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Your Top 5 Favourite Thief Missions


Sir Taffsalot

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5. Undercover

 

I love Hammerites and I love cathedrals. Up until this point all we had seen of the Hammers was their factory and prison in Cragscleft. This mission introduced us to the Hammers in all their glory. I love the gregorian chants in the ambient music. I love their readables which describe their harsh religion and Ye Olde English they are written in. It's also a very nice change of pace to be able to walk around half of the cathedral without been attacked and just observe life as a Builder. T1 automatically gets bonus points over T2 for having more Builders. Screw the Mechanists.

 

4. The Sword.

 

I just love how the wierdness of this mansion escalates as you go higher up the floors. The ground floor has a cool garden to explore and the rest is relatively normal bar a creepy coffin. Its the first floor when things really start to get creepy though. Upside down rooms, creepy stone faces, doors that lead to nowhere etc. The next floor though is just pure mayhem. Its like a jungle! We also have that cool fun house tunnel, the room that goes into space and the creepy laughing. If I had an unlimited amount of money and could build any home to live in this would be it! Speakers playing an infinite loop of creepy laughter and a Sword hanging by a non visable string too!

 

3. Life of the Party.

 

its pretty much the Thieves Highway alone that makes it on to this list. Not that there's anything wrong with Angel Watch. Thats still good fun to break into but its the Thieves Highway that I think of when I think of T2. I just love having large areas to explore. Things that dont even relate to the story. I just love been allowed to go away and do my own thing whenever I want. The Theives highway was great for this. I think on my first playthrough I comletely forgot I was supposed to go to Angel Watch. I just didn't care. I just loved sneaking into buildings and jumping all over the place. I love the necromancers Tower and the fight with the archers.

 

2. The haunted Cathedral.

 

A lot of people dont seem to like haunted missions. Apparently this was one of the reasons Looking Glass didn't make any for T2. Well I absolutely love them. While they do feel a bit Indiana Jones ish I think it makes perfect sense for a thief to go grave robbing in tombs or forgotten cities. Again in this you can just go and do your own thing and explore it any way that you like. That atmosphere is fantastic too. I remember stopping dead in my tracks everytime I heard a zombie groan. As a kid I was also terrified the first time I saw the haunts. The one thing I still cant work out to this day is why would you want to restore power to the city? Wouldn't you want to stay in the dark?

 

1. Down in the Boneheard

 

This is the Thief mission that officially made me fall in love with the game. I was pretty much close after Cragscleft but this mission sealed it. You could probably swap this for my number 2 choice but this gets the number spot because I played it first. I dont think I've ever been as immersed in a game as much as in T1 and I've come to the conclusion that I probably never will and I think its due to missions like my last two choices. I love the sound of The Horn of Quintas, the traps in the Bonehard even the burrick tunnel maze with its trippy colours. I remember feeling slightly dissapointed when I got The Hotrn of Quintas because I knew that there was nothing left to do but leave.

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"I believe that what doesn't kill you simply makes you... stranger"

 

The Joker

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I don't know the english names of most of the missions (can't even remember the german ones anymore) :unsure: .

 

5. Return to the cathredal

 

IMO the most stunning haunted missions, although the end grew a little bit too long for my taste (and yeah, I'm not a big fan of the woodsy asses, too).

The shalebridge cradle is almost as stunning, but splitting the level in parts (and even more important the lack of synchronization - what the hell where they thinking :angry: ) made it impossible for me to really sink into the story there. :mellow:

 

4. The museum (T3)

 

I just like the atmosphere and the architecture there

 

3. The last mission in T2

 

The idea that you can build yourself some equipment using the tools and machineries of the Mechanists was an amazing idea, especially as your mostly "fighting" against steambots. I also like missions where I can pick my objectives, like here when you have to change 5 of 8 antennas.

As long as you didn't recognize the weaknesses of the AI in the first two Thief titles, this mission is also relatively hard IMO, what is a MUST for the last mission of any game, and what was not so good in T1.

 

2. The Bank

 

A thief, a bank - it's a must. ;)

 

1. Life of the party

 

I think on my first playthrough I completely forgot I was supposed to go to Angel Watch. I just didn't care.

 

Nothing more to say, my all time favourite.

