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Thief fan missions and campaigns

Unkillable Cat

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Dug up an earlier post in regards to some good Thief Gold FMs:

"Shunned": It's short, it's full of undead and it has a Lovecraftian vibe to it.

"Sepulchre Of The Sinitral": One of the better "Tomb Raider" FMs available. If you liked "Down in the Bonehoard" you'll love this one, but Bonehoard haters obviously need not apply.

"Calendra's Cistern": The writing is a bit naff, but the layout is not. The cityscape is full of little details to explore. Even though it's a mansion break-in mission, I spent more time mucking about outdoors in the city than inside the mansion.

"Autumn In Lampfire Hills": The first FM I ever played. It's not extraordinary by any means, but it's fun and has a lot of surprises.

As for "Lorgan's Web", either I don't remember there being anything special about it, or there actually wasn't anything special about it. I remember the sewers somewhat, but that's about it.

Another one I can recommend is "Tower of St. Moira" which was made last year. A Thief 1/Gold version exists, as well as a Thief 2 version with some added extras.
 

Icewater

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Bloodstone Prison is another Thief 1 classic. Hope you like undead, 'cause it's got loads of them.
 

commie

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Bloodstone Prison is another Thief 1 classic. Hope you like undead, 'cause it's got loads of them.

Well I decided to finish Thief 2 before starting on FM missions so I guess I'll be missing the undead after it I guess so thanks for the suggestion.

Having just finished the Shalebridge Station ghosting level I'm also interested in ghosting style levels for a bit of variety as I cannot play house rules, too much temptation to otherwise bop someone on the head. Of course I'd like proper ghosting levels like that one as I'm not hardcore enough to be like those fanatics that try to get through the entire Thief series without even using one water arrow or getting any guard suspicious or waiting 25 minutes for every guard to be exactly aligned so that it's possible to ghost past. Those things maybe I'd give a go on my 10th replay but I've still to find all the loot in Thief and Thief 2(though it seems to be easier to find in T2) so it's not a priority at the moment.
 

JarlFrank

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The Art of Thievery. First FM I ever played, and still one of my favourites. Huge mansion to rob, and limited number of knockouts on hardest difficulty (3 or so) as well as a lot of guards with neckguard helmets.
 

Darth Roxor

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Uh-huh, just finished Rocksbourg part 2.

WHY DOES THIS GUY WHO MADE THESE MISSIONS THINK THAT PIXEL HUNTING IS FUN??? WHY?! IS IT BECAUSE HE IS FRENCH?

AND WHY DOES HE THINK THAT PUTTING LOCKS THAT REQUIRE A MINUTE OF LOCKPICKING IN UNINHABITED AREAS IS FUN?

HNNNGGGGGGGG
 

JarlFrank

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Yeah, there are many FMs where the authors just wanted to be clever and included so-called "puzzles" that consist of hunting for incredibly tiny keys or levers that are hidden in hard to see places with no hint whatsoever where to look except maybe for a general direction. GO LOOK FOR KEY Y IN THE EAST WING OF THE HOUSE, HAVE FUN LOOKING UNDER EVERY SINGLE BED AND JUMPING AROUND SO YOU CAN LOOK ON TOP OF ALL CABINETS, THIS SURE IS WHAT THIEF IS ALL ABOUT

I usually abandon FMs that do this if they don't have some really good level design to compensate for it. Hiding keys that you have to retrieve is not bad, if there are hints that tell you where it might be, and if you can actually see them without having to look at the same spot 20 times before you manage to get your angle of view just right to see the key poking out.
 

commie

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Thanks Jarl..I'm up to the bank mission in T2 now and like you I've a fondness for proper heist missions. Not that I don't like the wilderness ones but the engine just doesn't do open areas like forests all that well making them look weird and undead missions freak me out though the odd undead for the FFUUUU factor is good.
 

Unkillable Cat

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Uh-huh, just finished Rocksbourg part 2.

WHY DOES THIS GUY WHO MADE THESE MISSIONS THINK THAT PIXEL HUNTING IS FUN??? WHY?! IS IT BECAUSE HE IS FRENCH?

AND WHY DOES HE THINK THAT PUTTING LOCKS THAT REQUIRE A MINUTE OF LOCKPICKING IN UNINHABITED AREAS IS FUN?

HNNNGGGGGGGG

I can't remember how bad Rocksbourg 3 is about this, but it IS somewhat different from the other two missions. Also much bigger in scope.

