Thief fan missions and campaigns

[JarlFrank]

It was one of the first FMs I played, based on Unkillable Cat's recommendations over a decade ago. IIRC I played it right after A Servant's Life

Really enjoyed it back in the day, when the world of Thief FMs was new to me and a massive mansion like that had a big wow factor. But when I replayed it years later I noticed its flaws. Still, not bad overall, just way too ambitious for what it is.

 

[JarlFrank]

Played through Making a Profit, another 20th anniversary FM I hadn't played yet for some reason.

Absolutely excellent. Big city mission, sadly there are too few buildings that can be entered, but the architecture... man, it's something else. Perfectly captures the Thief 1 vibe while going a step beyond with shapes and textures. Top notch. It features a Hammerite church, a mansion with Pagan touches, and an eerie crypt. Very, very good.

 

[hibby]

Played through Making a Profit, another 20th anniversary FM I hadn't played yet for some reason.

Absolutely excellent. Big city mission, sadly there are too few buildings that can be entered, but the architecture... man, it's something else. Perfectly captures the Thief 1 vibe while going a step beyond with shapes and textures. Top notch. It features a Hammerite church, a mansion with Pagan touches, and an eerie crypt. Very, very good.

Thanks for the recommendation. Don't know how I missed this one.

I'm surprised you didn't mention all the custom voice work. There are several custom conversations, and many of the impressions of the stock TG voices are remarkably good (someone's Benny is spot on). There's also an animated briefing in the style of the original game, which is nice. You can tell a lot of love went into this thing.

What's cool about this mission is the scenario and its presentation. Making a Profit features a number of memorable scripted events, some of which change the map in small ways as you progress. You're made to backtrack at several points, and I found it impressive that this never feels like a slog the way it often does in other missions. The author has designed a fun and occasionally surprising adventure here.

Part of the reason backtracking never feels daunting is that the map is very simple. Its structure is a straightforward network of long city streets connecting 3-4 points of interest, which are themselves fairly small and easy to navigate. There aren't many difficult guard encounters, no tricky platforming, and the mission is very generous with gear, which means there aren't any challenges that you dread repeating. You also never linger in any one place too long, so it's hard to get sick of these locations before you have to revisit them. The result is fun enough, and not very demanding; while it has its intense moments, Profit is mostly a low-stress experience.

That said, I think the city portion is needlessly big. The breadth and length of the streets doesn't serve a discernible purpose, and there's not enough going on in the cemetery to justify its size. I also think the author could have exploited Thief's movement mechanics a little more. There's not much in the way of verticality, so when you traverse the city, you do so at ground level. When you go from one floor of a building to another, you typically use the stairs. There's little opportunity for rooftop climbing, vent crawling, and all that good stuff. In short, Garrett's perspective on this map is too similar to that of an NPC, and it takes some of the joy out of trespassing.

The size of the map does make for a lovely view when you make it up to the Lady's hilltop estate, though. While I was less enthusiastic about the quality of the architecture than you were, that low-poly vista made an impression on me.

 

[JarlFrank]

Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.

 

[luj1]

Played through Making a Profit, another 20th anniversary FM I hadn't played yet for some reason.

Absolutely excellent. Big city mission, sadly there are too few buildings that can be entered, but the architecture... man, it's something else. Perfectly captures the Thief 1 vibe while going a step beyond with shapes and textures. Top notch. It features a Hammerite church, a mansion with Pagan touches, and an eerie crypt. Very, very good.

Bro Thief or Thief II?

 

[JarlFrank]

Played through Making a Profit, another 20th anniversary FM I hadn't played yet for some reason.

Absolutely excellent. Big city mission, sadly there are too few buildings that can be entered, but the architecture... man, it's something else. Perfectly captures the Thief 1 vibe while going a step beyond with shapes and textures. Top notch. It features a Hammerite church, a mansion with Pagan touches, and an eerie crypt. Very, very good.

Bro Thief or Thief II?

That one is for Thief Gold, part of the Dark Project 20th Anniversary Contest

 

[luj1]

Played through Making a Profit, another 20th anniversary FM I hadn't played yet for some reason.

