TDS - Objective list DISAPPEARS. Can't complete objectives. Help?

rumbo on 21/11/2010 at 02:52

Hi. I recently found out there was going to be a Thief 4. I was suitably impressed and began walking with a spring in my step. So I decided to dust off Thief: Deadly Shadows and play it again. It has been a LONG time, and I was excited.

I managed to get the game running nicely on my Vista 32 system. However, I have a very frustrating problem. Whenever I enter a door that transitions to another portion of the level (door with smoke/steam/cloud) the game minimizes briefly then returns to load the level portion. The problem is, once this level portion has loaded, my entire objective list disappears and any objective I complete in this portion of the level does not register with the game.

ie. After transitioning to the Inner Quarters on the Bloodline Opal mission, my objective list has completely disappeared. I hit the torch switch in Lord Ember's Chambers, but there is no magical objective sound or any communication to me that I have achieved an objective. I move down to the Portcullis in the basement and it is STILL shut!

In short, there is no way for me to complete any levels that require me to walk through a magic cloud/smoke transition door. What could possibly be the problem and fix for this situation?

Hope you can help!

Goldmoon Dawn on 21/11/2010 at 04:13

I recommend selling your copy and getting the xbox version. Its totally cooler!! I mean, I dont know.

Beleg Cúthalion on 21/11/2010 at 12:22

Sounds like no problem I ever heard about. I only know this kind of issue from editor setups when some of the actors in a map are not set up properly. If it's indeed as severe and something gets lost during the minimizing event, I can only suggest to re-work the steps you took to make it run under Vista. What have you done exactly?

rumbo on 21/11/2010 at 17:32

Actually, I did nothing specific to get it to run in Vista. the only problem I initially had was that the saved games folder path had to be changed so that I could load undamaged saved games, and so that my settings saved properly and didn't default every time I loaded the game.

Other than that, it runs perfectly on my system, except for the obvious and progress destroying problem I am experiencing now.

I too think it might be caused by the minimising to desktop each time the level portions load. I have no idea why it does this. I read that each time this happens, the process is exited and a new process is run, hence the minimise to desktop.

I would love a solution to this, as the game is unplayable now for obvious reasons.

Beleg Cúthalion on 21/11/2010 at 19:42

But your savegames do work? Have you tried to re-install it (or rather uninstall and get a new setup)?

rumbo on 21/11/2010 at 22:55

Some good news. A reinstall worked. I originally reinstalled a second time, but this did not solve it. Probably because I did not remove the old saved games/user settings folder.

I am running version 1.0 and everything works. I am too worried about causing another problem if I patch it to 1.1 again. Does version 1.1 significantly improve fix issues with 1.0?

Brian The Dog on 22/11/2010 at 00:21

Yes. v.1.0 has a bug with the difficulty settings being reset to the lowest difficulty setting when loading a saved game. v.1.1 fixes this but does nothing else, so you should definitely apply the patch.

rumbo on 22/11/2010 at 17:01

Thanks guys. The fix was so simple that I feel like a bit of a goof.

6 years ago I played through and finished TDS, but on reduced settings so that I could play it smoothly on my old CPU and video card. My current laptop runs everything at max and I can enjoy the game in all its glory. Add the high res texture pack by John P. and this game is as good, if not better, today as it was 6 years ago.

Bring on Thief 4!