Thief fan missions and campaigns

[Unkillable Cat]

I've barely finished posting here about the latest T2 FM's when another one drops in, and if you're fond of awesome architecture, you're gonna love this.

It's called "Anna to the Rescue", and is about a Mechanist "agent" who's sent to a Pagan camp to assassinate a mad Pagan leader and rescue the mayor's daughter. At first the mission looks bland and uninteresting, as the outside areas are kinda crap, but trust me when I say this: Bear with it until you reach the underground temple. (That is, the objective "Enter the underground temple" ticks off.)

This temple is the most awesome pieces of architecture I've seen pulled off, not just in a Thief game, but in any game, for many MANY years. It has different styles, each hallway is different and beautiful, and yet it's all CREEPY AS FUCK. It uses graphics from Quake, Heretic 2 and Blood, as well as music from Gothic 3.

Most of your time and effort will first be devoted to solving the devious puzzles, but veteran Thief players will have a hard time completing the loot objective.

 

[SCO]

Sounds good. I'm going in while waiting for the contest missions of the darkmod to be integrated into their downloader.

 

[JarlFrank]

Currently trying Ruins of Origina and fuck this is DARK. Hard to see anything, but even when you're in really dark places you're slightly visible. The mission's concept sounds really cool but fuck, I'd at least like to see anything.

 

[Icewater]

Are you running with ddfix? I was playing Ruins of Originia a while back and certain areas were literally pitch black, couldn't see a damn thing. Turns out the shadows were screwed because dark engine, old technology, etc etc, but ddfix helped me out.

 

[JarlFrank]

Yeah, I'm using ddfix, but it's still horribly dark.

Same happens in some places in the FM "simple enough". My exe is already patched with ddfix though.

 

[Cassidy]

Crank up your gamma pretty high when playing that FM. Really.

Also, according to this thread Ruins of Originia may get a new version with more missions:

http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=136203

 

[JarlFrank]

Playing All Torc now, and it's pretty good. First mission was all right, nice town exploration mission, too bad most of the buildings cannot be accessed. Second mission was a thing of half a minute, just a little interlude. Third mission is where the meat is at, currently playing it and it's p. cool. Relatively large mansion with lots of guards, lots of readables that offer useful information strewn about (I liked the one about the alarm), overall pretty good. Haven't finished it yet but it's quite fun

 

[Cassidy]

Last 2011 recommendations:

Stones and Glass Houses: This sequel to All Torc is a quite good mini-campaign too. Classical Thief gameplay without the Adventurey linear sequences some FM makers like putting in, which features some light horror elements in its later missions (no undead though as far as I remember)

Looking for Info and Broken Gears: two separate FMs that are part of the same arc. Made by the same author of "Down with Mechanists" which was already mentioned in this thread, they are good options for people who enjoy city/mechanist missions, which they are, respectively.

Trail of Blood 2: Unofficial followup to the Thief 2 Trail of Blood mission, where you need to gain the trust of the pagan survivors of a recent mechanist raid and open a portal to the Maw for a counter-attack against them. OK, but not very impressive because I tend to have high expectations on the WTF factor of anything related to the Maw of Chaos and the pagans. Nevertheless a solid FM if you don't hate outdoors forest mission.

What Lies Below - The Crusade for the Old Quarter: Good horror themed FM with some light puzzle elements. Recommended unless you hate zombies and its noir style (mostly black and white environments).

Shadows in our Blood: Some will most likely disagree, but I think this is, if not the best, the second best FM Haplo has done, even if mostly because of its horrific atmosphere later. Like What Lies Below it is partly rendered in a Noir style. Best way to describe it is as a mix of a basic Police Station raid at its start, followed by sneaking inside the Mechanist version of George Orwell's 1984 Miniluv with multiple stances of Room 101(which is the part of it in black and white). It may not be as scary as the Haunted Cathedral or Shalebridge Cradle, but it reeks of a dishumanity in its atmosphere, writing and content that is truly frightening. Gameplay-wise it's a typical Haplo mission: some adventure elements here and there but usually nothing really obnoxious, and fortunately this is an usual case except for a nasty torturer who cannot be taken out by any means other than the adventurey one, and worse: you cannot take him down non-lethally. Worth a try for sure.

