fortuni on 23/12/2022 at 16:56

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Which mission is that? I half recognise those screenshots, but it a big campaign and I'm not sure exactly where your tryng to get to.

fortuni on 15/10/2023 at 08:00

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The whole Tricks and Traps level is a nightmare, milli-second perfection required for so many puzzles which is made even worse if your using an analogue controller, using you keyboard gives you the advantage on many of these puzzles.

<Username> on 11/11/2023 at 21:27

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Thief's Rising 2 is an impressive campaign. It is arguably one of the greatest achievements in Thief fan mission design, especially since it was created by only a single author. It features twelve full missions with lots of custom content and often with gameplay elements that were not present in Deadly Shadows. Some of the new gameplay elements are excellent, some can be a bit frustrating. Overall, I had a great time with Thief's Rising 2. I think it deserves to be held in higher regard than it currently is.

Elements I particularly liked about the whole campaign:
* New areas in reused maps from the original game are seamlessly integrated. There are no jarring clashes between the styles of the Ion Storm level designers and Adsk1.
* Areas like Old Quarter, South Quarter, and The Docks from the original Deadly Shadows campaign are now connected without loading zones.
* All missions have a video intro with narrated text.
* Improved voice acting and recording quality comparing to Thief's Rising: Gold.
* Improved custom loading screens compared to Thief's Rising: Gold.
* Optional side quests in the missions, increasing replayability.
* Less framerate slowdowns than during Thief's Rising: Gold.
* The trailer that plays if you wait when the menu appears makes the campaign look exciting.
* Equipment carries over from mission to mission. Every piece you find in a mission or decide to hold on to counts towards your chances in later encounters. Equipment feels more valuable than usual.
Aspects of the campaign that could be improved:
* While the campaign is overall impressive and enjoyable, there are several sequences that either don't quite work or are too difficult.
* Too much of the campaign revolves around saving very often, then trying again and again until you get the timing right for a particularly difficult section. It's Thief's Rising 2: Reload Count Rising.
* Unchanged from Thief's Rising 1: Reuben is still visually indistinguishable from Garrett. This turns into a funny moment in mission 9, in which Reuben dons a Garrett disguise to infiltrate a Hammerite chapel, only for his look to remain completely unchanged.
* Unchanged from Thief's Rising 1: Ambient noise in empty City streets sometimes does not match their activity level. Sounds of a busy market don't fit into empty streets at night patrolled by only a few guards.
* Swords of NPCs can be picked up after they have fallen to the ground. Frequently when I wanted to pick up a body of a downed NPCs, I picked up the sword next to it instead. I had sometimes wondered why swords cannot be picked up in other missions, but now I think this might be the reason: Picking up the sword instead of the body by accident became a nuisance in Thief's Rising 2. Swords make loud noises when dropped, so if you happen to pick one up by accident, you have to make sure you are not near enemies before you drop it, otherwise they will be alerted. This is like the old trick in T1/T2 in which authors place a heavy hammer in a chest and when the player loots it, they suddenly have it in their hands.

Mission 1: A Rude Awakening

For the first time in T3 fan missions:
* You acquire the map halfway into the mission.
Stats:
* Expert difficulty
* 250 loot
* 0 hints needed
Elements I liked:
* Fantastic fire and smoke effects!
* Starting with the fire and then having the player follow the witness is a perfect way to draw the player into the campaign. Great start!
* I loved that you can follow the witness through the gate to South Quarter, without a loading zone separating the two areas.
* The journals I found throughout the mission were interesting and had what I felt was just the right length.
* City Watch won't attack Reuben in the streets because he is not a wanted criminal at this point in the story.
* The mission is structured with a chain of small, easily achievable objectives. It kept me engaged.
* The person who did the voice acting for the landlord did a good job.
Could be improved:
* If you switch to the map, it initially shows the layout of the Blue Heron Inn.
* The newspaper shown in the narrated intro has modern computer fonts.
* I recognized the voice sample used for the man on fire from Blood (Monolith Productions, 1997). Took me out of the game a little.
* The background track in the outside areas of South Quarter sounds too loud for it being nighttime with few people on the streets.
Bugs:
* After the conversation with the landlords starts, you can move anywhere. The conversation will continue regardless of you being anywhere near him. The handover of both deposit and key will take place as well, even if you have left the building while the landlord is still inside.

