Thief fan missions and campaigns

[Mikeal]

I just finished Black Parade and have question about ending,

Spoiler

Did they really used AI to voice Victoria in ending? Like seriously she sounded like an automate.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Not to my knowledge, no.

Spoiler

There's been a lot of kerfuffle over at TTLG about using AI-voices in FMs. Most people are against it.

 

[SharkClub]

There's been a lot of kerfuffle over at TTLG about using AI-voices in FMs. Most people are against it.

That sucks. There's been so many shitty Garrett imitations over the years in FMs which would be a lot better if they had Garrett AI voice acting.

 

[Socrates]

Remaster shalebridge cradle.

 

[Ialda]

Played a bunch recently.

words words words

Into The Odd
Amazing mission, I had heard a lot of hype around it but hadn't had the chance to play it yet. The complex maze of industrial machinery that lives just below the city streets and sewer systems is already pretty interesting and then you get to the fantastic and impressively unique spooky shrine below even that. Climbing up and down through these areas back to the city above was really immersive. The least interesting part of the mission for me was the actual manor location with the main objective, funnily enough, but none of this mission was bad by any stretch of the imagination.

T2X: Shadows of the Metal Age
Replayed it for the first time in about 15 years or something. I felt like I needed to refresh my opinion of it since it was the very first FM I ever played.
The level design is complex for the limitations of the non-NewDark Thief 2 engine, very high quality for the time and it does look very good by those standards. The level list has some real standouts in it. In particular Down Among Dead Men (the crypt robbing mission), The Cure (the sealed quarter hospital mission), the train segment of the Shadowing the Enemy is very unique (would have been preferred if it was extended and was made to be the entire mission) and A Question of Knowledge (Hammerite cathedral mission), of Ill Repute (Brothel Mission) and The Grand Hotel are all pretty good human-enemy missions, despite being a bit light on difficulty overall and lacking in real practical uses for the wealth of items you are offered the campaign as a whole is quite fun and definitely worth playing.

I liked the inclusion of the new arrow types, in particular the Ice Arrow for Majora's Mask-style ice platform freezing and platforming across water, that is a great idea for an addition to the Thief imsim formula, adds some potential to level design that can be taken advantage of in more different ways, I would love to see this Ice Arrow mechanic in some new FMs. Unfortunately in T2X it doesn't really do much with the levels to truly take advantage of the new arrow types and the potential they have to impact the game. Would have been much better for higher difficulty missions with more routes through them to have these extra arrow type options open to the player. Items-wise I think the levels are severely undertuned in difficulty (there is an overabundance of resources mostly), and the shop items selection is pretty damn weird (sometimes you'll be offered some absolutely useless items for what kind of mission you're on, water arrows on a map which has no torches worth dousing or something). You end every level with mountains of items you'll never use and the shops offer mountains of items you'll never use too.

The voice acting, characters, story and writing is all pretty much absolute garbage. Wow it's bad. Nothing about this fits Thief at all. A lot worse than I remembered it being but I was in my teens and had much less of an eye for quality in fan/indie projects back when I first played it, maybe I just memory holed it entirely because really all I did remember about T2X after this long was some of the levels.

Shadow of Doubt
Yes... I replayed it, there's something to be said for conquering some Thief PTSD and returning to something you know gave you a headache on your first time through it. After T2X's lack of difficulty I was really wondering if I should give Shadow of Doubt a retry, especially since I know that Schlock (whose missions I like) in particular has a fondness for Sperry's style. I applied some patches for some of the missions so they would work on NewDark and played through the entire thing on Expert (no kills allowed unless stated and no blackjack given, often forced ghosting as an objective forcing a reload) in one long ass 7 hour session. The first mission (Walking the Edge) still bugged out on me entirely and I was unable to finish it legitimately (objectives failed to update somewhere halfway through the mission so when the Hammers ambushed me in the streets the mission wouldn't end despite me having done what I know to be the objective), the embassy building on that level is extremely difficult to do without a blackjack and without alerting 20 guards and escaping. I ended up force-ending this mission since I'm 99% sure I actually did complete what the objectives would have been were they to update. Tears of Blood was okay aside from my general dislike for forced ghosting, it still has far far too many keys even though half of them aren't needed to finish the mission (there's something like 15 or so unique keys you have to cycle through). All Astir is very low detail and again very hard without a blackjack, making your way to the deck of the ship without having a pack of guards chasing you can take a little effort. Broadsword of Sheol is everyone's favorite one from this campaign and while I do like the atmosphere it sets up I'm still miffed about the brazier pressure plates to open that one door, along with some of the savescummy platforming required.

