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Thief fan missions and campaigns

Max_b5

Augur
Joined
Feb 8, 2015
Messages
217
Location
Argentina
You can go back some pages on this thread to find some reviews or play the original release at your own risk. I for one gave up halfway through the mission.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2007
Messages
33,052
Location
KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
BruderMurus: "anyway u can not be kicked out of a board for no reason... thats not justice and ruins ambience of a forum"

That's where you're wrong, kiddo.
 

Max_b5

Augur
Joined
Feb 8, 2015
Messages
217
Location
Argentina
And didst the brother shout in his foolish rage:
"Thou can not stop me, vile heathens,
for 'tis the Builder's grace that protects me.
Thy mockery shall suffer the wrath of the Master Builder."

- Collected letters of the Bruder in exile.
 
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Max_b5

Augur
Joined
Feb 8, 2015
Messages
217
Location
Argentina
Well, I couldn't guess correctly so I give up.

Gotta finish the Bonehoard-ish part of the level and then it's just objectives and readables and it'll be set for beta-testing.



What you mostly see in the picture is the mines and some caves. I hope Mr Dromed doesn't get angry at me before I finish the brush work. I still have nightmares on the making of Broken Gears.
 

H3H3

Novice
Joined
Feb 8, 2017
Messages
48
Location
A love shack
Well, I couldn't guess correctly so I give up.

Gotta finish the Bonehoard-ish part of the level and then it's just objectives and readables and it'll be set for beta-testing.



What you mostly see in the picture is the mines and some caves. I hope Mr Dromed doesn't get angry at me before I finish the brush work. I still have nightmares on the making of Broken Gears.
I'm psyched! When are you planning to start testing?
 

Max_b5

Augur
Joined
Feb 8, 2015
Messages
217
Location
Argentina
Very soon as long as I don't lose inspiration. I'm currently working on it almost 3 hours per day, which is a lot considering I'm a lazy bastard.
 
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JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2007
Messages
33,052
Location
KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
This looks great! Can't wait for some good old crypt-raiding action.

Meanwhile, my FM still has a loooong way to go before it's anywhere near done:
dump019.png
 

Max_b5

Augur
Joined
Feb 8, 2015
Messages
217
Location
Argentina
I like the fact that you grabbed Dromed not too long ago and haven't dropped it ever since. Keep it up, the longer you play with it, the better you'll get.

Tower of Jorge Gold Edition when?
 

Dev_Anj

Learned
Joined
Jan 14, 2015
Messages
468
Location
Auldale, near the great river
So since some time has passed after opening a public poll for my contest entries, it's time for me to weigh in.

Up in the Bonehoard is the mission with the most effort put into it, down to having a brand new area that seamlessly fits in with the rest of the original design, and two TTLG memes used to great effect. Sadly, this is also the least enjoyable of the entries; while the gimmick with making everything upside down seems novel at first it quickly turns annoying thanks to the fact that the level was simply not redesigned well enough to make navigation as viable as in the original, even with the Infinity Crate and the Bow Upgrade. All in all, credit still must be given where due, and if the author had more time to flesh out the concept it could have been an amazing remake.

Kidnap.. is possibly the least ambitious mission of the lot. It seeks to present the Lost City mission in Thief 2 as a more traditional Karath Din break in affair, what with a variety of strange yet familiar creatures added everywhere, like elementals, flame burricks, and even a crayman to kidnap! Of course, it has its fair share of humans, but by and large is much less congested than the original. The problem with this one is that it doesn't really do much to the actual mission itself, though the new AI provides an interesting challenge.

The New Sheriff is in my eyes easily the winner, despite me declaring Up in the Bonehoard to be so, because it's the entry that actually succeeds in taking the concept and making something substantial with it without compromising the gameplay too much. There are areas which are rough, like the Maw that you enter to discover stuff behind a kidnap, but the writing is whimsical enough to stay charming while still giving a decent(ish) story, the expansions to the City feel authentic (I do take issue with the house being the only progress path to the other gate of the station, but it's minor) and it actually retains the identity of the original level while giving it a spin. It easily earns my vote.

With that done, I must mention that FrenchDecay's next will be out soon. It was supposed to come out this week, but it seems he's delaying it to get some translations done. Brace yourself!
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2007
Messages
33,052
Location
KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
So I just finished playing Bones Ep. 1: The Old Quarter, as far as I know it was the first (and up to now only) mission of the author and it was an early NewDark release, coming out at the very end of 2012.
I had played it a bit back when it came out but never finished it. Now I did. I remembered it being quite good, and that memory was correct. It is quite good and I hope the guy who made it goes back to Dromed to build Ep. 2.

