/vr/ - Retro Games

Didn't even notice the last thread died.

Time to resume the historical FM research, in the hope of getting to the good part of it and answer to many of the unsolved mysteries of the early Thief years. Will lord Bafford ever be left alone? When is Basso's sister gonna show her gratitude?
I shouldn't be so surprised that there's a fanfiction about it. What really surprises me is that it's not sarcastically narrated by Garrett.

>>4391967
Stop opening doors.

>>4392142

>Stop opening doors.
Wesker approves

Saw this video in my recommended. Kinda interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTRC_LHi_GA

>>4392142
Fucking kek. Best Varg post I've ever seen.

>>4392238

20 minutes in... good vid so far

>>4392238
>>4392365

Just finished it. Good analysis, his humour can be a bit cringe but he kept it to a minimum so that's good. The stuff about stem response programing was really interesting. I think I read somewhere that Ken Levine actually came up with some of those audio design ideas by ripping off old DOS submarine games.

>>4392238
This shit makes me glad that I come to /vr/ every once in a while when the planets align to look for a Thief thread.

Ain't gonna finish it now though.

Thief 1/Gold and 2 are arguably the best games ever. I don't think there's ever been a better combination of immersion and fun.

You didn't *hic*

...hold the fort. It's dead. These... taffers have no respect for such a... BEAUTIFUL thing.

>>4393118
You can't ask a taffer to guard something after all.
Now I do wonder with a mix of horror and curiosity if an escort FM exists.

>>4392505
Deus ex?

>>4392505
System Shock 1

>>4392238
Interesting video, Thief just chugs along as a game that overall nobody yet matched.
Its actually really incredible.

I wonder if today Thief games would be the same?
I shiver when I think about Underworld ascendant using Unity.
I mean I really dislike Bioshock and Infinite story but I cant deny Levine thematic influence in Thief which apparently was a small amount, and SS2. And imagine we got everyone and get them to make Thief would it be okay, is our culture still the same? Can we still 70s prog rock in 2017?
Arkane is a disappointment and Harvey Smith is a failure, now that Raphael left fuck them.

I mean we came a long way technically, and despite being easy as shit, Western triple A games have all the power of modern graphics so I wonder.

>>4393585
I really don't understand why people hate the Unity engine. Sure in the case of Underworld its lighting deficiencies may be a problem considering how dynamic everything has to be, but it's not a bad engine. I think it's just gotten a bad rap from all of the indie shovelware shat out by trillions of talentless cucksuckers due to it being free.

This is what Thief looks like in super basic level Unity done with no skills.

>>4393690
Is it supposed to loog good, looks exactly like Unity? Those wood and wall textures are crap.

And I know Unity can be used by professionals but still.

>>4393740
Of course they're crap, made with no skills. But it's not an asset flip where some hack buys a ton of pre-made shit from the asset store and clumps it together. Using graphics as an example was probably not a good idea when defending Unity. Everyone who likes the Looking Glass immersive sim genre cares little about graphical quality. It's all about the complexity of the systems, and with Unity it's really easy to create those.

>>4393789
>Everyone who likes the Looking Glass immersive sim genre cares little about graphical quality.
Yes, but I think most people who play Thief do care about art direction. Thief might look terrible from a technical perspective, but it has a very distinct artstyle that makes it look a thousand times better than the Unity screenshot in that pic.
It would take a really good artist with a clear vision of what made the old games so good looking to recreate that in an engine with better graphical fidelity, it's not just the lightning.

Unpopular opinion: besides a select few areas, Thief 2's coloured lighting looks worse than Thief 1's white lighting

>>4393918
I think the warm look colored lighting gives T2 makes sense for that game but I do prefer the look of T1.

>>4393868
Exactly this. To me Thief style in a modern engine would be a bit like the ingame cut scenes. A bizarre dream look with that slight german expressionist gothic and neo classical style.

Alongside the toned down steampunk Thief is truly one of the most unique settings ever made for a videogame.

T1 FM: Wanted: Dead or Alive
Simple and sloppy brushwork. The map is not difficult to navigate, but I have little idea where I am? A castle? Sometimes weird use of textures, like the carpet is Baffords banner. Two different night skies. I've seen a floating health potion and a floating second triangle-toothed lockpick (what's a good name for a third lockpick?). There's a double door where only the left one can be opened. The craymen don't attack. The major part of this FM is that it forces you to use violence and that you have kill objectives. I was wondering what a good motivation for killing would be. Probably money.

You can't finish the FM because of Newdark?
>Newdark issue
>key does not open door to prison area
>Solution install Voodoo's dml fix
k
i dont want to play it any more anyways

Precious Cargo was probably the most T1-esque mission in T2, and incidentally also one of my favourite missions in that game. Blackmail also comes close.

>>4393918
It does, mostly because the base Thief 2 palette is very muted compared to the very colorful Thief 1 palette.

Are there any recommended mods/fixes for Thief 3? I've been putting it off for a while and I have to see for myself if it's as bad as everyone claims it is.

>>4394469
I think it's called Sneaky Tweaker. It's a configuration program that lets you activate and deactivate various gameplay fixes. It also includes some aesthetic changes such as giving Garrett clothed arms and removing the edgelord eye scar that was retconned into the game by the marketing department ten minutes before launch and doesn't match any of the cutscenes.

The biggest change is probably the fact that the patch removes the loading zones in the missions.

>>4394557
Awesome thanks.

>>4393972

I need to make some good Thief screenshots from the most famous missions. You never see many.

>>4394870

>>4392238
thanks for the video, I'd surely skip it on my own as some sort of let's play

>tfw greatest game of all time and every aspect of it makes me cum
>to scary to play through

fuck me Im weak as shit. any help?

>>4395478

Wish I could help, but I have the same problem :(

>>4395478
>>4395512

Get someone to play with you. Little 6yo me was too afraid to play Doom in '94 but it was fine when there was someone else there.

>>4395512
>>4395478

are you guys 10 years old?

>>4395478
>>4395512
Sneaking and exploring are your main tools, through them you can get to know both your enemies and the levels. The former behave pretty much all the same and are inferior to the player when he moves in the shadows. Only few of them break the rules. Fire shadows and elementals emit their own light and zombies will make you waste resources but, on the other hand, they're almost harmless. Apply this concept to a whole mission: through your skills and some patience (or the quicksave key) you can rise above any possible threat.
The game variety and ability to surprise is what made for me the start of Escape even more unsettling than the dreaded Cathedral. I stress the "get to know" part this much because it's what made me fall in love with Thief's atmosphere and monstrosities in the end. The game's spookyness, more than trying to shock you, challenges you to keep going deeper. Worth it or not, it's where the loot is at.

>>4395619
No they are most likely 15 year olds living with single mom.

>>4395478
man up. It's so worth it.
And you'll be a greater man for standing up against your fears

How do I make this Garrett skin texture more like the Garrett from Thief The Dark Project/Gold?
It looks he has a dark blue tunic. The tunic has two vertical lines. Maybe with a dark grey sweater and a pair of pants in the same colour underneath. Silver belt buckle. Brown armbands. Brown gloves or darkblue gloves with a black patch on it. No mechanical eye. How should I do it? I have GIMP.

http://www.taffersparadise.co.uk/screengrabs/painting/boxart/tg-boxart.jpg
http://www.taffersparadise.co.uk/screengrabs/painting/thief1paintings/t1-hammertower.jpg
http://www.taffersparadise.co.uk/screengrabs/painting/thief1paintings/t1-cutscene-sword.jpg
https://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/thief/images/0/04/TG_CS06_07.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20080505164915

i tried to get into the first game but being able to save anywhere makes it boring.

>>4396279
I did something like that just recently, I can hook you up if you can wait a few hours for me to get home

Swell, could you also explain how you did it?

>>4396279
I have this one for Garrett.

>>4396403
Did you make that yourself?

>>4396474
No. I don't remember where I got it from though.

If there is a fault in the old Thief games I would give my left nut to correct is the Guards holding the sword while patrolling. I guess its impossible to correct.

>>4396534
A couple of FMs have the guards with their swords shealthed until they're alerted. Behind Closed Doors comes to mind.

>>4396556
Really? I thought it was impossible because of the way models are handled in the Dark engine.

Then we need to make all guards in Thief 1\2 unsheathe when alerted.

>>4396559
In Thief 1 and 1, the swords are part of the guards' models. I guess Behind Closed Doors has guard models without the swords and instead have swords as objects attached to their belt and then their right hand when they're alerted.

>>4396568
I think the Guards in Thief 1 and 2 would benefit from that. In 1998 it was fine to have them carry the sword around, and I guess apebeasts is fine but humans come on.

The bow guys also are okay.

>>4396509
That's the default thief character texture from Thief 1. Quince (or Jakow) in Assassins has that character model.

>>4396569
Having them unsheathe the sword is also a good way to show a certain level of alert, especially when they keep it that way when they're well aware that the player is around like in more modern games.

>>4396607
DDFIX should have added that seriously.

>>4396610
DDFix was just a graphics fix, nothing more.

>>4396604
Oh okay, I wasn't aware.

>>4396604
>That's the default thief character texture from Thief 1.

Uh no, it's a block of wood with a smiley face on it. Since you never see it, the devs never bothered with anything more complicated. There's a picture of him in the blooper reel above the throne.

You know I hope those faggots at Otherside do a decent job with Ascendant and SS3, after Dishonored,Mankind Divided and Prey bombing the immersive sim with their shittiness.

I would love to see what Dark Camelot would be or a modern version fps rpg of Dark Camelot, the idea itself is great.

>>4396637
I'm pretty sure he meant that it was used for thief characters (i.e. the assassins), not that it was used for garrett

>>4396643
Prey is probably the best System Shock 3 we're ever going to get. I have a bad feeling the actual SS3 is just going to pander to SS2 fans who only care about muh horror and RPG elements. I'd like them to take it more in a SS1 direction, but I don't see that happening. But who knows we can't really judge Otherside yet until they release Ascendant.

>>4396684
Prey is a great game but with deadly neo arkane faults, boring emails (although decent main characters), too easy compared to the Impossible dif in SS2 and terrible enemy design and lack of weapons.
The game does even work to its strengths giving you a way to detect mimics, which are not a threat anyway a third of the way in.


A much better attempt than Dishonored but maybe too late.
Triple A munches on these games souls, Mankind Divided bombing and Prey just makes me realize that what makes a immersive sim is just going all out and not being tame about systems.
I guess its karmically even since tons of games have benefited from the LGS experiment, all the way form Thief, Splinter Cell, Metal Gear Phantom and many others in a long line. Heck even RE7 had Immersive sim aspects.

>>4396637
Default thief character model =/= player character model

>>4396675

It looks like it was edited to give garrett that purple coat he uses in thief 2. Here's the default thief for t1

>>4396739
Thats the Garret skin in Thief 1?
Prefer the assassin one>>4396403

Never really liked his green one in Thief 2.

>>4396778
No. Garrett's character model in Thief 1 is a brown block with a smiley face on it as someone else already said.

By the way when Deadly Shadows was still called Thief III, Garrett had a better outfit and very nice studded leather bracers. You can still see the outfit and the lack of a glowing eye with a scar in the pre-rendered cutscenes of the final game.

