Thief fan missions and campaigns

[skacky]

The Seven Sisters rules. It was one of the first I played.

 

[Melan]

The Seven Sisters is the high water mark of Thief campaigns. I am sure there are more technical missions or whatever, but for a combination of scope, skill and atmosphere, it is the most balanced mission pack. There are individual missions I like more, but taken together, TSS wins.

 

[SCO]

In the seven sisters i missed the sword and when i had to navigate the tomb i was like 'seriously?'. The whole mission gave me genuine heart palpitations, no joke.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I had a go at Sensut's "The Bathory campaign", a 3-mission campaign that looks back upon the legend of Elizabeth Bathory.

While I enjoyed the first mission to the tone of a 8/10, the second one felt kinda flat and has a nasty bug where a plot-vital key goes *poof* and prevents all further progress, so 6/10 before counting the bug.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

A new T2 FM was released yesterday. "The Farm" has Garrett investigating a farm whose owner has suddenly become very rich for no discernible reason, and beefed up his security.

First impressions are not that good. Either I'm doing something wrong or the author cranked the Bloom up to 35. Seriously, the exterior area looks like the surface of the sun. The FM chugs along in the opening area as a result. I'm also hearing something about 3 endings and having to scour the area for crates as they're needed to progress further. The bad English ain't helping either.

I'm not feeling like doing this one, at least not now.

EDIT: Had another go. Scripted sequence, scripted sequence, scripted sequence, cutscene, TIMED sequence, cutscene, scrip- oh, to hell with this. Deleted.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Just before the holidays a T2 FM came out. "Kingsbridge" is a large FM where Garrett finds himself in a village that's succumbing to a plague. Guess who has to sort that out?

The "village" is larger than most cities I've seen in video games and it's all built out of the same sandstone blocks, so everything is yellowish-brown in colour. The architecture and layouts make sense and the objectives will keep players busy for quite a while.

But here's the thing...this FM not only felt uninteresting to me, it felt more like a chore and I just stopped playing some way through it. Let me give you an idea:

There are three counts who Garrett wants to steal a painting from. Each count has a different level of security, yet all of them saw a reason to make duplicates of the painting you want to steal. Frob the wrong painting and the alarm goes off, summoning guards to your position. Doing it once is kinda fun, but doing it three times just makes it tedious.

Then there's the matter of the plague. You must find the homes infested by the plague-victims (whom all just sit/lie around with flies buzzing around them), remove the pests and place flares outside their house. Then later on, once you finally discover how to cure the plague, you must find certain fireplaces and use items on those. Backtracking is a fact in this mission, particularly since you need to break back into the prison you just escaped from to get a plot-vital key!

There's a church with a anagram puzzle and some creepy "statues", harmless zombies, audiolog-readables and shops, but beyond that there's nothing about this mission except lots of identical-looking areas. For a T2 FM it's just...dull.

 

[skacky]

So, Soul Tear has released the first mission in his Keeper of Infinity campaign and it's a mixed bag. On the one hand you have an extremely beautiful mission with tons of stuff to discover, very moody streets with superb lighting, awesome textures and particle effects. Moving around the place is a joy, it feels very real and immersive. There are many little areas that will test your skills. On the other hand, however, the mission is frustratingly hard and not for the good reasons: several instances where you have to do really obscure stuff to progress, lots of small, almost unnoticeable items hidden in bizarre places that will almost always require you to use the hints on the thread on TTLG, the use of the crowbar that's not obvious at all (which is an item you MUST acquire and it's very very well hidden in an area that's already extremely hard to find and get to unless you think outside the box) and you'll scratch your head on some of the "puzzles", where the solution is often the weirdest and less obvious one. There's at least one area that opens only after you complete a certain objective, which is something I hate in Thief. There are many, many dead ends as well with tons of locked doors you just cannot open.

I can't say I'm disappointed because I know what to expect of Russian taffers (super hard and unforgiving missions that is), but for the moment I'm a bit fed up with that one. Will probably finish it later on. I'm gonna play Kingsbridge in the meantime.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I tried it, the first area lags so badly that any interest or desire to see the rest kinda faded, especially with what you've said, skacky.

