Thief fan missions and campaigns

[Unkillable Cat]

Installed and playing it... props to a well-produced intro video, but HOLY HELL does the plot of it make no fucking sense! And it's all refuted by the video for the first mission of Thief 2.

Opening blurbs: "Reliance upon others is weakness for the strong, but strength for the weak. Wisdom and balance lies in knowing your own nature over time." - Chronicle of the Metal Age.

Opening video narration: "I've always acquainted feelings with getting caught... they both get in the way of my money."

So no shit, here we are, in direct contradiction to Garrett as a character, and his teachings... let's see where this goes. :/

*20 minutes later*

I'll admit, I'm impressed... the exterior is more elaborate than in previous creations, and yet there's a clear calling to those older works of his. For example, in an older FM I could abuse New_Mantle to beat a hedge maze in a matter of seconds. This FM seems to allow the same, but in a limited capacity that doesn't hinder the player in any way. Also, there's clear *effort* shown here to try to make guards react in an original way, yet touching back on the base game. I wish I could go into more detail right now, but it's late in the evening and I have other stuff to attend to, including sleep.

But right now, this seems to be the culmination of prior works finally working out. Let's hope I'm right.

 

[Mechs Delight]

The second mission of the Nosferatu campaign is worth playing just for the wonderful winter weather and landscape simulations; unfortunately, that's about all it has going for it so far.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Finished Beltzer's new FM "The Sister". The plot is that Garrett finds out he has a sister and (against his professional standards) he decides to go find her. She's working as a servant at a mansion that has a Problem: Half the place is boarded up and sealed off due to the presence of some foul beast that seemingly appeared out of nowhere. Guess where Garrett's sister is?

Compared to Beltzer's previous FMs, this one is a huge step forward in terms of overall quality, but it still has some oddities about it: Despite there appearing to be multiple entry points only one of them actually leads inside. What's worse, one of the 'fake' entry points is purposefully (and needlessly) challenging to get out of. Once inside everything seems to point to a regular 'mansion heist'-type affair, except some of the guards are situated so that they can't be caught unaware - and one of those guards has the key to all the doors leading outside. While I reckon the mission can be ghosted, I don't see the point of it.

Another odd, but amusing part is that instead of in-game conversations between two individuals, the FM actually has in-game cutscenes of the conversations, where one of the voice actresses seems to be a Text-to-Speech device!



Anyway, what you're supposed to do to make quick and real progress is to go up on the roof. (While you're up here make sure to bask in the moonlight that's strong enough to cast long and dark shadows everywhere, while there is no moon visible in the sky. ) The numerous guards up here aren't the problem, it's finding where to go next: You need to find a nearly invisible ladder and climb it to get to an elevated part of the roof, and from there drop down onto a windowsill below. That puts you in a locked section of the mansion, and it's there where you score the keys to progress further.

What appears to be the central pillar of this FM is a brilliant puzzle involving three identical-looking rooms in a tower, but then the author went and made it needlessly convoluted. I'm just gonna spoil it for you now so you can spare yourself some headaches later: You're looking for furniture like paintings, statues, books and mirrors. But here's the thing about that, and it leads to the biggest problem I've seen in this FM - I didn't realize I needed to collect these pieces of furniture until I reached the three rooms. How was that possible? Because Beltzer messed with the frob distances. Some items (like doors) have the normal distance, but some items have such a short distance that you literally have to stick your nose in them for them to light up, and a couple of instances where the item only lights up if you stand in that one exact sweet spot. This is purposefully screwing with the player, and it is not liked by anyone, ever.

The needlessly convoluted parts? There are multiple items that you can pick up. I'm gonna do everyone a favor and reveal what four items are needed, and where they are:

Spoiler

The Black Jacket Painting is the one above the door leading to the children's room.
The Red Book is the one on a top shelf in the library.
The Dirty Sister is a statue hidden behind a bookcase in the children's room (not the one on top of the bed canopy).
The Shell Mirror... I can't exactly remember where I found it, but it's in one of the bathrooms. Note that some bathrooms have more than one mirror.