Mistress Guennean's Castle: For the third level of a completely newbie FM maker, it's quite impressive, specially when compared to his two previous ones. Even without this fact considered, provided the idea of a level starting with two zombies almost surrounding you from each side of a corridor and throwing a haunt not shortly after this close one doesn't put you off, it is a decent Thief FM. Haven't played it much, but from the first minutes and from having tried the previous FM by the same author, which was bad in looks and proportions but ok in gameplay, it's worth a try. Unfortunately I can't say the same about his earlier works as they were still quite crude, but surely he might deliver some good ones for 2012.

The Power of Suggestion: The good in it is that it is a quite interesting hybrid between a City mission and a Thieves' Highway mission where you can explore both rooftops and the streets, and it is designed in such a nonlinear way that you may end accomplishing its objectives in quite different orders depending on where you look for first. The bad is that Thief II isn't a platformer and this FM maker forgot it, as it would have worked much better in The Dark Mod with its far more flexible mantling mechanics, because it features some particularly difficult stunts. Most of them are to get extra loot rather than main objectives, but not all, unfortunately. Nevertheless, in spite of such glaring issue, it's still good for what it is, provided you're not a compulsive completionist so that you can just call it a day and remember the good parts of it should you end stuck because of a particularly annoying need of mantling somewhere in it.

 

[Ivory Samoan]

Semi off-topic, but I've never touched Thief 2 before - should I rock it Vanilla (with official updates) or is there some mods you would recommend for a new player?

 

[JarlFrank]

Most Thief 1 and 2 "mods" are Fan Missions, which are played seperately from the vanilla game. There are several little fixes for modern PCs that you should use, though. Basically it's DDFix and DarkWidescreen to fix video issues and use a custom resolution (DWidescreen basically lets you type in a resolution of your own choice, doesn't need to be widescreen).

http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=121449

 

[Cassidy]

Trust me, you should start playing Thief 2 as soon as you can and put any other game in your "to play" list behind. You won't regret it. After it I recommend first than any FM Thief 2X: Shadows of the Metal Age, a fan made project that is almost as long as the original campaign and feels like something LGS itself could have done as an expansion, except for having wymmin as main character instead of Garrett that sucks.[/Lyric Suite]

 

[Unkillable Cat]

DarkWidescreen? Need to take a look at that...

EDIT: Had a look. There's a program called TafferPatcher that does all of this for you. I had my Thief 2 installation down pretty pat, with only the widescreen thing missing. That's fixed now, this worked like a charm.

TafferPatcher installs everything you MUST have to play Thief 2 today, plus a few extra optionals that are nice, but not necessary.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I've been catching up to some recent FM's released.

# A mission called "Cataclysmic Revelations" is basically a re-hash of the T1 OM "Return To The Cathredal", and let me tell you, there is absolutely nothing new or interesting being added. Even the storyline, although promising, devolves into piss and delivers an anti-climatic ending. One to avoid unless you're bored as fuck.

# A mission called "The Rustler" has Garrett wandering around the city stealing horse statues before upgrading to stealing a flesh-and-blood one. This mission starts out alright, but it really has nothing going for it, and riding a horse isn't as cracked up as it sounds in Thief 2. It's not bad in any sense, but it isn't really good either.

# Haplo continued his on-going story arc with "A Sorrowful Farewell", which has Garrett in a snowy monastery looking for answers after his last Haplo-presented adventure ("Of The Sinister Awakening"). The good points is that the monastery is very well laid-out, well designed and has a beautiful area of a church undergoing renovation, and it's a large FM, so plenty of stuff to do. The bad news is that it seems that Haplo is running out of ideas and is just going for filler material on all fronts. It was bad enough to clear out the whole level of Mechanists, but after a key event new enemies spawn all over the map, and then after ANOTHER key even MORE enemies spawn all over the map, and of course after each time you must backtrack across the entire map to complete the next objective. It quickly becomes a chore playing through it. Frankly, I don't recommend it.