It's beautiful, but the ambient sounds are too loud, the "soundscape" cuts off badly (lower yourself just an inch into the chasm below and you stop hearing all sounds on the surface) and the textures make it hard to see what takes rope arrows and what doesn't.

BTW, there's an area down in the chasm in the first area - contains 500 in loot and a nasty surprise, but I gave up on trying to get back out of the chasm due to the crappy framerates.

Also, why the hell can I buy a 5000 GP crossbow and a 2000 GP bow in the shop when I only have 750 GP to spend?

 

[Icewater]

Playing Kingsbridge right now. The painting alarm can be turned off but even if you don't, figuring out the correct one to take isn't hard if you have functioning eyes. Also, you only have to "break back into" the prison if you miss the key the first time around, which you won't if you actually explore. Unkillable Cat proves to be a retard once again!

 

[skacky]

Unkillable Cat No clue concerning the last question. I've read the thread a bit more and apparently there is another crowbar in the sewer section that's supposedly easier to find. I never found it.

Now, Kingsbridge. This one I liked a lot! The backtracking didn't really annoy me that much though I can surely understand it can get on one's nerves. I really liked the architecture overall, especially indoors. The textures are great BUT some of them don't tile, resulting in some ugly seams. Fortunately the overall good and moody lighting takes care of that. I liked how, somehow, I really felt like an intruder when breaking into the counts' houses, which is something that I haven't felt in a while. It probably is a mix of very atmospheric lighting, rather realistic architecture and places and audio. Speaking of which, pretty much all the sounds and music tracks in this mission are excellent and well used. I didn't mind the painting shenanigans though having the same readable three times, each written by a different person but in the end exactly the same is very odd. The mission does have a few shortcomings though. For one, I think the snow is too intense and/or the snowflakes too big, resulting in a "can't see shit, captain" syndrome. The canyon section is rather ugly compared to the rest and is a bit pointless, and I would've enjoyed more vertical layers. Just imagine that mission with 2 more vertical layers.

Overall, I think it's a good one. Definitely enjoyed my 1hr45 session.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Playing Kingsbridge right now. The painting alarm can be turned off but even if you don't, figuring out the correct one to take isn't hard if you have functioning eyes. Also, you only have to "break back into" the prison if you miss the key the first time around, which you won't if you actually explore. Unkillable Cat proves to be a retard once again!

Feel free to point out other examples where I have shown myself to be a retard, particularly in regards to the Thief games.

But as to the current example that "proves me to be a retard"...

I always explore, and found the room in the prison where you get the key before leaving the prison. I also found the guard that patrols the empty but brightly-lit room before it. Trying to pick open the door leading to that key, without the guard spotting you, is impossible, and all you have at that point is one lockpick, no weapons. The author FORCES the player to backtrack back to the beginning once he has his gear from the tavern, and also breaks any chance of ghosting the mission. It makes sense to eliminate needless backtracking.

I'll admit that it confused me for a moment that of all the duplicate paintings, you could only take one of them. The reason was that I doubted that the author would make it so that Garrett instinctively knows which painting is the real one, that he can tell the real one from the fakes, without any information about the paintings whatsoever. Because that would make sense. Which this mission doesn't really do.

I was also aware of the switches that disabled the alarms. First mansion has it in the basement, the second one in the bedroom. I never actually found the switch in the third mansion, but I found the switch that disabled the camera but by that point I was pretty tired of the whole thing, so I just grabbed the painting and ran off.

It's not the fact that each painting alarm can be disabled that bothered me, it's the fact that the "gimmick" is identical in all three cases. The game "map" has a short bio of each of the counts, one of them is too poor to afford much security, one of them is too arrogant to believe anyone will steal from him and the third one is an art collector. All three having decoy paintings makes some sense, but that all three have bell alarms tied to them? The arrogant count at least shouldn't see any reason to do so, and the art collector would go for better security than a bell on a string!

