Observations
I replayed Lord Edmund Entertains last night.
Bloody hell.
The authors of the current crop of ordained classics would do well to revisit missions like this and figure out what they've been missing. Because I had
fun, for the first time in a very long while. The most recent mission I genuinely enjoyed playing like this was The Focus, and it was an awfully long dry-spell before that one too.
The mission certainly isn't without its faults, of course. There are no light radiuses which can make sneaking too unforgiving in places. There's technical issues like roombrushing problems and double doors not being linked, and the mission layout is too linear and contrived for my liking. But there were so many things it did
right.
- Like AIs. Probably the best compliment I can give is this: it didn't feel like if I knocked out one AI, I might as well knock out them all, and I haven't been able to say that for a long while. It was a mission that genuinely rewarded sneaking, as opposed to ghosting. There were enough AIs to provide a challenge, with cunning overlappings of areas, but there were never too many in one area and most of the patrols made timing a pleasant challenge rather than a chore. Instead of throwing AIs at the player every 5 feet ("Expert really means expert!") the mission used lighting, terrain and floors very well to put the AIs it did have to the best advantage.
To get personally critical for a moment, the very first scene of Coterie of Smokers was 9 guards guarding... a garden. If that doesn't explain why I stopped playing the mission right there, then you're probably reading the wrong thread.
- Like loot. The total loot in the mission was 2008, and it was sparse and well-placed. The lord's table had 3 gold plates, an extravagance. The inn had one treasure goblet, hidden carefully at the back of a shelf. In a modern mission I would expect to walk out of there with 5 goblets (from the Low Poly Guild), 2 fine wines and the purse on someone's belt, and that's if the author had been feeling cautious that day.
- Like architecture. This was one of the most detailed and elaborate missions at the time of release, but the careful simplicity was a breath of fresh air after the overwrought victoriana I've been getting for the past 2 years. Once again, more brushes and custom textures doesn't mean more atmosphere. Perhaps this is Thief 2's fault more than that of FM makers, but I think the starkness of Thief 1's late-medieval 'vibe' offers a much cooler and more involving feel, and I wish people would try to capture that more often. (I'm looking forward to that Thief 1 mission, Zaccheus!)
- Like one of the best readables I have ever seen in an FM. Anyone planning on writing 7-page diaries for every character in their mission, and naturally I am not looking at anyone in particular, should read Lord Edmund's journal and decide if they can match it. If you can't, then don't. The other readables were also well-articulated, to the point and hinted rather than underlined.
- Like being as long as it *needed* to be, and no more. This is something I know is more subjective right than most, but in my book more doesn't mean better and I'm just not a fan of long-winded FMs. A 4-hour FM simply does not contain double the fun of a 2-hour one, though it certainly can contain double the tedium.
I'm not saying LEE excelled, nor that these points are the be-all end-all. But its strengths highlighted the distinct flaws I've been seeing in modern missions, flaws that seem to have their roots more in current FM culture than personal technique.
Nor do I think this is just a matter of my personal taste. I've talked to many people who have expressed the same malaise with modern FMs, and who have also noticed the many authors who have stopped authoring and being part of the community since this climate shift. To put it bluntly, nobody seems to give a damn about good old fashioned gameplay anymore, which is to say gameplay with a small g that comes before the word 'style' in the dictionary.
So I guess the point of this post is, can we stop patting ourselves on the back for our miniature opuses and get back to making missions that are actually enjoyable? I'm getting tired of wading through Concept and Achievement and general self-indulgence in search of kernels of fun.
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