/vr/ - Retro Games

>>4717630
Let me know how the search for the keys goes for you. I described it as not too complex, clear, but in a way I didn't even had to start the hunt: by just investigating every interesting building (i.e. the ones with open windows) from the bank onwards I gathered every item I needed. Following the flow like this can be fun, but can we call it a search?
Everything in the mission is essential to the completion of the objectives, but maybe some empty space is needed to give a meaning to the player's task. Maybe through elements (like the two closed shops) that aren't related to what we're looking for.

Bump

>>4722524
>with our powers combined
Maybe I'll make an FM about clipping hammerites.

>>4722524
>>4723238
BY THE BUILDER'S HAND, WHAT ARE some good FMs that stay grounded in base game's design and don't have loot requirements of 5000?

>>4723909
There are none.

Play T2X if you haven't yet. That game keeps the base game design, feeling, loot requirement. Look past the female MC.

>>4724212
There are plenty of them you double nigger. Stuff like The Saint of Redmound, Disorientation, Endless Rain, Heist Society, Saint & Thieves or Heart of Bohn totally fall within this.

>>4724241
No shut up everything is shit.

>>4721774
>>4712580
On the first attempt I'm playing on normal which skips the entire bank part, but I'm also missing out on gold. There's a safe high up in a chimney and behind a painting. I haven't found any keys for them. Too bad the lootlist can't be found. The difficulty seems to change the placement of certain items. Reading the thread on ttlg.com gives the impression others also have trouble with the loot. I'll try hard now.
This part of The City with a lot of patrolling guards you have to evade the streets reminded me more of Ambush (TMA wasn't even out at that point quek). There's a curfew and no civilians are out on the street, so that's clear. There's a heavy reuse of textures. I didn't find it too difficult to navigate the map, but sometimes it's hard to tell what the purpose of a building is or who is supposed to live there. Normally you would recognize Keepers by the statue with the shield. This time I thought it was a bandit hideout. However, the map provides enough information.
Previously I asked you if you want your locked doors frobbable, unfrobbable or just a texture with no doorknob. This FM is an example of why you shouldn't include frobbable doors. You can bash open doors but there's nothing behind it. Meanwhile, you also alerted some guards. Then there are those two closed shops. When there's a locked door, the player will try to find a way to open it. FMs shouldn't include a wild-goose chase? Sometimes textures are used for doors.
And you do stumble upon more pieces of the story as you go. I'm rather impressed by how the story unfolds this way.

>>4724212
>There are none.
How so?

how big were viktoria's titties?

>>4724241
They don't have the feeling of the base game at all. Not even in an analogous sense.

Heart of Bohn was decent, but the rest of your list are either short, too long, and they have a setting too distorted from the original.

>>4724302
Neither the setting, the characters, or the level design is reminiscent of the quality of an OM. For almost none of the Fanmissions. I've tried all the recommended ones, and the only ones I liked were Fables of the Penitent Thief, Captain of the Guard, Sturmdrang Peak, and Invitation to Castle Morgoth. They're all oddballs. They don't have a Thief feeling to them, but at least they have fun gameplay or interesting visuals.

Just look at what you're replying too. Keyhunts. 90% of all the FMs on any list end up being some convoluted key hunt or other some such nailbiter-riddle where you just shut off the game because it doesn't have the flow of an OM.

>>4724386
What the hell are you smoking? Are you telling the Saint of Redmound and Disorientation don't feel like T1 despite using only textures, sound and basically everything from it (as well as base construction)?

You're full of shit.

>>4724428
Yes. There is a huge disconnect in the psychological flow of the level, as well as the general feeling of atmosphere in these and the OMs.

Using the textures from the base game does not equal to a Thief feeling. Many early FMs use these exclusively, but they place them in a way that does not resemble the original Thief. Example: Where in Thief there may be a variety of textures from different stone walls, metal and wood, some FMs just use 1 set of stone textures for a rooms and corridors at a time. Then the level design with over-engineered puzzles and just unfitting design choices.

FMs hold not a single candle to the real deal. Just do this thought experiment: Would you like Thief if all you ever had to go on were the FMs? Would that not be a completely different game in tone just by the nature of the levels by themselves?

>>4724462
And yet that's not an issue at all with any of the missions >>4724241 listed, nor is the keyhunt comment (unless you consider a level that's open and contains a key to be a keyhunt, in which case Thief is just shit altogether).

>>4724462
What does "feeling of the base game" even mean to you? I'm genuinely curious, cause it looks like we didn't play the same game since I can find this feeling in quite a few FMs (for T1, stuff like The Saint of Redmound, Trial By Night, Shadow Politics, The Hand of Glory, Bloodstone Prison to name a few have an almost if not 1:1 feeling).

I've seen a few people in these threads with heavy criticism of FMs and most of the time they're fine; it's true a lot of them are pretty shit and the great ones are few and far between. However you not liking great FMs that are very close if not completely in line with the feeling and the philosophy of the base game for downright obtuse, vague and pedantic reasons that border on retardation is a new one. /vr/ never ceases to disappoint.

A lot of early FMs are crap, but the missions I mentioned do not use only one texture for everything. If anything, they tend to use more textures than most OMs to have more variety and feel less like a monolithic, samey place (like Thieves' Guild that really doesn't have many textures in it, do you feel like it is better than the FMs I mentioned?). None of the FMs I mentioned have any puzzle element in them, unless you count the torch thing in Heart of Bohn as a puzzle (I don't, because the puzzle is to find them and they're obvious as fuck).

Please use more precise arguments for why you feel that way, cause right now you're using empty buzzwords and are basically saying: "This is crap because reasons".

I put Thief 1 on a pedestal as the best game ever made, but come on, there are a few FMs that blow most OMs out of the water (especially T2's OMs) and are definitely on a pro level. Also I'd have loved to have FMs such as Disorientation or The Hand of Glory in T1, they would have fit absolutely perfectly. Disorientation because it's the logical next step in Life of the Party design (and oozes T1 atmosphere), and the Hand of Glory because it just feels like an OM.

>>4724462
>Where in Thief there may be a variety of textures from different stone walls, metal and wood, some FMs just use 1 set of stone textures for a rooms and corridors at a time.
The originals are not exempt from this. Some portions of the upper floors from constantine manor are nothing but overly lit tile floors and a single stone texture; there's the tunnels in the bonehoard with very simplistic architecture and little texture variety; and then you have the entirety of the new areas from strange bedfellows that just looks like ass. Thief 2 has a bunch of these too, coupled with the blander setting and textures that are almost completely opposite to thief 1 style and might as well be a completely different ip.

>Then the level design with over-engineered puzzles and just unfitting design choices.
OMs were not perfect and there's huge variations in quality from one to the other. Thief 2 in particular has a lot of shit missions like courier, kidnap, casing/masks and soulforge. Thief 1 is more even in my opinion but there's missions like the haunted cathedral with an absurdly high loot goal that for someone playing for the first time can be just as infuriating as the badly implemented keyhunts in FMs.

You are really selling FMs short and this is coming from someone who thinks that most of the missions on the recommended list are garbage.

city missions are overrated as fuck

>>4724543
you know which overrated T2 mission we have to thank for that.

I wish more city missions were influenced by Assassins instead. too many city FMs try to be some kind of open world sandbox, where you can enter every building, without it actually contributing to the mission in any meaningful way. Assassins was to the point. the city there was sprawling, confusing, and well designed, and most importantly: it was fully integrated into the gameplay, during the initial shadowing sequence as well as the escape (in case the alarm goes off). in the FMs, we instead see an unsatisfyingly superficial form of "exploration" where you just walk down street, see door, pick lock, open cashbox, walk up to next door, repeat.

>>4724302
You're right about the door issue. Between this one and the Trickster's Return, we've been through both extremes of the problem: frobbable doors impossible to open and doors that don't lead anywhere, in this case comically so.
Pic related is a good example of what went wrong in this case. The whole situation puts that door in an interesting position, but if I had seen a texture door up there, from the bank courtyard, I would have relegated that part as a background detail instead of investigating. A closed door, even if out of reach, will always be interesting. As our guy says, what is locked can be opened. In short, never use a frobbable door if you don't want the player to take a look behind it.
Is it possible that the author didn't know how to make the doors impossible to bash open? After all, the two doors left closed are the metal ones, immune to any sword or explosive. For the rest of them he had to use those non-rooms, since he couldn't avoid our curiosity. Texture doors would have sufficed but he didn't consider them at all.

>>4723909
Lord Edmund Entertains
Geller's Pride

>>4725159
Actually, the hideout of the keepers was pointed out clearly. Find the room above the arches. I confused it with my room at the Inn.
I went straight to expert and some changes are noticeable. The streets are crawling with guards. Traversing the streets has become much more difficult. The loot in the room of Indiana Jones is gone. There's no painting covering the safe anymore. A ladder appeared in the chimney. A door near the arches popped up. Some walls opened up in the Duke's House. All in all, plenty of change to spice things up.
You also get a lot of equipment.
Map is also very bright.

>>4726057
>Lord Edmund Entertains
doesn't that one have a loot requirement of like 2000 out of 2100? I remember running back and forth searching for a good while after completing the main objective.

>>4726209
On Hard, the highest difficulty, the loot requirement is 1900. Max is 2008. You can find most of it without any hassle. There's the secret passageway in the chapel that some may not find, but who doesn't fiddle around with a lever when they see one. There's the goblet in the inn hidden behind a corner. There's the ring and the coins at the orphanage for those who don't look up.

get a load of this taffer >>4724543

Playing Thief 2 for the first time... It's pretty impressive how much LESS enjoyable the Lost City is when you have six million mechanists and fucking cameras placed everywhere. I lucked out finding the guy you are supposed to kidnap, and huffed him around for most of the level, skipping half of it and awkwardly using all my gas arrows and flash bombs to get out of jams as I stumbled towards the exit.

Those watcher cameras are really a pain in the ass though.

>>4727131

>>4727131
he's right though. tell me more about walking down a vast street lined with blocky architecture, only to make a stop every 10 meters to lockpick a shop plus the cashbox placed conveniently in the same place behind the counter.

>but muh skacky/melan
they have other problems. ultimately, they fail to integrate the vast city environments into the main objective. you end up with exploration for exploration's sake, which, some would argue, is not a bad thing, but it was never the strength of the original games.

in my idea of a good city mission, the city parts should be there to offer alternative routes to your main objective. tall surrounding buildings may allow you to get onto the roof, sewers may allow you to breach the place from below, etc. but the sight should always be firmly fixed on your objective. if your mission is to loot some nobleman's house, then 99% of the loot shouldn't be in random flats surrounding it. the loot objective, if any, should obviously concern loot you expect to find in the main guy's house.

>>4727131
They are by far the most derivative mission genre, once you've played a couple of them you pretty much stop being able to tell them apart.

Having big cityscapes just for the sake of it only makes the overall mission feel unfocused. A well designed classic mansion mission that plays to the game's strengths beats huge self-indulgent city missions that want to turn thief into assassins creed any day.

It doesn't help that ai just can't keep up with the player on a lot of city missions, particularly those with lots of verticality. So in the end all challenge of the game is basically removed and you are just left with an empty sandbox of a level whose only real danger is missing a jump and falling to your death.

There are great dedicated city missions like midnight in murkbell, but they have a completely different mindset compared to the modern ones that just seem to think that bigger is better and that every kind of mission should feature large city segments for no reason.

Full campaign for the Dark Mod of AAA quality when?

>>4724386
If by "recommended ones" you mean the ones in the image posted on 4chan a lot, then yes, they skew toward modern fancy "impressive" missions rather than ones closer to the OMs. But the community has been making stuff for two decades. It's much like Doom maps. The fanciest stuff gets hyped. There are plenty of maps that are both truly old school and surpass many of the OMs. It's hard to find them though especially since it seems like you're extra picky after getting burned a few times. The OMs aren't perfect either.

