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Ten years ago, I started a small Thief fansite using an image I scanned from a magazine ad and some self taught html I learned from reading source code from other sites. A version of that site still exists, here. It was just three days after TTLG itself opened. After Thief's success it made the jump to www.thief-darkproject.com and eventually thief2-metalage.com under Future Games Network and TTLG. But when we broke away from FGN, www.thief-thecircle.com came to be. Many years, hundreds of FMs, a third Thief game and a complete redesign later, here we are. I can only say so much myself (or too much), so instead I am giving voice to just a small sample of those who have enjoyed the site since July 19th, 1998.
Over a decade after the original game was released - the Thief community still continues to amaze.. and to push the boundaries of the original game engines further than anyone thought possible. Never before have I been a part of such a generous and giving community that produces fan missions even today that are beyond the scope and vision of the original creators - and they do it for the love of the game, and in tribute to those very creators.
Im proud to be a part of this community - and proud to support this masterpiece of a series that paved a way for an entire gaming genre.
The folks at ttlg.com forums are one of the best groups I've been a part of in an online community - and congratulations to thief-thecircle.com on 10 years of greatness. Here is to hoping for ten more. Cheers.
-SneakyJack
Thief has been like a core in my life, even though life has pulled me away from it every once in while, my heart has always remained with it. It's not game to me. It's not even the game that's important to me, it's all the people, the activity, the community here at TTLG that comes with it.
I can hardly stand the thought of visiting these forums one day and seeing that the last post dates a year back, or visiting Thief-the Circle and seeing that it hasn't been updated in a year. These websites were what made me a Thief Fan, and years of being in this wonderful community have probably had a significant and positive effect on who I am today and where I am in life. This place has been a refuge to me whenever real life has become unbearable, and I hope to be here among all my dear friends for years and years to come.
So Digi and the TTLG team, I cant thank you enough for creating and maintaining this magical place. :)
- theImmortalThief
Ultima Underworld, System Shock and Thief were revolutionary in so many ways, but even great games are forgotten over time. Consolidating and sustaining the uniquely vibrant, vocal, intelligent, and loyal fan community that is TTLG with its sites and forums, is the dedicated work of love of a cast of thousands. But first and foremost the administrators deserve thanks.
I was around for the first years of the forums, and I'm here now. Thank you for all the hours of enjoyment. My world would have been a poorer place without TTLG.
-- Larris, the Magpie
If The Circle is ten years old, then my bookmark to that site is only slightly younger. From Hammer scores to the HUGE mission vault to fan art to the support of tangent projects like The Dark Mod, The Circle has been, and continues to be, the hub of all things Thief. At midnight on July 19, I hope to be sharing my champagne with my Builder brethren. Cheers!
- eep!
Long live Thief! A huge thank you to all the mission authors, custom texture/model/other content creators, website designers and hosters, moderators, and especially all the taffers who keep playing the fan missions and keeping the community alive. May there be many more awesome fan missions released by July 19th 2018 for the 20 year anniversary! Another thought that occurred to me - if you take the total playing time of all Thief fms (I reckon roughly 1500 hours or so, based on extremely inaccurate maths/guessing) that's probably more than my entire commercial games collection, and more enjoyable gameplay in many cases, and all completely free. It's enough to bring a tear of gratitude to the eye!
--- Nick Dablin
Ever since downloading ThiefLoader and Mokkis' Circle of Strain from TTLG back in 1999 I've enjoyed and appreciated Thief-TheCircle.com and the TTLG Thief community. Here's to another decade of Thiefy fun!
Cheers,
Komag
I think the first time I played the Thief OM's date from 1998 also. I didn't know then that there would also be FM's made in the future.
Before that time I played Doom, the Unreal games, some other smal games and Hexen, but when I started to play Thief, I got hooked. Thief is MY game, for real!!! I will never abanden it. I like the "first person" way of playing.
All that has been build by professionals and amateurs, derserve all of our respect!
So also from me: Thanks to EVERYONE who keeps theses forums alive!
These members feel like family and I like to thank you all for being there for me, even when RL got tough.
