Ceamonks890 on 1/11/2017 at 23:31
Poor Lord Bafford by Jordan CS
As the first proper custom mission within the Thief series period that isn't a glorified tech demo(Guardhouse 1 by Banshee/Down we go! by shadow) or a brief combat-heavy level that was probably made to just blow off some virtual steam(The Deceptive Sceptre by Seb Pedley), Poor Lord Bafford is a fairly decent level that stands the test of time relatively well, despite coming out over 18 years ago!
Story is pretty much your standard Thief scenario, involving Garrett sneaking into some rich nobleman's place(In this case, good ol' Bafford once again!) and stealing valuables to pay the rent for the week. Tried & true premise, but it works. There is also a side-plot involving Bafford stealing an invaluable Hammerite scroll in the hopes he may be capable of raising an undead army to serve him(being well-aware of Garrett potentially making a grab for it), but it ultimately doesn't really go anywhere, turning out to be a dud. So it might as well be another piece of reading material that our sarcastic rogue picks up along the way, to have a look over during downtime for all the good it does.
Level design starts off relatively crude with a fairly boxy outdoor area, but does gradually get better once you're inside proper. Sure, corridors can feel a little cramped and the smooth tile flooring a bit much, but I can totally believe this as one of Bafford's storage houses for some of his more valuable belongings, during a grim financial period within The City for him.
And considering my gameplay style is pretty much knocking every sentient being out and extinguishing torches(with flat-out killing reserved as a last resort), I pretty much adapted to the rules of the level quickly.
Overall, a mission that I recommend to anyone anchoring for a quick little bit of thieving:thumb:
Added - nickie
michael a on 3/11/2017 at 19:01
What happened to sweet harlot?
This mission is one of the classic first city levels for Thief 1. Garrett needs to return his lockpicks, which were "borrowed" from him by courtesan ironically named Chance from some brothel. This is simple beginning, at first glance, but plot thickens, firstly, because the brothel is in a separate area of the mission, with some complicated access to, and we need to understand how to find way there which is not so easy. And in the middle of the mission we are faced with a plot twist, connected with Chance's fate.
I do not like such rigid division of the mission into separate isolated areas, which can be penetrated in a strictly certain way. Also, we can find fault with the architecture of the mission, which is a bit angular and very simple (almost like “Autumn in the Lampfire Hills” and other missions released at that time), but according to how old this mission is... I think it's not justified claim. And, finally I found somewhat disappointing its abrupt ending (authors planned a sequel, but unfortunately it was not released).
However, all these flaws are not breaking the gameplay of “Hush... Hush, Sweet Harlot” which is full by large number of hidings, and secluded places for access to which you need to strain the brain. And, it is not easy to get into each new area, and the process of finding the path itself is a combination of logic and stealth, which further increases the interest in the mission. In addition to the main plot, the mission has several mini-sub-stories and so makes an impression of lived world.
Also, there are some tense stealth-moments (especially a brothel with guards, courtesans and clients), as well as rather tough moments of the plot. Very good work with scripts and conversation scenes. In general, this is the classic dark atmosphere of Thief 1 may be with some slight feminist motives.
This short text comes to conclusion in which I can designate “Hush... Hush, Sweet Harlot” as an interesting combination of some adventurous elements and puzzles and sometimes very intensive stealth situations.
Added - nickie
nickie on 10/11/2017 at 19:54
Apologies for delay in adding the latest but they're done now. Thanks very much.
The Dark One on 22/11/2017 at 19:41
Wow, I'm behind.
Part three of Vengeance for a Thief is live.
The Art of Revenge takes place a year after part two, and our hero has returned to Bridgeport to take some sweet sweet vengeance against the one who set him up by re-stealing the Angel’s Tear and a valuable painting donated to a museum by the backstabber.
