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Thief fan missions and campaigns
- Thread starter SCO
- Start date
Eh? For me it has been exactly like that in the original too, I entered the Hammerite compound, got into mines, they led into crypts, then I got out again. Same now. How did you do it in the other order before?
- Joined
- May 13, 2009
- Messages
- 27,192
JarlFrank It seems that they
As for me, I just completed "City Water Power Plant", the third mission in the pack. Ho-lee-crap, was that fun. I haven't had so much fun with a Thief Gold mission in years (skacky's works excluded).
The score is this: The City Water Power Plant is opening a museum on top of a Precursor temple they found recently. In that temple is a necklace that Garrett has been asked to steal, but he must do so before the Hand Brotherhood can finish exploring and 'securing' the temple, which means the only method available is walking through the front door in broad daylight.
This mission is divided into three sections: The museum, the sewers and the temple. Each section plays differently. In the museum you're supposed to be undercover, that means not doing anything that raises suspicion, like knocking people unconscious, picking pockets in plain sight or entering "No admittance" areas. However, vital clues and loot are kept in those areas, so you have to be a sneaky taffer. The sewers are mostly just a glorified obstacle courses, while the temple is a toned-down version of The Lost City from Thief 1/G, though in no way harmless.
If there's one problem I had with this mission, it's that there's a secret room in the museum that can easily be missed, but it contains two important switches and a VERY IMPORTANT CLUE to get the MacGuffin. Personally I don't think it would have changed much if this had just been a "standard" room, but that's pretty much the only 'wrong' thing about this FM, otherwise it's among the best Thief 1/G missions I've ever played.
I'm gonna give people a few tips to spare people some running around:
# There's a reason to get into the Head Clerk's Office, but check your surroundings carefully before you do so.
# The 'cameras' in the museum are silent and sensitive, if they as much as catch a whiff of you they sound the alarm.
# It's OK to knock out people in the museum as long as no one is looking.
# There's little need to buy the Maintenance key at the start, I ended up with at least two such keys from guards in the museum. (Buy Moss Arrows instead.)
# There are three ways to get to the temple. One is via the water tank with the toxic water (if you can find it) one is through a guarded "No Admittance" door on the lower level of the musuem, and then there's the..."express route". See below.
# Are you one of those taffers that checks other people's 'business' for fiber content, parasites and possible loot? Guess what, today is your lucky day!
# There's a puzzle that needs to be solved in order to reach the MacGuffin. The 'proper' solution asks for a weight on a pressure plate (among other things) but since I forgot one I had to improvise and use a speed potion. It'll hurt, but it'll work. That solution also makes it easier to exit once you're done.
# When you finally grab the MacGuffin, it's time to GTFO, so make sure you grab that last.
Now let's see if "Mercenaries" is as good as this one.
climbed the top of the compound tower and got the Explosive Charge there, then used that to blow open the crypt door, which is locked and the key right on the other side. This way they could walk in and grab the mask right off the bat, but had to go through the entire thing just to meet the loot requirement. The latest version doesn't have a loot requirement, so clearly the author decided that these taffers must take the scenic route.
As for me, I just completed "City Water Power Plant", the third mission in the pack. Ho-lee-crap, was that fun. I haven't had so much fun with a Thief Gold mission in years (skacky's works excluded).
The score is this: The City Water Power Plant is opening a museum on top of a Precursor temple they found recently. In that temple is a necklace that Garrett has been asked to steal, but he must do so before the Hand Brotherhood can finish exploring and 'securing' the temple, which means the only method available is walking through the front door in broad daylight.
This mission is divided into three sections: The museum, the sewers and the temple. Each section plays differently. In the museum you're supposed to be undercover, that means not doing anything that raises suspicion, like knocking people unconscious, picking pockets in plain sight or entering "No admittance" areas. However, vital clues and loot are kept in those areas, so you have to be a sneaky taffer. The sewers are mostly just a glorified obstacle courses, while the temple is a toned-down version of The Lost City from Thief 1/G, though in no way harmless.