>>4397612
what's up with the dagger in DS? a professional doesn't leave a mess.

the sword made more sense, as it's an all round weapon that can be used to bash in doors and kill monsters when needed. but the dagger? that's just for stabbing people, isn't it?

>>4397783
People have debated this since 2004. I personally don't mind the inclusion of the dagger, or more importantly the loss of the sword. Firstly the dagger is used for cutting paintings off frames. Secondly even if TDS did support bashing down doors, using a sword to do it was always ridiculous. You're literally just applying attack damage onto the object until its health reaches zero. It makes no real world sense, and any sensible person would use slamming their own body weight onto the door instead. Thirdly TDS incentivizes escape over combat even more than the previous games. Flashbombs can't be used to knock out alerted enemies, and there are more tools for temporarily incapacitating enemies, such as oil slicks and moss choking. Even the dreaded climbing gloves allow better escapes because you don't need to attach a rope in a hurry.

Sure it would be the immersive sim design decision to include the option to do sword combat, but it's about as necesary as swimming in a game with no water pathways in its level design.

>>4397874
>Secondly even if TDS did support bashing down doors, using a sword to do it was always ridiculous.
Gameplay > realism. Bashing a door open implied making huge amounts of noise. It was a good trade off gameplay wise.

>Firstly the dagger is used for cutting paintings off frames.
Which you never do in game and it's simply implied. Garrett could be cutting them with his teeth for all you know.

>Thirdly TDS incentivizes escape over combat even more than the previous games.
TDS missions were much smaller and the inclusion of loading zones broke the flow of gameplay because ai couldn't follow you though them. Those inclusions were just a band aid fixes to core issues.

>more tools for temporarily incapacitating enemies, such as oil slicks and moss choking.
Which were completely redundant and added nothing new to the gameplay. They were fucking ridiculous too, much worse than bashing doors since at least that mechanic served a purpose.

>Even the dreaded climbing gloves allow better escapes because you don't need to attach a rope in a hurry.
The gloves were fucking shit. You literally had to guess which wall the map designer intended to be climbable because the distinction between climbalbe and non climbable was so unclear. And even if it was climbable, chances were there would be nowhere to go to and you'd be stuck with the ai waiting for you on the floor.

>Sure it would be the immersive sim design decision to include the option to do sword combat
Sword = useful all-around tool, Dagger = assassins weapon.

>but it's about as necesary as swimming in a game with no water pathways in its level design.
>It's ok because the level design is shit too!

>>4397874
The Sword for me just makes Garrett more badass D&D rogue, and could be an optional weapon for tomb raiding and undead smashing.

For mansion missions a dagger is fine.

>>4397783
The sword doesn't make much sense to me, it's a huge and unwieldy weapon, and Garrett isn't that good at swordfighting in the first place. The only monsters I can remember killing with a sword are the spiders, which might as well be dispatched with a dagger instead.
If they really wanted you to break down doors without a sword they could've given you a stomp button, which is also how you'd do it in reality.
I also recall reading that the only reason why they left the sword in the game instead of giving you a dagger is because Thief was originally going to be a swordfighting game like Dark Messiah, but they scrapped the idea because it wasn't viable at the time.

The sword is a better choice for self defense in case of getting caught. At the very least you can parry incoming attacks. A dagger is only good at stabbing.

>>4398003
>The only monsters I can remember killing with a sword are the spiders
how did you kill the haunts in return to the cathedral?

>>4396279
>>4396296
https://mega.nz/#!Y35CzTSY!wQoQNIJwrE1DZn7stjmMPiZPIOStL0tWRzJPCCzkuVo
Finally got around to uploading the skin; if anyone knows where the UI textures for Garrett holding a body are, I can fix those too

>Thief 1: Hammer Haunts carry swords because their unholy bodies are unfit to wield the holy Hammer
>Thief 2: Hammer Haunts carry hammers because hurr durr Hammerites
I really prefer the Thief 1 models in many ways

>>4398025

I love the sword as well, it also felt like a weird choice for a Thief back then, bu then my younger self then thinks " Garrett is such a master Thief he even carries a sword no problem"

>>4394004
I solved the door problem by brutally deleting both that door and the one that lead to the throne room through dromed.
This one was harder to set up than completing. At first I was like "Well, this sucks but I'll try to get all the loot and get rid of the guards like a ninja" but my good intentions died pretty soon. The level mission like a dungeon crawling session but every enemy encounter is somewhat trying and repetitive. I either ran into them in the claustrophobic hallways (truth be told it's just a small part of the level), or rooms filled with them where it wasn't clear if I needed to get into or not. In general, the place is full of dead ends that you have to explore because what you're looking for could be anywhere. Exploration is one of Thief's cornerstones but since the place made no sense (thanks to the
sarcophagus beds the guard barracks looked more like a catacomb's great hall) it felt more like trial and error. The result is that the mission felt longer and labyrinthine when it was actually simple and not so complex. A trait that could turn into a quality under the right circumstances, in this case we don't even know if it was intentional.
What I liked was the premise, simple and to the point. Kidnap one because they paid you, kill one because it's personal. It sounded like something you could build an interesting mission around. Two target, two objectives (Melan's Penny Dreadful comes to mind, maybe there's more). For a moment I forgot that I should abandon these hopes for now and let the good FMs surprise me.

>what's a good name for a third lockpick?
Was it T2X the one with a third lockpick? Or did they just have different names?

>>4398034
Holy water and fire arrows, as far as I remember. I don't wanna be anywhere close to those things if I can help it.

>>4398034

Haunts are pussies once you know how to play the game, flashbombs can kill them.

I'm at Sabotage at soulforge on my first playthrough.
It's been months since I've played Thief 2, and I kind of forgot what I should do. This level is kind of iffy to me. Should I start over?

Also, I wasn't a big fan of Casing the Joint or Masks - Is this a common opinion or am I being a contrarian?

How do i make this jump?

>>4398398
You should start over, I do that every time I let more than a few days pass since I started a level.

>>4393182
deus ex is like you took every influential LGS game, combined them and made them all shitty

>>4398275
>Was it T2X the one with a third lockpick? Or did they just have different names?
iirc you started out with a hairpin, but replace it with a real pair of lockpicks later on.

>>4398426
Thy bait doth not please the builder; recieve thy pounding

>>4398060
Most if it is changing the colours. Shouldn't be too hard.
How would you create those two vertical lines?

>>4398275
There's a squared-toothed and a triangle-toothed lockpick (what textures do they use?). You'd assume the Hammerites would create better locks after all these thefts. What's a possible name for a third one? How could you make it work, without lockpicking becoming to much of a chore?

is there a reason to bind the walk forward key in these games

>>4398404
Either strafe run and then jump, or chug a speed potion. Or bunny hop.

>>4398398
You're not being a contrarian. Casing the Joint is usually seen as one of the weakest levels in the game, and while Masks is a good mission in its own right, having Casing just before it ruins it.

>>4398497
Only if you wanna walk forward

the dark camelot designs sure had some cyberpunky elements to them.

>>4397974
>>Firstly the dagger is used for cutting paintings off frames.
>Which you never do in game and it's simply implied. Garrett could be cutting them with his teeth for all you know.

By that logic it's also merely "implied" that Garrett opens doors by grabbing the handle with his hand, and that loot items don't just teleport into his pockets. You do realize that the "animate everything regardless of negative consequences" was the biggest mistake Thi4f ever made, right?

>>4398715
Shut up, that game does not exist.

>>4398078
This really pissed me off desu.

>>4398715

>By that logic it's also merely "implied" that Garrett opens doors by grabbing the handle with his hand, and that loot items don't just teleport into his pockets.

you got it champ

Why the fuck is Thief 3 so buggy? Even with that fan patch moving around feels janky and mantling simple walls works like half the time.

>>4398875
was mantling not broken in olddark too?

>>4394119
Precious Cargo is a nice mission. I think it gets overlooked because of Life of the Party being right before it.

>>4398434
>>4398464
Welp, then I really don't remember which mission was it, or if there was one.

>How could you make it work, without lockpicking becoming to much of a chore?
Probably two is the perfect number. Having a third one to pick from when switching between them would be more annoying than challenging, locks are already meant to make you waste some time in front of important doors. Although what you said about hammerites made me imagine an advanced lock that would require first of all the third lockpick, and then the right choice between the other two.
It still sounds like a chore though. It's probably one of those essential parts of Thief that are fine as they are, or that can't be improved by adding something to it. Changing it to the core may do the trick. For example I find interesting the idea behind TDM's lockpicking. It's still automatic but it requires attention and the right timing, pratically a middle ground between the usual and the minigame kind of lockpicking.

>>4399708
it was the mission in T2 that gave me the strongest sense of adventure. it's the only mission in the game that featured ruins in some form. plus, it's huge and open-ended. the base was disorganised and chaotic thanks to the flooding and the remaining pirate ruins. going into the submarine, which felt wonderfully anachronistic, was a great ending.

>>4399801
I love Thief 2 but it definitely lacks balance in story. Except for the great moment when you go back to the Maw, Thief 3 meshes normal missions with supernatural in a much better way. With the pagan territory, the shipwreck and Cradle meshing really well with the normal missions.

Brosius did amazing work on 3, the only stuff really hampering it, are the lack of between mission cutscenes ( Garret narrating is just not the same) and the console limitations.

I can envision a Thief 3 done in the visual style of 1 and 2 using the same sounds and overall story and being the pinnacle of all Thief games.

>>4400313
Deadly Shadows has a lot of missed opportunities in its design. Fortunately there never was a superior or even on par sequel so it doesn't matter that good ideas were badly implemented.

-Undead pirate ship level is just a few rooms in a side section of the city hub open world

-Underwater city of amphibious humanoids wasted on a game without an engine that supports swimmable water for players and AI

-"Tallest building in the City" (Clock Tower) that you can't see out of

-"Silent telepathic Keeper assassins" are the loudest and least conspicuous enemies in the game

-Devout pagan village in some distant swamps in the forest had to be relocated into downtown ruins because the "open world mission hub" didn't allow missions to take place beyond the distance of a stone's throw. This also retconned the pagans' aversion to manfool architecture and rejection of city living

>>4400560
>-Underwater city of amphibious humanoids wasted on a game without an engine that supports swimmable water for players and AI
Don't forget the worst part is that it's basically at sewer level under the city and is almost completely flat as well as tiny because Xbox.

Compare that shit to The Lost City in t1, you go down a giant fucking stream and down a waterfall and then down a huge cavernous walkway before you're even close to the lost city itself.

The sunken citadel or whatever the fuck it's called in TDS is the most wasted opportunity of all time. Someone should do a reimagining of it in T1/T2 with Craymen & those custom Cthulhu monsters.

>>4398464
This armband?

Or this one?

>>4400606
I made this to illustrate my point.

>>4400637
>virgin citadel vs chad city

>>4400663
Didn't realize I pretty much almost made the image in that format. Here you go.

>>4400637
>>4400683
Deadly Shadow's UI is so hideous and one of the first things you see when you start up the game is how they decided to use papyrus. Talk about starting off on the wrong foot.

>>4400706
Thankfully Sneaky Upgrade lets you use the Thief1/2 hud. Better than nothing I guess.

