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PC Games (Games) First Person Shooters (Games) Entertainment Games

Thief Deadly Shadows 1.1 Patch Fixes AI 132

Lemmus writes "A patch for the PC version of Thief: Deadly Shadows is now available. The patch fixes the AI skill level being reset whenever a level is reloaded, the major bug previously reported in a post at Slashdot Games. This is apparently the only thing that the patch fixes, so users with other problems have to wait for another patch. Although Ion Storm warns against installing the patch on installations with user-modified .ini files, most users don't seem to be having any trouble with it."
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Thief Deadly Shadows 1.1 Patch Fixes AI

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  • by Phoenixhunter ( 588958 ) on Saturday June 19, 2004 @04:06AM (#9471274)
    http://www.petitiononline.com/t3editor/petition.ht ml If you like the game, sign on up. The community will do the rest.
  • by Metallic Matty ( 579124 ) on Saturday June 19, 2004 @04:07AM (#9471275)
    No offense to Ion or any other fine producer of games out there, but should these kind of patches really be necessary?

    I mean honestly, do they HAVE testing? You'd think something like this would be noticed ahead of release.

    All I can think of this Penny-Arcade [penny-arcade.com] in reference to Splinter Cell.
    • I'm not bashing you here, but its alot of work to test a game, there are so many problems that could arise. It seems very obvious once we see the bug and it is patched, but its a whole different story after you have been testing the game for weeks on end and you are being pressured by your publisher to meet the deadline.
      • The first release of Thief was accepted by Eidos - this is pretty rare in the games industry. Usually the publisher will ask for revisions / fixes etc and wait for a new copy.

        Having played the game and having hung out on TTLG.com, this is pretty much the only major problem anyone has reported - and it isn't game breaking or anything. You can still play fine.

        And it does only affect those playing on Expert difficulty. All in all, it's a very polished game. Ignore what people are saying about Invisible War (
        • Glad to hear it - I'm ordering it post haste. I loved Thief 2, and the promise of similar atmosphere and better AI/Graphics makes me foam at the mouth.
          I'm not too disappointed about the lack of rope-arrows, but I'm concerned about the dumbing down of the game - climbing gloves would appear to make escaping very easy, and portals might utterly ruin the atmosphere.
          That said, with a game such as this, it will take a lot to ruin the game, even if it is sliced into chunks for XBoxes. I'm a firm fan of these ha
          • Hate to ruin/spoil it for you, but climbing gloves don't make escape easy /at/all/. They are highly limited in their use (unfortunately) and can't be used like you would imagine them, such as climing around things or onto extended ledges. As such, except for a few specific purposes in the game, they are virtually useless.
            Overall, however, I'm very pleased with T:DS. Best $35 I've spent in a long time.
      • But this is not an obscure problem. Game being promoted as having advanced AI that really makes things difficult for the player. The AI breaks whenever you save your game, or go back to a previously entered zone. The players picked up on this bug fairly quickly after the game was released; indiciating it was not all that difficult to discover.

        Compare this to a bug in Starcraft; the invulnerable drone. It took players months and months to discover that if you morphed a drone at just the right time, he'd
    • When the people who invest the money want to cash out, they get to choose, not the people they invested into. From the publishers point of view, they know they'll make almost as much money (99%) with an almost perfect game. Every single month extra they wait, they lose money however. So they cash out when *they* choose.
    • by Anonymous Coward
      You should see the mess that Ubisoft has made of this 3rd installment of Rainbow six. Crappy Unreal build, released when still beta, and about 6 patches so far, 3 of which actually caused more problems then they rectified. Plus there is zero response to any community issues from the Devs.... Practically a primer in how NOT to release games and treat your customers.....
    • ...fall mainly on the plain. Seriously, about the only noteworthy bugs which remain are: an uncommon savegame crash which ruins the saved games, forcing user to start over. Not common, but should be fixed anyway. A sound bug which when leaning into a door to listin in on an adjacent room causes the sounds present in 'Garrets' room to die down...thats not the bug part; the bug is that the sound level does not come back immediately when 'Garret' is done listening at the door. This can cause some wierdnes
    • No offense to Ion or any other fine producer of games out there, but should these kind of patches really be necessary?