If there's one problem I had with this mission, it's that there's a secret room in the museum that can easily be missed, but it contains two important switches and a VERY IMPORTANT CLUE to get the MacGuffin. Personally I don't think it would have changed much if this had just been a "standard" room, but that's pretty much the only 'wrong' thing about this FM, otherwise it's among the best Thief 1/G missions I've ever played.
I'm gonna give people a few tips to spare people some running around:
# There's a reason to get into the Head Clerk's Office, but check your surroundings carefully before you do so.
# The 'cameras' in the museum are silent and sensitive, if they as much as catch a whiff of you they sound the alarm.
# It's OK to knock out people in the museum as long as no one is looking.
# There's little need to buy the Maintenance key at the start, I ended up with at least two such keys from guards in the museum. (Buy Moss Arrows instead.)
# There are three ways to get to the temple. One is via the water tank with the toxic water (if you can find it) one is through a guarded "No Admittance" door on the lower level of the musuem, and then there's the..."express route". See below.
# Are you one of those taffers that checks other people's 'business' for fiber content, parasites and possible loot? Guess what, today is your lucky day!
# There's a puzzle that needs to be solved in order to reach the MacGuffin. The 'proper' solution asks for a weight on a pressure plate (among other things) but since I forgot one I had to improvise and use a speed potion. It'll hurt, but it'll work. That solution also makes it easier to exit once you're done.
# When you finally grab the MacGuffin, it's time to GTFO, so make sure you grab that last.
Now let's see if "Mercenaries" is as good as this one.
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CPWW is most probably ghostable, actually.
The vases in the sarcophagi near the real emblem don't alert the craymen, and the other burning skeletons only appear if you kill the first one just outside the fake emblem chamber. That first skelly is easily avoidable. I thought they all spawned regardless of if you killed one or not. That's a relief.
- Joined
- May 13, 2009
- Messages
- 27,192
I think you're right about it being ghostable.
You'd have to buy the Maintenance Key, though. Go the toxic water route, then fall into the water by the walkway and enter the temple area from where that lone crayman is skulking in the pipe. Evading the rest of the craymen should not be a problem.
The first burning skeleton didn't appear for me until I was outside the emblem chamber and had crossed the steep path leading to the 'secure' part of the temple. By that time he was out of reach to be a threat, so I left him alone.
Getting the loot amount on Expert while ghosting is going to be a pain and a half.
The first burning skeleton didn't appear for me until I was outside the emblem chamber and had crossed the steep path leading to the 'secure' part of the temple. By that time he was out of reach to be a threat, so I left him alone.
Getting the loot amount on Expert while ghosting is going to be a pain and a half.
Dev_Anj
Learned
This is still possible in the campaign mission, it's just that now you need to explore the tombs, mines and whatnot to retrieve the Keep key, as opposed to getting loot.
In any case, I finished The Widow's Ire, and I must say I really like the architecture of the second part of the mission and how well it blends natural greenery and rocks with stone buildings to create an atmosphere of being on a high mountain with some run down ruins. I feel the guard placement there was a bit unnecessary, the mission would have been more natural if there were more creatures like spiders and the like instead of a few guards scattered around. The water puzzle at the end had some janky architecture too, and I think the paths leading into it could be refined.
Right, now to City Public Water Works.
No, I didn't use the explosive charge (I was ghosting). There was a way to get into the tombs, but I don't recall exactly how. After I am finished with the current version, I'll load up the old one to see how it went.
In the first mission, is there any way you can go other than using an arrow on the lift button? I could have sworn there was another path in the original version.
In the first mission, where is that heretic's hollow containing the keep key? I went through the entire hammerite compound, mines and crypt and didn't find it.
Dev_Anj
Learned
It's in the room with two burricks and some fire haunts. Or more precisely:
Only took me some 20 minutes of Dromeding to get there. :D
Only took me some 20 minutes of Dromeding to get there. :D
Ah, thanks! That is the only area I didn't explore thoroughly because I wanted to get the fuck away from those fire spirits ASAP.
Hello there, it's DarkMax here, author of the Darkstone Gem FM.