This is probably the most balanced mission in the VfaT series. It starts out as a small city mission before moving into the museum for the actual heist. The difficulty is balanced, with a fair few guards patrolling but giving you the room to maneuver around them, and making the ambient lighting far less strong outside (though the same can’t be said for the inside, lighting-wise). The loot goal is also more relaxed, to the point where you don’t even have to take any from the display cases lying around to get to it...which is good, because the guards will notice if any are missing. The mission also assigns you to track down five golden lions belonging to the Order of the Golden Lion. This is optional, but isn’t too hard if one is willing to explore a bit.
The mission continues the trend of gigantic buildings, though a little more controlled than in part two, with most of the massive size being saved for the museum itself. It makes the place look very impressive, though it can make guards hard to see from across the room. The interior is nice and varied, with multiple exhibits to search through. One thing that I liked about this mission was being able to take certain arrows from one exhibit to use, which I only found out you can do in my second playthrough.
On the whole, this is a good conclusion to the VfaT series. Recommended.
twhalen2600 on 26/11/2017 at 03:32
Murder Most Foul (Thief II, 2017), from Death's Cold Embrace, by Yandros, Random Taffer, Polygon, Tannar, Moghedian, R Soul, and Peter SmithAs this is a recent mission, I have placed spoiler tags where needed.Death's Cold Embrace has a different vibe than most major fan missions. It is repetitious in theme: the same music bits play in and out for the majority of the first few missions, respective to their levels, and you visit the same area of Dayport in the first, third, and fifth missions. This repetitive quality does not mean it's bad, it just means it has a different flavor than
Godbreaker,
The Black Frog, or equivalent FM campaigns. Another uniqueness is that the coldness extends from the title into the environment as
DCE is set in snow, rare for FMs.
"Murder Most Foul" is the first mission and establishes the audio style. Rather than standard
Thief II environmental sounds for exterior and interior, Yandros has musical bits fade in and out. It feels like exploring in
Oblivion or
Skyrim while the same orchestral tracks play. You could be out in the town or inside a haunted house, but no matter which the same tracks keep looping. Objectively, it works well in
Murder Most Foul and
DCE's other early missions, but for my personal tastes it isn't as atmospherically effective as standard
Thief II ambiance.
Inline Image:
https://thiefdiaries.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/dce-mmf-guard-walking.png?w=1024You're in the city area of Dayport surrounding Fairbanks Manor. There are shops, inns, residences, and a power station. Readables indicate that there is much frustration going around, with insights into economic hardships.
Thief has real moral dilemmas. You feel guilty stealing from these desperate shopkeepers. After plundering each shop, I felt a foul taste creep into my mouth, feeling morally conflicted more so than in recent games when I'm given a highlighted, binary decision. I had to remind myself that I'm a heartless thief and keep on going - but I don't think that lowly of Garrett, so still struggled.
The two apartment complexes in this part of town highlight class differences. The rich one, the Biltmore Apartments, is right across the street from the poor one, Greenwood Apartments, each facing the other. Biltmore is guarded, quiet, and fully functioning. Greenwood is open and guard-less, with loud music blaring from one apartment, a bent sign, a flickering light and a meowing cat.
Inline Image:
https://thiefdiaries.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/dce-mmf-apartments.png?w=1024The backstory to the mission involves
a mythical Keep, an artifact, and competing gangs of thieves.
The way the artifact is guarded is clever - they're paying a man to act as a ghost to keep prying eyes from the apartment where the chest is stashed. From Yandros' location of the past few months and the title of one of the mission threads, you know that this backstory has ramifications for the campaign in the long run.
The Trickster's Tail pub is where you'll go once you have the research journal Fairbanks wants, so you'll want to save that place for last. The Harlequin Inn is very difficult to enter save by an upper story window, and no matter how you enter stealing from the main lobby is a challenge.
Outside this inn is one of the most clever bits of décor in a
Thief mission:
the “Eternal Flame.” Did you douse it out? I couldn't bring myself to. The
torch offered another quality moral dilemma. I'm surprised I haven't seen something like it used in other FMs;
it gives non-ghosters a reason to feel guilty for using a water arrow. Let's hope there aren't ever any sacred wooden beams.
The Jewelry store has a tough patrol to dodge, but if you do it, or blackjack the guy, the reward will be enormous. Remember those moral dilemmas I wrote about? Some are easier to quell than others.
