Galaer on 23/11/2023 at 07:20
Sabotage at Soulforge is one of my least favorite levels in game. On one side there are Karras speeches, which are great and my favorite is about building yourself a house. But on the other hand there is slow process of creation guiding beacon. It takes most of the mission. On my first playthrough I had problems with spawning stage pieces after using other parts and I was forced to reload older saves, so in next playthroughs I always fear that something is going to screw up again. Second part of mission is going after signal towers, which are pretty much obstacle courses for Garrett. They don't feel like they were made for factory purposes and they feel artificial. This breaks immersion for me.
vfig on 23/11/2023 at 10:46
Soulforge has i think the strongest thematic and dramatic underpinnings of all the original thief missions. The cathedral is now a foretaste of Karras's planned hell on earth: entirely stone and metal, without a single living plant, or creature, or human in it—except Karras himself. the only movement is from the machines, and the robots, and what remains of his followers after murdering and servant-ifying them.
then Viktoria arrives: trying to sabotage the machines with plant growth; aware that its probably hopeless, but doing it anyway because theres no time left and no other options. Karras must be fought even if its a fool's errand.
and Garrett—having rejected Viktoria's plan as doomed and suicidal—as indeed it is—turns up at last, whether out of shame at his cowardice or an infatuation with Viktoria is never quite resolved. but he turns up too late, only in time to see Viktoria's failure, and her desperate self-immolation that sends vines threading out through the halls and ducts of the cathedral—but still much too little: even Viktoria was not plant enough.
How can a victory possibly be wrought out of this? only by using Karras's own tools against him. even as Karras berates you for being “a man of destruction, not construction”, you are constructing the guiding beacon that will draw back the servants, using karras's own blueprints and the same machines that built all these robots.
its an absolutely fantastic mission concept, and this first half of it is really good. far more robots than you have encountered before, more than you can dispatch with water arrows or even mines. though never forced to ghost, you really have to lean on stealth and avoidance as you locate the plans, the parts, and the several machines you need to make the beacon. and then you slot it in, switch it on, and...
...and now the bad half of the mission starts. now you leave the cathedral proper, and have to navigate a set of arbitrarily arranged, highly videogamey gauntlets to reach the signal towers. there is a lot of fun to be had in these spaced (and i am especially fond of the turret room), but the momentum of the narrative has dissipated; the areas feel like abstract challenges with no real connection or meaning—and youve probably been in this mission for two hours already, and it just goes on and on. it doesnt entirely replace your triumph with tedium, but it sure tries.
at least the ending cutscene is really awesome!
LordBooford on 25/11/2023 at 09:34
I pretty much hated the mission when I first played it in 2000, but in retrospect it feels closer in mood and gameplay to a System Shock 2 mission than a Thief mission. So now I enjoy the oppressive mood and the sneaking and manufacturing items element since I also enjoy System Shock 2. But I get the mood to actually play the mission about once every few years to be honest, it's just so daunting a prospect.
vfig on 26/11/2023 at 12:45
come to think of it, maybe the hellish slog of the second half of soulforge is the purgatory garrett deserves for refusing to help viktoria before it was too late. maybe the soul that is being forged is his own, hammering in just a little humility and repentance...
mxleader on 27/11/2023 at 00:06
The biggest problem with Sabotage at Soulforge is it's immense map size. I get that factory style missions make sense to be somewhat large but the scale was to the point that you'd lose momentum, and some of the thrill, by just shuffling back and forth through areas.
Kubrick on 28/11/2023 at 01:02
I'll confess I'm not even sure I ever reached the end of it. In my mind the final mission of The Metal Age has been replaced by The Builder's Paradise.
Kamlorn on 28/11/2023 at 15:06
Quote Posted by Kubrick
I'll confess I'm not even sure I ever reached the end of it. In my mind the final mission of The Metal Age has been replaced by The Builder's Paradise.
+
Lord Taffer on 28/11/2023 at 18:18
It's been about six or seven years since I last time finished T1 and T2, so my opinions about OMs might be a bit different today than what they were back then. Since then I've started DromEding myself and played quite a lot of FMs, so those things have somewhat changed the way I experience and feel about FMs/OMs.
From what I recall I did like Sabotage at Soulforge a lot. It felt like a final challenge, against all those robots and Karras himself. I really liked Karras speaking to Garrett, it intensified the tension and made me visualize Karras desperately trying to locate Garrett and kill him.
Back then, when I finished this OM, I liked the huge size of Soulforge with all the machines and different areas. Karras is a megalomaniac and Soulforge is the greatest structure he built, so it ought to be huge. I used to think Karras was a bit like some Bond film villain with his mad visions.
downwinder on 28/11/2023 at 20:24
after decades of fan missions, not sure why om's are a talking point, besides the lore, the levels themselves are no match to fan missions
my view is get back to fan missions with authors :)
Supremcee on 28/11/2023 at 20:29
Quote Posted by downwinder
after decades of fan missions, not sure why om's are a talking point, besides the lore, the levels themselves are no match to fan missions
my view is get back to fan missions with authors :)
looking at how many comments we got here, on YT, our Discord Channel etc. - they seem to be a talking point