Thief fan missions and campaigns

[Phil_Solid]

I did a remake of my mission Reverse Robbery. Fixed a few issues, added a lot more guards, loot and places to explore. The story behind the robbery, who did it, and why is more fleshed out as well.

TTLG forum link: https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=151720

Direct Download link here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4dgz6bhepyd89z3/ReverseRob_DirectorsCut.zip?dl=1

Should have called it the Snyder Cut really.

 

[Scrounger]

Hi Phil. Was this your first mission? I'm planning to do one very small mission myself so I've wanted to ask how was your experience with it...
Not sure if this is a good thread for it tho! :D

 

[Phil_Solid]

My third. Also released Forbidden Rites and Amoral Dilemma.

I really love working on Thief, but yeah starting small is a great idea. So many modders start out with huge grandiose plans and then we never hear from them again.

If you run into problems, just ask on the TTLG Editors Guild forum. Virtually every DromEd problem has been solved and answered there, or if not we can figure it out.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I did a remake of my mission Reverse Robbery. Fixed a few issues, added a lot more guards, loot and places to explore. The story behind the robbery, who did it, and why is more fleshed out as well.

TTLG forum link: https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=151720

Direct Download link here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4dgz6bhepyd89z3/ReverseRob_DirectorsCut.zip?dl=1

Should have called it the Snyder Cut really.

Be a bit more smug about it and we could call it the Snider cut. Eh? Eh?

 

[Scrounger]

TTLG Editors Guild forum

Will do! Thanks! I like the idea of small situations and adventures. I hope that I will do one that I have in mind

 

[Phil_Solid]

The "easiest" (in quotes because nothing in Dromed is easy) mission is one big building like First City Bank and Trust, or Sheriff Truart's mansion.

Cities can be hard. I would do something like one city block, look at the mission Durant for a good example. It's just a few buildings in a square but he packed a lot of content into that area.

Something like interconnected caves or an outdoor/forest area is VERY hard.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

"Reverse Robbery" by RippedPhreak (who I suspect is Phil_Solid here, so I'm including them here.)

Garrett is in a pickle; someone has broken into a bank and he's involved - but as a customer and not a bank robber. The City Watch will conduct a thorough search in the morning to check if anything was stolen from the bank, which will inevitably lead to them finding Garrett's illegally-gained stash in one of the safeboxes. That can't happen, so Garrett sets out in the middle of the night to rob the bank of his own possessions - hence the title.

And now, exactly one year later, the 'Director's Cut' is out and I've finally slogged through it. (It's been a while since I've spent 4.5 hours in-game on a Thief FM.)

tl;dr - It's more of the same. A well-designed mission with plenty of content, a sprawling cityscape, challenges aplenty, and lots of minor annoyances.

What used to be 17 secrets are now 24 secrets. (I found 21.)

What used to be ~6100 loot is now 8359 loot. (I've found 7909.)

There are some new areas to explore, but the only core change I noticed is to one of the puzzles in St. Stefan's tomb.

Oh, and there are two hidden objectives. One involves dropping an item off at the right place, but the other one requires more straightforward actions to permanently remove the competition.

Some of the annoyances from last year seem to have been addressed. Doors can now be told apart as (un)frobbable, and the first part of St. Stefan's tomb is more 'user-friendly'. (Shame that the second part is not, but you can't win 'em all.)

Improvements have also been made in the readables. The clues they contain can be very subtle, and they're overall much more helpful and paint a better picture.

One minor technical problem I came across is that the ambient music inside the church was too loud - it needs to be toned down a tad.

The only slightly spoiler-ish tip I'm gonna give is this: There's an NPC walking about with a very long patrol route. Try mapping his entire route before knocking him out.

Overall, this FM now counts as a 8/10 to me. It's a challenging one and I recommend saving before every risky jump - and there are plenty of those.

Otherwise, I give my applause to the author, and look forward to his next work. :D

 

[Unkillable Cat]

The second 'Thief Ambiance Contest" is out, give it a try and see how well you fare:



And there's also a new Thief 1 FM out, 'Elemental Excursion' which I'll be taking a look at later.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

"Elemental Excursion" is an old, dusty FM who got pulled out of storage and released. It's a tiny (only three buildings!) mission where you need to recover a canister from a workshop and a valuable scroll from an inn. It's pretty straightforward (except you don't have any lockpicks) but there's an optional objective to 'supreme ghost' the mission - and that's where things go a little too far. With supreme ghosting in mind, it's a carefully-crafted exercise in frustration - 'Gotcha!'-traps, custom AI-behavior, too many metal surfaces, patrol routes you can't observe unless using Trial and Error, and (of course) in-game mechanics abused to artificially inflate the difficulty.

Fortunately almost all of it is forgivable due to the small size of the mission and interesting use of architecture.

If you're looking for something meaty to keep you occupied you might want to give this a pass, but if you're looking for a short ghosting challenge, look no further.

 

[Curratum]

Sure, you're all pretty cool in this thread, but are you all THIS cool? :D

Spoiler

 

[Mechs Delight]

In other news, everyone's favorite FM author (Cardia) recently released another, er, "fan mission." For Thief Gold, yet. Will wonders never cease?

