Thief fan missions and campaigns

[Komori]

Although i know myself sharing an intense love for the scavenge heist parts of dark project, it's too much darn scary for me to progress any further through the Lost Among Forsaken fan mission. Level design can do wonders and much moreso for two decade old videogame. Anyway, i think there is a big weighty reason of me putting away pink bow adornments for this occasion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB5_MX9NyW4

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Sounds like DrKubiac has made another fan for life.

 

[Arrowgrab]

Although i know myself sharing an intense love for the scavenge heist parts of dark project, it's too much darn scary for me to progress any further through the Lost Among Forsaken fan mission. Level design can do wonders and much moreso for two decade old videogame. Anyway, i think there is a big weighty reason of me putting away pink bow adornments for this occasion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB5_MX9NyW4

So, how do you like being able to see the pretty architecture? NICE RED LIGHTGEM YOU'VE GOT THERE, WOULD BE A SHAME IF ANYTHING HAPPENED TO IT.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

And the results of the Thief 2 20th Anniversary Contest have been announced:

First place goes to the James Bond film where he's running around all those rooftops "Feast of Pilgrims" with a 26/30 score. Very impressive, congrats to marbleman and Random_Taffer for their contribution and win.
Second place goes to "The Builder's Paradise" with a 25.5/30 score. A note should be made that this entry got less votes than the first and third entries, but still scored this high.
Third place goes to "Into the Odd" with a 25/30 score. The top three entries were very even in scores, but in the end there can be only one.

Ten Little Taffers got 22.5
Where the Unknown Lurks got 22.09
Troubling Transitions got 22
Fierce Competition got 21
My Favorite Year got 20.8
Show Off got 19
GORT's mission got 16.8
Time for Change got 14

I don't remember exactly how I voted in the contest (a lot has happened in the many weeks since then) but I do remember giving "Into the Odd" the top spot with a 28/30-rating.

 

[Psych0sis]

Into the Odd got robbed. I knew it would get fucked over by noobs who got filtered by the beginning.

 

[Curratum]

Maybe you just don't front-load your masterpiece of a FM with horrible visuals and annoying gameplay, then you won't get "robbed"?

Just a thought...

 

[Melan]

 

[Mechs Delight]

"Into the Odd" had wonderful visuals and nice readables, but I just couldn't get past the many technical and game play annoyances. I didn't formally vote in this contest, but I probably would have taken "Feast of Pilgrims."

(I've been taking a break from Thief and playing recent Fallout games; they don't have great game play by any stretch of the imagination, but they're the only games I can think of that have similar worlds (sci-fish decay and sci-fantasy creatures) and readbles.

 

[Psych0sis]

There are no gameplay faults or annoyance, you just have to be not shit at the game.

 

[Raskens]

I never had any extraordinary issues with 'Into the odd', but then I only played it after the patch, which might explain it.

 

[nicked]

Psych0sis coming in here like that loading screen tip...

"If you keep dying, try getting better at the game." :D

 

[Unkillable Cat]

That opening section is the mission's way of saying "You must be at least THIS tall to ride"
Seriously though, I can totally understand why you wouldn't enjoy the gameplay in this mission. I am more curious about the "horrible visuals" critique - I thought the visuals of all things came out really well.

Speaking for myself, but the only critique I throw at it is the opening section - once you get underground it becomes an absolute joy to play, due to every element clicking together. But until then that surface section is an absolute pain, but it's mostly all down to one guard and his patrol route.

A problem that "Into the Odd" faces is due to the 'anonimity' of the authors ( ) people are unsure whether to expect a masterpiece with a wall of difficulty at the start, or an endless shit sandwich. (Fortunately it's the former.) The only way to find out is either to hope someone braves into the odd unknown, or do it themselves... and as someone who actually played "The Acid Trip" through to the end, I'm not very inclined to repeat a similar experience... which is what the surface area reminded me of.

 

[nicked]

It also, by front-loading the difficult bit, makes you more inclined to be down on the rest of it. If the first part frustrates you and puts you in a bad mood, you're less likely to enjoy the later bits that are good.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Seeing as I had free time AND had the loot lists from every FM from the 20th Anniversary Thief 2 contest, I decided to give "Into the Odd" another go - especially since I only played the non-updated version.

I'm not sure whether to credit it to the complex genius at play here, or to the terrible writing of the loot list, but even though I had it beside me I was still ~400 loot short. But then again, my previous attempt was more than 1500-loot short, so that's an improvement.

So what was the clincher, you ask? Turns out there's a hidden area in the FM that requires a keen eye. Namely, to notice that a certain spot is a pressure plate and not just a random piece of the rich architecture that needs to be weighed down. I'll admit I had to look it up where this spot was, but once I had that info I got to work.... and encountered a problem. The pressure plate wouldn't go down and trigger whatever it was supposed to trigger. It needed... encouragement. That meant me spotting that every time I plopped down the heavy piece of statue I was carrying, the plate would descend a fraction of a pixel further down, or thereabouts. So I sped up the process, spam-picking-up-and-throwing that piece of statue until the platform lowered far enough down for me to hear something else to open. From there on I was able to figure out the steps to reach the hidden tomb which had about 800 loot in it.

So yeah... there may be a reason for a v1.2 of it. Just sayin'.