      I mean honestly, do they HAVE testing? You'd think something like this would be noticed ahead of release.

      Ah, so you must work work on one of those perfect software projects that always produce bug-free software on time and on budget then. What is it? We know it can't be for Microsoft, Apple, Sun, Novell, IBM, Linux, BSD, Apache, Mozilla, KDE, Gnome, Samba... Hell, even NASA get it wrong

    • Don't forget this classic [penny-arcade.com] from back in the day...
  • by mtrisk ( 770081 ) on Saturday June 19, 2004 @04:12AM (#9471287) Journal
    No offense, but...

    Akamai gets attacked, and the story gets rejected from slashdot, yet a minor patch about a game I've never heard about makes the front page? They must be feeding bat guano to the editors down there in the locked basement.
    Slashdot usually manages to post good stories, but there's always a quirk now and then.
    • by caitsith01 ( 606117 ) on Saturday June 19, 2004 @04:26AM (#9471313) Journal
      Come on, there must be more than this happening on earth???

      This week we've seen -

      New Firefox
      New Mozilla
      New Thunderbird
      New Firefox again
      Patch for some game the majority of people reading the article have absolutely no interest in

      • Patch for some game the majority of people reading the article have absolutely no interest in

        In the past, I would have taken you to task over this point.
        However, having tried Thief 3 (Deadly Shadows) it seems to me that Ion Storm have missed the point
        (i.e. lost the plot) and spoiled the wonderful Thief series. :-(

        Bring back Looking Glass!
      • ...the majority of people reading the article have absolutely no interest in

        You must be new to Slashdot if you think what you say here has the slightest bit of relevance towards the selection of a story.

        First of all, Slashdot has always selected stories based on what interests the editors of Slashdot. This is how it is, always has been, and always will be. People read Slashdot to the degree that their interests coincide. But story selection has never taken reader interest into account.

        Secondly, you

        • Well, I'm not _that_ new. But sometimes the selection of stories is somewhat baffling - and I think the existence of sub-sections for minor interest items somewhat undermines the view that there is no account taken of reader interest levels. Surely this story should be under 'games' and not on the front page.

          Furthermore, and although its audience may be only approximately as intelligent as "wild monkeys clicking links at random" (which I personally think tends to underrate the skills of wild monkeys), ./ d
    • by strider_starslayer ( 730294 ) on Saturday June 19, 2004 @04:26AM (#9471315)
      The Akamai attack, while huge is all speculation- there's nothing really 'concrete' to report; save that it happened, or seemed to happen... Also the attack only lasted two hours, those were all probabally contributing factors to an Akami story not being accepted (and maby, just maby, all the submitters made really bad posts!).

      That said- I think an Akamai story should have made post. But Thief 3 is a great game in a lineage of great games, your ignorance to its existance is, I apologise, irrelivant. Its important to nerds, so it makes slashdot (as I agree that the Akamai story should have)

      Background: The Thief engine was used sucessfuly in thief 1 and thief 2, which were first person shooters that focused NOT on combat, and killing (in fact your charecter would loose against individual opponents quite easily), but on stealth, guile and tricking the (very inteligent) AI. The same theif engine was used in System shock 1 and 2 (with some modifications to allow for level gaining), since you've never heard of thief I won't expect you to have heard of those either; they were one of the first FPS/RPG hybrid games, and focused on a very intence storyline; that was, damned horrifying to play- Another hallmark of both thief and system shock, perhaps an artifact of an eninge that dose not focuse on combat, is that they are SCARY to play- your heart beats faster, and you find yourself holding your breath, wondering if that enemy will miss you. Or in system shock, you turn the corner only to walk head on to some horrid mutant beastie that will drop you in a few seconds unless you think fast- NOW!

      They are very good games, and thief three represents what could possibly represent a resurection of the 'thief type' engine, allowing for more 'thinking FPS' games. I kinda wish that the Bethsheda softworks guys would license the morrowind engine/editor for that same reason.
      • The Thief engine was used sucessfuly in thief 1 and thief 2

        Technically, it was the Dark engine used in those games, not the "Thief engine". It's also fair to note that the latest Thief game is based on the Deus Ex 2 engine (which in turn is ultimately based on Epic's Unreal engine, as with so many other games these days).

