Thief fan missions and campaigns

[murloc_gypsy]

Later in the second mission of Broken Triad I was getting a bug. Some ghost was supposed to help me cross a chasm by creating a phantom bridge, but it wasn't working. I didn't find anything on ttlg by searching about this specific mission. Luckily enough, I tried out setting compatibility mode to Windows XP SP3. Not only did it work, but now I also got subtitles to what the ghost was saying.

Is this a know workaround to get most FM scripts working properly?

I'm running Win7, 64-bit variant.

Spoiler

There was also a bug in the first mission, where, after the cutscene between Lennard and possessed Garret, I just hang in midair, and nothing happens. My body is not in the circle and Lennard doesn't come through the door. I figured it was almost the end of the mission so I just Ctrl Alt Shift End to the next one and watched whatever I missed on yt.

 

[Karwelas]

FenPhoenix - I don't post his movies around, but this is special case. Melan mission.

 

[Dev_Anj]

Here's my impressions of most of the Dark Mod Halloween entries, originally posted on Fen Phoenix's video's comment section. I judged this based off the videos I saw, and I'm not very kind in it:

I shouldn't be too harsh on missions made in five days... but I've got to say that besides The Rats Triumphant, the entries feel like a disappointment. A Thief's Remorse has an interesting idea but is too hammy about its message and also has very underdeveloped main portions. Spring Cleaning nails the look of a haunted house and some of the setpieces built up tension, but there's really no payoff to it as the only obstacles are a flooding trap which is deceptively easy to get past, a spider, and two zombies. Also no good setup or story about why the house is in this condition or why there's a head on a plate in a bloody room. Dead Drunk's premise goes at odds with the level and the design is too monotonous to be anything creepy. Even The Rats Triumphant isn't free from flaws, for instance look at the illogical key placement of the important key, how the readables are way too vague about the incident here and how the enemies are a joke to dodge around and honestly feel like token undead. There's no reason a condemned part of the city suffering from plague should have zombies shambling about. Oh well, atleast it has good atmosphere and is decently fleshed out.

 

[Dev_Anj]

Finally, here's my impression on Sotha's entry to the contest, now that I watched Fen Phoenix's video on it:

The Golden Skull is for the most part, a small simple mansion mission with a twist. While it does look good and has moments of tension with a few tight patrols near the skull itself, that's not what's noteworthy about this mission. What is noteworthy is how it builds up suspense towards an awful reveal in the basement, and how it's essentially a story of greed and high ambition without a plan not paying off. On that note, the storytelling is much better than A Thief's Remorse, even though it has less in game readables to help with that, basically only two short journals really. It's a good attempt, but the best mission of the contest is still The Rats Triumphant in my opinion.

 

[Melan]

I just discovered this on the Thief wikia:

 

[Unkillable Cat]

...anychance there exists a larger screenshot of that?

 

[Darth Slaughter]

yeah, I can't see shit... Is it the AI working on a fan mission? I mean, hammeritites building a level?

 

[Melan]

It is a shot of Dromed with a building crew chipping away on a mission! (with Jorge, Thief's beloved placeholder texture and all that)

Here is a link to a slightly larger size.

 

[Dev_Anj]

It's kinda funny, but somewhat of an injoke as people who haven't fiddled much with the editor or heard a bit about it won't necessarily get it.

Also fun fact: the placeholder texture Jorge doesn't actually show up as a pixelated flag in the actual game (not the editor's in game mode), it instead shows up as some blank white texture.

 

[DrKubiac]

Haha love it, that would be a nice easter egg in the unreachable area of a mission.

 

[Max_b5]

That looks like my early Dromed works but better.

*Cries in a corner*

 

[Mechs Delight]

Hello, I'm new to this forum (I've posted to some degree over at TTLG). I found this thread and am really enjoying the discussion; I hope some more good fan missions come out so it can continue.

(By the way, my favorite Thief games (in order of preference) are: T2, TG, T3 and T2014.)

 

[Darth Slaughter]

Hello, I'm new to this forum (I've posted to some degree over at TTLG). I found this thread and am really enjoying the discussion; I hope some more good fan missions come out so it can continue.

(By the way, my favorite Thief games (in order of preference) are: T2, TG and T3.)

Fixed that for you. Welcome.

 

[Melan]

Roofs of Gold by -Terra-

So this was the first fan mission I played after reinstalling Thief 2 (my older copy had been sitting on my PC since 2006 or so, a poor Frankenstein's monster of patches and fixes that was begging to be put out of its misery).

This mission is both inspiring and frustrating. It is a nicely realised vertical experience, and the list of places you can break into is impressive for how much variety has been crammed into a relatively tight place. You can get around without any rope arrows, and get up to some crazy high places. (The snow also helps a little if you happen to fall.) This part of the mission is sheer fun, and never mind the story that's silly on a level that's almost surreal.

Spoiler

So the villain of the week is... the training dummy? What?

The part I found frustrating was the excessive keyhunt element. Progressing in the mission hinges on two steps which are seriously obscure:

Spoiler

finding your lockpicks in places where they blend into an already dark environment, then finding four coins and using them on four slots which look almost exactly like the wall behind them. I am not the one to complain about dark missions, but here, there was so little light that it was not challenging to sneak around, but very challenging to find obscure things - it should usually be the other way round.

Altogether, that is too much, which is why the initially very favourable impressions were turned into some rather frustrating running in circles before I finally had to check this thread for spoilers.

Nevertheless, there was a good climbing mission behind the questionable gameplay, so I hope there will be more, with a little more polish.

 

[Melan]

On a similar note, I have missed several Thief 2 fan missions released in the last two or three years, some of it due to burnout, and some of it due to technical problems. Now that I am back, what are the must-plays? The best would be large, exploration-centric missions, or something to do with huge tomb-complexes (I am looking for that Bonehoard experience, in particular; nothing like that since Sepulchre of the Sinistral), but the rest is also fair game as long as they are good.

