Thief 2 fan missions and campaigns

Maybe it's just me but did anyone else notice that Mercedes looks A LOT like Lara Croft in Tomb Raider TLR?

That aside I agree with the Cat on the questionable design decisions, especially in the second mission. Why would you put Half-Life style action in a stealth game and why would Garrett wander around with no equipment at all? Unless there was a reason I've probably missed, that makes no sense to me.

 

The whole Calendra series seems like a bunch of interesting but questionable decisions to me, like the author wanted to try out some cool new scripting things while missing the point of making an actual Thief mission. My favourite of the bunch has to be the first mission of the CL campaign, because it doesn't have as many annoyances as the others, and that semi-secret crypt is just awesome.

I never played the third mission because I didn't make it through Murkbell yet (it's still on my list, but I have some other, better missions on my replay-list, along with missions I haven't played yet, so I guess it'll be a while until I do), but neither Calendra's Cistern nor Midnight in Murkbell has really managed to capture me. Cistern has that annoying body part fetch quest and a semi-linear design with a lot of scripting, which is pretty impressive from a technical standpoint but it was kind of a letdown in the gameplay department. It's an okay mission, I found it reasonably enjoyable, but I wasn't amazed by it, and with the reputation it has I expected a little more. I think that even at the time, there were some better missions around from the gameplay perspective. CC is technically impressive, but that's mostly it. The design is, in many places, rather annoying.

CL just continues that legacy (pun semi-intended), with Murkbell having a very cool city section to explore, but that exploration is ruined by the author's compulsion to show every how good he is at implementing cool little scripts and introducing !!PLOT TWISTS!!, rather than just focusing on the elements that make the mission good: architecture and exploration, because he obviously is quite good at delivering that. By adding so many scripts and plot twists, he essentially ruins the elements that make the mission good by preventing the player from actually using them. Wanna explore that city? Too bad, you have a time limit. Wanna explore it now? Too bad, you don't have a blackjack (and apparently, as Unkillable Cat says, there are more guards - I forgot about that, as it's been a while since I played it; a quick look into DarkLoader says last time played was 07.01.2013, which is almost exactly to the day three years ago... wow, time flies). Ok, you go get your blackjack, so you can finally enjoy exploring that city! Nope, too bad, now the city is swarming with undead and the blackjack you went all the way across town to retrieve is useless. Haha, sucks to be you, taffer!

Basically, my experience of Murkbell was "Ooh, this is a nicely designed city mission, I'm really looking forward to exploring it!" and the game basically said "Nope. Nope, you can't, you have to do this arbitrary task first." all the time. This is cockblocking taken to a professional level.

 

btw, new work in progress screenshot of the amateurish piece of shit I'm creating:

 

Unkillable Cat you can access the pawnshop through a window in the street. A Winter's Eve is my favorite mission in CL because, unlike you, I don't think it suffers from questionable design (with one or two exceptions, that is, in addition to the questionable stuff present in all 3 missions) and is actually very entertaining, especially Darkwatch.

 

I have already had my say about the Calendra missions, so I will only comment on a few things.

• No matter how you view the mission, it is just petty to deny it as a technical accomplishment. Yes, there have been more advanced missions since, but in 2002-2003, there were two that broke the expectations of what Thief could be, and Calendra's Legacy was one of them (the other one, Sledge's Inverted Manse, also got its author hired in the game industry). End of the list. CL does things which Thief was thought to be incapable of, and Midnight in Murkbell in particular is so technologically advanced it is in a league of its own. It is also a complete reskinning of Thief 2, has its own distinct aesthetic, and features a ton of custom, mostly high-quality content. Yes, that will get someone hired in the game industry, and with very good reason.
• The criticism of Murkbell's gameplay changes strikes me as the complaints levelled against Thief's undead levels - a misunderstanding of the intent behind the mission. In the mission (but also in A Meeting With Basso), your skills are tested in situations where the standard Thief strategies don't work entirely as expected. That doesn't invalidate the experience, just like undead don't transform Thief into a Tomb Raider-style action game. You are still Garrett, but you have to adopt to slightly different rules. Murkbell's genius is that the playing field changes multiple times, presenting different challenges in different stages of the mission: having to act quickly in the timed first segment; having to do without equipment in the second; and dealing with the undead in the third. The museum heist plays vastly differently depending on when you pull it off, and places like the streets or the cathedral are thoroughly altered.
• Together, the dynamic story and the complexity of the environment have the potential for an exemplary amount of emergent gameplay. You can do a lot of things in the mission which were not planned, but become possible in the realm of its possibilities.
  
