Quote from: Marvin on 26. September 2012, 22:11:15

I guess the modders have to realize its new potential, first. I don't know what all the fuzz is about, the SS2Tool has done that for ages. Sure, this new patch does a lot cleaner job but on the surface it's pretty much the same. I think it's a bit unfair to all the contributors on this site and TTLG to pretend that Shock2 wasn't playable until this new patch came out (i.e. RPS ).I guess the modders have to realize its new potential, first.

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So, any news on the author? Has Arkane got any Irrational/LGS connections left? Most of those things shouldn't be possible without access to the source code.



I totally agree that people have done *fantastic* work on SS2, both altering/modding it, and making it playable on modern systems, but I don't think the release of this patch cheapens that in any way, except (as you say) for the sites who imply that before this patch the games were all but unplayable on non-period machines. I haven't yet tried this patch on SS2 or Thief 2 (first I was at work, then I had to go 'round a mate's new flat, to help him move his stuff in - always happened when there's something you want to do, never when you're bored) but from my quick glances on http://www.ttlg.com/forums/forum.php (where they mainly discuss the T2 patch, phiistines) it seems that the patch improves loading times, in-game speed, fixes some bugs, allows the mouse wheel to be defined as a control (wheel up, and wheel down, separately!), all of which, I imagine, will apply to SS2,so the patch does have some advantages even for players like us, whose SS2 installation is already fully Windows 7 compatible.And judging by the way the Thief 2 modders are singing the praises of the patch's editor improvement, it seems like the editor can now support much more complex and details levels than ever before. And the fan made levels that approached the limits of the editor pre-patch, and ran slowly or unplayable in the game, now run perfectly in the (patched) game, so much so that people are talking about re-doing some of their old creations but adding the parts they were forced to miss out, or just building on pre-existing maps. Though no doubt some people will aim to push the new editor as much as possible, especially those who are starting brand new levels.The speculation is that he/she/they is one or more people who is actually an active member of the Thief and/or SS2 modding community, possibly a regular on http://www.ttlg.com/forums/forum.php (or this site, who knows?), who released this work anonymously in case there are any legal repercussions. It's a pity that (if true) the person feels like this, but if they want to remain anonymous then we have to respect that, so even if I was enough of a regular on SS2/T2 forums to speculate on which posters I think could make something of this quality, which I'm not, I wouldn't.Apparently the source code of T2/SS2 was discovered a year or two back ( http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=132035 ) and perhaps this mysterious person(s) got his hands on it, and reverse engineered it enough to deduce the necessary changes and bug fixes in the Windows versions of the games. Maybe, but it seems a bit of a stretch to me to jump from *possibly* working Dreamcast source code to the quality of the Windows patch we see here. Still, stranger things have happened, and whatever the origin, we have the working patch.