Mission 2: A Bit of Burglary

Stats:
* Expert difficulty
* 1 hint needed
For the first time in T3 fan missions:
* The player has the option to rescue a cat from a tree.
Elements I liked:
* "I have a simple job planned for tonight: Leave the City, the Keepers and everything else in between, behind." That joke worked great. I genuinely laughed out loud.
* When you steal the dagger that pins the note to the captain to the door on the deck of the ship, the note slides slowly down onto the ground. Details like this show how much care went into this campaign.
* There is a mandatory secret switch in the mission, but a book nearby contains a hint that should clue players in on where it is.
Could be improved:
* This mission had the same title as the second mission of Thief's Rising: Gold. Odd.
* Too many samey apartment buildings and sleeping quarters in the areas that were grafted onto the original map.
* The campaign follows Thief: Deadly Shadow's depiction of the Pagans as backwards hicks with a funny dialect. I was never a fan of this.
* After I picked up Tiddles the cat, I did not immediately find the place where I had to deliver him to. Until I did, I had to listen to that incessant, low-quality, irritating cat purr sample.
* Bram Stoker books don't fit into Thief. Took me out of the game a little.
* Sexually explicit journals with no warning. I am not prude, but people who play this campaign should be aware young children will have questions what the lady means when she writes about how she longs for her husband "probing inside her with his manliness".
* If you climb behind the pipes in the corner outside the pub in The Docks, you are stuck and have to reload.
Hint needed:
* Missed the apartment southwest of the fountain in South Quarter entirely. Therefore, I also missed the last of the five wine bottles.

Mission 3: Prison Break

Stats:
* Expert difficulty
* 90% loot
* 1 hint needed
For the first time in T3 fan missions:
* "New" enemy type: Pavelock Spider-Beetle.
Elements I liked:
* Revamped and expanded Pavelock Prison.
* The forced ghosting during the first half of the mission made for some tense moments and it felt great when that restriction was removed afterwards.
* The soundscape with all the distant screams and sometimes rumbling is great.
* Reuben can find Hargreaves, the arsonist from the first mission.
* One of the few missions in which I made use of noise arrows to lure guards away from their positions.
* There is a nice, not too difficult puzzle which revolves around finding the combination for a numerical lock.
* At the perfect point in the mission, just when I thought all I had to do was to escape with the captain, it is revealed the prison is used for nefarious experiments and monsters escaped into the sewers, right where I am now headed.
* You can see outside the prison walls, to the familiar streets of South Quarter.
* There is a cleverly placed hidden door back to the prison in case you got to the six-lever combination lock in the sewers without finding to combination in the prison.
Could be improved:
* Some guards carry their sword upside down on their belts, with the tip pointing upwards instead of down.
* The Pavelock Spider-Beetles move a little too fast. They would pose enough of a threat if they were a little slower.
* TYou get no indicator if you dropped the captain at the right place. The objective does not complete.
* The lever to the exit to South Quarter only activates after you completed all other objectives. Levers and doors the player can only interact with after they completed other objectives first was something that bugged me about the first Thief's Rising as well.
Hint needed:
* Failed to realize you can carry knocked out guards to the security doors to deactivate the Mechanist proximity lock.
Bugs:
* You can soft lock the mission if you drop the captain down into the sewers, save, and don't have an another earlier save. It is not possible to carry his body up the ladder again.