And then we get to Nightcrawler, where the entire campaign which is coasting along on an "okay" and sometimes even a "this is good/interesting" rating decides to shit its diaper and fall down the stairs. Nightcrawler is a fucking mess. It includes a billion keys forcing linear progression, some adventure-game tier puzzles that you are forced to engage with, forced ghosting on Expert so a lot of waiting around for guards to pass so you can go back and forth through this place and on top of all of that there's also an intentional softlock placed in the map where you can fall into the underground water reservoir and not be able to get out, so if you saved in that seemingly open area that doesn't lead anywhere (until later) you are stuck and forced to reload an earlier save or restart the mission entirely - now, I didn't get caught out by this one this time, because I already got caught by it last time and I remembered to make hard saves every five minutes, but it might be the biggest sin of all in this map. It's really impressive how Shadow of Doubt can take such a hard nosedive in quality right at the end. I also played the bonus mission included (Tuttocomb's Tomb) and it was mostly fine, it had a bit of an obscure puzzle with dousing a specific torch with a water arrow to access a necessary objective but it's nothing compared to Nightcrawler's jank, though I savescummed a lot on this level because it was really hard and I wanted to make the most of my gas mines (no blackjack, of course).

Ascend the Dim Valley
Lovely breath of fresh air. From the title you can probably guess that it's very vertical, which it is. I really liked navigating this mission though I don't have much to gush about for it. It looks very unique, is cool and it plays well despite the unique layout which has likely never been attempted in such a way before.

Brainchild
Another Sperry mission, after Shadow of Doubt I figured I may as well... This one is a sci-fi sort of thing in a giant industrial maze spaceship sort of thing? I don't know the deep lore but the concept itself is fascinating. It's full of long cramped hallways, pipes, jumping puzzles and the occasional respite in an open space. There are almost no enemies here and it's 90% exploration and finding your way out of this place (unfortunately via a bit of a keyhunt, I would have preferred more platforming). Going to go out on a limb here and say this mission itself lent a hand in inspiring the mechanical underground areas of Into The Odd, since I already know Schlock likes Sperry's stuff.

Shadow Play
A fairly standard mansion heist, did not take very long to beat and it was not very difficult but it is definitely nicely made. It's certainly not as impressive as some of Schlock's other missions but I still liked it.

In & Out
A fun romp. The mission has pretty much everything and I had to laugh at parts of it here and there. Very large and very fun to explore and it packs a campaign's worth of level variety into one mission. Good shit.

I've learned that it's a lot easier to get wordy about shit I don't like in a mission than things I do like. It feels like my praise for some of the things I enjoy in Fan Missions is just a couple of fleeting compliments and then when something makes me start malding I'll type an essay about it. It's also sad that the most memorable FMs for me are the ones I hated actually playing at the time. I still remembered the key hunting AIDS from Tears of Blood and Nightcrawler like it was yesterday, I was wise to Sperry's tricks upon revisiting that campaign because I was so sour on it before, but if you asked me what my favorite part of Endless Rain or whatever was I wouldn't be able to tell you aside from remembering that I liked playing it and that it's the quintessential atmospheric big open city level by Skacky.

Into the Odd is such a lovely mission, I think it's my favorite videogamey thing of the recent years. Such a good contrast between underground and aboveground sides of the mission, with a really great sense of attention to details and atmosphere. The second dive into darkness (the lockpicks one) can feel a little too much like a ghost train attraction, though. Overall I loved the mission, the only one I rated higher than TBP on Thief Guild so far. Alcazar is a bit similar (I love how the level design reminds me of Chinese gardening philosophy, or Japanese bonsais - the attention given to space is impressive), but has too many undeads.

