Thief fan missions and campaigns

[JarlFrank]

I've also said before that TTLG can be a bit of a circlejerk in attitude. It's actually worse than that. There are apologists in there whom jump out and defend and protect those that do something that is clearly wrong. Case in point being King's Story and the TTLG thread about it. "It's supposed to be a challenge" when someone has been floundering cluelessly for 6 hours. "You're supposed to take it slow" when people have already spent hours canvassing every square inch of the map, etc.

Yeah, it's almost ridiculous how circlejerky the community over there is. Any negativity is met with hostility by a handful of people who claim that you cannot criticize a FM because the author spent free hours of leisure time to make it and you get to play it for free. You should appreciate his work and the hours he put into it! The worst part about it is that it gives authors like Zontik a superiority complex and reinforces their shitty design approach because hey, everyone says your mission is awesome and even silences the opposition, so that means MY MISSION IS AWESOME and I should continue doing missions like that!

 

[skacky]

TTLG certainly is one of the 'kindest' communities around. Criticism can be harsh in other design communities, even when a veteran releases a map.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Had another go at King's Story, made some progress.

# In the first mission there is only one rope arrow, and Zontik does not assume that you take it with you. I managed to do so, however, which made a part of Mission 2 MUCH easier.

# Namely, solving the dumbwaiter puzzle. There's a dumbwaiter which is jammed, and to unjam it you need a maul. But the jam is located inside the vents, and the only way up there (on the hardest difficulty anyway) is via rope arrow.

# The problem is to find a rope arrow in Mission 2. I have found 3 so far, but since 2 of them come AFTER you need to get in the vent, we'll ignore those. That leaves ONE rope arrow, hidden in such a dastardly place that it took 3 players over 4 hours to find it. It is FIENDISHLY well hidden, even when I knew where to find it it still took me a minute.

# But anyway, my current problem was riding the dumbwaiter. I get on, activate it and it conks out about 2/3ds of the way up. After taffing around in there, I stumbled upon the solution: You're supposed to fire an arrow up towards the top of the dumbwaiter chute. This makes your friend Gabriel appear, open the dumbwaiter door at the top and fire a rope arrow towards you. Said rope arrow is then to be launched up at the door and Garrett can climb to safety.

# This solution is because it means Garrett must bring attention to himself ON PURPOSE. In a stealth game. Let's skip the fact that unless you found the secret in Mission 1, there is nothing to even tell you that you have an "inside man" in the castle, at best you may have learned that Gabriel works there.

# There's nothing to tell you either that there's someone up there to hear you, let alone be on your side.

# So now I've taffed around up on the third floor (which is beautiful x 2. Really, it's amazing) but now I need to get back down. Problem is, I'm locked in. There IS a way available to me, but it involves me having the Slow-Fall Potion from the secret from Mission 1.

# I doubt that Zontik is that stupid to assume that everyone that's playing this found that chest in Mission 1. There HAS to be another way down. Now to find it...

EDIT: Found it. There's a door visible through a glass door that has a key jammed in it. There's a readable that can be found which mentions this. That key is the answer. But how to get it? "In case of emergency, break glass". This is probably the first time in this mission where a puzzle solution makes sense.

# Another oddity - up there on the third floor there is a scene where the king, doctor and Captain of the Guard are talking. The text is in English, but the voices are Russian, EXCEPT for the Captain of the Guard. His sole line is in English. Weird. If one line could be had in English, why not the rest of them?

 

[Unkillable Cat]

And I'm either done for today or totally done for, considering the mission just crashed.

I had made great progress, though. I'm currently trying to find the antagonist after he "stopped" the wedding so spectacularly. Loads of new guards around, yet none of my "body" hiding places have been discovered - even though I found a servant in one of them who had turned the lights on. Maybe if he had just glanced at his bed instead of staring out the window...

Oddly enough, the amount of oddities and bizarro design decisions dropped sharply during this part. I did notice that it was unusually difficult to get up into the attic, and getting onto the balcony right before the concert is a PAIN unless you use the ballet shoes. Also, there's a piece of loot on a ledge at the top of the tower that's supposed to be shot off with an arrow so that it falls into the courtyard below. I've scoured the place and I can't find it. Hopefully I ain't gonna need it for my loot objective.

I found the "bonus objective" involving the chest in the room where the king's crown is kept. I had to knock out the Captain of the Guard to do it, but the next thing I know he seems to have gotten better and is reporting to the king. Hmm.

It seems that at this point in the FM the pace picks up and everything becomes smoother and more enjoyable. Also, getting webbed in the attic was an interesting touch, it's something that hasn't happened to me in Thief since I ran into a Chaos Spider sometime in the Thief Gold OMs.

But now I'm dealing with suspicious guards all around the castle, trying to find the last bit of code for a musical puzzle and figuring out where I can go in the castle without being spotted. Now I know why there are five staircases in the castle - you're gonna need them all to dodge the guards.