>>4400756
It's too bad that's part of the minimalist mod which for some reason changes how all of the difficulty modes work.

>>4400767
I'm fairly certain that the Sneaky Tweaker lets you activate any, all or no aspects of the Minimalist Project.

>>4400560
Indeed, its disappointing, nevertheless Thief 3 has the vibe and finishes the trilogy well thematically, wreck pagans and chaos ass, wreck mecha autists order ass, wreck masonic elitists radical centrists ass.

I can imagine the sunken citadel being an amazing level if done in the dark engine vibe and size, with eldritch horrors in dark corners, and in dark water pits.
Fuck Imagine what we could do today with the level of assets and level size faggots like Ubisoft have.

>>4400560

Oh man I can also imagine the Keeper assassins being the worst kind of enemy, one shot killing you from shadows.

Shame. Needs pictures.

Of all the flaws that hold TDS back, I wouldn't change the enforcers part with anything. The chaos that completely engulfs the City ends up being hilarious. That's what happens when posers try to be true neutrals, I suppose. The fact that at that point Garrett is everyone's buddy doesn't help either.
Ok, better assassins actually hunting down the player would be a really neat threat, more so in what usually is a safe zone. Still, I love my enforcers.

>>4401028
It would be an actual amazing flip for the last part of the Thief series.

Garrett has used the shadows to hunt and hide and now reversed, having those Keepers assassins almost invisible in the dark could create some really neat tension.

>>4394170
Sounds like Doom

>>4398078
large mallets are goofy weapons, anyway.

>>4392142
You must be 21 years or older to open this door

>>4401193
Doom 2 has worse levels than Doom 1 though.

Once you've played Thief there's nothing else worth playing. Seriously. You could end your hobby playing games after.

>>4401812
You're wrong. There are a lot of high quality fan missions to play.

>>4401812
I still haven't found a more immersive and atmospheric game than Thief 1.

>>4401795

so does thief 2

>>4401980
I respect your opinion but I think that levels that are all designed around stealth as opposed to having some designed around monster combat is better stealth game level design. In Thief 2 there isn't an army of burricks and spiders guarding the only street that leads to the objective, with mandatory use of fire arrows in close proximity for the next objective. Also you don't need to use explosives in the full view of a horde of zombies and a fire shadow, and you aren't forced to backstab several enemies to finish a mission. Oh, and there isn't a mission where an unavoidable alert forces you to run past dozens of hammerites to escape.

...not to forget that the final mission isn't a literal hallway.

>>4402048

>Thief 2 there isn't an army of burricks and spiders guarding the only street that leads to the objective
turn the generator off, brainlet

>Oh, and there isn't a mission where an unavoidable alert forces you to run past dozens of hammerites to escape
life of the party

>...not to forget that the final mission isn't a literal hallway.
I'll take a literal hallway over the clusterfuck that was sabotage any fucking day

>>4401812
Ultima Underworld 1 and System Shock 1 are equally as good as Thief.

>>4402081
Not him but you can deactivate the alarm in Life of the Party.

>>4402081
>turn the generator off, brainlet

The emergency lights are what's illuminating the street with the critters. And turning off the generator doesn't make fire arrows silent.

>>4402081
The alarm can be disabled as >>4402094 said

>>4402081
>I'll take a literal hallway over the clusterfuck that was sabotage any fucking day

Sabotage is well designed. You don't know what you're talking about. Probably because you think that every mission can be completed by knocking out everyone.

>>4402107

>Sabotage is well designed
lmao

>Probably because you think that every mission can be completed by knocking out everyone.
ghosting is for lame tryhards

>>4402145

>>4391912
Anyone else get in super mood for playing thief when its snowy and dark outside or its just me?

>>4402208
Play the FM Seven Shades Of Mercury

Anyone have recommendation for FMs released in the last year or so? I've played most of the ones in pic related. The best recent ones I've played are probably skacky's maps. I'm not a big fan of the ones that push the newdark limits to absurd lengths (the whole point of the expanded limits was to get RID of performance issues, dumb FM makers). Anyone got a favorite that isn't listed?

>>4398464
Does this colour look similar?
Maybe another colour?

>>4402740
wtf is the last sentence trying to say?

>>4402747
I think he offers to send his copy

>>4402747
COD = Cash On Delivery. A lot of old infomercials would say "no CODs" because they want money before the product shows up. Otherwise, too easy to get stiffed. This term in archaic nowdays--everyone requires you to pay online--but this was pre-internet days. So the dude's probably a bit older.

tl;dr it means he'll send it to you without seeing any money first, which in this context basically means "for free"

>>4402754
Well whaddya know. You learn something new and obsolete every day.

>>4400313
>>4400560
why don't a group of people remake Deadly Shadows in newdark? the only part that wouldn't translate would be the city hub

>>4402798
I made this many years ago due to how little sense the architecture of the linear training mission makes. This is still a linear design but I still think it's better than what the game shipped with.

>>4402667

gems of provenance is probably my favorite mission ever

>>4402667
Play Dirty Money, Gems of Provenance, Breathing Corpses, Nobles & Craftsman and its follow-up Unexpected Detour, Godbreaker, Watery Grave.

>>4402667
this is the updated version

>>4402893
>>4402910
>>4402958
thanks, clever sneaksies

>>4402798
Can't even get people to finish the Thief 2 Gold content let alone remake the entierty of Deadly Shadows in a non-shit engine. All the people with the talent to do it prefer to work on their own stuff with full creative control - and that's fair enough. The reason why the Thief 2 Gold fan mission project died was because of this.

>>4403116
A shame cause it would be awesome.

Someone needs to make a comfy snow-themed FM list for christmas. There's no snow irl anymore but we still have a few years until climate change gives us Venus II.

>>4403991
Off the top of my head:
Life of the Party: Winter Edition
Chalice of Souls
A Thief's Holiday
Death's Cold Embrace
7th Crystal

>>4402373
>Seven Shades Of Mercury
Hammerite imperium map?! holy shit thanks anon

>>4404569
I'd also add:

Happy New Year Mr. Lambert!
A Winter's Eve (third mission of Calendra's Legacy)
Bones Ep1
Kingsbridge
Ack! There's a Zombie in the Basement

>>4404602
>A Winter's Eve

One thing to note about Winter's Eve is that it takes place on the same street as the Dark Project ending cutscene. Too bad the mission has more inconsequential side content than main mission content. Plus it inexplicably starts with a taffing battle scene.

To add to that list is "A Question of Knowledge" from T2X. One of the best FMs ever made in my opinion. And it's a comfy winter mission. The atmosphere is peerless.

>>4398275
Some notes: Killing someone returns in Payback. Again, for personal reasons. The little details here and there are nice, like the guy covered in shrooms, the rotten food, the knife stuck in the wood with blood splatters etc. Atmosphere! Buggy elevator. It's very convenient the prison leads to a house with a specific target, said target can be picked off from a well placed spot. What a nasty sod that nobleman. Not so dark and confusing as Cragsleft. I broke the AI of the old lady? She followed me all the way to the toilet and kept investigating in a well lit room with little space? And you talked about this previously, alert all the guards and make your escape.
About the third lockpick, I'd have to make a demo mission to see how it goes. Also, if I ever get out of the tutorial, I'd like to make an assassination FM. Garrett is a privileged thief. Not everyone is trained by the Keepers. How do the common scum look at violence?
The colour looks off.

>>4404602
>Bones Ep1
I know it's already on the recommended mission list, but I have to second this one as not only a fantastic winter-atmosphere mission, but a damn good mission overall. I love that it's a city mission, but doesn't rely on roof-hopping or the twisty style of Ambush!. There's plenty of climbing but you can always go down to the streets and your choice of path isn't constrained. But it's not a lame "city hub" backtracking kind of map either. It has direction.

>>4404720
Yeah it's a really good one. Kept me busy for hours and it's never boring.

Does skacky lurk these threads? I know he's a codexer but sometimes I feel like he's here on /vr/ too.

>>4404943
He's been around.

>>4405007
when's Black Parade fgt

Just went and played Bones Ep1 cause it's in my FMSelector along with hundreds of other ones I haven't played yet. It was really good. Very comfy atmosphere and a high level of detail. The tomb area and the spookers down there were cool.

I have to confess that even though I played on Expert with "Don't kill anyone!" objective I definitely did my fair share of cheesing with the Necromantic Arrows because they are cool as fuck. Quite a few guards died. Being able to set up your own little monster mash with zombies and frogbeasts going in on guards and hammers to clear an area out is great.

The architecture and flow of the level design was really good, it was mazelike but not overly confusing despite that like some garbage FMs you see. There were a ton of routes to take through buildings and it felt very... complete?

Good shit.

Darkloader or FMSelector?

>>4405037
You probably delayed it by 2 months with that

>>4405535
Whatever comes with newdark.

What are /vr/'s opinions on Calendra's Cistern? Other than the cringy characterization of Garrett and of that woman which almost reminded me of Thi4f's female thief character, I found it almost fun.
Almost because despite being so big, the map was still very linear, and there was only one way to get into the tavern, one way to get into the street that leads to Calendra's house, etc. And while I could bear with that, the scavenger hunt was a terrible way to justify backgracking and the head was bugged, so not only I couldn't understand what it said, it didn't even play the lines that tell you where the parts of its body are and I was so annoyed that I brought up a walkthrough to find them. And let's not forget that on expert you're supposed to find a certain character, blackjack him and bring him back to the art dealer's house at the very beginning of the mission, which I also found incredibly annoying.
Watching the undead hammer murdering all the party guests was very cathartic.

>>4405676
I've only played it once a decade ago and I seem to remember disliking it. I like all of the missions of the sequel despite their numerous glaring flaws, but Cistern felt like a disappointment to me. I don't remember why.

That reminds me... the Garrett voice impersonator in the Calendra series whose name slips my mind... Since Stephen Russell has gotten loads of VA roles doing Bethesda games, would it be too difficult to splice new Garrett lines from games like the new Fallouts and Skyrim? There's a character in Skyrim with Stephen doing the Garrett voice and he actually says "I don't like playing Thief" -or something like that. Which made me laugh.

>>4405535
DarkLoader is old. Use FMSel instead, or at least NewDarkLoader if you prefer DL's interface.

>>4405676
I agree almost entirely. I've complained about its linearity and the backtracking in these threads in the past and have been met with some backlash about it. The worst part about the scavenger hunt quest is that once you've activated it you're required to finish it - it doesn't become an optional objective. So if you're not using a guide it's a fucking pain in the dick completing it even if you listen to the hints.

Thankfully Calendra's Legacy is much more fun - the missions are extremely detailed and a lot more open-ended. You might enjoy those CL even if you had a salty dislike for CC like I did.

>>4405539
half-life3.mp3

>>4405748
Stephen Russell also voices Corvo in Dishonored 2 doesn't he? Surely that has potential.

>>4406413
I think Corvo's voice is intentionally more gruff than Garrett's. He's also a pretty depressing character compared to Garrett's dry humour in all situations.

>>4406413
Russell does his best with the shitty writing Arkane gave him.

How hard would it be to use or even fake an underwater setting in NewDark?

>>4407024
Deep Trouble: City Under the Sea has some underwater areas that look quite good. I don't imagine it'd be too hard with just having an item (helmet) act like a permanent breath potion.

