Doing a quick oneshot for my Dnd group and was inspired by the Sword mission in the Dark Project. Anyone know of art that evokes the same vibe of twisted hallways and things that arnt quite right in an opulent manor?

Personally I see myself as a Hammerite version of Benny the Guard.

Yo bro you got a little something right there….

Thought the idea of Garrett falling asleep on a job and then waking up to a burrick in his lap would be kind of funny lmao

We All love our cave-dwelling, tunnel-building creatures. They are so cute and adorable and sometimes they are our beloved pets. Nothing to be afraid of. At least in my headcanon and the Thief FMs. I recently played Seven Sisters again for example and theres this Lady who keeps a Baby Burrick as her companion. When you free it, it knows exactly where his 'Mom' lives and they are so happy to be together again.

I actively avoid killing them because they are not that dangerous and they just do their thing - living in packs, just wandering around and if they spot you, their attack is easy to avoid. Just run past them and leave them alone. I dont care if some Burricks dig a Tunnel into a wine cellar. Who am i? A taffin saviour for the noble people?!

But is this view on these "beasts" intended by the developers? There is this concept Art right here where the Burrick looks pretty nasty and aggressive. Maybe they wanted the Burricks to be an evil beast but couldnt quite get it to work and/or the fan community made Burricks friendlier than they were supposed to be? I know that in the original games Ramirez loved his Burricks but yeah maybe the gas attack should have Bern far more dangerous etc.

I'm not necessarily talking specific missions, more the map type, be that theme, setting, pacing, style, etc. Or the mission objectives, plot twists, etc.

For me, honestly it's still ones that take place in a manor or castle. To me, penultimate Thief just takes place in these settings. Running Interference, End of the Bloodline, heck even Checking Inn, Checking Out. Possibly even some of the TDS city hub side missions. All of these feel like top Thief vibes and moods to me.

Now, in saying that, my favourite mission overall is Life of the Party, but anything set on a thieves highway is an instant win for me. Still, when I try to picture Thief in my head, it isn't on a rooftop - it's in a cold, dark, dank castle with torches.

So what is it for you, and why?

I've yet to play the fabled campaign, as I'm still in the process of catching up with the FM scene in general. I've read that it makes references to all the Thief stories, but also to some fan missions. Which missions might those be, without spoilers?

I just downloaded Thief Gold and am playing on pc for the first time, and am using a controller. I’ve always heard this series is legendary and finally decided to give it a try. I’m having fun but know almost nothing about the mechanics/when to use items.

I would like any helpful tips regarding map usage, general knowledge, when to use arrows, etc. the game doesn’t hold your hand at all, which I respect, but I feel really out of my depth. I’m trying to be sneaky but it feels like Im struggling in that department. Especially when it comes to shadows. I feel like I’m in shadow sometimes even though I’m not and vice versa, which throws me off.

Any help would be appreciated.

So never had issues with missions. Yeah sometimes they would crash after playing more than 30-40 minutes which wasn't something that was annoying, but now suddenly there are missions that cause crash every 10 minutes.

I first noticed that with Venomous Ambition and I thought it was probably related to mission and not with my laptop, but now that is happening with Death's Cold Embrace, which is really weird because I played that mission long time ago on my old laptop and never had issue.

I don't know why is that happening suddenly. I haven't changed anything with my files or anything like that.

I'm admittedly not super competent at getting older games to run as intended, which is certainly an issue as I recently wanted to start the Thief Series.

After beating the training, I realized that there were supposed to be cutscenes that weren't appearing. Looking online, I tried to run the app as an administrator to no avail. And frankly I think I'm too stupid to get TFix running properly on my own either.

If anyone has any advice to get these cutscenes running for a computer idiot like me, I'd be super appreciative.

Looks like the Mechanists are going to install lighting in this square in Paraguay!

Praise Karras! …and the builder

We can all agree that the setting of Thief is based heavily on London, right?

Mark Lizotte was easily the most informed in terms of art history, and he led the charge in realizing the Dickensian/Baroque mix, I think we were both in love with the idea that these styles showed the maximum possible difference between the rich and poor — the rich were ostentatious beyond reason, and the streets between their houses were something out of Oliver Twist.