Ascend the Dim Valley has less impressive texture work, but the vertical design of the architecture and of the whole mission is the best I have seen so far, almost make me want to see a Gormenghast fm one day. I didn't try to go after any secret, but I suspect there is something to be done about the swapped heirs ?

Thief 2X felt like a slop. Interesting from an historical perspective, and for how you can find in it some of the trends of the 2000's Thief fms scenes, but clearly outdated and surpassed by more recent stuff.
Shadow of Doubt I found unplayable.

I've also have been only playing Thief fms since the beginning of the year, ahah :

The Whistling of the Gears is a beautiful piece of medieval industrial hellscape on earth, the author perfectly nails that "Silent Hill, if you were a medieval serf living in it" feeling. Lots of interesting things to see and to do in it, but

spoiler

no sign of that serial killer on the loose apparently

?
Protip for this mission : go for the main objective first, you will get the opportunity to explore the setting later on.
Crack in the Glass : basically The Sword, if it was a cityscape mission. I had some incredible fun navigating (and, at time, getting lost in) it, my only complaint is that the environment doesn't really "tell" any interesting story.
Lost Among the Forsaken : That one was even more chaotic than TBP's The Brand.
Whispers below the Cobblestone : it was already a 8/10 mission for me at start because the district is so fun to explore, but the underground section take it litteraly to a whole new dimension that I wish more fms would take too.
Feat of Pilgrim/God Breaker : FoP was a great rooftop mission (I was really taken by surprise by.... what you find in the cathedral bell tower, loved it but I have no idea how to complete that objective - I've found several random artefacts during my exploration of the city, like a weird egg and a mystical relic, I suspcet they are related to it), but I'm stuck in the swamps of GB second mission and not sure how to or if I should even proceed...
Disorientation : I had so much fun with it, I can't believe it's a 2009 mission - the strolling bit above the canal is just perfect. I had lots of fun spotting how Purrah works influenced it, and how in turn Disorientation influenced fms that came after it... all the rest of Melan works are now next on my todo list.

I've only played T1 & T2 single missions so far, I need to go out of my confort zone and play more campaigns and TDM stuff...

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Ialda I'm impressed with your selection, you're really skimming off the top cream of Fan Missions.

Regarding "Godbreaker", the swamp-mission is a toughie due to getting around places. It was the first mission in a long time where I really had to use the compass to find things, the map somewhat helps in that regard. Past that there is a short cinematic mission, and then a nice, sprawling cityscape mission with a crippling gameplay element. If you can survive the swamps, and stomach that gameplay element, then you're in for something good as a finale.

Regarding Melan's FMs: DO IT. Play them all.

 

[Ialda]

@Ialda I'm impressed with your selection, you're really skimming off the top cream of Fan Missions.

I'm lucky enough that skimming this thread and reading all your past fms reviews (plus the ratings given on Thief Guild, which are often more than fair) is more than enough to get a good impression of which fms to play and which ones to avoid, so thanks a lot for your work !
I was a bit afraid at first that playing only top-rated fms would spoil me on the long term, especially with older fms... and then I played 2005 Thieves' Highway and was blasted away by how good a rooftop mission it was given its age.

I will try to give another try to GB if you say so... I will just skip the second mission if I can't get around to finish it

But yeah, Melan stuff should come first ! I was just lazy to redo my key bindings on TDM to mirror my T1/T2 ones before playing the Talbot missions.

 

[Beastro]

In the middle of playing through Endless Rain and have some thoughts.

The mission is a good example of too much of a good thing. It just keeps going on and on, more spots to discover, on and on. It's a bit maddening to find a fork in the road, take one and it just goes on until I struggle to remember where I retrance where the fork once was when I've exhausted that one path. For once I've been played out of Thief and am calling it a day and will keep going tomorrow.

After playing TBP, I can see skakys style in this and I've come to realize something that bugged me in TBPs street missions as well that is more obvious here: going from spot to spot high up you quickly realize the layout isn't very organic and you get a sense of paths being deliberately laid out by a designer for you to follow along. The TBP ones are slightly better designed, as you'd expect, but they're still quite easy to spot which ruins the sense that this is a meandering city of buildings built up without any planning. Thieves Highway only had that in the sense that the map very much felt A to B as you went along, but the mounting and other activity felt more integrated with the randomness of the city itself.

