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Thief fan missions and campaigns

Unkillable Cat

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I just finished Lord Fishkill's Curse - and I wasn't as impressed as by Lorgan's Web.

It's based on the "Life of the Party" OM from Thief 2, so cityscape and rooftop antics abound. But LFC differs in the fact that there are no artificial limitations on movement - Garrett can walk out on the streets below if he wants to.

The Angelwatch section has been removed, and instead there's an underground section which is supposed to be the Unseen University from Discworld.

While I did enjoy the various little touches (like the memorials for everybody's favourite foul-mouthed guards) and the 'curse' is pretty clever, the whole thing just felt...flat. It's too similar to 'Life of the Party', and the new parts seem uninspired, even though they have some cool eyecandy.

There's nothing wrong with LFC - it just doesn't click for me.
 

Unkillable Cat

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Well, that was a disappointment.

The 'sequel' to "Sepulchre of the Sinistral" is called "The Mystery Man' and has Garrett breaking into a lavish mansion to rob the place and investigate why so many nobles have been disappearing.

I remember this one quite well when I originally played it, but replaying it now led me to realize the two points that absolutely ruin it: There is too much marble floor around, and there are way WAY too many guards. There are 8 (!) guards posted outside the front door alone, 5 guards on patrol in the gardens in front, and 5 more stationary guards in the gardens. That's 18 guards outside the mansion. The only real way in is through the guard barracks, which counts 8 more guards. The enormous entrance hall counts 5 more, and there's even a guard in the storage room!

It's at this point in the mission that guards start to appear that are strategically placed in a manner that they CANNOT be caught off-guard. Standing stationary at the end of electrically-lit marble-clad hallways and key intersections, always facing towards any and all avenues of approach - the only way to deal with them (without killing them of course, which is not only allowed but probably intended as well) is to lure them out by making noise while standing in the shadows - which is abusing the game mechanics and not very Thief-like at all. I counted 37 guards in total before I just gave up and packed it in, and I only explored the exterior and about half the first floor.

I remember bits and pieces of what came next. The mission ends with Garrett reading a book, addressed to him, written by the antagonist, minutes ago, and ends on the words "I am behind you now", followed by a fight against a super-fast Haunt. I'm sorry, but whatever good points this FM has are completely devastated by the bad points. This one is only for the masochists.
 

Jack Of Owls

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Hey, SlyFoxx posted here, he of the excellent & professional sounding voice acting in the PC fan mission community, where most amateur voice actors sound like they're doing a bad Saturday Night Live impression of a bad Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonation. Thanks for the poignant story, Sly. As for Thief & 2, yeah, they're great, and it quite possibly has the best fan author community that has ever existed for PC games. Keep on keepin' on, Keepers.
 

Unkillable Cat

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The only real way in is through the guard barracks, which counts 8 more guards.
No. There's an easy access to the mansion. The lab.

You mean the window high up on the left-hand side? It leads to a nice-looking residence, but any further progress there (if any) is blocked by what appeared to be a not-so intuitive lock. I suspected that the bed hid a secret passage and that the golden bowl was the key to opening it, but since I also had the 'wonderful' problem of Garrett not latching on to the rope arrow required to enter/exit this room and him constantly falling to his death, I didn't give it much thought, especially since I was too busy knocking out an army of security personnel present at the premises.

Unna Oertsdottir said:
There's still a handful of T1/T2 FM-authors left. But I wouldn't recommend them to read this thread. Daunting and nitpicking stuff.

Look who's talking. Despite your low post count, more than half of your contributions here amount to nothing more than near-mindless criticism of other people's criticism.
 

Unkillable Cat

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Yes. There's a crystal shard in that room. It's the key that's mentioned in the book nearby. Use it on that vase.

I fired the mission up again just to make sure of this. The crystal shard is NOT in the same room as the golden vase.

To make absolutely certain, I consulted a walkthrough afterwards, and the crystal shard is in a room that also contains a skeleton. Which I never came across in my latest playthrough, but is most definetely inside the mansion somewhere. So the lab isn't a viable entrypoint into the mansion until AFTER you've already entered the mansion.

Therefore...

Unna Oertsdottir said:
No. There's an easy access to the mansion. The lab.

Is wrong.
 

SlyFoxx

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The Mystery Man was the first FM I ever played...so it still holds a special place in my heart. Years ago I played it and left a surprise for whomever visited the place next.

