Thief fan missions and campaigns

[Squadafroinx]

Don't know if you guys saw it, but there is a new DM mission available with TDM 2.05

Here's my take :

+ Excellent visuals! From the NuThiaf-style buildings to the machinery, these new models are just gorgeous
+ Clever puzzle, which isn't too hard or too obvious
+ Cool readables, really fleshes out Bridgeport
+ Interesting patrols, interesting use of an one-eyed guardsman

- Kinda bland sometime (the upper floors for example)
- The loop in the streets is annoying, they should have choose a longer one
- fucking use of real calendar (april, february &c) and real world locations (arabia) god damn I hate this so much

-> /

 

[Melan]

- fucking use of real calendar (april, february &c) and real world locations (arabia) god damn I hate this so much

Me too. One of my hangups with TDM is the weakness of the implied setting - sure, some of it is for legal boilerplate reasons, but it could be so much better. Probably something decided early on and never changed because it'd break some compromise and would need to get renegotiated.

The other one is the half-hearted approach to technology, which loses a lot of the hyper-urbanisation and interesting electrical and mechanical gizmos in favour of some meh and blah. (But then there is an unreleased mission from jdude that's actually Angelwatch-level high tech, and a city mission that's very organic and packed, so who knows.) I never ended up bothering with TDM's official mythology, and just continued from where I left off with Disorientation, except for filing off a few serial numbers.

That said, this specific mission has a definite "Thief 4, except it is actually good" style, which is a nice commentary on what might have been. It could be larger and more complex, but in the end, it is a tutorial specifically designed with beginners in mind. For that, the puzzles are quite good - there is navigation-related stuff, there are clearly set up stealth puzzles with multiple solutions, the core objective is clever (I almost discovered it by accident, but didn't), and the optional loot item shows players why it is worth exploring. If I had to mention a negative, it would be that the architecture is visually cluttered in a way that'd make hunting for extra loot and locations extra-hard.

 

[nicked]

- fucking use of real calendar (april, february &c) and real world locations (arabia) god damn I hate this so much

Real-world locations is a surefire immersion breaker, I agree.

But to be honest, I find it much more distracting when there's made-up calendar months. For the same reason that a fantasy world has a 24-hour day/night cycle, and similar flora/fauna/civilisation to Earth, some things are just there to make the fantastical easier to swallow.

 

[skacky]

One of the first things we did with TBP was to give names to days and months. The calendar used in the campaign (7 days, 12 months) is a modern calendar that was adopted 833 years ago. We kept 24 hours per day for convenience's sake since clocks in Thief are the same than in our world. Prior to that the old calendar had 16 months with an uneven amount of days per months. It was an old Hammerite calendar and was a true bureaucratic nightmare. It got changed pretty reluctantly and some old-fashioned Hammerites still use the old calendar, and furthermore not every region in the known world uses it.

This also gives us the opportunity to portray Thief's world as being far older than what it seems, with 'advanced' machinery being in fact not that recent, but it's pure fanfic at this point.

 

[marbleman]

As far as I remember, original Thief games did not use any special calendar. That kind of thing doesn't bother me that much.

But the use of real-life locations is a no-no.

 

[Squadafroinx]

As far as I remember, original Thief games did not use any special calendar. That kind of thing doesn't bother me that much.

But the use of real-life locations is a no-no.

They did but I'll just post a very interesting link on ThiefWiki :

http://thief.wikia.com/wiki/Forum:Thief_Universe_Calendar:_References_to_Time

Anyway, you can check our calendar here :

Frimas
Arcanum
Monath
Pluvior
Pampinosus
Siccitas
Fervidore
Saones
Vindemia
Venificus
Recidivus
Nivermis

 

[skacky]

The only thing we know with Thief's calendar is that it took place in the year 34 (at the time of The Dark Project). Thief 2 doesn't even reference any year. I don't think we know how many months nor days per week there are.

We decided to add 800 years before the number 34 since that's the time frame Melan used in his FMs and we reference them a lot, in addition to other FMs, but with soft 'retcons' that make the world look even more Kafka-esque than it already is. We also used one day and one month from Melan (Mournsday and Recidivus, respectively) and named the other 6 days and 11 months. It's rather funny because our names for days except that one are completely different.

EDIT: Actually I wasn't aware of that wiki article, and TDS does feature day names (same as ours, in real life that is). Good thing TDS lore is almost non-existent in our continuity.

 

[H3H3]

But the use of real-life locations is a no-no.

Agreed. Mentioning a real-location in an outlandish fantasy-medieval world isn't quite right.

 

[nicked]

It always makes me think that the FM author has never quite grasped that Thief is not actually set in real life medieval Europe, which raises all sorts of questions about the education system wherever they're from...

 

[Melan]

It is pretty interesting where people bring that stuff. I am not much into l'art-pour-l'art worldbuilding, but created some conventions for my missions and filled things out as the need came up.

AFAIK the only precise reference to dates in TDP mentions the year 34. I added 800 to that to make it look more substantial, and located my missions in 832, preceding the events in Thief. The last of the four large FMs I planned to build would have ended with a disillusioned and embittered Garrett deciding he has had enough, and deciding he'd rather go with "a simple job planned for this evening" (roll credits). I have only named two months (Recidivus and Oriens), but gradually had to develop a seven-day cycle for my missions, based on a Hammerite calendar: Wrightsday, Penitent's Day, Locksman's Day, Forger's Day, Mason's Day, Mournsday and Bell's Repose (a day of rest). I also figured a few days per annum being "outside" the calendar to correct for its irregularities - time outside recorded time, essentially.