It's a small thing to complain about for such a good mission, but still, I don't like aimlessly wandering from place to place grabbing whatever there is along the way. The verisimilitude of robbing high above the city streets is lost when you feel like you're more someone stumbling through a network of underground tunnels high up in the sky than finding novel ways of breaking into specific buildings full of loot.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I get what you're saying; if you play skacky's missions in sequence you can learn to spot where the intended paths go.

But you're forgetting one thing: Gravity. It's kinda hard to make a path of travel in mid-air and make it look like organic cityscape. It's easier the closer one is to the ground, but unless a means of flying is implemented, or skacky finally adds that teleportation thingie from Haplo's "Insanity's Crescendo", I think that's as good as it's gonna get.

 

[Beastro]

I get what you're saying; if you play skacky's missions in sequence you can learn to spot where the intended paths go.

But you're forgetting one thing: Gravity. It's kinda hard to make a path of travel in mid-air and make it look like organic cityscape. It's easier the closer one is to the ground, but unless a means of flying is implemented, or skacky finally adds that teleportation thingie from Haplo's "Insanity's Crescendo", I think that's as good as it's gonna get.

I think I have been playing em in sequence. I started with Between These Dark Walls.

Maybe, at least for maps as big as he likes. There are good spots that do feel organic. I noticed one out of the way jump that didn't seem intended and found a big stash tucked around a corner. That was one discovery I felt good finding because it blended in compared to the "paths" and you could have easily ran past it if you were just going to the next window to leap into.

 

[Ialda]

For what it's worth, I think I liked Between These Dark Walls and Shadow Politics better than latter Skacky's missions like Chalice of Souls, Sound of a Burrick or Endless Rain. But, as a Thief fm beginner, I'm probably biased toward "simpler" maps.

As you say, too much of a good thing. Cityscape/Thieves highway missions being all about 3D exploration and spotting not obvious passages, it can be hard to find the perfect balance and design a map were every path feels really organic but as same time relevant to your main objective or the "narrative" of the map. I absolutely loved Melan's work on Rose Garden and how maybe 2/3 of the readables/NPCs you stumble upon in this mission are related to stuff that happens in the second part of the fm.

 

[Losus4]

Tried Black Parade, got lost in the second level and couldn't find my way back out. Uninstalled, deleted and will never play again. The Dark Mod is still the quintessential Thief experience.

 

[Renault]

You're doing the whole apples/oranges thing there. TBP and Thief are games, The Dark Mod is just an editor and a toolset.

 

[Beastro]

Tried Black Parade, got lost in the second level and couldn't find my way back out. Uninstalled, deleted and will never play again. The Dark Mod is still the quintessential Thief experience.

Your loss then.

Second mission is annoying and probably My least favourite one (relatively speaking), but the issue for me was it being so open, not necessarily being confusing.

Go in any one direction and you'll find a way out besides a handful of dead ends. If you doubt me, peek around and you'll find some secret door.

 

[Beastro]

So on with more missions.

Tried Whispers Beneath the Cobblestones. I didn't like how railroaded you are to approach getting into the Undercity even though I understand having played it now why it was made that way. I know I complained about TBP that some missions had too many entrances, but forcing only one in the way it did is annoying (Contrast it with Cragscleft where it's understandably established why there's no other alternatives). Despite that, I enjoyed the Undercity itself and how well it replicated the feeling of a living area underground. My only criticism of the city is that it doesn't get its own mission where it can be fully focused on.

Also noticed the mission's creator really loves little statue loots. Most I've ever seen were in this mission. Just everywhere.

Now I tried (and still am midway through by the looks of it) The Sound of a Burrick in a Room. At first the mission pissed me off. I quickly found a way to mount up onto roofs only to encounter something I have never faced before in any Thief mission: invisible walls in the middle of the mission map. I can understand those on the edges, but you DO NOT put those anywhere in a mission itself. It goes against the very spirit of Thief as a game and reminds me how I knew Everquest was dead when they start putting those into new maps (before if you were smart enough you could get around to many different places you weren't expected as a player to get to).