I'm so happy I came across some criticism on my fm even though it felt like a "this-is-all-sh*t the first time! I can tell how bad I was at english back then (I'm argentinian) and how much I can improve just by reading this thread and replaying my own missions 3 years later, lol!
I'm so happy I came across some criticism on my fm even though it felt like a "this-is-all-sh*t the first time! I can tell how bad I was at english back then (I'm argentinian) and how much I can improve just by reading this thread and replaying my own missions 3 years later, lol!
SlyFoxx
Educated
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2015
- Messages
- 44
Hello taffers.
SlyFoxx here...
Nice digs you've got here. Most of you won't know me from a hole in the wall so let me introduce myself. I'm a long time (since 2001) TTLG member, author of nine or so (mediocre) Thief Fan Missions and Garrett/other thief characters voice actor for more fan missions than I can count. I like the fact that Thief has spurred a bit of discussion elsewhere on the big WWW. I've read this thread from start to here and would like to add a bit of flavor to the discussion. I tend to agree with the frustrations expressed here regarding the design choices of many a Thief Fan Mission...not all mind you but many. Hell, my missions suck too for many reasons.
I post here not to change anybody's opinion but rather to inform you of knowledge that I have been privy to for almost a decade that you have not. Knowledge that I wish you readers not disseminate further...yes this is the internet but a tiny tiny corner of same. Besides, who would care besides us?
The subject/FM I would refer to is frobber's "A Keeper of the Prophecies" campaign. I did many a voice for that campaign but I only offer that fact as an aside...
Now I'm not going to tell you (neither would frobber..trust me here...he's a really cool dude) what to like or not like. I only learned of it a few years after the release of the campaign's final missions.
Frobber's young daughter liked to hear made up stories from her daddy at bed time. He would make up stories and make up silly voices to go with same. I imagine many of you would do the same.
Well as tragedy would have it, frobber's daughter was killed during an ice storm very early after the turn of the century. "A Keeper of the Prophecies" was (and my eyes swell with a thousand tears to type this) in many ways a fathers last bed time story to his daughter.
If you have played it you remember "take Judy". Judy was his daughter's dolly. The dolly that went on many an adventure at bed time...and so Garrett was charged with same.
So for all its flaws the whole campaign was a way for a grieving father to put his grief to rest.
The final soliloquy (for the final mission) I did as Garrett, served as fodder for frobber to finish the campaign. He wrote me me that he listened to that last bit just about every day for about a year. It was the thing that kept him going...the final driving force to finish the campaign.
He had sent me a 70+ page script/screenplay of the mission sometime in 02 or 03. At first I thought he was nuts, but as read the thing...well, let's just say I began to see the light. AKOTP is one of the grand achievements of the Thief community. It was also a way for a father to say say a final goodbye to a daughter.
I can't even begin to imagine how that feels.
SlyFoxx here...
Nice digs you've got here. Most of you won't know me from a hole in the wall so let me introduce myself. I'm a long time (since 2001) TTLG member, author of nine or so (mediocre) Thief Fan Missions and Garrett/other thief characters voice actor for more fan missions than I can count. I like the fact that Thief has spurred a bit of discussion elsewhere on the big WWW. I've read this thread from start to here and would like to add a bit of flavor to the discussion. I tend to agree with the frustrations expressed here regarding the design choices of many a Thief Fan Mission...not all mind you but many. Hell, my missions suck too for many reasons.
I post here not to change anybody's opinion but rather to inform you of knowledge that I have been privy to for almost a decade that you have not. Knowledge that I wish you readers not disseminate further...yes this is the internet but a tiny tiny corner of same. Besides, who would care besides us?
The subject/FM I would refer to is frobber's "A Keeper of the Prophecies" campaign. I did many a voice for that campaign but I only offer that fact as an aside...
Now I'm not going to tell you (neither would frobber..trust me here...he's a really cool dude) what to like or not like. I only learned of it a few years after the release of the campaign's final missions.
Frobber's young daughter liked to hear made up stories from her daddy at bed time. He would make up stories and make up silly voices to go with same. I imagine many of you would do the same.
