Did anyone get an impression of creative burnout at the end of The Black Parade?

FireMage on 1/12/2025 at 21:20

Indeed, a weird manoeuvre to copy / paste a comment from TBP release thread as its own thread.

It won't give you further elements, I fear

Garrett731 on 1/12/2025 at 21:24

Quote Posted by FireMage

Indeed, a weird manoeuvre to copy / paste a comment from TBP release thread as its own thread.

It won't give you further elements, I fear

To be fair, I did openly state in the TBP release thread it had already been copied/pasted; it wasn't intended to be a manoeuvre. Still, since you felt it wasn't helpful, I deleted it from there.

Aemanyl on 1/12/2025 at 21:27

Quote Posted by Basso The Boxman

To create a thread to complain about TBP is ridiculous. Why don't you actually ask the authors if they want your criticism? There are plenty of missions I don't like. I don't go around creating threads complaining about them. I didn't like the mission you recently released but you don't see me complain about it here do you? Not sure you would love it if someone created a thread just to complain about your mission

Garrett's original post, while certainly critical, remained respectful in its tone and his subsequent replies prove that too. I think it is clear from his words that he still really appreciates the campaign and would simply like to understand the deeper reasons why the last levels weren't that good. It's not just complaining for the sake of it. Basso, you are entitled to your opinion about TBP and I respect your love for it, but it seems like you feel too emotional about this topic. The developers can answer Garrett's questions if they want to, that's it.

As for my own mission, you are welcome to create such thread. I find criticism very helpful, even if it's not constructive and instead more scathing or emotional. I am genuinely interested in players' reactions, positive or negative, as this helps me improve.

mungomango on 1/12/2025 at 23:41

I don't think Garrett's post showed anything else other than curiosity myself - there were no hysterics involved at all. To me Black Parade was fantastic and I can't remember if I felt a little deflated by the last missions or not, but if the quality of the missions did dip, it really comes as no surprise due to the obvious amount of time, sweat and tears that went into that epic fm! The creators must have been feeling burnt out, or else they a machines!

By the way Garrett731 what was your mission called? I'm wondering if I've played it, and if not then I'd like to give it whirl please.

thehardyboyz on 1/12/2025 at 23:54

This thread doesn't seem irrespecful to me, looks like an invitation to debate politely.

On a personal aspect, as you can read in my full detailed review on TBP's dedicated thread, I consider the last mission as a pretty bad one. Not gonna lie, I had absolutely zero fun playing it and went through running to get rid of it, even if I usually play full ghost. If I remember correctly, I think I even finished it from DromEd to cheat ahah.

However, even after saying this, I still think it was the most logical way to end this campaign, and to go further, I'm not even sure a Thief campaign can have an exciting ending. A last level in a game is supposed to bring the climax to the maximum, bringing every concepts it developed to the table and push them as far as possible. And it just doesn't apply to Thief, which is a stealth game, not an action one. TG and T2 have very bad endings (and campaigns are far from being as consistently strong as TBP!), Dishonored has an absolutely awful final level, and it doesn't prevent these games to be true masterpieces. And it is the same for TBP, which is to me the ultimate Thief experience on every aspects, close to perfection on most of its features, despite it's oof ending. :)

About Arcane Sanctum, pretty fun to read these comments as it is to me one of the best parts of the campaign, tied closely with the Keeper one in my opinion !

Anyway, I think it's ok to say something negative about TBP, as long as it's respectful as this post is. Btw I don't think even one person would say it's not an amazing campaign overall made for our favourite game, and I'd like to thank you guys for that once again. Not only you gave me so much fun, but I think you also changed the FM community for ever with what you implemented through your ideas and gamesys, TBP is the biggest evolution in Thief since NewDark for sure. :D

chk772 on 2/12/2025 at 08:18

The one mission I feel like isn't up to par with the rest of the missions is the last one. It's pretty boring, to be honest. The other ones are really good. Although I would argue that the first one isn't that great either, and, the second one suffers from the lack of navigate- and explorability on the upper floors.

I don't understand the religious and defensive attitude some people show regarding this campaign, by the way. As if some people can't handle different opinions. A common theme these days, I must say. Always reminds me of kindergarten.

FigKnight on 2/12/2025 at 09:56

I was satisfied with the ninth mission of the campaign, but I agree the final mission is a bit weaker than the rest. That's hardly surprising, though, it's practically tradition for these games.

marbleman on 2/12/2025 at 10:46

Quote Posted by Garrett731

I'm hoping there's an official update or re-collaboration in the future

The main thing we would like to fix about TBP is a softlock in mission 8 where the harp strings aren't frobbable for some people, but we don't know what causes it. If we ever figured it out, it'd warrant a patch, and we'd fix a few other things as well, such as adding a better safeguard for mission 9's Iarodo sequence to prevent guards from getting locked outside. There are, however, no plans to remake any mission as we would much rather work on new projects. Thanks for your understanding.

ValmontPhl on 2/12/2025 at 11:11

I got a similar impression but wouldn't call it *creative* burnout. It seems obvious to me that the team wanted to get it out and move on.
The BP teaser vid on (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKVSyGvSQR8) youtube was published 9 April 2016 and the campaign was released 30 Nov 2023 after multiple engine updates and prob some team changes/skirmishes; I think they were just over it and wanted to be done.

I have no problem with that. Thank you all so much for all those years work on one project!

PS. 10 missions in ~8 years is a high frequency of output for any author regardless of size or story arcs, in my opinion.

PPS. I just checked AngelLoader and my last runthru of BP was over 21 hours so no complaints from me :D

Garrett731 on 2/12/2025 at 14:14

Quote Posted by marbleman

Thanks so much for getting back to me, and I sincerely appreciate your need to move on and work on new artistic projects.

I think it's tragic that there are no plans to improve or remake any of the missions, as what you collectively produced is possibly the best stealth simulation campaign of all time. There was so much untouched creative potential with the magic and trans-dimensional themes of the last two missions: creating lootable items out of gold transmutation tables, astrological textures, elemental guardians/sentinels, Lovecraftian voids of shattered architecture and levitational platforms that tested every facet of the player's toolset and cunning, (I could go on). I'm certain that if your team ever came back with renewed creative fire, you'd produce something marvellous.

Like I said, I'd be willing to commission a re-collaboration if I ever came into some funds (not that the petty construct of money has anything to do with creativity) or even offer some of my own ideas for you to use and refine to your own specifications.

Please convey this heartfelt message to other members of The Black Parade team if possible. If you ever want to contact me personally, please let me know, but if it's not to be, you all have my deepest love and respect~

Take care, and may the Builder be with thee in thy work ---[] *