We had the chance to learn more about a very interesting modification of Thief 2, which is entitled The Circle of Stone and Shadow. We asked several question to Daniel E. Todd, one of the creators of the game.

Every group, noble, and establishment in CoSaS will have a totally unique look to its guards and soldiers.

RPGDot: What gameplay aspects did you change or improve regarding Thief 1 or 2? (Inventory, Combat, Magic, Object Interaction, RPG System, new Arrows, Enemies)

Daniel E. Todd: I can give you some examples.
We've developed a simple and effective key chain object. This key chain represents a bit of a gameplay tradeoff. You see, with the key chain, when you want to try to unlock a door, you just use the key chain object, which is in essence a group of stacked keys, and if you have the right key, the door will open. However, when you pick up a new key, the player has no way of knowing what key they just added to their inventory (Is it the key to the basement, or to the attic? No way to know unless you try them both). It's a case of getting rid of a huge frustration in favor of a smaller inconvenience.

The other innovation has to do with the way the game feeds the player information. For example, in Thief 2 (spoiler warning!) there was a classic adventure game type situation where the player needed to make a copy of a key in a slab of wax. This was a complex process involving four or more steps. The game pulled the player by the nose through this process, telling them exactly what to do every step of the way. CoSaS also has some classic adventure game type situations (many more then Thief 1 or 2 had) but how much help the game gives the player depends on the difficulty level. On normal, the game tells the player what to do every step of the way, thus players who do not want to deal with those kinds of puzzles can just waltz on through. On Expert, the player is still guided, but more in the sense that we explain what needs to be done, rather then how to do it. When it comes to the whats and the hows, the player must rely on in-game fiction to guide their problem solving skills. (It should be noted, that even players on normal will not have to read the hints and instructions if they do not want to.)

We've also worked out some interesting consequences for the player when the guards sound the alarm. The guards will act as a group in an attempt to find the player, and to make sure they cannot easily escape. Exits will be sealed, patrol patterns will change, and enemy aggression will go up. There will also be new enemies. (And I do not consider a human guard with a new skin to be a ‘new' enemy.)

The City Watch, a major faction in Thief 2, will be darker and have a more classic look to them, under the command of Truart's predecessor.

RPGDot: And technically? (Resolution, Interface, Automap). How will CoSaS install? Is it a mod or a self running program?

Daniel E. Todd: Our focus has never been technical prowess and innovation, though naturally some of that has had to come in order to tell the story we want to tell (for instance, we've had to come up with totally new ways to create some of the sequences and situations the player will have the chance to witness and interact with). Most of the inventions we came up with are based on specific scenarios in the story, so I will not get into them.
CoSaS will be installed over the player's existing Thief 2 installation, and played by running Thief 2. So yes, Thief 2 will be required to play. We are making no edits or changes to the game engine itself.

But we do push the envelope visually, and are thus recommending system stats that are a bit higher then Thief 2's recommended system. (T2 recommends 400 Mhz. Players of CoSaS will want something more like 500 Mhz.) We use a wider assortment of higher resolution textures (256x256 and 128x128) and, in general, the scene complexity is usually about twice what you'd see in Thief 2. Folks with only 64 Megs of RAM will have serious performance issues.

RPGDot: How far into development are you and when do you expect to have CoSaS ready? How will you distribute it?

Daniel E. Todd: CoSaS has been in development for a long time, and will continue to be for a long time. We are a dedicated team, and we work every day on this project, but we are also all volunteers and hobbyists. Many of us also have full time jobs, school, and "real lives" (spouses, kids) that we consider to be, in all seriousness, more important then this project. That's reality. So delays very often, and causally, happen. Sit tight, and be patient. We'll finish. We promise. :)

CoSaS will be distributed in several forms. For one thing, there will be two versions of CoSaS: the Internet download version, and the CD version (which we want to also be downloadable as a CD image). It will all be free, but people who want us to mail them a CD will need to pay for the disc, and round-trip shipping. The differences in the internet download version and the CD version will -mostly- be a matter of cinematic resolution and compression. It's too soon to really talk about any of that.