Thief Gold

[Krraloth]

I am playing this great, great game for the first time, the atmosphere is fantastic and it's very fun.
I don't really like the zombies, but they keep you on your toes everytime you get close to a corpse, so it's kinda immersive: Garret may be a master thief but you sure feel tense when you play him.

Hard dificulty is the only thing I can manage for now, but I will try the Exper when I finish it, I am only in the Bonehoard, after all.

I saw that there are many FM avaliable, are they any good? I downloaded a shitton of them, on circle-thief but can you recommend me the must-play ones?

 

[SCO]

Thief gold only? Not a specialist, but one of the most well known is Calendra Cistern.

If you want thief 2 there is a sticky here. You can also try the Dark mod. It's harder than expert mode in expert.

 

[MetalCraze]

You should play Thief 2 next before going FM

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Interesting Thief Gold FMs:

Sepulchre of the Sinistral (Giant tomb + tons of undead. And a maze.)
Mystery Man (Sequel to above. Mansion mission.)
Shunned (Short mission. Takes place in and... "around" a haunted mansion.)
Tower of St. Moira (Very recent Thief Gold mission, break into a Hammerite tower and explore its depths. Becomes Undead-heavy half-way through.)
Autumn in Lampfire Hills (City mission + "Lost City" catacombs.)

These should give you a taste of what FMs have to offer. Then play Thief 2 (if you haven't already) and see the hundreds of FMs they have on offer. If you do... play them in chronological order, oldest ones first. The ones you want to play, anyway.

 

[Krraloth]

You should play Thief 2 next before going FM

So you're saying the quality doesn't compare and therefore is best to play the official sequel before delving in the FM world?

Then play Thief 2 (if you haven't already) and see the hundreds of FMs they have on offer. If you do... play them in chronological order, oldest ones first. The ones you want to play, anyway.

I'm intrigued, the older ones are best played first because the mapmaking skills are weaker or...?

No I haven't played Thief 2 yet, but I have it somewhere, along with Thief 3 (it was a bundle with all 3 of some sort I believe) I wanted to see if there were good Thief Gold FM before moving on to Thief 2 in the event I feel the sequel too superior or some shit.

I am not making any sense, am I?


Edit: I WILL learn quoting ways.

 

[MetalCraze]

No it's logical to play through the whole series before you go for FMs.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

You should play Thief 2 next before going FM

So you're saying the quality doesn't compare and therefore is best to play the official sequel before delving in the FM world?

At first I thought he was speaking out of his ass, as he is want to do, but in this case he does have a point.

The first couple of years (1999 and 2000) saw a deluge of really crap FMs being released. It wasn't until 2002 that we started seeing FMs that rivaled the original Thief campaigns in quality, and the year after that they started overtaking the OMs.

If you play through Thief Gold, and immediately go playing through the Thief 1/Gold FMs, you will quickly start to wonder what kind of retarded manboons got their hands on the Thief editor. The FMs I listed are at least fun to play and above average in quality, and while Calendra's Cistern is brilliant in design and quality, it is let down by pisspoor fanfic-levels of writing.

If you want to go straight to FMs, play the ones I suggested. Otherwise, do what he said. Play Thief 2 first, then go for the FMs. But whenever you start playing FMs, start with the Thief 1/Gold FMs before moving on to the T2 FMs. It's a slight transition going from Thief 2 back to Thief Gold. You'll know what I mean when you get there.

I'm intrigued, the older ones are best played first because the mapmaking skills are weaker or...?

No I haven't played Thief 2 yet, but I have it somewhere, along with Thief 3 (it was a bundle with all 3 of some sort I believe) I wanted to see if there were good Thief Gold FM before moving on to Thief 2 in the event I feel the sequel too superior or some shit.

Thief 2 is superior to Thief Gold in almost every way. The two places where Thief Gold still holds the crown is in atmosphere (Thief Gold somehow manages to be more creepy than Thief 2) and when dealing with "absolute" darkness, i.e. when it's so dark not even maxed-out Gamma correction can help you.