After that, I dreaded the rest of the map, but I came to quickly love it. The roof to roof high up stuff in this mission does what Endless Rain and TBP missions failed to pull off that I complained about before. You don't get anywhere near the sense of being led around from roof to roof, window to window in a confusing fashion. Instead, you do feel aimless but not disoriented nor babied. I've been having a lot of fun going around on a whim and finding numerous paths. I have no yet run into a fork that feels like I'm going to be screwed, though I've run across several hidden areas that led back to previous spots that I'd been to. A very enjoyable time I must say, though still have a good ways to go.

Also liked this little note that adds connection to TBP and is interesting to see playing skaky's missions after playing that first:

 

[Be Kind Rewind]

Tried Black Parade, got lost in the second level and couldn't find my way back out.

Getting lost is a big part of the Thief experience until you learn the layout of a level, with that said Nigger Parade was a pretty bad experience like with most fan content these types of games get. What made Thief so great was the absence of clutter and the clear design language, after the engine update removed engine restrictions the mappers and modders went batshit and started introducing much more messy designs and level clutter, as well as bloating missions far too much. People don't want to hear this, but the natural conclusion to the trajectory of Thief's fan developments is Oblivion or Skyrim, or any AAA open world slop with the interactive parts being highlighted.

Every mission of the Nigger Parade is like a parody of the original Thief levels, answering the question what developers might do if they hadn't publisher, time, and economic restrictions put on them, which isn't actually a better work but a much less focused mess that goes on for way too long and is inferior in pretty much every way. Except that one fast running catacomb spook, that was neat, and the re-introduced cut enemies, they were fine. It's pretty telling that the most enjoyable mission in the pack was the reconstruction of the Keeper compound from the shitshow that was Thief: Deadly Shadows, maybe mostly due to the favorable comparison with the source material there.

 

[Andronovo]

Tried Black Parade, got lost in the second level and couldn't find my way back out.

Getting lost is a big part of the Thief experience until you learn the layout of a level, with that said Nigger Parade was a pretty bad experience like with most fan content these types of games get. What made Thief so great was the absence of clutter and the clear design language, after the engine update removed engine restrictions the mappers and modders went batshit and started introducing much more messy designs and level clutter, as well as bloating missions far too much. People don't want to hear this, but the natural conclusion to the trajectory of Thief's fan developments is Oblivion or Skyrim, or any AAA open world slop with the interactive parts being highlighted.

Every mission of the Nigger Parade is like a parody of the original Thief levels, answering the question what developers might do if they hadn't publisher, time, and economic restrictions put on them, which isn't actually a better work but a much less focused mess that goes on for way too long and is inferior in pretty much every way. Except that one fast running catacomb spook, that was neat, and the re-introduced cut enemies, they were fine. It's pretty telling that the most enjoyable mission in the pack was the reconstruction of the Keeper compound from the shitshow that was Thief: Deadly Shadows, maybe mostly due to the favorable comparison with the source material there.

Never in my life have I heard or did I think I would hear someone refer to Thief as a "clutter free game". The clutter is deliberately part of the experience.

 

[Andronovo]

In the middle of playing through Endless Rain and have some thoughts.

The mission is a good example of too much of a good thing. It just keeps going on and on, more spots to discover, on and on. It's a bit maddening to find a fork in the road, take one and it just goes on until I struggle to remember where I retrance where the fork once was when I've exhausted that one path. For once I've been played out of Thief and am calling it a day and will keep going tomorrow.

After playing TBP, I can see skakys style in this and I've come to realize something that bugged me in TBPs street missions as well that is more obvious here: going from spot to spot high up you quickly realize the layout isn't very organic and you get a sense of paths being deliberately laid out by a designer for you to follow along. The TBP ones are slightly better designed, as you'd expect, but they're still quite easy to spot which ruins the sense that this is a meandering city of buildings built up without any planning. Thieves Highway only had that in the sense that the map very much felt A to B as you went along, but the mounting and other activity felt more integrated with the randomness of the city itself.

It's a small thing to complain about for such a good mission, but still, I don't like aimlessly wandering from place to place grabbing whatever there is along the way. The verisimilitude of robbing high above the city streets is lost when you feel like you're more someone stumbling through a network of underground tunnels high up in the sky than finding novel ways of breaking into specific buildings full of loot.

