Thief fan missions and campaigns

[JarlFrank]

http://thiefmissions.com/ is the main fan mission archive, but it is down at the moment.

That is also my go-to website for Thief FMs, but it hasn't been updated regularly since somewhen in 2013, where the regular updates break off and since then whoever runs the place only uploaded two FMs, one in 2014 and one in 2015, so if you want FMs from 2014 to now, you'll have to check elsewhere.

The Russian fansite Darkfate.ru is supposed to be up to date, or at least I read so somewhere. Since the missions are ordered alphabetically rather than by release date, I'm not sure they have all the newest ones: http://darkfate.org/view/details/fan-missions/thief2

The most complete archive is, as far as I know, on TTLG.de: http://www.ttlg.de/de/download/navigation/fm-download.php?orderBy=lastupdate

 

[Yandros]

@Darth - I didn't click on any game, I just sorted the full list by date and it stops in 2012. But you're right, if you go to a specific game's listing, it is current. Thanks for pointing that out.

 

[Dev_Anj]

Statistics for Thief and Dark Mod fan mission releases in 2015, courtesy Ricebug:

Thief 2 went up, but not by much. Thief Gold continues to have a consistent though low number of releases(thanks skacky!) and Dark Mod had a surprisingly big slump, maybe because there were more hands put on getting Crucible of Omens' prologue out. Regardless of the statistics, it was still a good year for Thief and Dark Mod missions I feel, there was a variety of missions released with quite a few interesting things about them, and we saw some people like DarkMax return back to FM building. There was no mission released for Thief 3, besides an update to an older mission.

Disclaimer: This shows the number of releases, not the total number of missions. So Gems of Provenance counts as 1 even though it has 4 missions, 2 of which are brand new.

Now it's time to ask the question: what was your favourite FM of 2015? I made a list with all the releases of this year so far, using Southquarter's and Taffersparadise's lists to gather the data. Here it is: http://pastebin.com/AgVRJkKY

 

[JarlFrank]

There was no mission released for Thief 3, besides an update to an older mission.

Heh, and the graphic doesn't include T3 FMs either, even though it includes TDM ones. T3 missions generally seem to be a little ignored compared to the others, and I personally haven't played a single one of those, either, probably because I dislike T3's engine and never got around to reinstalling it for FMs. Are the T3 FMs worthwile?

Now it's time to ask the question: what was your favourite FM of 2015? I made a list with all the releases of this year so far, using Southquarter's and Taffersparadise's lists to gather the data. Here it is: http://pastebin.com/AgVRJkKY

I haven't even played all of them yet - obviously I avoid horror missions because I'm a pussy, so those are out anyway, but there are some I hadn't even heard the names of. Huh. Have some catching up to do.

My favourites this year, starting from bestestest: A Job Well Done, The Chalice of Souls, Of Thieves and Rubies.

Haven't played the TDM ones yet either, but I'll do that soon-ish.

And I hope 2016 will finally see my own first mission release. I'm thinking of putting it into the noob contest, although I'm not entirely sure I'll make the deadline.

 

[JarlFrank]

So I played through Darkstone Gem Chapter 1 by Max_b5 and am now playing the new one, Nobles and Craftsmen. I rated Chapter 1 with a "Good 7.5/10" in DarkLoader, which is a pretty good score in my rating system (only the missions I like a *lot* manage to get above 7), as I enjoyed them quite a bit. My favourites were the first and second mission, the third was great too with some intense ghosting and I barely scraped the loot goal together, fourth was... eh, it was enjoyable despite not being my type of mission, kinda reminded me of Thief Gold's thieves guild mission, but executed much better than that one. I had to look at a walkthrough to find the control room key though.

Overall, those missions had only minor flaws that I noticed, but nothing big, and I liked how creative they were with their diverse environments. Also, that mechanist cathedral in the first mission has to be one of the most atmospheric mechanist places ever - it looks more Hammerite with a Mechanist touch than the typical Mech style, which I liked a lot.