There's only one way into the sealed section, and you need to solve the above puzzle to get the 'key' for that door. While I was both pleasantly surprised at what I found inside, I also shook my head over how it's all put together.

So what's in there?

It's all 'dark-as-crap' darkness patrolled by an unkillable cunt that has perfect night vision. (At least now I know why I start this FM with some flares.) There's a lantern in there to be found but it only barely helps you get around, and that invisibility potion might save your bacon once, at best.

This section can only be solved by abusing save-states as you learn the layout of the place, dodge the beast for as long as possible (until it inevitably finds and kills you) while trying to figure out whatever needs to be done in there. It is impossible to do this section on the first try. This takes a very interesting (and quite horrifying) situation... and only makes it frustrating instead. An interesting suggestion to make this section more fair (and yet maintain its theme) is to make the beast deaf, but only time will tell if that gets changed.

Overall? This is Beltzer's finest so far, but it's still with some flaws, though nothing that breaks things. It's perfect for Halloween, but what I'm most impressed by here is Beltzer's improvement as a FM author. A lot of care was put into this one... and it shows.

 

[ironmask]

Finished Beltzer's new FM "The Sister". The plot is that Garrett finds out he has a sister and (against his professional standards) he decides to go find her. She's working as a servant at a mansion that has a Problem: Half the place is boarded up and sealed off due to the presence of some foul beast that seemingly appeared out of nowhere. Guess where Garrett's sister is?

I hate it when fan missions make Garrett do things that are out of character. If Garrett found out that he had some lost family member, then he would probably not give two shits. The author should of made a different character. I will probably still play this mission, it's not the first time I played a fan mission with a out of character Garrett.

 

[RNGsus]

He would never get involved.

 

[nicked]

It is oddly jarring when you get a mission with Garrett acting completely out of character. I guess it's usually to avoid having to do any extra work writing a new character, recording a custom voice or anything like that. But in which case, why not work within the limitations of the character? Finding a good reason for Garrett specifically to be doing odd things is not difficult - want Garrett to do some out-of-character in-depth investigation of something? Just have someone hire him for a lot of money. You can use "Someone hires Garrett" as a proxy motivation for almost anything.

I had to give up on The Sister. It was a lovely-looking castle, but it didn't feel like gameplay was even a consideration when building it. Guards placed in static locations down marble corridors, that don't even turn around once in a while, a castle that has one singular way in, but also 4 or 5 guarded doors that you can't lockpick when you get to them, no sense of direction or signposting. I can usually forgive that sort of stuff and push on if the story is engaging, but as mentioned, it's a flawed premise in the first place and it did nothing to make me care about the stakes.

 

[Max_b5]

Once again Garrett is forced to leave planet Earth and find the McGuffin in Saturn...

 

[Psych0sis]

It seems like our hateful and evil attitude might be driving off another creator...

https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150175&page=3&p=2432874&viewfull=1#post2432874

 

[Icewater]

If you don't like his missions then don't play them you useless retards. Some of you act like he forced you at gunpoint or something.

 

[Max_b5]

Some of you act like he forced you at gunpoint

He did

 

[Psych0sis]

If you don't like his missions then don't play them you useless retards. Some of you act like he forced you at gunpoint or something.

Precisely two people have played his mission and posted about it in here, Unkillable Cat and Nicked. UC at this point will play anything and everything that's related to thief (and he even gave it a pretty positive review), while I assume Nicked was probably just bored and wanted something to play. Mechs Delight could have also played it, but I took his post about it more as a warning to stay away based on his impressions of the screenshots and story.

I don't believe either went into it with a bias against Beltzer as an author. And those who did say negative things about Beltzer's missions and their quality here have done exactly as you said and ignored the mission, YOU useless retard.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Unkillable Cat at this point will play anything and everything that's related to thief

 

[Yandros]

Curratum Have no fear, I'm not about to fuck up the campaign with my shitty building skills. We have assembled a team of highly talented builders and architects who will be doing most of the work to make sure it's at least halfway decent. I basically just proofread Random_Taffer's story and made the website, and am now going to sit back and drink coffee for the next few years until I can take credit for the project (but only if it gets good reviews).

