This is the ReadMe file for GoldToDark, version 2024-04-02. This document is best viewed in a text editor with word wrap enabled, using a monospace font. +-------------------------------------+ | Introduction: what is "GoldToDark"? | +-------------------------------------+ GoldToDark is an UNOFFICIAL patch designed to revert an existing installation of Looking Glass Studios' game 'Thief Gold' into the "non-Gold" version, earlier released as 'Thief: the Dark Project'. To achieve this, it uses some third party utilities and differential files and, using those from your copy of 'Thief Gold' as a base, restores the *exact* content files of 'Thief: the Dark Project', not only for the in-game mission files but also every other ressource they use (such as textures, sounds, 3D models, texts, etc.) and even the video cutscenes. Note: from here on, we may use «TG» to refer to «Thief Gold», and «TDP» to refer to «Thief: the Dark Project». +---------------------------------+ | DO READ this before you run it! | +---------------------------------+ Before you decide to try and downgrade from TG to TDP, you must be aware of the following : 1: Depending on which version of THIEF.EXE is included in your copy of TG, GoldToDark may have to replace it with that of TDP version 1.33 — and will let you know if it does. If that's the case, then unless you're running the game on hardware from the late 1990s/early 2000s, the game will certainly be prone to crashing and/or have multiple other issues, that will require installing some other unofficial patch to make it stable/playable again. Thus, in case you have technical issues when running TDP, you should have a look at TTLG.com's Thief forum stickies (around here: https://www.ttlg.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=174 ) and look for the currently recommended package of unofficial fixes - at the time of writing, that would be TFix (see https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134733 ) — and proceed with installing that. Also, if you have some of these fixes installed on your Thief Gold already, GoldToDark might be unable to work as it would not recognize some ressource files that it needs to patch. 2: Be warned that if you go too deep into the rabbit hole of modding your game after using GoldToDark and adding fixes, then some mods may replace maps with a modified version of the Thief Gold one, thus cancelling parts of what GoldToDark had done. Don't claim that GoldToDark did a poor job and blame it for some Gold-specific things you'd happen to see after adding more mods yourself! 3: While most of the work is automated by a script, making the whole thing actually work will involve a little bit of work on your side and, as per the "Setup Instructions" further down, you need to be computer savvy enough to perform such tasks as: * figuring out which folder a program is installed in * creating a folder * copying a set of files * copying a folder's path * creating a shortcut and modifying its properties 4: Many fan-made missions are designed to work with TG and not with TDP. As such, it is strongly recommended to apply this patch on _a copy_ of your TG folder rather than on your game's folder itself, to keep your Thief Gold copy fully functional. The procedure is explained in the "Setup Instructions" section below. 5: Game saves from TG's main campaign are not backwards compatible with TDP and trying to load them most likely would cause some kind of trouble. +---------------------------------------------------+ | /!\ Disclaimer, license and copyright notices /!\ | +---------------------------------------------------+ As stated in the introduction, this patch is UNOFFICIAL: it was not made and is not supported by whoever owns the copyright on the Thief game series. If you decide to use this patch, you do so at your own risk, and may not ask for any kind of indemnification should anything go (horribly) wrong because of it - even though I tried my best to try and avoid any such thing. You may redistribute this patch as long as you provide the archive in its complete, unmodified form, and you don't charge anything for it. You may modify its script for your own personal use but are not allowed to redistribute a modified version. This patch makes use of: - Info-Zip's unzip.exe 6.00, which is "Copyright (c) 1990-2009 Info-ZIP. All rights reserved." See http://info-zip.org/license.html for more details - xdelta 1.1.3, which is released under the GNU GPL (according to https://github.com/jmacd/xdelta-gpl/blob/release3_1/xdelta1/README ) - md5sum, which is part of the CoreUtils for Windows (see https://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/coreutils.htm ) +---------------------+ | System Requirements | +---------------------+ Like any program, GoldToDark has some minimum system requirements: * Obviously, you need to have an official, non-modded¹, copy of TG installed, since GoldToDark is a patch, NOT a plain and simple pirated copy of TDP * Your installed copy of TG must be in english - some unofficial translation patches for Thief Gold have been floating around for a while now, so please note that these are most likely not compatible * GoldToDark is designed to be ran under Windows, and may not work with emulators or