This is what bugs me about Melan style missions. It's difficult to go anywhere deliberately, there's no sense of openness. Everything's locked off until you fine the cheeky mantle spot or rope arrow spot. So I end up just wandering having no idea where I am. I like to plan things out and this completely borks that. I like city sprawls, but they have to give me a sense of freedom to feel satisfying. The Painter's Wife is the best example I know of this.

 

[Melan]

Git gud.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Two new FMs have been released in recent weeks, and somehow I failed to notice until now.

Note that both FMs are for Thief 1/Gold, which is a welcome change of pace.

"Rogue's Lair" (by Vegetables) has Garrett planning a simple heist at a noble's manor, only to find someone beat him to the punch. A short walk later uncovers the culprits - but also so much more.

It scores no points for being original, but at least it scores points on doing things proper. This is a take on the "Thieves Guild" OM that feels a little too similar at first, but that feeling quickly drops (along with Garrett) once the eponymous lair is discovered. A healthy mix of atmosphere, architecture and level design helped keep me interested throughout, and nosey taffers may find a little more than they bargained for in a remote corner. That corner aside (along with a couple of 'household pets') is all the diversity this FM has to offer for its rogue's gallery, otherwise it's just a long line of patrolling thieves.

Rating: 7.5/10. If you haven't had your fill of the Thieves Guild this is well worth your time, otherwise you might want to save it for later.

"A Thief's Training" (by Snake) stars Garrett in his early days taking a job from Cutty where he's to intercept a couple of thieves before they can commit whatever heist they're planning.

This one surprised me in several ways. The opening area certainly captures that slightly janky feeling of early-era FMs, as the place looks weird and feels weirder as none of the critters are immediately hostile. But it's only when I got beyond that area that I realized that the jankiness was by design. The "area beyond" sports upstanding architecture, proper Thief-gameplay and a sense of comfortable familiarity. Like "Rogue's Lair" this FM is a take on an OM, but I'll leave it to the player to discover which one, as that proved to be the biggest surprise for me.

What really caught me off-guard is the loot amount and secrets - unusually for a T1/G-FM this one tracks the number of secrets (nine in total) and they are not easy to find, putting this at a tier higher than "Rogue's Lair".

Rating: 8/10. This one has a high chance of going into the all-time classics for some.

At least this Easter is full of taffing!

 

[Ialda]

"Rogue's Lair" (by Vegetables) has Garrett planning a simple heist at a noble's manor, only to find someone beat him to the punch. A short walk later uncovers the culprits - but also so much more.

It scores no points for being original, but at least it scores points on doing things proper. This is a take on the "Thieves Guild" OM that feels a little too similar at first, but that feeling quickly drops (along with Garrett) once the eponymous lair is discovered. A healthy mix of atmosphere, architecture and level design helped keep me interested throughout, and nosey taffers may find a little more than they bargained for in a remote corner. That corner aside (along with a couple of 'household pets') is all the diversity this FM has to offer for its rogue's gallery, otherwise it's just a long line of patrolling thieves.

Rating: 7.5/10. If you haven't had your fill of the Thieves Guild this is well worth your time, otherwise you might want to save it for later.

I suspect the idea was to remix that OM like you said, but with the bulk of the mission set in a environment straight out of Dark Souls 1.
I wonder if someone will do a Bloodborne fm one day...

Really liked "A Thief's Training" and its twist, some nice puzzles, and the environment was more interesting to explore that what I feared. And I love fms set during the day, completely different atmosphere.

 

[Raskens]

Anywhere I can find a list of FMs by authors? If I want to find a list of FMs that Skacky, Melan etc. made where do I look? I've tried cheap thief fan missions and thiefguild but they are not up to date it seems like. I also checked the ttlg forums, but my account is not acitvated so I cannot really search nor enter profiles.

 

[Scrounger]

Try again thiefguild! For example, try this link:

Spoiler

https://www.thiefguild.com/fanmissi...&genre=all&original_games=fms_oms&author=5239

On your right side you will find a board and there you will find a part with "Author:". Just scroll and choose whichever author you need. I hope that helps!

 

[Demo.Graph]

I've lost my virginity and played Thief FMs for the first time. The Black Parade (TBP) 1 and 2.