 

[Max_b5]

Campaign by Random_Taffer and Yandros




and irrelevant slaves

 

[Icewater]

Curratum Have no fear, I'm not about to fuck up the campaign with my shitty building skills. We have assembled a team of highly talented builders and architects who will be doing most of the work to make sure it's at least halfway decent. I basically just proofread Random_Taffer's story and made the website, and am now going to sit back and drink coffee for the next few years until I can take credit for the project (but only if it gets good reviews).

That TBP trailer makes my penis harder than I ever thought a penis could be. Hold on I think I need to talk to my doctor.

 

[cowking]

Hey taffers what's your top Thief fan missions?

A Short Night's Work caters to a man of refined palette and taste.

 

[marbleman]

Down in the Old Vault, a new mission by vegetables is now out. Highly recommended! It's not mind-blowing, but it's a fun, balanced, and polished FM.

 

[Curratum]

Down in the Old Vault, a new mission by vegetables is now out. Highly recommended! It's not mind-blowing, but it's a fun, balanced, and polished FM.

 

[Curratum]

Hey hey, people, I randomly googled up for an update to my T1 TFix and T2 Tafferpatcher and it seems Tafferpatcher is out of date now and the new hip thing is to use the new T2Fix.

Should I switch to that?

 

[Psych0sis]

Down in the Old Vault is definitely a solid fm, and it's worth playing if you enjoy anything thief related, but it's just got too much going against it to really stand out as something special. Solid 7/10 at least if you enjoy basic city-style FMs.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

"Down in the Old Vault" is definitely a solid fm, and it's worth playing if you enjoy anything thief related, but it's just got too much going against it to really stand out as something special. Solid 7/10 at least if you enjoy basic city-style FMs.

I agree with this, as well as your more detailed points over at TTLG. I found the FM to be tiered, as in how a ziggurat is built, with the street level being flat and boring. Fortunately the other tiers are not plagued by these problems and are far more interesting.

I was 425 short of the overall loot and found (and used) all the deposit keys, so I feel I did pretty good overall. For me it's a solid 7.5/10.

Did you find the Shrink Ray, BTW?

 

[Curratum]

Also, any idea what I need to get to have water that looks like this?

I tried the T(2)Fix enhanced water option and it looks a lot worse.

 

[nicked]

Looks like some kind of hi-res water pack, though which I wouldn't know. Looks problematically opaque...

Started giving Down in the Old Vault a play, but haven't finished it yet. So far, it's very well-designed, if not very well "arted". i.e. the layout, challenge, guard patrols, clues, loot placement - all of that stuff is great. It's just let down by the boxy, basic look of the thing. The main problem is that everything is at least twice as big as it needs to be.
But on the whole it's just a good old fashioned Thiefy good time. Looking forward to getting some more time on it.

I've also been replaying Eshaktaar's Broken Triad, of which I have very fond memories. It's an unmissable fan mission, undoubtedly, though I'd forgotten how contrived and full of clunky exposition the writing is. In terms of level design and puzzle design, it's top notch throughout. The narrative holding it together is mostly nonsense and feels like it was cobbled together as an afterthought to give you a reason to be solving puzzles. It's most obvious in the difference between readables that serve as clues and readables that serve as plot. The former are mostly tight, well-written and leave you feeling smart for following their hints. The latter are just contrived infodumps where the levers of the plot can be seen clunkily dropping into place.

 

[Psych0sis]

Alright, I couldn't help myself. I tried the Sister and it might just rival Les Paolis for the worst mission of the year.

God damn, what's his obsession with making every fucking wall look like it's made out of clay?

 

[nicked]

OK yeah, Down in the Old Vault was excellent fun - highly recommended.

It's got a good story with well-paced progression, some lovely attention to details, the challenge level is fair and never frustrating, both in terms of enemy placement and platforming. It also manages to do a good job of turning key-hunting into an actual fun side activity.
As mentioned, the only thing that lets it down is that the streets and buildings are all built to a too-large scale, meaning things feel boxy, sparse and empty. It's much less of a problem when you get into the grimier areas of the mission like sewers and the titular old vault.