The fact of the matter is that Kingsbridge isn't a completed mission. It feels too much like something in a late beta stage, where giving the houses distinct identifying marks is still on the "to-do" list, where an outside opinion on game design ideas is missing and some extra small touches to really bring the place to life is lacking.

But no...to Icewater I'm just a retard.

 

[skacky]

You can pick that prison lock without being noticed by the guard. It's actually very easy as long as you're careful.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Do you mean by approaching the door and picking the lock a little bit, then moving back before the guard spots you, repeat until *click*?

Grinding down the lock like that isn't exactly clever design either. But on a more important note, does the door only require one lockpick, the one from the start?

 

[Skunkpew]

There are many, many dead ends as well with tons of locked doors you just cannot open.

This mission is apparently supposed to be like The Seven Sisters, in that doors that can't be opened (or only partially opened) in the first mission will be capable of being opened in the second. Supposedly there's a second one coming in a few months.

 

[skacky]

Do you mean by approaching the door and picking the lock a little bit, then moving back before the guard spots you, repeat until *click*?
Grinding down the lock like that isn't exactly clever design either. But on a more important note, does the door only require one lockpick, the one from the start?

Yes and yes. I picked that door as soon as I got out of my cell.

This mission is apparently supposed to be like The Seven Sisters, in that doors that can't be opened (or only partially opened) in the first mission will be capable of being opened in the second. Supposedly there's a second one coming in a few months.

I know but it's something I didn't really like in The Seven Sisters either, though the balance in that one is much better than Keeper of Infinity's so far.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Yes and yes. I picked that door as soon as I got out of my cell.

Ah, then I stand corrected, the player isn't FORCED to backtrack for the key. But it's still shoddy design.

 

[jagged-jimmy]

Picked up Thief II on sale to check it out.
Do i need to install some mods/community patches to make it work on Win7/multicore/etc or does the steam version run properly out of the box?

 

[JarlFrank]

Picked up Thief II on sale to check it out.
Do i need to install some mods/community patches to make it work on Win7/multicore/etc or does the steam version run properly out of the box?

Get NewDark.
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=131106

 

[Icewater]

NewDark patch is all you need.

 

[Melan]

This year's FM stats are in, and it looks like this year has had the lowest number of released missions in history:

(Nice to see T1 still sneaking along, though. )

 

[Darth Slaughter]

Mostly beacuse FM now are aways trying to be the most advanced, and they stay years in the making. And probably a lot of those in 2006 are not really worth...

 

[skacky]

This year had quite a significant amount of updated missions for NewDark, which Ricebug didn't count. Most missions released were also of pretty high quality, which takes time. There's also the word contest that's currently ongoing with quite a lot of participants iirc, StinkyKitty should release two TG missions soon and 2015 should also be the year of Rocksbourg 0 (hopefully both parts) and Death's Cold Embrace.
Good to see there's a slight increase in TDM missions (currently working on one myself).

 

[Melan]

Good points. I have said it before that NewDark can become a trap, since there are no limits to stop you. I have been in the complexity trap (hell, there is a whole campaign's worth of material there...), and it's a serious temptation. In fact, I just got involved in another one of them - not my project, but I couldn't let the most beautifully realised TDM rooftop mission slip through my fingers. We will see. Anyway, there ought to be more good, focused missions on the small or lower medium side of the scale, since those keep the community going, and they are perfect for an evening's worth of play.

I am very happy StinkyKitty is planning to release a new two-part mission, too. Rocksbourg has kinda become the victim of DrK's megalomania, but hopefully it will come out some day. :D

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Meanwhile I give skacky the FMOTY 2014 award for "Endless Rain".

(Disclaimer: Verdict does not include TDM FMs.)

 

[Darth Slaughter]

Meanwhile I give skacky the FMOTY 2014 award for "Endless Rain".

(Disclaimer: Verdict does not include TDM FMs.)

You still haven't tried DM, have you?