        The same theif engine was used in System shock 1 and 2

        System Shock 2 was based on the Dark engine (IIRC, it shipped between Thief 1 and Thief 2), but System Shock 1 certainly w

        • by Soul-Burn666 ( 574119 ) on Saturday June 19, 2004 @06:10AM (#9471506) Journal
          I've just got Thief3 a few days ago and I must say... this is one of the most immersive games i've played in a LONG time.

          I played Splinter Cell and had a lot of fun, but the level of immersion in Thief3 was (still is, i'm scared to play some part here ;) an order of scale greater. The story is very detailed and downright creepy at some points.
          The game isn't perfect, there are glitches here and there (sometimes shadowing problem or getting stuck in the world), but in the whole, the graphics, the maps and the sound are very immersive. You actually feel a part of the world!

          Also, finally when you look DOWN, you see your body and legs!! It may seem a stupid feature, but it really adds to the feeling that you really are there and not just a spirit floating like in most other games.

          Not only that, but there are so many ways to solve each area... u can be stealthy, you can kill the guard, make noise to make them go away, blow out the light with a water arrow, knock the guard out, shoot moss arrows to run on noisy floor and obviously to climb on various stuff and just get where they can't see you. Oh! u can also throw a flashbomb and make them blind for a while ;) There are more ways than that and prolly ways I can't even think of.

          I told a friend of mine started playing it that I get scared by it (sometimes so much that I'm urged to play 3rd person, to see if someone comes from behind). He said "what's so scary about the game?", I told him: "keep playing". hehehe...

          This game isn't in the mainstream of games which is why I didn't really bother aquiering the two first titles, but now I can completly understand the large communities behind this game series.
      • (in fact your charecter would loose against individual opponents quite easily),

        Actually, combat is quite easy to perform in Thief when you know what you're doing. Against the inexperienced guards, you can easily cut them down with a few sword hits.

        The only problem would be with Wraiths and other enemies with an ability to perform rapid attacks - those opponents can hit you twice in succession before yuou can even land your first blow. However, I did finally manage to take out those opponents by exploit

        • I wouldn't recommend them in this day for a good experience

          Agreed for Thief I, disagree strongly for Thief II. If you see Thief II: The Metal Age around, grab it, it's worth it. At $49.99, it'd be a better buy than most games on the shelf today with that cost or more, the fact that it's likely to be heavily discounted as an older game only makes it an even better value. Within the FPS genre, no better games have been produced to date (don't know about Deadly Shadows yet...)

      • How good the game is is, I apologize, *irrelevant*. I can't remember the last games story I saw on the main page, and they choose a MINOR PATCH THAT ONLY FIXES ONE ISSUE as one to go on the front page? WTF?

        If it was 'Theif 3 breaks sales records', or 'Theif 3 introduces a revolutionary kind of AI', or anything to that effect, it'd be frontpage-worthy. but this is a fucking PATCH. The 2 recent Starcraft patches are more newsworthy than this ('Blizzard still cares about eight year old games' is news)
    • What, (Score:5, Informative)

      by Inoshiro ( 71693 ) on Saturday June 19, 2004 @05:18AM (#9471423) Homepage
      you mean this story [slashdot.org]?
    • Perhaps the assumption was that people had heard of the game. It is afterall one of the biggest titles of this year... unless your head is stuck up Valve's arse. :-)
    • No offense, but... Akamai gets attacked, and the story gets rejected from slashdot, yet a minor patch about a game I've never heard about makes the front page? They must be feeding bat guano to the editors down there in the locked basement. Slashdot usually manages to post good stories, but there's always a quirk now and then.

      If you were a master of economics like me, you'd know why.

      Typical ./ readers are geeks who don't have significant others. Therefore, any distraction that allows them to become

    • Thats the first thing I thought when I fired up my browser this morning. I would think the majority of /. feel the same way. In an ideal world the frontpage should represent the most interesing and BROADLY relevant topics available. I think something went wrong here.
    • I was thinking the same thing. Haven't come here in a while -- this is my first time hearing about any news in the world in over two weeks. I'm expecting some exciting news from Mars. Or how the Cassini/Hyughens(sp?) spacecraft is fareing. Maybe something new politically and globally -- maybe Texas did drop from the Union, Russia managed to get back together, or some crazy pro-American (which I am...*sigh*) scheme about how we hate the middle-east THIS week...

