sure thing.

There is ESRGAN Texture/Video Pack for Thief Gold with upscaled vanilla textures on TTLG and Reddit.

too niche to be implemented as a feature. go \RES\strings.crf\ (will need 7zip to open the data archive), edit MISSFLAG.STR and move miss15 as you see fit.

alternatively, copy the MISSFLAG.STR out of the archive, create a STRINGS folder under USERMODS, place it there (under STRINGS), and edit that to avoid modifying the original archive. the edited file will override the vanilla resource as long as it's kept there.

Thank your for the tips. I'll try this out on a fresh install.

I don't think the skip is as niche as you would think. Thief 1 has been popping back up on a lot of people's radars lately thanks to YouTube channels (the most recent being Civvi 11 who also gave your patch a big shout out) that cover shooters and the 'boomer shooter' retro trend has started to cover the Looking Glass/Ion Storm Austin style games. Gloomwood being an example; even the developer, Dillion Rogers, prefers Thief 1 over 2. The Thieve's Guild mission has been almost universally loathed. Since Square has no plans to even touch Thief 1 and no Nightdive remaster is in the works (that we know of), adding an optional level move would be a good future proof move for new players. Ether way, you've done a hell of a good job keeping Thief up to date.

I think altering the level sequence is out of the scope of the patcher. also, I have been around for a while, and seen a fair share of requests, and this is the first time I see this mentioned. I'd like to keep the patcher as simple as possible, so any requests considered not suitable for the main branch are handled via forum support, either providing instructions or custom patches.

as far as the hypothetical NDS Thief remakes/ports go, once they have SS2 running on KEX, it will mean they have a working engine clone of Dark1.5, and getting TG (Dark1) to run on that shouldn't be that hard (when compared to porting Dark1.5 to KEX, that is). same goes for T2 (Dark2), it's also pretty close, just from the other side (you can run Thief levels under SS2 and vice versa with a bit of hacking around).

and I really wouldn't mind seeing sqeenix off the franchise, the inept morons they are. so good luck, NDS.

I remember reading that NDS got a copy of System Shock 2's engine directly from the NewDark author. Without jumping to conclusions, I'm guessing that NDS also grabbed Thief's NewDark branch along with it. Fingers crossed that we will see a Thief 1 remaster announced after System Shock 2: Enhanced Edition comes out.

source? as far as I'm aware, they actually didn't manage to contact the Raven, so they are working off the Dreamcast leaks, unless something changed in the last couple of months.

Found the article, it's from a Rock Paper Shotgun interview from when it was announced. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/08/12/20-years-after-release-system-shock-2-is-finally-getting-an-enhanced-edition/

yeah, that's the info i'm working with right now.

As a veteran Dark Engine modder, what features are you most excited for with the upcoming KEX conversion?

who, me? I'm more of a fixup/support guy really. anyway, as mentioned in the systemshock.org SS2EE speculation topic, the initial KEX release will probably be less modder friendly than NewDark - remember, NewDark had almost a decade to make another decade of modder wishes come true, that will be hard to beat no matter how good the KEX guys are.

one thing the KEX port will hopefully bring is no dependency on ancient tools - being able to create new AI models without having to convert them to be Dark compatible, for example.

the best part (if it's really going to happen, that is), is yet again, resolving the legal situation, meaning anyone being able to work on the source without the risk of getting sued to oblivion.

I found a Kotaku article from last year that says NDS got the actual Dark 1.5 source code from Looking Glass's own Paul Nurath. Apparently Paul had a copy in his closet. The article didn't say if Dark 1.0 or Dark 2 were recovered as well. I'm hoping since NDS owns System Shock that their ownership extends to Dark 1.5 too.

link?

https://kotaku.com/system-shock-2-has-been-getting-new-patches-for-years-1837180538