"Must play" Thief or Thief 2 fan missions?

[chakkman]

I just finished The Black Parade (it was really nice), and, now I kind of tasted blood.

You guys know some top notch fan missions for either game, which I should play? They should be of similar quality as the missions in The Black Parade. I frankly have no idea about the mission makers in Thief and Thief 2, so, I have to ask. I know that Melan did some missions for TG and TMA, but, frankly, I liked his TDM missions better. With the other mission authors, I have no idea. 

[jaxa]

I dunno about comparable quality, but Thief 2X and CoSaS Mission X might fit the bill. Also check out King's Story, Bathory + Dracula Reloaded, and Lord Alan's Factory. I'm very out of date, so my recommendations are too.

Edited December 10, 2023 by jaxa

[thebigh]

T2X is quite nice. The custom assets are very effective and I found the story pretty decent- not as solid as Dark Project but significantly more coherent than Metal Age. The only real rough edges were some of the vocals. Recording quality was a bit iffy here and there, and technical limitations meant that some conversations contained awkward pauses. It's a very high quality project and absolutely worth playing.

[chakkman]

The one issue I have with T2X (heard of that one already in the past) is the female protagonist. Call me old fashioned, but, I only gel with male protagonists, being a male and all that, I can identify better with a male protagonist.

One of the few exceptions to that is Tomb Raider. But, especially in a Thief game, I want to play a guy. 

[nbohr1more]

I love "Lord Edmond Entertains", "Endless Rain", "Autumn in Lampfire Hills". Those are the ones I remember without scrolling a wiki.

[chakkman]

Thanks.

I figured out that Thiefs Guild seems to be THE site for browsing these missions. I already found Endless Rain there, when I checked skacky's missions. 

Looks like it's part of a series of maps, so, I'll probaby start with the prequel, "Between These Dark Walls".

[snatcher]

Right at the bottom of my "must play long ass campaigns" list is Patriot, so I guess it counts

[chakkman]

I just finished Between These Dark Walls. It was very good.  

[irg]

any by skacky and a lot of the team members behind The Black Parade are worthwhile. they're often all part of the same fan-made continuity as TBP.

for some different multi-mission series of various size i'd also recommend Godbreaker and Death's Cold Embrace. the authors of those are working on their own full length campaign for Thief 2, The Broken Goddess. There's also Feast of Pilgrims which won the T2 anniversary contest and was made between team members of both fan expansions.

[chakkman]

Thanks.

I'm playing Endless Rain at the moment (about 3/4 through), and, it's great. Gigantic, but, great.

[chakkman]

Somehow, I didn't get the "Objective complete" sound overlay and text display when I completed an objective with both the Between These Dark Walls and Endless Rain missions. Is that normal, and maybe a side effect of these missions having been developed for older versions of New Dark? I definitely got those in The Black Parade, so, it can't be a general thing.

Edited December 11, 2023 by chakkman

[Daft Mugi]

1 hour ago, chakkman said:

Somehow, I didn't get the "Objective complete" sound overlay and text display when I completed an objective with both the Between These Dark Walls and Endless Rain missions. Is that normal, and maybe a side effect of these missions having been developed for older versions of New Dark? I definitely got those in The Black Parade, so, it can't be a general thing.

Only Thief 2 has that feature, but it can be enabled via scripting on Thief 1 and Thief 1 FMs.

Personally, if I want the notifications, I add it to a Thief 1 FM after checking that it doesn't have objective-complete notifications. Otherwise, you might get double notifications.

dbmods/objective-notify.dml

DML1

#script "squirrel"

// Enable objective-complete notifications
ObjProp -2099 "Scripts"
{
	"Script 3" VictoryCheckAux
}

To enable them on Between These Dark Walls, add the above file as "thief/FMs/darkwalls/dbmods/objective_notify.dml". The mission needs to be restarted from the beginning for the DML to take effect.

By default, TFix (Full, not Lite) installs it globally for Thief 1 and Thief 1 FMs in the "thief/OSM/gamesys.dml" file. I don't recommend that, because it can conflict with FMs.

EDIT

I forgot to include the requirement of the "sq_scripts/victory.nut" script, which comes with TFix (Full, not Lite).

So, either the "victory.nut" file needs to be put the FM's "sq_scripts" directory, or it needs to be included in the global script path, such as "thief/OSM/sq_scripts/victory.nut".