      No. I find some exciting news about some p
  • Honestly, it's pretty damn stupid to not test before releasing as it makes it look unprofessional.
    I just wish it was only microsoft who did this kind of thing, but stupidity reigns everywhere...
  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 19, 2004 @04:25AM (#9471312)
    Well?
    • There's word of a possible recall on Thief 3 for the Xbox. Microsoft has the ability to make that call as part of their agreement with the publisher (Eidos).
  • Good as I am going out to but it to day.. :)
  • xbox fix (Score:5, Interesting)

    by contagen ( 659632 ) on Saturday June 19, 2004 @04:37AM (#9471338)
    if you have a modded xbox, you can copy the game to hdd, and just edit the DEFAULT.ini file so that the AI settings for normal mode are equal to whatever difficulty you want (it is also fun to boost the numbers a little more than the highest difficulty settings)...this is the same workaround that was possible on the pc i know this isn't a possibility for most people though since it requires a modchip, hopefully they will create an updated gamedisc and let us send our old ones in (or at the very least, fix the game for all those in EU and UK so they don't have to deal with the problem.
    • That wouldn't fix the problem. The game ignores the .ini setting as well. It always resets the difficulty to normal on any zone transition or savegame load.

      It's probably a hard-coded default on load, and they simply neglected to apply the user-selected (or even .ini-specified) difficulty setting.
      • odd, b/c you can definitely tell that it's working if you boost them pretty high, especially the hearing settings...are you sure that zone transitions cause the problem too? i rarely save/reload...if i die, i generally restart the mission, so maybe that's why i wouldn't notice it that much...either that or it's just a really good placebo :)
        • It's been confirmed that the difficulty settings only get applied on the initial start of the mission. The moment you transition to another zone in a multi-zoned mission or load a saved game, you get set back to normal.

          It's pretty easy to test, too- On normal difficulty, you can run up behind a patrolling guard across a wood or stone floor and blackjack him before he can turn around. If the game's actually operating at expert difficulty, you won't reach him in time.
    • Sorry, but this was one of the first things that was tried when the bug was discovered. It works on neither the Xbox or the PC version. When the save game is loaded, it loads what are apparently hardcoded AI values.
  • That's what Thief 3 has. It might have been worth the purchase just for this level.
    • I don't wanna spoil for others if they didn't play the game yet, so I'll just ask about a tiny part from it...
      u mean the level with the fuse?

      If so, then i'm currently somewhere in the middle of it and I had to tell myself repeatedly: "this is just a game..."
      Didn't help, I had to leave the game and i'll return to it when i'm ready ;)
      • by MachDelta ( 704883 ) on Saturday June 19, 2004 @06:50AM (#9471579)
        Thats the one. Generally known as "The Cradle", since that's actually its (nick)name, and doesn't really spoil anything for people who aren't there yet.

        And yes, its by far the freakiest, weirdest, and most creative level in all of Thief 3. The ending is a real teeth-clencher too. Enjoy! ;)
  • by Granos ( 746051 ) on Saturday June 19, 2004 @04:43AM (#9471350)
    Because there is no way to patch the XBox version, an updated gamedisk is going to be re-released [ttlg.com], according to the Through The Looking Glass Forum Admin (who I can only assume is a reliable source). It is currently unknown whether or not people who bought the unpatched version will be able to trade the game in.
    • There is a way. Xbox Live. When you connect with a game that needs patching, Live informs the console, and the console makes it mandatory to download the update (to the HD) before finishing connecting.

      Of course, that's assuming that the game supports Xbox Live and Live-based patching. Crimson Skies, the Xbox dashboard, etc. support these. I haven't played Thief, so I don't know if it has Live...
      • by Anonymous Coward
        Nope. Microsoft will only allow companies to patch the multiplayer portion of a game through X-Box Live. This way they didn't have to worry about companies relying on the "release-in-beta-and-patch-later" strategy for single player games.
        • That, and because they don't want to be providing patches to those who are not members of XBL, as non-members present no continuing revenue stream. The assumption is that if you're not using Live, you're not using the multiplayer portion anyhow, so there's no reason you'd need to update.
  • Patch problems (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Big Nothing ( 229456 ) <tord.stromdal@gmail.com> on Saturday June 19, 2004 @05:00AM (#9471376)
    Although Ion Storm warns against installing the patch on installations with user-modified .ini files, most users don't seem to be having any trouble with it.