And yeah, so-called "key hunt" missions can be REALLY boring, to the point of being unplayable. I get horrible flashbacks to the old Freescape games when I come across some of the more "devious" key hunts.
 

Unkillable Cat

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A new crop of FM's has arrived, plus there's a Reloaded contest right around the corner, so there should be something to keep people going for a while.

First up is the big one: Gaetane finally released the 5-mission epic simply called The Black Frog. Gaetane made the L'Arsene series of FM's, so there's a real reason to be excited. Or at least, there should be one. To be honest, I found it a little... underwhelming. First mission is simply a wander-around-the-map-and-see-how-much-loot-you-can-find affair, the second mission is a rather nice mansion break-in. Third mission is a return to the area in the first mission, except at night and with fog and things that go RARRIKILLYOUDEADCHOMPCHOMP in the night. Fourth mission is probably the worst, you must wander through some canyons (mean to represent an island) and pull some levers to reach a castle. The fifth mission, however, is by far the best of them. It's basically another version of the original Emilie Victor FM, with some extra creepy stuff thrown in. If you didn't crap your pants during the third mission, you probably will in this one.

But despite this being longer in beta testing than any other Thief FM I've ever heard of, I always kept thinking that there's something missing, like an extra finish of polish. It has nothing to do with the layout and/or design of the FMs. Even the first one has tons of little details to smile about, and the fourth one sure has its moments. But I always had the feeling that the story needed a little work. Something about it felt off to me the whole time. I can't put my finger on it, but it bugged me almost the whole way through. Like how come the noble that hired you for the job in the first place knew about the Black Frog and its powers.

It's still a great FM, but it won't be hitting any "best FMs of all time" lists.

Another FM just out is Shadow Plans, a 2-parter that has Garrett taking an unarmed stroll through some wilderness to rescue a girl, before returning to the city to try to uncover why he was set up. I'm at the start of the second mission now, so I can't comment much on that, but the first mission was just dull and unnecessary. It felt like the intro mission from Thief 3, complete with no options of choice, little gameplay and just pretty scenery and exposition. I really don't know what the author was thinking with this.

The third new FM is the first entry in the new "Thief Reloaded" contest. For those not in the know, the Reloaded contests are about taking pre-existing missions (be they fan-made or released with the original games) and improving them somehow to create new missions. "Pestis Cruenta" is Haplo taking the Reloaded concept a step beyond; he used a Thief 2 version of the layout of the City from Thief: Deadly Shadows, and based his mission on that. So you're actually walking through areas in Thief 3. Except it's not as detailed. And full of Undead. And adventure game-like puzzles. Not very Thief like, but still worth a playthrough if you want to see how Thief 3 maps come out in Thief 2, plus the story isn't half-bad in this one.

(There's also an FM, "The Perfect Job", that was made in response to someone who tried to do a "Let's Play" of Thief 2 and didn't like it very much. Check the thread on TLLG for more information. I figure you lot would enjoy this little trolling joke.)
 
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Cassidy

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Another FM just out is Shadow Plans[...]I'm at the start of the second mission now, so I can't comment much on that, but the first mission was just dull and unnecessary.[...]

Is the 2nd mission worth playing?
 

Unkillable Cat

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Another FM just out is Shadow Plans[...]I'm at the start of the second mission now, so I can't comment much on that, but the first mission was just dull and unnecessary.[...]

Is the 2nd mission worth playing?

I doubt it. I tried playing it once for 5 minutes, but nothing there caught my fancy. In fact, what stopped me was that there was loot around that belonged to "the poor", but if you took it, the game would spawn more hostile guards somewhere on the map. Instant justice for the poor? That shit don't fly with me.

The Reloaded contest is in full swing. 4 missions in total, but I've only played 2 of them, Pestis Cruenta and A Dire Return. The latter one is based on the mansion from the first mission in Thief 2, only the difficulty has been ramped up a bit and more areas added, including a whole extra floor. You're supposed to find a servant girl who's gone missing for weeks, but it quickly becomes more convulated than that. This is not a good FM. Effort has been put into it, but not enough. It's creepy at times, but sometimes that creepiness just becomes annoying. The mission is one gigantic key hunt, culminating in you having to make a hasty exit from the mansion... and every possible exit being conveniently (b)locked except the one that's furthest away from you, and you must run through the ENTIRE mansion to reach it. There's a hedge maze and a crypt in there as well, but beyond serving only as a meeting point for a NPC they're pointless... especially since said NPC bit the dust in the mansion itself and the body is buried there. So what's the NPC's ghost doing in a crypt beyond a hedge maze on the outskirts of the mansion grounds? It doesn't make any sense.