# One of the bigger missions released towards the end of the year was "Finals at the Academy", which tells of Garrett having to pass a final exam before becoming a full-fledged Keeper. This mission is huge, large area, very well designed, plenty of stuff to see and do. However, it fails badly on two fundamental flaws. The first one being that it's pointlessly difficult. From what I can tell, the whole thing must be ghosted, regardless of difficulty level. Being detected by anyone is Instant Fail. What's worse, the AI has been tampered with so that it's extra alert, and a large majority of the floor surface is marble. The first puzzle had me stumped for an hour (you must read a scroll that's standing under a bright spotlight, in full view of two immobile guards and two patrolling ones) and it doesn't get any better or easier afterwards. I know that the seasoned Thief players need a new challenge, but this is ridiculous.

The second point is that it's pointlessly convulated. The map lists 5 floors minimum, but then it has 22 (!) pages of "notes" that you must acquire from readables. So you're turning over everything in the place for... books. It's like a nerd breaking into his dad's study late at night so he can sneak a peek at the Soduku puzzles. There's also a mnemonic to crack a safe, a wall of gibbertext that must be decyphered, and some arcane glyph-cypher that must be decoded in order to get anywhere. This is the only FM in the history of Thief 2 that I have given up on playing because of "TL; DR". It's just boring.

# The real winner is probably "Lingering Whispers". Garrett breaks into a warehouse, and finds a lot more than he bargained for. There are TONS of secret passages and lots of interesting things to see and do, but I can understand perfectly if people will get fed up with jumping between crates and dodging ghosts. Yes, there are Undead in this one.

As for the upcoming FM's... work is still being done on "A Night In Rocksbourg 4", which will now feature a prequel mission as well, and the "Black Frog" series of missions (From the author of L'Arsene) is in the final stages of testing.

 

[JarlFrank]

Always enjoying your FM reviews, Unkillable Cat.

Too bad the new ones don't seem to be too good. How are Haplo's previous FMs? I don't think I played them yet.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

They're actually pretty good. His first one was an entry into some competition called "Unholy Vivid Innocence", which is almost completely black-and-white and had you breaking into a tomb to recover a sword. It features some really interesting enemies (like the one that hurt you if you looked at it) and some interesting puzzles.

He followed that up with "Insanity's Crescendo", which starts out as a simple mansion mission, but then you have a look inside an innocent-looking garden shed and everything changes. To the better, mind you. This one introduces some clever new stuff to play with.

Then there's the FM Cassidy mentioned, "Shadows In Our Blood", with the dungeon/torture chamber. I agree with what he says about it.

Next up was the FM "Of The Sinister Awakening" where you raid a small house to recover a dead man's valuable relic. Only problem is, some cult wants it too, and they're not very friendly.

Haplo also did an FM where you control two thieves, resulting in some interesting "Head Over Heels"-type gameplay, as well as an "interlude" to "A Sorrowful Farewell" that should have been a part of the FM but got cut due to space restraints.

Overall, Haplo knows what he's doing, and isn't afraid of trying new things with the Dark Engine, but he seems to be running out of steam. Let's see what he comes up with next to see if I'm right or wrong.

 

[1eyedking]

Thief 2 fan missions are so fucking tasteless and reeking amateur fan-fiction quality, and so fucking distant from the art Looking Glass Studios delivers (it's like the fuckers were completely unable to fathom what was that made the Thief gameworld so vivid), that it's completely pointless to download and play any of the crap that is out there.

Stick to Thief 1, and Thief 2 if (and only if) you've recently played Thief 1. Avoid lower quality material - stick to the best.

 

[Icewater]

Thief 2 fan missions are so fucking tasteless and reeking amateur fan-fiction quality, and so fucking distant from the art Looking Glass Studios delivers (it's like the fuckers were completely unable to fathom what was that made the Thief gameworld so vivid), that it's completely pointless to download and play any of the crap that is out there.

Stick to Thief 1, and Thief 2 if (and only if) you've recently played Thief 1. Avoid lower quality material - stick to the best.

Who the fuck is this fag

 

[JarlFrank]

Thief 2 fan missions are so fucking tasteless and reeking amateur fan-fiction quality, and so fucking distant from the art Looking Glass Studios delivers (it's like the fuckers were completely unable to fathom what was that made the Thief gameworld so vivid), that it's completely pointless to download and play any of the crap that is out there.