Your pic is great btw.

What are the best craymen-themed fan missions?

I like craymen.

>>4407145
Craymen don't get much love, unfortunately. Off the top of my head:
- Return to the Lost City has quite a few Craymen.
- Godbreaker Mission 2 has a temple which serves as a Crayman breeding ground.
- Nigel's Hidden Treasure has two tribes of Craymen that fight each other at one point, it's pretty funny.
- I think Ominous Bequest has a Crayman section.
- The Broadsword of Sheol has some bizarre Craymen with modified stats that are downright terrifying.

>>4407145

swamped has a lot of craymen

Why does every mansion in The City have a servant named Kevel and a guard named Jorek?

>>4407145
Falling Down from the Thief Anniversary Contest.

Anyone saw the last LGBT-themed fan-mission? I'm kinda worried that political correctness has come to FMs.

>>4407235
Okay -- just played Ominous Bequest since it was in my FMSel list. What a fucking crazy mission this was. Relies a bit too much on the puzzles, riddles and high functioning autism entry level requirements but it was a trip all the same with tons of shit to do and a shitload of variety. It's like if you crammed three Thief 1 missions into one map.

The craymen section was short but the dancing craymen were hilarious so it's fine. If it wasn't for the mission being a total autismcrawl with hidden switches and riddles and puzzles every 5 seconds then it would literally just be a top5 FM for me. It's not as bad as Rocksbourg 1 in that regard but it's definitely a mission that also pretty much requires hitting up the ttlg thread for clues every so often.

>>4407610
>I'm kinda worried that political correctness has come to FMs.
>political correctness

>>4402373
It's indeed comfy, thanks again!

>>4407798

>>4407801

>>4392142
underrated

Holy shit the singing guard.
My sides just left this galaxy

>>4407805
>The villain shall fall!

>>4407912
>After him!

>>4407917
Its kinda fun to mess around with the guards from diffrent teams i could easly cheese the map like that.

>>4407612

>Relies a bit too much on the puzzles, riddles and high functioning autism entry level requirements
I thought the puzzles were really well implemented and never felt too gamey or out of place, unlike broken triad (its sequel), in which the gameplay feels completely centered around the puzzles and the whole thing plays like a point and click adventure.

>>4407610
which FM are you talking about?

>>4407946
I think he's talking about FTM life AKA Walking Tranny Simulator 2017

>>4407960
>Developer focuses more on ideology than design
>Gameplay ends up being absent

Who would've thought?

>>4407972
Don't you diss the best FM ever made, you transphobe!

trannies are accidentally canon in Thief. One of the cops in Shoalsgate has a female appearance but speaks with a male voice.

>>4408006
Mmm medieval boi pucii

>>4407972

all of that author's missions are like that (and he's actually made like 24 so far)

>>4404695
Man, this one was good.
We got two missions in a sequence that took the theme and sounds from Cragscleft (plus the assassination theme) but beside this they're almost opposites: despite its moderate size and the low challenge, this one manages to make sense and be a little story narrated through your actions.
The enviroment is well defined through details, visual ones (only the severed head is out of place/unexplained imo, can't deny it surprised me in the good way mainly for this reason) and readables, which tell a story about the place you're in and give you clues on what to do and where to look. So even if both the prison and the mansion are limited in what they actually show, they're well characterized. The mission shows less, implies more and does both things well.
The part in the center for the criminally insane is definitely one of my favorites so far, but I got lucky there: I've heard the prisoner shouting "Kill them all" only to see the sectioned ape walk around the corner, perfect timing. During a second try the inmate was already in the corridor. The fact that both the ape and bugbeasts animations always creeped me out probably played a big role, and mixing them with human models contributed to make them weird again.
The woman is definitely bugged, or completely fearless, I think she just can't go beyond the search state, not even if you attack her. She moves in slow motion when being hit or when she falls dead/unconscious.
The fact that I knew I was going to set off the alarm made it less annoying than the one in Undercover (also a bigger mission with a loot requirement). It's more like an expected challenge you can prepare for in the more calm part before it. For some reason the alarm didn't work in the half of the house with the exit, making the escape easy. Seeing that there was a button there too I thought that each guard had to activate it individually, but the second time it worked properly. Still can't manage to make it happen again.

>>4407943
Yeah it's definitely not as bad as some missions I've played, the puzzles at least have hints - the main problem for me was that the hints seem to be placed as secrets themselves that you have to scour each room to find, or the hints themselves require some interpretation.

An example: The vault code - once you have the book that explains it it's easy as fuck, the problem is that the book is in a hard to see, poorly lit spot on top of one of the shelves in the library and there's no indication that you need to be looking for the vault manual to find your way inside. All you know is that you need a code. So your first thought is not to actually check the library for a manual, it's to search the bedrooms and the study and the secret sections of the mansion to find a scroll/diary piece with a code on it. If you knew you had to look for the vault manual you could probably deduce that it would be in the library somewhere.

There are a few more that are a bit like this to me. You might want to accuse me of wanting to be spoonfed the solution but even after playing like 100 different fan missions of varying autistic puzzles/hidden progression this mission still stumped me a few times. Of course some rooms and objectives also just require mandatory frobbing of everything in a room to find the hidden switches, also - no shortage of that.

>>4406413
>>4406449
>>4406470
Arkane really mess my brain, and make me think uncomfortable thoughts.

First off I loved them in Arx Fatalis, Dark Messiah times since I knew they loved LGS legacy, and Levine was cock sucking the triple A industry with the fucking disappointment ( for me) that was bioshocks.
At least in Infinite he just made a shooter and thats it.

But Arkane going big bucks seem like on the verge of making a clasic but something held out the first Dishonored, and despite Prey being a better attempt at LGS, my first instinct was piss on Bethesda.

But I have come to realize Arkane deserves nothing, Harvey Smith is a shithead SJW of the highest order. And all their games come off as tame.

>>4408363
>Still can't manage to make it happen again.
Nevermind, I noticed that by killing the guard that runs for the alarm, a scripted event, no one else in the room bothers to push the big red button. Nearby guards outside the room are alerted by the noise and that's it, but the ones near the exit won't hear a thing. The alarm works fine, but it's not really forced on the player.
The first time I must have done something that stopped the guard from running for the alarm, and what happened it's still a mystery half solved.

>>4407235
Just played Nigel's Hidden Treasure. It's pretty amazing how the guy managed to cram all this shit into one level, it changes themes like every 5 seconds once you're underground and there's a lot of variety to it. Too bad it's pretty much completely linear and is quite ugly in general.

I downloaded the mission without checking who the author was or what else he had made and literally the whole time I was thinking "the guy who made Augustine's Revenge made this" and sure enough after I finished it I was correct when I checked.

It has all of his hallmarks: huge expansive level with mazelike elements to it but is ultimately completely linear, hidden switches for required progression, a metric fuckton of loot that pretty much completely devalues how it feels to pick loot up (less is more!), but it was a bit of an adventure at least.

I did find out that with nuMantle you can pretty much break the forced linearity of the map by skipping Nigel's house & Nigel's cave by mantling into the window of the guard tower and blackjacking the guard as you climb up, then opening the city gates. You can do this sort of shit on a lot of older missions but afaik this one is from 2013 and NewDark was out by this point. Vid related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFKqYxfWZjI

Wish there was some Thief streamer that focused on showing the game "correctly".

Dark shadows, loud sounds, occasional commentary unlike constant talking.

>>4408696
As much as I enjoyed Arx, Dishonored, and Prey Arkane just needs to fuck off trying to "recreate" old LGS games. They're a good team of developers who could probably make some great original games if they weren't trying to be LGS 2.0.

>>4410501

>>4410506

>>4410440
They cant anymore, Raphael left Arkane and lets be fair they want to be triple A like Bioshock.

>Fan missions where the frobbing/grabbing/pickup distance is halved
Is this a real script or is my game bugged?

>>4411152
It's a simple property applied to objects in DromEd.

>>4411192
Wow. Well apparently in this FM it's applied on everything from chests to boxes to readables, so far.

This honestly just makes the game so much less fun. You have to be in lockpick range of doors/chests to even frob them, and if a papyrus is on a table with a chair in front of it you have to hug the chair and lean over it to pick it up, instead of just grabbing it like usual.

>>4411204
That pic is the furthest distances from the chests you can frob them by the way, I used Rocksbourg 2 as an example because I just remembered it had a chest right at the start of it but I'm pretty sure that's the same as every other OM & FM.

>>4411204
I just replayed Conspiracies in the Dark and it's not as big of a problem as you're making it sound. It does get a little annoying for readables, but since the FM relies a lot on hidden clues and secrets, I understand why the author did it. I assume he didn't want you to skip ahead too easily in the story by finding hidden secrets and such while frobbing wildly.

also, the Rocksbourg 2 example looks weirdly far away to me, though I can believe that's the default.

>>4411278
Can't help but disagree, it really is that bad and a terrible design decision by the author. Nobody runs around hitting their use key 24/7 and accidentally frobbing things, that's just not a thing that ever happens and it's a really frail excuse for having all the objects in the map act this way.

Doing this also definitely doesn't make pixel hunting any harder (not that it needs to be, I don't know why anyone would want to achieve that), it just makes it more time consuming. You look with your eyes and you frob with your hands. Gluing your face to the walls so you can see when something highlights is definitely not more immersive or more fun. Gameplay mechanics should always service the element of fun, not tedium.

You're also required to find all the secrets for Expert, so this is your main avenue of completing the mission, frobbing away at everything in sight. What an awful way to artificially increase the time spent finding said secrets.

Fucking with the main gameplay mechanics of Thief in FMs is a sin to me. This is basically just the dark engine version of Thi4f's "spend an extra half-second whenever you frob something", it just trades out the fully animated part for "get closer to the chair, crouch down and then frob the book to read it".

Is there any reason to sneak while you're crouching Thief 3? Unless my audio is glitched or something you're already not many any sound while crouching anyway.

>>4411341
Crouching makes you 100% silent no matter the surface.

>>4411445
Good to know Garrett finally invested in some new shoes.

>>4411445
Too hard for analog sticks to creep-step across marble and metal.

>>4411462
They could've used a trigger toggle for slow walking, so you hold left trigger while pushing up to walk on loud surfaces. Easy workarounds.

>>4411450
Garrett's heavy leather shoes in T1 are because he is a D&D thief who plunders tombs full of traps, caverns full of sharp rocks and places full of lava. If he wore some cloth footwraps to the lost city he'd get his feet burned off even being on the hot earth near the lava.

>>4411650
He could always wear different shoes according to where he's planning to go next, you know.

>>4411810
What? TWO pair of shoes? You sound exactly like a kind of taffer that Garret would rob.

>>4411462
The entire movement speed and consequently footstep volume system in Splinter Cell is controlled with the analog stick. Those "3rd person console stealth game players" that TDS tried to market to are perfectly capable of sneaking using console controls.

>>4411810
>implying he can afford that when he has his rent to worry about

>>4411969
All those arrows he buys must be part of a compulsive bad habit

>>4411998
>mfw Greates thief of them all only tries to support his crippling addiction to consumerism

>>4412010
*greatest
Fuck.

don't open this image

>>4412092

>>4410440


Sometimes I think that if LGS survived to this day they would probably be very close to what Arkane does.