Well as tragedy would have it, frobber's daughter was killed during an ice storm very early after the turn of the century. "A Keeper of the Prophecies" was (and my eyes swell with a thousand tears to type this) in many ways a fathers last bed time story to his daughter.
If you have played it you remember "take Judy". Judy was his daughter's dolly. The dolly that went on many an adventure at bed time...and so Garrett was charged with same.
So for all its flaws the whole campaign was a way for a grieving father to put his grief to rest.
The final soliloquy (for the final mission) I did as Garrett, served as fodder for frobber to finish the campaign. He wrote me me that he listened to that last bit just about every day for about a year. It was the thing that kept him going...the final driving force to finish the campaign.
He had sent me a 70+ page script/screenplay of the mission sometime in 02 or 03. At first I thought he was nuts, but as read the thing...well, let's just say I began to see the light. AKOTP is one of the grand achievements of the Thief community. It was also a way for a father to say say a final goodbye to a daughter.
I can't even begin to imagine how that feels.
Yandros
Savant
Wow, I had no idea. What an amazing story. Thanks for sharing, Sly.
Dev_Anj
Learned
Hi there Slyfoxx, AKA Garrett of many fan missions. 
I know about that story, and indeed I must agree that A Keeper of the Prophecies has a tragic touch to it. I feel it was a campaign that had a lot of potential, but just suffered from amateur design.
I know about that story, and indeed I must agree that A Keeper of the Prophecies has a tragic touch to it. I feel it was a campaign that had a lot of potential, but just suffered from amateur design.Unna Oertdottir
Novice
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2015
- Messages
- 13
I don't remember any amateur design in A Keeper of the Prophecies. It's actually a set of excellent missions for DromEd newbies to look at. So, what you mean?
Dev_Anj
Learned
Well, the problem I noticed with the campaign while watching an lp was that there was just a whole load of barren space in the missions, and the cutscenes could have had tighter direction, they were often too long. There were some nice touches, like Garrett making sounds of pain while drinking potions when he's poisoned, but it doesn't look like a mission I would enjoy.
Unna Oertdottir
Novice
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2015
- Messages
- 13
You shouldn't judge by a video that was done by somebody else.
Keeper of the Prophecies is not a mainstream campaign. It's a dark vision about pain, stress, death. You can't enjoy this that much (of course), but you can be impressed and satisfied to have finished it.
Keeper of the Prophecies is not a mainstream campaign. It's a dark vision about pain, stress, death. You can't enjoy this that much (of course), but you can be impressed and satisfied to have finished it.
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- May 13, 2009
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- 27,192
Hello and welcome. It's a wonderful surprise to see Thief FM authors come here to the Codex, if only briefly.
Your "Broken Gears" FM is excellent, so feel free to puff out your chest and be proud of that one. Your other FMs just don't compare to it, unfortunately.
IIRC, someone mentioned that you might be working on a follow-up to the Darkstone Gem. Any comment on that?
And yes, I recently re-read the entire thread, and I cringe at some of my own words from several years back.
SlyFoxx said:
Wow. Puts things a bit into perspective. Thank you for sharing this.
And again, welcome to the Codex. Your voicework is good and greatly appreciated. Keep up the good work.
The main goal of the third and fourth maps was to be annoying (in a good way), just like the "Framed" mission from the original game, you know, get in> put 2 or 3 items in respective places without making a mess> get out, so I foresaw some frustration and people not liking them at all.
I find it funny that you liked Broken Gears the most, it was so frustrating to make I almost gave up on it. In a player's perspective, I like Stealthy Business the most, maybe because Thieves' Guild is my favourite OM.
And yes, I'm currently working in the second (and last) part of the mini campaign but it won't be ready anytime soon. It will feature a lot of creepiness and is loaded of old school elements, so expect a TDP feeling in it.
I find it funny that you liked Broken Gears the most, it was so frustrating to make I almost gave up on it. In a player's perspective, I like Stealthy Business the most, maybe because Thieves' Guild is my favourite OM.