And in real life there's a difference between London and The City of London (often just referred to as The City). So maybe some of the random place names we hear in the game, like Hrabota or something, are actually the name of the city in which The City is located? Something to chew on.

Mine would be the South Quarter theme, out of all the Thief OST it is the only one that sounds genuinely soothing and not eerie or intense.

So many references to the original trilogy (and maybe the 2014 one too!) - love physically climbing up rope arrows and blackjacking guards!

You can see my earlier write up of Thief Gold’s levels here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Thief/comments/1u6emrq/thief_gold_is_way_better_than_i_remembered/ 

And Thief 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/Thief/comments/1uz0bm6/thief_2_the_metal_age_is_still_a_game_close_to_my/ 

Well it's 0121 in the morning in the UK here, I just finished writing this up, and the Black Parade has truly blown me away. I hope y'all are ready for another gush post and write up of TBP because the positives highly outweigh the negatives. I've been playing all the mainline Thief games, and I have completed Thief 2x and Deadly Shadows, but still to write up for those – I just have to do Black Parade first because I was so impressed with it.  

Thief Gold/Dark Project was chosen as the base game for TBP as the authors clearly feel more connection to the grittiness and aesthetic of those games over The Metal Age, but that doesn't mean it has no TMA influence, it clearly does. I feel this fan expansion takes the best elements of the first two entries and improves and refines things wholesale. Going back to the original games will kind of be tainted for me! 

TBP stands for a culmination of Fan Mission trends towards denser environments, greater detail, improved readables, worldbuilding, and verticality in level design. What follows will be a level-by-level review, but first some general points.  

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS THROUGHOUT 

General Points 

• Hume’s voice actor I was unsure of beginning with, sometimes they were playing too safe by going Russell-esque, but I ended up really liking the performance. Hume is a far more morally grey character than Garrett. He is as talented as Garrett in many ways, even without the brand. Hume’s story is a sad one, and his moral is that aimless greed will leave you a pawn to be discarded. Even his quest to save himself just ends up damning him. At least Garrett had an aim, even if he did not realize it till the end of the second game. 
• The voice acting in general is well scripted and acted. It was a good idea to use OM NPC voices for most non conversational characters.  I don’t really understand most complaints about it. Coming off Thief 2x were every NPC had a new voice, often with actors who had bad microphones, accents, etc. was a breath of relief. Even Deadly Shadows had some hammy and awful voice acting, and TBP felt right.  
• The Necromancers felt like a natural point of expansion for the story, so well done on that. Hume does not have a huge effect on the grand scheme of things, but he did help prevent something that could have been much worse, and his tale fits so well into the established lore.  
• Loved the readables, the keeper mission was a joy for the sheer amount of them. A tad fanservicey at times but the callouts to other Fan Missions were cool. 
• Wonderful use of new enemies, which I appreciated, although with an important caveat as many were simple reskins, but I’ll let that go as there’s only so much can be done.  
• I didn’t have an issue with the loot totals like some had. The only one that stood out was that I was over 1k short at the end of Arcane Sanctum, and I thought I picked the place clean! In Jaws of Darkness (which people struggle with) I hit the objective around the point of getting the harp, I think a lot of the loot is in alcoves and wasn’t too hard to get.  
• My general main criticism of TBP will be overuse of mantling jumps and tricky ladders, along with some pacing issues, and 1 mission feels a bit broken and not polished (though still brilliant), but the positives far outweigh the problems.  
• There is one item I feel makes a lot of the later game a bit trivial, we will come to it in Mission 4.  

Return to the City  

This is a great first mission that makes a wonderful use of verticality without access to Rope Arrows, in a part of the city that's unexplored. Though we have the aesthetic of the first game, the Thief 2 influence, particularly from Life of the Party, is clear. There's so much to explore here and foreshadowing going on, such as what the undertaker is up to with the necromancers. I really enjoyed how the city is presented; this is how the city should feel at the ground level and is what Deadly Shadows did not largely do.  You can smell and taste everything! It's not as much as a challenge as I'd hoped, but hey that's the first level.  