But you also gave me "birthdayshowers" hahaha and shared the birth of my two new grandchildren with me.
I think this is a very spcial forum, at least to me!
Along the years, some Taffers come and some go, but most of them are true members of this forum, always trying to help one another.
I thank you ALL for that!
Gloria Creep, walking into the future, looking out for more than another 10 years of Thiefplaying ....
I caught the magic of the Dark Project right from the start in 1998. But what really drew me to here came later ... living on a small Japanese island in 2000, opening up Thief 2's dromed, and building little worlds. It got me through the long freezing nights of winter.
And I thought to myself, there must be others out there doing this ... somewhere. I felt a kindred spirit with this community long before I even had the internet access to know it was there. But I knew... When I got back to the US, I looked up what I knew had to be out there and found TTLG, et al. It was sort of inevitable. And nothing really compares to it. Happy 10th to the best online community a person could wish for.
- demagogue
About 2 years ago, & feeling quite jaded with most computer games, I replayed TDP & TMA, finally realizing that this was the game style I really wanted to stay with. But how to have more of it? It was then that I found Thief - The Circle; this great source of news & files introduced me to a community of astonishing dedication & energy. Having been involved in several other gaming communities, I was amazed by the sheer number of Fan Missions & other resources that had been produced. And it led me to the TTLG Forums.
Here I've found a remarkable community stretching widely across gender, nationality, age & lifestyle - constantly supportive & unselfish - & imbued with a remarkable amount of talent & dedication; especially those who freely give so much time, energy & imagination to creating FM's & all manner of assets, which has seen this great game lifted well beyond its original capabilities.
Here, I've found another home...
- Sticky Fingers
I have been absent from the community for some time, but it's great to see that it is still around. The support and dedication from it's members is like none other that I have ever run across. It's a place where one can feel at home and not have to worry about being flamed when asking others for a hand. Whether it be some quirky little problem with DromEd or just needing a nudge to get out of a sticky situation from within the game environment.
I have spent the past couple of weeks looking back on some of the post here and there and am just amazed to see a lot of the old familiar faces that are still actively involved in the Thief community. Now that’s dedication. Way To Go TTLG!!! It's too bad that Looking Glass Studios wasn't able to survive their there own little battles, for the Legacy that they have left behind is insurmountable. Here's to another Ten Taffin' Years...
Wild Bill
It was my husband (now late) who stumbled upon the TTLG forums back in 2000. I remember how we sat there and laughed uproariously at the posts in the thread, '1000 clues that you have been playing thief way to much ... ', both of us being able to identify thoroughly with some of those posts since we were both avid Thief fans. Though it wasn't until 2005 that I decided to become a member, I've been enjoying TTLG since that day way back in 2000.
TTLG truly is a community, a place to go where you can kick back and enjoy the comraderie and fellowship of friends. My fellow TTLG'ers have helped me through the darkest time of my life, have shared their joys and sorrows with me, and have made me laugh when I needed it most. Once not too long ago I posted that I needed another modem , since mine had 'gone missing' from the PC on which I played Thief and I had absolutely no idea what type/brand of modem I should invest in (money was definitely an object at that time). Within a week I had a special delivery; a brand new modem generously donated by a fellow Taffer who said he just 'happened' to have an extra modem laying around! I have to admit I got a tad misty-eyed when I received that gift. That type of generosity and compassion seems to be the norm here at TTLG and I have yet to find that overall attitude/ambience in any other forum I've visited or joined since I started visiting here back in 2000.
Thank you Digi and Saam, and all my fellow TTLG'ers who've been responsible for keeping TTLG alive and kicking for so long. I know I'll always have a second home here at TTLG.
Dia
Through The Looking Glass, please stand up.
The charges hold against you are the following :
- Giving a shelter to lawbreakers from all over the world, allowing the international criminal organization known as The Guild to live on ten years for now and taffering to live on, through diffusion of crucial top secret informations.
- Pushing the boundaries of the virtual criminal world ever after, leading to the creation of a hard core preventing later games to thrive as they should have done.
- Obstruction to perfect non-violent infiltration games such as Splinter Cell or Assassin's Creed. The absence of killing sprees in such a game is an actual nonsense, your honor !