 

[Skunkpew]

I never remembered A King's Story to be that difficult. Obviously it's not perfect, and it has that Russian vibe of poor translation mixed with annoying decisions so that sometimes you don't know if you're dealing with a bug or an intended design, but I wish there were more missions like it, refined a little better though. And the first mission is not needed at all, but other than the 'stay on the path' thing, the worst part was the decision to allow the player to walk fairly quickly around the entire castle complex, essentially making it seem like a miniature version of itself, when it should be a massive and imposing structure.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

And... done. I got the "classic" ending, for those that are wondering.

Yes, King's Story has multiple endings. 8 of them, to be precise. That shows the amount of work put into this thing. About half of those can be found via normal means, but a few of them are pretty "out there". For example, in one of them you save the wedding. THAT takes some doing.

The mission improves greatly towards the end, but by then the damage has already been done - it is nearly impossible to walk away from this one with a smile on one's face. It is just too frustrating to play.

I'm gonna do a recap:

Mission 1: Overture:

+ Intro cinematic is very faithful to Thief series.
+ The waterfall looks nice.
+ The first view of the castle is really cool.
+ Nice Gabriel Knight 2 reference.
+ The improved lockpicking sequence adds a new dimension to this "minigame".
- 90% of this massive map uses the same texture.
- 90% of this massive map involves ascending/descending rocks.
- All surfaces are deliberately made difficult to climb on/mount.
- The included map is useless.
- Objective "stay on the path" deters and punishes exploration.
- Nothing of relevance to find via exploration anyway, except for the secret.
- No indicator at starting position to show where player is coming from.
- Identical look of all terrain features makes progress troublesome.
- Intended "roadsigns" to guide the player towards the castle are nonexistant, easily missed or hard to interpret as roadsigns.
- Camvator sequence teleports the player to a new location for no discernible reason. (?!?)
- Progress hindered at four different locations without any clear signs of how to proceed, trial and error required to determine solutions.
- Out of game-knowledge required to solve last two obstacles to gain entry into castle.
- In-game solution for one obstacle is only accessible AFTER the obstacle has been cleared.
- Route between front door and back door of castle deliberately made difficult to identify as such.
- Route between front door and back door of castle deliberately made narrow and difficult to traverse.
- Improved lockpicking sequence used on the most guarded lock in entire map.

Overall: Why is this map even included? It's absolutely POINTLESS, and detracts from the FM in a massive way.

1/10, would not taff.

Mission 2: King's Chant:

+ Architecture is a faithful (?) rendition of a real-life location, which is NEVER easy to do in DromED.
+ As a result the architecture feels real and lifelike, something that cannot be said of many other FMs.
+ Beautiful interior puts almost every other FM ever made to shame.
+ Some obstacles have VERY clever solutions.
+ Writing is pretty good.
+ Good usage of music.
+ Cutscenes are very well done.
+ Plenty of optional and hidden content.
+ Exploration is rewarding.
+ Voice acting doesn't make me cringe in terror, even though I barely understand any of it.
- Freedom of movement allowed by architecture artificially limited by locking almost every door in the castle, of which only about 10% can be lockpicked.
- Mission quickly regresses into one of the biggest keyhunt FMs ever made.
- Further freedom of movement limited by careful placement of items intended ONLY to hinder progress.
- Further freedom of movement also hindered by speed of plot.
- Further freedom of movement hindered some more by certain doors never being openable at any point during the game.
- "Bodies must not be discovered" objective made overly challenging for no reason by spawning seeking guards throughout the castle at a certain point.
- Plot-vital equipment fiendishly hidden for no other reason than to provide "challenge".
- Beneficial equipment disguised by being made to appear useless, with no purpose except to confuse players.
- Solutions to certain problems counter-intuitive to gameplay.
- Plot-vital timed objectives. (Urgh.)
- Needless confusion and delay by temporarily transferring player control to other entity than Garrett at one point.
- Inconsistency in translation work. Text is in English while all voices are in Russian save one which is in English. (?)
- Inconsistency in "condition" of critters. (Once a critter is knocked unconscious, it should STAY unconscious!)
- Loot objective is irrelevant.
- Sound effects could be used better, often just obviously looped sounds.
- Improper reaction by certain NPCs to Garrett's presence. (King doesn't mind that there's a thief robbing his castle?)

Overall: Huge and gorgeous-looking mansion mission that is bogged down by articifical restraints on movement, bottlenecks, needless "challenges" and, of course, the atrocious first mission.

5/10, needs massive work to be considered a classic.

 

[Melan]

Yeah, it's almost ridiculous how circlejerky the community over there is. Any negativity is met with hostility by a handful of people who claim that you cannot criticize a FM because the author spent free hours of leisure time to make it and you get to play it for free. You should appreciate his work and the hours he put into it! The worst part about it is that it gives authors like Zontik a superiority complex and reinforces their shitty design approach because hey, everyone says your mission is awesome and even silences the opposition, so that means MY MISSION IS AWESOME and I should continue doing missions like that!