Mission 4: Rescue and Revive

Stats:
* Expert difficulty
* 3 hints needed
Elements I liked:
* Most of the mission was enjoyable.
* I liked how many characters are introduced during fully voice-acted conversations.
* I especially liked the first conversation with Pollenfall: Good voice acting and her pointing to the plant you need to collect more of was something I didn't expect.
* The mission objectives are varied and interesting.
Could be improved:
* The forced ghosting while having to search for ingredients required constant reloading. This wore me down over time. Didn't enjoy this mission towards the end, even before the part with Billy.
* The part with Billy was reminiscent of the absolute worst of late-1990ies AI escort missions. The city watch patrols on the streets are tight and don't give much room for Billy to run by. If you get unlucky with the timing of intersecting patrol routes, you have to first make noise to maybe get a better pattern. Sometimes Billy reacts to the whistle, but starts twitching at his current spot instead of following Reuben. Near the gate to Stonemarket, I once made a mistake and quick saved in a position from which there was no escape for Billy, so I had to redo the whole section again. Then I got Billy to open the gate, but before I could follow him, the objective to not harm any AI failed for unknown reasons. Then the game crashed and when I tried to reload after restarting, my quick save was broken. So frustrating. The mission would have been pretty good, but this part completely ruined the experience.
* At this point in the campaign, I would have loved to see a new map. This is the map of mission 2 again with new objectives, and 90% of the map is reused from Thief: Deadly Shadows.
* The city watch in Black Alley are very difficult to avoid. The guard in front of Bella's I had to lure away with a noisemaker, no chance to sneak by him. I had a gas arrow, but using it resulted in mission failure.
* If you had an item selected as mission 3 faded out, you will have that item on your HUD in mission 4. You can't deselect it since you are carrying your friend and dropping him instantly fails the mission.
* If you climb behind the pipes in the corner outside the pub in The Docks, you are stuck and have to reload.
Hints needed:
* Missed the entrance to the southwest house in Fountain Street, the same house I missed in mission 2.
* Missed the attic in the southwest house in Fountain Street.
* Missed the third pagan fruit in the city watch office in Fountain Street. Hard to spot.
Bugs:
* If you mantle up the railing next to where Billy sits, you will likely fall through the floor into the void below the mission and die.

Mission 5: Finders Keepers

Stats:
* Expert difficulty
96% loot
* 2 hints needed
Elements I liked:
* This original mission modification was a pleasant reminder how good the Stonemarket district looked in Deadly Shadows. It was nice revisiting it.
* Stonemarket and the Keeper Compound are now seamlessly connected, without a loading zone in between.
* The AI density both in the streets of Stonemarket and in the Keeper Compound is noticeably higher than in the original game. I had fun figuring out how to knock out everyone unseen. I did not mind having to reload all the time.
* Reuben learning how to use door Glyphs was a nice touch.
* The books are generally interesting and well written.
* I enjoyed the objective to collect 10 gilded books. It was a fair challenge.
* I enjoyed the book quest as well. Despite Scribe Bartlet's best efforts, I found the right book in the end.
Could be improved:
* The mission heavily retcons the events of Deadly Shadows: Artemus was not killed by The Hag, the Keeper order did not collapse, and Garrett did not become First Keeper. Instead, there are a new First Keeper and a new Seer called Mortheesa. I did not like all the retconning.
* The crate pushing puzzle: I would have had no problems carrying and stacking crates. This, however, feels so janky I can't believe it is the intended solution. You can even softlock the game if the top crate falls off and you overwrite your only save because there is no way to pick up the fallen crate and put it back atop the other crate again.
* The inside of the Forbidden Library is a cacophony: a multitude of overlapping soundscapes. Does it have to be this loud?
* Was able to nab the Tavern Key early by leaning through the wall of the secret Keeper hideout west of the tavern.
Hints needed:
* Did not realize you are supposed to slow push the crates near the window of the Keeper Compound with your body.
* Found only 87% loot and used the walkthrough for the location of the hidden Keeper Scales. That single is item worth so much it pushed me to 96%.

