News archive
Craving for Release
I promised an official release date and now we have one. In just under two weeks, you'll be able to step into Zaya's shoes in T2X: Shadows of the Metal Age. Yep, the official date slated for release is May 15th!
On May 15th, T2X will be available from a wide variety of sources, including FilePlanet and BitTorrents. The current build weighs in at 655 megabytes, so for those of you on dialup, you may want to look into a download manager that supports Resume.
- Avalon
Candidates
When we started working on this, most people assumed we'd quickly burn out and fade away. That's the fate of your typical full single player mod or campaign. However, what has made T2X different has always been the great dedication and even more so the great talent every team member has displayed - but perhaps a little more can be said for our fans, who have shown us unbelievable amounts of support. Without you guys, we wouldn't be here today!
So where are we now? Now with a suitable Release Candidate 1 - the first build to be "finished" and to be considered a suitable candidate for release - we can say, for all intents and purposes, that we are "done." In the following days we will announce here the official release date, how you'll be able to get your hands on T2X: Shadows of the Metal Age and generally how testing on the Release Candidates is progressing!
Thanks for sticking with us over the years, we hope you'll continue to be as awesomely supportive as you have been as we grind down to release.
- Avalon
Double-Wide Trailers
Today marks the release of our most awaited piece of media - today, thanks to our highly skilled cinematic team, we present to you:
We've been working on this trailer for awhile and we hope you'll be as thrilled and as excited as we are! To view it, you will need the DivX codec.
- Avalon
Sweeping Up
Earlier in the week, I received work from our cinematic team that our third cutscene - the last cutscene cinematic in the development queue - was finished, thus hitting one of the largest milestones to date and putting us that much closer to completion. And it looks pretty damn good, too.
Now that the cutscenes have been finished, what's left before you can get your hands on the game? Mainly, we have but a very small number of briefings and an even smaller number of content odds and ends to finish up. Meanwhile, as that work is being done, we'll continue to polish what we have already finished so that external beta testing can go as smoothly as possible.
Hold on to your hats, T2X: Shadows of the Metal Age is on the horizon.
- Avalon
Milestone
Following right behind the beta announcement, yet another exciting milestone has been reached. Co-Lead Fett has successfully played through the whole of T2X from start to finish, all 13 missions completed back to back. Score!
To celebrate this, today we have three more screenshots
sponsored by those rotting friends of both you and I. That's right, the Undead.
As usual, they're on the Screenshots page.
- Avalon
Shot in the Dark
With all missions now in beta, we figure it's about time we release more screenshots. So, today we have five new scenes:
You can find those and many more screenshots from past updates over on the Screenshots page! Stay tuned, as we get closer to release we will continue to update with more Media.
- Avalon
Victorious
T2X Co-Lead, Raen, posted a wonderful piece over on the forums about some glorious news; T2X has, in fact, gone beta! To quote:
"Well folks, after several long and
painstaking years in development, I'm really pleased to announce that today,
Thief 2X: Shadows of the Metal Age has reached an official beta. Thanks to
Gonchong, the last of our 13 huge missions is all set for a final countdown of
bugfixing. Most of the other 12 maps have undergone significant bugfixing and
revision already, so it's only a matter of time before they're fully polished
and ready to go.
As you guys know there has just been a huge array of people who have contributed
to the project over time - over 60 in all - and now about twenty of us are
cranking away on the last remaining tasks. Thanks to the efforts of all you guys
in the community who have dedicated time to us, we have hundreds of new objects
and textures, dozens of new AI meshes and skins, countless 2D and 3D ambient
sounds, cutscenes, briefings, automaps, brand new inventory and weaponry, a
myriad of customizations, and almost 3000 recorded lines of dialogue... as well
as of course a new main character, entirely new settings, new factions, and a
fluid, gripping narrative that unfolds the whole way through. The scope of the
project is simply huge, and is presently larger than Thief 1 in terms of raw
data. It's grown larger than any of us could have possibly imagined in these
past few years, and it's amazing that people from the community have continued
to pour in to help us out and to support us from afar. The initial idea behind
the project was always to make LGS proud of what we could do, and thanks to
everyone's hard work, I think we will more than meet that goal.
What's left to do you ask? Well we have a ton of bugs to fix, but those should
go smoothly, and DeC has written us a great custom bug database for the task.
Avalon, Fett, DeC, Gonchong, and myself will be testing internally and grinding
those down. Our cutscene team - Zombeh, Joss, and Saturnine - are hard at work
on our last (4th) cutscene. There's some remaining briefing art being worked on
by Dragon Dust, Randall E., Dan Staton, Psi Yamaneko, and Broken Arts, and the
briefings are still being assembled by Goldfish. Addink has been slaving on our
meta-game interface, and Mudshovel (aka Phantom) is working tirelessly on our
player arm. John P. has been doing some fantastic last minute texture additions
for us. Keeper Crimson and Stringgod have been doing last minute audio
touch-ups. Did I leave anyone out? I hope not :)
We're running full steam ahead, and with a continued push we should have things
all tied together in time for a winter release.
It's a really exciting time for us, and I hope you guys can remain patient just
a little longer - it'll be worth the wait."
We are indeed looking at a Winter release and we hope you're as excited as we are!
While we may technically be in beta, we are not yet pushing T2X to our external beta testers, nor have we chosen a team for that task. That means there's still time, so email me with your system specs and anything else you may feel to be relevant if you're interested!
- Avalon
Those Social Icons
V. Equinox continues her crusade, again producing more awesome Useful Goodness from T2X for you fans.
For this round, Veq has created four AIM/MSN icons, so get your favourite IM client revved up, head over to the Media section and pick your poison.