No need for any Thief 1/Gold/TDM suggestions, I have played all of those.

 

[Dev_Anj]

I admit I've not been consistently playing all the recent Thief 2 fan missions as soon as they've been released, partly because of getting distracted with other missions, partly because of boredom. I'm no great judge of most fan missions, but I did find these missions in Thief 2 enjoyable: Strumdrang Peak, Cell 6, Of Thieves and Rubies, King Abdenzen's Tomb.

Strumdrang Peak has good production values and a decent variety of missions, including a huge tomb(nothing like the Bonehoard though, more Indiana Jones setpiece than anything). The writing was decent even though the plot was fairly predictable and there were times where it felt like the readables were audiologs or a bit too long. Cell 6 is a good attempt at an infiltration mission revolving around social stealth in tightly knit areas, though the Dark Engine's wonky social stealth mechanics pull it down a bit. Of Thieves and Rubies is a short 4 mission campaign with some interesting worldbuilding, even though it isn't the most inventive or imaginative campaign of all. I've written about King Abdenzen's Tomb already, suffice to say that it's a good atmosphere piece with puzzles that are simple enough to engage the player for a while without making them frustrated, even though the pixel hunting could be lessened.

I did enjoy Castle Michele too, although I think the surrounding areas are a bit too large, the objective of carrying a maid all the way down to the basement feels a bit long drawn out, and there's not much challenge to be had in the level. I've started up A Job Well Done but haven't really got anywhere too far into it. This FM Haz No Sense is exactly what the name implies, an incredibly silly mission with a lot of slapstick humour. I guess how much you like it depends on how much you like that sort of humour, there's stuff like enemies playing pop tunes when they see you, tunes when they die, enemies wearing tough armor who can only be damaged with a special weapon of sorts and more. Personally I just don't like how it feels you're forced to fight a lot of enemies in it, and the jokes could be a bit more varied. Oh, also it takes place in a virtual representation of a forum world(reminders of The Nameless Mod anyone?)

Also I almost forgot, I played a bit of Hearthcliff Islands and stopped when I got stuck. It seems like a very inventive mission, with stuff like prying a bar out of the cell you escape by constantly moving it left and right, stopping a two stage door to escape by using a crate to block one from closing, using a moss arrow to block a vent and more. However, the puzzles seem very hard, and this mission seems to give minimal clues at where you have to go to progress, not to mention all the darkness in the outside areas.

 

[Yandros]

Off the top of my head, Sensut's "Being Thief 2" is really good, and also Hipbreaker's "Breaking The Stone" and Eternauta's "Kingsbridge" are 2014's must-plays.

 

[Riskbreaker]

Not exactly Bonehoard-ish, but I'd say it's close enough: Cryptic Realms. There are some above-ground parts, but 'tis mostly this huge, beautifully crafted crypt complex with adjacent morgue, and with smaller lost city section beneath it. Pretty large mission all-in-all, with truly great exploration, fantastic atmosphere, and some genuine jump scares (I'm not kidding about this). It can be rather combat heavy tho.

 

[skacky]

Dominus has made this drop-dead gorgeous artwork of Angelwatch:

I bought myself a print here: https://society6.com/dominus/prints

 

[Karwelas]

Dominus has made this drop-dead gorgeous artwork of Angelwatch:

I bought myself a print here: https://society6.com/dominus/prints

Jesus fuck, how someone can create such beautiful art, people - fuck you, stop making me want to be thief myself and steal those work from your houses. And yes, mission creators. I also talk about you.

 

[agentorange]

Anyone know where I can download A Night In Rocksbourg? (or possibly if you have it, could you upload it, please?). It looks like every download link for it on the official sites are dead.

 

[Max_b5]

See if these links work.

http://thiefmissions.com/search.cgi?search=drk&sort=title#m

 

[agentorange]

worked, thanks! I swear there were no download links on those pages when I checked a few minutes ago.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Make sure to check with the first two Rocksbourg missions if they patched the ambient sound - it's played way too high.

You can alter them manually, and hopefully the old TLLG threads about that are still around.

 

[Melan]

Dev_Anj, Yandros, Riskbreaker: Thanks for the suggestions! I have played some of those, missed some of those...

..but first things first, I played The Drymian Codex! Not only is it excellent as a reconstruction of The Monastery of St. Fera from TDP, but it is done in a way that adds value in the form of updated visuals, a whole lot of extra areas, and a slightly wonky, but functional evil plot. Interestingly, the graphical update has a very odd style: an absolutely high-res re-texturing of the mission while keeping its low-poly appearance (some of those areas were boxy even for 1999). The results are unusual but mostly effective, with a consistency in the updated graphics which is pleasant to look at.

The gameplay is a classic clue- and keyhunt. It is mostly on the right level of challenge, but there are mandatory secrets guarded by those tiny library switches, hidden in obscure areas that I sometimes only found after I knew there was something there, and did a lot of searching and blind-frobbing. This is a questionable element in a mission that otherwise has good sneaking gameplay, including non-standard segments (like some seriously creepy crypts). Apart from what I mentioned, the keyhunt is kept to a sensible level, and doesn't become a chore.

The readables and extras are really good; coherent and pleasant to read, and just what you would find in a Hammerite monastery (way beyond the usual "Ye Olde Badasse" stuff). There are also the... are those custom voicesets? I don't recognise them, unless they are from Thief 3, but they are seriously good. Those are the kind of Hammer proverbs that are interesting to hear!

Finally, I must note that I felt like a real dick

Spoiler

stealing from a little girl.

Very good mission, worth playing (and replaying for a generous amount of missed secret and loot).