The other two Reloaded missions don't interest me that much. One of them uses the Thief 3 map used in the Pestis Cruenta FM, and the other one seems to be some strange attempt at Thief Fortress 2.

But on the bright side, there's a new Thief Gold mission out and a remake of an older T2 FM called the Darkstone Gem, which adds more missions to the story.
 

Unkillable Cat

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Alright, had a go at the Darkstone Gem remake and the T1 FM Shadow Politics.

Darkstone Gem is a "remake" FM that combines two previous FM's, Looking for Info and Broken Gears, with two new ones and forms the first "chapter" in an ongoing storyline. Uh-huh. Looking for Info is an OK-ish city romp with a little tomb raiding thrown in, but Broken Gears is actually quite good, combining Mechanists and Pagan creepyness in an old building. The two new missions are rather meh, though. The former one has you going through the city looking for glyps to infiltrate a Keeper stronghold before running back to the mission start (!) to be able to reach a Hammerite church and ghosting through it to complete the objectives. There's a vault combination to decrypt, but when I figured out what it was asking me to do (count scenery!) I just looked up the combination online and ignored it. The latter mission has you running through the sewers to infiltrate a Thieves' hideout in an abandoned factory. Spelling errors and tediousness aside, they're alright missions, but nothing fancy, but at least you get to keep equipment from previous missions. All in all, not that special. Broken Gears is worth playing, the rest can be passed on.

But Shadow Politics... man, this one caught me off guard. It comes close to being the FM of the year (so far) and it's easily one of the best Thief 1 FMs ever made. It's a city mission where you have to steal a piece of jewellry to prevent peace talks between two warring city states. What this FM pulls off so brilliantly is how much like Thief 1 it is, in terms of atmosphere and "feel". It's also quite challenging, for one simple reason which is its single and biggest flaw: It relies too heavily on rope arrows, and rope arrows are a fucking NIGHTMARE in Thief 1. I lost count of how many times I jumped on a rope arrow and either slid down it like it was covered in oil, or was catapulted into the upper stratosphere by bizarre hemp physics. I just barely managed to complete the loot objective, you'll be looking EVERYWHERE to scrape together the loot for the Expert diffilculty. Well recommended, but not for impatient novices.
 

JarlFrank

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Is the Keeper of the Prophecies campaign any good? FenPhoenix started to LP it and it looks interesting enough, and it's a pretty large campaign, so I wonder if it's worth playing.

EDIT:
So I started Shadow Politics. Awesome mission. Found the Pagan Tome already, and found the hammerite warehouse and the key that was stolen by a crayman.

But somhow, I can't find that damn window that is supposed to lead into the embassy! I've looked everywhere but somehow can't find it... halp plx.
 

Unkillable Cat

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From the hammerite warehouse, rope arrow up to a higher ledge. You'll enter a house, go through that, jump across to the other side and you'll eventually find the window. It's a pair of closed shutters on a yellowish wall.

You can also get into the embassy from the sewers. From the room down there that has the note mentioning the Craymen, go back a bit towards the doors (not down into the water) and you should find a flight of stairs going up. These lead into the embassy, BUT... you'll have a hard time getting to the upper floor as it's guarded by an archer who will most probably see you coming, while getting in through the window allows you to get the drop on him.

As for Keeper of the Prophecies... I didn't like it. The first mission is a short prologue, the second mission is a HUGE factory, but it's huge for no real reason. Then you get a CamVator mission, then an alright city mission that fails on some fundamental points of game design before coming to another HUGE level, this one involving a cathredal. That caused me to just give up and quit. It's bursting at the seams with needless filler content.
 

Cassidy

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Alright, had a go at the Darkstone Gem remake and the T1 FM Shadow Politics.

Darkstone Gem is a "remake" FM that combines two previous FM's, Looking for Info and Broken Gears, with two new ones and forms the first "chapter" in an ongoing storyline. Uh-huh. Looking for Info is an OK-ish city romp with a little tomb raiding thrown in, but Broken Gears is actually quite good, combining Mechanists and Pagan creepyness in an old building. The two new missions are rather meh, though. The former one has you going through the city looking for glyps to infiltrate a Keeper stronghold before running back to the mission start (!) to be able to reach a Hammerite church and ghosting through it to complete the objectives. There's a vault combination to decrypt, but when I figured out what it was asking me to do (count scenery!) I just looked up the combination online and ignored it. The latter mission has you running through the sewers to infiltrate a Thieves' hideout in an abandoned factory. Spelling errors and tediousness aside, they're alright missions, but nothing fancy, but at least you get to keep equipment from previous missions. All in all, not that special. Broken Gears is worth playing, the rest can be passed on.