• CL offers a wealth of side objectives, some of which also give you ample help against your opposition. The dagger, the eyes, the amulet, and even the extra stashes you find are very useful, but you have to earn them. Most missions dole out equipment all too generously (although this is a valid gameplay conceit), while in CL, they become informal mini-objectives, and play an actual part in the story.
• I have always considered the third mission the least interesting one, but for the record, I think much of the architecture in the Keeper compound was actually built by someone else - Saturnine, perhaps? If I recall correctly, it was also one of the first full-scale Winter missions, and does it rather well (including mostly faithful recreations of multiple locations from Thief's closing cinematic).

I cannot say I am unbiased, or free from nostalgia (on its initial release, the mission pack had a WOW factor that started right with its 250 MB download size, and for many of us, it really played and felt like the Thief 2 we were promised, but never got), but these evaluations are entirely contrary to mine.

 

Well, I said that it is technically very impressive, and I'd never deny that. The concept itself is also rather interesting, but I find the actual gameplay execution to be, overall, not as satisfying as the tech behind it promises. To me it feels like with all the attempts at technical excellence, gameplay design was slightly neglected in favor of it.

Last time I played it was three years ago, and since then I played many more FMs and now I even started my own, so it's possible my opinion might change if I try it again. It wouldn't be the first time I'd adjust an FM's rating based on a second replay.

But yeah, the wow factor is definitely missing for me, as I started with FMs only in 2010 - in fact, on the first few pages of this thread there are posts of me asking for recommendations, as I had just played T2X and wanted more.
Now that I started designing myself, it's probably worth looking into the entire Calendra series again so I can analyze what makes them good, what makes them bad, and how the author executed all the stuff he did. You should always learn from the classics.

 

My problems with the technical aspect of CL is that for all its feats and accomplishments, it's laughable to see something this big being dragged down by simple bugs and typos. Knocking out someone makes the mission think I killed him, critters getting stuck in positions where they have an impact upon whether the objectives can be completed or not, two critters duking it out and the victor runs off to a distant part of the map because that's where the nearest similar enemy critter can be found, etc. Something that a round of decent playtesting would have easily spotted.

On related news, I had a go at the "new" Keeper of Infinity. I thought the idea of revisiting the first FM was to make it better. It didn't, it's worse now. I don't have time for this crap.

 

Oh? In what ways did it get worse?

 

Maybe is running at 2 FPS? In any case, the mission is beautiful, but full of gameplay gimmicks.

 

Not only am I having choppier framerates than before (even though he cleaned up the starting area) but he seems to have stepped up the difficulty. If you go down into the canal to get the loot from the grotto down there, you could then get back by standing on the rock that you climb on to get there, shoot a rope arrow up at the tree trunk and jump straight at the rope to climb up. That's not possible anymore, now you have to climb slightly to the right to an outcropping that's not even a step up from the aforementioned rock to be able to grasp the rope.

Also, the only way into the city (at least the only way I ever found in) was by shooting a rope arrow into a (stone-looking) wooden beam jutting out from the sewer outlet. Now there's no beam, there's nothing there that will accept rope arrows. It seems that the author has fallen into "Slavic trap" which affects some Thief FM authors: The mission must be made as difficult as possible, otherwise it doesn't provide a challenge - even when the challenge is bone-headedly impossible.

For a laugh I'd like to know how anyone is supposed to get into the city now, but I'm done with this.

 

You can use the chains in the main gate and the banners work as ladders (as the main gate). But thief players couldn't even guess this, and would have to resort on a walkthrough. This mission has lots of these gimmicks. Worse: other banners don't work as those from the entrance. Another thing is a bush that block a door necessary to progress. You can use the sword to cut the bushes, but how would you ever have such idea? And no other bush in the mission is destructable. There's no hints on readables about these gimmicks.

well, there a tiny "log" protruding from the sewer. Well, it's a gray log, so it could be a petrified tree.

 

But I still say that he removed the log from the sewer outlet.

 

Herp derp. Looks like this is one of those missions I'll try with a walkthrough one day. I'm not going to play through stuff like that without one.

It's not difficulty, it's pixel hunting, like in some of the worse Sierra adventures of the 80s and 90s. Difficulty is having 5 different approaches but each is a challenge on its own (one is heavily guarded, one requires difficult jumps, one requires multiple rope arrows, etc) and not one single approach that is so obscure you have to basically save, try random shit, and reload until you found the correct solution.

Shit like this is what killed the adventure game genre.

 

Well, I played the version that was re-released, not the one with the second mission in the campaign.

 

You can directly shoot rope arrows on the banner holders above the gate and get inside. From there you can descend and you find yourself in the city.

 

This is adorable as fuck

 

That's a pretty good video. The framerate is a bit stuttery and the ending is weird, but it's a good recreation of a general Thief level using lego bricks alone.