>>4724582
>too many city FMs try to be some kind of open world sandbox, where you can enter every building, without it actually contributing to the mission in any meaningful way
This 100%. It's fine that those missions exist, but I wish authors were more clear in their descriptions about the style of play they designed for. I think Bones: The Old Quarter it's a good example of a city mission that gives you purpose and direction, not just climbing into every window because you can.

>>4727674
Dark Mod has impressive mechanics but I really don't like how the lighting looks. Doom 3 was a poor choice of engine, but they couldn't have known that at the time. It's great compared to Deadly Shadows though.

>>4727680
Really? Because Bones is no different from Endless Rain, Bad Debts or Disorientation for example. The main place you need to rob in Bones is a tiny indoor space and I got it by total accident when I played it for the first time.
Bones is maybe a bit more involved than the others considering it has a shit ton of objectives, but I'm not sure it makes it necessarily different or better. In the end it all boils down to personal taste; mansion missions tend to bore me.

>>4727671
>you end up with exploration for exploration's sake, which, some would argue, is not a bad thing, but it was never the strength of the original games.

That's debatable. I feel like exploring the world is one of the most important aspect of the game and T1 was pretty damn heavy on that (Bonehoard and Lost City in particular). Also I disagree with you on the integration into the main objective; the first main objective in these missions is to make your way through the city, only it's not marked. In that, I think they do the job perfectly well and they don't drop you just in front of the place you need to rob with the classic "here's the front entrance, here's the back entrance in the distance and maybe a third entrance not too far from there".

Also, most of what you think makes a good city mission is already present in the best ones. There's a reason why they're considered the best.

>>4727671
Yeah, and Midnight in Murkbell completely squanders and wastes its formidable cityscape in the most 'fuck you' way I've ever seen in a FM. You may find the recent city missions formulaic (I don't, at least not the best ones), but at least they're not lying to you about their intentions and don't suddenly turn into shit at some specific point.

>>4727706
Sorry, I didn't mean that Bones matches the idea of a main objective with most of the loot being in that area. But I don't think it's a wander-around city mission either. The readables and objectives drive you around pretty clearly, as I recall, and you keep going north as the level progresses. It's not a bunch of backtracking and fetch quests.

>>4727729
>I think they do the job perfectly well and they don't drop you just in front of the place you need to rob with the classic "here's the front entrance, here's the back entrance in the distance and maybe a third entrance not too far from there".

Why would "commuting to work" be considered important enough to include in a mission. Is the idea behind it just to make an extra buck by robbing some random house or mugging people on the street like a thug? Because that wouldn't make any sense from a character standpoint. If it's only for gameplay reasons I'd consider it wasteful and a good example of quantity over quality.

>Yeah, and Midnight in Murkbell completely squanders and wastes its formidable cityscape in the most 'fuck you' way I've ever seen in a FM.

I suppose you're talking about the undead here, and I agree that it can be pretty aggravating on a first playthrough since there's no way to see it coming. But the mission does everything so well. There's a concrete reason for why you need to traverse the city. The gameplay is not static and constantly forces the player to adapt to different situtations while still being extremely open and giving you freedom to tackle the objectives. The city is fun to explore and is also very challenging as the ai are not restricted to where they can chase you by a liberal implementation of verticality. You are actually playing a game rather than just looking up and trying to guess where the author decided to put an opening where you can find some extra piece of loot.

>>4727940
Going to the place you need to rob is important to me, I find it way more believable than arbitrarily dropping the player right in front of a mansion for example. If the mission design and writing are good enough you can also immerse yourself in a world that feels much bigger than you. Hopping from roof to roof and robbing households and shops along the way also make me feel like a real thief, so that's why I prefer city missions over everything else. I feel a lot more like an intruder in most city missions than in most mansion missions.

Also I don't see why that wouldn't make sense for Garrett to do that. At all. He does exactly that in Life of the Party/The Unwelcome Guest.

And no, I completely disagree on Midnight in Murkbell. This mission is a total middle finger to the player thanks to completely retarded decisions on every single game design level, and is a complete waste of a brilliant layout. It's one of the worst FMs I've ever played, because not only is it not good at all, but it had the potential to be one of the best FMs ever made. In comparison, both A Meeting With Basso and A Winter's Eve are a hundred times better despite their far more simplistic layouts.

>>4727978
>Also I don't see why that wouldn't make sense for Garrett to do that. At all. He does exactly that in Life of the Party/The Unwelcome Guest.

Being a professional I always assumed he did his homework before taking a job, and that he would realize that the risk of exposing himself by ransacking every house in the city for some odd penny was much higher than just getting a few highly valuable items in a specific location.

I know there are OMs where he does that and I also find it odd in those cases. Though I don't particularly like the missions, I think that his approach to casing/masks is much more sensible and fitting to his character. For the most part I find OMs always have some sort of justification as to why you're doing things the way you are. City FMs just have you walk to your objectives for no other reason other than because it's cool. That's okay, but I don't like it. I didn't like the city hubs in thief 3 either, which is basically what they are doing.

>both A Meeting With Basso and A Winter's Eve are a hundred times better despite their far more simplistic layouts.
I found them to be rather boring and just there to fill in the gaps before and after murkbell, which I actually consider to be one of the best missions out there.

>>4728012
That's mostly down to how you and I see Garrett's character. To me he always seemed to really overestimate himself, especially in T1. He's cocky, arrogant and gets into dire situations pretty often. He's not a common thug, but he's not the untouchable master thief he claims to be. So to me it's not out of character for Garrett to get some easy pickings along the way to his main objective, and I'd even say it makes sense because he REALLY loves money, and picking stuff along the way means he would still have a little something in case the job doesn't work out for some reason.

Personally I didn't like the hubs in TDS much either, mostly because they were very small and simplistic. Of course, bigger doesn't automatically mean better, but the best city FMs are far, far more interesting than the best hub from TDS.

I like the relatively barebones approach of most city FMs, hence why I also really like The Haunted Cathedral for example. There's a whole district for you to explore, but you can just go straight to the objective if exploring the city doesn't interest you.

>>4724532
> Constantine's
Explicitly bizarre in design
> Bonehoard
has rooms and halls giant enough to at least justify inflationary use of the same texture
> Strange Bedfellows
So you're complaining that underground tunnels mostly are made up of mud and stone? On top of that, there's loads of old ruins around, desecrated pagan shinres, bushes, corpses, moss and whatnot. There's a lot going on in that level that FMs distinctly lack.

OMs are not perfect. I never claimed that. FMs on the other hand almost always show the flaws of amateur design. I'm not trying to be mean, but a vast portion of FMs are gauged in difficulty and design in such a way that you'd have to be the author of the mission in order to realistically beat it.

I don't know how many FMs I just exhausted every possibility with before I beat them simply because of this flawed type of design. I don't know why, but T2X actually manages to gauge OM levels of difficulty and design flow. Yet all you ever read in these threads is
> FMs are great
> T2X was shit because I didn't like the MC

>>4724495
Yes, they had the same problem. Just look at Bafford's. There's 1 key for the throne room, which also can be entered through a secret passage. There's many ways to get in that room. Every FM you listed either has convoluted keyhunting or the funnel type of design where you can't bash down a wooden door because the author wants you to follow his linear design choice.

>>4728243
Indeed Bafford's is pretty simple. If you expect every FM to be at the same level of difficulty as the introductory mission of the series, I can see why you'd have a problem with them.

>>4724498
Let me just take Bloodstone Prison as an example.

Bloodstone Prison does not feel like a Hammerite prison in the same way Cragscleft did, and the undead don't have the same horror impact like they do in the normal game. In Cragscleft the undead were in the lower levels, a shadowy threat that lives beneath the prison. That is effective horror, especially once you get to the upper levels with the moaning prisoners and guards non-chalantly talking.

> However you not liking great FMs
> summing up my view as "This is crap because reasons"

Go fuck yourself. You haven't explained in any way how these missions even slightly resemble the base game design and psychological flow of the mission yourself.

My arguments are based in the common criticisms of FMs: They focus too much on obtuse puzzles that only the designer knows the answer to, keyhunting, and unintuitive level design.

What do I mean by flow? Take Bafford's again. Beginning with the briefing you are given hints about how to go through the mission. You start on the street, go to the house with the well, pickpocket the drunken guard, swim through the sewers and arrive in the cellar. From there on it's pretty clear that the throne room will be upstairs. The way the level is designed *drives* you along to your objective. FMs usually toss you into a huge sandbox level of a "where the fuck do i go" kind of nature. That is one big difference. Puzzles are gauged in such a fashion that a non-author can with some thought crack them. Amateurs like to make puzzles fiendishly hard because they haven't developed an empathetic view on how someone who is not in the loop would think about their puzzle.

The fan content is nice to have, but FMs simply don't play anywhere near as well as the original releases. I can't find myself yearning to play an FM when I could just play a superior OM.

>>4728243
T2X is great but it has a few glaring flaws. The most egregious being that it's just way too fucking easy, even when you haven't played the previous games. The missions are small, the NPCs are very easy to avoid and the objectives are trivial. The only exceptions are Into The Fray (because the twitchy AI makes it really fucking annoying), and The Grand Hotel because it is the odd one out and by FAR the best mission in the game.

Also, you shouldn't realistically expect the same level of thorough design LGS had from amateur level designers. Making a good level for any game is not easy, so making a good level for a game as complex as Thief is a really daunting task. All things considered, most of them did really well.

>>4728243
>contd

>Yes, they had the same problem. Just look at Bafford's. There's 1 key for the throne room, which also can be entered through a secret passage. There's many ways to get in that room.

No, there's only two ways to get into that room. Either through the doors or through the secret passage. There are not many. Let's make a little list of funnel design in T1:

Bafford: you can approach your objective pretty nicely.
Cragscleft: you need to go to Nammon to steal the map, and there's only one way to get him (plus he's in a very hard to find place).
Bonehoard: the first part of the tombs until the Burrick tunnels is 100% on rails.
Assassins: very open-ended.
Thieves' Guild: you need to get Thom's key to then go to Reuben's to then go to Donal's.
The Sword: very open-ended, but there is still a very obvious path you should take.
The Haunted Cathedral: the most open-ended mission in the game, though there's only one way to the cathedral and grotto.
Mage Towers: 100% on rails. You cannot deviate much.
The Lost City: only one way to go to the city, but the map is very open-ended.
Undercover: You must get a few items to get the talismans, and then you must escape with an alarm ringing.
Return To The Cathedral: rather on rails thanks to Murus' tasks and you can only get inside through the front door.
Escape: there are several ways to get out of the mansion.
Strange Bedfellows: 100% on rails.
Into The Maw of Chaos: 100% on rails.

>>4728264
Bloodstone Prison feels like a genuine Hammerite structure to me. It has all the hallmarks of a Hammerite place. What the fuck do you expect from a haunted place, to not feature undead in its premises? It does the job perfectly well for a haunted place. Is the haunted cathedral not a proper horror mission because it has undead everywhere? What the fuck are you even babbling about?

And I'm telling you that your arguments are a joke. Missions don't have video briefings so they lack all "psychological flow", whatever the fuck that means? Are you even aware that those that don't have video briefings do have briefings in text form, so you at least know what the story and motive for Garrett are? Also, most FMs have maps upon which your objective is pointed at. The structures in the FMs I listed are built logically, they feel like real places to some extent and the location of your objectives and obstacles is logical all the time. I absolutely despise puzzles in games and in FMs, but you are completely out of your mind if you consider any of the FMs I mentioned contain puzzles of any kind.

Going to say why I think these FMs are great in another post, this is getting verbose.

>>4728264
>Heist Society
Feels most T2 than most T2 missions thanks to its impeccable visual design and atmosphere. Very open-ended with a complex, multi-layered layout that allows the player to come up with a lot of solutions. Also, objectives change radically depending on the difficulty. This is what Masks should've been.