Mission 6: Ship Shape

Stats:
* Expert difficulty
* 0 hints needed
Elements I liked:
* The green mist that has descended over South Quarter gives this mission a different atmosphere compared to Reuben's previous visits to this district.
* Feels good to be allowed to indiscriminately knock out City Watch guards again.
* Captain Rafe Blackfriar and Pollenfall stop to read the book after Reuben puts it onto the table during their conversation in South Quarter. Another well done exposition scene.
* The difficulty spike with the forced ghosting in the Pirate Guild was nuts, but I ended up enjoying the challenge. Reminded me of the early T1 fan mission "LaFrenier, real criminal boss", in which you are also forced to ghost in extremely tight area.
* The shop owner in Black Alley mentions she heard of Reuben's history with lycantrophes.
* When I finally got to the ship and saw all the pirates were now on deck, I felt good about my progress with this mission. Nice moment.
Could be improved:
* Sneaking around the City Watch in South Quarter yet again had became stale by this point. This is the fifth mission from the first six in the campaign which reuses the South Quarter district from Deadly Shadows.
* In the Pagan area, a bit of the French translation was accidentally inserted into a book: "That said, it is hard to tell the two factions apart since thcomme ils préfèrent être appelés, ont tenu fermement à leur héritage et à leur comportement. Ils méprisent les gens de laey both tend to dress in similar manners to which everyday folk are accustomed to."
* Once alerted by noise or glimpses of Reuben, the pirates in the Pirate Guild don't calm down again. This can lead to situations in which it becomes impossible to sneak around them because they keep searching the narrow stairs and the corridor that lead from the sleeping area to the tavern. It would be better if they would calm down again, returning to their original route, giving the player another chance to sneak by.
* Once, when I shot the fourth or fifth light in the pirate tavern with an arrow, it caused a chain reaction of pirates going to into search mode. Then one of them somehow impaled himself on his own sword while stumbling over a chair. When he slumped to the ground, the mission failed. It was half funny, half aggravating.
* I could only beat the tavern area by abusing the overpowered wall hug ability. I did feel like cheating.
* The only way I found to leave the tavern was by getting an NPC to open the door to the docks for me. This created a huge problem: The pirates immediately attack any City Watch they see outside and then likely sget killed in the ensuing fight, leading to mission failure. I found no way around this other than fighting The City Watch and the pirates at the same time, loading and saving lots of times, until I finally managed to take out all of the City Watch without any of the pirates dying. This whole scenario felt very broken. I did not learn about the (probably unintended) alternative of going back through the sewers again until after I had finished the mission.

Mission 7: Thieves' Highway

Stats:
* Expert difficulty
* 90% loot
* 4 hints needed
For the first time in T3 fan missions:
* A thieves' highway mission.
* Climbing boots.
Elements I liked:
* After six missions based on maps recycled from Deadly Shadows, it was great to finally get an all-new map.
* Contrary to what some other players wrote, I did not have much issues in this mission with mantling and climbing around narrow ledges, except for one small bit above the shop.
* The opening with the cave, the long climb up, and the startled bird flying away was good.
* A real thieves' highway mission in T3? That is so cool! Glad an author finally attempted a mission like this in the T3 engine. Khare in the fog looks impressive.
* Guard placement and patrol routes are excellent in most areas: always challenging, never impossible.
* Fantastic use of varied ambiance tracks throughout the massive map.
* I liked how dripping water at one point later in the mission clues the player in where to push a crate to mantle up.
* Sometimes you reach windows that open to areas you explored earlier in the mission. I like how this made the map feel connected.
* The kill triggers in the mission work well. I was never able to fall down to an area where I was not supposed to be.
Could be improved:
* There is a building you enter through a window into an empty, darkened bedroom. The next room is larger, brightly lit, and there are two civilians inside, a woman and a man. I could not coax these civilians into the darkened bedroom, no matter how many times I dropped a candle or shot a noisemaker to lure them to me. The only way to take them out unseen was to lure the man to the door with noise, knock him our while the back of the woman was turned, and then quickly carry him to the darkened bedroom. It was challenging, because I needed to get the man to turn almost at the same time as the woman.
* It is difficult to mantle up the sign above the shop and reach the drainpipe next to it. This part feels like it was not properly play tested. Could be an easy fix.
* I understood the "Winston Zedmore is ghost hunting" reference. Minor immersion breaker.
Hints needed:
* Found the note about the hidden pages and the two statues, but did not realize you have to push one of the statues into the pressure plate. Instead, I stacked three crates onto it, which did not work.
* Missed the bird's nest at the greenhouse.
* Missed the bird's nest at the couple's house.
* Found only 72% of the loot and had to resort to fortuni's walkthrough for 6 additional pieces to get to 90%. Among the missing loot was a highly valuable cat statuette in a hidden area.

Mission 8: Tricks and Traps

Stats:
* Expert difficulty
* 1 hint needed
I have mixed feelings about this mission. Some puzzles I loved, others I strongly disliked. In the final area with the clock puzzles, the third and fourth locks you have to pick within a time limit seemed impossible on Expert difficulty. I ended up abusing a bug, otherwise I would have had to restart the level on a lower difficulty.

My opinion on the puzzle areas (strong like, like, dislike, or strong dislike):
* Seven Levers: Dislike. It was hard to see which lever affected which gate. I ended up just randomly flipping levers until I got lucky and all the doors were open.
* Statue Corridor: Like. The rhyme on the wall provides the solution, but there is still a chance for you to mess up.
* Gazing Statues: Strong like. Requires concentration, but is perfectly doable.
* Colored Pads: Strong like. The puzzle itself was very easy, but having to climb around the outside of the tower because of the broken stairs was a surprise and felt thrilling.
* Pit Falls: Like. Not too difficult, not too easy.
* Swinging Blades: Like. I had trouble figuring out the split-second timing for one part and needed a hint.
* Crawl Space Maze: Like. With the instructions from the book, it was easy too solve. It could have been really tedious without the hints, due to the slow movement speed.
* Spinning Blades: Strong like. This room looks fantastic and the sense of danger in the air was palpable, enhanced by the remnants of people who died here.
* Five Lights: Strong dislike. I couldn't figure out this one and would have needed a hint, but I got lucky and accidentally solved it during one of my attempts. I looked up the solution afterwards. I think this puzzle is too obtuse.
* Crushers: Like. Needed a few reloads, but the challenge felt fair.
* Gas Works: Strong like. The area looks great with the fire in the darkness. The intertwined pipes at the ceiling are something to behold. The puzzle itself is not too difficult.
* Shooting Range: Like. You can save scum your way to maxed out scores in the first rooms, giving you a better chance in the very difficult final rooms. Without save scumming, this would have been a nightmare.
* Invisible Walkway: Strong like. The challenge level in this one felt perfect. I have seen similar puzzles in T1/T2 missions, but not yet in T3. This was a great implementation of the concept.
* Invisible Maze: Strong dislike. Awful and janky. Even with the hints, you have a chance to go the wrong way because the invisible paths are so narrow you may accidentally take the wrong one.
* Timers: Strong dislike. I think on a lower difficulty setting, I would have had a good time with this area, but on Expert the third and fourth timed locks seemed impossible. Was this play tested on Expert?
Elements outside the puzzle areas I liked:
* I wasn't prepared for the guard rotation and had to race back to where Reuben entered the tower. I somehow managed to carry the body of a guard I had knocked out earlier in front of the elevators to the shadows before the two new guards arrived. Then I managed to knock them out as well, despite the lack of shadows. I narrowly avoided having to restart the mission from the beginning. Phew.
Elements outside the puzzle areas that could be improved:
* In the intro video and in the loading screen, the Tower of Light is just a tall slab of gray walls. The model is aesthetically ugly.
* I don't see how the term "Beta testers" has any meaning in the world of Thief, where there is no software development. Bit of an immersion breaker.
Hint needed:
* I couldn't get past one part of the Swinging Blades puzzle. I had to view a YouTube video to find out the correct angling.
Bug:
* The third and fourth locks you have to pick within a time limit seem impossible Expert difficulty. Even knowing the combination and with perfect execution, I always ran out of time. I was on the verge of restarting the level on Normal difficulty, but thankfully, if you reload and retry enough times, there is a chance a bug in the script will prevent the clock handle above the locks from moving.

Mission 9: Infiltration

Stats:
* Expert difficulty
* 92% loot
* 0 hints needed
Elements I liked:
* The Khare streets are expertly crafted. The might be the most impressive City scape in T3 fan missions I have seen.
* The buildup to the beast in the foundry beneath the Hammerite chapel through books is excellent.
* The sense of dread inside the foundry was palpable. It has been awhile since I felt afraid in a Thief fan mission. I have not played Alien: Isolation yet, but I think this sequence might be inspired by it.
* The working foundry is extremely cool. I also like who Reuben comments on the process, giving the player useful advice on what to do next.
Could be improved:
* The follow objective is very difficult. So many ways things can go wrong as you are trailing the thief. I resorted to blackjacking Khare city watch in the middle of the street and leaving their bodies as a distraction for other NPCs. It was messy.
* The ambient noise in the streets does not fit their activity level. It sounds like a busy marketplace, but it is night and there are only a few people around.
* Looting the long corridor in the Hammerite sleeping quarters was repetitive and boring. Too many locked doors and chests.
Bug:
* I was able to manufacture a new lever without iron ore.

Mission 10: The Streets of Rage

Stats:
* Expert difficulty
* 95% loot
* 1 hint needed
Elements I liked:
* Like in the previous mission, the architectural design of the streets is fantastic. Very impressive.
* "Why do I keep walking in this sewage?" Nice touch to put that quip in the mission.
* I did not attempt to sneak through the streets and instead murdered everyone with arrows to the head from the shadows. I think this is the intended approach for this mission, since there are plenty of broadhead arrows hidden around the map that you can use.
* The objective to rip wanted posters from the walls from one of the later missions of Thief's Rising 1 returns.
* The return of the necromancer's tower from Thieves' Highway was interesting. I had been wondering if the journal in that mission was hinting at a new special item, and indeed it was.
* The Soul Gems were somewhat useful: I spawned an undead with it, got four Khare city watch guards to attack him, and then took out all the guards with a single gas bomb. Then I led the undead to the necromancer's tower and locked him inside. That was fun.
* Later guards have fire arrows. I don't remember having seen an NPC armed with that weapon in other fan missions.
* The map is very big. Building all these streets must have taken a very long time.
Could be improved:
* The whole mission requires the same approach: Lurk in the shadows, wait for enemies to move away from others on patrol, take them out with the blackjack or an arrow. After after the first two hours, I got tired of yet another street with guards.
* Straight up fighting missions are never a good idea in Thief. The engine is not geared towards this style. Because of this, the fighting gameplay will never be particularly satisfying.
* The mission frequently crashed.
* At the docks, the mountain backdrop in the east wasn't rendered, so the towers atop of it floated in the air. The same backdrop in the west locked fine because the mountain underneath was rendered.
* While retrieving two moss arrows from a bush in a large pot, I got stuck inside the bush.
Hint needed:
* Found only 86% of the loot and looked up the location of a frobbable door I had missed in fortuni's walkthrough. This door led to a small apartment with two pieces of loot, which increased my percentage to 95%.

Mission 11: Pillage and Plunder

Stats:
* Expert difficulty
* 6 hints needed
* 92% loot
Elements I liked:
* The Khare ship is detailed and a pleasant change of scenery after so many city missions.
* The objectives change frequently, which makes the mission feel dynamic.
* The pirates from the brig go and retrieve their swords. Cool detail.
* I waited extra long listening to poor Rafe being tortured. I was surprised how many lines had been recorded for this.
* Getting to read the journal of the Khare captain was interesting.
* The sounds and lights on the explosives are neat.
Could be improved:
* Quite a bit of jank and bugs in this mission.
* I don't think the mission does a good job at cluing the player in to what to do next. Check the list of hints I needed: Every time, I thought "How was I supposed to know that?!"
* Not too fond of the corridor with the endlessly re-spawning enemies. The gimmick felt too much like a videogame and was somewhat janky. I had to reload so often there. Sometimes they spawn right in front of you. Similar to Rescue and Revive with the infuriating AI escort quest, the re-spawning enemies out of thin air felt like bad late 1990ies game design. I would have enjoyed the mission a lot more without the endlessly re-spawning enemies.
* Sometimes guards would pile up in one spot on the deck Rafe's pirate ship, sometimes they would freeze in place on the deck of the Khare ship.
* It is easy to get stuck behind the bilge pumps when searching there for loot. I had to reload.
* I did not find the hidden wall panel to the crew cabin with the unfrobabble door. If you open the chest in the adjacent cabin and leave it open, it blocks the wall panel.
* In the final confrontation on the deck of the pirate ship, it is easy to instantly fail the mission if an ally runs into one of your arrows. Since the allies are invincible, I just sat back and waited for easy targets. It felt janky.
Hints needed:
* I did not realize you can climb up the shelf in the storage cupboard. Even after I looked this up in the walkthrough, Reuben initially was not cooperating in getting up there. I even stacked two boxes on top of each other to check if this helps. I doesn't. Finally, after many attempts, Reuben finally mantled up.
* Did not find the explosives. I had already been at that location before several times. How was I supposed to know I needed to go there again?
* Did not find the correct location for the explosives in the bilge pump room. I tried on the hatch, but that was wrong. By this point, I was so exhausted and out of patience with the mission, I did not even looked around the room. Otherwise I would have found the correct location.
* I had found the valve wheel earlier, but I thought it was junk. I did not think it was possible to let it fall onto the hatch to attach it to the hatch.
* Found only 40% of the loot. Yes, only 40%. There is not a whole lot of loot in this mission and it is hard to find.
* Missed the hidden wall panel because it was blocked after I opened the chest right in front of it.
Bugs:
* On my first attempt, the pirates from the bridge went to storage, but the objective "Help the officers take down the Khare guards any way you can" was not triggered. Luckily, I had performed a hard save just before I unlocked the cell. On my second attempt, the objective triggered.
* The hatch to the rudder room disappeared after I turned the valve wheel.
* A guard did not leave the cabin he spawned him. I coaxed him out into the corridor with noise, but he returned to the cabin after searching for the source. I had to close the door so I would not instantly fail the mission every time I passed by the now permanently inaccessible cabin.
* After the final confrontation on the deck of the pirate ship, when all the Khare guards were dead, my allies started attacked me instead.

Mission 12: The Accursed

Stats:
* Expert difficulty
* 2 hints needed
For the first time in T3 fan missions:
* A mission (partially) set in the Maw of Chaos.
Elements I liked:
* The look of the new undead models and the startling sound when they pop up from the ground.
* Undead bursting through the barricade between The Docks and Old Quarter.
* I like the recreation of Maw areas from T1 and T2 in the T3 engine.
* The Maw Beasts look great. I liked their variety.
* The "long way down" area was fun. I enjoyed seeing dead Maw Beasts tumble down into the pit.
Could be improved:
* Some of the undead are invisible until they pop up, so the only way to solve that part of the mission is to keep saving and reloading until you found the path that avoids them. Constant saving and reloading made that part of the mission not particularly fun to play.
* How does Reuben know about the Maw of Chaos? This is never explained.
* "Good luck me old matey. The shitty is depending on you." That line delivery was unintentionally funny
* The final fight against Pollenfall is janky.
Hints needed:
* Couldn't figure out the library puzzle.
* I couldn't get Pollenfall the step into the mist and thought I was doing it wrong. fortuni's walkthrough confirmed the fight is just janky.
Bugs:
* The game crashes when I try to read the wall plaque next to the lever that triggers the ladder to descend down from the tree house.
* The game crashes when I try to read the wall plaque next to the lever in the closet of the first room of the tree house.
* The game crashes when I try to read the wall plaque next to the lever hidden in the crevice of the tunnel that leads away from the Maw Beast arena.

Mission 13: Home Sweet Home

Stats:
* 4/16 crests found
* 6/6 special loot found
This is not a real mission, but I love its inclusion. A great idea to encourage players to replay individual missions after they finished the campaign for the first time.

<Username> on 13/11/2023 at 18:25

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Thank you. I recommend Easy or Normal difficulty for your playthrough. It will make at least some of the parts I struggled with a bit easier. The campaign is challenging, even with constant saving and reloading.

<Username> on 15/11/2023 at 06:37

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That is a possibility. Maybe the lock-picking on my system is slightly slower and I lose those seconds I would need to solve those timed locks.