You are right: if everything is awesome, nothing is awesome.

It is not an easy line to walk. Building a decent-sized mission takes effort, and a helpful, constructive atmosphere helps tremendously in the process. The TTLG Editor's Guild community has been open and super-helpful every time I needed something, and that spirit of cooperation must have contributed to the wealth of missions we enjoy and take for granted. On the other hand, it is hard to break a friendly atmosphere and speak honestly and bluntly. More than that, in recent years, I have started to feel some of it is no longer sincere, just an enforced consensus to prevent old conflicts from resurfacing (this is pretty common on old messageboards). The lack of criticism (not necessarily negativity, but, say, honest and insightful analysis) is a genuine problem. E.g. I have reservations against my own missions that were never voiced by anyone in the community. A mild level of creative friction is good for you. But then there is the other end of the scale where going on a forum is like taking a swim in the shark tank, and where every creative effort is shot down in a torrent of collective negativity and self-loathing.

The Codex is pretty good in this sense; at least, mostly honest.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

how's the darkmod forums regarding this issue, Melan?

 

[Melan]

Similar. Too grateful for missions getting released.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

DrK posted some screenshots from Rocksbourg 0, including this gem:

 

[TripJack]

yes plz

 

[Baron Dupek]

Another Rocksbourg?
No need to ask twice.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Yeah, the plan IIRC was that he was going to make Rocksbourg 4, but then he ran into the restrictions of DromED and it kinda put him off. Then NewDark was released and he was happy again, and decided to build TWO missions out of the same mission, Rocksbourg 4 and a "prequel" mission that takes place in the same map.

Now he's maxed out the capabilities of NewDark so he's feeling all cramped and that seems to slow him down.

ETA on Rocksbourg 0 is in the first months of next year. Rocksbourg 4 itself is AT LEAST a year from that.

By the time he finishes the Rocksbourg series most of us will be dead.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

Rocksbourg textures are unique. It makes thief look like a whole other game... It's a long time since I played through this series, but that keeper library was great in ANIR 3.

 

[Baron Dupek]

Would read about those DromED limits that stopped him.
And how many missions of Rocksbourg were announced? About 5-6? Maybe we'll be alive to this time but surely can't see anything. Cough, cough...

 

[Melan]

I like that screenshot but not the other three he posted. Maybe it is the individual shots, but they appear boxy and rectangular, unlike previous Rocksbourg screenshots (which I liked very much). This boxiness, in turn, doesn't play along well with high-res. High-res textures and high-poly objects need more complex architecture and environmental clutter to support them. Here, in fact, high-res resources draw attention to the plainness of the architecture, making for a less impressive effect.

But again, the proof is in the pudding. Surely the finished missions will be great. And we will see the end of Rocksbourg before I am seventy.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Small update: The old monochrome sewer mission "What Lies Below" has been updated for NewDark. The biggest difference is that it's now in colour.

A short testrun gave me the problem of a patrolling haunt deciding that standing in the water in the worst place possible was a better idea than walking back and forth for all eternity, which might suggest some more problems needing to be sorted out.

EDIT: Had another go. Got stuck because a green glyph that was supposed to grant me access to a Drain Control Room was not present where it was supposed to be. I'm guessing there's something "wrong" with my setup so this FM doesn't work.

Whatever, uninstalled both the NewDark version AND the original, the whole FM is one big key/switch hunt.

 

[Baron Dupek]

Fen recommended 7Sisters (v.2) missions saying it's best, in par with Night in Rocksbourg.
Tried it and got missing textures. For example - there is no ladder at the start, no key on the table and some lamp levitating. The hell.

Now I lost my HUD during some messing with FM loaders. Wat.

All I done is Installing Thief2, then patch 1.22 iirc and Thief 2x Shadow of Metal Age (tried to return after long delay).

 

[Unkillable Cat]

The problem may lie with Thief2x. You may have to re-install everything to fix this. :-/

 

[Baron Dupek]

Ok. Actually it happened anyway cause playing game with WASD+mouse on laptops are horrible. I even started thinking about using pad.
Madness.

Actually - are these any information about T2x borking the original T2 and make playing FM harder?

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I'm not sure. I haven't tried playing T2X myself since NewDark, so I haven't been paying much attention to it.

 

[JarlFrank]

I have seen instructions on TTLG on how to get T2X to run with NewDark, so apparently it does require a special prodecure to make it work with NewDark installed.

 

[pavis]

Actually - are these any information about T2x borking the original T2 and make playing FM harder?

I don't think there is any confict between T2x and original T2 because T2x installs itself in a new directory under original T2 root, with copies of configuration files.

 

[General_Norris]

When I installed T2X, it installed itself in a new directory and I haven't had any issues running the original game or any fan missions.

 

[JarlFrank]

Finished Rowena's Curse and now playing The Seven Sisters. Damn, these are absolutely awesome FMs