T1 FM - Circle of Strain Campaign - Newdark Re-release - 2014-11-27

Ricebug on 28/11/2014 at 21:52

Quote Posted by AntiMatter_16

Just remember that you're walking on TILE which is LOUD, and the guards have VERY good hearing.

Which I've always thought as BOGUS! What thief worth his or her salt leaves the house wearing their tap-dancing shoes?

Dark_Garrett on 29/11/2014 at 02:33

Yeah I didn't remember the guards hearing being that sensitive back then, or maybe I've gotten lazy, either way I broke out the old trusty blackjack. They lost their sensitive hearing while lying unconscious in a dark corner on the floor.:ebil: To note, I just noticed this:

Quote:

Reduced lockpicking time for locks which are not by any AI and Added proper inventory object names to keys, and other objects

That's great! Most missions in the early years had super long lockpicking sequences and it drove me nuts! Or unnecessary lockpicking, like 5 minutes picking the vault door, then 5 more minutes picking a grate inside the vault, then once inside you have to pick the 5 chest each open!:tsktsk: I remember one mission where lockpicking something took so long I would put a book on the mouse button to keep it picking and then went to the kitchen to get a snack... And naming stuff was the best thing authors started doing!(among other things) Nothing worse then going through 20 red keys on a door, to find the one you just picked up, hoping this is the right door to begin with, all while a guard is walking toward you. I just noticed the thread on AM16's Thief 2 tweaking, WOW! So once again thanks for all the hours you put in!

<Username> on 4/10/2020 at 08:11

AntiMatter_16‘s update to all three Circle of Strain missions gave me an excellent reason to revisit them. I last played these in December 2007 and January 2008, a long time ago. My memory was strongest when it came to the second mission: I remembered emerging from a dark cave into daylight above the inner courtyard of Lord Jacob‘s mansion. Apart from that, my memory of the missions was hazy at best. Judging by my notes from 13 years ago, I enjoyed this second playthrough in 2020 a bit more: I now gave all three mission a very solid 7/10. My previous ratings ranged between 5/10 and 7/10. This campaign has the build quality of the better missions from the original game and is well worth checking out.

Circle of Strain 1
Completed on October 3, 2020
The build quality is high, especially for a mission this old. It is a smallish daylight breaking and entering, but very enjoyable. The room with the Serpentile Torc was especially impressive: As the final area, it was more challenging than the rest of the rooms and felt like a proper end. While Circle of Strain 1 generally has no real flaws, it has been surpassed by technically more advanced missions that followed in the 20 years since its release. My original rating was 5/10. On this second playthrough, I gave it a 7/10. Finished on Normal in 28 minutes without hints and with 1952 of 2052 total loot.

Circle of Strain 2
Completed on October 3, 2020
Another breaking and entering mission in daylight. This time you have to assassinate Lord Jacob and steal incriminating evidence. You start the mission in a dark cave, emerge at the moat surrounding the mansion, and then rope up to one of the windows. The inside of the mansion suffers a bit from having too many similar, long corridors with doors on both sides, but the architecture is generally well executed. I like that unused conversations from the original missions are integrated here. This kind of quality voice acting, sadly lacking in 99% of fan missions, makes the environment a lot more believable. Really good use of ambient music and sounds as well. If I want to nitpick, I can find three flaws: The first concerns the red banners on the walls of the mansion. If you slash them, they are replaced by a slashed version, but the replacement object is always a bit higher on the wall than the undamaged object. This is jarring and I wonder why this was not noticed during playtesting. Secondly, there is a large Christian cross in one room. This should really be a Hammer. Christian symbols do not fit into the Thief universe. Lastly, I do not think any of the fireplaces have smoke funnels. Poor Lord Jacob‘s mansion must be filled with smoke and soot whenever he wants to light a fire. Neverthess, these flaws are minor and did not detract from the experience I had with Circle of Strain 2. Finished on Normal in 26 minutes without hints and with 941 of 941 total loot.

Circle of Strain 3
Completed on October 4, 2020
Again, a breaking and entering mission. This one takes place at night. You start in the streets of a City district. You can enter several buildings, but only a few places are mandatory. There is another unused conversation from the original game that you can overhear. Use of ambient music is again well done. The ingame map is also nice. The lighting at Lord Franco‘s and in the cave with the chalice was impressive. I wonder if it was this good in the original release of the mission. I did the mission objectives in reverse order: I ended up at Lord Franco‘s first, picked up the chalice, and then went to complete the St. Michael‘s objective. It would have been nice if the objective to break into St. Michael's would automatically cancel if you get the chalice at Lord Franco‘s first. Some nitpicks: Again, Christian crosses do not belong in the Thief universe, and none of the fireplaces have smoke funnels. Finished on Normal in 42 minutes without hints and with 1355 of 1455 total loot.

Samantha1 on 16/6/2021 at 18:03

One question: Do the mirrors work for everybody else? For me neither the mediafire one nor the darkfate one works. In both cases the first mission of the original thief appears instead :/
I remember I had this problem once already and there the problem was a corrupted link. But since both don´t work I think the cause is sth. else.

downwinder on 17/6/2021 at 01:06

downloading from mediafire now,download worked fine for me,in u.s.a.

mission 1 is very solid,100% loot

mission 2 is very solid,100% loot

mission 3 is very solid,100 loot short,but i did not look for loot very hard,probably easy to find

i enjoyed replaying this series

20-30 min for each mission

baeuchlein on 17/6/2021 at 03:33

Both mirrors yielded identical zip files. I played through mission 1 and found no real problems. I stopped after mission 2 also loaded successfully.

Whatever is wrong here - it doesn't seem to be the mirrors.

Samantha1 on 17/6/2021 at 07:37

Thank you both for checking. Yes I thought so, but I have no idea what could cause this:erg:

Edit: I used the link from cheapmissions: (https://www.thiefmissions.com/download.cgi?m=circleofstrain_T2)

And this one works just fine. So for me it has to be a problem with the mirrors after all.

baeuchlein on 17/6/2021 at 18:54

Your link from thiefmissions.com leads to a version of the first mission for Thief 2, while the links from mediafire and darkfate point to a version which contains all three "Circle of Strain" missions, as a campaign, but for Thief 1 instead of Thief 2. If you did not confuse these downloads, it could still be some problem with your Thief 1 installation.

Renault on 17/6/2021 at 20:09

@Samantha1 - You'll also be missing all the bug fixes and enhancements that Antimatter_16 worked on and mentioned in the original post (which is the whole point of this thread in the first place).

(Btw, the download links in the OP worked fine for me).

Samantha1 on 18/6/2021 at 08:25

Quote Posted by Brethren

Brethren, are you talking about the thief enhancement pack 2.0? If yes, I already have that installed and it didn´t help.

Edit: Wait, the above mentioned download links are for Thief1? I used it for Thief 2, cause in the mission listing by type it is announced as "T2---Screenshots---Download---Circle of Strain Newdark version contains all 3 missions".
This is getting really confusing.. So to get this right:

In Fan mission listing by type there are:
Circle of Strain
T1---Screenshots---Download---Circle of Strain 1 --> T1 CORRECT
T2---Screenshots---Download---Circle of Strain 1 (T2 version) --> T2 CORRECT (this is the link from cheapmissions I also used)
T1---Screenshots---Download---Circle of Strain 2 --> T1 CORRECT
T1---Screenshots---Download---Circle of Strain 3 --> T1 CORRECT
T2---Screenshots---Download---Circle of Strain Newdark version contains all 3 missions --> this should be thief 1 ?? Cause the link directs you to exactly this thread which according to it is Thief 1 and would also confirm what you said Bäuchlein.