    In fact, users with modified .ini-files are the only ones who seem to have problems with this patch.

  • Side-effect... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 19, 2004 @05:26AM (#9471438)
    You can set the difficulty level when you accept the mission (in the briefing). The difficulty level only changes when you (1) save mid-game, (2) reload from that save.

    One of my friends has been telling me that he absolutely loves this bug because it's more challenging. He's been playing on a hard difficulty level - the catch being that in order to play it that way, he has to get through an entire level without saving. This can take two or three hours! He says that he's been enjoying it greatly because the pressure to not mess up adds so much tension.
    • Re:Side-effect... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by igrp ( 732252 ) on Saturday June 19, 2004 @06:16AM (#9471521)
      Hmm, that's an interesting perspective. It's a valid point and I guess it's making the best of the situation but isn't this challenging in the same sense as driving a car with no brakes is?

      I mean sure it makes it harder to complete the game but couldn't your friend achieve the same result by just playing the game and chosing to not save?

      I mean making mistakes is just human and all but shipping a product with such a blantantly obvious bug is, at least in my humble opinion, just ridiculous.

      • I mean sure it makes it harder to complete the game but couldn't your friend achieve the same result by just playing the game and chosing to not save?

        Ah yes, you're one of those rational types who doesn't really have knowledge of (or at least doesn't admit to) real human nature...

    • Re:Side-effect... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by RKone2 ( 720851 )
      Well, the difficulty changes only after loading. Saving isn't a problem.

      However, travelling across a level divide and back again will lower the AI difficulty as well. Most levels require you to do this.
      With the patch, you can still play the game using the self-enforced no-load rule. Other ways to increase difficulty include:

      Playing without being seen
      + without ko/killing anyone
      + and not dousing any lights
      + using thiefbot [team5150.com] to increase AI difficulty even higher than expert (and have it remain high eve
    • Unfortunately, I've seen it confirmed that the difficulty reverts also on zone changes... not just saves.
  • Just AI? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Azari ( 665035 ) on Saturday June 19, 2004 @05:48AM (#9471471)
    It's a shame that this only seems to address the AI bug (according to the download page, anyhow), when there's a save game corruption problem that's been noticed by a few people in the forums as well. Considering the speculation about whether they were even going to bring this patch out, I hope they do something to fix some of the other more irritating problems and don't just leave it at this.

    Be nice if they'd change the default away from running as well. What sort of thief runs everywhere in preference to walking or creeping? (Fixable with some minor ini tweaking, but still).

  • There seems to be an air of triumph among the PC gamers here that the xBox version is unpatchable. However, if Eidos have to re-call xBox thief 3 it could be disasterous for them and Ion Storm. Should we really be happy that an absolutely brilliant game could lose people jobs because of one bug?
    • I guess there's a lesson to be learned in this, and that's if you don't want to lose your job don't screw up in a way that a billion people will notice.

      Bugs happen. Big bugs happen. But developers are paid to make sure the big bugs stop at happen, and don't continue on to release.
    • Should we really be happy that an absolutely brilliant game could lose people jobs because of one bug?

      Yes we should. I'm sick and tired of companies that decide to push their products out the door early and force us all to be beta testers. Take the proper time to test your products before you release them. I hope they have to recall every X-Box game produced and a whole bunch of people get fired. Maybe that will teach these executives that are always rushing things to slow the fuck down and give the deve

      • Yes we should. I'm sick and tired of companies that decide to push their products out the door early and force us all to be beta testers.

        You know, you can always create your own game company, write your own product, test to ensure that there are absolutly zero bugs in the game, and then ship it. Imagine all the sales you could get based on the fact that you have absolutly no bugs in the game.

        Take the proper time to test your products before you release them.

        You can test as long as you want to - how

        • I'm still not buying it. Do these developers even play their own games? I'm asking because if they actually did, they would have found out about this one pretty easily. I noticed it almost right off the bat. Loading a saved game on high difficulty level isn't exactly an uncommon thing for someone who plays games to do you know.
    • Re:Triumph (Score:2, Interesting)

      by osu-neko ( 2604 )
      However, if Eidos have to re-call xBox thief 3 it could be disasterous for them and Ion Storm. Should we really be happy that an absolutely brilliant game could lose people jobs because of one bug?