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

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I can't remember names anymore.

 

I loved all the missions that gave a map, target and let the player plan and execute the heist in a human guarded area. Plot twists and non-linear approaches (ie. multiple entries) were a big plus.

 

I hated all the missions that were about unfocused/aimless wandering (exploring) in boring, repetitive tunnels or forests. I loathed the bonehoard the most, the Constantine's mansion (The sword, right?) being the second with its stupid nightmare like layout. Keyhunts were always a huge minus.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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Lol, aimless exploration missions were my favorites. Those were the ones that actually drew me into their world.

 

At the time my favorite was The Sword. It was strange, memorable, and challenging. I liked getting inside, the hallways, the garden, the twisty rooms, and there's a certain spot where a chime plays, you could walk right by it and miss it, but I thought that spot was very special.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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I hated The Sword as well, along with any other mission that was too weird to get your bearings in (a few pagan ones come to mind).

 

Didn't mind exploration missions, though I thought nothing of spending hours and hours wandering around in a game back then. I actually had to hand-draw a map to find my way through the Bonehoard. Couldn't bring myself to do that today.

 

My favourite missions were ones like Bafford's and The Assassions (the one where you have to trail those two guys through the city).

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@ST & demagogue:

Yup, it is the exploration / wandering thing again. It crops up occasionally.

 

I like very much well-focused missions. Too much useless wandering usually gives this unfocused feeling, like the mission wasn't really planned but just splashed into existence.

 

I realized even further this when I played Metro 2033, which I felt was far better than Fallout 3 and Stalker: SoC. Most of the time in Fallout and Stalker you spend walking from place A to B. Clomp clomp clomp: lots of boring downtime between the real story, locations and stuff-that-matters. The creation of the areas the player boringly walks through took resources from plot elements and other interesting stuff.

 

Metro did it differently and I felt there was always something interesting/important going on. It could have used more decisions and different routes, but still its Interest Factor was much higher than F3 and S:SoC.

 

So yeah, less wandering. More important decisions to do or obstacles to circumvent.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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@ Sotha - I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on Life of the Party from T2? More specifically The Thieves Highway? LOTP is one of the most if not the most populour Thief level due to The Thieves Highway. If memory serves me correctly The Thieves highway has nothing to do with any of the objectives or storyline. You are to break in to Angel watch and gather inomation on The Mechanists. I believe if the Thieves highway was completely left out and the player started in an alleyway next to Angel Watch it would have made no difference to the objectives or story. Of course it wouldn't be number 3 in my list then.

"I believe that what doesn't kill you simply makes you... stranger"

 

The Joker

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@ Sotha - I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on Life of the Party from T2? More specifically The Thieves Highway? LOTP is one of the most if not the most populour Thief level due to The Thieves Highway. If memory serves me correctly The Thieves highway has nothing to do with any of the objectives or storyline. You are to break in to Angel watch and gather inomation on The Mechanists. I believe if the Thieves highway was completely left out and the player started in an alleyway next to Angel Watch it would have made no difference to the objectives or story. Of course it wouldn't be number 3 in my list then.

 

That was the rooftop mission, right? I thought it was fine: a city rooftops appetizer before the main location. In that mission both of the parts City and Castle were in good balance. There was a clear objective to get through the city into the builder castle. I didn't spend much time in the city as it wasn't the main area of interest. Of course those exploratory people probably checked every attic, I'm sure. But liked it since I did not have to. The mission was about getting into the location of interest, getting the job done, and then getting out. The player was given a map, information what to do and some choices how to achieve the goal. The good stuff.

 

You might have noticed some similarities between Phrase Book and the life of the party, so it is probably clear where the inspiration for my mission came from. Of course, I wanted to have the focus be between the city part and the mansion: both of the city part and the manor part were of similar size. And the city part was simply an obstacle to get through.