I haven't found the first level of Keeper of Infinity to be that bad, so far I've got into the starting castle's ramparts and the only real problem I've seen is that it's not very obvious that the bars holding the two banners at the front gate are made of wood, because they're far above the ground. I've been playing the light version, especially since the full version gave me bad framerates, and it looks just as good without slowing down the game. But I'm going to expect worse later in the level.

 

I couldn't ever get through the first incarnation of KoI.
Playing it again now and I am getting much farther, but some of the mantling requirements are totally insane. There's an instance where you can get up onto a roof near the beginning after you enter the city and open a hatch to get into a small attic space. It is nearly impossible to mantle into that damn hatch! I had to just noodle about with trial and error, getting stuck several times in the process and having to quickload to get unstuck. I think it took me around 10 minutes to figure out that I needed to mantle into it at just the right sweet spot from crouch. This is really silly, considering that a normal human being could merely step casually into the window in real life.

 

But that's the "challenge", bro.

I'll never understand that idea of challenge, ever. There's nothing challenging about spending hours fiddling around just to find that one exact spot you need to be in, it's just tedious. Same with hiding switches so retardedly well without giving a single hint to their location that you can't even find them with a walkthrough (happened to me once, I played an FM that was otherwise very solid, but even with the walkthrough telling me the location I had to search for the switch for 5 full minutes, not even kidding).

When authors defend such decisions with "it's for experienced players!" I just laugh to myself because I'm an experienced player and if you want to challenge me, give me an area with heavy guard patrols and I start the game without a blackjack, which can be found in a hard-to-reach (but not obscure to find!) area. That would be challenging Thief-gameplay, the other shit is just pixel hunting.

 

He's clearly very talented from an artistic design perspective. I'd love to see him handle that while someone else did the gameplay and story design.

 

I played more of Keeper of Infinity Lite.

There are some weird places, like the huge tower that has no texture or some places in the architecture where you can get stuck. I also felt like there was too little interactivity in the first part of the town. Currently I'm lost, I got a blocked district key but don't know where to use it.

I will say though that it's easily among one of the best looking fan missions so far, even with it being a light version.

The Tower of Jorge:

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About a year ago SlyFoxx mentioned the sad backstory behind frobber's "Keeper of the Prophecies" campaign (in a post that can be found here) which I had previously written off as "too big, too long, too long-winded" after only making it about half-way through. I decided to have another go at it, both with the intention of finishing the campaign once and for all, and also to see what elements of real life were present in the campaign.

This campaign spans 9 missions of various lengths (the author says 9 episodes, so let's see how that turns out) so the campaign isn't as large a bite as some would think. Nevertheless, there is a reason for the "too big" angle, which will be explained in detail.

As this is written I've just reached Mission 4, and there's a noticeable difference in approach to conveying the story of the campaign. The first two missions rely almost exclusively on readables (and Mission 2 has A LOT of readables) while Mission 3 and 4 rely more on voiced performances. The campaign was originally released in 'episodes', which probably explains this difference.

Keeper of the Prophecies Part 1 (open) Keeper of the Prophecies Part 1 (close)

Mission 1: This one is very short and serves as a bridge between Thief 1 and the KotP campaign, which takes place before Thief 2. Garrett is about to receive his new mechanical eye, when the courier is murdered and the eye stolen. Seeing as Garrett had been receiving invitations that soon escalated into thinly-veiled threats of violence and abuse, from a faction that wanted to examine the eye before Garrett took possession of it, the guilty party was fairly easy to find.

But the readables found in the mission set the scene for what is to come: Garrett's primary antagonist is the aforementioned faction, The Enterprise, which seems to be little more than a evil corporation run by a tyrannical CEO. The Enterprise's interest in Garrett's mech-eye is not explained at this point, but the courier's letter to Garret reveals that she was the daughter of the tyrannical CEO...and yet he didn't flinch when he ordered her killed so that the eye could be acquired. Another point worthy of mentioning is that a family of a woman and two kids can be found dead in this mission, along with a note pleading for the father of the family to come to them with some food or money, as the family has none themselves and have been evicted from their home.

A tiny mission that can be completed in 5 minutes (reading time included) and we already have 2 points that concern frobber's RL issues. Two examples of family loss, one put forth in a gut-wrenchingly sorrowful manner, and the other with barely any feeling or emotion present whatsoever. It's strange, yet clearly also a mechanism for him to deal with his loss - create characters that suffer a similar loss, and see where they go with it.