Some of the things that interest me (both in and outside Thief) are pre-modern urban development (a given), but also how societies change in an organic way, i.e. how customs become adapted, corrupted or changed as time goes on and people lose the original reference points that inormed them - e.g. how we still name our months for Roman emperors who are no longer meaningfully connected to us. So things like parallel calendar systems or different legal codes for different social classes (or to take it even further, for different streets and districts within a massive city!), enclaves, exclaves and extra-territorial entities are all pretty intriguing from where I stand. Of course, most of that stays in the gameplay's background - it doesn't have to be written down in a didactic fashion to influence one's perception of the City.

 

[skacky]

It is pretty interesting where people bring that stuff. I am not much into l'art-pour-l'art worldbuilding, but created some conventions for my missions and filled things out as the need came up.

Heh yeah, but to be honest Squadafroin and I are just turbo autistic when it comes to this stuff. The TBP design documents are really huge and complex, and yet we've barely scratched the surface. Our days are a lot simpler than yours (and frankly not as good), simply being Mournsday, Tearsday, Steamsday, Vinesday, Fearsday, Baronsday and Hammersday. While we detail everything in these documents, I think that not even 10% of that stuff will find its way to the campaign proper, it's more used as references so we don't make mistakes while building stuff or writing things.

 

[JarlFrank]

It is pretty interesting where people bring that stuff. I am not much into l'art-pour-l'art worldbuilding, but created some conventions for my missions and filled things out as the need came up.

Heh yeah, but to be honest Squadafroin and I are just turbo autistic when it comes to this stuff. The TBP design documents are really huge and complex, and yet we've barely scratched the surface. Our days are a lot simpler than yours (and frankly not as good), simply being Mournsday, Tearsday, Steamsday, Vinesday, Fearsday, Baronsday and Hammersday. While we detail everything in these documents, I think that not even 10% of that stuff will find its way to the campaign proper, it's more used as references so we don't make mistakes while building stuff or writing things.

You're the best kind of turbo-autists

 

[Melan]

At least until being sidelined by the publication of the Prestigious Horse Penis Mod.

 

[tormund]

Amount of effort you folks are putting into this, as opposed to what we can reasonably expect from writing and world-building of another big Thief game (in the unfortunate case that one actually get greenlighted)...
And no, i would not classify this as "autism" in the sense in which that term is often applied to modders: there's simply too much class and taste on display here for that.

 

[JarlFrank]

That's why it's turboautism.

 

[Arrowgrab]

At least until being sidelined by the publication of the Prestigious Horse Penis Mod.

I do believe you mean "Prodigious", taffer.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

Hey skacky, enlighten me, what TBP stands for?

 

[tormund]

The Black Parade. Essentially, BLM equivalent of Pride. Taffers are eminently progressive bunch, you know.

 

[Squadafroinx]

Stands for 'The Black Parade', which have NOTHING to do with My Chemical Romance

 

[Random_Taffer]

You guys will just have to... CARRY ON.

 

[nicked]

Finally got around to finishing the last mission of Godbreaker. A very satisfying conclusion, and a great fun city mission to boot. I even managed to snatch the Veil of Illuz, though for the trouble I went to, I was expecting a bonus objective to pop. The beginning was a tense challenge but straightforward and didn't outstay it's welcome, so was a refreshing new take on the gameplay rather than a source of frustration. Of the two missions I think this one had better gameplay, but the swamp had better atmosphere. There's not much in it though, they were both great.

It's a nitpick, but the only thing that broke immersion for me a little was the fact that so many of the buildings had ladders and elevators instead of stairs. I know it's probably to save on cells, but it's ever-so-slightly immersion-breaking, because it doesn't feel like how a real building works. I get the impression that the exteriors were all built first, and then the interiors squeezed in, making traversing between floors limited by space in some cases.

Only other nitpick is that you're not told there's a map or pointed towards it in any way. I spent the first two hours cursing my bad sense of direction and running around completely lost until I happened to re-stumble upon the watch station. It might have been a good idea to have an objective to "Find a map of this part of town", and maybe Connal say "The Watch station usually have pretty detailed maps" or something.

Otherwise, this was a fantastic campaign; good writing and characters all round, and gameplay that was rarely frustrating and always fun even when I got stuck.

I also really appreciated the end movie epilogue - I can't think of a single other fan mission that has an ending movie, and it really worked well to tie everything off.

 

[marbleman]

A very good point about the map. I remember getting lost all the time on my first playthrough, which wasn't very fun.

By the way, Calendra's Cistern has an amazing epilogue movie.

 

[JarlFrank]

I found the map in Godbreaker mission 4 about 5 minutes before finishing the mission.

So yeah.

 

[Squadafroinx]

We're reaching another milestone for The Black Parade ! As I speak we're close to fully finishing another map.
This mission takes place in one of the wealthiest mansion in The City, you can expect tight patrols, high traffic areas, alarms buttons, traps, barking dogs and dewdrops

A screenshot :

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

[Dev_Anj]

Nicely done, both with the screenshot and the trolling. Can I ask how many more missions need to be finished after this?