MM_Posed1.jpg
 

Unkillable Cat

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Since I had another go at it, I'm replaying it through to the end this time.

Taffing around for the Talisman of Fire, and so far I have 47 guard knockouts. Haven't touched the 8 guards right outside the front doors...yet.

No, I'm not gonna drag them all out into the entrance hall. :)
 

Icewater

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The crystal shard is only in the same room as the gold vase on lower difficulties. On Garrett difficulty you'll be going through the guard barracks and there's not much you can do about that.
 

Unkillable Cat

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Ah, that explains a lot. I long stopped playing Thief on anything but the highest difficulty level, most Thief players do the same.

Just finished this FM - again. My opinion of the FM hasn't changed much. While it offers decent Thief "gameplay", it does so at quite a cost - some of the 15000 loot is even unlootable due to it being those aforementioned gold vases. (I only got 11500 myself.) The FM itself is one gigantic keyhunt, the readables are all audiologs (and horrible ones at that) and on Garrett difficulty there's only one real way through the mansion without resorting to murdering several of the guards.

I can't remember exactly how I killed the antagonist last time round, but this time I round I spammed the ground with moss arrows, put up two rope arrows at each end of the upper path, then ran like hell for one of the ropes the second he 'appeared'. I would then just hang on the rope and wait until he calmed down, then sneak up behind him and whack him good. Two max-damage backstabs plus a few extra whacks did him in. By that time I still had left to exit the mission, and there were several hostile critters blocking my path. Fortunately I had 2 speed potions...

I can see how this served as great inspiration for future FMs, but it's aged pretty badly. I have a hard time recommending it to new Thief players, but maybe some of the "old guard" might wanna give it a shot.
 

TripJack

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just played the mystery man last night actually, great example of why moderation is key even in video game level design

too much loot, too many guards, too much pixelhunting for secret door switches, too much backtracking, and as a bonus to top it all off this
The mission ends with Garrett reading a book, addressed to him, written by the antagonist, minutes ago, and ends on the words "I am behind you now", followed by a fight
happens not once but three times throughout the mission

sad to see what is otherwise a well made mansion map drowned in pointless excess :rpgcodex:
 

Dev_Anj

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I played through Saving Caroline and it's pretty underwhelming. Basically the premise is that Garrett has to rescue someone, but she's actually captured and held in a magical world that she created. The way the mission plays out is that you end up going through small segment after small segment. The inital museum area is fine, although the convenient vent lying about in the open is more than a little ridiculous.

After that, you're thrown into an area with a lot of empty spaces, colours that don't gel well with the Thief textures, a maze like structure with a lot of dead ends, and such. There seriously isn't much to do here, all you have to do is go all the way near a gate, steal a key, backtrack a long way to a tower door, pull a lever, and then go back to the gate. The gate opens to another barebones area where the only major obstacle is one pagan ape patrolling a huge area pointlessly. This leads to a pinkish waterfall with odd colouring that also reveals the irregularities of the water flow. Shortly after, you get to escort the child through some forested areas. Thanksfully, this isn't hard, because all the areas are simplistic and only require separating the initial guards in the first area. After that, you leave her at a house, teleport back to the museum, and leave. There isn't much loot to get, and not much to do to get said loot either. So yeah, nothing much to talk about here.
 

Unkillable Cat

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I'm running out of T1/G FM's to play, only have Autumn in Lampfire Hills (3 versions of it) and Calendra's Cistern now. But right now I just finished a good one.

"Lord Beilman's Estate" has Garrett breaking into a large hotel out in the boondocks, looking for a golden skull that is rumoured to be hidden on the premises - the fact that no one knows for sure means Garrett will have to do all the hard work.

This is a very straightforward mansion mission - at first. The architecture is beautiful, well above what I'm used to seeing in a T1/G FM (until skacky came along anyway) but it's not exactly trying anything new, it just sticks to solid angles and cardinal directions. That aside, it won't take long for experienced taffers to notice some...odd things, like how the guard patrols seem to be somewhat random, or how despite there being tons of doors around, the FM isn't a key hunt at all. Slowly and surely, things get a little more bizarre. Seems that there is something hidden on the premises, but the readables make it clear that the owners + staff seem to have communication problems - something that works in Garrett's favour.