>Disorientation
The next step in Life of the Party design. Complex cityscape with tons of ways to move around, falls completely in line with the atmosphere and feel of the original game thanks to the same design principles being applied (white lighting, original textures and same palette for custom textures), with a Noir story similar to T1's. There is only one way into the Palace, granted, though you can get out using no less than four different ways.

>The Saint of Redmound
A proper Hammerite complex. Not too complicated, not too simplistic. It's maybe more linear than the others, but it's a really nice mission that I find much more interesting as a place than Undercover's temple.

>The Hand of Glory
Ditto, but finding your way into the mansion through an interconnected Hammerite complex that feels straight out of the base game is a really nice touch. Yeah, there's only one way into the mansion, but like Disorientation, you can exit the place using several ways.

>Saints & Thieves
Strong T2 atmosphere with the rain, the warehouses and the factories. Don't tell me you don't feel the atmosphere when playing that one. It's also pretty open-ended even if the city is mostly background. The warehouses are more interesting than S&R's and there's also an underground level that's pretty nice to explore.

>Heart of Bohn
Super interconnected, super open, with an excellent layout, several ways into and around the museum, and just some absolutely grand design. Again, feels like a T2 mission atmosphere-wise, reminiscent of First City Bank & Trust.

>Endless Rain
Another LOTP-type mission, and just as good for the same reasons as Disorientation.

>>4728264
It sounds like you really don't like puzzles. I disagree that a large number of FMs are hard in the way you say. I think you do have to be "in the loop" but that's the broad category of being a nerdy investigative person who likes Easter Egg hunts. I think you may be right that the OMs reward this behavior (the designers did think it was fun) but FMs often require it. The thing is, I think most Thief fans Di like it, so they don't notice because they play that way anyway. It's be like saying FMs aren't balanced on Normal when many fans won't even consider not playing on Expert. I don't think the difference is as bad as you say it is, though, and puzzly hard missions are usually known as such.

>>4727940
>commuting
I laughed, but moving through an initial area really add to the adventure feeling. It's like a D&D module that starts you in the town, not at the dungeon entrance. So yes, you could say people do like commuting in that sense. Nothing wrong with starting at the dungeon though.

>>4726149
Changes inside the mission itself as the difficulty ramps up can be neat, but why a couple of them make things easier? In any case, the overall structure of the mission, depite the flaws we pointed out, works pretty well: dangerous streets, quiet buildings, Hammers aside. The wooden walls at the borders of the map that keep the guards away if they're chasing you are also a new idea.
Another accomplishment of this mission is describing its characters through visual hints. In Rye Anne the readables where nice and defined different personalities, but they also balanced out a location that didn't tell much. The mystery that I so liked regarding Bruno's guests was simply conveyed by a wall full of plates.
In this case the mission tells you about the characters involved through readables and their homes, or what's left of them:
-The hunter's trophies seem legit until you read the journal, a nice contrast.
-It's easy to guess what happened to the dealer even before reading the report about him.
-The death of the keymaster, warned about his vices, speaks for itself
-The miner is more ambiguous. What about the pillory and iron maiden? Finds from his journeys or should they reveal a sadistic nature concealed in his diary? If it's the former, there's more archeological stuff to put in a miner's house, especially form the Lost City.

>>4728325
>There is only one way into the Palace, granted
Not intended, but hey
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWkt3CNSBJg

>>4728402
>Easter Egg hunt
I don't like keyhunts, but I do think clever loot placement is an important part of the Thief feeling and what makes a good FM in my book. I don't like super high loot requirements, but I do want to see that the author cared a lot about putting loot in fun and surprising places. I prefer older FMs for that reason--of course, they have the advantage of being made before all the best loot ideas were taken, but too many new FMs care more about being as realistic as possible at the expense of fun, whimsically hidden stuff. The loot requirement was really a stroke of genius by the original devs. It's the perfect way to not only force the player to go slowly and examine the environment instead of rushing to the objective, but it makes a fun game out of it too.

Do you taffers play with original textures or the HDMod or Necroage?

>>4731087
Original is the only way to go.

>>4731097
Any particular reason outside of purism? I've played through the entire game with HD Mod and am doing a vanilla run now (Gold; just reached Thieves Guild mission again). Honestly the game is always so enthralling that I never really notice in what form I'm playing it in.

>>4731115
because it's bad

>>4731195
I see. Also I appreciate the new things I find every time I play through these levels. Completely missed this little detail the first time around.

>>4728290
You have fundamentally misunderstood and misrepresented what funnel design means. All your examples are wrong, precisely because they almost always entail the freedom of HOW you tackle them.

Yes, there are only two ways into the throne room in Baffords. But it is the player's choice where to steal the key from or to look for the secret passage. You can kill the guards, pickpocket them, knock them out, sneak into a nearby room for the key, or sneak into the cellar for the key. Hell you can make a racket and wait for the guards to open the door and slip in, let the alarm cool off and go for your heist.

Every FM I have played has funnel design in this way: There is objective A, behind door b. door B is behind door C. You need key D for door C and Key E for door b. Both of these keys are unique, usually hidden behind obscure puzzles or some hard to find NPC. It makes no fucking matter whether the doors are made of wood or any other bashable material. You are forced to follow the author's path, no matter what in-game sense there is doing that.

By comparison, when you get to the well house in Baffords, you can kill, blackjack, or pickpocket the guard for his key, or you can bash the door down. The only doors you cant bash are made of metal. Many doors in the game share the same key, making keyhunting obsolete. It is simply more believable.

90% of this type of funnel design belongs in an adventure game, not a Thief game. The point of Thief was to make a simulation style game, something that is immersive. This is just adventure game fairy-tale logic.

>>4728287
And your point is? The game is not way too easy, it is beatable. It's not a collection of badly designed FMs that make you scratch your head while exhausting every possibility. They are below par in difficulty, but that plays out in favour for T2X in comparison to every FM.

Point in case: T2X was designed by amateurs. It's a way more coherent and fun experience than any FM you could care to name. They keep the feel of the original games while adding their own flavour to it, with mechanists, hammerites, undead levels, and their own new faction: the Smugglers. Zaya may be OCdonutsteel to some degree, but she is by far preferable to any number of fan-fiction tier Garrett depictions and definitely-not-Garrett tier OCs and the accordingly terrible fan-fiction writing á la "Garrett is a hired killer in this mission" bullshit.

Is it just the misperceived underdog bonus for FMs? Some nerd in a cave hammers together a mission that's not really fun to play and everyone feels the need to circlejerk over how awesome it is? Get real.

>>4731195
F E R N S
E
R
N
S

>>4731286
But that's precisely what funnel design is you mongoloid. You know nothing about level design and use incorrect terms. I don't know why I'm still talking to you. And you that post makes it obvious you haven't played the missions or mentioned, or at the very least didn't pay any attention while playing them.

>>4731292
>fan-fiction tier Garrett depictions and definitely-not-Garrett tier OCs and the accordingly terrible fan-fiction writing á la "Garrett is a hired killer in this mission" bullshit.

I've always had an issue with FMs that do this. The Garrett being a hired killer fell out of flavor pretty early on in the FM scene but there seems lots of instances of authors turning Garrett into a "good" character that goes out of his way to help others for no real reason. First example that comes to mind is seven sisters, where garrett decides he will not only help basso with his personal issues but also save the city from a zombie apocalypse for absolutely nothing in return (the author's other missions are full of this too).

Maybe you guys have already seen this, but a recent interview with Paul Neurath on the problems of designing Thief popped up on my youtube feed. It's pretty neat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzD9ldLoc3c

Since he's vague about the "coding problems" with the guards' AI, you should/have to supplement it with Tom Leonard's post-mortem after the game was released:
>https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131762/postmortem_thief_the_dark_project.php

>>4731292
It is way too easy. That's a criticism you will find pretty much everywhere when it comes to T2X, and I certainly agree with it. The missions are well designed of course, but they're still piss easy. The objectives are easily found, the loot goal is very low and the missions are small, so finding stuff doesn't take much time. The EMP bomb makes every mission with electrical devices an absolute cakewalk, since it's 100% silent, cheap and can be found pretty often in missions. Some of the arrow types are pretty overpowered too (confusion arrow for example).

Also no, there are FMs that are much more coherent than T2X while also keeping the feel of the original games. I find the train completely out of place for one, and the smugglers hiding in a candy shop in a small town dedicated to pirates is so DUMB, especially when the pirate cave that is supposed to be visitable, houses a very blatant smuggling organization. It's almost parody levels of dumb. It doesn't make sense at all.

>>4731292
Oh and also, the Egyptian theme for Zaya's homeland is insanely cliché and completely breaks the immersion for me, since it's straight up 1:1 Egypt.

The City is obviously based on European late medieval/Haussmannian society, but it's still alien enough so not everything is instantly recognizable (and contrary to what people believe, The City is definitely not gothic in appearance). The Lost City is a mix of Egyptian/Babylonian architecture with some hints of South American society thrown in, while still retaining its own identity.

https://gamesdonequick.com/schedule
8:39 PM Thief: The Dark Project Psych0sis 0:10:00
0:42:00 Any% Normal NewDark —

Thoughts?

>>4731519
>Normal

>>4731526
Well it is like 42 minutes long. Expert probably takes twice as long.

Actually. Skacky is in these threads (i think) and he's done speedruns of Thief that I've seen on Youtube, maybe he can shed some light. There's actually a speedrun.com page for the game that his runs aren't on that I can see: https://www.speedrun.com/thief1

>>4731542
Actually XModule's runs aren't on there either, they should be submitted. Idk who this psych0sis guy is or how good he is, it's possible he doesn't even have WR like srcom says he does if you time real-time on Skacky & XModule.

If that's the case then submitting those would be a way to mega cuck him before GDQ lol.

>>4731526
Normal is the best category since you get more items, more health points and less chance to get killed, either by the enemies or the engine itself.

>>4731550
Psych0sis is really good and has a few RTA WRs, especially on Thief Gold Newdark.

>>4723909
For TG:
All of Skacky's missions
The Order of the Vine

For T2:
Thieves Highway

>>4731286
There are tons of high-quality fan missions with very low levels of adventure game puzzles, if any. If you're annoyed that lot of Thief fans like that stuff, fine, but you're acting like this is some insightful analysis rather than something the community has been talking about and using to evaluate FMs for years and years. There are plenty of threads where people asking for mission recommendations that aren't keyhunts, or players looking for ones that are puzzle-heavy. We get it, you don't like lock/key puzzles, dude. It's sensible to complain that the style of FMs isn't clearly described in the readmes or whatever but it's pretty stupid to blindly pick stuff off a recommendation image and expect them to be to your taste or even matching the original game, which is sounding like what happened to you. Yes yes we can all agree Rocksbourg 1 is lame. Move on dude.

>>4732201
>Yes yes we can all agree Rocksbourg 1 is lame.
I hate all rocksbourg missions equally

>>4729094
I think I need some hints to find the keys.

>>4732937
The three men are connected and so are the keys they hide. Only the keymaster, as that one document says, can really open the vault or, in a way, start doing so. Knowing where the three of them live is half the job and the mission doesn't try to pull tricks in that regard.
Only one key is properly hidden and you've already mentioned the place, one isn't hidden at all but its guardian kept it close anyway. The most obvious one comes last and I guess that's a safety measure too.

>tfw no thief gf

I made something dumb

>>4734143
Try getting married to any given woman

>>4724306
C cup and the leaked sap

>>4735563
>Karras, the cathedral's full of rust gas
>No, Cavador, that's just The Builder's purification

>>4733405
All I had to do was to pick up the body of the keymaster to get the ball rolling. Obvious in hindsight?
The loot requirement leaves little leeway.

>>4721574
>Hammerites are the best group

I would just like to talk about this a little bit. The Hammers aren't actually that bad people. Sure, to you they come off as hostile, but that's just because you constantly keep stealing their shit that they worked hard to create, so they ARE justified in resenting that.