 

What is utterly rotten, I think, is to have a vast area without a map and a general objective in the style "search the city and find out what to do." Yurgh.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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Tough question. I love pretty much every Thief 1/Gold missions, even if Thieves' Guild, Undercover and Strange Bedfellows are weaker than the others. On the contrary I dislike a majority of Thief 2's missions even if there are some gems such as the Bank, Life of the Party, Blackmail, Trail of Blood, Masks or Soulforge. TDS has a couple of good to great levels like The museum, the Cradle, the Hammer Cathedral and the Overlook Manse. Here's my list:

 

5. Break From Cragscleft Prison

Mike Ryan knows how to create a tense and forsaken feel, and he does it perfectly with this mission. When I first played Thief, this mission was the confirmation that Thief was more than a game to me. It was scary as hell and the layout was very confusing, but I liked every moment of it. Exploring the haunted and scary mines gave me the heebie-jeebies and the sense of reward when you finally reach the factory and hear the Hammers talk is really great. Now I know it by heart but it's still as amazing as before. Ghosting this level is really freaking hard too, which is why I like it so much, and I love the Hammers.

 

4. Life of the Party

The only T2 mission in my list, but as everyone knows, this one is amazing. I think I actually prefer The Unwelcome Guest to Life of the Party since it was stylistically closer to Thief 1 and had a longer Thieves' Highway, but they're pretty much the same mission anyway. Taking the Thieves' Highway to infiltrate Angelwatch is still an amazing experience and this mission never gets old, I still play it from time to time and I always have a blast. I wish Thief 2 had more missions like this with such a scope, but alas time constraints and the difficulty of making such missions made this impossible.

 

3. The Haunted Cathedral

This is a particular level. I mainly enjoy it because you have no idea where you're going and have to do a lot of snooping around and exploration. I also love the fact that you have, pretty much like Life of the Party, a whole part of the City for yourself to plunder. The exploration always felt rewarding and the snippets of story are really well done. The environment also tells the story. I was scared as hell when I first played it and when I finally arrived in front of the cathedral, I truly felt like a boss. The mission feels really forsaken and it's also really huge.

 

2. Assassins

Mike Ryan strikes again. Awesome cityscape with a really great ambience and narrow, twisted streets. You can tell the City is busy even if you can't see a lot of bystanders roaming the streets. You can even put out lights from the windows by shooting broadheads, but this only works near Farkus' Functionals (RIP man, how many times did Quince and Jacow kill you?). The storyline is awesome and really made me love Garrett. Ramirez' mansion is pretty cool too and has a lot of patrollers, in addition to the tense droning that's used as an ambient sound. The only thing that makes this mission come second instead of first is that it's way too easy (even while ghosting).

 

1. Song of the Caverns

Am I nuts? Yeah. I love this mission to death. I love the wealthy opera house, I like the plot, I love the ambient music, I like the caves at the beginning and I like Raoul. This mission feels like a prototype to First City Bank & Trust; lots of marble, lots of guards, lots of things to steal. The basement area is really badly textured but the upper levels themselves are really good (except one wing). I can't really explain why I love it so much, really, but I do. :P

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So it is about OMs? Well then, these are mostly from Thief 1, and in no particular order:

  • The Sword: a great blend of Lewis Carrol surrealism with a guarded mansion. It is not terrifying, like a lot of Thief, but the creepy combination of architecture and sound design make it stand out.
  • Assassins: this one has all - tense pursuit through a chaotic city district, breaking into a crime lord's lair, stealing what he values most (his purse!), and returning home while being chased by his goons. The only thing that improves on Assassins is Lorgan's Web, a fan mission which makes a lot of houses enterable.
  • The Haunted Cathedral: this mission took time to grow on me, but its loot-hunting aspects, and particularly the central city section with its ledges and multi-layered approaches have won me over. Slightly unfocused and exploration-centric. I like that.
  • Unwelcome Guest:the demo mission that became Life of the Party. The differences make it more interesting and more challenging. Although you notice the blocky architecture nowadays - Assassins has held up better graphically - it is one of the archetypal Thief missions.
  • Down in the Bonehoard: and finally, some genuinely fun tomb-robbing. When played originally, it felt cold and endless, which was something. I think I spent an hour just in the burrick tunnels, too afraid to move. Nowadays, it is a really intriguing exploration-centric mission, with fun pathways and hidden loot. It went on to inspire Sepulchre of the Sinistral, one of those really great tomb missions.

