Twist on 19/1/2022 at 01:18
Great to see you back! I really hope you're doing well and I do look forward to new episodes. :thumb:
BazookaBear on 19/1/2022 at 04:16
Welcome Back Supremcee! Take all the time you need.
Kubrick on 21/1/2022 at 13:20
Hey there! I don't comment much but know I'm a huge fan and am glad to see you doing fine! Love the pod, take all the time in the world!
Supremcee on 22/1/2022 at 22:27
Quote Posted by Twist
Great to see you back! I really hope you're doing well and I
do look forward to new episodes. :thumb:
Quote Posted by BazookaBear
Welcome Back Supremcee! Take all the time you need.
Quote Posted by Kubrick
Hey there! I don't comment much but know I'm a huge fan and am glad to see you doing fine! Love the pod, take all the time in the world!
thank you Taffers so much! I'll take my time but I'm really looking forward to do new episodes!
Supremcee on 25/1/2022 at 20:45
So Taffers any thoughts on "T2OM 9 - Trail of Blood"? please let us know so we can mention them in our next episode on saturday, Thank you!
Aemanyl on 25/1/2022 at 20:55
Here is my review I posted on Klatremus' channel last year:
Since I am a huge fan of "magic and mystery" Dark Project stuff, you could say I am biased in favour of supernatural elements, but I do not think that Trail of Blood is that odd one level breaking the flow of the game. It is not only a nice breath of fresh air after all these cold and lifeless Mechanist or City missions, but it is a logical continuation of the main storyline. It explains the relationship between Mechanists and Pagans, showing the ruthlessness of the former. The pagan village contains both human (patrolling Mechanists) and supernatural (ghosts) elements, while only the Maw is completely supernatural. So I would say you get a nice mix of both.
The atmosphere is superb. I can't even remember how many times I've listened to that hypnotising Trail of Blood soundtrack theme, which starts when you approach the Pagan village for the first time. You can feel a sense of tragedy in the air, even Garrett pities the slaughtered Pagans. Listening to the ghosts talking to each other is bone-chilling. Reading these bits and pieces of correspondence makes you feel like a detective uncovering some mystery. There is a great variety of design. Yes, the mission is linear, but the conceptual and visual variety of areas you pass through keeps you entertained.
While there is a great variety of design, some areas are underdeveloped. For instance, the seasonal differences in the apebeast village are minimal and barely noticeable until you get to the icicles. Same goes for the final grove with the treebeasts. These sections could be much bigger and more interesting.
Snake on 26/1/2022 at 15:29
I think I mostly share the views of Aemanyl as well.
Trail of Blood is really the only Dark Project-esque mission in Thief 2 which is a shame. It contains some supernatural elements and surreal atmosphere which is otherwise sorely absent from Thief 2. The use of ghosts and environmental storytelling is well executed and it is one of the more emotionally resonant missions across the entire series.
Unfortunately I think the mission suffers from the same fate as many of the Thief 2 missions in that it appears to be rushed, with many empty spaces and lack of details. I assume the designers probably had some great concepts but they weren’t fully implemented and it leaves us with a fairly linear and at times uninteresting landscape to explore. The tree beasts are a very nice addition and I still remember the jump scare I got when they first wake up. But these types of additions are few and far between. Nonetheless I think Trail of Blood is an above average mission overall.
Where Trail of Blood excels is in atmosphere and it serves as a key turning point in the plot, preceding one of the best cutscenes in the series and introducing a familiar foe/ally. It also sets up a strong portion of the game with LotP and some other good missions following this.
klatremus on 26/1/2022 at 23:27
I echo the last two posts, and I think I mostly alluded to similar thoughts when discussing this mission in my let's play. The mission is made better by being so different from the rest of the game, while in reality it isn't more than average. The atmosphere and implementation of the mystical elements are its strong points; empty areas and linearity are its weaknesses.
intruder on 27/1/2022 at 10:00
To add my thoughts:
as someone who played the Thief games out of order (I started with Thief 2 right around Christmas in 2000), the mission was a huge surprise (a positive one, though).