The Hammers are hardworking, they genuinely seek to better the world around them with their constructions, they have a wonderful sense of camaraderie and unity among their own, and they actually stand for something in an otherwise immoral world. Sure, it's true that they take discipline to ridiculous extremes, but the world they live in isn't terribly friendly or forgiving to weakness, and some sort of order has to be maintained for society to run.

Their religious dogma also feels kinda repressive and outdated, but as the story progresses, you learn that their beliefs are indeed justified, since the Hammers, along with the Keepers, and few individuals such as yourself, are about the only people who truly know what dark powers lurk in the shadows. The strong unity and devotion they have trough this faith is what makes them so efficient in combatting the evil.

By and large, the Hammers are just misunderstood. Their ways seem harsh, but in the end, it's all for the good of the people, and I'm sure they mean well.

>>4736416
>Obvious in hindsight?
Risky choice imo. Lifting bodies is not the first thing one does while looking for something. Usually a key would be on the body, not under it. But I liked it after all, it really painted a messed up situation. How did he end up there with the key he had to protect? Who knows.
I got lucky because I didn't realize the bedroom I got in from the secret passage was part of the uppermost of three floors, so I explored it carefully as if it was my only chance to find the keymaster's key. Or maybe I just picked up the body out of boredom while I was hiding in the bath, waiting for the near guard to calm down, can't remember.
Anyway, connecting the keymsater's house to the bank was a good expedient. Exploring the bank gives you an idea of what you'll have to do, and by leaving through the sercret passage, if you find it, you're immediately ready to begin the quest.

What rooms do castles have?

>>4738179
Yes

Let me rephrase it: what do you need to keep in mind when drafting a map of a castle?

>>4738901
Yes

>>4738901
Possibly a throne room.
How pretentious can you get?

>>4738901
that it's both a military installation and a living space for a specific kind of stratified society? just read a book about medieval castles if you're serious about it.

>>4738901

how do we fix thief 2?

>>4739228
>remove "quirky" and lolsorandum bullshit (the LotP guard conversation, as well as Karras' entire character, will be the first to go)
>remove all art deco designs
>keep the new technology (i.e. robots, submarines), but change the style so it looks more like something from the early modern period (i.e. anthropomorphic automatons for robots)
>change the mechanists fundamentally, base them of the christian reformation, and have them answer to a secular leader, possibly the baron
>change the mechanists' "destroy humanity" plot to something less campy and far fetched, give garrett another reason to fight them
>have viktoria use her human form again, I mean, holy shit, how could they pass that off in the first place, she was such a qt
>less 19th century bullshit in general, return the medieval/romanesque architecture, but with early modern elements as well
>make the colour scheme consistent like the one in T1, though it doesn't have to be the same
and finally, a golden rule for sequels in general:
>more of the same
reviewers usually butcher games that do this, but seriously, if you got something right the first time, there's no need to change it. if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

>>4739280
Karras is the perfect villain and only a p*gan would slander his good name
>>4739228
Here are some actual fixes:
>combine casing and masks into one mission
>variety in the new enemies 2 types of robot, cameras, and the mini robot in the final mission isn't anywhere near enough.
>more variety in general. you fight generic guards in 4 missions, the mechanists in 7, and the city watch in 4.
>this applies to the levels as well. in the dark project, every single level is memorable, because it is different to the others. parts of the bank/police station/tower are entirely interchangable.
>give lg more money so they can make thief 2 gold

>>4739303
>Karras is the perfect villain and only a p*gan would slander his good name

both karras and the mechanists were too on the nose to be taken seriously and felt like some saturday morning cartoon supervillain group

>>4739312
how is Karras random? his character is entirely consistent all throughout the game
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M42XTWcjQ0
it seems to me like you just don't like him because of the voice and wrote him off because of that

>>4739436
his voice actor is the only redeeming point. it's the writing that is shit.

>karras: I hate organic life because of autism, so I'll kill everyone, muahahahaha
>hammerite establishment: this is exactly what our order needs!
>dozens of qt female mechanists: WE LOVE BOYS WITH AUTISM, PLEASE NOTICE US KARRAS-FAMPAI

>>4739450
why were there female guards in 2 all of a sudden? this was long before the mandated diversity era. was rooking grass trying to demonstrate how full of TECHNOLOGY their game was?

>>4739450
in deadly shadows there's a text that says after Karras died the mechanists were tried and executed for heresy by the hammerites, so I don't think the mainstream hammers approved of his shit

>>4739824
>why were there female guards in 2 all of a sudden?
for the same reason that all fantasy fiction is full of ridiculously empowered women: horny nerds who get off of fantasising about man-killing amazons.

>>4739827
joke's on you: I don't even recognise T2 as part of the thief canon, good luck trying to convince me to recognise DS.

>>4739917
really?

I can understand not wanting to dignify THIAF with acknowledgement but not recognising something 99% of the fanbase recognises as canon seems excessive

>>4739824
If you want an in-universe answer, Karras probably wanted to increase the number of his followers quickly by letting women join as well. Many girls no doubt wanted to serve the Master Builder, but the Hammerites were too conservative for that shit, so Karras seized the opportunity and increased his influence by cornering the female worshipper market.

>>4739917
So you only recognise the first Thief? That's some cognitive dissonance you got there mate.

>>4739917

>>4740273
thief 2 plot is all over the place and at times feels like fan fiction

>>4739228
fix
trace the courier, kidnap, casing the joint, masks
improve
trail of blood, eavesdropping, soulforge

>>4739228
here's one suggestion: some closing credits music instead of quick cut to black and then the menu!

TDP left you on a good note by comparison.

>>4739824
>why were there female guards in 2 all of a sudden? this was long before the mandated diversity era.

i know, it's so strange, it's almost like in the past straight men actually LIKED women

>>4739917
good luck trying to convince me "canonicity" is something anyone but a retard would even think about

>>4739450
Have you never heard of charismatic cult leaders? This autistic son of a bitch was enslaving super hot Hollywood actresses and basically, you are fucking stupid.

>>4739824
Mechanists were shown to be relatively progressive, that's clearly part of it.

>>4739917
do you think gold isn't canon either

>>4740878
DP was based off a medieval setting where military roles were strictly a male thing
>inb4 durr it's a fantasy setting so internal consistency doesn't matter

Hello, /thief/! Are you here to sing too?

>>4741139
Okay but we're talking about Thief 2. Which, you know, takes place after DP, with a new faction driving culture in the city. It's not inconsistent to have things change over time.

>>4737605
Our first FM sequel: Information. Monastery of St. Fera was just one area, whereas this one has three connected with some kind of a hub system, also seen in Rose of Bantry. Where did Goit improve? Where did Goit regress?
Bigger is better?

http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=145051&p=2279231&viewfull=1
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=60189

>>4741223
No! Up up you go!
Why does this board move so slow!

>>4741731
except that time is like a couple of years at most

>>4741780
Mechanists became a power very quickly, and the hammers and individual barons were not in any position to challenge them or the newly formed city watch

>>4739824
You realize that people actually liked making chicks in games sometimes before these obese blue haired tards came out and started demanding every single game has to do it to the point of uninteresting unfuckable cliche right?

Besides, those spunky city watch girls Truart hired tickled my peepee with their brooklyn accents.

>>4741223
yes, now that chinese moot is """fixing""" the image server and text is the only means of communication

>>4741223
>Remember, 'A left at the sewer! Go the right: might look newer.' That's the secret of the way in.

huh. I always thought he said "a left at the sewer, though the right might look newer"

I finally beat Thief 2. Soulforge is SO. LONG. The mission took me two-and-a-half hours to beat. I probably should have spent time making bombs or other items, but the "crafting" system in the level was so cumbersome (walking around the vast level, dodging enemies, to assemble parts to combine with others) that it just didn't feel like worth the time. I had to make due with the handful of water arrows, fire arrows, and other stuff you find along the way. While I enjoyed Karras rambling for most of the time, I was definitely fatigued by the end of it. It didn't help that the game repeated the same mission twice in a row (Casing/Masks) leading up to it. I felt a similar way in TDP, which was just starting to overstay its welcome for my first time, but at least that ended with an extremely straightforward setpiece level in Maw of Chaos. I'll admit I sorta missed all the weird occultic/fantasy stuff of TDP. A few cute cameos of ghosts/haunts/zombies doesn't make up for maneuvering around a dozen undead in Bonehoard.

Despite bitching about that, what a wild ride. 60+ hours over the last few weeks playing through T1/T2.

/notretro/, but I told myself "I might as well play Deadly Shadows." It's sorta painful to have to get used to a very different control scheme (no more separate keys for movement speeds, wtf!). Similarly, the control schemes and keybinds I've been using for 60+ hours no longer apply, and it is hard to adjust when I am playing mechanically the same or similar game.

On the plus side, I am pretty impressed by the amount of mods available via Sneaky Upgrade. Inserting briefing videos is a great touch - I can't believe Ion Storm didn't do it themselves. Several cosmetic changes seem pointless (why change the lighting crystal to the old one?), others essential (removing loading points, axing that neon blue everywhere, thank God)... Other changes I don't know if they'll fuck with the difficulty or not (removing fatigue?).

>>4741736

>>4743023
Just change the bindings and you'll have almost the same controls save for speed.

>>4721574
I'm gonna start this series, anything I must know before that?

>>4743912
Just don't use any HD texture mods.

>>4743912
Play with headphones.

>>4743961
I'm going with vanilla game all the way.

>>4744115
Always do, brother.

>>4744174
Generally speaking on my first playthrough of any stealth game is to play psychopath murderer first, then I play stealthier and stealthier, but just some tips that I never had when I first played, spoiler-free.

>Arrows can be shot into buttons and levers sometimes.
>Some weapons will alter your sneak crystal naturally, but the blackjack doesn't.
>Study your map, and look for loot accordingly.
>Likewise, read notes.
>Go heavy on water arrows.
>Be VERY careful with your rope arrow shots
>Hammers will fuck shit up if thrown
>Undead are best fought in big groups
>Mantling is a special kind of great, practice with the physics engine a bit and you can get access to all sorts of places, practics stacking boxes and then move to smaller items.
>Garett's tap shoes make all landings dangerous, these are where your moss arrows will be the most useful.
>Try knocking on locked doors.
>Just about anything can be backstabbed
>Explore, holy shit should you explore
>Map items to specific keys so you can get them quickly instead of fumbling through your inventory
>Flash bombs are way better than you'd think
>Most levels are non-linear, there are tons of ways to get around
>It is worth it to consult your map and compass
>You can hide bodies by putting stuff in front of them if you don't have time to dump them in a dark area
>Some levels change drastically halfway through
>Some levels utterly defy conventional logic
>Never half-ass anything you attack, or they'll call for backup
>Gas arrows can take out multiple targets if you shoot them right
>Noisemaker arrows might not lead enemies exactly where you want them to go

>>4743765
This is what I eventually did, but I'm still sour since that movement system was perfect for the game, lol. I'm only a mission in but the movement feels a bit more slippery - maybe it's the presence of a physical model for Garret now.

One thing that has thrown me off, and I don't know if this is a mod thing or not, is the difficulty "play styles." I don't know which ones correlate to Expert, because Ghost and Cutpurse have different requirements.

>>4744174
*Save often and all the time in multiple slots.
*Pay attention to the light on your HUD. It tells you how visible you are.
*You're a thief, not a murderer

Also, this keybinding is something you'll want to copy. The default keybinds for Thief are awkward. Which is something you can say for every Looking Glass Studio game.
Use patches for Thief 1 (and Thief 2) to get the games working properly. As others said, you don't really need to activate the texture mods.

>>4744246
Thanks a lot, anon. I'm really new to this series but I'm really interested in it. I'll keep in mind those points about the arrows as well.

>>4744294
Thanks, I'll use the key binding image since I'm kinda iffy on PC gaming. What patches would you say are the must have for the first two games? I was just planning on playing it without any fixes or patches.

>>4741736
For some reason I was sure we had already played a sequel FM, namely Oblivion, but that one will come soon. Maybe I got confused by some of the ones thematically but not directly connected, like Shadow Business and the Rose of Bantry, maybe by the fact that we have already started a couple of series without getting to the second chapter yet.

>>4744285
>One thing that has thrown me off, and I don't know if this is a mod thing or not, is the difficulty "play styles." I don't know which ones correlate to Expert, because Ghost and Cutpurse have different requirements.

That's part of the Minimalist Project. I think it's balanced around having all option being equally difficult (with Expert as a basis), but with different requirements and restrictions. So Cutpurse is about finding everything in no time and Ghost speaks for itself, with the other two being a sort of easy and easier middle ground. Definitely not the classic Thief experience, may be good as a challenge.

>>4744434
Simply put: you'll need patches to make these games playable on modern OSes and optimized for 16:9 displays.
For Thief 1: TFix 1.25 (or whatever the most recent is on TTLG).
For Thief 2: Tafferpatcher

Both patches come with options for graphical mods/updates that you can ignore. Just follow the instructions to install those patches when you play the game and you should be set.

>>4744812
>That's part of the Minimalist Project.
Thanks, I had suspected as much. Those extra challenges may be good as a "play through a second time" type of deal, but that's definitely not something I want to get involved in my first run. I'll have to find which options to disable, because some changes I like (the mod/option for the 'new' title screen is very charming). I don't know if the difficulty changes are worth enabling first-time (removing guard fatigue and the like), but getting rid of loot glint, fog, and neon blue make me give thanks to the Builder for so many dedicated modders.

>>4744812
Oblivion by Wrichards. Him again, great!

Quick question my dudes, should I start with the normal thief or play thief gold?

>>4745720
When I played the first time a month ago, it seemed like it was too much a hassle to de-grade Thief Gold to Thief TDP. I was also put off by the warning that doing so might reverse the bug-fixes made between TDP and Gold, so I stuck with Gold.

Now, as fair warning, the first of the Gold missions, which is like the fourth or fifth mission in the game, can be very tedious as it's easy to get lost or do things "out of order", after that things smooth out considerably.

>>4745729
Alright I'll just go with gold then. Thanks anon.

>>4744246
>Garett's tap shoes make all landings dangerous, these are where your moss arrows will be the most useful.
Crouch off of the edge, you dummy.

Is there any way to boost the speed of guards and stuff? I don't like how I can outrun everything, and I want being discovered to be much more immediately punishing instead of
>three second surprised animation
>lanky jog
>four second attack windup footwork

guys I wanna draw Garrett but I'm finding it hard to get some details on his official tdp/tma design down
does anyone have some definitive references?

>>4745984
bald
thick lipped
ugly

>>4746021
His hair's probably short but he's not bald

>>4746021
t. karras

>>4745984
Something along the lines of corvo maybe? With shorter hair.

>>4745984
You catch glimpses of his body and face in Thief 1's cutscenes, if you haven't seen them yet.

[minor spoilers]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5mnWQi59g4

>>4746021
>>4746783
>>4746840
It's not just me who thinks Garrett's face looks totally different in the Constantine cutscenes, right?

>>4745720
Gold adds one of the best missions of the two games and fixes some things in the original missions, so even though it also adds the absolute worst mission in the series (the one >>4745729 mentioned) I'd say it's worth it.
I skipped that mission on my first playthrough, and I'd advise you to do the same if you get too frustrated with it, it's just not very good. The shortcut to skip missions is ctrl-shift-alt-end.

>>4746986
I think it's done on purpose. Also see the boxart for TG versus T2's, Garrett looks pretty different on the two. I think they did that to make him more mysterious, no one really knows what he looks like exactly.

>>4745914
Apply Timewarp property to AI in dromed. I believe this is what makes haunts so fast.

>>4747096
>fixes some things in the original missions
some of the "fixes" are actually terrible (lost city in particular)

>it also adds the absolute worst mission in the series
it's nowhere near as bad as most people make it out to be. Thief 2 has several missions that are more deserving of that title.

>I skipped that mission on my first playthrough
>let me tell you about this mission I haven't even played

>>4743539
This is a good way to let the guards who patrol the streets attack the player without having to resort to the usual curfew setting as a motivation. Showing it to the player right at the start of the mission and more than once gets the message through perfectly.
Now, while this surely does the "wanted Garrett" thing before T2, I wonder if one of the previous missions already portrayed him as a known criminal. I only remember npcs mentioning him in letters and journals. the classic. A threat to their gold, not the whole City.

>>4747730
But the thing is, the guards who patrol the streets don't attack you, unless you enter a restricted area (the canal docks, the mansion and the Hammerite temple) or steal the purse from the guy who sells elixirs.

>>4747772
Interesting, I figured everyone was gonna be hostile since I ended up in the Hammerite area first. Well I take back the "gets the message through perfectly" part then, since it's not a really important message in this case. Still, it'd be a good way to label the player as public enemy without the curfew motivation, TDS style.

>>4746026
you know, it's unexpected and not often enough the case for a character to change their appearance once in a while, but perhaps he shaves bald from time to time but will let his hair grow out to a short length.

idk I had this stupid fucking idea in my head and had to realize it

>>4747610
While it is lame to replace the Craymen in the Lost City with mages, that would be about the only 'fix' I would find objectionable.

>>4748512
I like it. This series needs oc to thrive in the meme economy.

>>4748609
this series is dead, anon :(

Requesting the screenshot of a metal children in the distance seeing Garret... Generally creepy screenshot someone shared in one of the old threads?

>>4748619
Just make the guys anime and handsome and you'll get a ton of nufags... Of course. If that is what you want?

>>4748703
tried looking through the archives but I dunno if the screenshot was this fucked up

>>4748717
No, it was a yellow plain floor and the kid was just standing in the middle looking at Garrett... It have me nightmares that pic.

>>4748512
tfw you wanted to make a steamed hams fm but don't have enough free time to learn dromed and make a map before the fad dies

Viktoria, are you prepared to give mister Garrett his
COMPENSATION

>>4749548
C̞̦͈̻͍̣̭ͬ̑Ǫ͈̠͌́̊̾̚M̧̢̛͖̣̠̓̓̂ͪ̿͛P͍̹͔̘̈͋̽ͪͅȨ͎̯̖̥ͪͭ͑͠ͅN͎̫̙̦̈́͗S̸̙̣̳̔ͤͪͮͩA̟̣̟̞̹̝̔ͧ̔ͣ̿͗̔ͭ͜T̴̸̶̥͎̟̜̤̖̱̖͈ͫͧ̊͒͆͂I̷̛̙̱̥̓ͫȎ̞̥̪̭N̻̖ͪͬ̄͐ͪ̆͜

>>4749548
I first saw that cutscene when I was 10.

I didn't sleep afterwards.

>>4749616
yeah it was a real eye-opener

Anyone have a webm of the conversation in Thief 1 about youth in society amounting to nothing?

>>4749631

>>4749638
is this it
https://youtu.be/VC6dVt4xQRI?t=388

>>4749737
There it is, thank you so much.

173rd for Karras did nothing wrong

>>4751510
>gave garrett a bitchin' new eye
>continued to btfo the pagans after they tried to put humans on the bottom of the power hierarchy
>built machines that elevated society, machines that were truly ahead of their time, proving that Karras surely rose above even the Builder's accomplishments
Karras did nothing wrong.

>>4751510
>nothing wrong
Too dumb to look out his window and notice Garrett flipping switches everywhere.

Also, madly in homo-love with Garrett.

>>4738901
All spiral staircases must run up clockwise because defenders need to be able to protect themselves with a shield in their left hand while hitting the attackers with a sword in their right hand. Spiral staircases running up counter-clockwise would give the attackers that advantage instead.

Haven't had access to internet in almost 3 months.
Tell me black parade is out.

>>4752746
it's out

>>4752871
>Black Parade still not out
>Rowena is kill

Fucking hell

>>4752886
Her FMs weren't that great though.

>>4752415
Tell me more about this homo love you speak of.

which level has the best ambient music and why is it undercover
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zca9z8Y1SUE

>>4754421
>implying
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcQnv26bcjY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIAyFXP-6NI

>>4755983

>>4756135

>>4747772
Well, in a way it's still something new. The inn as a safe zone evolved into a whole fraction of the City that connects three restricted zones, a true hub. As you said the Rose of Bantry had one, but this one is lively, detailed, with variety and different streets. It's funny how it's more heterogeneous looking than the City portayed in Garrett's Revenge, even if there's nothing to look for here. All the loot needed in expert can be found in the three restricted zones.
Some neat architectural touches, like the colonnade around the mansion, the upper galleries in the church or the canal full of boats, that characterize the "useful" parts of the City. Sometimes it's the most simple stuff that gives depth to a mission. The same goes for the interiors. The mansion is circular like many others but the circle patrolled by the guards consits of two floors. The church develops vertically and every floor has Hammers watching over the one below, especially the priest in the bell tower.

New stuff on the gameplay side too, like witnessing the completion of a rival thief hit (to your detriment) or being able to get the key for the manor's back entrance only with the permit from the temple.

Can you recognize the sound used for the drawbridge? It could be from any TDP mission and I just forgot it, but after seeing the red hammer on Brother Roban's model I started wondering if that one was the only custom element of the FM.

>>4754421
Downwind Thieves Guild. That's about all it's good for though.

>>4756981
The casino drum beat is too loud, rhythmic and repetitive. Everything else is great though.

>>4734726
>>4748512
these are amazing

why don't the city watch guards bang their helmets on doorways

>>4758236
thanks bruv. the weird skin color and concave right cheek was bugging me so I changed it a little bit.

>>4756548
It's interesting to see how far the Hammerites are willing and are able to go in completing their goals. They have their own assassins and thieves, with very impressive skill. Makes them a lot more intimidating. Because a whole area has become a safe zone, traversing the streets is less stressful. Compare that to Garrett's Revenge, where every move you make must be calculated, like jumping off a rope at the right time between patrols.
The interiors of the temple, the mansion and the docks are not very large. I did not notice the red key the first time it was dropped. It blended so well with the floor, especially when looking from a distance. However, I can't seem to find my rival Roban. I'm sure he should be wandering around near the docks, but he isn't there. The threads I posted above mention that this FM is broken in GOLD and I need the original Thief1 convict.osm. Oh well!

Thief's world design is probably my favorite aspect of the series. The mix of medieval, renaissance, and victorian esque architecture combined with the old english really adds to the feeling that this is an old city constantly evolving. What signifies this even more is the city appearing to be unplanned and stretching out to fill every available space much like old European cities while every street corner has some type of steam or electric lamp present showing that unlike other games with gothic artstyles, Thief's universe does in fact have some form of technological progress.
I would love to see other games adopt a similar style of Thief or even have such similar yet contrasting design. Maybe a combination of victorian, art deco, and brutalism?

>>4758994
Dishonored almost has that combination of industrial revolution britain in the classic Dunwall architecture and brutalism in the new steel structures erected by the Burrows regency. But brutalism needs concrete.

In Song of the Caverns, the Water Talisman was found by Lady Valerious' guards and moved up to the opera house while they were searching for spiders.

How come the guards never found Raoul or saw his hovel? To get to the shrine they'd have to walk right past him.

rub my ass and squeeze my balls

>>4759379
Maybe Raoul is sneeky breeky?

>>4759379
raoul's light gem was at its lowest so the guards couldn't see him

>>4745984
Anatoly Solonitsyn?
>>4759380
"Security is necessary to prevent exposure and dilution of talent." Do you want to argue with the lords? Now what's the password?

