Thief fan missions and campaigns

[Mikeal]

When you have some many started yet unfinished missions so you decide to download another one.

 

[Mechs Delight]

It's pretty good so far, can definitely see some skacky influences.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Finished this on Expert, though I'm wondering where in tarnation 500 loot could be hiding from me. Judging by how sparsely loot is distributed (in terms of value) I'm missing something big here.

Anyway, it's a solid mission. Three main objectives, three main locations, very little need to do them in order (though a specific order does help ease the travel time) and nothing major to complain about. Even the readables are free of Audiolog Syndrome!

It is clear that taffers like skacky and Melan are an influence, but there's still a ways to go before Korthak can be counted among them. Because despite everything, "A Night in the Quarter" is still relatively flat, the horizontal plane still rules supreme. The few places in the cityscape where vertical visitations are offered are easily spotted by the wooden beams and rarely venture far beyond that. "Disorientation" is tightly weaved across three planes (and a couple of minor subplanes) of travel, and skacky's work sometimes feel non-Euclidian in nature, but Korthak only seems to offer "points of interests" above people taking a casual stroll that may interest them for a minute or two.

But what really gets me going about this FM is the progress made since "Deadly Cure", and just in two months. Here's a taffer who's not only learning to taff, but getting really good at it. What will we get from him in another two months time? Or four more? Another "City Public Water Works"? Something to give seasoned taffers a run for their money? It certainly seems so, and I'm looking forward to it. :D

 

[marbleman]

Compulsory Egress, a new mission by DirkBogan is out, and it's unbelievably good. Everybody, go play it

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Compulsory Egress, a new mission by DirkBogan is out, and it's unbelievably good. Everybody, go play it

Playing this now, been at it for an hour yet I don't feel like I've even scratched the surface of this, it's so convoluted I feel like I've been traveling through several overlapping dimensional pockets.

If Korthak is in his taffing apprenticeship, then DirkBogan is finishing up his Craftsman (Taffsman?) studies. This cityscape is insanely tight, yet never feels like it's going too far, like "Zealot's Hollow" did.

Also I found a readable called "ON THE PROVENANCE AND GENUS OF THE PURPLE EDIBLE" and I haven't laughed this hard since the "I self-identify as a Burrick"-readable a few years back.

No downsides as of yet, but there's one bizarre addition: Subtitles for the guards. Not all of them, just some of them.

Strong contender for TG/T2 FM of the Year 2019.

 

[Curratum]

Why is my Thief 2 loading up Running Interference instead of the FM when I try to play Egress?

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Having tested this one I can confirm that it kicks ass and everyone should play it. Although it's for T2, it oozes classic TG weirdness and the layout of the whole level is out of this world.

I forgot to mention this as well, as the dangling plot hook, sparsity of enemies and the overall T1/G atmosphere really makes this FM spooky at times.

 

[nicked]

A Night in the Old Quarter was great! Deceptively large as well; there was as much space underground as on the streets I think. Really nice aesthetic to the whole thing, and I actually thought the balance of verticality was about right - unlike some of the more labyrinthine creations of skacky or Melan, this was straightforward enough that I never felt lost, but there was still some reward to looking up.

 

[nicked]

And Compulsory Egress was fantastic too! I'll copy what I put on TTLG, but in short, play this mission!

This was an absolute treat. It has none of the usual pitfalls of a debut mission; it's very well designed, particularly in terms of interconnectedness - the way it rewards, but rarely requires, backtracking. It's also wonderfully bizarre - 3D space is expertly utilised to make an Escherian fever dream of a cityscape that doesn't conform to logic, but always to gameplay. The storytelling is great - an enticing mystery that unfolds with excellent pacing, and a lot of good examples of environmental storytelling, leaving you with a clear sense of the drama that has taken place but without clunky exposition.

My only nitpicks are that some of the audio was really harsh and loud, even after I uncommented the ambient line in the settings file, and non-loot items acting as loot felt a bit cheap.

 

[Mikeal]

Any love for "Events in Highrock"?

 

[SlyFoxx]

Any love for "Events in Highrock"?

Doesn't that start with Haunts bashing down your door? It was a bit of a boss fight but I liked it as a change of pace from all the serious sneaking.

 

[Melan]

It is pretty cool. Fairly hard if I recall correctly.

 

[Max_b5]

I loved it in the early days and still do today. The city has a fairly dark tone but the interiors are comfy and there's a nasty secret to be found. :D

 

[octavius]

I think I played it 10+ years ago.
When I played it recently, I found it rather frustrating. Turns out the only way to get your stuff back from Fuckface's shop is to go into the shop, stand in the only place with shadows, and then the fat taffer hanging around outside will walk in and steal something. and Fuckface will run after him. Clever, but rather contrived.
So I didn't finish it, but commented it "Not Finished. Too tedious.".