And the thing happening down in the basement of the second mission is very similar to what I have planned for my beginner contest mission, and I went "okay, so my idea isn't that unique after all"

Nobles and Craftsmen looks good and reminds me of the first mission on first glance. Dis gonna be gud.

EDIT:

Oh, and I fucking LOVE the door textures you're using, Max. They're gorgeous.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Now it's time to ask the question: what was your favourite FM of 2015?

While it's very tempting to give my vote this year to skacky (once again), I'm gonna give it to 'stinkykitty' instead for his "Gems of Provenance" campaign; particularly the City Public Water Works mission.

 

[skacky]

You're dead to me!


Nobles & Craftsmen is probably the one I liked the most.

 

[Melan]

Now it's time to ask the question: what was your favourite FM of 2015?

While it's very tempting to give my vote this year to skacky (once again), I'm gonna give it to 'stinkykitty' instead for his "Gems of Provenance" campaign; particularly the City Public Water Works mission.

I also voted for CPWW, with A House of Locked Secrets, With Snow as Sole Witness, and Nobles & Craftsmen as runner-ups. CPWW is OM quality.

 

[JarlFrank]

Holy goddamn fuck, Nobles and Craftsmen is good. Definitely the best mission Max has made yet. This is one of those awesomely interconnected levels where you find a new pathway and it leads back to a place you've already been. Classic rooftop mission.

Oh, and I totally forgot CPWW was released this year. Right. That one's also among my favourites, nobody gets that Thief 1/Gold feeling down as well as he (or she?) does, the levels are downright surreal in places, like some areas of the Bonehoard and of course The Sword. A mansion mission inspired by The Sword... now that's something I'd love to see made by stinkykitty.

2015 was a good year. Too good. I can't decide.

 

[Melan]

To think that Sara Verrilli is wasting her talents away teaching Bullshit Studies instead of designing missions like The Sword, Strange Bedfellows and The Maw of Chaos... A massive underuse of human potential.

 

[JarlFrank]

To think that Sara Verrilli is wasting her talents away teaching Bullshit Studies instead of designing missions like The Sword, Strange Bedfellows and The Maw of Chaos... A massive underuse of human potential.

Goddamnit

 

[Max_b5]

Oh, and I fucking LOVE the door textures you're using, Max. They're gorgeous.

The COSAS team made those so all the credit goes to them .

I can't vote for any TG FM (yet). I only played Skacky's missions and Gems of Provenance and unless I've missed something, I can't decide among them because they're all awesome and have unique settings and styles.

 

[JarlFrank]

So I just found the youtube channel of some girl (or maybe young guy with a very high voice, lol) who decided to play through ALL the FMs on Komag's DVD FM collection, including all the unfinished and really frustratingly bad ones.

https://www.youtube.com/user/NexusTorvum/videos

Been doing this for 2 years now it seems, and making some good progress. Very obscure and very strange missions in there. Worth checking out if you like watching Thief LPs.

 

[CroGamer1234]

So I just found the youtube channel of some girl (or maybe young guy with a very high voice, lol) who decided to play through ALL the FMs on Komag's DVD FM collection, including all the unfinished and really frustratingly bad ones.

https://www.youtube.com/user/NexusTorvum/videos

Been doing this for 2 years now it seems, and making some good progress. Very obscure and very strange missions in there. Worth checking out if you like watching Thief LPs.

Yeah, her channel is really great. My absolute favorite in the 'Thief Youtube Bussiness'. Her videos are really informative about the FMs she plays.

 

[JarlFrank]

True. I watched some of them, and there's really a lot of information and you notice she's a knowledgeable Thief player. FenPhoenix's LPs are the best in pure entertainment value, but these are more informative. Especially those about the more obscure and weird missions.

 

[Yandros]

She has some missions and demos in there that I've never heard of, and I thought I knew of virtually every mission released. Thanks for the mention.

 

[CroGamer1234]

There's actually quite a number of Thief Let's Players.

There's, of course, Fen Phoenix, who's your standard Let's Player, then there's the already mentioned Nexus, Klatremus makes Supreme Ghosting videos, Deathstalker Deceased makes Iron Man FM videos, The Master Foundry makes (made?) ghosting videos, FM_Dale is also a standard Let's Player...

