Current Events > I started playing some old Thief games (ongoing spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Yeah I'm sure you've figured it out by now, but money is use it or lose it prior to a mission.

Finished Mission 6!

Alright, got through the bank job without too much trouble. Things became easier when you get the master (sort of) key from the director's office. Very clever to perch a robot head (not the fun Lexx kind) directly so it can see through the balcony to the lower level.

Now it's time to blackmail the Sheriff at his estate. I'm guessing there's gonna be a ton of annoying mini-robots and stuff, so I spent my ill-gotten gains on arrows and now I've got more than Sagittarius.

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CyricZ posted...

There's a secret passage to the second floor with all the offices, a secret passage to Secure Records, a secret passage to Evidence Storage, a secret passage into the Armory to stock up (might have been one of those you missed; you have to get a bullseye on the target in the practice range).

That's what you're meant to do, though I have heard tell of taffers with no aim walking right up to it and just pressing the button on it.

mercurydude posted...

That's what you're meant to do, though I have heard tell of taffers with no aim walking right up to it and just pressing the button on it.

I almost did that, just to see if it did anything, haha. Completely forgot by about ten seconds later since I was busy collecting free arrows past the targets.

Shotgunnova posted...

Alright, got through the bank job without too much trouble. Things became easier when you get the master (sort of) key from the director's office. Very clever to perch a robot head (not the fun Lexx kind) directly so it can see through the balcony to the lower level.

The wild thing about this level? It's randomized. Several enemies are randomly placed with patrols throughout the bank, including the placement of some Watchers. On my run I didn't have the Watcher seeing through the balcony.

It's the watcher near the records room, so you'd think that one wouldn't be randomized. But if you stand just right on the level below, it can spy you, albeit barely. It's the second screenshot above.

Oh that one might always be there, yeah.

I didn't check this earlier, but I wonder if the simple security switches can be triggered with broadheads. Should try that next time.

Finished Mission 7!

Finished Mission 8!

Also I confirmed it that yes, light switches on the walls can be hit with Broadheads, although it is loud.

Finally did the Truart mansion mission. Got hung up for some reason because a door wouldn't open with the balcony key...only for me to find out, I have to try the leftmost door to unlock it. Garrett is a genius! Now it's time to tail that girl from the police station who wasn't fond of the other two dudes.

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Did you find the hidden Truart graveyard?

Finished Mission 9!

On to the best mission in the series, Life of the Party.

Don't remember if I found that graveyard, but I finished the courier mission in the Shalebridge cemetery, so now it's onto the Pagan lands outside of town (???) or something. Gonna see how long this stuck pig can flee from me.

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Shotgunnova posted...

Don't remember if I found that graveyard

Yeah you likely didn't find it. It requires a little fuckery to get there.

From the start if you go to the south end's crack to the side of the estate, you'll go through the hole in the rock, and then the secret graveyard is over the rocks to the right. It's got all the deceased Truart members and also an empty open grave. Take Truart's corpse into that grave and you complete a bonus objective.

Yeah, I didn't go there. I regret not having another chance to throw a dead body over a balcony.

On the bright side, this pagan romp through the forest isn't too shabby, and lets me indulge my other favorite VG-related activity: throwing bodies into flowing liquids. Usually this means rivers, but in the caverns with the digestive juices, it's fun to knock out the Chewbaccas and let them dissolve. Sucks to suck, you damn dirty apes.

The courier who bled out ran about 15 miles after getting shot in the back, though, so I'll pay some respects to that guy. Looks like Vikki is back and doing her tree thing still...almost forgot she did that last time. Guess she wasn't just some minion to Constantine.

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Courier and Trail of Blood are good missions.

I sometimes get frustrated with Courier because the loot moves a lot, which is to say it's on the belt purses of several walking characters.

Also there are actual zombies in the mission if you hunt a lot.

Trail of Blood is a much-needed departure from the City, particularly all the Mechanist-heavy stuff.

Also my girl Vikki. :O

I thought the pickpocketing stuff would be the hardest part, but it was rather easy, as it turns out. I just stole whatever I could, then knocked 'em out. Wound up a smart move since the courier ended up going back the marketplace's way, so it was already empty.

Alright, finished Life of the Party. Had to go all the way back to Angelwatch after reaching the belltower again because I forgot to read a scripture, but other than that, not too shabby. There are some pretty funny conversations in the rooftop portion, like the dude who gets so mad, his voice pitch ratchets up (almost Monty Python-esque, honestly).

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Next mission is going to be a fun-filled island romp with a classic extracurricular activity: kidnapping. Life of the Party was pretty ambitious for its day, I'm sure, so I'd expect this one to be a bit smaller.

Was keeping a close eye on those arguing guards ready to bop the one who survived, but I lucked out and they all killed each other.

Yeah, that part's annoying since if you hit a surviving guard, it kills them and the mission fails. (Tried the whole "shoot an arrow in the chaos to help everyone die" strategy, too, but that didn't work.) I ended up sneaking past the whole thing with a vine arrow, then using a gas arrow on the survivor on the way back.

Finished Mission 10!