And yes, I'm currently working in the second (and last) part of the mini campaign but it won't be ready anytime soon. It will feature a lot of creepiness and is loaded of old school elements, so expect a TDP feeling in it.
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And there it is. On Hard, you get the Crypt Key when you climb up on the ruined bridge connecting the Compound tower and a set of two rooms above the garden gate. Then, you can enter the crypts and grab the Mask of Callone right away, since it is in front of you on a tomb. Then, you descend into the tombs. That's mighty impressive! There are few people who take the extra effort to differentiate skill levels (beyond the loadout, loot goal and a few extra AI), and here is a mission that can be played in two directions.
On the new missions:
CPWW was again one of the most fun missions I have played in the last few years. Variety, a good undercover segment, some devilish sneaking challenges, and an original premise. It is impressive how many ways you can infiltrate the complex and get down to your destination. I missed the hidden clue Unkillable Cat mentioned, and had to do some guesswork on the main puzzle, which was a bit annoying, especially since I spent something like an extra hour scouring the lower areas for the clue scroll. Unless I am missing something else, getting out is a mandatory ghost break:
It seems that the only route is through the metal tunnel, which is brightly lit, guarded and entirely made of metal. Doable but annoying. But then, you have to get up some stairs and KO two guards on the way, and there appears to be no way around that.
Mercenaries was just well-designed; and again, it is amazing how many ways you can get around, get up on the roof and peer through those transparent windows. Or fall hilariously to your doom.
Time well spent.
Dousing the torches in the metal tunnel is a-ok in Ghost (breaks supreme though) and that guard in the stairs comes all the way down to the room with the metal rafters. The only one that's bothersome is the one just in front of the door up above but nudging him forwards is still ok. And even then, you can avoid these two losers since there's another way around in that room with the metal rafters — there is a pipe up above with a metal grate surrounded by wood. Roping up above allows you to reach a small room leading to a toxic boiler that goes directly back to the outside courtyard via a sewer tunnel, and the two guards there are neutral to you.
Failing to look up and missing an alternate route. Figures. (Actually, I even examined those rafters, but concluded I couldn't mantle up on them.) Also,
The fire ghosts suck. I triggered the extra objective for laughs, and I could just waltz out of the CPWW because the guards finished them all off.
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- May 13, 2009
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- 27,192
Mostly correct. If you've kept your cover, they shouldn't pose a problem. The problem I faced was that they're supposed to engage in a conversation before going on their patrol routes, but the conversation is only triggered if you stand on the outside balcony on the museum. I didn't use that route to exit the mission, so I'm unsure if they're still neutral once they begin their patrols.
As for me, I just finished "Mercenaries" - and I was somewhat disappointed, considering the praise that had been showered upon it.
Garrett must steal a staff from a sanctuary underneath an old mansion that has been co-opted by a band of mercs. They are numerous and well organized, so dealing with them will be a problem.
The 'mansion' is nice in and of itself, it feels old and has lots of transparent windows and little cramped rooms all around. Soon the mission turns to the old "elemental lock" trope - find four keys that correspond to each element. Fortunately the mercs have already found one, and clues are given to the other two (and getting the Air Key is an ordeal and a half) while I only found the Fire Key by sheer chance. Once I reached the sanctuary the mission took on a completely different atmosphere, becoming a game of reflexes and platforming.
While this is a solid mission overall and well playable, it needs that "spit and polish" do-over that the previous missions have already received. The mercs can spot me through walls in the mansion, and much of the puzzles and platforming actions in the sanctuary are dependant upon trial and error instead of solid mechanics. I had to drink a lot of healing potions and save and reload WAY too often for my liking. Also, for some reason a lit lantern would magically appear if I walked past a window in a certain direction.
The biggest problem (on Expert difficulty, anyway) was the loot requirement. Most of the loot is in plain sight, either sitting on tables and in chests, or on the belts of mercs. But unless players can find a certain hidden stash, they'll have to prey on the mercs to just scratch above the loot requirement. (I actually managed to find all the loot on the first go.)
Overall, "Mercenaries" is the weakest of the four missions, though not bad in any way. I hope to see more from the author, including proper beta-testing. ;-)
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