There are a ton of modern mechanics in gaming that seem wise but are just garbage, I wonder if today they would give player no quest objective direction or make an unreliable map.

How does skacky do it bros, everything he makes in the dark engine looks amazing, even this fucking tiny map he made for some 48 hour contest.

>>4412827
Fuck that mission, the wood ledge to get in through that window is invisible. I also noticed this weird thing where if you picked up the flowers by the 2nd floor bedroom and tossed them out the window, they'll teleport away into the distance before falling.

>>4412840
Hah, true. The spot for the rope arrow was pretty hard to see. He should have made the wood poke out like a windowsill instead of just having it border the window.

>>4412827

oh gee I wonder who could be behind this post

>>4413015
I'm not skacky I'm just a chodegobbling fanboy desu

>when the fan mission changes the names of the difficulty levels

>>4413164
That's an oddly specific pet peeve.

Is this seriously the art style they are going for with Underworld?

Is Neurath right in the head?

What would be the best modern engine to use in a hypothetical TRUE sequel to Thief 1 and 2?

>>4414471

http://www.thedarkmod.com/main/

>>4414471
Something simple with no need for big fucking textures. I really appreciate what some japanese devs do with Western engines, like Capcom.

I say a modified ID or Unreal Engine, with simple but artistically pleasing textures, both have support for big maps.

I dont know I am not an expert, but its what I see.

>>4414516
Doom 3 was actually a bad engine choice in hindsight. It seemed great at the time because of the emphasis on lighting and shadows (and in realtime! Perfect for Thief!) but the team is still fighting performance issues with open areas and it has never handled multiple light sources well. Damn impressive what they've accomplished though.

>>4414567
Yeah its damn impressive, and only a community with the love Thief has could do it.
But in hindsight its the wrong engine.

>>4414468
My expectations for Underworld are so low they might actually surprise me with a great game.

But I doubt it.

>>4414576
Did you play the alpha? I didnt, in the forums they seem to be in crunching time and say the game is coming late 2018 but I dont think they are changing from Unity or even slightly altering the art style. you would think people from LGS would understand better what made Thief and SS such beautiful games.

>>4414579
I didn't even know they released playable alpha version. I'm only judging it based of what I've seen in the gameplay videos and screenshots. The amateurish artstyle makes me worry about System Shock 3 tho.

>>4404695
The Living City is next, right?

>>4414673
What about 'The Docks'?

>>4414684
Right, it went unnoticed for some reason. I should stop cross-checking between taffersparadise and thiefmissions, things get only more confusing from now on.
For example the Circle of Strain campaign was uploaded in 2014 while the first mission is from 1999, I think.

>>4414567
>still fighting performance issues with open areas and it has never handled multiple light sources well.

You can work around the limitations quite easily and make pretty much anything that could be done with the dark engine. It just seems that most of the mission authors for the dark mod put more emphasis on cheesy """"cinematic"""" stories than level design.

>When you've spent 50 minutes in a map and cleared every single accessible room, found a bunch of pixel hunt switches that lead nowhere, knocked out every single guard and backtracked all over everything multiple times and you haven't cleared a single objective

>>4415402
Ok so... I just went through the entire first mission with a walkthrough on my second monitor - it's basically impossible to beat without a guide. It's one of the most cryptic and autistic pixel hunting hidden switches nonsencial level design piece of shit ever. As in, if you put down the guide for one second you will get stuck and have to check the guide again.

There are switches and keys hidden that you literally CANNOT see with your eyes and just have to right click things to find them. There are also a lot of areas that it's impossible to progress through without alerting multiple guards or servants.

There is also an area with multiple points of no return that require a key from the previous area to finish the mission: Once you get to a big temple on Expert a bunch of the doors close behind you. You need a key off the Ice Keeper in there but I didn't realize he had a key (it's one of those grey ones that are a bit hard to see, and his clothes are grey/blue) that and I somehow glossed over it in the walkthrough. You also can't knock this guy out as far as I know and have to kill him with a fire arrow or something. Anyway, I went through this area only barely seeing him and actually avoiding him and then I exited through the waterways below. You can't get back up to this area after falling down to the water. You need his key to exit the mission even if you have all objectives cleared. You can't get back in the way you originally came by looping the whole map because all the doors closed behind you.

So you have to reload an older save to grab the key to finish the mission. You can just softlock fuck yourself by continuing without the key.

I have a save at the start of mission 2 now but I don't know if I can bring myself to even play it. The first mission is literally unplayable without a guide and I don't know if I want to read another guide to finish this one so I might just drop it.

Finally got to play the Shalebridge Cradle and glad it managed to live up to the hype everyone gave it. I thought it going to be a standard level except with some spooky shit, but obviously it turned out to be even more than that. Sucks that almost every other level in Thief 3 isn't as memorable as the Cradle is.

>>4415498
The Russians have a very... different mindset when it comes to Thief design compared to other people. Most if not all Russian FMs are insanely hard for no reason.

Mission 1 is by far the worst. Mission 2 is in my opinion the most interesting of the bunch and perhaps the easiest, even if it looks pretty restrictive when you see the objective screen. It has a few really neat ideas. Mission 3 is a city mission with an interesting layout but it has a lot of gating and obscure stuff. Don't get me wrong, I'm not praising this campaign, it's still bullshit hard and almost impossible to complete without a walkthrough, but the two followup missions are much better.

>>4415645
Mission 1 reminded me of a lot of the frustrations I had with the awful Shadow of Doubt campaign. I was just not enjoying myself at all thanks to all the cryptic bullshit and forced linearity through keyhunting.

I'll go try Mission 2 now and maybe even try to finish this shit but I don't know.

>>4414471
My dream would be an engine that focuses on lightning and lightning effects, like the xrEngine from the STALKER series. I don't think there should be any room for static lightning; all light should come from a physical source and everything should cast a realistic shadow, maybe even taking into account things like scatter.
As for the artstyle... I think that it should be somewhat stylized to allow using bold colors, but avoid looking plasticy like the new Underworld. I appreciate what they're trying to do with Underworld's artstyle, but I think they should've done more iteration on that.

YOU'VE GOT TEN SECONDS TO EXPLAIN WHY YOU DON'T LIKE SOULFORGE

>>4416042
What if I actually really like Soulforge?

Just finished rocksbourg 3 for the first time, after having had a miserable time with the first 2 missions. This shit takes annoying fetch quests to a whole new level. I can't believe how anyone could seriously recommend it let alone consider it one of the best fms out there.

>>4416076
then explain why you do like it.

>>4416082
I love the size and the overall difficulty and challenge, which stay fair and balanced unlike Kidnap for example (though the turret room is a bit dickish).

>>4416082
I like it because it's a test of all the skills you've accumulated until that point. It's got human enemies as well as robotic enemies of different strength levels. It's got environmental hazards and climbing puzzles. It has alarm systems that summon reinforcements. You collect things but it isn't loot because of the urgency of the situation. You get plenty of resources to use but you'll never just take out every enemy with what you have, so you have to prioritize. I also like the concept of constructing the things you need. The way it's done is the immersive sim equivalent of crafting. Not just clicking through menus.

It has its problems. The mission starts with you in plain view of a watcher, although it's only a yellow alert, and in a room that was just previously a battlefield between bots and Viktoria so an alert would not matter anyway. That leads to the next problem. More bots enter that area and become permanently alerted if they see the robot corpses that everyone already knows are there. I'm also not fond of the concept of having to turn off the lights so a room is totally pitch black so you can sneak through, and without doing that it's impossible to sneak through. The solution should not be one of the extremes.

>>4416112
>You get plenty of resources to use but you'll never just take out every enemy with what you have, so you have to prioritize.

This doesn't happen to me. I get annoyed at the poorly thought out gameplay and resort to abusing the ai and have the bots blow themselves up against a corner trying to shoot me because at least I will have an easier time backtracking through those boring ass corridors, which is what this retarded mission is all about. Eventually I get bored and quit; it's not challenging in a good way, it's just fucking tedious.

>>4416081
Pixel hunting, autistic luck-based progression, tiny switches, keyhunting, corpse/unconscious body fetch quests, shitloads of retracing your steps, buggy AI.

Rocksbourg is a lot of style over substance. People like it for the atmosphere/horror stuff but ttlg unironically have some fucking awful taste when it comes to Thief FMs and recommendations and a bit of that gets carried over to other Thief communities (RPGCodex & here namely).

You can look at the ttlg thread for any FM you think is obtuse or requires scouring every pixel for a hidden switch or key to proceed and all of the responses will be turdmunchers praising every aspect of the map despite its obvious glaring flaws. This means that these authors rarely seem to ever learn to improve on these aspects, even FMs which have playtesters just seem to be a Yes-man crew tied up with the atmosphere or graphical quality of the mission and don't like to call something objectively bad gameplay-wise.

Rocksbourg as a series is ok at best. 3 is the best because it requires the least reading of a walkthrough, 2 is still a pixel hunt and it has the best variety/areas to explore out of the three but 1 is completely unplayable without a walkthrough. The reliance on using a walkthrough that Rocksbourg requires basically kills it. Style over substance, "it's pretty!" instead of good gameplay.

When I think of fan missions that I would recommend to someone coming from the OMs, Rocksbourg is seriously almost at the bottom of the list.

>>4416158
>People like it for the atmosphere/horror stuff but ttlg unironically have some fucking awful taste when it comes to Thief FMs
Also if you need any further proof of this aside from any bad FM thread just remember/go look at the Thi4f apologist threads from when Thi4f released. The ttlg turdmunchers went out of their way to not become NoMutantsAllowed v2 (the guys who hated Fallout 3 because of how shit it was compared to 1 & 2 when it came out) by defending Thi4f and the Thi4f devs despite how bad the game was.

>>4416158

Yeah, ttlg has always been a retarded circle jerk community where the local celebrities can push out some random turd and everyone will praise and go nuts over it, while actual good missions get glossed over and quickly forgotten. For a while the codex seemed to be different, but in the last couple of years it's pretty much turned into ttlg lite with few exceptions.

Heyho Taffers,
Can someone please tell me what this art is called, or where I can find a higher resolution?
(FM is Shadow Politics for T1 btw)

>>4416221
If you got a proper head-on image of it or pulled the texture for it out of the files you might be able to reverse image search it.

Kinda looks like Everquest desu but that could go for tons of shit seeing as it's pretty generic fantasy.

>>4416158
>When I think of fan missions that I would recommend to someone coming from the OMs, Rocksbourg is seriously almost at the bottom of the list.
Speaking of that, I've seen some bad recommendations for newcomers in most of TTLG's 'new to FMs' thread. Most of the time, it's usually just the big names such as Ominous Bequest, Rocksbourg, etc. The worst part is, most of those recommended missions are a massive departure from classic Thief.

>>4416127
Just get some of the infinitely respawning water arrows, then you don't have to exploit the AI

>>4416272

but ominous bequest is actually good, maybe a little puzzle oriented but never takes it too far

>>4416272
Yeah and that's the problem. Those ttlg turdmunchers who recommend those super complex pixel hunt puzzler FMs to newbies are people that have been conditioned by almost 2 decades of mediocre poorly designed FMs so every time one comes along that shows something pretty, large and occupies their time for an above average length through forcing key/switch hunting on the player it gets lauded as the perfect game.