You discover in a readable that the painter has been commissioned to paint a portrait of
Karras. I thought,
“Is it that one?” When you break into his basement you find out, yes, it's that one.The inventor's apartment is your main objective,
and if you've been reading, you have reason to dread entering it. The mystery of a she-beast, you discover, is a Franken-maid monster gone mad, lurking in the inventor's basement. The basement is one of the most atmospherically impressive moments in a FM. The air is thick with dust, the lights flicker, and the she-beast cries from the distance. I was terrified of the moment when I would finally see it.
It is built from the cyborg midwife model of System Shock 2, but it's no less terrifying as it walks with the prance of a bug beast. The cyborg maid has rigged up the inventor's body in an ironic display of revenge. He's sitting at a dinner table with music playing as a device sends currents through his body. Take that, you hear the maid saying, see what it's like to be kept alive past death. Whether he was actually alive or not, I don't know, but I flipped the switch to free him from potential misery. The maid didn't notice.
Further horrors await in the form of a bronze Mechanist child - and I mean the actual child-thing, not the Children of Karras. You can deactivate it so it won't be alerted - it's triggered by unlocking the safe with the journal for Fairbanks.When you finish this mission, the premise for the next is calmly set. No grand whirlwind of events has started yet. Story-wise,
the terror of the maid passed, everything is standard and settled. This being a classical tragedy in three acts, you know that won't remain the case.
Covetous Carcass on 5/12/2017 at 20:54
The Cistern(Thief II, 2002) by GumdropIf I might briefly interrupt the warm embrace of DCE reviews :angel:
"Time to go raid some tombs..."
...and time to look at the other, less well-known mission involving a cistern :). Garrett sets off on a short quest into the sewers seeking out long-forgotten loot and dodging some nasties along the way. This mission is inspired by the very first entry in a certain well-known game franchise starring a certain well-endowed heroine.
This old carcass well remembers playing the original Tomb Raider on its release, and Gumdrop really captures the lonely atmosphere of this mission's namesake from that game, making good use of its textures, along with some subtle fog. He also uses some of the original incidental music, which, when it plays, adds a wistful feeling and will summon up nostalgia for anyone who's played Lara's early adventures.
As in the original, there's plenty of swimming, along with gates, switches and water level changes to be negotiated. One maze-like section requires passing some gates, and locating the switches to open them, all while underwater. I've never been a fan of these, but it's apt given the inspiration, and not too long. No breath potions, though (or at least none that I could find), so you'll need to make good use of air pockets.
There are only two objectives - get both the Hand of Glory and enough loot. The lack of an "escape" objective (even on "Hard" - the highest difficulty) means that the mission ends as soon as you complete the first objective, so, if you so desire, go hunting for loot and secrets before doing this.
Anyone who'd like a brief reminiscence of what Lara's very first outing was like will find it here. At least Pierre won't be shooting at you all the time... :D
Screenshots (brightened because this place is really dark...)
Inline Image:
https://i.imgur.com/hdiyRKr.jpg<br>
Just below the surface, and we gotta get through that hatch. The depths await!<br>
Inline Image:
https://i.imgur.com/dwLkenZ.jpg<br>
♫ Don't bug me now, 'cause I'm having a loot time, having a loot time... ♫<br>
Inline Image:
https://i.imgur.com/fnIvDzE.jpg<br>
Flushed with success, Garrett starts humming "Cisterns are doing it for themselves".<br>
Inline Image:
https://i.imgur.com/YNtcvhQ.jpg<br>
They
were going to complete the walkway, but they couldn't plug the hole in the finances so the project went down the drain.<br>
Inline Image:
https://i.imgur.com/2XkKFMf.jpg<br>
Having considered performing a graceful swan dive worthy of Miss Croft,<br>Garrett instead decides on a cannonball into the waters below.<br>
Inline Image:
https://i.imgur.com/v1Z5Yav.jpg<br>
And here we are, in the tombs at last. And there's loot - let's do some raiding!<br>Seems too quiet, though - someone's surely out to put a dampener on things...<br>
Inline Image:
https://i.imgur.com/EqIYH1j.jpg<br>
More sarcophagi, more loot, plenty of stone, and still too quiet. But, guess who's about to rain on your parade?<br>
Inline Image:
https://i.imgur.com/DaW9LdA.jpg<br>
Three ancient urns, two blank walls, one rotting corpse, and a rolled-up ta-a-pes-try.
