and while I remembered some things (no rope arrows, wonky leaning) I'd forgotten others (lack of swimming, weird in-engine cutscenes).  Ironically, a full remake of Deadly Shadows in the Dark Engine would fix a lot of these problems, and I'm struggling to think of what improvements TDS made that would be lost in the process...