Derspegn on 29/8/2017 at 14:45
Hello Everyone, currently I'm building a fan mission for Thief 2: The Metal Age. The sequel will be a campaign mission with a series of mountainous landscapes. Due to the size of the campaign, I'm considering switching over to an Elder Scrolls title (maybe Skyrim) in order to include more creatures and dynamic effects. I have not played any of the Elder Scrolls titles, merely looked at videos about them.
There is a Thieves Guild in Elder Scrolls, but there are not certain things that I know of (rope arrows, for example) that exist there. I'm wondering if there would be much controversy (or incompatibility) by having two fan missions/mods between two different games. This fan mission will occur before the time of Garrett, when there is no electricity or really sophisticated equipment. The thief will be under a sort of "apprenticeship" by mages whereby he can use spells. If one is in the Thieves Guild, are they excluded from being a novice spellcaster?
I'm interested to hear thoughts about this. All in favor? All opposed? How are the Elder Scrolls mods in comparison to Thief fan missions?
Jeshibu on 29/8/2017 at 15:17
Have you considered (
http://www.thedarkmod.com/main/) The Dark Mod? If you want the Thief mechanics already in place, that seems like a no-brainer. Spells would be very doable in the Doom 3 engine too.
Sulphur on 29/8/2017 at 16:51
TDM is a good suggestion, but I dunno how good it's gonna be for mountains, plus those amazing shadow volumes mean all dynamic lights are gonna cast pitch black shadows, which would be a bit odd on a mountainscape unless the mission was set in a mine or during the night time.
Thief's mechanics in Skyrim aren't gonna be seamless at all, but it's the spirit of the thing that wins, I suppose. We've had several Ultima fan projects on various engines, and those didn't suffer all that much for it.
Nameless Voice on 29/8/2017 at 17:50
You should probably have actually played the games before you consider making mods for them.
The Elder Scrolls' stealth mechanics are fairly limited. Even with heavy modding, you will have a hard time getting it to feel "Thiefy". It has built-in scripting which is reasonably powerful, but doesn't really expose the fundamental parts of the game engine.
Things such as the existence of a thieves/bandit's guild shouldn't matter to you, since I'd assume your mission would be fully self-contained, not a part of the main game world.
icemann on 30/8/2017 at 09:46
The other thing is to examine the level editors provided for said games, before you even begin to think about making mods/content for them.
I've seen people promise the high heavens for FMs done for SS2. Then they try making a room in Dromed, then shortly after complain about it being too hard and then quit. Doing your research is key.
demagogue on 30/8/2017 at 11:47
Skyrim mods are awesome, but not for the gameplay, and definitely not Thief-like gameplay. You'd pick Skyrim for the style, for the setting, for the story-telling, and for really simple scripting kinds of mechanics, gamplay like talking to a guy or grabbing a widget. Nothing even near Thief FMs. You also can't make your own setting (easily) but you can just use its existing world, although that would solidly put the game in the Skyrim world and not Thief world. You may as well do a Minecraft mod before a Skyrim mod.
The Dark Mod is great if you want a Thief-like FM with more effects and eye-candy. And there's a lot more control with the scripts and crazy mechanics. You can make a mountainous-like setting the same way you do for T2. And as for splitting a campaign across T2 and TDM, people have done that many times and it's no problem. I'd say the great majority of people that have TDM installed also have T2 installed, and play FMs for both. (But you can't say the same about T2 and Skyrim.) The editor (Dark Radiant) is also a joy to work with. Anyway, my vote is to split and do a T2 & TDM campaign.
icemann on 30/8/2017 at 14:43
If you want incredible freedom (to a point) and ability to do it within a shorter time frame, do it in the Doom 1/2 engine. Preferably ZDoom or GZDoom. Compared to the standard Doom engine it has full support for scripting (which was carried over from Strife), hub-levels (brought over from Hexen/Strife) and inventory systems (Heretic, Hexen, Strife), also the ability to have enemies / npcs with completely new behaviors. Some damn fine efforts by modders over the decades in what they've been able to do for a game released in 94.
Renault on 30/8/2017 at 14:51
Maybe I'm wrong, but using any kind of Doom engine sounds like a terrible option for a Thief themed mission. The engine isn't even true 3D, is it?
Quote Posted by demagogue
And as for splitting a campaign across T2 and TDM, people have done that many times and it's no problem.
I don't doubt it, but who would that have been? I can't think of anything.
TDM does sound like a great option for the OP's project though, you'd have all the mechanics, tools, and assets you'd need, plus an awesome level editor.
Derspegn on 30/8/2017 at 15:01
I won't rule the Dark Mod out, but when I played it previously I felt boxed-in by limitations. For instance, I only heard one ambient music track for all the FMs I played, so I'm not sure that can be modified. And being a mod for Doom 3, a game with mutants, I was surprised to see none of the creatures from the Thief series, only a stationary horse. Personally, I don't like the mod because it puts me into a bad mood when I play it. I'm grumpy enough to begin with! Thief 2 has a great balance of environmental settings, whereas IMHO the Dark Mod is all "doom and gloom". If Thief 2 had more creatures I would consider completing the campaign with it. In the TDM FM "St. Alberic's Curse" I saw some impressive land features and hammer haunts. But I have yet to see any real spellcasting. If the scripts are indeed variable and I can actually change the ambient music, it may be a good alternative. I've looked at Dark Radiant tutorial as well.
There was one Skyrim video where the player AI was creeping about in a forest. I saw some potential there, but perhaps the game is really quite different from Thief. I was impressed by the number of monsters and undead spellcasters.
Sulphur on 30/8/2017 at 17:05
Well, if you haven't actually played Skyrim, it's probably best that you do that first. It's enormously different from Thief, and like most built-for-multiple-approaches RPGs, there's no one thing it does particularly well, and its stealth is particularly uninspired. Thief's laser focus on mechanics simply won't be there unless you can overhaul the way the gameplay works, and that is most probably not possible via the Creation Kit, at any rate.
If your mission doesn't lean on Thief-y design so much as it requires a sense of place and exploration, I don't see a problem if you're interested in doing a mission in spirit; you're just going to have your work cut out for you. I took a bit of a root around the Creation Kit docs for Skyrim, and you can create your own new worldspace, so it's not necessary to wedge your mission into a pre-existing Skyrim landmass.