Absolutely excellent. Big city mission, sadly there are too few buildings that can be entered, but the architecture... man, it's something else. Perfectly captures the Thief 1 vibe while going a step beyond with shapes and textures. Top notch. It features a Hammerite church, a mansion with Pagan touches, and an eerie crypt. Very, very good.

Bro Thief or Thief II?

That one is for Thief Gold, part of the Dark Project 20th Anniversary Contest

Which Thief game do you prefer overall?

 

[JarlFrank]

Which Thief game do you prefer overall?

They're about equal for me, but the first has higher highs (and lower lows). Thief 2 is of more consistent quality but its missions aren't quite as memorable as Thief 1's.

Bonehoard, Cragscleft, Constantine's Manor, Lost City, Haunted Quarter... so many memorable places to explore. In T2 the missions feel a lot less unique, although I quite loved Life of the Party and the Bank mission.

The T2 style of mansion mission has been surpassed several times by various FMs; meanwhile T1 has missions so unique, they cannot be surpassed - merely imitated.

 

[Maggot]

Thief 2 is of more consistent quality

It's the other way around, except T1 still has the most memorable missions.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

I prefer Thief 2 as it is indeed more consistent, though I do agree that T1 had more highly memorable missions (Bonehoard, Lost City, Return to the Cathedral, Assassins). Life of the Party is IMO the best Thief mission overall though.

 

[hibby]

The T2 style of mansion mission has been surpassed several times by various FMs; meanwhile T1 has missions so unique, they cannot be surpassed - merely imitated.

I'm not so sure about this. Skacky's Endless Rain, The Sound of a Burrick in a Room, and several other missions not only polish the good stuff in Thief 1 to a mirror shine, but also build on it very effectively. I also saw a few people describe Shadow Play as a "Bafford's 2.0," and that's about right. It's beautiful and a joy to play.

The community collectively has around two decades of experience with Thief, and it shows. You can see how people learn from each other and refine the formula over time, and how they leverage the increase in map complexity that NewDark makes possible. I genuinely feel that Looking Glass would have built stuff a lot like this if they could have.

 

[Maggot]

Life of the Party is a prime example of T2's lack of consistency as you go from a heavily scripted thieves' highway to Angelwatch which has some of the worst brushwork in the series with extremely barren rooms.

 

[hibby]

In what way was Life of the Party heavily scripted?

 

[Maggot]

In what way was Life of the Party heavily scripted?

Heavily scripted is an exaggeration but you're stuck doing pretty much the same route every time through having to listen to the kooky conversations until you get to Angelwatch, which then has its own set of problems.

 

[JarlFrank]

The T2 style of mansion mission has been surpassed several times by various FMs; meanwhile T1 has missions so unique, they cannot be surpassed - merely imitated.

I'm not so sure about this. Skacky's Endless Rain, The Sound of a Burrick in a Room, and several other missions not only polish the good stuff in Thief 1 to a mirror shine, but also build on it very effectively. I also saw a few people describe Shadow Play as a "Bafford's 2.0," and that's about right. It's beautiful and a joy to play.

The community collectively has around two decades of experience with Thief, and it shows. You can see how people learn from each other and refine the formula over time, and how they leverage the increase in map complexity that NewDark makes possible. I genuinely feel that Looking Glass would have built stuff a lot like this if they could have.

The developments within FM design are quite fascinating to observe. I'm currently playing thorugh Jennivere De Ja Vu, the first FM of John Denison, released in 2003.
This year, he released Alterna Crystallis... which uses the same map layout, except everything is more highly detailed and more interesting to explore.

I love having this kind of direct comparison for an individual author's work. You can really see how far he's come in the 20 years since his first release.

It's also interesting to see how the quality of debut FMs has risen quite a lot compared to the early days. Most new authors these days release some pretty solid stuff for their first FM.

 

[hibby]

Heavily scripted is an exaggeration but you're stuck doing pretty much the same route every time through having to listen to the kooky conversations until you get to Angelwatch, which then has its own set of problems.

The first time I played LotP, I spent a good few hours just wandering around the city, lifting every rock to check for secrets and loot and rooms I hadn't seen before. It felt reasonably nonlinear, and I think it's telling that it started a whole genre of wide-open city playground missions.