I had an expectation this short campaign would be at least good enough after playing Broken Gears back when it was available separatedly. Too bad the author decided to "improve" the following missions with lame puzzles and forced ghosting.
 

SCO

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Played TDM fan mission "the phrase book". Part of the "thomas porter" series.

It's interesting because it's objectively small but feels large, having a rooftop sequence and randomized patrol routes.
Polished.
 

poocolator

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How big can TDM missions get, considering that the mod uses the Doom 3 / id tech 4 engine? Has the engine been modified or improved to support it? I don't recall being impressed by the size of Doom 3 missions, ie lengthy corridors and cramped quarters.
 

SCO

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Not too big. They have a primitive LOD distance system in place but have a dearth of low polymodels. (also, some low quality ones: their vines don't convince anyone)

Supposedly the next version will increase fps a little (due to optimizing lightgem visibility calculus), but that's not really the problem. Instead the problem is that fm makers are used to Dromed (which besides being hell to work with) also optimizes automatically instead of DarkRadiant (where you must seal off the "areas").

The mission i mentioned is a example of a well optimized mission and it's only averagely sized (a rooftop scene being the largest).

I think a programmer taking the doom3 source and adding backside vertex elimination and a more professional lod system and their modelers working on low-poly models would help - but the most significant part of performance lost is the real time lighting - needless to say if it that can be optimized, things will get better.
http://fabiensanglard.net/doom3/renderer.php

By the way if you start up the dark mod and it's menu is blurry don't be discouraged: the menu doesn't scale - just increase the resolution to your monitor native one in the video options and it should get crisp.
 

Unkillable Cat

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So a new Thief 2 FM dropped in last night, and judging from the release notes I thought this was going to be one of the big releases of the year. Well... at least it's big. 200+ MB download on top of that. The authors claim that it's maxed out on memory and that they can't possibly add more content to the FM. After having played it for 2 hours, I can't help but ask why they didn't break the damn thing down into 2 missions and actually make something half-decent out of both parts.

"Cathedral of St. Vincent" finds Garrett locked up in a cell, framed for a murder and seeking justice. That means breaking out, finding your gear, finding out who framed you, learning about their big heist and then taking over the heist and stealing the goods. Sounds fun, yes? For those of you who remember Keeper of the Prophecies, one of the problems I pointed out with some of the levels was that they were bloated - overly large for no reason whatsoever. The same applies to St. Vincent. It's too big, and most of the content is air. But that's not all.

The game area is split down into the citadel and the Cathedral. The citadel is a group of houses that serve next to no purpose except to create a maze of alleyways. You only ever enter about 4 of the 20 or so houses, and one of them is about half the citadel! The Cathedral takes up about 50-60% of the game area, but due to the dullness and senselessness of the previous part, I frankly just stopped playing there and don't feel like going on. I doubt that the Cathedral plays any better than the citadel, though I would like to add that this FM has about 90% custom textures, which means you're supposed to disable all graphical enhancements to get the full experience. I couldn't figure out how to do this, which is why I'm not going to comment on the mission's appearance, short of saying that with the graphical enhancements enabled the mission looks like it's still in beta testing.

The authors also said that it'll take 4 hours (!) to complete this thing. I now know why. You're constantly backtracking. You start out in the basement of the police station. Before you escape, you notice that the morgue remains locked, so you'll have to visit there again later. After finding the coroner dead in an alleyway, you gain access to the morgue, only to find that it also serves as a courthouse (!?) and you have to gather evidence to prove your innocence. That means backtracking about 5 more times back to the Morgue, and once again after you've descended down into the sewers, which are wide enough for doubledecker busses to drive through, BTW. Then you also have to find every single member of a Thieves' Guild, because they're ALL carrying keys (8 in total) for a vault inside the Cathedral. Hands up if this fact alone instantly discourages you from trying to play this.

To be honest, I can't think of a single reason to recommend this FM. The voice acting is good, but that doesn't justify the hefty download. Readables are terse and badly in need of revision by grammarians, the whole area is built like it's imported from a Gold Box game, it's almost totally grid-like. Exploration yields next to no reward. Overall it's just... dull.

Shame.
 
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