The walk back is such a victory lap. Hopping past all the people you bonked, doors you unlocked, stuff you cleaned out.

Whew, got through the Markham Isle mission. Took awhile, but the globe was probably the most annoying thing to find. Luckily, the game gives you more Flares than Black Mage Village, so I wasn't quite screwed over by dousing all the torches I see.

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Goddamn, I went through this cavern complex (the Lost City from Thief 1) and still haven't found Cavador. I heard he goes back to his chambers eventually, so maybe I'll do that instead of running around and trying to find where he is on his scroll-described route. Most areas have green lights by now.

Also: RIP burricks. They desecrated your home and, if I wasn't playing on max difficulty, I'd offer their bodies to the lava in your name.

I do not know
A wretched creeeature

Finished Mission 11! I legit forgot about the Mechanist frogman design lol.

Also Markham actually tagged me this run. I didn't quickload and let him have that small victory.

Those little robots are annoying. I actually got seen by one at the end of the kidnapping mission, but I was ten inches from the door, so no big deal. I like to imagine that there are Mechanists out there who wake up hours after I escaped, thinking, "Did I just get hit on the head by Garrett again? That's the seventeenth time! I just got transferred so I wouldn't have to deal with that guy!!"

I eventually did find Cavador, though...back at his home base...knocked out, in the anteroom I stuffed his "corpse" in with five other guys. If they hadn't labelled his body, I would've pulled my hair out, since I'd already backtracked to most other locations and searched my body stash. (On a funny note, just because I have a no-kill mandate doesn't mean I can't stuff 15 Mechanists in a mastaba and shut the secret door, completing the immurement.)

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Somehow, after all my travels, I'm back at town to steal some dude's mask. Really thought my submarine trip would've taken me halfway around the world, but maybe it's one of those really big cities that covers a continent or something, like Ravnica.

Reminder to self: after you find the secret staircase in the mask mansion, don't go upstairs. You can't open it from the other side and you can get trapped up there -- or worse, in the staircase, in which case I hope you didn't save! (I did, but managed to get out before it shut on me. Lesson learned.) The balcony on one side of the upper hallway, a broken window, and some moss arrows managed to barely get back to 2F without alerting everyone. Still, not a fun proposition.

lol whoops don't get caught in the secret passage or else Garrett will have to chew his way out.

Finished Mission 12! Tried to conserve supplies in 11 since I knew you didn't get a follow-up loadout, but then I forgot that 12 just piles supplies upon supplies. I had like five Gas Arrows by the end of it, so you know I had to get the bad guys attention and drop like four at once with a single Gas Arrow.

I remember gassing a group earlier. Probably a bunch of dudes near the third outpost in the Lost City or something.

Anyway, finished the mask mansion proceedings and finally know the big bad's plan to make his servants little rust gas dirty bombs. Now it's time to call them back to the cathedral and have them detonate when Kallas sequesters himself somewhere -- dunno where since I just started it, but I'm sure it'll be good fun.

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Man, this final level sucks compared to everything else so far.

Okay, I finally did the mission. Rather a big letdown, honestly -- tons of mechanical enemies and you don't get as much stuff to combat them with (water arrows, etc.) pre-mission, despite the gigantic windfall you got from the mask mansion. Yeah, there are some supplies to find around the area and all, but most first-timers aren't going to know that and the trial and error aspect was pretty messed up. But, at least Karras is dead now. I'll probably have to go back to yet another decrepit cathedral filled with ghosts and hopefully he's there, shrieking at me in that Droopy-esque voice.

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Onto Deadly Shadows! Let's hope I can actually adjust my brightness this time. Everything being dark and creepy is fitting in many ways, but I almost missed several things (switches, crawlspaces, etc.) in this mission, especially in that damn turret room. We...we don't want to talk about that place anymore.

Now see I always had good vibes about Sabotage at Soulforge. Maybe I'll back down on that once I get to it again on this run.

Good luck getting Deadly Shadows to run.

Already tried Deadly Shadows a bit and it worked fine. Messed up my desktop resolution afterwards, but that's not a big deal...though hopefully it won't do it everytime.

CyricZ posted...

Now see I always had good vibes about Sabotage at Soulforge. Maybe I'll back down on that once I get to it again on this run.

May the Builder destroy the Mechanists and all they wrought. Speaking of, I was hoping I'd get revenge on Karras by launching his protective bubble into the deepest underwater trench or something, but I guess the normal ending has some poetic justice to it.

Beat Missions 13 and 14 today. Same place done twice makes sense to do it in the same day. It's refreshing that you can just go ahead and bonk everyone the second time around.

Hmm, I guess the freeze-ups and weird hijinx waited a little before they started. Guess I'll have to get the Sneaky mod after all...well, either that or install it on my 12-year-old lappy. I'd prefer not to do that, though, since I stripped a screw out of it long ago and now the screen is falling off, haha.

Alright, time to restart the inn mission. The modded version adds some extra goals, I guess -- I forget if I opted in to 'em, but it's no big deal. I can also do the tutorial on expert instead of the normal default. There were other mods to tweak enemies and stuff, but I think I only enabled the texture packs; I don't want a completely messed-up playthrough on the first attempt.