The Dark One on 6/12/2017 at 19:09
Man, took a bit to get to this.
A New Job (by Springheel) is the first mission of the official Dark Mod campaign which inverts normal trilogy creep by being planned for three and then becoming two (for now anyway). Our hero, Corbin, has been hired by a client for an unknown job, and while on the way to the meeting, decides to slip into a nearby inn and swipe some rubies belonging to a nobleman.
A New Job is designed for newer players to The Dark Mod, and is also an exercise in showing off those sweet sweet new models and textures. To the mission’s credit, they look quite well, looking sufficiently grimy and claustrophobic to give the impression that the player is crawling around the back alleys of the city. Little touches fill the mission, such as an NPC interacting with a facut to get water. It sounds petty, but it’s the first time I’ve seen it in this game. Little touches of worldbuilding and short puzzles are also well done.
The mission isn’t overly hard, with even the loot goal being optional. Considering how some of it is tucked out of the way, this is a good thing, giving players a chance to be challenged without being jammed. I played on the highest difficulty, so I didn’t get much in the way of help, but I’m informed that lower difficulties provide hints to help the newbies along, which is appreciated.
All in all, a short, satisfying introduction. Recommended.
------
And now, a bonus!
The Tears of St. Lucia, which I reviewed way back when, has gotten an update for the new release, but I found myself mildly disappointed. It’s mainly a graphic overhaul, which looks quite good and looks like it was done by the same guy who did Lords and Legacy. I admit, I wished that a little bit more had been added to the mission. There were some additions on higher levels, such as a few more guards and spiders, as well as an alternate route via an outside duct. It’s also worth noting that on the easiest difficulty, you can get through the front gate, which you couldn’t in the original. A hint about those blasted water arrows has also been clarified on all difficulties.
Most of my complaints come from the fact that I’ve played it before and wished for something new, but in all honestly it’s still a very solid and worthwhile mission, and new players will definitely enjoy it. Older ones who don’t have the expectation of something brand new will also enjoy.
Melan on 6/12/2017 at 21:57
Precarious Business by ObservingEye.
Simple job, fat nobleman, break into, priceless trinket. This is a mission from the well-known Bafford playbook, and the big thing it accomplishes is how well it does it. While made for Thief 2, Precarious Business is a Thief 1-style affair in both style and execution. It uses stock textures and deep shadows to build a dark city and a cramped, run-down mansion where you must find your prize. Now, when I write “dark”, I mean
dark dark,
Shadows of Doubt -style. This mission is not simply gloomy; your surroundings are mostly barely lit, and finding your way by orienting yourself by the meagre light sources and sometimes the sounds is half the challenge. You will wish you had a lantern, but not having one is the point. It takes some eyesight to find your way through barely lit streets and corridors, and some more to pick up the more carefully hidden loot (as far as I can tell, it is mostly fairly placed, although I also missed almost a thousand golds' worth of it). This is the core challenge, since you will only encounter tricky patrols in the second half of the mission.
There are gorgeous city streets here, mostly in the
Bafford / Assassins style, built with obvious care and an eye for variety. These are ramshackle, chaotically built houses on the city outskirts, climbing over each other to fit into tiny lots and conserve space. Sadly, the streets are also fairly linear and you don't interact much with them. Even the tantalising rooms and open windows you spot high above you in locations seem to largely be red herrings, and the patrols are minimal. In some way, it seems superfluous, with precious little gameplay... but didn't the original game have stretches of empty space which were just there so you could
be there? Maybe we should consider it a sign of generosity. And generous it is: there is an entire side mission there, if you can just find it. It is another cool-looking area, and has more good-looking content. Then, we get to the mansion, which is at once opulent and bare; it also has one of the coolest brush-based toilets I have seen in a fan mission (believe me, I have seen some), as well as an interesting possible explanation for Garrett's visit (nothing spelled out, but you can put things together - that is always cool).