Random_Taffer and Slyfoxx also have their own Youtube channels, but I'm yet to watch them.

And RPG Minx also made a few Thief FM videos.

 

[JarlFrank]

So I just scrapped the very interesting idea I had for the beginner contest because the deadline is only next month and I doubt I'll manage to finish it that quickly, and I'd rather do it later when I have more time. Instead, I'll just go for a nonsensical but hopefully fun "My First Dromed Mission" that pokes a little fun at typical "first missions", and it's kinda inspired by the 72 hours contest mission "The Swindle Job" which I just played. It was obviously an amateur's mission, but it was endearingly so, a very short and slightly quirky mission that was pretty fun to play. Considering the deadline, something like this is more suitable for what I wanna do than the more ambitious idea I originally had. Also, it'll give me some more Dromed practice before attempting more serious stuff.

Just opened up Dromed. Wish me luck.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Just opened up Dromed. Wish me luck.

"If you can read this, Dromed has crashed." :D

 

[Melan]

Rob: Once upon a time, not only would DromEd crash, but it would go out and kill your family afterwards.
Mahk: I thought we took out that code.

 

[JarlFrank]

Eh, works pretty stable for me, but then I
1) am still at the very, very, very beginning of my dromeding career
2) have never touched the program before NewDark, and it was probably a lot worse back then
3) don't have a sizeable mission that could give me problems yet

What I do have is one small-ish issue though that probably results from me accidentally hitting the wrong hotkey or something: it just so happens that sometimes, Dromed stops snapping created brushes to the grid and I can pretty much freely adjust their size and position. I probably push the wrong button when that happens, without knowing which one it was. Restarting Dromed fixes it.

EDIT: Oh, and on a similar note, sometimes the game would go to my camera position when I use the alt+g command, rather than to the player position. Also seemingly without reason and I dunno what causes it.

 

[Melan]

EDIT: Oh, and on a similar note, sometimes the game would go to my camera position when I use the alt+g command, rather than to the player position. Also seemingly without reason and I dunno what causes it.

That's from turning "Persistent Player Position" ON/OFF. It is rather useful since you don't have to move your player start to test any specific area.

WRT the grid snapping issue, have you tried to turn it back on with the "Use" button close to "Grid Sz"?

 

[JarlFrank]

EDIT: Oh, and on a similar note, sometimes the game would go to my camera position when I use the alt+g command, rather than to the player position. Also seemingly without reason and I dunno what causes it.

That's from turning "Persistent Player Position" ON/OFF. It is rather useful since you don't have to move your player start to test any specific area.

Ah, thanks. And yes, now that I built a second room and go from room to room to check out in-game whether the proportions are fine and all that, it's actually very useful.

WRT the grid snapping issue, have you tried to turn it back on with the "Use" button close to "Grid Sz"?

Haven't encountered the problem since I made the post, but I'll try that when it happens again.

Also, I notice that I manage to keep my motivation up a lot more during these grueling first steps of learning how to do shit when I keep the Hammerite Imperium soundtrack running in the background. Gives me that thiefy atmosphere while I build the mission :D

 

[Darth Slaughter]

Just finished "keeper of infinity: bad venture" by soul tear. The level is gorgeous, it ran ok in my system, some frame drops here and there, but nothing I couldn't stand. What I hated is how full of gimmicks this mission was: Loot extremely hidden (and sometimes even items necessary to progress), some gameplay elements you're not used to, like cutting the bushes to reveal a door directly associated to move to the next area, a lot of trial and error while jumping and mantling.

But the worse is how garrett get's stuck in geometry all the time. if he hits a wall, he will stop. If you want to sneak around vases, doors, chairs, you will be pissed off. AI sensitivity is completely overhauled, but it works, at least. Also, the level structure is well done, as well architecture, but even thief veterans will have a hard time trying to finish this mission.

 

[JarlFrank]

Garrett's room doesn't look too shabby (hey, with all the money he makes from stealing, he can afford it!)