One thing that deflates the mission a little is that while there are technically multiple entrances into Angelwatch, you reach them all from the front of the building. And the only way to reach the front of the building is through the rooftop following the apartment with the women in it. I get that it's all in service of that first view you get of the skyscraper with the looming angel statue, but nobody plays Thief for the setpieces -- forcing a player into a choke point like that is always going to feel wrong in this game.

It's also interesting to see how the quality of debut FMs has risen quite a lot compared to the early days. Most new authors these days release some pretty solid stuff for their first FM.

For sure. You can learn a lot by osmosis as you play FMs, so in a sense quality begets quality. It also helps that there's a lot of freely available level design theory on the internet now, some of it made by ex-LGS or Arkane developers. Lots of ways to supplement the learning process as you build your own stuff.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Heavily scripted is an exaggeration but you're stuck doing pretty much the same route every time through having to listen to the kooky conversations until you get to Angelwatch, which then has its own set of problems.

The first time I played LotP, I spent a good few hours just wandering around the city, lifting every rock to check for secrets and loot and rooms I hadn't seen before. It felt reasonably nonlinear, and I think it's telling that it started a whole genre of wide-open city playground missions.

One thing that deflates the mission a little is that while there are technically multiple entrances into Angelwatch, you reach them all from the front of the building. And the only way to reach the front of the building is through the rooftop following the apartment with the women in it. I get that it's all in service of that first view you get of the skyscraper with the looming angel statue, but nobody plays Thief for the setpieces -- forcing a player into a choke point like that is always going to feel wrong in this game.

I'm certain Looking Glass were aware of this, but you have to keep in mind the circumstances around Thief 2's release - the ending missions are kinda rough and they were working on Thief 2 Gold when they got shut down.

 

[hibby]

I'm certain Looking Glass were aware of this, but you have to keep in mind the circumstances around Thief 2's release - the ending missions are kinda rough and they were working on Thief 2 Gold when they got shut down.

Life of the Party isn't a rough ending mission though. It was in good shape early in the game's development, which is why it was used for the Uninvited Guest demo.

These kinds of structural issues are things you catch when you're still blocking your map out. I think because they hadn't portrayed a skyscraper in Thief before, they wanted you to approach it from a specific angle so as to make it as imposing as possible.

Your explanation is reasonable (maybe they rushed it and thereby made it hard to reverse decisions they didn't like). But given the fundamental structure of the mission and the tidbits I know about its development, it seems more like a conscious aesthetic decision. And it's not even a bad one -- the effect is definitely striking. It's just something I can imagine bothering someone when they describe it as a linear mission. But anyway, there's probably no way to know without asking Emil about it personally.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

"Life of the Party" could have had a better ending - my problem with it isn't the approach of Angelwatch, it's Angelwatch itself. It could have used more work.

The two following Cetus-missions aren't bad either, but the ones following those - man, those needed extra time in the oven.

 

[Jasede]

Oh yeah I'm replaying it right now so the missions are fresh in my mind. The first map is quite bad and looks like a fan mission with all the empty rooms without a purpose. I don't like the second map much either because it takes forever to open the gates individually.

I've got no issues with the game otherwise but have to agree that Thief 1 has higher highs and lower lows. People don't really remember Thief 2 maps and honestly I have no recollection at all of some of them. The only maps that people regularly praise are Life of the Party and the bank. The bank is great, no argument there, excellent map. But I can see what the guy meant when he called Life of the Party "scripted." For being such a large map it's very linear which is odd because it has all of these houses you can visit - but they're tiny. So it feels a lot like a loot theme park and less like one great cohesive map.

Think it could have been better as two individual missions, so each part is more fleshed out.

 

[Melan]

Well, these days, it obviously shows some aesthetic and structural weaknesses (in a way TDP classics don't). But remember that this was a mission developed for some really low-end hardware (I bought my first 3d card so I could play TMA), so it had to be ruthlessly optimalised. The Dark Engine allows for a maximum of 1024 polygons in view, but for scenes containing actual gameplay, the design suggestion is around 4-600. Try building a cityscape based on that restriction. And for that, Life of the Party is an enormous, sprawling mission with a lot of fun hidden stuff, numerous mini-stories, excellent progression, and a gameplay style that felt completely original and a high point of the Thief experience. It knocked off peoples' socks so much that it is one of the three most commonly cited and analysed Thief levels, next to Return to the Cathedral (the quintessential, graumatising horror mission) and The Cradle (same, although I think this one has aged much worse). It is not just important in Thief, but in broader game design, because everyone who played it was wowed by it.

