Thief 2: The Metal Age keeps blowing my mind

[Kahr]

Thief 2 was lacking in the undead area. You know it's true. Return to the Cathedral is the quintessential Thief experience.

Spoiler

Brother Murus raped me hard.

Edit:
Search doesn't help. Was there ever a poll about favourite Thief 1&2 mission on this forum? I think on ttlg was one.
Something we might need for the future. (*cough* Life of the Party)

 

[JarlFrank]

Return to the Cathedral started out interesting but then it devolves into doing fetch quests for brother Murus and playing whack-a-haunt.

Bonehoard is the better mission.

 

[JarlFrank]

Search doesn't help. Was there ever a poll about favourite Thief 1&2 mission on this forum? I think on ttlg was one.
Something we might need for the future. (*cough* Life of the Party)

I don't think so. Go make one. I'm always up for more fanboyish obsession discussions about Thief.

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

both games have great missions and shitty missions (imo T2 has both the best and worst whereas T1 is more even) but the shittiest mission of all is the one where you have to find a Thief thread where discussion doesn't immediately descend into repeating the same 15-year-old debate about which of two exceptional good games is better for no reason other than scoring imaginary points for your personal favourite so that at Gaming Judgement Day you will have done your part to ensure that your champion takes 100/100 over the enemy's 99/100

 

[Unkillable Cat]

both games have great missions and shitty missions (imo T2 has both the best and worst whereas T1 is more even) but the shittiest mission of all is the one where you have to find a Thief thread where discussion doesn't immediately descend into repeating the same 15-year-old debate about which of two exceptional good games is better for no reason other than scoring imaginary points for your personal favourite so that at Gaming Judgement Day you will have done your part to ensure that your champion takes 100/100 over the enemy's 99/100

Not gonna argue that one.

 

[Riskbreaker]

Return to the Cathedral started out interesting but then it devolves into doing fetch quests for brother Murus and playing whack-a-haunt.

Bonehoard is the better mission.

Always preferred first Old Quarter undead mission to Return to the Cathedral. Just loved exploring large-ish ruined cityscape overrun with undead and beasts (note to FM makers: we really need more missions inspired by that one!), it satisfied both me atmosherefag and me explorerfag needs.
Return to the Cathedral eventually felt, as you said, like a series of adventure game fetch quests. I guess they tried to emulate classic supernatural investigator tales, where hero goes thru effort to put a ghost to rest/lift a curse.

 

[KazikluBey]

No love for T2x yet? I think it has the best campaign, really. Many really good missions, and none as I recall that felt like a chore as I thought the endings of T1 and T2 ended up being.

 

[JarlFrank]

T2X is great, I guess it had been mentioned in the FM thread a couple of times where the consensus is "good but there are better FMs". Gotta say though, as a coherent campaign it is one of the best things FM makers have ever put out, I mean holy shit just for Bonehoard 2.0 (Down Among Dead Men) it deserves a fucking medal.

Only full campaign that is better is the Bathory campaign by Sensut. That was one of the most impressive Thief mission sets I ever played.

In T2X I only found the one mission where you return to the pirates' hideout a little lacklustre because it's basically revisiting the same place again, but it makes sense in the story and is a very quick mission so it's fine.

 

[Riskbreaker]

Penultimate mission from T2X, abandoned hospital/old quarter one, is easily one of my all time favorites. It has more of that I so loved in initial Haunted Cathedral mission from T1, only amplified and with much more story to it.
And yeah, T2X had a bunch of quality missions, and it feels like a nice combo of T1 and T2 in terms of its environments and atmosphere.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

No love for T2x yet? I think it has the best campaign, really. Many really good missions, and none as I recall that felt like a chore as I thought the endings of T1 and T2 ended up being.

I hate to self promote, but...*cough*

 

[tormund]

both games have great missions and shitty missions (imo T2 has both the best and worst whereas T1 is more even)

I would have to give worst mission "award" to Thieves Guild from Thief Gold, nothing comes even close for me TBH.

 

[Kahr]

What's wrong with Thieves Guild? It's one of the worse levels of Thief but it's solid.
Trace the Courier is far worse. The idea behind it is nice and all. But it is buggy as hell. (at least for me)
The bitch just stops walking (even if i'm in edaquate distance) or gets stuck on corners.
Also sometimes the note doesn't drop or it drops and i can't take it.
Most bugs i had with thief 1&2 we're in this stupid mission. (and Return to the Cathedral)

 

[skacky]

T2X has more consistently solid missions than T2 imo. They flow better, are more diverse and are more interesting overall, even though the difficulty is really on the easy side. The hotel mission has to be one of my all-time favorite FMs, it is a masterpiece and the best mission in T2X by quite a margin, even if missions like The Cure and Down Among Dead Men also qualify.
In terms of worst mission in the series, I think nothing comes even close to the abomination that is Kidnap. It's an unfun mess full of incredibly difficult and unfair encounters and it's also a waste of a good location. I genuinely hate this mission and always skip it when I replay T2, while I actually quite enjoy Thieves' Guild.

 

[Darth Roxor]

What's wrong with Thieves Guild?

SSSSSSSSSSSSSEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

 

[Kahr]

SSSSSSSSSSSSSEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

What's wrong with sewers?

 

[Space Insect]

SSSSSSSSSSSSSEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

What's wrong with sewers?

Lurk more.

 

[JarlFrank]

both games have great missions and shitty missions (imo T2 has both the best and worst whereas T1 is more even)

I would have to give worst mission "award" to Thieves Guild from Thief Gold, nothing comes even close for me TBH.

Fun fact: according to the credits for individual missions, Thieves Guild was designed by the same woman who designed The Sword.

She made both the best and the worst mission of the game.

 

[Melan]

The worst mission of Thief Gold is clearly The Mage Towers anyway.

 

[Kontra]

One cool thing about the Thieves Guild was how the moon changed its phase to a full moon. This is only with some mods or patches(ddfix?) i dont think vanilla game even had a moon. But the patched game has the moon always in the exact same spot, in zenith directly above you and it never moves from there. And for the first couple of missions its three quarters moon, then two quarters, then one(crescent) and then suddenly it jumps to a full moon. (yeah those are not the real terms but theyre confusing so lets call them like this)
Anyway you get this feeling that some time has passed after the Assassins, maybe a month. Garrett says it himself that he did a couple of jobs before this one so it makes sense. And when Victoria and Constantine contact him to steal the Sword its crescent moon again...

It was probably accidental but still, its cool cause it sets apart the Assassins and the Sword; in space but also in time... Its hard to describe but you get the feeling that something was happening in the background, something big that Garrett wasnt aware of... You get this feeling anyway with the premission quotes but with the Thieves Guild inbetween, when you finally get to do the Sword you feel like theres something doubly different about it.

Its similar with the Mages Towers, when the moon would jump from one quarter to three quarters suggesting just like in the premission Keeper quote, that the mages live someplace beyond the city thats hard to reach. Yeah it was probably on accident but still it was cool.

Really all the TG missions are cool in some way... One thing i noticed with T2 missions is that i finished them really quickly, one hour tops. Whereas in TG id play them for hours, 2-3 hours each. DOnt know why that was. Maybe i got used to the game or something.

PS If theres some astronomers on the forum, is that even posible for a moon to always be in the same spot?

 

[Unkillable Cat]

You won't need an astronomer to get the answer that "no, the moon can't always be in the same spot."

The background is static, it's as simple as that. Getting a background with a day/night cycle would happen a few more years after Thief (Ultima 9 had one, didn't it?) but Looking Glass managed to cover their ass decently by switching out those static backgrounds to show some passage of time.