I might have included Return to the Cathedral, but the memory is still too traumatising to post about it coherently. Cradle? What cradle? :D

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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Same here - I liked them all and not all of them are fresh enough in my memory to single out above the others. If I had to pick one which has special magic for me then it's Bafford - the first one. Probably not because it's better than the others but simply because I'd never played a full commercial 3D game before and I was blown away, totally immersed. In particular, the far away sounds, little more than far off faint conversations and noises within the manor when you find a quite spot, was so realistic to me then.

 

I too, hand-drew sketch maps in those days, probably still got them in my old map box. I recall my own key codes: L = locked door, H - ladder (geddit?) and G = guard, etc.

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I totally mapped the levels too. The last game I ever did that for. (I used to do it for the old RPGs like Bard's Tale.)

 

Bafford's was definitely special for being the first experience in that world. I first played it that Christmas break it came out (1998 I believe) with my dad & brother watching. The first conversation, the water streaming down into the sewer, "Inside at last"... A long time ago but still very memorable.

 

I remember reaching the foyer and every time I took the tiniest step all the guards would start grumbling "Hello? Somebody there?" and getting such a kick out of it.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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Ah, happy days! :)

 

Another kick memory I recall in Bafford. A guard spotted me in a side room (art gallery or something.) I hit him a couple of times with my sword and he ran off out the door. I was astonished but quite pleased with myself as I was useless in the melees. I carried on cruising the art gallery. He came back with two more guards! I couldn't believe my eyes. A computer game where the AI go and fetch help?

 

As for mapping, yes, I go back to text adventures where generally they were easier (typically rooms on a grid) to map. "The troll was too strong. You are dead." kind of stuff.

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He came back with two more guards! I couldn't believe my eyes. A computer game where the AI go and fetch help?

 

Do our AI actually do this? I don't know that I've ever noticed it, but there are vocal barks and I had the vague impression that it had been coded.

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Do our AI actually do this? I don't know that I've ever noticed it, but there are vocal barks and I had the vague impression that it had been coded.

I never noticed it either. If they flee, they flee. And although they alert other AI on their way, I never saw one come back? But maybe I'm wrong. (I don't get into fightings that often :D )

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

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Mmm... Don't know. If a guard is weakened enough to flee and passed other guards while fleeing then they would alert. Would the first guard pass the enemy location to them? Would he be encouraged to return with them? Not certain now if guard 1 returns even in Thief - maybe an identical guard type with same voice among the new guards might make it seem the original returned. It certainly seemed to me at the time that guard 1 returned but I knew nothing then of the limits of guard types and voices. Despite their crudeness, when they came back and opened the door and looked around inquisitively then spotted me, they seemed very realistic.

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Would the first guard pass the enemy location to them?

I don't think so. It wouldn't make much sense if for example the second guard is a bit away. Then the player already fleed until the guard would arrive. (Unless he is trolling himself because he survived a swordfight :P )

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

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In no particular order:

  • Disorentation: a great blend city and city streets and thief's highway that make it stand out.
  • Sepulchre of the Sinistral, One of those really great tomb missions.
  • Rocksbourg series: This has to be the one of if not the best series of thief missions bar none.
  • Life of the Party: The genre defining classic.
  • Between these dark Wall: Like Melan's, Skacky's mission's have the classic city/rooftop mix.

There too many other absolute Gems to mentions, but I would have liked to included The Black Frog, which is in the same league as Rocksbourge.

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Those are FMs. I would have had to think a lot longer to list favorite FMs.

 

Regarding guards coming back with friends, I think even in the original Thief that might have been a nice coincidence if a fleeing guard got re-alerted and came back into action (which sometimes happens) at the same time two other guards were alerted by the noise & made their way there. If the space isn't too big and the guard density high enough, you could expect that to happen occasionally I think.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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The guards in Thief always flew when they had critical health. If there were other guards near the flee point, they would follow the hurt guard back to where he saw the player.

In our case only a test scenario / grayman could help.

"Einen giftigen Trank aus Kräutern und Wurzeln für die närrischen Städter wollen wir brauen." - Text aus einem verlassenen Heidenlager

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Our AI run when hurt (or unarmed) and nearby AI that hear their call for help will run to where the player was last seen. I don't think the fleeing AI actually leads them back to the spot, however, even though we have vocal barks for that.

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