While (some of) the readables do suffer from Audiolog Syndrome, they're actually quite amusing to read. Then there are a couple of gramophones on the second floor with some VERY amusing recordings on them. :)

This FM, however, will go down in history for me for having one of the best easter eggs of all time - not just in Thief, but in ANY game. The basement is an optional area with nothing but bizarre and crazy things - the one I'm referring to is the servant in there. Observe him, listen to the music, and if you're old enough it should at least make you smile.

So overall - run-of-the-mill mansion mission turns bananas and Bob's your uncle. Worth at least a playthrough for anyone, for the silly things alone.
 

Unkillable Cat

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So, that was "Calendra's Cistern" played and done with. This is one of the highlights of the T1/G FMs out there, despite its age and some really quirky elements, so I'm gonna take a little extra time to dissect it.

The biggest problem I had with it is the one I'm gonna mention right away - the writing. Apparentely there's some not-so-nice cult, led by a slut named Calendra that's just come into possession of a very powerful artifact. Guess who's been bamboozled into stealing the artifact? Fortunately Garrett is not alone, as his old girlfriend is there to provide exposition to what is clearly a hefty piece of fiction, let down by atrocious lead characters and over-complicated story. Normally I don't make an issue over gender roles, but in this case it's clear that the author has problems with writing female characters. Unfortunately the sidekick and antagonist, the two biggest roles, are both females. Mercedes has too big of a wish fulfillment/Alyx Vance thing going on, and I don't call Calendra a slut because I don't like her - she just is one. The author goes out of his way to inform us of this via in-game readables - which are so infested with Audiolog Syndrome that they should be put to the stake. Even the diary, usually the one piece of writing that allows for Audiolog Syndrome, is atrociously bad. "I just finished bedding the servant not ten minutes ago" - who the fuck writes crap like this? I cringed far too often for my own good while playing this.

But what about the rest of the cast? Besides a servant/personal fucktoy of Calendra's that doesn't even make an appearance in the mission (another brilliant example of the horrible writing involved) the supporting cast is actually pretty decent, and the key to that success is the details. EVERY character you come across/thump over the head has a name, even the guards. And those names are referenced in the story. It's actually quite fun to use the guest book to compare which guests you've 'dealt with' and which of them are still hanging around somewhere. Brother Adrius deserves very special mention as a supporting character that won't be forgotten. Unfortunately his in-game treatment is done all backwards, but more on that later.

Another point of valid criticism, though nowhere near as bad as the writing, is the level design/progression. As far as cityscape missions go, Calendra's Cistern delivers in spades, at least as far as gameplay value goes. If one takes a minute to examine how a few of the structures interact with each other, though, that a large "WTF?" will soon emerge. Anyway, that's a very minor point compared to the other problem, which is the linear path through this amazing cityscape. Not only is there almost only ever one path through it, but far too often it's quite hard to find out where to go next. Sometimes a small, jutting wooden beam high up is the only method to advance, or a hard-to-see ladder in a dark sewer room is your only way out. While roadsigns are located in various places to provide some sense of direction, their purpose seems to be actually quite different - namely, to be climbed upon to reach other places. I had to consult the walkthrough far too often to complete Calendra's Cistern, which is not how one makes a good FM.

Case in point - Brother Adrius. While his objective is technically optional, considering the effort put into his 'quest' I find the lack of forethought involved to be atrocious. Without spoling anything, Brother Adrius is an unwilling servant of the cult, and it is possible to free him from his servitude. Doing this, however, is no small feat. Here's what needs to be done:

# Find Brother Adrius.
# Find an item that allows you to have a 'normal' conversation with him. Even if you DO find the item and use it on him, it's not guaranteed to work. It took me 3 tries, for example.
# Find his 'personal' belongings. This involves retracing your steps through the cityscape leading up to this part.
# Find the item which allows you to SEE his personal belongings, as they're normally invisible. This is not as easy as it sounds, as the location of this item is both hard to spot AND hard to reach.
# Learn to use the item which allows you to see his personal belongings. Turns out it's not enough to simply lug it around in your inventory.
# Bring back all his belongings to the location of the tracking item (the aforementioned hard-to-reach place).

From there on it's pretty straightforward, and doing all of this rewards the player with a helpful (not to mention cool-looking) ally against the cult and an Invisibility potion.