Stick to Thief 1, and Thief 2 if (and only if) you've recently played Thief 1. Avoid lower quality material - stick to the best.

The Art of Thievery. Heist Society. Seven Shades of Mercury. The Seven Sisters (which incredibly creepy and intense). And, of course, T2X: Shadows of the Metal Age.

Play those before you dismiss ALL fan missions as shit. Most are mediocre, some are really quite shit, but there are masterpieces too.

 

[Cassidy]

JarlFrank, why do you bother arguing with someone who thinks Splinter Cell, Doom 3 and Left 4 Dead are masterwork examples of ART in gaming?

If he wants to stick to his delusion, let him do it and not know what he is missing.

 

[1eyedking]

The Art of Thievery. Heist Society. Seven Shades of Mercury. The Seven Sisters (which incredibly creepy and intense). And, of course, T2X: Shadows of the Metal Age.

Play those before you dismiss ALL fan missions as shit. Most are mediocre, some are really quite shit, but there are masterpieces too.

T2X? Bitch please, at its best it's fan-fiction. Can't watch or play shit like this without cringing every second.

Give me the good stuff.

 

[JarlFrank]

The intro wasn't bad. The first mission was shit on rails, but once the second missions starts, it becomes good. The level design ranges from above average to great, and the cutscenes are actually quite tastefully done (even though the voice actress isn't that good, but it's pretty much a budget-less fanmade mod) in the style of the originals. I've never noticed anything jarring in the artstyle of the missions themselves, and the story was consistent with the setting.

But yeah, keep selectively picking the bad parts while ignoring the rest and don't bother elaborating on your opinion, since obviously namedropping is enough. Shame that my curiosity on what is so great about Doom 3's or L4D's art will never be satisfied this way.

Except for the penetrant voice acting, there is nothing wrong with this:

Or this, one of the fan missions I've recommended you in my previous post (which you should actually play instead of just going HERP THEY ALL SUCK):

And before you go OLOLOL NOT COMPARABLE TO THE ORIGINALS, well fuck what do you expect from people who do this for fun in their free time in the way of production values? Stylistically, they still try to keep to the style of the original two Thief games, and manage to do this well enough. The gameplay of the FMs I mentioned is great, too... which is the entire point of fan missions. Well-designed missions that are challenging for Thief players and fun to explore.

Oh, and how about you try making a better one. I would be very interested in the result.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

The first new Thief fan mission of 2012 is a two-parter that's... actually pretty damn good.

"Better Off Dead" has you travelling to an abandoned Hammerite castle that the Mechanists have taken an interest in. Turns out there's much more to it than just nervous Mechanists and lots of dead Hammerites. The second part takes place in Paganville, and some people don't like that, I hear, but I didn't complain.

While these two missions offer nothing exceptional or new in the realm of Thief fan missions, they are still very good overall. There is really nothing bad that can be said about them. Production value is high, everything is thought out and planned right, and there's plenty of stuff to do. There are even cannons to play with (Who needs holy water?) and even though the secrets are "marked", you'll still be scratching your head at times figuring them out.

I recommend them, especially for bored Thief players.

 

[SCO]

1eyedking returns to my ignore list.

For purely aesthetic reasons of course.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Just finished the first part of A Night in Rocksbourg.

Pretty cool mission overall, but...

I HEARD YOU LIKE PIXEL-HUNTING FOR FUCKING KEYS

HNNNNGGGGG

(also, I didn't find Garrett's hidden stash at the very start and had to check the ttlg thread about the fm where the fuck could I find rope arrows to get the statue. Derp)

 

[commie]

Ok so I just replayed Thief Gold after a decade and it was fucking great. I had forgotten much of it except general things and a few standout levels and even had a T2 mission mixed up with this game(that one where you run from a beast in the woods), so it was almost like playing it for the first time again. My discipline of not replaying it until I had forgotten most of the details paid off handsomely.

Anyway bros, apart from the few mentions here, what are the dog's bollocks regarding Thief Gold FM's? There seems to be a quite discernible difference between T1 and T2 in style and so would like to sample more T1 inspired goodness rather than the blander T2.