Thirteen1355 on 14/2/2021 at 20:24
Shame I completely forgot to check back my thread, as I see quite a few great replies have been written since I last checked!
Quote Posted by thehardyboyz
Well, maybe my question is stupid, but why didn't you load a previous save, where you were still in the Tower ?
I always keep a few saves of key moments/buildings when playin, just in case I forgot something so I don't have to start all over again
I intentionally only use quicksaves within a level (and make a regular save at the beginning of each level), because I play with a very specific checkpoint system. I quicksave whenever I achieve an objective, or when I am in a 'save room,' which basically encompasses a quiet, dead end room without any enemies and a door you can lock. Through this, I try to keep the challenge and tension up.
Quote Posted by Darkness_Falls
Hopefully you didn't forget the game came out 20 years ago ;) Good luck trying to find any game at that time or before where traversing rooftops was even possible; let alone a big chunk of a mission where you're doing this... and then getting to Angelwatch (another big chunk) after all that. LoTP was truly unique and engaging for the rooftop (thieves highway) adventure aspect alone back then.
The verticality, stealth, freedom of movement, and controls the Thief games had was unheard of in gaming back then, as far as I know. LoTP was a nice change of pace from all the other missions; so, was icing on the cake, in some respects. Thief had many gameplay aspects that weren't done in any other game franchises for more than a decade, which was annoying. It's still annoying that games still can't do stealth very well.
I'm sorry you didn't get to play it in the year 2000, but it's not the mission's fault you didn't :)
That said, I agree about Angelwatch. That always felt a little barren to me, and not as lively as I was hoping for... just a handful of NPCs standing around
Of course. My expectations came solely from the other missions in Thief 2 (love almost every single one of them) and hearsay. I'm used to playing games from 20+ years ago. About 90% of what I play is emulated console games. It honestly felt like LotP went into the direction modern games tend to go into. Size for the sake of size, and a bit more of a linear path. Not labelling these as bad things, but I can at least see they were really ambitious with LotP. Personally, I just feel it suffers a bit from that sentiment.
Quote Posted by downwinder
it was the first time you get to meet the golden child so epic,yes i locked him in the room before i left lol,he is a trouble maker :P
Sadly, I did not get to see him at all. Maybe I'd have felt better about the mission if I had seen him :(
Finally,
Quote Posted by thehardyboyz
As it's been said before on this thread, you have to keep in mind that Life of the Party is an OM.
Every single OM have been far surpassed by FMs in terms of gameplay, level design and technique, which is pretty understandable considering the developers were still trailblazing, had limited time, budget and knowledge.
A lot of things happened between the release of T2.
Authors learned from each other, created a community still active 20 years later which proves how big and committed it is, and shared knowledge.
Some even created NewDark which gave DromEd and FMs a completely new dimension
In addition, FM authors have way more time to invest in their creations. And they have passion. They don't do it for a living, they do it for fun, for the pleasure to share their creations with the other players.
Let's take for example Broken Triad - Its author invested 4 years on it (+1 year for Ominous Bequest)
His work is absolutely great, but do you think he could have done the same if he had 1 month (which is probably more or less what devs had to invest on every OMs) to finish his campaign ?
A lot of FMs' mention the Building Time in the Info file. Lot of them are 6-12 months !
To me, what is amazing with T2 is that it created some foundations.
Then, the community took it to the next level.
Indeed, after playing some masterpieces we have today, OMs seems pretty empty, which is also the case for Life of the Party is you compare it to some Thieves' Highway style FMs which are some of the most amazing of all to me
But you have to keep in mind that without these OMs, no FMs would have ever existed. ;)
I am really interested in trying out some of those fan missions after finishing T2. I follow a lot of hacking/modding communities and while sometimes, real gems are released, I've never heard anyone say a hack/mod was better than the original games they were built off. Hearing this hypes me up hugely!
Starker on 14/2/2021 at 22:04
Quote Posted by Thirteen1355
It honestly felt like LotP went into the direction modern games tend to go into. Size for the sake of size, and a bit more of a linear path.
Of course, you can pretty much just go straight to your target, but what makes LotP great is all the things you can discover when you step aside and explore, all the memorable places and scenes -- the necromancer's spire with the
Necron Book of Ash, the crazy astronomer building a rocket ship (and the fate of his poor servant), the Rothchilds' conversation, the burglary in progress, the greenhouse with the friendly spider... just from the lore and worldbuilding standpoint this is an absolute gem of a mission. And this is just the commute! At the end of the thieves' highway towers a nice big Art Deco/Futurist building where you get to see what mechanists are up to. And it has a few delightful surprises of its own. Did you know you can avoid triggering the alarm for example?
thehardyboyz on 17/2/2021 at 11:34
Quote Posted by klatremus
Dude, if you enjoyed the first 2 thief games, you absolutely have to do yourself a favor and play some fan missions! There are over 1,200 of them and many are very high quality. I have played fan missions continuously since 2001, and even I have only scratched the surface and played 150-200 of them. Look up some best-of threads or reviews and get to it. Ominous Bequest/Broken Triad is as good as anything you'll ever find. So start there.
Strongly agree with that, if you've never played any FM, these two are definitely a great choice to get started. It has everything : Mansion, City, and .. other stuff ;-)
I'll add, if you liked T1/TG as well and want to see what a city mission looks like now, I'd highly recommend "The Sound of a Burrick in a Room" - To me it's the ultimate Thief city experience, and according to what you said about LotP and OMs, I guess you'd love it.
Anyway, you'll find on this forum several threads listing some gems on the dedicated subforum. Enjoy !