General Fan Mission Review And Discussion Megathread

nickie on 18/6/2017 at 18:41

You're probably right. But although the sun has now decided to shine, it's only going to do it for 2 days out of 10 instead of the 6 it was supposed to, so grumpiness is just round the corner and I'm longing to take my irritation out on someone. :mad:

;)

The Dark One on 19/6/2017 at 07:16

I know that House in Blackbog Hollow was next in release order, but I have my reasons. For example: It's better than this one.

Dead Drunk is a rather short, atypical mission. Not-Garrett gets drunk and wakes up in a crypt, dumped there by his friends who are much better at sneaking than he is, considering how they were able to get him into the depths of a skeleton filled crypt without alerting said skeletons. Now, you have to escape.

The main problem with this mission is that it’s deeply repetitive. Sure the crypt looks creepy, but after like ten minutes of the same environment it goes from “Woooooo~” to “Oooooooooh (get me out of here)” There’s a break in the pattern at one point, and it’s certainly fits stumpy’s sense of humor, and perhaps the complaint doesn’t matter with such a short mission, but it does wear a bit. A more serious issue is the fact that if you miss a key near the beginning, you can’t complete the level, which to me feels irritating. The is a visual clue to the key, but it still feels too missable. The loot goal is fair, with the loot being easy to find.

All in all, this is a little bit disappointing. I expected a tad more from stumpy, who I’d marked as uneven but creative. This is a decent time water, but not much more than that.

Notice: It was brought to my attention after writing this review that this mission was made for a Halloween speed build contest of sorts. I don't think it changes my overall recommendation (or lack thereof), but it is worth noting.

The Dark One on 23/6/2017 at 03:03

These reviews are coming so fast! But I’m getting ahead on my played/reviewed ratio, so it’s a necessity.

House in Blackbog Hollow (or just Blackbog Hollow according to the title card), is stumpy’s best mission, really. This time, Not-Garratt sets out to swipe some ancient treasure, only to find that someone else has beaten him to it and left an convenient note stating that they’ve fled into a nearby house. Entry is swift, and leads Not-Garrett into a dining room. Where he witnesses a man get killed by a jack-o-lantern. It’s that kind of mission.

The main goal is to escape the house, which requires you to track all over it, searching for more murder pumpkins. It’s oddly difficult, as while the house is small and easy to navigate, there are spiders lurking around, and I swear stumpy made them tougher than your garden variety spider. Sword combat is suicide, and you don’t have enough arrows to kill them all. It adds to the challenge though, I’ll admit. Loot-wise it’s easy enough, since most of the loot is in the open, even if the goals are high. However, it commits the same sin as Illusionist's Tower, in that you can reach the end of the mission without enough loot, and unlike the previous you can’t just start over again, so savescummers will have issues.

The mission does a pretty good job with it’s horror. It’s not “get me my brown pants” level, but considering how the mission presents itself as a cheesy B-horror at worst, there are some mild chilling moments, such as the note in the office on the second floor. It’s well-done, along with the somewhat surreal humor. The way you end up resolving the mess is worth a chuckle, though I have to admit the final sequence is a bit obtuse, as you don’t really have to follow instructions, from what I could tell. The fact that AI got stuck on my second playthrough probably didn’t help however.

All in all, a fun Halloween mission. There are a few flaws, but on the whole I think it’s definitely worth a look. Recommended.

The Dark One on 29/6/2017 at 04:23

One Step Too Far (by Dragofer, as is the next mission reviewed) is certainly interesting.

This time, Not-Garrett is a thief on the run, resulting in him taking a position on a ship bound more barren parts of the New World...or the or so the captain claims. The large blocks of ice indicate that the ship might have gone off-course, forcing our hero to investigate.

This is an atypical mission here, with more of an overt horror element filling everything. The ship is crammed and isolation and claustrophobia fills the ship. The second part of the mission has a really good moment of tension, though the means of escape is slightly wonky. This atmosphere is the best part about the mission, and insures that you'll be unsettled for the majority of your playtime.

This same claustrophobia, however, also results in a fair amount of irritation in places. The small size seems to fluster the AI, and weird behaviors tend to crop up as a result. I crawled right in front of the chef without him noticing me, for example. The first-mate's room is an absolute pain to to get into, requiring split-second timing and melding yourself into the wall, along with dealing with a captain who keeps wandering in and out. The whole room needed like another foot or so on it. It's also worth noting that the ending, after all the buildup, the mission just suddenly ends at a moment of high suspense.