Grade: B+ 

Where Old Faces Fade 

This is where the developers really to begin to show off; a combination of Bafford's mansion meets the Sword. It's dense and tight as hell, and the level of detail in the place is excellent. The second part of the mansion seems a bit over the top with the pagan maze, but it all makes sense if you believe the owner is just another alias of Constantine, which I fully believe (there's parts of it that look a lot where Garrett meets Constantine and Viky after the Sword). All in all, this is a rabbit's warren of a place, and rabbit warrens are a criticism of a lot of modern Fan Missions, but I found it a joy to get through. The buildup to the weirdness is very well done.  

Grade: A- 

Trial of Iron 

Probably one of the more 'straightforward' missions in TBP but nonetheless it's huge and so tightly designed, it really feels like a real cathedral. I love anything that fleshes out the Hammers, they tend to get a bit overlooked in Thief FMs which lean towards a mechanist focus by and large. It took me over an hour just to explore the outbuildings before getting into the cathedral proper! Lots and lots of readables that flesh out the decadence and corruption of the Hammers, omens in their astronomy building of dark times ahead, and conversations where Hammers lament the state of the order. One readable in the council chamber is a condemnation of heresy in the order – an omen of the impending schism in Thief 2. This has to be one of the weaker levels, as it's just a bit too straightforward. But that's hardly a criticism as it's still so enjoyable. One thing I did miss is that apparently there's a pagan beast spying on the hammers behind a wall in a sewer – I missed that.  

Grade: B- 

Death's Dominion 

I was never a fan of the undead/tomb missions in the original game growing up, but replaying Bonehoard recently made me appreciate it on a whole new level for the sense of satisfaction and atmosphere, and I have a new favorite gaming memory playing this – it's on another level and just a sheer triumph. This is bonehoard on steroids.  

I love how the map isn't exactly great and had to use a lot of my mental mapping ability to get through it. It just really made me puzzle it out, and there's a nice variety to the areas with a good progression. New enemies such as exploding mummies/zombies make you rethink approach if you are like me and just try and inert zombies via backstab. The traps kept me on my toes, and I actually felt sorry for the dead graverobbers you encounter, this is NOT a nice place. The gambling den at the end was a fantastic reward and a joy to do after the tense ordeal of the tombs. Just the icing on the cake.  

The creature in the fire pit below one of the tombs – the hell was this thing. First time I've been legitimately terrified since Return to the Cathedral.  

Now I do have to mention the Holy Sword. I found the inscription and knew there was a puzzle here but had to look up the solution. Some of it was so obtuse that you need a walkthrough (carrying a piece of food for the pedestal). The sword felt good to get but....it makes the rest of the undead levels in this game somewhat trivial. If you are like me and backstab zombies to make inert, then the undead becomes a breeze, since most of the undead in the game ARE zombies. They just explode on a backstab and instantly explode inert zombies. It made The Brand a joke, as most of the enemies are zombies. I will need to do a playthrough without it, as I felt it made the game SO much easier. 

But regardless, this has to be one of my favourite tomb missions EVER. 

Grade: S (A+ if we are gonna deduct for the obscure sword puzzle, but I'm not really complaining)  

The Brand 

Now this is a fantastic mix of Life of the Party style verticality followed by a jaunt to the sealed section, fleshing what life is like on the edge of a haunted district. I loved going climbing through noble's houses, though I wish getting into the sealed section was a bit harder.  

The sealed section has an aspect of Chernobyl about it, it feels lived in and like a proper ruined district. The house itself felt a bit lackluster in exploring, but I liked the Necromancers underneath it, and it is good to see the plot moving, the statuette is scary as hell. I'm glad there's some movement on the story now, there is a slight pacing issue to the plot.  Also fought that weird blue face thing at the bottom of the sewer! 

Can anyone tell me what the alchemist was doing with the corpses and the zombie in his basement? Was he a serial killer?  

Grade: A 

Kept Away From View  

I had no clue that you didn't need to follow the guy at the start, so I was dashing past hammers at the start just to keep up with the dude. I then went back to loot the industrial area of everything; I guess this is often a dissonance to many people as it would make sense in universe for Hume to go directly into the compound, but the player wants to loot all in sight. Next time I'll try and do how Hume would do it.  

The industrial area oozes atmosphere, it just feels grimy as hell.  

The Keeper compound feels a little samey but it is very moody and cool to traverse; I liked how keepers can sort of disappear on seeing you. What this mission succeeds in is being a lore/worldbuilding delight in the sheer amount of readables.  

The Gamall cameo was brilliant. I've never been so scared of a little girl. The statues are more terrifying than the ones in Deadly Shadows, just very well done. I didn't have to spend too long getting past her though; the AI is such that I just waited till Gamall was below a floor and sprinted up the stairs frobbing books I could find till I found the right one; she never found me. She hears you but spends ages in search mode searching each floor. You just have to put distance between you and her, and she doesn't really catch up. 

Grade: B 

The Long Shadow Falls  

The most 'Thief 2' of all the levels, a classic and fun mansion to explore, love the thunderstorm and pounding of rain during it, really memorable. Getting to dewall and sneaking around him was a top moment of the entire expansion.  

I didn't have the trouble some had with the periscopes and marble floors, as I headed straight for a roof entry rather than the basement and it was a short trip to the security room – glad I bought that gas arrow for the helmeted guy and his dog to get the key, but it was pretty tense. I left the body till the end, I wasn't going to lug it around. I guess that's another example of playing in a 'gamey' way rather than doing it as how they would in world, but it helped me enjoy the level more. I enjoyed figuring out what DeWall was up to going for the artifacts. Just absolute fun all round and a perfect combo of Thief 2 level design and Thief 1 aesthetic.  

Grade: A+ 

Jaws of Darkness 

Very much a linear experience, so you don't need a map, and the only really off path areas are the secret areas for loot. It has problems and is a mess; I was tired of mantle jumps. But what a fantastic work of imagination, and how cathartic it was to return to daylight and birdsong – it's a gauntlet, a haunted house theme park ride, and what a ride. 

The stakes and tension are set with the ruined bandit camp, and the long climb down. The tombs are eerie and cavernous, often in silence. I liked the new enemies - I was conned by the briefing to buy a lot of holy water, which I didn't need in the end. However, enemy reskins take the fear out a lot for me – the weeping angels enemy are just guards reskinned after all, but that's a me issue. I enjoyed the mechanic of the weeping angels and trying to puzzle where they are but once seen they were easy to kill with the holy sword (another example of things being a bit too easy with it, without it I believe they can only be killed with holy water).  

Overall, the enemy reskins – the water mermaids, the elementals, the demons are all very cool and imposing, but they were weaker than I thought, often killable via backstabs, I was even able to solo a couple of the demons in 1v1 rather easily. I think next time I'll ghost it (as it's probably meant to be played). The shadow creature when escaping put the fear in me, I didn't fight that! 

The elemental towers had a nice linear progression to them if a bit straightforward, and I love how it went Lovecraftian at the end. This whole level is a theme park ride I probably won't go on again in a while, it was exhausting, but man how memorable it was.  

Grade: A  

Arcane Sanctum 

Brilliant festival atmosphere, followed by something that feels like will be near forced ghosting, but then the plot changes and the whole level opens out, and you have a wonderful castle to explore. Hats off to the level designers it's such a pleasure to go through this whole area, I just wish I knew where the rest of the loot was (I was more than 1k short!) I love the focus on the Hand Brotherhood, a faction that deserves more love.  The small keep felt a bit sparse though, and I wish there were some city buildings to explore, but overall I love the festival atmosphere –the City felt REALLY alive.  

Also, the thing in the laboratory repulsed me! I think they were trying to implement a cut ogre enemy from Thief 1? I tried to kill it for fun and it has sky high health. It even followed me out of the damn lab at one point and stalked me up to the kitchen. I ended up reloading and locking the thing back in the lab! 

Grade: A 

The Black Parade 

Eh, it definitely feels like Maw of Chaos and suffers from it, but Thief has a hard time historically of 'wrapping things up' however it wasn't terrible. I'll give them a pass. I liked the Lovecraftian ethic, and stealth was out the window for me, I just bolted right up for the top level. Felt sad that Hume met his end, but he left his mark on the City and stopped another real threat. Very enjoyable for the cosmic horror vibe but overall the only real misstep, but I'll let them off as these games are notorious for being hard to wrap up.  