      If it puts Eidos or Ion Storm out of business, we should be unhappy. If it convinces them that the risks of working with the X-Box platform are not worth the rewards, I'll be jumping for joy. Virtually every stupid little problem with DX2 and a lot of the changes for the worse between T2 and T3 ('scuse me, T:D

    • actually a couple of weeks ago, half of ion storm austin was laid off.
  • Now if we could just get the Max Payne 2 people to fix the bug where you can only play on baby easy mode the first time through.

    Note to slow moving minds out there: I know it's not really a bug. It's called sarcasm.

  • I've noted a lot of "why weren't the games tested" statements. And its a valid question in the face of what appears to be a bug many encountered during play.

    During the bad ol' days of BBS door games, my board beta tested a new game and my users thoroughly wrung every cheat and bug out of the game they could find. They were so thorough, the game author noted design flaws rather than just programming bugs. It made the game better and far more challenging. I even demonstrated an unintended "God mode" that
  • To be fair (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Digitus1337 ( 671442 )
    A lot of people seem to be upset over this being posted on slashdot, because they've never heard of the game. It is the third in a trilogy of games that started the sneaker genre. It has a cult following and is made by some of the same people as Deus Ex and System Shock 2. It's not 'just some game' by any means.
  • what's funny is.. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Pfhreakaz0id ( 82141 )
    have you noticed console games don't need patches? I mean, I think they test a lot better because they KNOW they can't update them. with PC, I think there must be a mentality of "oh, well, we can always make them download a patch".

    It's pretty bad, because the very first thing I do when I buy a piece of software is go download the patch. It's so rare I get something that DOESN'T have a patch out already. Even hardware, there is almost always a patch out for the driver never than the one that shipped with it
    • have you noticed console games don't need patches? I mean, I think they test a lot better because they KNOW they can't update them. with PC, I think there must be a mentality of "oh, well, we can always make them download a patch".

      Well, first off, some of the PC game patches have to do with hardware incompatibility issues. A problem that a fully-specced and documented closed system console doesn't usually have. How much testing can a company do for their PC releases? If you write a game to DirectX 8 spec,
    • by Snowmit ( 704081 )
      Uh, the Xbox version has this bug too. The only difference is that they can't patch it. In fact, if you pay careful attention, you'll find that quite a number of console games have bugs that they *can't patch* for the most part. See: Enter the Matrix, Tomb Raider:Angel of Darkness etc.
    • You're kidding, right?

      Champions of Norrath, an admitedly fun game, was absolutely ridden with bugs. I was able to run past nearly every NPC whose purpose was to block a path. I was able to skip quests by doing this and even found myself able to hit the level boss and a Peles (a guy whom you aren't supposed to fight until much later) as they stood there motionless and invunerable. Not only that but some of the NPCs that were supposed to follow you would repeatedly get stuck on terrain or even become invi
  • by Fiz Ocelot ( 642698 ) <baelzharon.gmail@com> on Saturday June 19, 2004 @04:44PM (#9474086)
    I got this yesterday and have been playing a bit. I really like how there are always different ways to do the same thing. Like in one early level you can ring the church bell to get the high priest to leave his room. Or just sneak in like I did, or throw a flash bomb or gas grenade to steal the item. And yes I did pay for it, it's certainly worth the bucks.
  • Deus Ex II: Invisible War all over again? when will they release some decent games?
  • Must be a slashdot editor has this game, which is why everyone has to hear about it. In my warped way of thinking ... now hear me out ... people who have this game, and are interested in patch issues like this, are probably following it on the news and forums on the publisher's site. Now isn't that just nutty?

  • Oh noes! It's not Open Source\ the latest in Microsoft\SCO flaming\ the umpteenth story of the latest Mozilla build! And I don't play decent games, so obviously they're not worth mentioning!

    "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters." Gamer nerds are nerds, too. If you haven't even heard of the Thief series then quit your whining and go back to discussing the latest release of Mozilla FlamePidgeon (or whatever today's build happens to be called).

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