Still, this is a very well-done mission. Atypical, but very good, with excellent ambient horror.. Unlike some of the previous missions I've looked at,, the loot goals are optional, ensuring that the player doesn't get stuck at the end, and giving those who like crawling around and searching a little bonus. One of these days I'll figure out why I can only do short reviews for missions I like a lot, but for now, I'll have to say this is Recommended.

twhalen2600 on 1/7/2017 at 01:49

I've started a "Thief Diaries" project continuing what I did with another project of mine, "Evangelizing Thief" (linked to in the stickied "Thief FM Info Links" thread).

I'm putting each entry at thiefdiaries.com. The blog's in rough form - I'm new to blogging and am using WordPress.com, still messing around with themes and such. If you want to check it out, feel free, but I'm also going to post each writeup here. (My Thief Diaries blog includes my gameplay recordings of each mission as well.)

My first is for Gathering at the Inn. I'm starting with well-known missions but will also dive into the obscure as I go.

The Circle of Stone and Shadow: Gathering at the Inn (Thief II, 2003), by Team CoSaS

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Most of the highly active, highly talented contributors from the early days of Thief II FMs were involved in this one. Gathering at the Inn is a delectable treat. Not massive it is still ingenious. It contains a small building - the inn - with a small cityscape surrounding it. It has superb gameplay and level design, clever ideas and puzzles, original and excellent ambient noises and voice acting, solid story and subtle humor, and much replay value. Along with such FMs as The Inverted Manse and Calendra's Legacy, this is an early-era classic.

In Gathering at the Inn you play as Dante, one of the thief characters from the greater “Circle of Stone and Shadow” fiction. He is on a trial run for Lord Nightfall, the warden he's recently signed with, and the objective is to steal a bunch of scepters from members of a scepter owner's club who are each staying at the “Grieving Burrick” inn. The main goal is a fire mage's scepter but to disguise the theft of this one item all the scepters, six in total, are to be stolen. Dante must also pick up some loot and, on the highest difficulty, avoid harming anyone but the guards. (Using a blackjack is harmful.)

Gathering begins like the best Thief missions do: by establishing an atmosphere that sucks you in. After a moody, Thief-y intro cut scene you begin in a pleasant, snow-laden cityscape with complementary ambient sound and a monologue from player-character Dante. Depending on the turns you take you will soon overhear a guard conversation, voiced by the excellent Loanstar, which references the bear pits dialogue. All this lets you know you are in for a treat.

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The mission never lets down from the initial good impression. When you've entered the inn from above or below, a new catchy ambient track plays and you discover an intricate world of backstory, readables, and puzzles. While navigating all this, you also have to duck past guards in tight little hallways. It's a challenging mission.

The objectives task you not just to steal the six scepters but also to tamper with four of the guest's businesses (Master Nightfall is pulling strings). One of the guests, Lady Verrilli, is a sculptor who sells ice sculptures as crystal ones. You have to find a way to ruin her reputation. Then there's a politician, Lord Pearsall, who must be made so as to not give a speech the next day. And there are a couple of business bigwigs. Foiling them involves swapping a couple documents, replacing an ice pick with a fire wand, and using a handkerchief and a baby burrick in combination (don't ask) to make someone sick. For all the details you may consult an online walkthrough - here I'll leave it at: this is a very clever bit of puzzles and scripting. Gathering is in the class of missions that task the player with using atypical items to complete objectives.

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To navigate the hotel there is a chimney system that transports you between a few of the rooms. This gives you a backway alternative to the hallways. Getting through the hallways is difficult given the guard presence but if you're not ghosting you may blackjack them. You may also turn off the power in the basement connected to the electrical lights. This is where one of the more ingenious elements of the mission comes into play. One of the guards and, apparently, a power expert, will turn the generators back on each time you turn them off.

Okay. Easy - knock him out! But here's the catch: his head is wounded and bandaged up. So if you use the blackjack on him, he dies. Not killing guards is optional, but it still may rest on your conscience. If you want to conveniently turn off the power you have to kill someone.

Now, you can't knockout the hotel staff. So why didn't the authors make this guy a staff member? Then you would have to avoid knocking him out and no head injury rigmarole would have been needed. But the hotel staff are apathetic to thieves. So this guy had to care about you - else he'd let you keep the power off. So his head is injured.

You wouldn't want to hurt him, anyway: each time you turn the power off he says “Holy crap!” so that you can hear him wherever you are, he mutters a reference to a line from Ultima Underworld, and he wonders aloud about his application to a power plant and a Mechanist physical he recently took. I love this guy!

(Speaking of an Underworld reference, names of the hotel guests, listed four paragraphs up, reference Looking Glass staff members. I'm sure there are more references I didn't pick up on.)

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Back stories told through narrative caches are an important element of any Thief mission and in Gathering one set of readables is very memorable: a journal in the attic and another in the dining area of the inn that go in tandem. The former is of a man and the latter of a woman describing a wedding that involves burricks and a snake. Read them for a hilarious backstory.