>>4748930
>>steamed hams fm

>"The Hammers still owed me for taking care of Constantine, so I asked them to fix my eye in return. They got an acolyte named Karras to make me a new one; he's a weird fellow, but the high priest mentioned that he's their most promising members."
>"Karras agreed to it, but insisted that I invite him to my house for dinner. I'm not extremely keen on letting the hammers know my hideout, but after all this Trickster business, I'm too tired to complain..."
>the mission starts in Garrett's house, with Karras knocking on the door shortly after
>Garrett has burnt his roast
>"...but what if I were to steal some meat balls from Bafford's kitchen and disguise it as my own cooking? Delightfully devilish, Garrett."
>Objective failed: cook roast
>New objectives: break into Bafford's mansion, steal meat balls, get back through the window
>animation triggers as you mantle out the window, an invisible wall prevents you from leaving until Karras closes the door
>Garrett steals the meatballs and comes back
>...

>>4760542
I meant to write "Deceitfully tricksterish, Garrett."

>>4760267
>Anatoly Solonitsyn
Is that your idea of Garrett? Not bad I guess. I just stuck with the Thief 2 cover. Handsome, a little wrinkled.

>>4760701
Underfed?

>>4761325
spaghetti western era Clint Eastwood actually

Just had a dream where I was looking down some slope of gravel or sand. On a table next to it was a letter that I read like it was Thief 2 (looked at it, it glowed, m2'd and it covered my screen).

It was by Karras complaining about slipping down it accidentally and blaming the mechanists for not covering it up safely. He signed it "Carias Karras", and I thought Carias was a pretty good first name for him.

>>4760542
>It's a regional dialect.
>Uh huh. Ah, what region?
>South Quarter.
>Really? Well I'm from Shalebridge and I've never heard anyone use the phrase "taffed balls"
>Oh, not in Shalebridge, no, it's a Dockside expression.
>I see.

>>4758356
At first I was convinced that Roban's role was just to appear and let Garrett know of his defeat, only to disappear and force a failed objective (supposedly the broken part of the mission). A hook for the next chapter also because the story of the two gems that must not be brought together sure sounds like something worth of a trilogy.
Then I checked and fpund out there's no third chapter. Maybe we were meant to look for Roban in the otherwise empty dock area, maybe the author never got to finish this series.

Roban's sudden appearance is almost perfectly balanced. It's impossible to miss him, he catches the player off guard and locks the door before escaping, so that it's implied that he has the key. Still, it seems illogical to look for a key right after seeing him disappear. Thief is rarely about immediately reacting to a scripted event that directly involves the player, but this one was a good try.
It's also possible to knock him out with a gas arrow and enter the gem room before he can lock it (still no gem, a little imagination is needed for that part). I suppose we can see this incomplete mission as open ended: Garrett can either win or lose depending on the player's actions. Inadvertently satisfying.

I was really impressed by this whole "neutral zone between hostile zones" thing. I'm so used to see it in more recent games that I didn't expect to see something like this in a FM this soon.

Also ultra cryptical Hammerite scriptures.

>>4759302
dishonored was way too half-life 2 forcefields and shit

>>4763424
The post was about architectural styles, not gadgets.

>>4762332
After he startled me and ran off, I thought he returned to the temple. They did prepare a room for him there? Or maybe behind the window you can see near the well? Since it is possible not to finish the FM, you can imagine Garrett screwed up this time. He's not infallible. There are people out there in The City that match his skill. Someone bested him. I'd like to think Roban placed some loot in the wine cellar to create a diversion. They know Garrett's weakness: greed.
Come to think of it, there are not many FMs where failure is a big theme. "Walking the Edge" in Shadow of Doubt? I don't think there's an FM out there that allows you to fail all the objectives, get back to your starting point (The least thing you could do is stay alive!) and get the "mission complete" screen.
Maybe the third installment of this series could take place at castle Ventner. Professional revenge?
And you flow so smoothly from one hostile area to another. The sound is familiar, but I don't remember the origin.

>>4743912
>>4744115
get openAL with hrtf and eax working too

>>4765915
I thought this video was lost to time but it was actually very easy to find. It's amazing what that sound propagation does with the proper setup.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxIYNG4TQ7U

>>4768826
Great mission. Just don't play it on expert.

>>4764661
>Maybe the third installment of this series could take place at castle Ventner. Professional revenge?
That detail in the letter is the reason why I thought at first that I didn't need to look further for Roban, before finding the docks and thinking that there was something else to find. It really looks like foreshadowing for a third installment.
I forgot that checking the broken objectives was enough to answer our questions: the docks area is the escape route, and that is made clear right after Roban escapes (or after you follow him there: a second encounter or some other clue to find?). There should be a way to steal the mysterious scepter. I don't know what triggers that goal but it makes sense for Garrett to go for a rebound treasure to steal after his failure. I just can't find a way to get it. Considering other dynamic elements of the FM the solution is probably unlocked after the Roban part. This Durban's guy sure is the boastful one, putting the scepter right in the entry hall.

Giving the temple and the mansion a guarded main entrance and a hidden back entrance is a good way to make them feel well nestled in the part of the City where the mission takes place, especially when the back entrance is there for a particular reason in both cases.

>>4770337
Wonder what will happen when the Morning Stone and the Evening Stone meet. Garrett still owns the Morning Stone? That makes him a target. With those trained Hammerites that would be quite a challenge. The choice between the main entrance and a hidden back entrance is also seen in Bafford. A must have.

Next FM is "Shunned: Fistral's Story". This one is mentioned on the FM must play list.

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

>>4773493
this dumb meme amuses me too much

What happened to Fen?

>>4773493
oh no, not again!

>>4722524
>>4723238
By the Builder's hand!
By the Builder's foot!
Now in one neat package!

>>4775015
With our powers combined

>>4775023
I have now combined them all to a holy trinity but i don't want to keep spamming the thread with the same images.

>>4722524
https://vocaroo.com/i/s1UjDY0QxHV8

My noise arrow brings all the taffers to the yard
And they're like
There's nobody here
Damn right there's nobody there
I could teach you
But I'm already gone

>>4775616
NO, NOT THE BEES TAFFER!

Played through Thief Gold FM Cult of the Resurrection last night. It has a "sword of saint edgar" in it, years before Deadly Shadows. I wonder if this is a coincidence

>>4776716
That missions by Sledge, who also did Inverted Manse. IIRC he worked on DS (notably on the Cradle) so it's probably not a coincidence.

Why did Karras hire Truart to kill Garrett? Does Karras fear Garrett? Had he not done this, Garrett would never have gone to the mechanist church to learn about what Karras and Truart were planning, and thus would never have begun the sequence of events that led to the mechanist downfall.

>>4776854
He deals in absolutes. Garrett refused to be on his side so he wanted to remove him because anyone who wasn't with him must have been against him by his logic.

>>4775616
>guarding the town square
>slowly falling asleep standing up because nothing ever happens here
>a splintering pain suddenly tears through your left leg
>there's an arrow sticking out of your left thigh
>there's a taffing note attached to the arrow
>you painfully twist your left leg to read the note
>OAF
>right then a second arrow hits you in the crotch
>turns out you're three months pregnant
>the absolute state of being a female Mechanist guard

>>4777118
Would you watch a sitcom starring Karras as he attempts to juggle running the Mechanist Order with his family life?

Starring Karras as himself, Female Mechanist as herself, Cavador as himself, Garrett as himself, Benny as himself

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mf9jJx0NSjw

>"I'm a busy man! I'm the Builder's holy vessel, I can't just walk off the job at 5 o'clock!"
>Arguing with his wife, drinking with his buddy Cavador, feuding with his arch-nemesis Garrett and berating the comic-relief Benny
>Episode where it's Karras' kid's birthday party and all the kids come round
>Karras leaves the cooking up to Benny but he accidentally knocks over a vial of necromutox in the kitchen which evaporates all the children
>Benny looks at the camera
>"Uh-Oooohhhhh..."
>Audience laughter
>Title theme plays, cut to commercial

>>4778832
IT IS THE HAMMER FROM WHICH ALL CIVILIZATION AND ORDER WAS WROUGHT YOU FOREST DWELLING PAGAN WRETCH

karras is extremely overrated

>>4779157
PLEASE BE WARNED! A MISGUIDED SOUL!
ALL SHOULD HEAR THE WORD OF KARRAS-
-THE WORD OF KARRAS!

>>4778853
I would watch that sitcom, even if it sounds as if they already killed off half the cast in the pilot.

What would be a good title theme for that show?

>>4779157
I HARKEN UNTO THINE FEARFUL HEART!

>>4772720
After the two gems, another interesting treasure to steal and this time too its power influenced the events of the mission, only a little more directly. I wonder if the house as we see it at the start of the FM is just an illusion ready to crumble when we find the Necronomicon or if the mansion actually collapses when the book is stolen. My money are on the illusion: the dead Hammers near the graves are labelled as decayed corpses, but they weren't there at first. Garrett either reappeared in the real version of the mansion or got flung into the near future, after all the crumbling and a failed Hammerite expedition happened. Interestingly enough in an earlier version of the mission they were meant to be alive and harshly welcome Garrett instead of the four zombies.
In general it's nice when the nature, story or power of the artifact Garrett must steal partially define a mission. Sometimes it clashes with the mission's setting, sometimes it fits the atmosphere. Sometimes it brings grief, sometimes great fortune, but our thief will always be there just for the money. It's what I like of TDP, where he starts doing things out necessity only in the last three missions.

>>4779157
I'd like him a lot more if his plan wasn't "kill everything with toxic gas"

So there was a relatively heated discussion on TTLG about TFix, most notably about whether something can be considered a fix or a change. What do you guys think about it? http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134733&p=2390493&viewfull=1#post2390493

>>4782261
Well, I don't know how one could say this with a straight face while presumably knowing LGS's fixation on emergence and improvisation. That's fucking idiotic. And I loathe when modders start going off about "purists", as if its some elitist thing to want to play a game more or less the way it was made.
Didn't know about adding colored lights. I'd use TFix Lite if it didn't crash on startup for me.

>>4782261
>>4782291
For that matter does anyone have any experience with TFix Lite failing like that? I use the steam version of Thief. I made pic related and now that I'm out of university I actually have time to update it so I'll just say to use Lite, but I want to make sure it should work with the steam version or else that would likely end up being more trouble than its worth for a new player.

>>4782320
>>4782291
Have you tried directly using the raw NewDark releases rather than TFix Lite. From what I can see, Lite is merely the raw releases repackaged.

>>4782354
I'll give that a shot tomorrow when I get the chance. The T2 1.21 version should work for TG right?

>>4782380
Yeah, any version works for TG. I think there's a specific archive with the releases that you must extract as well for TG. I haven't downloaded the raw releases in a while.

>>4782261
I'm not sure if I understand what it's all about.

does the tfix guy want to "fix" the original campaign's design by arbitrarily changing things according to his own tastes?

>>4782458
Pretty much, and he gives zero fucks if you like it or not.

>>4782501
hmm, his reasoning behind the changes to the level design actually has striking similarities to the reasoning behind removing jumping in thiaf.
>if you can jump whenever you want to, you can jump in "silly" ways, which ruins the cinematic feel
>therefore jumping must be removed
>gameplay must be as streamlined as possible, even if it has to be at the expense of the player's agency
it's essentially the same reasoning here. climbing the wall to avoid the moving block is too "trivial", so that alternative path must be removed. the result is a streamlined, cinematic experience, which is guaranteed to look exactly the same for all players.

not too fond of him seeing open endedness as an issue to be fixed, either. it doesn't bode well for the future development.