This objective, as neat as it is, feels like it was put in as an afterthought with little consideration taken to the order of things. Here's why: At least 75% of all taffers playing this FM will discover this objective by finding Brother Adrius first. This turns out to be the WRONG way to do things, as finding him most often results in him buggering off somewhere and getting lost, making the objective either extra hard or impossible to complete, depending on where he ends up. Even the walkthrough states this explicitly. "See that chest? Don't open it yet." Which goes against mostly everything that the Thief games are about. The chest isn't even in a location that would suggest that it's trapped or should be left alone. This objective involves a LOT of backtracking (as you have to further the mission first before you can complete this objective) and frankly isn't worth the effort. Oh, and this objective is MANDATORY once it registers with the game.

There are other, equally silly, design decisions abound in Calendra's Cistern, most noticably the shop, the safe and the sword.

The shop is a mixed bag; while it looks really cool and it feels neat that the Dark Engine supports an in-game shop instead of the purchase screen that pops up before the mission starts, the fact that the purchase screen exists makes the shop immediately redundant. Entering the shop gives you 500 gold to spend, and you can then spend the 'gold' allowance of your ill-earned wealth to buy more stuff. Me? I just entered to get the gold, then walked right back out and completed the mission without making a single purchase - just to see whether it could be done. (It's doable, but amazingly enough the shortage of broadhead arrows may be a bother.)

Then there's the safe, a 5-digit safe with a RANDOM code and a strange series of lights. The first time I played this FM I couldn't complete it because of the safe, as it takes considerable logic and time to discover that the lights make the safe into an intricate version of Mastermind; one set of lights comes on for every correct number in the right place, and the other for every correct number in the wrong place. Even so, the safe has a chance to reset itself and force you to start over, because reasons. A needlessly convoluted objective that doesn't even work properly.

The sword is the smallest one, but still a clear indicator of the author's lack of overall vision. Garrett starts the mission without it, but it can be found in a hard-to-reach spot right at the very end of the mission. However, there is a (non-vital) key that is hidden BEHIND a tapestry, and the only way to remove tapestries is by...cutting them down. With a sword. That Garrett doesn't have. And one can make the claim, that if Garrett doesn't start the FM with the sword that he's either not gonna need it or it'll turn up when it's needed. In this case it's more of a bonus for being a nosey taffer than actually reaching the end of the FM, and even then it's not 100% needed, as is proven by the fact that the aforementioned key can be acquired by frobbing it THROUGH the tapestry, but that requires the meta-knowledge that the key is actually there.

Calendra's Cistern does do a lot of things pretty well. Like I said, while the cityscape can be bothersome, it's quite enjoyable exploring it. In fact, the whole mission rewards exploration and experimentation. One noble, for example, is wandering about his house in his pajamas! Getting through the party without getting skewered requires careful planning and placement, which is something rarely seen in Thief FM's nowadays. Another part that I found to be brilliant is the pit section where the MacGuffin is located. The atmosphere, architecture and build-up leading to this location is amazing, considering how bare-bones and simple it all looks. The guard there is immune to conventional weaponry, but the FM does allow for several solutions to deal with him, though all but one require considerable effort to pull off.

Overall, Calendra's Cistern is an overly ambitious FM that clearly served as an inspiration for future FM's, both in good ways and bad. It's undeniable that the Calendra missions are a vital piece of Thief FM history, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're "must-play" FM's. In this case, I recommend it to those that can stomach bad writing and are up for a decent challenge. Otherwise there's little point to play this nowadays, I'm afraid.
 
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Dev_Anj

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Excellent write up, Unkillable Cat! I only ever played a bit of Calendra's Cistern, but from what I played, I got the same feeling. The cityscape itself looks great, and there are some genuinely good moments while traversing it, but sometimes you're interrupted because you need to find one specific wood point that's hidden far away from plain sight, or a ladder that's just a little too high and requires that the engine work properly and not screw up your jumps. I didn't really experience much of the writing, but the introduction and more on point, the first briefing that Calendra gives made me think that the writing was too heavy handed, and the author was trying to insert some cheap fanservice.

Can I post this in the TTLG Review Megathread, by the way? I know Calendra's Cistern has already been extensively critiqued, but I feel it would make for an interesting read.
 

Unkillable Cat

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Don't bother, I can just imagine their reaction to it.

Besides, if I want them to read my reviews there, I'll post them there myself.
 