All in all,
Precarious Business is well worth playing. As ObservingEye's first mission, it is very promising (it would have been a strong contender in the 20th Anniversary Contest). May we see more missions like this!
Pictures:
Inline Image:
https://78.media.tumblr.com/14deaa7a8189396ecc77e66e7246f89f/tumblr_p0k7j3tfOo1rxmn3vo2_1280.pngInline Image:
https://78.media.tumblr.com/d25c27d45b5a60fc521b184a1180b161/tumblr_p0k7j3tfOo1rxmn3vo3_1280.pngInline Image:
https://78.media.tumblr.com/17187a3428060d6be063b7e237394ea1/tumblr_p0k7j3tfOo1rxmn3vo5_1280.pngInline Image:
https://78.media.tumblr.com/54078ec244cdedd697e555cb35dd9fd4/tumblr_p0k7j3tfOo1rxmn3vo4_1280.pngInline Image:
https://78.media.tumblr.com/f92a4dbf9d08d741be93ce2c1232c66d/tumblr_p0k7j3tfOo1rxmn3vo1_1280.png
The Dark One on 18/12/2017 at 19:49
Wow, I've been behind. I've been busy the last month or so and haven't really played many missions, so I've been behind on my reviewing. Let me fix that.
Briarwood Manor (by NeonsStyle) has more production values than a normal Dark Mod mission, as shown by the opening cutscene and voice over, which give the plot: Our hero has been hired to deal with the head of Merchant’s Guild Morgan Crowley, a complete jerk who everyone wants to stab for one reason or another. Sadly, most of the assassins are in his pocket, forcing our hero to step in himself. He can’t kill Crowley himself, since that would leave links back to the clients, so he has to arrange it himself. And steal a crown.
The manor is quite well-designed and logical, with little touches like the grimy servant and guard wings contrasting with the more opulent family wing. The whole place has a feeling of a rural manor with hints of decadence lurking in the wings, and I admit I like that sort of touch in a mission. When this was first uploaded, the outside had a risk of causing some grinding, but that's been fixed in recent updates. There were a few other bugs, such as scripted events breaking, when I first played, but my replay seemed to show that they had been ironed out, barring deliberate and out of your way attempts to break it.
Difficulty-wise, it’s fair. You start out with little, not even a blackjack, but plenty can be found in the manor itself. I completely missed most of this on my first run, and found the results difficult, but not overly unfair, barring an opening hallway with guards going in and out. The loot is mostly in plain sight, and easy to get, but some of it is tricky to get at if you’re trying to avoid knock-outs. There’s one tricky bit with a secret passage that might stick some players.
There’s more of a story to this than in most missions, and some have murmured about the subject matter. It’s handled about as tastefully as it could, and I personally didn’t have much of an issue. I was more annoyed at how one dimensionally evil Crowley is; I don’t mind “evil for evil’s sake” villains, but they should at least be entertaining. The voice acting during the climactic scene is also a tad weak, the actor for Corbin didn’t do a good job of expressing genuine sympathy, in my mind. Good job on the intro, however.
All in all, a pretty solid mission, and the creator’s work in fixing bugs and glitches is worth applauding. Recommended.
twhalen2600 on 19/12/2017 at 04:34
A Better Tomorrow (Thief II, 2012), by DrKDrK of
One Night in Rocksbourg fame blessed us taffers with this superb horror mission for the Halloween Contest of 2012.
A Better Tomorrow is an I-can’t-believe-this-is-a-contest-FM fan mission; DrK whipped this up in four months! True, it is short, as expected for a contest FM, and he used the map from
Greenbay as a base, but the unique experience of this one and its atmosphere of dread are top-notch.
In the beginning you’re locked in a room in the sewers, a Viktrola playing a message from you, Garrett, as the briefing, and an encapsulating ambient noise sounding in the background. The visuals are rendered in black-and-white, adding to the horror effect.