- Allowing a so-called fantasy game, not respecting the codes of the genre, to live on and corrupt the minds of our good people.
- Causing anonymous people to create whole worlds from scratch, jeopardizing the stability of our institutions.
- Being responsible from the shortage in headache painkillers which struck our good City the previous year.
The sentence requested is a formal obligation to live and let live ten more years. I am not expecting any mercy from the Court.
Nightstroll
Ten years? It's really been that long? All I can say is that is a looooong time for a game (any game) to live, and it hasn't gotten old yet. Thief will NEVER get old, as far as I'm concerned. So long as FM authors keep putting out their wondrous FMs, Thief will live on. However, we must never forget the Dark Mod and openDarkEngine, not only will they push the boundaries even further, but allow the game to live even LONGER.
I think that having a game live this long, and still have a strong, dedicated fan base is one of the greatest heights any piece of art can reach. May those who created this become as Da Vinci, forever remembered as artists on a level unto themselves.
RavynousHunter
Almost ten years has passed since i found the game Thief The Dark Project, like if it was my destiny i saw that cover thats showed that man with the hood and arrow, and the mistery that surrounds him, what could be this game about? and that's how Thief passed to be a part in my life.
Thief will last forever among us the fans , i found this community, Through The Looking Glass, and found out a lot of things that were new to me about the game, that i probably never could discovered, thanks to all you guys who makes possible that all we thief fans had a place to talk and share, Happy ten years
KurtC
Thief-thecircle.com (as well as TTLG.COM) is an important part of my life. It's the place where I can download missions for my favourite Game - Thief. It's the place where I can read novels and poetry. The novel "Correspondence of the thieves" has the potential chance to win worldwide fiction contests and I'd like the community to achieve that victory over the next 10 years. As for the game - it's classic and it will remain in history. As well as some of the fan missions which are equal quality and even better than the OMs.
Svetoslav Alexandrov (The taffer from Bulgaria)
Thanks for the best decade of my life, I'll see ya down in Bonehoard! - Thief13x
Wow. Ten years? I can't say I've been here since the beginning, but I can say that the past 5 years have been amazing. TTLG gave me an amazing and helpful resource as I threaded my careful way through the terrors of DROMED for Thief 1 and later 2, it gave me a place i could refer my friends to sand say "this is the best community on the web". Along the way i went from lowly highschool freshman to Art school student and Junior Game designer (Thanks in no small part to a DROMED addiction early in life) and all the while rarely making an appearance as anything other than a lurker! Thank you TTLG, its admins, and its community, for being the best place on the net for 5 years of my life, and 10 years of yours.
thiefinthedark
I first played Thief back in 1999 and was hooked. I discovered The Circle that same year and it's been my homepage since then, which means I've been visiting the Circle pretty much every day for about nine years.
Long live the Thief series, as well as the astounding Thief community, and let's hope for the best regarding Thief 4.
Sébastien Richer, Saint-Jérôme, Québec
Been loving Thief for 10 long years. It's unquestionably my favorite game series. Few games since have had as much atmosphere. To the brilliant team who once formed Looking Glass Studios and the talented fan community who've kept the game alive so long: You have my thanks.
EarthquakeDamage
Happy 10th and another 10 maybe with the creation of "The Dark Mod" it can happen? That will certainly take us into the future for more Thiefy gameplay! My introduction to Thief came back in 1999 with the demo but never got the game for some goofy reason as I did like it..but The Metal Age really socked me into the game and the Forums. I like others grew a great passion for Thief and the Mods that eventually made it continue on for more great playing fun. Thank you Modders and Thank you to the Forums that keep on giving! :)
The Fire Eater
I have gotten so tired of lousy games being produced for single players that I had almost given up. BioShock was the last decent game I played. In May of 2008 I pulled out my old Thief Gold and actually got it to run after finding a three fingered salute tweak that made it playable again. Wow what have I been missing!? I had totally forgotten how great the series was. I have just started playing some FM's from 2002 for Thief. "Hidden Agenda" is good enough to have been part of the original game. I don't know why there isn't a thief 4 in the works and more in line with Thief 1 and 2 with an editor included.
