Garrett's Birthday

My thanks goes out to all the taffers who shared their thoughts on what Thief means to them for the series' 18th Anniversary. Curious to know what the letter says? Well, here's the more juicy bits:

Dear Garrett,
I know you don't 'do' birthdays, but I figured if anyone deserved a gift, it'd be you. You may never believe me, but that doesn't matter. I have to tell you Garrett, through your amazing journey and misadventures, you have made so many people smile. You have bridged impossible gaps between worlds,  and brought tons of wonderful people together. Sometimes, it gets tricky. There have  certainly been hard times. But if I've learned anything from you--it's perseverance!
Personally,  I think that Thief has taught me to be patient. Sulking around, waiting in dark corners for hours...yep, it kinda does that! ^-^ Not to mention all of the invaluable friends I have made through being a taffer. There are such brilliant and genuine people in this community! Thief taught me to dream again, it has helped me in my darkest hour with my depression, and it urged me to take more risks in my own writing, seeing how bold and powerful its own stories are.
This letter also goes out to every single person who devoted their time, creative energy, and heart to making Thief a reality in the first place. The souls you have unwittingly impacted are strong, and they will never forget what you have given them.  So from the bottom of my heart, this taffer thanks you.



***
To the Thief Team,
I discovered the Thief series years ago, and I STILL love playing all of the games to this day! I started with The Dark Project, and have played all of the games. I think the older ones are my favorites. I especially love the Trickster's Mansion; brilliant level design!

Happy Anniverary Devs,



***
Thief is a game I shared with my brother when I was a child. I grew up watching him playing games long before I started playing myself, Thief was one of my favorites.
The atmosphere, the world, the story, and the overall challenge left a mark on me.


When Thief 4 came out I was heartbroken. I waited for so long, I wanted a continuation, but it was an Square Enix F*ck up, with a main character who is NOT Garrett and he was suffering freaking AMNESIA (No problem if you like it, but it hurted me, lol) so, It is the biggest disappointmend a game franchise gave me, ever. I despise Thi4f, with all my might.

I think the original games should be considered classics, and a lot of AAA games should learn what makes them that good. There is so much love on them, and it shows.
Thief (I-III) is one of my favorite franchises ♥

And Garrett was my latest cosplay c:


***
I should start with my first experience, which was with Thief II The Metal Age when I was fourteen. I was super excited to play a unique and creative game. Loved the various arrows-water, fire, moss, gas, noisemaker, rope. The various tools from flashbombs, mines, lockpicks, etc. It was vibrant, colorful, and interesting combining medieval with steampunk. I loved the Children of Karras, very unique creations. I used to be destructive when I was younger, blowing things up and leaving tons of knocked out people.

Now I'm a more careful player, I go for being unseen as much as I can. I do decently, 98% I score myself on missions. I've played the entire trilogy and find them all fantastic. A wonderful universe of magic, mystery, technology, interesting and scheming factions just is like a wonderful feast to me. What does Thief mean to me? Well, it's everything to me. It's one of my favorite games of all time, even after all these years. I've been playing it for sixteen years. I don't think I'll ever give it up. It's a great plot, and great play experience.


***
Thief... The city... The order of the hammer... everything there, is a glimpse in a gigantic world. And these games gave me a impression of this. A world... so different from any other worlds but yet so familiar. I felt home there. It's a magic, something that catches me all the time, when I play it. And all the FM's of course. The creativity of all the lovely folks out there. What fascinated me the most ist the part of the sealed section. The Old Quarter.

The end of Thief 1 (where Garrett meets Artemus at the end of the death of the trickster) was something so ... romantic, epic and "dreamy"- This city in a winter night. I can't get myself off this world in my mind. And somehow I feel this world, when I listen to the music of Loreena McKennitt (mostly the song "Dante's prayer").. I don't know why. Maybe I've grown up with this music. And the game, too, of course.

It's something special. Really special  


***
If you ask what Thief means to me: well, it basically taught me to draw. Nothing else has had so big influence on my art, even if only found the series few years back -- and I've been drawing almost my whole life! It showed me completely new ways to use light and shadow, and how to display characters. It also awoke love for blue in me!  



***

I must have been 10 or 11 years old when I was introduced to the wonderful world of Thief. My uncle was playing it and I loved it from the second I saw it.

What I love about Thief the most are the pagans. I was so impressed by the way they combined chaos with nature. Of course nature IS chaos. But the way the developers combined these two, it felt so dark and powerful - and I loved that. I still do. When I was in elementary school, I ACTUALLY started believing in the Trickster God.

When I grew older I learned to see the magical elements of nature in the real world. My last few years of school were horrible. I often lay in bed during night time and just wished to live in the Thief universe. I wanted to be with the pagans, live in their beautiful hidden world. I just wanted to escape my own reality and slip into the world of Thief. But of course I couldn't. At that time around 2010 until 2012 I had depression. I would cry myself to sleep EVERY SINGLE night, because I felt useless and didn't know what to do with my life. I actually wanted to kill myself, because I was hoping that maybe I can go to a more beautiful, peaceful place. But what stopped me was that I felt I didn't really deserve that.

When I was thinking about the pagans I realized that there may not be an actual Trickster God like the one we were introduced to in the games. But I figured that the God of nature may actually BE nature itself. Then one day I stumbled upon that wonderful quote by Frank Lloyd Wright: "I believe in God, only I spell it nature". That was my "turning point". I wanted to do something good for nature.

This is why I'm studying "Land Use and Water Resource Management". I'm currently doing an traineeship at the biosphere reserve "Spreewald" and I'm learning A LOT.

I may sound like a total eco-freak to you, but I'm not. I disagree with a lot of people and a lot of organizations who tell themselves that they are saving our environment. But they actually don't. The only thing they do is telling half-truths and causing panic. I got some examples, but I don't wanna go too deep into details here.
They don't know every aspect of a lot of topics, but they don't even care. I'm not saying that I do know everything, I definitely do not. But what I do is doing research, simply because I don't know everything. You can't say the thing I believe in is good and the other thing is bad. You have to look both ways.
Understand both sides. It's not that simple. NOTHING is ever simple. I don't see the world in black and white. There is grey. A LOT of shades of grey. You have to be neutral first. Then you do your research. And then you can decide what you want to prefer. This is the only way to help nature in a sustainable way.

Without Thief I might have never met the pagans. And without believing in their God I may have never wanted to help nature. This is what I love the most about Thief  It helped me finding my way.



***

Happy Anniversary Thief!!!