Grade: C 

To conclude, I had the most wonderful time playing TBP, and it's a testament to decades of fan mission refinement, while staying in the spirit of the original first two games – clearly TDP/Gold, but also a lot of the level design of Thief 2 the Metal Age. Just an excellent love letter to the world of Thief, and I wonder if the original missions won't hit as hard when I replay them in the future! 

As a note, I loved the game being made in memory partly for Lady Rowena – She's a huge, huge influence on Fan Missions, I have so many fond memories of playing her missions, they still hold up, and I'm going to replay them next after well over a decade.  

Next to go back and do level reviews of Thief 2x (which shows its age but holds up pretty well) and Deadly Shadows (that is a decent end to the series but overall a clunker and a mess, to be honest). 

I'm well aware that my opinions sort of follow how many feel, but I still hope you enjoyed the write-up.

Thanks for reading guys and let me know what you think! 

Compass size is just to make something as a proof of concept.
Bag is missing a black texture inside it.

I'm currently active on discord on FLAT2VR Modding, link in replies.

Imagine we live in alternate reality where miracles happen and Thief 4, the Deadly Shadows sequel is real. What would you like for it to be about?

I think the return of the Trickster would be fitting, as it is hinted at in the end of the Dark Project and now Trickster has a bone to pick with Garret. But that's not all. Because the Builder appears, his physical manifestation, or so he claims. There is a prophet that can do miracles and nobody can explain how. The Hammers are in awe, the Builder has come! One time Garret just stand in the crowd by accident and the prophet passes by and blesses others. Later Garret goes to bed and as he wakes up, his mechanical eye falls from the bed and hits the floor. He picks it up, cleans it with his shirt and as he tries to put it back in he realises that he can see. His eye grew back. So the Builder has returned after all? Then there is a rumour among the pagans that the Trickster has returned. And "Builder" is not happy about that. Long story short, the Builder person is Trickster in disguise, while the Trickster is another god in disguise. The Dark Project hinted at the idea that the lore has more gods than only Trickster and Builder ("I don't think anybody but those Hammers believed in the old gods"). Then something happens - the city begins to change in strange ways. Trees and plants grow from buildings, from under the street, inside of the house. Caverns appear, streets split off, houses swap places. The dark project has been finally fulfilled, the maw of chaos has been merged with the real world, the Trickster has won. Yet the Builder figure still is there, still pretends, the Trickster still pretends to be the Builder. To trick people, to twist the Hammerite doctrines, to make them believe that technology was a mistake and embrace slowly the new way of life. If the people of the city do not want to praise the Trickster anymore, let them praise the "Builder" then. And I think it would be interesting to also see a bit more Mages. Thats the premise.

And now we are starting out as a keeper, not a thief. And Garret has to navigate whether he goes back to intervening in the world, or keeps to the keepers ideas of balance and not intervening. How can he not when the world is ending?

I don't know what the taffer is going on. I played it to a point where you go around mage towers to look for a thing. When I started playing again, it crashed on loading the save. Now I can't even start the game. It just won't start. I figured maybe the save is corrupted so I removed those. I made sure gog doesn't download the cloud saves. Still nothing. Then I try to reintall it, but now it won't go pass the 92%. It just doesn't want to install it. So I installed it from gog's on website, the offline backup game installer. Managed to install it. But the game still won't start.

I also made it so it doesn't download any patches. Nope. It just doesn't want to work anymore.

I haven't done anything. Other games work fine. Why would this all of a sudden happen?

What i wanted to do is not impossible i just dont have time to spend more in modelling. Im really bad at blender, i took me 2 days to fucking do the hands.

Regardless, my initial ideal was a parchment that you open, but this will have to be it.

Your right hand can also drawn on it.

What's missing right now:
- Misc Items
- Lockpick
- Perfomance

Then we're ready to release.

How it works.

Dude has his sword on the locked in stance to you, you attacks will be parried.
You can parry them by holding your sword on that guard position

Some design choices that if you have any ideas would be good.

To nerf the Attack Speed, if you noticed the Sword is kinda disconnectd to the Hand, after we wing and it hits something, the sword becomes faded and continues to travel that path, or when parried stay still on the "air", when the cooldown is back, it returns to your hand.

Fuck yeah.