Some creature has Garrett cornered in the sewers. The most effective line from the Viktrola recording and the most spine-chilling line in any Thief mission is: “It knows I’m here.” SlyFoxx delivered it just right.
The dread is thick, and once you unlock the door of your little hide-away room you experience one of the best terror sequences in
Thief FMs. Never have I so often escaped to the pause menu, not even in
Rose Cottage. DrK’s technique here is similar to the start of the third
Rocksbourg mission, just a little more in-your-face.
Inline Image:
https://thiefdiaries.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/better-tomorrow-screenshot-1.png?w=1024The monsters that have invaded the City are towering humanoids with no defining facial features. They move fast and emit unsettling growls and yells, and gurgle and slobber when they idle. These things make the hair on my neck stand on end and will freak you out. Scarier is that no one knows where they came from. One journal in town takes stabs at guesses, hoping one of them is true. These are Pagan beasts, right? Undead? Victims of a plague? The disturbing truth is that these monsters don’t fit into a comfortable explanation. They’re a mystery, an unknown eldritch force that has exploded from beyond Cragscleft mountains.
Once you’re out of the frying pan of the sewer complex and into the devastated City, you need to find food supplies for your journey to Markham’s Isle, a place Garrett is betting will be safe, and then make your way to the docks. You will pass through ruined buildings – homes and shops both.
Journals relate the final days of normal life in the City. The weight of the desolation pressed heavy on me – DrK uses ruined textures, a gloomy sky, and a depressing set of sounds to create a desolate atmosphere. Creature moans in the background enhance a feeling of loneliness. The spooky loop that plays when reading journals is chilling. One of the most important sounds in the mission plays whenever you pick up food supplies. If I were a musician, I could tell you the exact kind of noise it is, but, as the person I am, all I can write here is: it’s a dramatic noise that makes you feel that the item you have just picked up is precious. On my first playthrough back in 2012, I paused each time I got a food item. I still do. The noise signals that it’s an important event, worthy of a moment of silence. Every bit of the atmosphere creates a feel of desolation, bare survival, loneliness, and abandonment. You feel scared and left behind. DrK did a phenomenal job with this.
Inline Image:
https://thiefdiaries.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/better-tomorrow-screenshot-2.png?w=1024A few scripted events are implemented to make you cry like a baby and even possibly have an accident like a baby. One shop throws a moving statue trick at you. In one home you’ll hear a slight snoring sound, and soon hear a door bust open and see the source; your way of entrance now blocked, you slink, terrified, out an air duct in one of the other rooms, creeping under the gaze of the now-woken interloper and praying that it doesn’t notice you. When in the Mechanist library, a creature bursts through the front door, jarring you similarly. These well-paced scripted moments keep you unsettled and prevent the tense atmosphere from stagnating.
The Mechanist library is its own world, separate from the rest of the mission. An air raid siren plays, conjuring in my mind all kinds of associations with bombed cities, wars, panic and doom. It’s the kind of crying that makes one feel all is lost, so appropriately here Garrett mutters to himself “I guess I really am the last man standing.” He has seen the dead body of another holdout, the person who had the key to the docks. You hear this victim’s final cries for help as you enter the library. When I heard the creature burst through the door, as noted above, I was ready to bolt this town and leave it far behind. One can only take so much.
Inline Image:
https://thiefdiaries.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/better-tomorrow-screenshot-3.png?w=1024I hope Garrett is right about Markham’s Isle. What if he gets there and, no sooner setting foot on land, hears the sounds of one of those terrible creatures? What if no place is safe from them? What if Garrett is the last man standing, period? Until he reaches the isle, though, all Garrett can do is hope for a better tomorrow, which is all any of us could do in such a situation. Sadly, tomorrow never comes, remaining an elusive time we can keep putting all our hope and plans into, never worrying that they won’t come to fruition, because it’s always the next day.
Don’t put off
A Better Tomorrow to tomorrow – play it today. Whatever else you were planning to do can wait.