- Avalon
On Walls and Blogs
Woo! Finally, we have some more Media for you ladies and gents. Today - courtesy of one of our story-writers-turned-voice-actor, V. Equinox, based on the artwork of Saturnine - I bring to you a New Wallpaper in three sizes:
And six awesome Livejournal icons, which can be found on the Media page. Get them while supplies last!
- Avalon
The Little Things
Well, it's been a few months since the last update. More than a few. Something like five. We've been pretty busy, lately more than ever - but lately, we haven't been working on T2X so much as we've been working on playing Thief: Deadly Shadows, or, Thief III.
Okay, I know what you're thinking. We said we would be finished before Thief III. Did we up and die towards the end? Did we slow down? Did we forget? Did we get drunk one night and do things we'd later regret? No, no and no, kind of yes, but no, we've been working as hard as ever and Thief III's release took us all by surprise. Judging by the overall quality of the (albeit very, very excellent, and very, very fun) game, the release took their Beta Testing QA team by surprise, too. But go out and buy it. It's certainly a good end to a good trilogy and you'll be glad you took the time.
With that out of the way, here are some random snippets of news, in no particular order:
10 missions are in
closed development Beta. This means beta is getting closer and closer
towards hitting the few of the many who have signed up. The remaining 3 of
our 13-mission set are closer than ever to completion.
Beta applications
have been neither accepted nor have they been rejected. Keep sending them!
We've decided to hold off on this Beta until all thirteen missions are
ready. This means I will not be choosing the Beta team for just a wee bit
longer.
The 'sets' for all
movies have been finished and only need to be rendered before we can
officially call them complete and take our cinematic team out for a drink.
So, now that Thief III is out, what do we say to those asking when T2X will be released?
When it's done.
- Avalon
Audio Files for the Audiophile
Today, we are releasing the first MP3 - hopefully not the last - from a T2X mission, straight from the callused hands of that valiant
mission designer, Gonchong. MP3s will be on the Media page as expected, and without further ado, I bring you:
The House of Ill Repute - 4:19 - 2.90mb
It's a good one, be sure to give it a listen. Also, for those of you emailing me concerning Beta Testing (for which I am still accepting applicants), I'll be sending out the first wave of acceptance emails next week.
- Avalon
A New Update for a New Year
Judging by the amount of emails we've been receiving lately, you guys have been hungry for an update. That's understandable, we've been rather silent since mid-August. We've been quite busy these last few months, determined to get this baby ready as soon as possible.
We have some exciting news. Officially, six missions have now reached the internal beta stages. Unofficially, a seventh is also hitting beta, and the others are trailing close behind. What does this mean, other than that we're almost done? This means that it's time for you beta testers to sign up. Email me if you're interested, because external beta is only a short ways away and not everyone will get in. Please be sure to include your PC's system specs.
- Avalon
More Screenshots
We've got three more screenshots for you today, filed away with the rest in the rapidly-growing screenshot archive.
Take a look:
- Avalon
The Project Turns Three
We promised a big update and here it is. Okay, it's not as big as you may have hoped. We're still working on stuff and it all goes well. But that's not the only special thing about today.
Most of you probably know the story. Looking Glass Studios, creators of the original two Thief games, announced their Death on May 24th of 2000. It was a very sad day in the gaming community, but there were those who would not sit idly by and watch things go to pot. Instead, on that very day they put a plan in motion that would conclude the Thief series in the form of a fan project.
Originally, the Plan involved using a new engine for an amateur "Thief 3" production. However, a second project emerged from that Plan - to tide the community over until the new game was finished, a team would be established in order to create an expansion for Thief 2. On this very day - May 27th - three years ago, T2X was born. That unorganized team of kooks and psychopaths turned into the Dark Engineering Guild. Oh, right, and we abandoned that "Thief 3" project around the time that Ion Storm picked up the series.
I'm proud of the team for pushing the project this far. Their drive to create this campaign is truly admirable. We're in the homestretch. Nothing short of an apocalypse can stop us now, but hell if I know when we'll actually be done.
Today's update includes six new screenshots to add to our growing screenshot archive:
One of our former team members, UnTow, has also put together an interview with me to mark this monumental event. You can find it here.
- Avalon
New Wallpaper
Straight from the digital sketchpads of our 'Saturnine' and 'Zombeh' comes a new wallpaper for your desktops, featuring Zaya, the main character of T2X. It's been placed in the Media section, so check it out!
- Avalon
A New Site for a New Year
It's been a long time coming, but the gigantic update we promised is finally here. Update your bookmarks - among other things, you'll notice that T2X has now officially moved to the thief2x.com domain.
First off, I'd like to thank Randall Earnest and addink from TTLG for providing the lovely graphics for this new design. There are still some HTML kinks and typos which I will be working out over the next few days, but this is a nice thing indeed.
Please take a moment to look around the site. We've added new screenshots and new artwork, updated the FAQ, provided a lengthy Credits list and released more than a few juicy details about the new main character and the storyline revolving around... her. Yeah. Go check it out.
But now you ask, "what in heaven's name have you guys been up to since that last update over a year ago?" A lot. So many things are so much closer to completion that the end is almost in sight. Missions, movies, objects, textures, voice sets, everything is closing in. We still can't say exactly when we'll be done, and it won't be very soon, but we can now say "before Thief 3" without hesitation or fear of future lawsuits by angry gamers.
That isn't all, though. Another large update is in the works. Check back regularly, we'll have something new for you to consume very soon. Until then, hop onto the T2X forum or connect to our IRC channel (irc.starchat.net, #tfmp). We're always accidentally letting information or exclusive screenshots slip to the public on IRC.
- Avalon
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