While playing TMA for the first time, I got accustomed to navigating (and "exploiting") city streets, roof tops, manors etc. pretty fast.
Trail of Blood on the other hand threw me into a completely different environment.
Especially the latter part down in Viktoria's maw got me by surprise.
I really did feel like Garrett mentioned in the missions briefing: "Where am I?"
Galaer on 27/1/2022 at 21:10
First of all, I apologize for long comment.
I am one of the people that don't like too much this mission. Gameplaywise it plays fine. I have no problem with linearity as it allows to shows story in certain order. I also like ambient music in village and treebeasts forest. But atmosphere made here just doesn't work for me.
I don't like these flashbacks showing me what happened with Pagans. They just look funny to me rather than tragic. I always thought that these scenes are parody of scenes from movies. I would prefer if these scenes didn't show up. In previous mission there was guy killed by Mechanists in house near cemetery and looking his lone corpse I felt sorry for him. But I can't feel the same about Pagans. There is scene with Pagan girl asking Garrett to take her doll with him. It may be cute, but I can't be serious listening to it. This sounds like another joke for me. In the next mission there is no Dewdrop in Garrett's inventory, so I guess after meeting with Victoria, Garrett immediately threw away doll.
In one random house Garrett mentions this line "These people didn't have any chance against Mechanists" despite the fact that one of first corpses belongs exactly to Mechanist. These harmless people somehow managed to kill him. So they aren't that harmless after all.
One of scenes shows Pagan talking to scarecrow about escape, so I guess they aren't too smart. This makes a question: why Victoria decided to cooperate with them? It doesn't look like she profits from that. For contacts with Moseley she could use these shapeshifting ratmen from Thief 1. This makes me think that Pagan faction has only been created for purpose of showing Pagans village extermination.
Speaking about attack on the village, why has it happened? Karras is gonna release rust gas and wipe out everyone in just couple of days, so why does he attack this village? And how did Mechanists found this village anyway? They were too scared to enter cemetery in previous mission, so I doubt they know about portal. Also did wounded Pagan was seriously running away during Mechanists attack? He also needed to look for ruby eyes to enter Maw. That's a lot of work for heavily wounded person.
Entrance area in Maw looks scary, so I got a really goods vibes. 3 red lines on wall reminds me Quake 3 logo. Also on the ground is another Mechanist's corpse. How did he die? But the whole charm of this place vanish when I visit very first line of defense of new Maw. Here is big group of eyeball plants together with rats. Eyeball plants just stare at you, they are weird and very funny looking. Rats are also no problem, but why are they here? And there is nearby another corpse of Mechanist nearby. So looks like these plants and rats somehow managed to kill Mechanist. Sigh... This just doesn't make any sense.
Then are apebeasts and they also just look funny. I can't get scary because of how do they look. I would prefer ratmen from previous game. And before anyone will say that they are called apebeasts in Dromed and it was due to LGS mistake they looked nowhere near like monkeys, I'm gonna tell that I'm glad that LGS made this mistake in Thief 1. Monkeys just look very anticlimactic. No wonder they never returned in Thief 3, instead we got proper ratman.
Seasonal villages just look cool, but doesn't add anything other than these comical monkeys. Treebeasts area is very underutilized. While ambient music is great, it's possible to miss treebeasts if you just run through center of this area. I only learned about existence of treebeasts from FMs and when I learned they are from this mission, I returned to this area and finally found them. So previously I managed to not notice these very dangerous enemies. And that's this mission's fault.
So my way of playing this mission is to just play it and beat it and not look very closely into what's going on in it as it just doesn't make any sense. Maw of Chaos was one of my favorite missions in Thief 1. Seeing how new Maw is filled with funny looking enemies is just painful to watch