Honestly, people who knock it are ingrates and should have their monocles revoked. It is like complaining about DooM having hitscan enemies.

 

[JarlFrank]

It knocked off peoples' socks so much that it is one of the three most commonly cited and analysed Thief levels, next to Return to the Cathedral (the quintessential, graumatising horror mission) and The Cradle (same, although I think this one has aged much worse).

RttC is so influential, in fact, that The Cradle - often praised as one of the best horror missions ever - is a mere knockoff that copies the Cathedral's structure almost to the letter, including a ghostly ally that sends you on three consecutive fetch quests. What it also does is strip away everything Thief (no Hammerites, no Pagans, no Mechanists, no Keepers; not even a connection to established worldly powers like the city guard or the Baron or the nobility) and replace it with the most generic horror level premise ever: 19th century style insane asylum with Mengele-style doctors who love to experiment on their inmates patients, combined with an orphanage, both of which scream GENERIC HORROR SETTING at the top of their lungs.

It doesn't fit into the Thief world. The only connection it has to the rest of the setting is that Gamall attacked a kid there once, and another kid who later became a Hammerite saw it.
The place itself is taken straight out of generic 19th century haunted institution fiction.
It could have been so easy to connect it with the bigger picture. An orphanage? The Hammerites might have founded it, as a charity organization might fit into their profile, especially if they recruit the kids into their ranks once they come of age (and Drept did join them after leaving the Cradle, so it fits perfectly). The insane asylum? Perhaps built later by the Mechanists, as they loved experimenting on human bodies, as the whole servant thing shows. Or perhaps something to do with the corrupt nobility or the extensive underworld.
But nope. No such connections exist. It is a straight-up generic horror location transplanted into the Thief world with little thought as to how it fits into the established structure of institutions.

IIRC, The Cradle was built by the author of The Inverted Manse, a fan mission inspired by Return to the Cathedral that managed to be quite atmospheric and interesting to explore.
The Cradle isn't even half as interesting as The Inverted Manse was. A clear example of DECLINE compared to the superior missions (RttC, TIM) that preceded it.

Disclaimer: I don't like generic horror games and am inherently biased against the Cradle

 

[hibby]

"Life of the Party" could have had a better ending - my problem with it isn't the approach of Angelwatch, it's Angelwatch itself. It could have used more work.

The two following Cetus-missions aren't bad either, but the ones following those - man, those needed extra time in the oven.

Sorry, given your quote I assumed you were referring to my critique of the approach.

What do you think is wrong with Angelwatch? I recall the flaws in being largely cosmetic.

It doesn't fit into the Thief world. The only connection it has to the rest of the setting is that Gamall attacked a kid there once, and another kid who later became a Hammerite saw it.
The place itself is taken straight out of generic 19th century haunted institution fiction.
It could have been so easy to connect it with the bigger picture. An orphanage? The Hammerites might have founded it, as a charity organization might fit into their profile, especially if they recruit the kids into their ranks once they come of age (and Drept did join them after leaving the Cradle, so it fits perfectly). The insane asylum? Perhaps built later by the Mechanists, as they loved experimenting on human bodies, as the whole servant thing shows. Or perhaps something to do with the corrupt nobility or the extensive underworld.

The way Thief 3 portrayed the factions in general was very wrongheaded. They were targeting a market where Thief was unknown, and so they tried very hard not to overwhelm new players with lore. That's fine in theory, but it's not like Thief 1 was lore-heavy either; the mystery of the setting was part of the appeal. Instead of showing the same restraint, they centred two-dimensional caricatures of the factions and had them fighting overt turf wars on the city streets, which is as implausible as it is boring. Even weirder, despite their central position in the game, neither the hammers nor the pagans seem to have a meaningful role in the city -- they're compartmentalized in their territory, and nothing further is done with them.