JarlFrank

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I'm running out of T1/G FM's to play, only have Autumn in Lampfire Hills (3 versions of it) and Calendra's Cistern now. But right now I just finished a good one.

"Lord Beilman's Estate"...

Hah, I am playing that mission right now and mostly agree with you. It's pretty good. I was surprised at it being a TG fm, really, because it looks so much like a T2 one. There is even one area that reminds me of the first T2 OM, a small area that looks like the side entrance to Lady Rumford's estate.
 

Unkillable Cat

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Hah, I am playing that mission right now and mostly agree with you. It's pretty good. I was surprised at it being a TG fm, really, because it looks so much like a T2 one. There is even one area that reminds me of the first T2 OM, a small area that looks like the side entrance to Lady Rumford's estate.

Yeah, I forgot to mention that, the "rear entrance" is lifted verbatim from the first OM in Thief 2, right down to the voice files.
 

TripJack

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did the scripted fight between calendra and the other mage guy trigger for you with NewDark Cat?
 

Unkillable Cat

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Yes, it did, and thanks for reminding me of another klutzy design decision in CC.

The scripted sequence triggers when you approach the Mage guy, and this makes Calendra leave her current position and move to within the same room as the mage guy. Problem is, between the two is a narrow passage, which will have Garrett inside of it, with no way out. By the time an unwary taffer realizes that Calendra is approaching from behind, it's already too late to hide.

There was another place where the scripts did go wrong, and that was when one of the Hammerites in the party suddenly started attacking thin air, leading to everyone getting suspicious and started looking for me - even though I was safely hidden away in a shadow quite a ways away.
 

Unkillable Cat

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I feel like I've come full circle, with my recent playthrough of "Autumn in Lampfire Hills". This is the very first FM I played, more than 10 years ago.

This FM sees Garrett having FINALLY gotten himself out of debt, and into a bit of money. So he buys himself a little cottage out in Lampfire Hills, and thinks he can enjoy a more relaxed lifestyle there. Except...there's a mysterious lock on the outside of his house that even he cannot pick open. So on Halloween, Garrett decides it's time to go for trick-or-treating of his own, hoping to fish some info about the cottage's previous owner.

This mission appears to be much bigger than it really is, with an architectural style that creates a really cramped cityscape, though not a really complex one. In an unusual design choice, there are dozens of foodstuffs available, with even my hefty system dropping its framerate when I enter the grocer's store containing around 50 foodstuffs. There are multiple paths and more than enough secret passages to keep taffers going for a while.

But if I were to describe this mission in one word, that word would be "cheesy". It's not GORT-levels of cheese, but cheese it is nevertheless. Enemy archers come equipped with fire arrows... because. The various undead that can be encountered below are several orders more powerful than the basic zombie or apparition...because. There's a large library with hundreds of meters of bookshelves that contains ONE book with a vital clue towards completing the main objective. Needle in a haystack syndrome, anyone? But the worst part are the floors. Metal surfaces have been planted ON PURPOSE in the most devious of places. Thresholds in wooden doors, in the middle-step of a 3-step stair and on the top 2 steps of a long, dark stairway. This is a FM where the player needs to CONSTANTLY be on his toes, and that's BEFORE I mention the underground section and all the traps therein.

Finally, Autumn in Lampfire Hills is one of the few 'old' FMs that has been updated to NewDark - not once, but twice. The first update from 2013 mostly just updated the lights, but in the process the critters got broken, so now guards can spot you the moment you enter into their line of sight, while they're asleep in a dimly-lit room. Forget about breaking into the weapons store, that Hammerite will be upon you the moment you come into his view. Even if you escape him, he'll alert nearby guards, who'll go hunting you down, and even venture into the nearby pub for a killing spree, simply because they can.

This resulted in another update being released last year, the "2.1" update. This version restores the guards and adds some other changes. The floor in the Hammerite chapel, for example, now has a rug installed down the middle, so that section isn't nail-bitingly hard like it was in the original. The guards have also been fixed, but the only downside is that while a neat intro video was specifically created for this release, it's prefaced by a songbyte that has NO reason being there, it goes a long ways completely killing the mood.

Of the three versions, go for the latest one. Lampfire Hills looks MUCH better in NewDark, and I hope that most people can stomach the rock music at the start.

Overall, this mission looks pretty innocent, but is a bigger challenge than anticipated. Not for beginners.
 
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