And in my opinion, there are no real "must-play" FMs for Thief Gold. My list of Thief Gold FMs worth keeping numbers 28. Out of a couple of hundred. For Thief 2 they number over a 170 out of over 1000.

But to answer your question... yes. The older ones are best played first because the latter ones will knock their pants off. The Thief Editor (DROMEd) is a bitch to work with, and it took years for some people to get really good with it. Playing the FMs in chronological order will teach you to appreciate the effort people took in learning and using the editor. And the best is always kept for last, right?

Thief 3... I recommend you play through all Thief 1 & 2 FMs you intend to play before playing Thief 3. It is such a huge departure (different engine and all that) that it might shock you. Sadly, I have yet to find any FMs for Thief 3 worth playing. I think there are less of them out there then there are for Thief 1/Gold.

 

[Captain Shrek]

There is a offer going on the Amazon.uk and I just bought the thief trilogy for ~4 pounds. Worth every penny.

 

[Jasede]

I'd just ignore the FMs. None of them are as well done as the original maps- however, some are still very good. Just make sure you play the trilogy first.

 

[JarlFrank]

Thief Gold and Thief 2 are both two of the best games ever made. I actually played T2 before T:G and, yes, the controls of T2 are much improved over the first game but I don't find it too hard to go back.

Now, FMs - I agree that you should go through the originals first, then delve into the world of FMs. While I'm not an expert on them, I've played a few and there are some that I'd rate even higher or at the same level as my favourite levels of T:G and T2. Also, be sure to get T2X: Shadows of the Metal Age, a very solid expansion pack for T2 made by a bunch of fans. The mission quality ranges from okay to great (the brothel and hotel missions were awesome, as was down among dead men) and the writing is solid, too.

For what FMs are good, check out the stickied thread here in General Gaming. Unkillable Cat's recommendations are mostly awesome.

 

[Krraloth]

Thanks guys, lots of good advice here.

I'll go, Thief G, thief 2 , the Undying Feline recommendations in this thread to see if I like the FMs and then T2 expansion T2 FM then T3.
It should keep me occupied for a while, I kind of suck at the game at the moment but it sure is fun to try different approachesç

For example in the cave-prison level, I hadn't see the keyhole to enter the guard place upstairs, I was dicking back and forth not knowing what to do and I didn't want to walkthru. So I said fuck it and showed myself for a brief moment, while the guard was busy opening the door I jumped inside through the small balcony and started clobbering him with the bj, it took 4 hits to get him to sleep, fearing that he would be able to turn around and rape me. Noobishly lucky? Yes, but it was a thrilling moment.

And in the Bonehoard I tried the hard mission, to get the mystic soul, I try to sneak by the the firebastard but he could hear me, got twice close to being discovered then I went for holy water arrows, saw the guy running after two and grab the fire arrow he drops. I go and have a look at the puzzle in the middle and after a lot of thinking (inspired by plenty of zombie moaning) I realize I need to light the torches with fire arrows but I have only 2 cause I used them against the belching minidinosaurs (wtf?)...

I got a feeling of realism. You go graverobbing and you do not know what you will need or when or even if...

 

[ScottishMartialArts]

The burning dude is there to give you extra fire arrows if you need them. He respawns.

 

[Krraloth]

But I didn't have 6 water arrows to keep the drops coming, I foolishly used them to extinguish torches to sneak around zombies (noob-less oblige)

Were there stashes of water arrows around?

 

[SCO]

Thief 3... I recommend you play through all Thief 1 & 2 FMs you intend to play before playing Thief 3. It is such a huge departure (different engine and all that) that it might shock you. Sadly, I have yet to find any FMs for Thief 3 worth playing. I think there are less of them out there then there are for Thief 1/Gold.

There are less of them than there are for the Dark Mod, that is quite a achievement. I always thought that the dark mod had a kind of shaky future because the people that bought thief and the people that bought doom 3 don't overlap much. But they got somewhere indeed (even though unfortunately there are only about 3 prolific mappers - they need more if the project is going to grow).

The engine could be better too, though since it's going to be open source soon, some enhancements from devs wanting to measure braincock sizes with Carmack are almost inevitable.

