Thief II: Backward Messages

[Stormblast2013]

There is no Giles's ghost in patch version 1.18 just in v1.07. Maybe it's a bug

[Stquinn]

@Stormblast2013 Are you saying that Gile's ghost existed in the original version of The Dark Project? I have Thief Gold v1.18, so I didn't have to download the patch.

[Stormblast2013]

@Stquinn No, just in Thief 2 the Metal Age version 1.07 i've seen the ghost and when i installed and played with patch 1.18 there was no ghost in the library.

The latest version of Thief 1 Gold is 1.37 but i was talking about T2 - the Metal Age.

[Stquinn]

@Stormblast2013 Oh, ok, I remember downloading & installing the patch for T2, but apparently, it didn't install correctly. However, I just found out that I have version 1.0a, which means that I should have installed T2's Premier patch first. Thief: The Circle website has a Premier patch that will upgrade v1.0a directly to v1.18. Replaying the missions will be like playing a new game again. Thanks a bundle. I owe you one.

[AniqueTheRobot]

:000 I finished this game, but I never saw this part :0 where is it at?

[Stquinn]

@AniqueTheRobot: In the library, which is at the far right rear corner of the building. Stairways to the upper floor are on each side of the fireplace. You don't have to follow the ghost around to hear him, but you don't want him to see you either. I could be wrong, but I think you have to go to the library in order to successfully finish the mission.

[Stquinn]

@AniqueTheRobot I was playing the original version of the game. Apparently, v1.0a and v1.07 include Giles, the library ghost, while v1.18 does not. Sorry about that.

[Bidmartinlo]

Errmmm... must be the wood they use for the books. Lets write things down on hard-disks instead. :P

[zoquibax]

Garret is seeing dead people through his dead eye. Maybe that's why he also hears what his eye heard before it died.

[SergiuZ27]

@zoquibax And that's why, in Thief 1, you couldn't see the ghosts ?

[666ISHIMURA666]

hehe cool.

i was allways wondering what the stupid ghosts are talking to theirselfs...

but i've got a german syncro for victoria and constantine but the ghosts voice is still the same like in the English game versions.

thx

THFIE 4 EVER

[gsafian]

Well I be damned, I was wondering what he was trying to say. When I had to get the clock working

[TangFiend]

Just some .wav file they had conveniently lying around

[Bhethar]

Wow i dont even remember that library...

[Keddar10]

Great!

[sunsprie]

is thief 4 true i loved the thief games

[Fermonx]

Just recently complete Thief 2... well almost because at the last level when i try to manufactur the Guiding beacon it crashes... every single time but i completed it ins it? just without the experience, gonna play 3 someday and well 1 is good never played it though but i know the story.

[Hammerite]

a friend of mine reversed the ghost sounds for me ones and i indeed recognised victoria in them.

have you try'd to figure out what the hammer haunts say? i got a few, but some are realy hard to understand what they say and i'd realy like to know..

[Melchiah3]

Do you mean the hammerite ghost or the undead skeleton hammerites?

The ghosts say the same thing as any other ghost (ie. victoria's phrases)

The undead one makes chainmail noice (no flesh to keep the shirt tight :p) and starts laughibng manicly, calling to you if he notices you:

"Join us... Join us... Join us NOW!" :p

[Melchiah3]

I have played all three thief many times and all the ghosts use the same audio wave! So it's victoria's voice always and always the same lines! Still it's scary! =j

[PennyDreadful1]

Yeah though a little dissapointing

[Brady2k10]

dude, tell me something, ive only played Deadly Shadows on the Xbox but i heard the first Thief games are better... is it true?

[Melchiah3]

Funny you ask that. I just finished playing both Thief I and II (again!). Well, the first two part use an old graphic engine and they are alike. Although the graphics are crap compared to the new one they give a different feeling to the game. More dark I'd say...! Some of the stages and the story is very nice. If you can try them out on a PC or... If you have compatibility problems I might be able to help.

[Brady2k10]

hmmm... wher did u get your copy of the games? Thief 1 and 2? Did you buy them?

[Melchiah3]

I have them on re-release. You know, along a magazine! :P

I had played them when they first came out though. And always on PC... I don't think you can play 1-2 on anything else...

I you try to find 1 find the "Gold" edition. It has some extra missions in it!

[TheRealDEATHERON]

would you say that the cradle is scarier than anything in the first two thiefs? or that the cradle is scarier but has less suprises than that of anything in the first two thiefs?

[Melchiah3]

Coinsidently (again) I just finished Thief III yest. (2 days after the cradle). Exams and vacations didn't let me play it along with the 2 first as I had planned.

The cradle along with the "Return to the haunted cathedral" are concidered to be two of the scariest levels created for a game.

When I was playing thief 1 I was 10 years old and I couldn't finished the stage because I was sitting in a dark corner, terrified to move on ( no fire arrows/holy water) I even had nightmares about it! :p

[Tarhiel]

And in the first one I heard: "Old man... tree symbol... visible starshine... for your forth neck (?)...used to wizard"

And on the last one I heard: "Malevolent lunatic servant...for the exquisite seem"

Hat off before Eric Brosius. I wanna System Shock 3!!!