[chakkman]

27 minutes ago, Daft Mugi said:

Only Thief 2 has that feature, but it can be enabled via scripting on Thief 1 and Thief 1 FMs.

So, if I understand you, no Thief Gold FM does sound and text notifications of completed objectives?

The missions in The Black Parade surely did.

I'm completely confused now. I was sure that original Thief Gold had those objective complete notifications (at least the sound). Reading this thread suggests otherwise though: https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=132977

Edited December 11, 2023 by chakkman

[Daft Mugi]

25 minutes ago, chakkman said:

So, if I understand you, no Thief Gold FM does sound and text notifications of completed objectives?

An FM, such as The Black Parade, can enable objective-complete notifications via scripting.

It's objective-complete notification script is at:

thief/FMs/TheBlackParade_1_0/sq_scripts/victory.nut

 

[Daft Mugi]

24 minutes ago, chakkman said:

I'm completely confused now. I was sure that original Thief Gold had those objective complete notifications (at least the sound).

Thief 1 does have the new-objective notification, though.

[chakkman]

So, it doesn't play sounds when an objective has been completed?

I was sure that it at least plays a sound when you meet the loot objective. But, again, totally confused about that now.

[Daft Mugi]

1 minute ago, chakkman said:

So, it doesn't play sounds when an objective has been completed?

I was sure that it at least plays a sound when you meet the loot objective. But, again, totally confused about that now.

• Thief 1
  • "New Objective" Notification: YES
  • "Objective Complete" Notification: NO
• Thief 1 (TFix Full, not Lite)
  • "New Objective" Notification: YES
  • "Objective Complete" Notification: YES
• Thief 1 FM
  • "New Objective" Notification: YES
  • "Objective Complete" Notification: NO
• Thief 1 FM (enabled via scripting)
  • "New Objective" Notification: YES
  • "Objective Complete" Notification: YES
• Thief 2
  • "New Objective" Notification: YES
  • "Objective Complete" Notification: YES
• Thief 2 FM
  • "New Objective" Notification: YES
  • "Objective Complete" Notification: YES

[chakkman]

Thanks. I think you found my issue. I installed TFix Lite instead of full, as I read that it works better with FMs.  I usually installed TFix full, and, I that's probably why I thought Thief Gold always had these sound notifications.

[peter_spy]

I remember T2X having quite bit of variety in level design, so that might be a plus over BP. CoSaS Mission X was also excellent. I also liked Eternauta's missions, Kingsbridge in particular.

[chakkman]

I just finished another of skacky's missions, Midsummer Night Heist. Quite nice, and moderately sized mansion mission. And, quite a step up in terms of visuals compared to the Thief Gold missions I played before that.

I played the Chalice of Souls before that, but, the snow theme and city design somehow didn't pick me up...

Edited December 14, 2023 by chakkman

[chakkman]

Just finished "The Sound Of A Burrick In A Room" by skacky in 5 hours plus... Best fan mission for Thief 1 or 2 I played so far. That one was really near perfect. Nothing boring in the mission, interesting objective, perfect difficulty, nice size (huge without being a maze to navigate), very good level design, great atmosphere etc. Really round and professionally designed mission.

[irg]

just remembered to mention if you liked the looks of Midsummer's Night Heist, it's heavily inspired by an older mission from an inactive author, Mystic Gems: Heart of Bohn. it's a shame it never got its third entry but still well worth for just how good it looks for pre-NewDark

[The Black Arrow]

I would use this massive list for any fan missions, it includes campaigns too:
https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148090

There are a lot of Fan Missions for the picking, I myself go for the lesser known ones and the short variety, because sometimes they hide a gem or two.

Just like jaxa, I'm a bit outdated after the temporal retirement, but I do remember some amazing campaigns like "The Black Frog". If you intend to play The Black Frog, you should play the first two of the L'Arsene series missions, it's how I did it myself. Also, yes, L'Arsene are a fantastic series.

The first mission of L'Arsene is a "rough draft", author was a bit new to Thief level making, but still great either way, after the 3rd you will see how his skill increased by a massive amount.

[chakkman]

I found the Thief Guild site to be a good place to download, and check for mission ratings. Although I also played 2 or 3 missions now which were just average, and still got a rating of 8/10. So, not completely reliable.

[chakkman]

Just finished the Lost Among The Forsake mission by DrK. Another absolute beauty. Was a great decision to dive into Thief Gold and Thief 2 FMs.