 

[SCO]

I'd just ignore the FMs. None of them are as well done as the original maps- however, some are still very good. Just make sure you play the trilogy first.

You mad bro.

 

[Antediluvian]

But I didn't have 6 water arrows to keep the drops coming, I foolishly used them to extinguish torches to sneak around zombies (noob-less oblige)

Were there stashes of water arrows around?

Free tip: collect all the golden bones. AFAIR there was also a stash of water arrows not far from the first holy water pond, look for a crack in the wall. Btw, why did you kill the burricks? They're practically harmless

 

[Serious_Business]

I'd just ignore the FMs. None of them are as well done as the original maps- however, some are still very good. Just make sure you play the trilogy first.

You mad bro.

He mad. Don't listen to him, he's very angry about mods.

And yes, check out the sticky thread. I didn't know it was sticky, but that was a good idea

 

[Krraloth]

Free tip: collect all the golden bones. AFAIR there was also a stash of water arrows not far from the first holy water pond, look for a crack in the wall. Btw, why did you kill the burricks? They're practically harmless

I redid the mission and got the also the mystery soul collecting all the golden bones.
I killed them because it was the first time I encountered them and I panicked

Anyway the Bonehoard is a pretty easy level once you know what to do.
Aside from the risk of falling to your death, the burricks are harmless (as you said) and the zombies are slow as fuck all you need to do I sidestep and then run, they'll never catch you.

Man I so love the atmosphere though, the idea of the Horn making a soothing sound and kept the burricks alseep/relaxed was neat.

I am currently enjoying the pilfering of Ramirez house...is nice to have back humans as opponent, also the lockpick mechanics are nice...the only thing is, can you cycle backwards the items? I have to skim through all my stuff to get from triangle shaped to square and it's kind of annoying.

Edit: fucking errors

 

[JarlFrank]

Yes there should be a previous item button too, just check the options for the key.

Also, the first time I was in the Bonehoard it took me a long time to get through the damn burrick caves cause I got lost

But then again I had no problems with the Thieves Guild level which is usually considered to have a confusing labyrinthine layout.

 

[Antediluvian]

can you cycle backwards the items? I have to skim through all my stuff to get from triangle shaped to square and it's kind of annoying

Yep. You can use f4 and f5 to bring out the lockpicks

 

[Krraloth]

Nice twist at the end of Assassins, I get outside Ramirez place and say, allright, time for a food or coffee, this one is done...

NO YOU FUCKER! Now go back in da friendly neighbourhood while EVERYBODY is looking for you.

This game delivers.

 

[JarlFrank]

This game delivers.

And you're not even halfway through Thief Gold and still have T2 in front of you.

I envy you so much right now.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Man, he's gonna flip the fuck out when he gets to Constantine's Mansion...

 

[Krraloth]

And you're not even halfway through Thief Gold and still have T2 in front of you.

I envy you so much right now.

I feel you BRO, I feel you.



But Garret is a real badass motherfucker!

Putting aside the snide remarks and the cynical voice (who did the VO anyway? He's good!), the man has ice in his veins!
Some poor Guild steals the shit HE wants to steal so he decides to infiltrate, steal the vase and as long as he's inside let's get a 2000 gold worth of shit, just because today I feel like teaching a lesson.

The Guild level sure is maze-like and the map is not helping much , especially trying to get from the casino to the lower level is kind of difficult to find. Sure the map says Secret Door? but I mentioned already that I suck (probably some of you knew immediately that if the roulette is highlighted it has something to do with the door or some shit) so is no wonder that I went Whackamole™ on the guards and patrons looking for the secret door in the guard post.

Still any game that lets you pull off water arrows-> noisemaker arrows-> insane clobbering-> loot I like.

The guards AI is not so advanced, tho, mind you I like the game, but is strange that I can extinguish a torch or a hearth in front of a guard triggering no reaction whatsoever.

 

[Antediluvian]

The guards AI is not so advanced, tho, mind you I like the game, but is strange that I can extinguish a torch or a hearth in front of a guard triggering no reaction whatsoever.

Compared to clueless losers from DX/SC/MGS, Thief NPCs are fucking Einsteins among AIs