>>4782442
I tried plain ND but it had a very low framerate for some reason. I tried TFix Lite again and with a few changes I got it to work, there are only two things that aren't quite right:
>cutscenes don't play (fixed by restarting computer, not a big deal if that's all there is to it but I don't know if this indicates a further problem)
>uses newer guard models (not a big deal to me but worth mentioning in the guide. I've heard you can revert them by deleting files in PATCHES but the files in question aren't there with TFix Lite)

>>4782526
This. The developer has apparently watched none of the promotional material for Underworld Ascendant where the LGS people are constantly talking about doing everything they can to avoid implementing "the intended solution" to any problem. The obstacle in THC was climbable even with old Dark Engine mantling, so getting over it rather than picking the lock was a valid solution and it makes no sense to remove it after the mantling was fixed. And even if it wasn't climbable with the old mantling system, that was simply a bug cause by a particular type of geometry in combination with a programming oversight in the mantling mechanics. A valid solution that would have been accidentally impossible.
A modder for a LGS game should attempt to expand the player's possibilities, not remove any.

>>4782261
TFix is garbage and it's a shame that it's what the majority of people use to install NewDark for T1

>>4783426
Why was it shit up until this (I assume this is a recent development if it's only now being talked about)?

>>4783426
Why was it shit up until this (I assume this is a recent development if it's only now being talked about)?
And what do you recommend instead, just plain ND or TFix Lite or something else, if there is anything else? I don't even know what the difference between those two is except that one works for me and the other doesn't.

>>4783453
The THC fence was added a while ago I'm pretty sure, and there are plenty of similar small arbitrary changes to other levels. There's also shit like colored lighting, T2 skies, "improved" objects and AI meshes, some of which the installer doesn't even tell you about or let you disable.

TFix Lite is fine afaik

>>4783059
Actually, what kind of guard even is this? He looks chunkier than the regular Tfix ones but doesn't have pointy feet.

imo thief 1's art direction had a pretty humourous, cartoony dimension to it that was partially lost with the tfix guard models. every character looked like a caricature, including not only the guards, but also garrett himself, as seen in the cutscene before the escape.

thief 1 wasn't intended to look realistic. it was much more cartoony.

>>4783652
Did Thief Gold get rid of pointy feet?

Has anyone written up a big spreadsheet of descriptions of the default schemas in dromed? I'm doing that and just realized I might be wasting a lot of time.

>playing thief 2 - Trace the Courier mission
>almost done, about to enter graveyard
>suddenly notice fenced-off part of graveyard
>use some tricky jumps on gravestones to climb over after many, many attempts
>inside crypt is some treasure
>and a key
>try key on every single door in the map, nothing works
>try bringing key with me into next level, it vanishes
anyone able to tell what the fuck it's supposed to be for?

>>4785150
I don't remember that. Is it in the patched or unpatched version of the game?

>>4785159
steam version, whichever one that is.

>>4785161
So patched then. The last time I taffed around in that mission was probably back when I played unpatched 15 years ago. Maybe it's time to try it again and see what that's all about.

>>4785161
I actually went to the good ol' Lytha's Thief Collection site and even she says that there appears to be no purpose for the key. Reminds me of my very first Morrowind playthrough. I was supposed to get inside a swamp bungalow that was locked and I had no picks. My brilliant brain had the idea that maybe the floorboards have cracks in between them and the key to the house might have fallen into the mud underneath the shack. I was amazed when I actually found a key there hidden in the reeds. The key didn't fit the house. The key didn't fit any chest inside the house. Finally I gave up and went online to check what it's for. It doesn't unlock anything.

>>4785150
I checked in dromed and that key has the KeyDst property instead of KeySrc (KeyDst goes on doors, KeySrc on keys.) If it had the correct property it would go to the cemetary gate that the pagan opens after getting shot.

>>4781395
Does it deserve to be on the list?

>>4721574
I've scrolled past this thread at least a dozen times and everytime I read the text in OP's image I just bust out laughing. WHY IS IT SO FUCKING FUNNY?!

>>4787185
Well there goes my no kill run

>>4787187
CHASE AWAY THE HOOF'D LIAR

>>4787717
How dare you, my mechanist chick hasn't tasted YOƧ in her entire life

what do you guys think of this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-9fDku4Cvg

all "top fan mission" charts are shit. the only way to find good FMs is to look at the FM list thread on ttlg and download whatever has the most interesting screenshots

>>4721574
It's fair to call Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (i have not playes the others SC) a dumbed-down Thief clone?

It has very similar mechanics to Thief but easier and with much less interesting level design, story, atmosphere, etc.

>>4788613
The one thing that CT has that Thief doesn't is noise cover. No matter how loud the environment gets in Thief, everyone will still hear you. In CT the louder the environment is, the louder are the actions you can get away with without being heard. You get into a level that's a literal warzone and every enemy is already alert, but you can blow shit up without anyone batting an eye because explosions are happening everywhere anyway.
If there would have ever been a Thief 4, it could have improved upon the existing mechanics of Thief by creating a noise cover system that doesn't even require the noise meter that Chaos Theory has, because the sound design in Thief is so good that you can simply hear whether or not you are being audible in relation to the environment.
Other than that, CT is a basic cinematic stealth game with very little player freedom. Some of the level design is downright unreasonable, and often funnels you down a single path.

>>4788267
the best way to find good fms is to never go to ttlg in the first place

I've been trying to get into the Dark Mod but the AI is just too fucking sensitive.
Maybe it's because Doom 3 never had the sound propagation system the Dark Engine did that make walls occlude sounds but no matter what I get detected from a mile away. I'm playing this with the difficulty setting on lowest and it's nightmarish compared to Thief.
Is it just because I'm playing shit levels or is the AI just this unforgiving?
I have this problem with Thief FMs too so maybe I'm just shit but this is absurd.

>>4786429
I'm not sure, it depends on the criteria. It's noteworthy for how it estabilishes its own identity. Just a haunted house sure, but well done (it won me over right with the door that slams open even before you can get at frob distance) and it doesn't look or feel like a collage of various pieces of Thief like many fan missions inevitably do. Sometimes it does, but it masks those moments well with new visual inventions. The flying zombie parts were a weird enough view it took me a moment to realize it was just a fire elemental, same goes for skulls shooting zombie. Eventually some of the mixing of known elements works so well it becomes something new. What was up with the flying skull that played hammer chantings? I loved it. The sole fact that there are many examples to take into account says it all: this mission holds its own sense of style and creativity within itself.
The main event of the mission, the timeskip (again, if that is what it is), manages to play its role as a climax both story and gameplay wise. It's confusing at first but then you realize that some things must have changed (the unreachable hand of glory was my first thought), or it surprises you with those changes. I honestly thought I was gonna need a shovel for the grave part.
On the other hand, maybe this mission flaw is that it's just this. A well executed, albeit short and linear, journey through darkness and mystery. One of the first examples of something unique born from dromed, so it's a must if you're going for that angle, but I wouldn't present it as a continuation/expansion of the Thief experience, something that goes beyond the "inspired by". Not yet, but this is the right way.

>>4788937
Dark Mod enemies are stupidly sensitive. Unless you're slow-walking while crouched they will hear you regardless of what surface you're on.

>>4788675
still, I love that game to death

how is thief 2x

>>4789679
Mostly good, a tiny bit stupid. A Question of Knowledge is one of the best FMs ever made in my opinion and it's just one of the missions in that campaign. The CGI cutscenes are garbage.

>>4789679
ugly visuals (it would be better off without the high poly models), poor choice of soundtrack, but solid gameplay.

>>4789679
Good levels, on average better than your typical FM. It has the variety that T2 lacked, and there's a spoopy mission with zombies and monsters just over halfway through. Main character is OC donut steal and the plot is very eh.
>>4789912
>cathedral mission
>go from the cloister to the main cathedral area
>defeaning organ music kicks in

The stone cannot know why the chisel cleaves it; the iron cannot know why the fire scorches it. When thy life is cleft and scorched, when death and despair leap at thee, beat not thy breast and curse thy evil fate, but thank the Builder for the trials that shape thee.

>>4789938
the undead levels were also full of deafening cliche "horror music" iirc. whatever made the undead levels in original thief scary never kicked in in tx2.

Thief 1 and 2 let you adjust the ambient noise level so it doesn't interfere with your gameplay but it is still bad design is the normalization is fubar and you can't just have everything on normal volume.

turns out the normal tfix install also adds a fence to bafford's, to prevent you from reaching the back of the mansion without exiting through the backdoor. it's on top of the gate, but it's not visible here since I switched to lite.

I guess it kinda makes sense here, since the back door is locked from within, and you can't get back the way you came.

When does Black Parade come out Skacky you magnificent French faguette.

I know you're in here.

>>4790340
There aren't even any crates available outside to let you stack and get on top of that wall. How the hell could you get up there?

>>4790389
you can mantle the frieze on the wall from the pipes. I guess it's a newmantle thing. you can't mantle the frieze in the normal tfix install though, so I guess that was "fixed".

>>4790451
I tried to do that for several minutes but it's just too high to reach. Even if you try to jump from the absolute edge so your head won't hit the frieze above you it's not possible. And it's not about space because on the other side of the street you can mantle onto a 2" windowsill with newDark.

>>4790359
Tomorrow.

>>4790472
maybe it was "fixed" by lowering the pipes? or maybe they added an invisible wall on top of it? mantling it works fine with tfix lite.

>>4790484
>>4790340
TFix Lite doesn't fix anything at all. It's just the NewDark releases repackaged for convenience. The missions you get with TFix Lite are the original missions back from 98/99.

>>4790389
You can still bring some crates with you from inside the manor and get out to the street to crate stack.

>>4791284
>You can still bring some crates with you from inside the manor and get out to the street to crate stack.
I know immersive sims are supposed to be all about freedom to find your own solutions to any problem but in this specific context neither the solution nor the problem makes any sense. I don't know whether that justifies criticism of the TFix developer's change to the level, or justifies the change itself...

>>4789679
The levels are fun, the story is stupid and the mc is annoying, but starts to get a bit more charming right before the game ends. It's worth it. Just don't expect it to be thief quality.

>>4791373
The issue with this one is that once you get to the other side, you can't go back. Adding a fence that can still be climbed on with enough crates makes things worse. The best solution in that case would be to add an easy way back if you get there, like adding one or two additional props you can climb on.

>tfw you've been ignoring Thief 1 FMs for years because you prefer the colored lighting and style of Thief 2 but now you enjoy T1 atmosphere fully and especially enjoy tomb crawling
It's like a whole new world of awesome FMs to explore. I had already played Skacky's maps but there's a lot of older stuff that's aces.

>>4788267
The only to find good FMs is to tell other people what your picky preferences are so they can give good recommendations. You can barely tell anything from screenshots. The theme/style of a mission is way more important than how it looks in a picture.

>>4791607
>not having an affinity for misaligned, strangely chosen textures, colorless lighting, and crude geometry
Really though there's something special about TDP/TG FMs. There's some genuinely really good ones but even aggressively shitty ones like Nightcrawler are inexplicably alluring to me.

>>4791473
Yeah that's what LGS did. Add ways to get out of areas you're not supposed to get to. Well, some of them.

Why does Running Interference use evaporate and water->solid so much instead of regular solid and air brushes?

>>4792507
I know what brushes are, but can you explain why this seems weird to you? What's the purpose/advantage of one way or the other in this case?

>>4792657
I don't know either, that's why I was asking. It just seems like doing the less obvious thing.

>IT'S A THRONE ROOM

>>4792890

>>4792895

>>4792902

Any good fan missions within the past six months? Preferably horror?

>>4793462
There's been like two missions this year because people are busy with the contest.

>>4793482
Well that sucks. Anything the year before that?

https://www.thiefguild.com
nifty

>>4793495
Off the top of my head, Unexpected Detour and Breathing Corpses were two rock solid 2017 horror missions, but I don't remember what other ones there were if any.

>>4793495
In 2017 there was BBB's A Short Night's Work. I think it's awesome, but it's not to everyone's taste. It very "arcadey" like an old Build game level, or original Counter-Strike maps. It's still got the Thief setting and basic atmosphere (it uses vanilla assets) but it's obviously designed as a fun 3D exploration cube to play around in rather than as a spooky mystery adventure story.