There is definately a cult following with Thief that could capture a more than one generation of players. My grandson is getting into it. Is anybody with influence reading this? Cha Ching.....
bedwine
10 years can really go by quickly. Though I'm amazed at all that has happened since the beginning, I am not surprised by the response from the fans here at TTYL/thief-thecircle. When such a solid and groundbreaking game is created with so much potential, ten years can seem quite small. I am proud to consider myself a fan and can honestly admit, I check ttyl/thecircle on a regular basis almost as much as my email. I will always be a thief fan at heart and until more games start coming out that takes advantage of all the original series had to offer, I know exactly where I will be gaming.
.K Murphy.
As times change, the technology and complexity with which games are made also change. While a game may have a claim to fame (alliteration lol), it will eventually be replaced. Perhaps the only lasting evidence of a game's impact is it's fanbase. The loyal people who bought, played, and grew up on the game. It has been many years since Thief: The Dark Project was released, and it's graphics are outdated, it's programming cryptic, and it's fanbase strong as ever. A game's legacy is in it's fans, and this particular game has a bright and shining legacy.
Peanuckle
Thank you LGS and Garret for 10 excellent years of sneaking and thieving, may there be many more. Thank you T-TC.com for being my original one-stop for all Thief-related news and downloads, keep up growing strong. And thank you TTLG, plus the people running it, for 8 years of being part of one of the best communities online, great bunch of taffers that they are.
-MrDuck.
PS. Wee wee... ;)
Thief has ruined my life
I am destitute having no job or home through playing thief all the time
I never get invited to parties as all I talk about is how I would steal the hosts valuables and then go and stand in dark corners waiting to BJ people with a rolled up sock
I cannot go to movies due to my habit of loudly criticising anyone on screen who is supposed to be either stealing or protecting some item ... amateurs all
Yes, Thief has ruined my life, and I wouldn't change a second of it
Thank you Looking Glass Studios
Esme
An entire decade gone, and yet Thief remains my benchmark by which I judge all other games. It's had an indelible effect on the way I play all games (I always remap keyboard controls based on Thief's key bindings, I always play as if shadows matter and enemies can hear my footsteps--even if they can't--etc.). For me, Thief is comfortable, familiar, a safe-haven I can go to after a crappy day--or even after a great one--and nothing ever seems as bad after a half-hour or so of Thief-ing. Nothing in my gaming experience has been this powerful or this lasting--and there is no other game I can honestly see myself still playing in another ten years.
A big thanks to Digi, Pavlovscat, and so many others who give freely of their time to keep the Thief community alive. And a HUGE thanks to all the FM authors who've made it possible for Thief to remain alive and still new after all these years.
WhiteFantom
I played Thief Gold, then Thief II, then Thief DS as each hit the market. I'm not a big gamer but the box and description of Thief Gold intrigued me all those years ago. And now I'm spoiled. After playing the originals and the subsequent FMs I find most other computer games boring. "Why can't I hide? Why can't I climb up there? Oh, boy, another kill-the-evil-creature with 50 weapons . . . "
The amazing immersive quality, a world with its own physics and inventions, unforgettable characters, and superb story lines have kept this series alive for me for 10 years. As long as the FMs keep coming I'll keep playing. And when they run out I'll go back and play them all over again.
glwhalen
I found Thief-TheCircle & TTLG in 2004 and wish I’d found them years sooner. It is a friendly place with many helpful, wonderful people who make it such a special forum. The amount of camaraderie is amazing. In the Thief forums, somebody is always there to answer or help, no matter what the question is. Thief is an amazing game, but the people of TTLG are even more amazing. The people are what have kept this forum going. Thank you all!
Here’s to another 10 years!!
pavlovscat
Thank you, all. And thank you to everyone who has contributed to the site over the years, including Archaeon, Azal, Biohazard, Cratus, David, Dennis Nixon, Elenkis, GBM, Haegan, James Sterrett, Jenesis, Jyre/Dashjianta, Msledd, pavlovscat, Saam, scumble, The Phantom, and Twisty.
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