Mission 1 - 3 hours, 1500/1700 gold, all pockets.
It was a blast. It's as if I'm playing a proper Thief again. I'm a total sucker for open city missions, but there weren't that many in Gold/2 to begin with. Verticality, variedness, everything was great.
But, and there's always but, I found this FM to be slightly off the Thief vibe as I remember it.

minor spoilers

Technological level is overblown. I considered the setting of TG to be more medieval and less rennaissance, it moved to a kinda early rennaissance in T2. In TBP technology (generators, lightbulbs, etc.) is everywhere.
In the beginning a servant and a grocer discuss how authorities spoil the money, later it's revealed that it's a popular topic in some newspapers. IIRC, there were no newspapers in Thief; there probably is printing press, but it's not cheap enough for mass printing to exist. And of course the majority of people didn't use silver and/or gold money at all, so they should have almost no knowledge about it.
One of the leaflets mentions that readers shouldn't travel through region X because of brigands; that's not a newspaper topic, but rather a topic for military leaflets or something. And I don't like the implication that tourism is prevalent enough for cityfolk to do it en masse.
The buildings are too tall. Without elevators there's no sense making them so tall. And why all the chains hang between buildings? Original Thief was flatter and more down to earth.
The slang is too modern sometimes: crash ("rest"), shitehole. And I really don't dig the way they use "taff" and its derivatives - devs are using it as "fuck" substitute, while I think it had a different connotation in vanilla.

And while I totally understand the coolness factor and the desire to outdo Thief, too much epicness dilutes the setting. It's as if Frodo on Weathertop used ghostbuster proton pack.

Mission 2 - 3 hours, 2000/2500 gold, all pockets.
I don't for the life of me understand where the last 500 gold are hiding. I have probably missed the whole area or several.

Great mission, had a blast as well. Got lost in the mansion many times, even after running through it repeatedly.
I really like the bright red-green aesthetic. And the bag-wrapped body in one of the closets. And the shadow mansion in the roots of the earth.
Again, I find the tone of the mission to be off, way "cooler" than in vanilla.

not so minor spoilers

While Constantine's mansion began normally (well, maybe except for some unusually shaped windows) and gradually began weirder, this mission is wyrd in your face. All the geometry is wrong from the get go, but locals seem to be ok with it for some reason.
I think that the idea was to add more "human" blend to pagan theme (as opposed to natural, elemental and grassy tone of original pagans) and to Trickster and it worked: bookshelves, beds, multiple "thronerooms" and even mechanist tech look delightfully outlandish. But in this case, the ground floor of the mansion should've been more mundane.
To the contrary, there shouldn't have been guards in the lower sanctum. It had such a nice prepping that common schmucks look out of place. There should've been satyrs that eat and fuck your face off. Even spiders and ball elementals would've been more fitting.
Speaking about fucking, again, I find that mentions of nudity and lewd stuff were too open. The note about actress nudity was closer to thiaf dangerhair-induced cockrings than the originals - they were much more subtle in this regard. Again, it is a "cooler" and "more modern" approach.
Also on the topic of coolness: if Trickster lair is so outlandish in this mission, what, from the fluff point, made it to be more deflated in vanilla? And also, the protag lacks Garrett's Keeper training. Why does he continue with the mission when he sees all the weird stuff almost from the beginning? Real thug would've bailed out to find a saner target, unless he was cut off.

Oh, and is it me or the loot is very sparce? The levels are huge, larger than vanilla (at least the mansion felt much larger than Constantine's mansion from The Sword). Loot is handed out in one-two pieces. It was okay in the first mission because it largely happened in a poor part of town (though even there I've thought that there could've been more loot in, e.g. alchemist's workshop). But in the mansion there should've been at least some "hoard" moments, like when you're getting to the treasury or armoury and feverishly click through it like you're in Diablo.

 

[Beastro]

I've lost my virginity and played Thief FMs for the first time. The Black Parade (TBP) 1 and 2.