- It's supposed to be set in a reconstructed Old Quarter. It plays after the events of Thief 2, and after Karras' death the remaining Mechanists really wanted to build their reputation back up again, so they decided to use their robots to drive out the undead from the Old Quarter. Thing is, with all the reconstruction having taken place, it's almost unrecognizeable as the Old Quarter from Thief 1. Being set in winter with snow everywhere only reinforces the other-ness.
- With the backstory being big on Mechanists driving out the undead, there are surprisingly few of them around and no robots whatsoever. Strange. It was a very varied mission overall but some bots would've added even moe variation. There are only a bunch of Hammerites who moved in to supply the police force with holy water, and one Mechanist priestess who takes a walk outside and can be pickpocketed for her key. Other than that? No Mechies.
- I mentioned that it's winter and everything is snowy, but there are a bunch of pagan-style AIs around. The guys with dirty clothes and no shoes. HOW DO THEY NOT FREEZE TO DEATH IN THIS WEATHER?!
- As for freezing to death: don't jump into the water. It drains your health because it's cold. There's a shipwreck in the harbor that has a chest with loot in it. To reach the chest without taking damage you have to jump over some crates, cause if you as much as dip a toe into the water you already lose your first health point. Luckily, after that it's a little more forgiving: the rate at which you lose health in the water is slow enough to go for very short exploration swims, like at one place where a short swim through the canal gets you past a locked gate.
- It's a very solid city mission with multiple paths leading through the roads, over rooftops, across bridges... many windows are openable, even those that aren't frobbable in vanilla (which a Thief veteran might not suspect at first). Generally, in this FM, if a window is an object rather than just a texture, you can open it and climb through. The district offers enough openable windows and walkable ledges to offer many avenues for exploration, and until you become familiar with the place's layout you will get lost a couple of times. There is also some wood to stick your rope arrows into, which is always nice. One optional objective can only be reached through windows cause the front door is locked, so climbing is definitely rewarded. There are also several rooms only accessible through windows that harbor some additional loot for you to grab.
- The kinda negative but not really point about the climbing: it's way too easy to get into places you're not supposed to. As in, places without roombrushes or places where you can see the edge of the map. Still, it's only a "kind of" negative rather than a real negative because breaking the level by exploring too much is always fun.
- The mission has a couple of optional objectives and one bonus objective that I found. One of the optional objectives was a little confusing... you have to bring a medicine to a poor factory worker's son in one optional objecive, and find the factory worker himself who was beaten up and dumped outside in another. I found his apartment and dumped the medicine there first, and upon seeing his wife and child have the same dirty-clothes-and-bare-feet pagan AI models I thought "A-hah! That pagan-looking guy back at the start is probably the factory worker!". But nope, he wasn't. Neither was a different guy with the same AI model who walked around in closer proximity to the place. Instead, it was a guy lying unconscious in some shadowy street alcove, and he had normal green clothes on. That's a case of bad telegraphing, really. There are two of these pagany-looking guys walking through the snowy streets and one living in an attic somewhere; the guy in the attic has a letter next to him that he wrote to his mom, saying "I found a job as a factory worker!". That made me conclude: "The guy's family have the dirty pagan AI model. The guy himself is a factory worker. Another factory worker also has the dirty pagan AI model. He's likely a guy with the dirty pagan AI model!" Now his family has three unconscious dudes lying in their bedroom. Oh well.
- Apart from the snowy city, there's also a small mansion section where you're supposed to steal a scepter, and there's a small undead section in a part of the district that hasn't been "cleaned up" by either police or Mechanists yet. This gives the FM a lot of variety and I loved it for that. The undead section even boasts some beefed-up haunts and new enemy types, as well as an ancient king's crypt filled with traps and so many undead it's really challenging to get through. This part of the mission is right up there with some of the better dedicated undead missions, especially thanks to the new custom AIs and the relatively narrow crypts which are a challenge to traverse.

Overall, I rated the mission 8/10 because it's got all the basics of Thief gameplay down and offers a varied experience with a lot of city, a bit of crypt, and a tiny little bit of mansion action along with some optional objectives and tons of window, ledge and roof climbing.
It's a little rough around the edges but there are no major issues with it. I hated the "water drains your health cause it's cold" mechanic but it's nothing major and might even be a matter of taste. Definitely worth a playthrough or two.

Screenshots:
This is part of the undead section. Very gloomy and atmospheric.
dump176.png

To the left it goes down into the trap- and undead-filled crypt. The plaque on the ground warns of the traps. As soon as you walk through the passage, a fireball is shot at you; you can dodge it by crouching. Protip: awaken the zombie by walking into him, then step into the passage and have fireballs thrown at him until he explodes. Lovely!
dump177.png

Some rich doctor's apartment.
dump178.png

Central square of the district. Looks pretty nice, huh? Some of these windows you see here can be climbed into.
dump180.png

View from a window of the doctor's apartment. Lotsa climbing opportunities here.
dump179.png

A readable. This is a song written by some girl who wrote to her manager that the rest of her troupe is holding her down and she wants to start a solo career as a singer and songwriter. This is her "genius work" that she submitted to him. Genius indeed. The readable was located in the manager's trash bin.
dump181.png

Look, ma! I climbed to the edge of the level!
dump182.png
 
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