 

[Psych0sis]

You're supposed to stand on the pressure plate yourself until it goes down, then race to the next bit. Also, for what it's worth, pressure plates in general are fucked if you play on 144hz with the wrong vsync setting in one of the .cfg files.

Edit: Also uncommenting the setting "phys_freq 60" in cam_ext.cfg can fix your issue if 144hz is the culprit.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

For argument's sake, what is the proper vsync-setting for taffers running 144hz monitors?

Asking for a mate. Honest.

 

[Psych0sis]

Uncommenting 'phys_freq 60' works but makes the game, imo, look off in motion.

Better alternative is go into cam_ext.cfg and uncomment "vsync_mode 7", that should do it.

Third alternative is to go back to the stone age and play in 60hz.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

"vsync_mode 7" did nothing to address the problem, but "phys_freq 60" did. Problem now is that everything shakes while moving. :/

 

[SMDM-GORT]

Are you in window mode, or full screen?

For me, I had to use full screen. Also, I had this in my cam_ext:

d3d_disp_refreshrate 144
framerate_cap 200.0
(vsync_mode not set)
phys_freq 60

This was keeping the avg. FPS to about 144 for me.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I'm always in fullscreen.

I boosted the framerate to 200 and enabled vsync, that removed the shaking. Everything is now running smoothly and as intended.

Thanks for the help, everyone.

 

[SMDM-GORT]

Glad it's working. Yeah, the only reason I was using window mode was so I can see the MONO window while play-testing a mission on a single monitor. But since I've gotten a second monitor, I've switched back to full screen.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

A follow-up question: I realized that I only had v1.27 of T2Fix installed, and upgraded to the current v1.27c-version. Silly me forgot to backup my Thief 2-settings beforehand, so I had to do them all over again.

I don't mind that, as it helps me remember which ones are the important ones, but one oddity came up while doing this: the string "d3d_disp_refreshrate 144" that SMDM-GORT brought up isn't in my cam_ext-file. Has it become redundant?

 

[Komori]

It's still referenced inside the docs https://pastebin.com/uf0ymydi

d3d_disp_refreshrate <rate_hz>


only has any effect in combination with "use_d3d_display" and running in fullscreen mode, sets a custom
desired display refresh rate. The custom refresh rate will only be used if DirectX reports it as a supported
rate for the current display mode. If the requested rate is not available, then the game will attempt to set
it to the closest rate below. For example if the requested rate is 85 but DX only reports 72 and 60 as being
supported, then it will use 72 instead.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

With my Thief 2 install fully optimized, I went in for the new T2 FM on the block, "Looser". (The typo in the title is intended, the other typos in the FM are not.)

Garrett wakes up in a jail cell. He has no idea where he is or how he got there. But that changes soon enough as he starts exploring the place: He's on a Mechanist prison island run by the tyrannical and much-hated warden, Dagobert Trumpet. A plan starts to come together where Garrett may find unexpected allies willing to do the dirty work for him...

If you are fans of kfort's missions, where zany stuff meets quality taffing, then you're in for a treat, as this FM has a little bit of everything. You'll be swimming in shit, you'll be climbing obscene heights, you'll be dodging ED-209's, you'll trick a security system into turning on its master, you'll listen to a girl sing adorably about how drunk she is, you'll have to deal with an opera-singing mechbeast, you'll be using resurrection arrows and if you look in the right places you may find some truly amazing vantage points... even if it's just a living room window.

The FM does have two problems: It's currently plagued by several minor bugs which are scheduled to be fixed in an upcoming 1.1 release, so patient taffers might want to hold off on downloading. The second problem is that it's too tightly designed in places, the difficulty is a little on the higher side to begin with, but at the same side it offers multiple solutions to some of its problems. Some of the critters are also hyper-sensitive, I stepped gently on a metal threshold on the lower floor of a building and it woke everyone up on the upper floor.

Rating: 8/10. It currently needs some fine-tuning, but already it's obvious that it's good stuff.

 

[Psych0sis]

I'd have to disagree with rating it so highly. That's a big disservice to missions that actually have a certain quality to them and have phenomenal effort put into them. As it stands Looser is a fairly boxy, repetitive looking mission that's a bit too flat and a bit too wide and empty to be that enjoyable. Along with being pretty hideous and over-indulging in the use of custom resources for the sake of having them. The ending bits elevates the mission and is charming and cute, I'll give it that. And the arrow mechanic is very interesting.

The humor... Some may like it, but I don't. Le epic xd poop, fart, barf and sex jokes can only go so far. It gets to a point where it's just childish and vulgar. It almost saddens me that a grown man somewhere in his 30s (maybe even 40s, he's been working on this for almost 20 years) actually finds most of this stuff hilarious. This addled with the eye-rolling story of Dagobert Trumpet (how non-Americans can be so obsessed with our president always fascinates me) makes the mission a bit of a slog to get through. However, on a positive note, the mission is surely... Something. It leaves an impression, that's for sure. I'd recommend everyone try it out just for the "morbid curiosity" factor alone. I'd rate it 5/10.

By the way, I'm surprised you could write a whole diatribe about the innocuous ass-pinch conversation in one mission but just gloss over the le orange man bad narrative in this one.