I will say, though, that stealing 90% of the loot -- or any X% -- is kind of stupid. Maybe not a big deal on this tiny mission, but once the scope expands, haha...

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Alright, finished the first mission. It took longer than normal because the mod gets rid of all the tutorial hand-holding and adds special objects to find -- and one eluded me no matter how much I searched. Figured it might have glitched or something, so I redid the job on Hard instead and now can do the first castle B&E for a huge opal. Should be fun since the game plays pretty well and looks great.

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Second mission complete! Once again, the blackjacking part was easy and the "find 90% loot" part was hard (see image). Luckily, I found I forgot some candlesticks in a dining room and managed to get the rest of the stuff without much trouble. HIding a crawlspace behind a gigantic box that led to a painting has to be cheating, though...

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Exploring the town should be fun. I wonder if it'll keep the same layout as the missions in Thief 2 (maybe in Thief 1, too?) or there've been some renovations.

Not gonna lie: I rather enjoy the small amount of open-world stuff added to the usual mission-by-mission feel the early games had. I also like how you can find arrows (moss, water, etc.) naturally occuring by pipes and trees, that you can snuff candlesticks, and it's easier to hide in the shadows when people walk by. Sometimes it felt you got detected even though you were a full body length away, even if they weren't searching at all.

As for fences specializing in one loot type...not sure how I feel about that yet. On one hand, it'd be easier if everyone could take your goods without any ado and you could just pop into the neighborhood whenever a mission called upon it. On the other, this does force Garrett to wander the city a bit more, and making things too easy wouldn't fly that much with Thief fanatics, I'm sure (assuming they liked DS in the first place).

Keepers want me to go find two trinkets to hear some prophecy, so I'm in a Hammerite cathedral for...what, the 51st time? I'm surprised these jackasses haven't been run out of Dodge...although, they are technically not as crappy as Mechanists, so maybe I shouldn't tempt fate with my complaints.

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Nah I still like Sabotage at Soulforge.

The SECOND half.

First half is... ultimately... annoying. I like the idea of making stuff, but I don't like how you have to be constantly sneaksie while doing so. Sneaking to get the plans and the supplies is fine, but I'd prefer much less resistance where the machines actually are.

But the second half, where you've basically got a bunch of mini-challenges to get to each tower, is awesome. Soulforge is SO HUGE that it honestly seems such a great challenge based on size alone.

Beat the chapel earlier and even found 93% of the loot (putting $150 in a painting was nasty considering how many you don't get to take). Now I gotta go into the sewers to play with pagans in, what I presume, is a maze.

CyricZ posted...

Soulforge is SO HUGE that it honestly seems such a great challenge based on size alone.

Turret Room needs to die...although I guess you could skip that one and do the factory room or something. The map isn't that great for finding a few of the antennas.

Alright, I finished the Pagan tunnels and eventually got my 90% loot requirement done. Sure, it took crawling on my hands and knees in the first area, looking for spare change and rocks nestled against walls, but I did it. Now that the Keepers have their trinkets, I can go inspect the weird zombie ship or seek out the Hammers/Pagans to assist them. Since they have a KOS order for me, and I assume more will show up as the game progresses, maybe I'll help 'em out. Killing bugs and zombies is something I already want to do in the first place, haha.

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One click for the brainsick ones.

Phew! Finished Sabotage at Soulforge with like three health pips left lol.

And completed Checking Inn - Cashing Out. Yeah, the modders changed the first mission to put more loot in there, moved around the people. Nice to know my guide is nearly useless. >_>

That said you're reminded very quickly in Deadly Shadows that you're not controlling Garrett so much as you're "steering" him.

The Xbox OG era was a wild time.

Yeah, the controls are a little goofy, but not totally unpleasant. I'm only playing in first-person POV, but maybe the weird "steering" is easier to pick up in third-person.

Shotgunnova posted...

Yeah, the controls are a little goofy, but not totally unpleasant. I'm only playing in first-person POV, but maybe the weird "steering" is easier to pick up in third-person.

Was entirely implemented because Eidos wanted it on consoles, and because that's how Splinter Cell did it.

As I recall, if you play TDS on Xbox, 3rd person is the default perspective.

But playing T1 and T2 I can move in ways that would seem like I'm crawling on the ground, or edging around on the floor like a worm sometimes, the kind of things you can imagine given an immersive first-person experience with a somewhat disconnected perspective.

TDS gives you much more body awareness.

Heck there's a flatten-on-walls function, which you almost never use. They teach it to you in the tutorial level, but either the tutorial is skipped in Expert or just removed entirely with the Sneaky mod.

Also Garrett looks kind of hideous in 3PP.

Yeah, the modded tutorial messes everything up and doesn't teach any lessons, including the wall-hugging stuff. I've never used the function this entire time, though I might start if Garrett is ...ahem...up against the wall by enemy patrollers somehow.

As for how Garrett looks, I'm just going to imagine him as a shadow-cloaked figure with a weird telescopic eye poking out at weird times. Well, I don't think that's how his eye actually works, but it's fun to imagine it.