compatibility layers such as Wine. * You need *at least* 1.5 GB of free space on the drive where you plan to end up having your copy of TDP * If you are planning on running it under Windows 98, you may need to install Microsoft's Visual C 6 Runtimes ( see https://web.archive.org/web/20120704110941/http%3A//support.microsoft.com/kb/259403 ), for some of the third party utilities GoldToDark relies on require it (or at least msvcp60.dll) * Please note that GoldToDark has NOT been tested under Windows 95: it might work just like under Windows 98, it may need some additional stuff, or it may not work at all, I have no idea. ¹: since this patch uses some files from the game to regenerate other files, it will fail if some of them have been altered. For that reason, it will not work if you installed the full TFix package already - you should still be able to install it later if you wish. +--------------------+ | Setup Instructions | +--------------------+ First, I say it again, it is strongly recommended to apply this patch on _a copy_ of your game's folder, NOT on your original folder. Here are the steps you'll need to follow: 1 - Ensure that your system meets the requirements to run this — see the "System Requirements" section above 2 - Locate the folder where your version of TG is installed. 3 - Copy the contents of the folder located at step 2. Note: if that folder contains sub-folders called "GOODIES" or "MAKING" like the Steam version currently does, you don't need to copy those two folders. But make sure you do include at least the "MOVIES" and "RES" (if it exists) folder 4 - Create a new folder, outside of your TG folder, where you wish TDP to be. Further down we'll refer to that new folder you created as "your TDP folder" Warning: avoid putting it anywhere that requires administrator rights to write to, as that could lead to issues later on for the game to save anything, such as your settings and mission progress. 5 - Paste the contents which you copied at step 3 into your TDP folder 6 - Extract the contents of the archive "GoldToDark - version 2024-04-02.zip" to your TDP folder too. The GTD_v2024-04-02.bat file should be in the same folder where THIEF.EXE is, and there should be a "GTD" sub-folder. 7 - Run "GTD_v2024-04-02.bat" by double clicking on it from your TDP folder. It will display several messages while running to keep you informed about the progress of operations, sometimes will ask you to press a key to proceed, and let you know if it encounters any error. 8 - Create a shortcut, for example on your desktop, to the THIEF.EXE file in your TDP folder 9 - Right click that shortcut you just created, open its Properties, and make sure that the "Start in" field points to your TDP folder +-----------------------------+ | Uninstallation Instructions | +-----------------------------+ While you should still have your original TG folder intact if you followed the Setup Instructions, I still tried to make the script as safe I could, which implies keeping a backup of every file it replaces. So, if you really need to, here is a procedure to restore TG in the folder you downgraded using this script: 1 - Delete the INTRFACE directory 2 - Delete the files whose names matches the filter "MISS*.DIF" 3 - Move all the files and directories from the "GTD_Backup" folder back to its parent folder, overwriting any conflicting file in the target directory +-----------+ | Changelog | +-----------+ Version 2024-04-02 : - Does not require the user to manually modify the install.cfg any more - It is now be possible to decompress the GoldToDark archive using Windows' built-in .zip extraction feature - Previous versions would fail if the user decided to run them 'as an administrator' (which is not needed), now doing so shouldn't prevent the script from working - Now ignores the DARK.BND file - Now moves a few more Gold-specific files to the backup folder - The script itself now displays a warning about possible issues, when it has to create version 1.33 of THIEF.EXE - Updated/reorganised/rephrased parts of the documentation Version 2014-08-02B: - as recommended by voodoo47, we don't move the .dml patches anymore, however we do move miss18.mis to the backup folder, so that TFix can properly identify the patched game as not being Gold Version 2014-08-02: - Now assumes that some NewDark variant is installed if it doesn't recognize the Thief.exe file, instead of aborting - now also saves cam.cfg and ddfix.ini (if it exists), to avoid a possible error with the resolution if the user later restores their previous install from the backup - ignores dark.cfg as the differences between existing versions don't seem to have significant impact on the game - moves the .dml patches to backup folder if it finds any, just to be on the safe side Version 2013-06-18: - The script now pauses before testing anything, giving the user time to read the "title screen" and inviting them to read the documentation - Now also recognizes versions 1.20 and 1.21 of the unofficial "NewDark" patch - Some more minor modifications Version 2013.01.01: - Completed Uninstall Instructions in the documentation files - Doesn't check the hashes of documentation files anymore - Some minor modifications Version 2012.12.16: first release -= End of File =-