[Tarhiel]

Thank you very much for posting this!

I always knew it is human voice played backward, and I always wanted to know what is it saying. I didn´t knew they used different voice in T:DS. Now it make sense. This is Victoria, and in T:DS it´s Lauryl.

Good point there, Stquinn, Victoria´s voice, when reversed, makes sense, but you hear something even when not reversed.

KahrylBlack, in 0:33 instead of "it´s like ice" I heard "Into the eyes"

[FlamesOfWickerman]

i was really scared whan i went there for the first time... shut up! i was just a kid back then:P

[LgndryThndr]

the fuck are you talking about? I'm still scared.

[HarryCorp]

first time when I listened to this

I shut down the monitor and closed my eyes xD

fucking kid I was back there man xD

[aslan187]

wow

[Xantopan]

Wow, I never believed that the ghost's murmur was a reversed sentence... but I actually had a suspect when I recorded something with "Audacity" and reversed it.

[Hasfast]

This does not only happen here in MA... in TDP the immortals also speak that same moaning. I specially loved their screams and cries when they are inflicted damage with holy water.

It´s a shame MA had not many horror scenes, but I suppose it was not too adequate, regarding the environment. Yet the part in which you follow the wounded Pagan in the forest is haunting enough, hehehe. D.R.

[rockloyalty522]

i love the backwards messages and the moaning its so creepy.

[KahrylBlack]

That's weird, because I always heard actual words in the Thief 1 ghost-speech.

"stone may see, manfool!" = "Old man, three symbols?"

[Stquinn]

In Thief II, different voices were dubbed in on Viktoria's reversed speech. In the first clip, I can hear Viktoria say: "Old man, three symbols?" but the voice of the young girl saying: "It's so cold!" makes it difficult to hear.

However, you have raised an interesting point. Were the words of Viktoria's speech carefully chosen and arranged so that other messages could be understood when played backwards?

[KahrylBlack]

I always heard "it's so cold" and in the second one:

0:31 "What?"

0:33 "Let me out!" the child whispers "I apologize, it's like ice..."

0:52 "laugh at the lunatics"

0:54 "I apologize, it's like ice..." again

creepy :(

[KahrylBlack]

I can't figure out what forwards-words those correspond to, though.

[Stquinn]

Could "What?" = "stone!"? Viktoria's speech may not be the only reversed speaking voice that we hear.

Her lines, taken directly from Dark Project transcripts, read much like translations of reversed speech. For example: "He then the spruces to singer him an anthems." WTF?

[6969Miguel6969]

you're right, you can find the other reversed speech(the young girl) dubbed in Viktoria's speech, from thief's SFX folder, under snd.crf; their called "VNEEDYOU", "VHUNGRY", "VHEARME", and lots of other's, usually startin with a "V". The one "VNEEDYOU" is defiendly in one of viktorias speech, and I doubt the other one's would'nt be.

[Nnovata]

Shalebridge Craddle is scariest but the library is mistic

[SavageT1337]

Wow, cool! I was wondering what they were saying and it sounded strangely familiar..

[Hammerite]

a friend and i discoverd this same thing a few months ago.

he reverced the audion and i figured out Victoria's speech because i play the game to much :P

But you did a better job on it then we did.

The ghosts in Thief1 make the same noise...and they still creep me out :P

[Mashetz]

GOOD WORK MAN! Nice discover, but I think that's not an easter egg, but just only laziness of the authors :)

[Stquinn]

LOL... Good point. A better egg would be the ghost of Giles reciting his own love letters in reverse then scolding himself for being too loud in a library.

[masteredd23]

Hm, I guessed, that the ghost's voice is something backwards, but I've never tried it out^^.

[cjhseeker]

I always thought that the ghosts voices sounded like reversed speech, but I never took the time to find out from where...great video, now I definitely have a reason to get creeped out by the ghosts in Thief; Victoria is one scary lady.

[bobdoenz]

I'm suprised that more people haven't found that out.

[galloper3]

wow , well spotted

[QuadX]

Holy crap! It never occurred to me that the ghost voice was backward! Great discovery, thanks for sharing. I wonder if it is the same in thief gold, for the apparitions talked weird in thief 1 as well.

[Stquinn]

The following was posted on Wikipedia under Trivia for the article "Thief (Series)".

The ghost's speech in Thief 1 and 2 is actually a reversed version of Viktoria's speech in the Thief 1 cutscene before "Escape".

I'm not sure when it was posted, but there's been no other outside references about it until now. Had it been posted earlier than February 11, 2008, the Thief forums probably would have already discussed it.

[Stquinn]

Audio clips are located in "snd.crf" file inside "Thief2/RES" folder. I copied file to different location and renamed it "snd.zip". Extracted zip folder and located wave files in "Appar" folder. Using an audio converter, converted files to 16-bit PCM format and played them in reverse using Sound Recorder.

[TehDrunko]

Wow, never knew this before!