 

[toughasnails]

So what is exactly wrong with his FMs? I never tried any of them. In this case it as kinda off that it is a TDP FM without going for fidelity to TDP's visuals or mood, the screens on Dark Fate make it look more like a contemporary Thief 2 FM.
https://www.darkfate.org/view/detai...ief1/bracelet_of_melody/screenshots#pp[1]/11/
That said it looks p nice.

 

[Curratum]

Tried this a while ago. All audio and voices were in French and there was a lot of loud intrusive "ambient" music. Deleted in a few minutes.

 

[Max_b5]

It's yet another Cardia mission with all its qualities (you decide whether that's good or bad). Only play it for the comedic value of some of the readables if you don't mind the cringe.

 

[JarlFrank]

Cardia makes a lot of missions, but the quality is generally around average, not great not terrible. The worst part is that despite his impressively big catalogue of finished FMs, he still hasn't learned any lessons. His new FMs are just as mediocre as his old ones.

There are authors out there who refined their style over the years, with clear improvements between each release. Christine's missions may not be to everyone's taste, but it is undeniable that her new FMs are qualitatively much better than her early work, and when you play through all of her FMs chronologically you can see her style evolve with each release. Then there are authors like Melan or nicked, who started out strong and then just build upon these strengths in future releases.

You can't see any of that in Cardia's FMs. He makes the exact same mistakes again and again. There is no development in his style. It's all the same blandness over and over.

 

[Mechs Delight]

Speaking of Cardia, I just made a short attempt to play his latest (against my better judgment). To cut a long story short, this might be his worst mission ever and that's obviously saying a lot.

 

[tentanz]

Cardia makes a lot of missions, but the quality is generally around average, not great not terrible. The worst part is that despite his impressively big catalogue of finished FMs, he still hasn't learned any lessons. His new FMs are just as mediocre as his old ones.

There are authors out there who refined their style over the years, with clear improvements between each release. Christine's missions may not be to everyone's taste, but it is undeniable that her new FMs are qualitatively much better than her early work, and when you play through all of her FMs chronologically you can see her style evolve with each release. Then there are authors like Melan or nicked, who started out strong and then just build upon these strengths in future releases.

You can't see any of that in Cardia's FMs. He makes the exact same mistakes again and again. There is no development in his style. It's all the same blandness over and over.

Sounds Chad af

 

[Nixheb]

Holy fokin molly, just tried to find a review of Cardia missions on youtube just for a quick peeping session without the trouble of installing some shit and, HO MY : "the voice are in french" => ho boy, they are in french AND they are shitty stupid chitty-chatty, random crappy mashup of sitcom discussions, excerpts from bad Z movies, or even Macron (the french president) debates (half fake). Somebody said "cringe" ? That's the absolute perfect definition of it.
I'm always flabbergasted when I witness someone who mix and match masterpiece things with bad, half backed, retardo-like jackass humour. It's too much "grand écart" for me.

(For whoever is curious and is a native french speaker, one excerpt : https://youtu.be/YiQzCS7K6nY?t=313 )

 

[Mechs Delight]

I've been thinking about my old first review about "into the Odd," and I'm now playing it (and using a lot of the save slots) to help me think of things to help treat my multiple neurological disorders. I'm also trying to get the rest of life in order, however.

 

[Scrounger]

I hope you're gonna be well Mech, playing FM missions (and thiefs in general) is sometimes very meditative experience.

 

[Mechs Delight]

You can say that again, Scrounger!

 

[Scrounger]

I hope you're gonna be well Mech, playing FM missions (and thiefs in general) is sometimes very meditative experience.

Spoiler

Joke's on side (but all is true) XD
As temperature becomes more bearable I've slowly started to hear Garret's whisper to arm up once again with the fresh supply of crystal water and rope arrows. It kinda feels unbelievable that I had such a nostalgic trip playing FMs starting from the end of 2019 and the whole 2020, almost like a trip to childhood...
Now that you've mentioned Into the Odd I'm feeling inclined to revisit Gaëtane's L'Arsene series which I really liked despite some of it's faults. That could be some good opportunity for a small review as well

 

[Mechs Delight]

The Perdurance: Such an annoying mission: godlike monsters, VERY few options to defend yourself, it's like Into the Odd's Mechanist-themed little brother (despite the nice, tense atmosphere). For masochists and die-hard survival horror fans only.

 

[octavius]

Just completed The Inventor's Tower for Thief 2.
Looking back in this thread I see that it's the first FM I have really enjoyed in almost two years, but it was released only six months later. So playing games, including user-made content chronologically, I've use two years to cover May to November 2001.

The FM was made for a contest (KOMAG Contest 2) and is rather small. It ended down on an 11th place out of 16 entries, so unless the contest was for the most avant garde mission, there must be some masterpieces in the first ten placed. I've really missed solid, traditional Thief FMs that I can finish in one sitting, so this was just what I neede. It's not very hard, has a nice storyline and decent atmosphere.

 

[Melan]

Sadly, a lot of those contests put bling over story, and story over gameplay. The first place may as well be taken by some story-heavy keyhunt or such.