Newbies aren't interested in that shit. Newbies need direction that isn't a papyrus hidden in the corner of some closet behind 4 boxes with some cryptic fucking clue on it that won't make any sense to them regarding some completely hidden tiny switch.

FM designers mostly just create missions for masochists, not for people interested in playing Thief. Most people play Thief to sneak around, use the gadgets, bonk people on the head with a blackjack and pile all the bodies in some dark corner. Not to backtrack over their steps five times in the space of an hour looking at every door frame, light fixture, piece of furniture or othehrwise for a tiny switch that is required to progress through the level. How autistic does a mission author need to be to think "well I can see this in dromed and know it's there so surely it'll be easy to find for a player". It's like those Super Metroid romhacks that the SM autist community praises because you need to be able to hit a mockball or a cwj every 5 minutes to progress.

>>4416294
When you cram as many puzzles into a mission as Ominous Bequest does it just comes down to basic probability that at least 1 of them will stump the average player and have them seek tips/guides. OB at least has clues for its puzzles though, which is more than can be said for most autismfest missions. OB is objectively on the more obtuse side of FMs.

People need to take a step back and think objectively about the OMs. Which of them felt mega frustrating to you on your first playthrough and stand out with that FM-level of quality.

One that really comes to mind in Thief 1 is obviously the Thieves' Guild. It's the first mission where you're forced to pixel hunt around (silver bracelet in the firepit hurr durr) and slash banners (to find the sapphire vase), without either of these things being hinted at (IIRC) and it suffers for it.

On my first playthrough I spent 3 hours running around the mazelike tunnels of the map utterly frustrated that I couldn't find the objectives through the trail of sleeping bodies. As a result people do not remember the map fondly, yet it's by far the closest one to the average autistic fan mission gameplay-wise. If you remove the good graphics/atmosphere/sound from Rocksbourg 1 it becomes a far worse version of the Thieves' Guild, requiring multiple poorly-hinted-at pixel hunts to find keys that are required to progress.

In Thieves' Guild's defense, it is obviously very unfinished and probably did not see a lot of playtesting time compared to the rest of the missions, they just threw it in there with the rest of Thief Gold as a means to flesh out the downwinders/underground side of The City's lore as the story elements in it were previously hinted at in Bafford's and Assassins. But for these fucking fan missions that have multiple years long development cycles spent on making something look pretty it's retarded that they are allowed to get away with such dogshit gameplay.

I also recall some frustrations on my first playthrough with Undercover's switch hunting but I remember the order and locations were at least properly clued to you.

Thief 2 is another story, I could go on about Casing the Joint for ages but it's obvious Thief 2 overall is just an unfinished mess that LGS wished they could have fixed up with Thief 2 Gold. Rest in peace.

>>4416221
That's an original artwork by Mark Lizotte.

>>4416318
Take a xanax or something dude.

>>4416336

Not even the bracelet in thieves guild was as fucking retarded as those two keys you are supposed to find in rockbourg like that one hidden underwater, or that other one that is literally out of sight and you can just get it by blindly frobbing at a pile of debris. And even then, thieves guild was slammed by players and is usually considered to be one of the worst missions in the series; rocksbourg on the other hand, gets away with doing the same shit as thieves guild and is still being praised to this day for some reason.

>>4416340
thanks. seems like it is called "Reincarnation"?
Could not find any higher than this, though.
Would love to have somthing like this hanging in my floor.

>>4416294
>bad recommendations for newcomers
Read above. Ominous Bequest is an okay mission on it's own, but newcomers are going to have a bad time with it on a first run through. It's like one of those missions you have to play over and over again to get good at.

>>4416336
worst part is thieves guild was actually a thief gold addition and the game is a bit worse for it

at least the banner thing is somewhat hinted at, i believe you find a note that goes "donal wants me to stay out of the banner room what's wrong with him" or something like that

>>4416451
German taffer detected.

>>4416595
Yeah, who would have thought stealing from professional thieves was harder than stealing from nobles who flaunt their wealth?
I mean, it's almost as if that loot was hidden to deter other thieves, what awful design.

>>4416606
it's a pretty shitty, labyrinthine level for such an early level

>>4416451
Always found that painting out of place, but the one with the Trickster fuelled my nightmares.

I understood pretty soon I would rather deal with the zealots of civilisation than fucking Satan.

>>4416340
don't call me dude, are you some teenager or something?

>>4416721
>dude
dude c'est ton pere

>>4416606
I have a really good sense of direction and for every mission in the Thief games I could draw you a pretty good map from memory alone even though I haven't played the original missions in a few months, and yet even after spending hours in Thieves' Guild and replaying it a few times I still can't find my way for shit.
Stop blaming the players for shitty level design.

>>4416813

The layout isn't that complicated. It's just that everything has that samey look to it and there's a lack of landmarks. But using the compass and the map, I really never had any problems finding my way around.

>>4416926
the map is beyond useless

i pretty much used the compass only

Just finished Thief 3 and I honestly don't see why people hated this game so much. Only major complaint I can find are the janky controls which I bet was the result of designing a first and third person mode which I never used. Sucks that we'll never get a true Thief 4 where you play as the little girl and Garrett is in a teacher/dad kind of role.

>>4417207
i mean if you really want the "thief as girl" experience i guess you could play thief 2x

>>4416934
>the map is beyond useless
It's not, the outline is very accurate.

>>4417207
Nobody hates it, its just noticeably consolized and hampered by it.

>>4417207
>janky controls and fucking terrible physics, can get glitched inside of the floor with ease just by jumping around
>blackjack feels unresponsive and clunky to use
>maps are tiny with 5 minute loading screens everywhere even on modern PCs because of the terrible engine
>more importantly, maps are flat and have little to no verticality to them, rope arrows are absent for the much more gamey/restrictive climbing gloves
>Garrett drowns when he touches a puddle after being an olympic swimmer in the first 2 games
>Keeper Assassins are fucking stupid and make no sense
>gameplay is completely brought down by the fact that it's designed for third-person instead of first-person
>Garrett can maintain rep with the Hammers & Pagans at the same time by doing menial oddjobs for them after stealing their precious artifacts
>crouching makes you totally silent
>Expert mode lets you kill guards
>Garrett now carries a dagger because he's now an assassin-type instead of a D&D thief who raids dungeons with his sword
>did I mention the terrible engine the game runs on
>superficial complaint but it's literally called Thief Deadly Shadows instead of Thief III because they wanted to market it as a standalone game for the Xbox crowd to not turn them off by showing them it's the third in the series, just further drives home that their loyalty was to the Xbox kiddies instead of actual fans of the series
>even after all this garbage it's still literally 20x better than Thi4f
Thanks Xbox and the 11 year olds that played it.

If TDS was designed for the dark engine on PCs it would be an infinitely better game with way more gameplay possibilities.

>>4417323

It was the worst time in the transition of consoles. Pc gaming was flat.

If Thief 3 were made today by a hypothetical Ion Storm today it would be a good game with a decent engine, since modern consoles at least have more RAM.

>>4417328
Reminds me. I tweeted Otherside Entertainment a couple months ago asking for them to get the Thief IP and make Thief 4 saying I've been waiting for Thief 4 for over a decade and they liked it on twitter, but then a few days later the twitter like was gone.

I don't know if that could be something they have in mind or if they just retracted the like because it's industry bad manners to like something that is snarkily shitting on Thi4f.

>>4417336
I dont know what to feel about Otherside honestly.
I mean yeah its Neurath but its not the entire LGS crew.

I would like to know what they think of that abomination.

Also the Underwold Ascendant art style is puke inducing, I dont know what are they thinking.

>>4417342
They have Terri Brosius & Stephen Russell (at least for Underworld) as well, right? Terri was lead writer on TDS and assisted in writing T2 (as well as obviously being one of their main voice actors).

>>4417358
They also have Chris Siegel, Steve Pearsall, Tim Stellmach and obviously Warren Spector. All LGS.

I at least have a little bit of faith.

>>4417207
It has quite a few issues, which are described in this thread. However I thought the story was great, and really neat that the keepers were there own greatest enemy in the end.

Thief 4 would have been good like you said if it was a continuation where Garrett is sort of an old father figure and the young girl needs to take over. They could've done a semi-reset without doing the awkward Garrett/not Garrett reboot crap that didn't click. To be honest there isn't much of a story to tell after TDS because all the power is balanced after the trilogy, it's hard to conceive of a story.

>>4417342
A while ago they replied "What Thief 4?" to a question about it and very politely shat on it on a long-past live stream.
I can see where they're trying to go with the art style, they just aren't pulling it off. Although, the last set of screens I remember seeing looked fine enough for a low budget game to me so maybe they'll get it sorted out. The much bigger red flag to me is that this game has been in dev for a while now, and they seem to have been making very slow progress the whole way through. For ages updates have felt like treading water, they seem resistant to go into detail about the workings of major systems (eg stealth). Basically I don't think they know what they're doing.

But whatever, this is a Thief thread.

>>4417342
>>4417375
I don't like to place faith in a project based on who's working on it. Plenty of projects with the right people have failed, and I tend to think games are the result of time and circumstance as much as the minds of their devs.

>>4417747
>Basically I don't think they know what they're doing.
Have you ever seen Warren Spector talk immersive sims? He mentions that an immersive sim can only really come together near the end of the project. Immersive sims are games about various systems interacting with each other, so until you have a lot of those systems in place you can't have a game.

>>4417747
>But whatever, this is a Thief thread.

Its very relevant, Otherside success with this and SS3 might make them make a dedicated stealth game in the future in the line of Thief.

>>4418197
I've heard the stories about how Thief only clicked together right at the end of development, and I know software development can be unpredictable so I have given them a lot of benefit of the doubt. It's just that for so long, each update has been the same routine of retreading old ground and giving the bare minimum new information possible (despite the fact that they're apparently so busy they can't even release updates on schedule) that makes me very concerned.

>>4418213
Not /vr/, anyway. But here I am talking again so what do I know.

>>4418241
Just to be a bit more optimist, at least that faggot who went to work at Bethesda is not there.

And I do like Neurath. I just hope they can pull it off.

What are some interesting FMs you've never seen mentioned on 4chan?
pic related is Right Up There in the Mountains, and Evil Dead themed mission.

>>4418368
I was optimistic about it but they haven't given me a reason to be in some time now. And I also still like all of the names I recognize there. Even if UWA ends up being awful they still contributed to the best games of all time, that doesn't get erased.

>>4418396
I don't think I've ever seen The Lost Crusade mentioned. A nice T1 mansion mission.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iujZ93uv4t4

It's perfect. The perfect fan mission.

>>4418608
Welp, I'm dropping this one. After checking the ttlg thread it turns out the scripting is super fucking buggy and broken. I have like 10 different saves from before and after the first(?) scripted event where the camera is meant to shoot up into the air over someone's house and show the guy walking back inside and opening the door, for you to go in and buy the key to the other part of town from him for 500 gold.