Once you've completed all the tasks and enjoyed the humor of the inn's staff and guests, you'll be back out on the streets to meet Sheam, another member of the circle who is voiced by the excellent Wynne. The mission ends and is followed by another well-done Thief-y cutscene that makes you want more - and more would come in 2008 with Mission X. That'll be another entry. For now I leave you with these words: if you want an ingenious and humorous Thief mission Gathering at the Inn is one of the best.

The Dark One on 2/7/2017 at 05:20

For the record, this isn’t a pure sequel to One Step Too Far, but it is set in the same universe.

Down by the Riverside feels like a much improved version of it’s predecessor, keeping most of the strengths while excising the weaknesses. This time, Not-Garrett stows away on a pirate ship to make off with some of the loot from an upcoming raid on an isolated and deserted mansion. However, most of the loot is long gone, but some odd footsteps lead our hero into an isolated room where….spoilers happen.

The mission is a solid one all around, greatly improving on it’s predecessor. The atmosphere of isolation and horror is well-handled, even though a few places show pity on you and have people running around. These times are brief however, and the general isolation continues. The graphics are good, with the best being the elegant but run-down mansion that the mission begins in. The horror is, as said, quite well done, with the final sequence leaving me on edge. The story is also well done, with the player at least having an understanding of what happened, if not why or how in all cases.

Difficulty-wise, it’s a bit fairer than it’s predecessor, but more difficult, if that makes sense. On the one hand, you don’t have to worry about creeping through too small spaces, but there are plenty of guards everywhere. Special mention goes to the location before the finale, which requires you to creep through a ship’s hold with metal floors and guards choking you every which way. It’s one of the few areas in The Dark Mod that I’ve actually felt like using a moss arrow. Admittedly, it’s easier on lower difficulties, from what I understand. Thankfully, the loot goals are optional, considering how well--hidden some of it is.

It’s worth noting that the mission has been updated since its first release, tweaking a few glitches and getting rid of those dang electrocuting lamps that used to be there. The creator also was kind enough to better highlight some loot in the church, but I wish he had done the same for a stash of loot in the previous part of the mission, which in my opinion was far harder to find.

All in all, this is a worthy successor to One Step Too Far, and is Recommended.

The Dark One on 5/7/2017 at 07:25

Note: This mission was done by Airship Ballet and kyrrma.

Exhumed places our noble hero in the role of an agent for the Church sent to the freezing edge of the world to reclaim an artifact from a long abandoned chapel, and cleanse the evil that infests it. Like the previous two missions I’ve looked at, this is more of a horror mission that a normal Dark Mod mission. The environment is appropriately desolate, and the chapel is confined and creepy, with the only gripe I have being the mismatched gate leading out.

The mission does a good job with horror, slowly building it up from minor scares to a burst of bloody horror. This gradual ascension is well down, and other authors should take note of it. I do have a bone or two to pick with events (such as why putting a skull in a fountain opens a secret passage), but the whole experience is so well-done that I’ll give it a pass. The mission is well-paced, not trying to drag out the tension any longer than it has too.

Also, booby traps, more of those please, I enjoy them more than I should.

All in all, this is a very good and creepy mission. Recommended.

twhalen2600 on 8/7/2017 at 16:34

Ranstall Keep, Thief and Thief 2 FM (both 2000) by Alex "Jyre/Dashjianta" Thomson

Black and white is an effective style for Thief missions. Part of the game's inspiration is noir film, after all. Jyre's Ranstall Keep is a creepy mission done in noir, and it works. The setup is suspenseful and you're drawn in immediately. As I wrote in the last entry, this is how every Thief mission should start: set the mood and draw the player in through atmosphere - let things soak in.

Ranstall was uploaded for both Thief and Thief II within a few months and is the first mission to feature a female protagonist.* It's a great horror FM and an early-era classic. It's also the first Thief FM I played (I had watched others being played before, but this is the first I played myself).

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Ranstall has an excellent setup: You are in a small town where citizens begin disappearing one by one until you are the only one left. How does that not entice you? Once the briefing video ended and I heard footsteps, I was even more drawn in. Who...what was making those footstep noises?

You find out that it's monsters - cloaked creatures carrying swords who make the same sounds as Thief's spiders. These things hold you in check as you explore the town. Exploring the town is your first goal, but you're not getting anywhere without lock-picks.

That leads to my first knock against this mission: in order to progress, you have to break glass. I always feel uncomfortable busting the window on the roof of the weapons store, but it's unavoidable. Beforehand I knock out the monster standing nearby. I don't like any of this, and it sours Ranstall each time I play it. It's not the only area like that either.**

In the town you may explore a Hammerite chapel, an abandoned house referenced in one of the objectives, some other stores and homes, and the town's council chamber.

