Thief 2 FM : Lord Alexander's Mansion by Svetoslav Alexandrov (7 august 2018)

fortuni on 7/8/2018 at 20:19

Quote Posted by Bulgarian_Taffer

a small taffer is coming into my life early next year, my wife surprised me with that :P

Double congratulations would appear to be in order. :D

Just make sure you leave enough time between nappy changing to make more missions won't you. :thumb:

Cardia on 7/8/2018 at 20:20

Quote Posted by Bulgarian_Taffer

Of course I will! If you prepare something, you can send it to me too, to give it a try. I also itch to try new untested FMs... probably I'll have more time around september-october... After that I don't know... a small taffer is coming into my life early next year, my wife surprised me with that :P

I´m still far from finishing my new t2 mission, its something really big.
Those are good news, i wish all runs well during the birth...anyway congratulations in advance!

Thor on 7/8/2018 at 20:20

I'm afraid that's just me and Dmitry then (who might be dead). I appreciate you forgetting about the swedish cuck also. The potato is a finalized degenerate with no road back who left us for drugs, and kab is a bitter old waman.

This might be the kind of talk that the mods would speech censor though, so maybe should move it elsewhere.

Bulgarian_Taffer on 7/8/2018 at 20:22

Quote Posted by fortuni

Just make sure you leave enough time between nappy changing to make more missions won't you. :thumb:

Thanks for gz-ing me :) (all of you)

I'll be making mission for kids.

That's half-joke, half-true. I'm seriously considering this.

Bulgarian_Taffer on 7/8/2018 at 20:34

Quote Posted by Thor

Perhaps ... and believe me, I'm itching to send him a PM to point him to your posts :P :P

But ... my mission already attracts people from my old kru. That's a good sign.

(meanwhile - I'm occasionally refreshing and looking lazily at the codex's FM thread. bring some pop-corn please :P)

Melan on 8/8/2018 at 06:46

I played the mission yesterday, and here is what I think:

* It looks decent. Heavy use of Vigil's textures and rich colours gives it a visual identity. It has a pleasing, cohesive "look". I liked the weird bookcase column. Was that inspired by a real thing?
* The exploration part is goodish, with multiple ways in, although I feel the intro movie spoils half of it. It is logical Garrett might "know" these things, but it still takes some of the mystery out of the scenario.
* The stealth gameplay abuses marble. It is one marble floor after the other, while the rooms are packed with guards on short patrol routes. The central rooms on both main floors are lit up like a Christmas tree, creating hazardous choke points. Challenging (while ghosting)? Yes. Annoying? After a while. The good part is finding an opening between tight patrols to slip into a room, while tiptoeing on a loud floor. The bad part is that quite a bit of it is sheer dumb luck (the chapel), and there is not that much gameplay variety. If you like marble, this is your mission.
* The puzzle is one of the ones which have become routine by now. diary scrap --> find the date --> code number Then again, Thief is turning 20 this year, so it is kinda expected.
* The mission ends when your objectives are done. Mine ended crouched right in the middle of the mansion, desperately trying to fish a few coins out of a fountain while trying to avoid getting busted. No getaway, although it spared me from more marble shenanigans.

Flawed but fairly enjoyable, and a definite improvement in the visuals.

Bulgarian_Taffer on 8/8/2018 at 07:02

Thanks for the review, may I ask fortuni to link to this review when he adds the mission to his thread?

There are some questions:

Was that inspired by a real thing?

The mission is based on a real house where I spent the childhood, but the rooms are not the same. For example, we didn't have a chapel :) Also, we didn't have a library on two floors - there were two rooms that weren't connected. We had, however, a similar bookcase (I was using the nicked model here), but IRL it was located where the wife's bedroom is in-game.

Quote:

The exploration part is goodish, with multiple ways in, although I feel the intro movie spoils half of it. It is logical Garrett might "know" these things, but it still takes some of the mystery out of the scenario.

Sorry you were spoiled. Exploration is important. The problem is I never paid attention in the past to it - I always created my past missions more or less linear. The Crazy Priest, for example, was one-directional. But I saw on the codex some of the players prefer open exploration, and this was a driving principle for this mission.

Quote:

The stealth gameplay abuses marble. It is one marble floor after the other, while the rooms are packed with guards on short patrol routes.

Hint: there are two moss arrows. One for the first floor, and one for the third floor. There's also a noisemaker arrow for stealth players, so they can distract the guards, especially the sitting one in the bedroom.

Quote:

The puzzle is one of the ones which have become routine by now.

As a player I prefer more classic missions, so this is a personal opinion - but if other DromEd creators make more classics - code numbers, switches, I'm all for it. Just don't make the switches badly hidden in bushes and other weird places.

Esme on 8/8/2018 at 11:08

Played it sandman style on expert, the marble was a challenge I wouldn't like to try ghosting it, true to form the briefing detailed 3 ways in so I went in a different way being as I am an awkward so & so - I picked the 2nd floor landing door, finding the last of the loot was a pain but I managed it - coin purse hidden in the attic.

Good little mission, thanks :thumb:

Bulgarian_Taffer on 8/8/2018 at 11:21

Good thinking, Esme! Never thought you can go that way. As for the purse in the attic, it was also one of the Aemanyl's cute little ideas that got implemented.

To those who love rope arrows, I've also prepared one little surprise, but so far noone has found it.

fortuni on 8/8/2018 at 13:03

Quote Posted by Melan

I played the mission yesterday, and here is what I think:
Flawed but fairly enjoyable, and a definite improvement in the visuals.

You would have thought that a Lord who could employ that many guards could also afford a few light switches. :cheeky:

A very fair and reasonable review Melan, to be fair to BT, he has never made mega stunning missions, just nice little fun missions that you can play in your lunch hour and this one fits in with that category perfectly. I certainly enjoyed it and look forward to his next one.

Quote Posted by Bulgarian_Taffer

may I ask fortuni to link to this review when he adds the mission to his thread?

Done. :thumb: