DirkBogan on 13/8/2022 at 11:54
Samantha: I don't know really how to explain it, but for those who love it playing Rose Garden is an immersive experience unlike anything else.
A map like Burrick feels like a perfectly designed video game map that you are meant to play and enjoy. Rose Garden feels like you have been thrown into an unfamiliar city as a real person, and are forced to rely on your own abilities and reconnaissance to survive and succeed. It is not forgiving, but making any progress in this map feels like an achievement beyond what video games can provide. It also has very rich story-telling and visual design.
Yet, it is also fair and consistent; it is not like Elevator Mission or other maps which seems to delight in obscurity. Rose Garden does not hold your hand, but it is not sadistic either.
fortuni on 13/8/2022 at 12:08
Melan's first mission was Bad Debts which was huge in its day and is still a masterpiece in the eyes of a lot of players, the first mission to be a vertically challenging city mission that also made with a gritty texture look, and the complexity of making such a mission (city missions are the most difficult to build anyway) with all the interconnected walkways, shafts and tunnels connecting the different buildings raised the bar for authors considerably. Skacky followed in Melan's footsteps with vertically challenging city missions and also arguably raised the bar higher with even more polish on his missions than Melan's missions.
Whether you enjoy these authors missions and their styles or not is always going to be down to personal preference but what is inarguable is the quality of the build which is always 110%
Samantha1 on 13/8/2022 at 12:47
Yes, the vertical challenging gameplay is what I adore. Thieves highway, it makes you feel like you stand over everyone else and enjoy the best view in the world :D This is what I love about skacky missions or for example a feast of pilgrims, but when I´m half an hour in Melan´s missions I get annoyed. The obscurity is the thing I dislike. I hate this feeling of not knowing where I am, where I was and where I am supposed to go.. :rolleyes:
In the end it is as you say just a personal preference. The work and quality these missions are build with is astonishing :)
BR4ZIL on 13/8/2022 at 16:16
As much as its cliche.... Calendra's Cistern gets my vote.
Disclaimer tho, i have only played FMs up to 2001 right now, so sadly i havent played more than half the ones on the list!
zajazd on 13/8/2022 at 18:41
Quote Posted by BR4ZIL
i have only played FMs up to 2001 right now
Dafuq?
skacky on 13/8/2022 at 18:52
Rose Garden gets my vote. Never have I played a mission so engrossing and that trusts players' intelligence at such a level without being incomprehensible or way too obscure. It is incredible in scope and narrative, and despite its few minor problems, is my favorite FM of all time, barely ahead of Disorientation.
That being said, Ascend the Dim Valley is also insanely good, the Broadsword of Sheol is still the scariest FM ever and while Calendra's Cistern can be a bit weird at times, it is still a classic that paved the way for many, many authors.
BR4ZIL on 13/8/2022 at 20:03
Quote Posted by zajazd
Dafuq?
Sorry, let me explain, i have been playing them chronologically, but by author, so... for example, i when i first came across Purah's Rothchest's Shadow from 1999, i then played all of Purah's FMs including Calendra's series, then moved into the next author from 1999 and so on.
I am still going through that process and i am up to the 2001 FM/Authors, so a lot of the newer FMs from people that started doing FMs after 2001 i havent gotten through.
klatremus on 13/8/2022 at 22:45
I ended up going with Calendra's Cistern, but it was an extremely close call. Rose Garden gets my #2 spot, with Endless Rain in #3, but there is hardly anything separating them. CS was just so groundbreaking for its time. Although it is rougher, it came out 12 years before NewDark and 18 years before anything in the 20TDPAC, so what can you expect. Purah did something truly astonishing with this mission.
You might want this poll to run a bit longer than the others, Samantha. It is only fair to get as many votes in as possible.
downwinder on 14/8/2022 at 01:25
i had to go with Augustine's Revenge by bbb as it has a lot of gameplay for the style of thief i like=exploration with story
zacharias on 14/8/2022 at 09:46
I have to go with Calendra’s, although it’s also a bit unfair of me to vote as I haven’t even played all of them.
For me Purah is ahead of most authors by somehow being able to create really compelling personalities and scenarios in his fictions. It’s also even darker and more twisted and atmospheric than the original game even managed to be, which is really saying something. Couple this with great city architecture, technical effects and attention to detail/production values and you have something truly special. If you consider when his great missions were released, barely a year or two after the original games, it’s even more impressive.
Now if I go back and play CC I have to admit it doesn’t quite live up to the first time through, as there can be technical bugs, the initial city is quite empty, the layout is linear (not necessarily a bad thing though), conversations may break etc. So perhaps I look back at it with rose coloured glasses somewhat. But for me this was the first fan mission I played which I thought arguably surpassed what the original game managed to achieve. For that alone it holds a special place in my memory.