Mission 1 - 3 hours, 1500/1700 gold, all pockets.
It was a blast. It's as if I'm playing a proper Thief again. I'm a total sucker for open city missions, but there weren't that many in Gold/2 to begin with. Verticality, variedness, everything was great.
But, and there's always but, I found this FM to be slightly off the Thief vibe as I remember it.

minor spoilers

Technological level is overblown. I considered the setting of TG to be more medieval and less rennaissance, it moved to a kinda early rennaissance in T2. In TBP technology (generators, lightbulbs, etc.) is everywhere.
In the beginning a servant and a grocer discuss how authorities spoil the money, later it's revealed that it's a popular topic in some newspapers. IIRC, there were no newspapers in Thief; there probably is printing press, but it's not cheap enough for mass printing to exist. And of course the majority of people didn't use silver and/or gold money at all, so they should have almost no knowledge about it.
One of the leaflets mentions that readers shouldn't travel through region X because of brigands; that's not a newspaper topic, but rather a topic for military leaflets or something. And I don't like the implication that tourism is prevalent enough for cityfolk to do it en masse.
The buildings are too tall. Without elevators there's no sense making them so tall. And why all the chains hang between buildings? Original Thief was flatter and more down to earth.
The slang is too modern sometimes: crash ("rest"), shitehole. And I really don't dig the way they use "taff" and its derivatives - devs are using it as "fuck" substitute, while I think it had a different connotation in vanilla.

And while I totally understand the coolness factor and the desire to outdo Thief, too much epicness dilutes the setting. It's as if Frodo on Weathertop used ghostbuster proton pack.

Mission 2 - 3 hours, 2000/2500 gold, all pockets.
I don't for the life of me understand where the last 500 gold are hiding. I have probably missed the whole area or several.

Great mission, had a blast as well. Got lost in the mansion many times, even after running through it repeatedly.
I really like the bright red-green aesthetic. And the bag-wrapped body in one of the closets. And the shadow mansion in the roots of the earth.
Again, I find the tone of the mission to be off, way "cooler" than in vanilla.

not so minor spoilers

While Constantine's mansion began normally (well, maybe except for some unusually shaped windows) and gradually began weirder, this mission is wyrd in your face. All the geometry is wrong from the get go, but locals seem to be ok with it for some reason.
I think that the idea was to add more "human" blend to pagan theme (as opposed to natural, elemental and grassy tone of original pagans) and to Trickster and it worked: bookshelves, beds, multiple "thronerooms" and even mechanist tech look delightfully outlandish. But in this case, the ground floor of the mansion should've been more mundane.
To the contrary, there shouldn't have been guards in the lower sanctum. It had such a nice prepping that common schmucks look out of place. There should've been satyrs that eat and fuck your face off. Even spiders and ball elementals would've been more fitting.
Speaking about fucking, again, I find that mentions of nudity and lewd stuff were too open. The note about actress nudity was closer to thiaf dangerhair-induced cockrings than the originals - they were much more subtle in this regard. Again, it is a "cooler" and "more modern" approach.
Also on the topic of coolness: if Trickster lair is so outlandish in this mission, what, from the fluff point, made it to be more deflated in vanilla? And also, the protag lacks Garrett's Keeper training. Why does he continue with the mission when he sees all the weird stuff almost from the beginning? Real thug would've bailed out to find a saner target, unless he was cut off.

Oh, and is it me or the loot is very sparce? The levels are huge, larger than vanilla (at least the mansion felt much larger than Constantine's mansion from The Sword). Loot is handed out in one-two pieces. It was okay in the first mission because it largely happened in a poor part of town (though even there I've thought that there could've been more loot in, e.g. alchemist's workshop). But in the mansion there should've been at least some "hoard" moments, like when you're getting to the treasury or armoury and feverishly click through it like you're in Diablo.

News of that weirdness would have reached the Hammers and they'd have invaded that place and made an example of such an overt Pagan noble. They would not tolerate such a prominent figure displaying such large Pagan structure in the middle of the City, and it's not like the Skaky's take on Thief has kept the Hammers a small, niche sect as you highlighted in the first mission review: tech is everywhere, it all comes from them and that blends perfectly with the profusion of large, prominent Hammerite buildings all over the City.

Interesting to see how much your reviews are echoing mine. I too ran into that feeling that the mansion needed critters, and the wonderful suspense and atmosphere it had built up and kept building as I went in deeper evaporated once it dawned on me there was nothing but humans in the place.