>>4794001
Oh, and do NOT play it if you like ghosting. In fact, you shouldn't sweat it if you get a few "searching alerts" in the beginning. The guards are there to be avoided like arcade game enemies.

are there any full versions of the music in the cutscenes?

>>4793514
>Unexpected Detour
Man I'm kinda sad it turned into just zombies in a cave with a whispering lady walking around.
I guess stuff like Rowena's Curse has spoiled me.

>ywn see the home sweet home interpretation of the sealed section
why even live?

are there any good fan missions that do this?

I prefer getting rewarded for actually reading the environments rather than for blindly spamming the open button in dark corners.

>>4789000
The Hammerites, the Hand Brotherhood and the Pagans all oppose necromancy, right? There's a reference to it in Life of the Party and there was the planned Thief II Gold mission featuring the Necromancers' castle. How do the Hammerites and the Hand Brotherhood relate to each other. Would they help each other out?
Yes, it is just a haunted house. It's linear. There aren't multiple routes to get to your goal. There is, if you count shooting a rope arrow to the balcony. Walk through it, get keys and meanwhile, get spooped. That's the gameplay. It's different compared to the OMs, but is it always something negative? Is it just a tech demo? It's a very rich mission when it comes to detail regarding object placement, ambient and scripts. As you said, it has it's own style/identity. All those details show something went really wrong here and that you should get what you came for as quickly as possible. You have to swing your sword and in such cramped rooms it adds to the tension. As if I'm running a gauntlet.
I'm happy the author put all the loot at the end. There's no way back!
I'm surprised the mission is not broken after all these years.

The flying chanting skull always cracks me up.

>>4796154
I know of one that does this but it's currently unreleased.

>>4795762
you can download .flac versions of the intro/credit tracks from tdp off this dude's ftp server, if a password field show up just mash enter
ftp://ftp.valet2.com/Eric_Brosius_Thief_The_Dark_Project_1999_FLAC/
i'd assume that eric himself might still have some of the old music files, you might be able to reach him on twitter when he and his wife terri aren't screeching over trump
every time i look at an old lgs employee's twitter i just get sad

>try Retaliation
>hear it has spooks
>the spooks is just zone weird zombie door maze at the start
>turns into a massive mansion, tiny room guardfest with cameras and several dozen mechanists walking around at once
>can't hear their footsteps, whistling, or talking because the dev decided to play his mixtape over the level
I think I've played all of the good fan missions at this point.

>start working on an FM again
>open up somebody else's to see how they did something
>lose hope again

I just played through Behind Closed Doors. Basically, I liked it a lot.

The art direction clearly deviates from that of original Thief, and in my opinion, it works out pretty well. I usually don't like 19th century/fin-de-siecle settings in Thief missions, but in this case, they manage to pull it off very well.

For the level design, it's a Skacky/Melan style city mission. Lots of walkable streets, tall buildings, and parkouring on rooftops and facades. The level design had a poor start, with a lot of bottlenecks and linearity, but it opens up after a while. After that, it's pretty solid. It does a lot of things right that I feel similar authors like Skacky and Melan do wrong. For example, in missions by those two authors, you get the feeling that most of the play area is divided into entirely isolated "islands", which the AI can't move between. This empowers the player to a ridiculous degree. This problem is also present in Behind Closed Doors, but to a lesser degree. There are several places where guards can see you through sunlit windows, from places where they can reach you. So basically, being high up doesn't always make you invulnerable, as opposed to in many Skacky missions.

Ultimately, it's a very ambitious mission. It has a pretty unique art direction, which, along with the sound design, creates a very cool atmosphere. The mission goals consist of several smaller "chain quests", which have you explore all sorts of places in the district. It's very meaty. Took me a good 3 hours to complete, and that's just for exploring the areas you can see with your naked eye. I probably just scraped the surface when it comes to secrets. Ultimately a very good FM, albeit not a a flawless one. It could stand to be a bit less linear in the beginning.

Finally, to make my stance on city missions clear:I love Assassins and THC, I hate LotP, and I hate 90% of all city missions. I'm ambivalent towards Skacky and Melan, although I do prefer them to most other city FM authors.

>>4798247
>90% of all city missions
city FMs, that is.

Has anyone https://jp.itch.io/thief-tourism ? gotten to work with TFix for Thief Gold?

I wanted to explore the levels in Thief a bit after beating it several times, but it doesn't seem to work, the guards at bafford's still react to me.

>>4798367
Haven't tried that but you could open the levels in DromEd, toggle ai awareness, and then explore them in game mode.

>>4798374
Thanks for the tip. The mod is really not working with TFix, but it works with a normal install from Steam. Maybe I should send feedback to the author?

Is the texture city/cris464 meant to be blue or beige/yellow?

>>4798754
(this is for TG, not 2)

any good FMs that follow the cutscene depictions of the city?

I know that calendra's legacy, mission 3 is based on the t1 ending cinematic, but IMO that mission fails because you end up just exploring an exceptionally ugly interpretation of a keeper base (seemingly partially based on deadly shadows, which I haven't played and don't intend to ever do).

>>4798247
nicked is a good author. I hope he's doing something for the contest because his sensible design + TDP atmosphere would be something great.

>>4723909
Thief 2 X - probably the most impressive
Black Frog - great quality mission pack
Death's Cold Embrace (released recently actually) - you return to a level 3 times, and it has a HUB in between levels, but other than that, it's damn good
Also, check this guy's channel, he plays a lot of good Thief FMs - https://www.youtube.com/user/klatre/videos

>>4800184
those are some shit recommendations

>>4800207
Please kill yourself, I can't even bother to give any other reply to this bait

>>4800209
not him, but whoever claims that t2x is the "most impressive" FM campaign (or is it a mod?) must be baiting.

DCE is very good and ambitious (and more visually consistent than t2x), but complaining about revisiting places is stupid. for city environments, it's a good way to flesh them out, spatially as well as temporally. that's what makes seven sisters, missions 1 and 2 so great.

>>4800227
The hell are you talking about?
T2X is the closest thing to a Thief standalone.
It's got work put into adding to the world, lore, cinematics, a lot of new content that fits in well and expands the base gameplay. The new arrows are a welcome addition, as well as the EMP grenades.
It has a decent amount of levels, with various aesthetics and gameplay features, and generally has a steady difficulty curve. You get to steal, you get to sneak, you get to fight monsters and adventure (instead of constant stealth like you had to do in Thief 2), you have a shadowing part, you have a level happening on a moving train and so on.
The story concept is good, as well as how it evolves around, and some parts like baiting the hammerites into attacking the smugglers for you are pure fun.

Were you dropped on your head as a kid or what? It's literally the best fan made Thief out there.

>>4800254
>it's good because it has extra everything!
sometimes, minimalism is the biggest virtue, and also one of the things that made the dark project great.

as for t2x, it's visually inconsistent. the new models look awkward, and contribute nothing. they'd be better off with the original models. the colour palette is inconsistent, and ugly to look at. coloured lighting is sprinkled into the levels seemingly without much thought.

the animated cutscenes are pure shit. ordinary briefing style slideshow cutscenes would do the job better.

as for the story: it does the job, but it's really nothing special. a standard story of revenge, an insufferable edgelord MC which is supposed to be cool. lore autism is not a plus. the world should be there, and it should be consistent, but it shouldn't be explained explicitly in autistic detail. this is another thing that the dark project did well, and that many other games fail completely at. ultimately, I don't judge the campaign by it's story, I just respond to your praise of it.

the gameplay is solid, but so is that of many other FMs and FM campaigns. the sound design is awful, and I remember that gameplay relevant sounds were often drowned out in the ambient music. sure, you can adjust it, but if the original design is good, you shouldn't have to.

finally, nothing makes me dislike the campaign more than shills like you, who do all you can to market it as "semi-official", and denounce all other FMs in the process. every time someone moderately critiques the campaign in this thread, there's always one poster who gets upset and begins denouncing other FM campaigns left and right. I don't know if it's the same anon, but it makes it hard to be diplomatic when critisising t2x.

>>4800227
>saying t2x is most impressive is baiting
I'm not that other guy, but I don't think he used "most impressive" to mean "highest quality". Just that when you look at what they attempted and pulled off--an entire fan-made sequel--it's very significant. There aren't many successful projects at that scale for fan communities. Thief 2x has new EVERYTHING. They probably did just as much work making it as LGS did making Thief 2 after Thief 1.

And yes, I know, all that effort means nothing if it still sucks. But since I think T2X is at its worst "fine", it's pretty cool that they pulled it off with at least moderate competence, and I think that's what he meant by "most impressive."

take the gun
leave the cannoli

>>4800292
Again, what the fuck are you talking about? It's a community project, not a fucking triple A title. It's not Saving Caroline or Ruins of Originia where someone just splats random textures over bland, repetitive corridors and calls it a level. It has plenty of consistency and thought in its' deisgn, albeit it's not made by a team of 250 designers paid 50$ an hour.

You're the average spoiled gamer trash that has shifted the industry into walking simulators and corridor shooters that look pretty enough to stimulate brainlets and that's all.

>talking shit about ruins of originia
you shut your whore mouth

>>4802567
>It's a community project, not a fucking triple A title
yes, and there are many better than it. it's okay as far as FM campaigns go, but far from the best. I believe I've already made my case clear.

also, how in the world does preferring one fan mission over another make me spoiled?

>>4800227
DCE heavily reuses the City part and does so by sealing off paths you previously discovered.

How much infleunce does TFix and TFix Lite have on FMs?

Apparently there's a shortcut to run super fast in dromed. You can knock open doors by running into them.

more spiders

I remember seeing a "scariest moments in thief 2" comp on youtube not too long ago.

it only showed like 3 gameplay segments, and one of them was the spiders in shipping and receiving.

>>4804556
Boo hiss

>>4804560
I think we can all agree that Randy was correct

Welp. Seems like Black Parade will never, ever be released as the French faggot who was the lead designer stepped down and gave his maps to literally whos.

>>4805368
That happened a while ago and those literally whos are the ones who made the far superior half of Chalice of Souls.

>>4721574
Why is Benny a Hammerite?

>>4805392
The part with the rooftops?

>>4806228
Yeah the first mission with the city area and sewers. I wasn't such a fan of the second part in the brothel/keeper place.
As far as I know skacky stopped being the lead because he needed to find a job but he's still part of the team.

>>4804556
Angelwatch is really boring.

>>4796334
>How do the Hammerites and the Hand Brotherhood relate to each other. Would they help each other out?
I wonder if the Brotherhood will get some attention in FMs made after Gold. In general I wonder how the style of these first FMs will change after T2 and partially TG. I don't think I ever met the Brotherhood mages outside of the main game. When it comes to having the player sneak into a bastion of knowledge, secrets and ancient power, the Keepers seem to be the preferred faction. Maybe T2 boosted their popularity and helped define them as a group but they've always been more interesting than the plain mages guild, I suppose.
Speaking of, this mission beat T2 to the punch with its "spooky but actually harmless ghost that ignores the player" moment, even though you can kill this one. For some reason the flaming zombie kept getting up even when I was far away in the upper floors, I wonder if the ghost had some part in it. The two ghosts in the cellar just doing ghost things are also something new, and quite effective in a way. The hammerite one is a nice throwback to Murus. All in all my favorite part must be the giant you can see floating before entering a room full of them.
Really good use of sound too. The mixing of visual elements I was talking about also happened with sound and our beloved skull is an example.
Released right before TG, this mission has been updated a few times and the last addition was the briefing. It's nice when an author keeps working on a mission until the completion it deserves it's achieved.
Lastly, I think linearity suits this FM. The player must focus on what's happening and how to proceed, no loot to look for, no real exploration needed. It keeps the tension alive and it made me wonder what I was getting into, even if I knew it was gonna be just various degrees of zombies (didn't I?). You have to look for the secondary loot only when you know there's nowhere else to go, a mindset switch induced, again, by the timeskip.

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

>>4808240

https://my.mixtape.moe/mjopgi.webm