EDIT: decided to give it another go.

 

[octavius]

Events in Highrock sure is exhausting, and has its share of bullshit. Most aggravating was the two haunts appearing out of thin air. I used up all my mines, fire arrows and water arrows in the dark castle. Weird how the favoured type of mission (urban with humans) turned into the least favoured (killing beast and supernatural beings). I used up all my moss arrows preparing for the dark mage, trying to get behind him quickly, but in the end I ended up just whacking him fast enough that he couldn't get any spells off.

Now I miss 197 gold before I can finish this mission. The only place I know I haven't reached is the other side of the lake (I can see spiders there, and what looks like a raft), and there is an opening in the side of the fissure with lava at the bottom, but I can't see any ways to reach those areas.

 

[octavius]

Any love for "Events in Highrock"?

No, I hate it.

Spoiler

 

[RNGsus]

Compulsory Egress

Spoiler

Am I not supposed to leave the way I came through the caretaker's door? I'm stuck in the geometry. Should I go down to his creepy dungeon before I'm done with the city?

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Any love for "Events in Highrock"?

After reading Octavius' rant about it, I figured I'd give it a go. While I vividly recall the first half (how can you forget a Haunt bashing down your door?) I don't remember anything about the second half. I soon realized that I had never played this FM to completion - usually I'd given up on it somewhere for some reason.

This time I saw it through to the end (forcing myself to use a walkthrough to ensure that goal) and I can understand both the love and the hate for it. It is a very ambitious project, creating a cityscape with plenty of sidelanes and even vertical aspects, though they're all laughably primitive compared to what we've seen since then. And the age of "Events in Highrock" must be factored in - this is one of the oldest FMs around, and it shows.

Because where this FM fails is at some basic levels, like having far too much Moon Logic involved. There's a baddie in the FM who is trying to manipulate Garrett into retrieving an MacGuffin for him, though it seems to be that the quest for the MacGuffin can be quite easily circumvented by simply not interacting with a certain character found in the the city. That will either break the FM good and proper, or make the conversation at the end look mighty silly as Garrett has no taffing clue what they're talking about.

Octavius also mentioned the outright bizarre solution to the fence's shop, that was also a straight-up 'WTF?' from me.

Then there's the strict requirements to reach certain places (mostly for loot reasons). A house has numerous breakable windows that easily look large enough for Garrett to fit through, yet he can only fit through the one window that leads to the key that opens the front door - and that's with NewMantle enabled. I get the feeling this window is not supposed to be climbed through at all, and the key simply retrieved with Garrett's super-stretchy arms. That, and many other circumstances, only have the One Solution cooked up by the author, which gives this FM a kind of old text-adventure vibe where you're struggling to construct the exact correct sentence to solve the puzzle, even though the solution is otherwise pretty obvious.

EDIT: Forgot an important point here: Highrock tries a few things that have rarely been used since, for example dynamic lighting. Open a door where there's a light source inside, and a new light point is created outside the door to reflect the light illuminating the outdoors. Also almost every window has glass in it, except current NewDark settings (and possibly the OldDark settings) make the glass almost invisible.

But the things this FM tried to do, and pulled off somewhat successfully - they inspired other taffers to include them in their FMs, only better... and so on and so forth until it's almost 20 years later and here we are.

My recommendation? Worth playing mostly for those wanting to see where most of FM-related things started, but others may be somewhat put off by this one. Take it with a grain of salt, and a walkthrough on the side.

 

[RNGsus]

Is Night in the Old Quarter supposed to be blue, inside and out, or should I be using the old loader instead of the new one?

 

[skacky]

It's a mission for Thief Gold, not Thief 2.

 

[RNGsus]

Yes it is.

 

[Squadafroinx]

Just so you know, I thought linking this thread on TTLG on a thread about bad missions was a good idea as there was surely people wanting to make critiques instead of the exasperating schlong-swallowing contest going on pages upon pages that even the most excremental FM can get.

...Well let's just say I hope you're not waiting for uncadonego's 97.7% FM

 

[Unkillable Cat]

*reads thread*

 

[Psych0sis]

Who would have thought Unca was such a butthurt baby about bad feedback? Imagine cancelling an FM because of SCO's 10 year old remarks

 

[Andronovo]

I'm in the middle of playing Deadly Shadows. Not hating it, but it's sort of uninspired all across the board compared to its predecessors. Can someone suggest some fan missions, from any engine, that they are sure do not have spoilers from Deadly Shadows? I think I know where the plot is going but I want to see it through to the end. I would especially like anything that's crazy like Constantine's house. I can handle any sort of difficulty, as long as it's not scavenger hunt bullshit like the haunted temple.