The problem is, every time this cutscene is triggered and Garrett takes the form of the camera, it shoots me into the corner of the house that the cutscene triggered in rather than anywhere else. After waiting out the duration of the cutscene I check every door in town that I haven't checked already and they are all still locked and closed. I've tried this like 3 or 4 times now on different save files and nothing changes.

I also found who I assume to be the guy I'm meant to buy the key off of, and the possible reason that he can't make it to his own scripted cutscene to open his house - he's in the river under a bridge, probably fell off during his patrol/route to the cutscene or something. He's not drowning, he's just standing there underwater nonhostile.

I cannot be bothered to restart it just to find out if it works or not on a second go. I've spent like an hour on this dumb shit already.

So yeah, buggy broken ass russian fan mission that is basically unfinishable (as if the dumb gameplay switch/keyhunting wasn't bad enough, the custom scripting the guy used doesn't work at all).

>>4418694
>ever playing russian fms

>>4418718
>playing anything not made by white cis straight male Americans

>>4418718
>playing anything not made by autistic frenchies

>>4418718
>>4419431
>playing anything made by those who dropped out of school before learning the use of an international language

Let the Russians who only know Russian and French who only know French go extinct. And no, English is not my first language either

Just finished Death's Cold Embrace all in one night, it was really good and even though the story was sappy as fuck it worked quite well for what it was. Obviously it suffers from heavy map re-use that a lot of people have criticized it for already but it did some interesting things with it at least and didn't have you running the same content in the city one over and over (opens up new areas, closes others off). The second visit to the mansion was a bit meh though.

Actual spoilers ahead (also pic):

Really liked the cyborg midwife subplot, I knew immediately when I was reading the notes in the inventor's house that it was a CM in the basement, too bad it uses the shitty SS2 HD pack model instead of the original one which is way scarier. I liked the ending for it a lot where you find out that the head guard of the mansion actually killed the inventor and she was just trying to revive him the whole time (starting with rigging him up to the electrics to try and shock him back to life, then having a scrap of the necromancy book on her at the end, which is why she kidnapped the head guard hoping to do the ritual to bring the inventor back with him as the sacrifice). Or at least that's how I understood it all, it was really quite good uncovering it bit by bit though. To me this kinda stole the show from the usual romeo and juliet love story.

http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148465&p=2377538&viewfull=1#post2377538

Some mission called 'Five Nights at Dayport' came out. Just looking at the title already gives me low expectations.

>>4419581
>at

What do they think Dayport is? A pizza parlor? ...And 5 nights in Dayport sounds like some rich penthouse high-roller's spice binge.

I'd rather have Fear and Loathing in Dayport.

>>4419674

I think the title is a reference to that game five nights at freddy's, and the gameplay is based around that game's shtick

>>4419683
I know, it's just wrong to say "at Dayport" when it's a city district. It's like saying that sushi was invented "at Japan"

>>4394870

>>4392142
This is not what I was expecting when I opened this thread.

What FM should I play tonight?

>>4420341

http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148420

>>4414684
Did we ever meet npcs with lanterns? Some of them in this FM have an interesting behavior, especially the ones in the inn. If attacked they go after you like guards, unable to attack back. When the barrel guy dies the ale reappears mid-air where it was before.
While the previous mission impressed me on a style standpoint, this one really played its cards right with the succession of different situations to solve. The level changes fast, solve a part of it and there's a different challenge right after that, right until the end. For the same reason it's linear but at least you can open two shortcuts to connect parts of the mission and backtrack faster. It's hard to leave something important behind, but for a moment I thought this one was gonna be the birth of the dreaded keyhunt kind of FM (Koobze probably deserves that title), with the lockup inacessible until the end and half of the required loot being in there baiting that thought. The more you progress, the more tools are given to you to go on. It's good linearity.
Having all that loot in a single place maybe it's not good design, but it's always satisfying to grab it all. Spooky rooms always make me happy and this time Ramirez has a role in the whole shady deal. The warehouse-industrial theme is well conveyed, and again it's thanks to detail like rails, cages, pipes and offices. Even with a bugbeast in it the mission manages to keep the coherence intact.
Featuring an actual boat granted the mission a climax. It's a shame that the only way to board is noisy and well lit, having a different escape route at least made up for it.
The lantern guy makes a round at first and then just stops on the dock, looking at the sea, for the rest of the mission. He's probably grabbing a drink before going back to his duty.
Maps are getting common (briefings are still rare and it's not gonna change soon) and I wonder if it's the first case of a guard increment based on the difficulty.

Real taffers always pick the apple.

>>4420341
A Servants Life

>>4420373
>>4420406
I could go without playing either of those ever.
New question: which good FM should I play tonight?

>>4420479
Are you looking for anything specific?

>>4420828
Any mission that isn't overtly terrible.

>>4420837
The Blue Star is a pretty cool medium-sized museum mission. Not too difficult and I can't recall anything bad about it.

posting another one

Which faction is the worst and why is it the Pagans?

>>4421153
Because their entire ethos is based around doing whatever causes the most damage to the most people so long as those people aren't other Pagans. And even then...
They are not master anti-civilization agents, they're just assholes.

>you will never again be a teenager with no responsibilities and have loads of free time to play Thief games and FMs in your bedroom, breaking only to refill your soda and read forum threads about Garret's personality and that 50 loot you couldn't find and you go to bed imagining the FM you want to make and you only end up making a basic room with a guard in it but it doesn't matter because you still feel immensely happy about being part of the community

>>4421491
Just be a 23 year old NEET piece of shit like me, I'm still doing that every day.

fuck, I'm stuck on the first mission on DCE. it feels like I've explored every corner, yet I'm 1100 gold short.

why do so many FMs have such ridiculous gold quotas?

>>4421754
>after walking back and forth for anpther 40 minutes, I finally found davidov's key
>see light in the end of the tunnel as I return to the chest it goes to, finally I'll get some big loot stash and finish the mission
>it's just some useless bonus item
fuck, this is just insulting

>>4421825
Did you loot the jeweler's place yet?

>>4421828
I can't find the key to his safe. I couldn't find the key to the artist's wooden box either, or get into his basement. on top of that, I can't find how to get into the clothing store, but I hear footsteps from it, so I guess I'm supposed to get into it.

>>4421835
Check the rooftops.

>>4421835
Jeweler: I assume you're talking about the safe by his bed. Take a closer look at the front counter on the ground floor.
Clothing store: Pretty sure you can enter through a 2nd floor window.

This is the longest running Thief thread I've seen in a year.

>>4421850
okay, thanks. looting the clothing store left me with exactly 7020 gold, so I'm good to go.

>>4421882
Counting the previous ones that hit the bump limit? Yeah, I'm pretty surprised by how long it's staying alive. Probably because enough people got interested in playing the FMs and regularly post about them.

>>4421754
Loot objectives shouldn't make things harder than they already are imo. They should make you play carefully and explore instead of rushing to the main objective but that's it. Loot is a good way to measure a sort of score and how well you know the level (and having more gold to spend for items was a good reason to look for it in the OMs). I suppose most author see it as a way to further increase a challenge that it's either absent or already high enough.
It's funny how often I'm punished with endless backtracking for missing secrets while loot used to be one of the first things I secured before going for the rest of the objective list, with more gold in my pockets and less stuff to worry about.

the real benny would never lock someone into a freezer

>>4422193
team-up mission with Benny when?

So we're all of one mind that Karras is /ourguy/ in the Thief universe, correct?

>>4422307
False, it's Brother Murus.

>>4421948
If only people would talk more about modding.

>>4422405
What do you want to know?

>>4422487
Well,
1. >>4396279 and >>4404695
2. I tried to open Thief Objective Wizard (v1.02) and I got this. richt32.ocx should not be outdated. Should I meddle with system32? How to solve it?
Is Goalmaster configured correctly (I must admit I haven't touched Dromed in a while, so I check that out tomorrow)?

Just played Death's Turbid Veil, it felt a bit hamfisted with the fetch questing for the mask ritual and all that shit but the mines being pitch black while you have a lantern that lights you up like a christmas tree and only like 2 meters in front of you when the place is crawling with (scarier-looking than usual) fast moving invulnerable zombies is a very effective way to spook the player (for me at least).

But yeah, once the major discovery/horror arc of the mission was over on Expert it was just me running around an empty mansion for 20 minutes (there are like 50 wine crates in the mission and arbitrarily the wine you need for the chalk circle is hidden near a pile of them in one of the towers on the window ledge) looking for the ingredients for the chalk circle so I could tick off the last objective. Just felt like it overstayed its welcome (still nowhere near as bad as some of the autismfests you regularly encounter in FMs).

The actual main content of the mission is very good though. Should be noted that the performance was total shit when I was in the courtyard looking towards the center of the map even on my modern gaming PC though.

>>4422539
Editing mesh skins is pretty easy with color manipulation. I usually edit them using several skins as layers and paint on them.

GoalMaster is a more up to date version of TOW and will work just fine on modern systems. You should use it instead.

>>4422587
i know how: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLUw8NSpQR8
One problem is that the colour doesn't look quite right? Cobalt? And you have to take in account these skins will be seen in shadow. I tried switching Garretts armband with the Thief one (>>4400625) but it's too short.
I'm not asking you what program to use. I'm asking you how to get these programs to work, whether or not they are outdated.

>>4420926
I hope this info sheet gets updated regularly.

>>4423532
It doesn't. That one is even older than the other one and has similar problems. Though I've been thinking or making my own one with some more objective criticism of some of the more shitty aspects of missions like Rocksbourg at least mentioned on the sheet.

t. Have played almost every mission mentioned on both sheets over the course of a few months.

>>4423625
Those FM lists are the tip of the iceberg. How much more worth is your 'objective criticism' anyway. Perhaps create categories for players that are interested in certain types of FMs?

>>4423680
Basically. Detailing difficulty levels from "You've finished the OMs and want something similar" all the way up to "You're an autistic fuck that enjoys spending 10 minutes in each room of the FM clicking nondescript pixels". So we're not just throwing people new to FMs at fucking Rocksbourg because it looks pretty.

>>4423689
What can be said about Thief 1, and to an extent about Thief 2, is that you take on many roles that fall under the concept 'thief': a burglar, a grave robber, a tomb raider and a spy. I believe you said before that these FM lists had a bias towards city missions (Burglar), so what if you select a couple of FM's that complement other roles of a thief? Instead of listing the pros and cons of each FM yourself, ask the (new) player a couple of questions. Did you have a sense of mystery? Did you like the puzzles? Do you like the portrayal of The City? To get the conversation starting. Also, what about the FMs that are important in the history of the thief community, like Gathering at the Bar (http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=49748)?

Skulls of white and wearing red
Buried with no time for grief
Walking even though they're dead
Risen by their unbelief

Rusted armor, fleshless bones
Came up from unholy graves
Fueled by sins left unatoned
Your soul, it cannot be saved

Echoing in tainted air
Rattling chains, an eerie sound
Marching footsteps everywhere
Whispers command: Join us now!

Never resting, battle-torn
Rotten soul, an empty gaze
Out of evil they were born
Flames around you, only flames

>>4423625
>>4423689
I think it'd be better to make a new chart that has only missions that are actually good for a beginner to FMs (and maybe include a Dark Mod section, if applicable). It'd be hard to fit nuanced criticism for several missions into one image and I feel that people would start to take those criticisms as word of law after they get passed around long enough. Not to say I disagree with them but I think it's better kept to discussion.