Besides this, the only other point worthy of mentioning about the first mission is that the gear found both in Garrett's apartment and in the lone secret area, is more than enough gear to finish Mission 2. In fact it's borderline overkill. But the dangers of Mission 2 lie not in needing resources to take out all the guards, but in the architecture and design of the place.


Mission 2: This is probably the mission that most taffers remember when thinking about the KotP campaign. Garrett breaks into The Enterprise's HQ, a large complex located on top of a mountain, to retrieve his eye and cause some monetary damage for his trouble. As usual, things don't always go as expected, but in terms of twists and surprises this mission doesn't offer that many - it's just a straightforward "warehouse raid" mission.

But "warehouse raid" isn't even an exact match, only the best fit. This is a complex containing the CEO's home+swimming pool with solarium, the offices of the heads of various Enterprise divisons, R&D labs, offices with cubicles, a couple of warehouses, an auditorium, test chambers, mess halls and LONG-ASS CORRIDORS. I strongly doubt you'll find another FM with longer corridors than this one. Outside of the complex you'll find a courtyard that spans 3 sides of the complex, plus a network of caverns underneath. You can run a full circle around the complex exterior, but that'll take you 5 minutes. Getting from the front entrance to the room furthest at the back is a 90-second run in an almost straight line. And almost everything is in that "institutional green" colour hospitals and mental asylums are so fond of. As far as enemies go, there are about 35 guards (plus 20 servants) patrolling the complex, with a higher-than-average ratio of archers. With the exception of a lone zombie down in the caverns, there's no variety to be found in this mission, not even vermin.

One notable fact I had missed until now was the layout and architecture of the complex - it all makes perfect sense in every way...except the one manner that everyone notices straight away: The scale. This is one giant building, with corridors long enough to run marathons through them, meeting tables big enough to host a boxing match, enough cubicles to house an army of mindless drones workers, etc. And yet it never goes overboard. For such a huge place, it feels alarmingly empty, but all those readables lying around help to construct the story of the place. Seems that the CEO has been pushing everyone to the brink in order to keep in business, to the point that workers are dying on the job, foremen are tortured to death for being unable to meet their quotas and a head of security that decides that the best way to catch an apple thief is to poison half the apples in the pantry, clueless to the fact that everyone working for The Enterprise is starving at this point. And that's BEFORE players realize what is the primary product of The Enterprise...and that the test chambers are used to "test" that product. The author is clearly trying to paint The Enterprise as the most heartless and soulless faction of antagonists as possible. Not even the Mechanists are this cold and cruel...yet.

Those who know me also know I take notice of the readables in Thief missions, and KotP is no exception. But unlike most FMs, the readables are actually written very well. As random pieces of paper scattered about the place, they make sense - the only readable lacking is the diary of the CEO's daughter, which is too long-winded. The readables in KotP suffer from a different problem, however - there are too many of them. A good picture is painted of the place and its recent events through the readables, but the truth is that at least 25% of the readables could have been shortened (or even outright removed) without the mission suffering at all. More importantly is that there's no (custom) voicework to be found in Mission 2, and this is a mission that's actually badly in need of one or two of them. One conversation involving a key character could have made so many readables in this mission redundant, but I'm guessing this is older than SlyFoxx's career as Garrett the Understudy, so people had to make do with what was available.

Overall, I think Mission 2 is a high point in the campaign. Seeing as KotP was released in so many formats and parts, I can easily recommend "Keeper of the Prophecies Ep. 1 - The Enterprise" as a worthy download.


Mission 3: Brace yourselves, this mission is nothing but one long camvator, clocking in at 6:30 minutes. The good news is that now there's voicework, and it's not bad in terms of performance. The bad news is that the quality of writing drops sharply. The narrator is the tyrannical CEO's daughter recapping the story so far, and even squeezing in the point where she's murdered by her father's thugs and is now floating about as a ghost - from a story perspective this is a big No-No, but considering the author's background and all, I'm gonna let it slide for now. This mission does do something worthwhile...it shows us the cathedral that frobber built. I'll admit that I haven't played every Thief FM out there, but that has got to be THE biggest building ever made in DromEd. This cathedral is so big and imposing, that if it would come to life and sprout legs it could go toe-to-toe with Godzilla and have a good chance of winning. It's a veritable monster of a building - and it will be the centerpoint of a mission later in this campaign.

More on KotP later, stay tuned for Part 2.

 

I actually learned to appreciate KOTP, though I haven't finished. I actually like the cathedral. It's huge, but not so hard to navigate.

 

I haven't played KotP, but... maybe Koobze?

 

The cathedral is pretty damn big.

Lord Alan's Factory is set in a huge map. There's a central elevator shaft that I think is ~1000 dromed units high. It's tall it actually takes a good while to fall all the way down it let alone ride the elevator.