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The Hammerite Chapel has another area where Jyre forces you to make noise. Entering the abandoned house requires breaking glass, too. In 2000, breaking things was acceptable, but Thief FMs have come a long way since then and in this enlightened era ghosting should be possible. As is, I don't see how one can ghost Ranstall.

Through readables in the town you discover that the spider-noise-making monsters have something to do with the Keep and the lord there. Some town members, who had put the pieces together, dug a tunnel to the Keep. You will eventually take this tunnel yourself to discover some rather disturbing horrors.

When I first played this FM back in the day I didn't pick up on everything I saw in the Keep, but on replays one scene gets to me. There is a caged child in the middle of a dinner table who is walking atop hot embers. These monsters are tormenting a child through imprisonment and forcing him to watch them eat. What they eat is people, as you figure out from the chopped up Hammerite in the kitchen. Poor kid - and how disturbing!

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The cloaked creatures - who you learn are called “hissies” - aren't the worst. They have demon overlords who in-game appear as ghost NPCs. Finding out the kind of creature their lord is becomes an objective. How this objective is completed is weak. It's checked off after you read the following journal entry:

“...Today I heard a most amusing tale. A woman was entertaining the crowds with a tale of the demons. I find it ironic that she makes it a point to highlight the demons' utter destruction. After all, the Lord of the demonic race now lives in this very keep!...”

“Lord of the demonic race” is too generic. It's also too much of a coincidence that a townswoman in this small, isolated town would be speaking of the destruction of this demonic race and that this same race has taken over - or has always lived in - the town's Keep.

To reach this demon lord's quarters you have to use ladders. You use ladders lots in Thief missions, but in Ranstall Keep you pick up and carry a couple ladders and use them to traverse lava to the upper rooms. And you thought Up in the Bonehoard was revolutionary! Carrying ladders is a unique feature of this FM and I think Ranstall is the first to have it.

There is a bizarre area that may have been going for a Sword vibe and also leads to some more clanging around. It's an outdoor scene with a pit and some ledges. On the ledges are some frog-beasts that never attack me. To reach the ledges you ride glass platforms you activate with levers. It sounds like a tap-dance party whenever I jump on these platforms. Even worse is when I reach the end part of this little side area: a large room with concentric, ring-like platforms. I hit each of these ring-platforms hard. For someone who is usually a dedicated ghoster, this segment always feels uncomfortable.

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Getting deeper into the Keep is a lot of fun - it has the vibe you feel when delving deeper into a dungeon and uncovering the truth behind more mysteries. You go from a mysterious, empty town to confronting a ghostly demon lord. As a suspenseful FM Ranstall has been surpassed, but when I first played it the suspense sucked me in. In the context of its time it was a gem.

There are some uncomfortable segments that make you feel like a bumbling oaf trying to wake the dead - and this speaks to the mission's release period: the early, dark days of FM design - but that aside the suspenseful buildup of Ranstall Keep make it an essential horror FM and an early classic. Play it if you haven't.

*The Thief II version. In the Thief version you play as a male, ostensibly Garrett. Note that in the briefing the male guard voice - Benny - is your character talking, so there's an inconsistency in the Thief II version. The briefing should have been updated with a female voice for that one.

**In the Thief version, on expert, there is no monster standing at the gate near the weapons shop nor do you have to smash the glass window up top to get in - it opens. However, I cannot progress further in this mission because I cannot get into the open window! I suspect it to be a NewDark bug. If I could play the Thief original, it may become my preferred version for these reasons. Back in the day I never played this version.

nickie on 8/7/2017 at 17:42

Thank you for the reviews, guys. I'll try and get them added to the OP tomorrow and I'll also try and do something about the missing image in the OP. I've got it saved now so just need to find somewhere to put it.

The Dark One on 9/7/2017 at 06:52

I expected something different from this mission based on the description, honestly.

Thief's Remorse continues the recent trend of atypical missions. This time, our blameless hero is in need of some money for the winter, and slips into a tomb to steal a crown. Things go wrong, and he must now find some quick repentance for his old sins by returning similarly stolen objects while not getting killed in the process.

It’s hard to give details about this mission, since it’s both short and relies pretty heavily on the feeling of not knowing what’s coming next. I will say it does the horror well, making you feel like you’re being tossed around by something much more powerful than you, giving a good feeling of helplessness through the first part of the mission. It’s a short experience, similar to Exhumed, and quite fun. I do think it leans a little on the easy side once you get your bearings, but I’m willing to forgive it.

It should be noted that there are multiple endings to be found, but apparently one didn’t work right for me. My first playthrough made it impossible to get a needed key to move on in the mission, but as far as I can tell I was the only one to experience it.

All in all, a fun little mission that’s better experienced. Recommended.