Any well-known FM authors lurking here?

>>4423878
Yeah check out my WIP.

>>4423879
who is this romain faggot

Shhh! Shhhhh! Something quiets by!

Just played Fables of the Penitent Thief, very fun stuff and an extremely original idea as far as FMs go (though soaked in medieval fairy tale cliches). Love the art style and sounds too. Really could stand on its own as a game if it was part of a larger campaign.

>>4420375
I didn't notice your post until now. I'll try to play it tomorrow or the day after.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwF9zmUfjxw

da da dadadaa dadada dadaaaa

da dananananada dadaaa

I've mentioned this before but John D's missions irritate me. Their level design is fine and their autism-factor for secret levers and keys isn't very high at all but my FMSel backlog is filled with his missions because of how much wordswordswords he spews into every readable.

It would be fine if you could trust thief FMs to not have a tiny bit of vital information hidden inside of every 10 page readable but I don't want to read the entire Hammerite bible every time I right click a papyrus.

>it's a FM-author-puts-dozens-of-irrelevant-fanfic-short-stories-in-readables episode

>>4426679
Any examples?

Hey guys, I just wanted to say that I started playing Thief Gold on normal difficulty and could not get into it. I played the first mission on expert and had been hooked ever since- shit is seriously good. Just got to the lost city mission. The difficulty level really made all the difference for me.

>>4426857
Just remember to replay one particular mission on Normal too. On that difficulty setting Down in The Bonehoard becomes a comfy scavenger hunt of lots of loot instead of a tense tomb raiding experience for a few pricey artifacts.

Is there a way to get the actual textured blackjack from T1 into T2? Was it always the slick black textureless dildo it is in T2 or is that a product of Tafferpatcher that TFix doesn't have?

>>4427082
What kind of texture is it supposed to have? It's a leather sack with a lead weight inside.

>>4427101
The blackjack in the Thief games is nothing like an actual blackjack. It's huge and held upright like a club. In-fact T3's blackjack is just a studded club, which is similar in appearance to the T1 texture for it. T2's being an upright textureless dildo makes little sense beside the other two examples.

>>4427127
I think the LGS blackjack is upright because having it flop would have required animation. The hand and the weapon are one single solid object, and any extra bone on a skinned mesh in 1998 was performance lost. The reason why swords are attached to NPCs. Ion Storm probably just didn't know what a blackjack is and made it into a club that makes baseball bat noises when you hit a wall with it.

>>4427101
>>4427127
>>4427161

A blackjack is a club. You guys are thinking of a sap.

>>4427082
>Was it always the slick black textureless dildo it is in T2
No, it was not. I still have my old Thief 2 CDs and it is not like that on a new install. I don't remember when I first noticed the change but I've been assuming it was something bundled with my newdark install. Can't remember if I used Tafferpatcher or not, sorry. I remember trying to disable all the upgraded graphics options, but I could have messed it up.

>>4427182
>A blackjack is a club
yeah, no

>>4427082
Disable the Enhancement Pack that comes bundled with Tafferpatcher. As a rule of thumb you should always disable everything that comes with TFix and Tafferpatcher.

Sabotage at soul forge is killing my morale to finish this game. First try I gave up because I got lost and couldn't tell if i was progressing too far or not. Second time I got fed up and realized I could finish the level faster by switching to normal mode.
Third time and I'm starting to think about watching it on youtube. Every single one of these noises are giving me a massive headache. Every single piece of machinery is grating on my ears and hot damn better pray karras doesn't open his mouth or his shitty microphone will absolutely destroy your eardrums. I can't even understand a word of what he's saying.

>>4391912
New guy here.
Is there a Tfix for Thief 2?

>>4427852
You can run T2X as a fan mission in FMSel, I think

>>4427852
>>4428005
Wait, I'm retarded, I read Thief 2X
Look up Tafferpatcher for Thief 2

>>4427848
Thief 2 includes a button on your keyboard that lets you adjust the volume of ambient noise.

>>4427182
Everything I've read seems to suggest the blackjack weapon is the same thing as a sap, except for when referring to police batons in the style of the deus ex baton which are also referred to as blackjacks. Regardless of this the T1 & T2 blackjack is clearly meant to be a type of studded club like the TDS one turned out to be and not a leather sack based on the original texture for it.

>>4427196
Yeah, that's what I thought. Tafferpatcher comes with a ton of shit you can disable but it seems the textureless blackjack replaces the textured one anyway. Something to do with upgrading Garrett's arms (which includes what they're attached to) from what I can gleam off of ttlg.

>>4428123

Don't know about Tafferpatcher (Thief 2) but with the original you can download TFix light, which only ports the game to the new engine and nothing else.

Honestly there's a bigger difference in Thief 1 patched vs unpatched that isn't visual. In Thief 1 the guard AI has been replaced with Thief 2's guard AI. This can lead to huge differences in those emergent moments Thief creates. In my opinion it's a huge mistake.

>>4428126
I think I'll try re-installing both and making damn sure I'm not modifying anything but newdark.

>>4428126
Why is it a mistake?

Isnt the AI better in Thief2?

lel

>>4427848
>i had the key to open up the safe for the regulating rounds all three playthroughs and never noticed
you know if it wasn't for me being a retard i probably would have enjoyed this level. I also got stuck in the maw because i didn't know how to destroy the gate. (the two caves next to it made me think i needed to find a secret entrance to it) overall though both games were solid and am looking forward to playing fan made levels.

>>4420375
>succession of different situations
>The more you progress, the more tools are given to you to go on.
Does Lord Bafford's Manor have this too?

>>4428536
I had a mini-dilemma with that bonus objective on expert because of the "don't kill anyone" objective on Expert. Is there a gas arrow anywhere on that particular mission you can use for that?

finally finished DCE. for me, it picked up a lot during the second half. if every mission had held the same standard as the last three, it would have been a solid 9.

the graveyard mission was a turning point for me. it did have the same extreme gold quota that I complained about earlier, but here it felt like it served a purpose, since knowing the map better paid off toward the end.

the ritual was in itself a pretty standard city mission, but combined with the earlier missions set in dayport, it helped create a world that felt alive, with clear progression between the different nights. reading someone's journal on one mission, and then reading the same journal on a later mission only to find a new entry at the end, felt pretty cool.

the last mission was superb. probably one of the better looking castles I've seen, and the enemies looked really slick and pretty.

sadly, I felt that the initial missions dragged the whole campaign down. there was simply too much that the player had to do just to pass. the first mission had an absolutely ridiculous gold quota, and the second mission required you to find several tiny levers in random rooms.

the one area where the campaign excelled is the visuals. it did use some hd textures, but it was all very tasteful and minimalistic. unlike T2X, it was very consistent with its colour palette. it gave the campaign a very solid athmosphere.

>>4429442
*atmosphere
sorry, it's getting late here

>>4429442
what is this?

New contest
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148475
If anyone's thinking about getting into FM creation, this might be a good opportunity.

>>4429763
Hope we get some good TG FMs from this, TG has a nice atmosphere

>>4426857

I found the same effect playing Crysis, as a matter of fact. A somewhat mediocre action game on earlier levels, but on Difficulty 4 it turns into an MGS style stealth and tactics game.

>>4430364
Crysis was a game engine far ahead of its time, only thing hampering it was the shit story.

>>4429649
death's cold embrace, a recently finished FM campaign

>>4429951
I sort of wish the rules were more strict, e.g. no colored lighting.

>>4429763
based skacky saving thief1

>There are quite a few unused assets in the game’s CRFs
What kind of assets?

>>4430493

I thought you couldn't do colored lighting in t1

>>4430518
You can't, but the rules say that it can use all the NewDark stuff (including colored lighting).

Anyway, I might even give this a go for a first FM. I've tried dromed a tiny bit in the past but never succeeded in making anything worth releasing. Gonna have to hit up the guides if I go for it.

How accurate is this map of the city? Is there a more accurate one anywhere?

>>4430534
Didst thou fabricate this thyself? I'd have no idea how to go about mapping the city out - that Ambush! mission in T2 for example would give you some idea, but who knows how much of the city is shown in the map?

>>4430565
No I didn't make it, it's from a massive 100 page long ttlg thread that I can't be bothered to scour through to see if there's a better one. There's like 20 diff fanmade versions or something.

>>4430534
there are countless fanmade maps of the city. personally, I'd prefer one that doesn't take the T3 map into account, as the T3 map clashes with the assassins/keeper map from T1.

>>4430591
In what way does the T3 map clash with assassins and the keeper map? Genuinely asking because I don't know anything about this.

>>4430596
let's begin by looking at the keeper map from T1. as you can see, we have the New Market in the middle, the High Towne to the NW, the Olde Quarter to the NE, and the Downtowne to the east. furthermore, we know that the South Quarter is to the SE of New Market, since Garrett marked that area with "home turf" in the assassins map and he is described as a "south quarter thief" by ramirez.

>>4430606
Is this map table actually aligned to where the top of it is actually north on Garrett's compass?

>>4430606
Come on, I agree that people should look into T1 before anything else but you just contradicted yourself right there. >>4430606
>we know that the South Quarter is to the SE of New Market
We know nothing about South Quarter being anywhere, because at no point is it established that Garrett lives in South Quarter. That's what Deadly Shadows decided.

>>4430609
Besides, Ramirez saying Garrett is a South Quarter thief can either be erroneous or his South Quarter place is one of many he has.

>>4430606
I've always seen this map as a very tiny fraction of the quarters and they all meet in this area in particular. There is this pic related non-canon map that used the Keeper map as a starting point.

>>4430606
then we have the T3 map of the city.

here, the Old Quarter is placed to the SE of the South Quarter, and the name of the south Quarter becomes a mystery because it's really placed in the NW part of the city.

because the spatial relation between the Old Quarter and the SOuth Quarter don't add up between the games, players who want to map the city are faced with two choices. they either have to
>a. rotate one of the maps (usually the T1 map) around so that it matches the other
I've seen examples of this in the thread you mentioned. this inevitably fails because the canal in T1 clearly has a general orientation from the NW to the SE, which means that it should logically flow into the large river. by flipping the map around you also fuck up the the direction of the canal.
or they can
>b. make the old quarter huge and formless like in the >>4430534 map
which just seems plain weird.

>>4430609
>at no point is it established that Garrett lives in South Quarter. That's what Deadly Shadows decided
"Garrett - South Quarter 'independent' thief. Denied cut three times. Sent Quince and Jacow out to shorten him." - Ramirez, Assassins

>>4430614
>>4430621
My apologies. It's been over 13 years plus a certain 2014 incident and I still can't shake that unwarranted constant criticism of TDS as if Ion Storm had none of the original staff and didn't know what they were doing. Speaking of that...
>>4430618
I don't think the City should ever be mapped in a precise or comprehensive way, to retain the mystery of its vastness. If there's one thing about the flaws of TDS that isn't actually a flaw is that the open world was separated by loading zones, masking both the distances between the districts and the actual sizes of the districts themselves. That technical limitation saved the City from being reduced to the size of Angelwatch Tower.