Contrast this with the way more recent FMs treat the factions as asymmetrical influences woven into the city's fabric. The hammers don't fight turf wars because the city is by definition their turf; they operate freely and openly, and every neighbourhood has a church. Pagans are deviant nobles and the marginal poor, and pagan shrines are secret, mysterious, and vaguely threatening.

At the same time, I think that connecting everything to Thief's factions would be a good way to make the world feel small. It's fine that the Cradle is haunted for its own reasons, and it's fine that it was a secular institution. The hammers aren't about charity or helping the desperate and infirm -- their character is industrious and punitive. Their idea of bettering society looks a lot like Cragscleft: purging your sins with corporal punishment, and teaching you the value of hard work. The more interesting thing about the haunted catherdral was that it participated meaningfully in the city's history, whereas the cradle comes out of nowhere, as you say.

IIRC, The Cradle was built by the author of The Inverted Manse, a fan mission inspired by Return to the Cathedral that managed to be quite atmospheric and interesting to explore.
The Cradle isn't even half as interesting as The Inverted Manse was. A clear example of DECLINE compared to the superior missions (RttC, TIM) that preceded it.

I played The Inverted Manse for the first time only recently, and I'm afraid I found that it hasn't aged well. I can see why it made a splash, but it's not good, merely good for the time. The Cradle actually plays like a Thief mission, and on that basis alone I'd rank it higher.

The Inverted Manse was by David Riegel, who did indeed work on Thief 3. However, as far as I know, the Shalebridge Cradle was designed by Jordan Thomas.

 

[JarlFrank]

At the same time, I think that connecting everything to Thief's factions would be a good way to make the world feel small. It's fine that the Cradle is haunted for its own reasons, and it's fine that it was a secular institution. The hammers aren't about charity or helping the desperate and infirm -- their character is industrious and punitive. The more interesting thing about the haunted catherdral was that it participated meaningfully in the city's history, whereas the cradle comes out of nowhere, as you say.

Absolutely, not everything has to be a part of the main story factions, but there should be some integration into the broader history.

The abandoned hospital in T2X is a pretty good example: founded by foreign healers (apparently from the same region as Zaya, the campaign's protagonist), the diaries you find there still reference Hammerites coming to visit and check the place out. They obviously have a problem with a foreign cult setting up a hospital, and only tolerate their presence reluctantly. Once bad things happen there, their reluctant tolerance turns into open hostility.

While T2X's new lore is a mixed bag overall and hasn't been adopted by the wider FM community, it does some things very well. It adds a lot of new locations and factions, but they all relate in some way to the City as a greater whole.
Zaya's cousin is attacked by bandits at the start of the campaign.
It turns out he was involved in smuggling, and the bandits considered him a rival.
The museum you rob at the start has the owner's diary mention that his old supplier vanished and he got an offer from new suppliers.
The smugglers are hiding from the Hammerites, and your way of defeating them is to plant evidence of their smuggling in the local Hammerite church.
Later you find out that the smugglers sold Zaya's cousin to the Mechanists to turn him into a servant.
Etc etc.

The storyline is focused on completely new characters and independent actors that don't have a direct connection to anything we've seen before, yet they are all connected to the established entities of the City.

Nothing like that with the Cradle. It doesn't tie into anything, it feels completely tacked on, as if it were cut content from an unrelated horror game repurposed into a Thief mission.

 

[hibby]

Nothing like that with the Cradle. It doesn't tie into anything, it feels completely tacked on, as if it were cut content from an unrelated horror game repurposed into a Thief mission.

For sure. As I recall, a lot of Thief 3's structure is these loosely connected ideas, with little of the complexity you describe. Even the Hag is only foreshadowed in the absolute loosest sense.

Regarding the "Mengele-style doctors," there's no reason why they couldn't have worked Thief's setting, which is malleable and anachronistic enough to accommodate them. But many of Thief's memorable idiosyncrasies stem from LGS turning well-worn archetypes on their heads. The Cradle doesn't ask "what could we do with this that hasn't been done before;" it plays all the ideas straight, and so feels like a transplant.