What should I play next?

[Bulgarian_Taffer]

Hello,

At long last - at long freaking last - I finally got into The Dark Mod.

Back when I was a teenager/young adult, about 20 years ago, I wasn't too keen on the idea of The Dark Mod. Since it didn't use the Eidos IP, it felt more like a knockoff than a tribute. Looking back, I noticed that in 2009 I even posted a thread here about how much I loved TDM, but at the time I didn't have a decent computer, and the experience was ruined by bugs.

Then, after 2010, when I finally got a good gaming rig, I became completely absorbed in World of Warcraft, LOTRO, and other MMORPGs, so I never really gave new single-player games much attention. I still revisited Thief 1 and Thief 2, replayed fan campaigns, and so on, but I never seriously got into TDM.

I also played Thief (2014). At first I liked it, but I eventually ended up disappointed by the lack of variety, the absence of the old lore, the Hammerites and Pagans - you know, all the things that make Thief feel like Thief.

Now, with the upcoming reboot on the horizon, I've replayed The Dark Project, The Metal Age, Deadly Shadows, T2X, and even Thief (2014) - yeah, I'm a masochist, I know - and I finally decided to give The Dark Mod the time it deserved.

This time I completed Tears of St. Lucia, and then, over the course of just two days, I finished the entire William Steele campaign. I was blown away by how good it was. The detective mission, where you discover the disguise and eventually confront the killer, was fantastic, and the bank mission was absolutely gorgeous.

So now I'm looking for more missions.

Being almost 40 rather than a teenager, I have a pretty good idea of what I enjoy. Here's what I'm looking for:

1. Cathedrals and churches - these are always my number one choice.

2. I don't enjoy forced ghosting missions. No-kill is perfectly fine, and I don't mind if blackjacking is allowed, but mandatory ghosting isn't my thing.

3. I'm not a huge fan of complicated puzzles that require piecing together clues from lots of different written sources. It wasn't an issue in the William Steele campaign since I played on Normal difficulty, though.

4. I love rooftops, so I'd definitely like more missions featuring them. That said, I think verticality is a bit overrated these days and overused by many modern Thief FM authors. I enjoy believable cities with accessible rooftops, but I'm not a fan of skyscraper-like climbing mazes. In fact, I think the final William Steele missions came close to crossing that line, although I still enjoyed the way the climbing was integrated into reaching the rooftops.

5. I'm not particularly interested in horror or zombie-themed missions.

6. Classic mansion/manor heists are always welcome - I never get tired of those.

Regards,

Svetlio

[werner]

Hi Svetilio,

Grayman's Steele series was wonderful. Sadly he is not with us any more.

Well, it's hard to match the exact characteristics given by you, and there are at least fifty very good or excellent missions, but you could give the following ones a shoot (as far as I remember them):

Who Watches The Watcher? (but lots of killing with mines in there)

Braden Church (with undeads)

Penny Dreadful 2+3

Now and Then

The Imperial Sword

Displacement

the two Ulysses missions (smaller)

the Chronicles of Skulduggery series (with lot to read)

The Lieutenant series

the two Shadows of Northdale missions

... so I guess this will keep you busy the rest of the year 

[joebarnin]

A couple of my faves:

The Painter's Wife - massive mission, one of the best thieving experiences I've had in years. The geometry/geography is amazing, the story and gameplay flow is excellent. Brilliant stuff.

The Hidden Hands series. Every mission is different, in a good way.

 

[werner]

2 hours ago, joebarnin said:

Brilliant stuff.

Absolutely. But there is still this bug for unknown reasons, that the painter' wife doesn't faint sometimes, and then this huge mission cannot be completed. After hours is this really annoying.

[Baal]

Hello,

you did not mention "The Black Parade" (a campaign for Thief Gold). If you didn't know about that, you are in for a treat.

As for Darkmod missions, I would recommend Kingsals Volta missions first. Only the first one takes place in a manor, the other two are more exotic locations.

[chakkman]

15 hours ago, werner said:

Absolutely. But there is still this bug for unknown reasons, that the painter' wife doesn't faint sometimes, and then this huge mission cannot be completed. After hours is this really annoying.

I believe you just have to NOT save in the first 5 seconds when you start the mission to avoid the bug.

[chakkman]

3 hours ago, Baal said:

As for Darkmod missions, I would recommend Kingsals Volta missions first. Only the first one takes place in a manor, the other two are more exotic locations.

I can highly recommend the second one though. One of the best TDM missions in my opinion.

[Baal]

20 minutes ago, chakkman said:

I believe you just have to NOT save in the first 5 seconds when you start the mission to avoid the bug.

Unfortunately, that does not prevent the issue, as I discovered in my recent playthrough.

[Bulgarian_Taffer]

I am going to load soon some of your suggestions. 
Meanwhile I played Bikerdude's two Alban missions. And looks like I am starting to enjoy vertical missions - I discovered that The Dark Mod has a nice Zoom instruments that helped me localize secret switches - in the case of St Alban's Cathedral, it was especially helpful. 

Looks like I'll be loading Kingsals Volta next. 

[demagogue]

The two big city missions with verticality that I'd recommend are The Painter's Wife and Crucible of Omens: Behind Closed Doors. 

The good church/cathedral ones are St. Albans 1 & 2 and Braeden Church, and Alberic's Curse for the haunted variety.

Welcome to the Dark side. 

[datiswous]

Have you played Requiem and A house of Locked secrets? My 2 favorite missions.

(although there's some horror and zombies in them)

Edited Friday at 09:53 PM by datiswous

[chakkman]

11 hours ago, demagogue said:

The two big city missions with verticality that I'd recommend are The Painter's Wife and Crucible of Omens: Behind Closed Doors. 

Penny Dreadful 2 and 3 are great city missions as well.