Announcing Thief: The Black Parade, a campaign for Thief Gold

[Squadarofl]

The problem is we're trying to do a sort of Neo-TDP atmosphere, when the City was actually a gritty and mysterious industrial medieval gothic nightmare and not the cool clean victorian town from T2. I don't really know how to explain what type of sounds we'd like to have beside "trying to be TDP as possible". So far, the most thiefy TDP sounds I know are :

Silent Hill sounds used in Rocksbourg (Silent Heaven is a really good example!), The Dark Mod's ambient sounds (Especially ss_phantom, church_defiled and ticktack_loop),Dario's sounds from his abandoned mission, Fornever's short loop (the cool music in Calendra's Legacy) and several other...

But if you think you understand, please send them to us!

So far we need :

- More "interior sounds"; something stressful but discreet enough so footsteps are not drown in it (Example: squarelo from Ramirez's villa or thloop1 in the strangely occupied Overlord's Fancy after business hours).
- More "peaceful sounds"; for places were the person living here are out for the night, there isn't too much guards etc. (Example: the peaceful puffy from Constantine's pagan temple or the mechanical humming from Rumford's manor basement)
- More "horror sounds" but more in the vein of a mechanical Silent Hill (Listen to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCKHSHRThBo, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-teDeNsr4Ew) or more "earthly", like the always so good subsons from the catacombs.
- And since we're planning on doing some briefings and cetera, some cutscenes oriented sounds but we're far from being here so nothing to worry about for now


If when you're listening to the song you created and the image it evoke you is the warm glow behind soot-encrusted stained glasses from towering gothic spires and the menacing dark polluted clouds above, spartan religious chants, hissing furnaces and echoing hammers from mechanical cathedrals --- or simply put this picture,


well, you're doing it good!

[marbleman]

I think this campaign would benefit greatly from all-new sound design. New music, ambients, interior and exterior sounds, might be even new NPC voices.
I remember how T2X astonished me with its complete sound overhaul, from footstep sonds to new conversations everywhere - it made it feel like another original game, and not a fan campaign. Hell, I do consider it another original game.
I'm already sure that gameplay and level design in The Black Parade will be top-notch, but how great would it be to go further and bring this project to the level of T2X in originality.

[Brethren]

It's a bit of a throwback though, as stated in the OP, a "love letter to Thief Gold." I think they're trying to retain the feel of The Dark Project, so changing all or even most of the sound would probably be completely counter to that idea. They'll likely add a few new touches here and there, but not a complete overhaul.

[Squadarofl]

Brethen is right, beside a few custom things, we're using mostly stock resources. You can take a look at what we did with The Chalice of Souls to have an idea about how it's done!

[marbleman]

Squadarofl
I did One of the best FMs I've ever played!

[gamophyte]

well, you're doing it good!

Have you guys seen gigagooga's thread "88 New Ambients"? Take time and have a listen in the demo, lots of true-to-thief world ambients. I seem to remember there even being one that was a HD remake of a classic ambient that was in bafford's manor.

I will work on some once my graphic card situation is fixed this week.

[Pistole2k]

The last time I've been so hyped for something was the announcement of Thief 2... <3

[Shadowdancer]

Do you remember the gigantic cathedral in "Keeper of the Prophecies 3 - Insurrection"? Frobber used ambients from System Shock there that were really thiefy. Not sure if that comes into question.
Otherwise I'm also really happy to hear about the project. I wish I could be of some help.

[Squadarofl]

Yes, it was Command 3 if I recall correctly. Anything song be thiefy is used properly!
But we want to do something thiefy like the first time you played The Dark Project; music that feel like you're unwanted, an intruder trespassing on forbidden territories or worse. Gigagooga's music is really great but his second pack is "too sophisticated" for the gritty setting we want to emulate. However the first pack is top notch and some sounds will be put in use

[Tafferwocky]

Agreed about ambients. The original Thief Gold ambients are still fantastic and fit the atmosphere as perfectly as ever. They pretty much contain the essence of Thief's thiefiness. So if it ain't broke...

That's not to say I wouldn't like new material though. On the contrary I look forward to any new, TG-esque sounds we get! It's just I've rarely come across soundtracks which match the unique style of Eric Brosius; not even some of the best fan efforts.

It's hard to describe what makes those sounds so compelling; I watched a podcast with Brosius in which he described the style as 'hypnotic', which is probably the best word to sum it up. They're simple, fit into the background (blurring the line between diagetic and non-diagetic) and yet have this sort of surreal latent energy to them. Neither noisy nor dull (okay, I guess the Thieves' Guild casino music is noisy, but let's not talk about that :P).

[Vae]

Good to hear, skacky...Can't wait...

[TheDarkOne93]

Yup, ten. The screenshots in the OP are from five different missions.

All hail skacky, we are not worthy. XP

[Iceblade]

WOAH!!! Holy cow this looks amazing. And what a crew: Firemage's City Watch missions were fantastic spins on the old OMs and lore and Skacky's cityscapes are definitely in competition with Melan's work.

Never been this excited for an FM campaign.

[skacky]

We're still working on this thing although we've all been sidetracked a bit. The first mission, which is a massive city mission, is now almost finished. The interest generated by the announcement really was a much needed breath of fresh air for us, so I thank you all for that!

Have a few screenies before we vanish back into the shadows.

[Nightwalker]

That looks fantastic! I really can't wait to get a chance to play it.

[Severian_Silk]

You guys should be deified!

[Tannar]

Yes. Those screenshots are amazing! Top notch work there, gang.

[Random_Taffer]

More tasty shots!

[pwl]

This is gonna be good!!!!! (make that GREAT!!!)

[TannisRoot]

Damn those screenshots are moody as hell!

[klatremus]

Looks incredible!

Any chance you guys will release 3-4 missions at a time? Or is it an all or nothing thing? With this big of a project, I'm just afraid of the latter. Or that it'll be 10 years from now.

Not that I don't believe in you guys, I'm simply going off of past projects of similar magnitude.

[skacky]

We'd like to release it as a whole. If it ends up taking way too much time we'll release it in episodic format, though.
That said, we're pretty confident it won't take aeons to release it.

[Melan]

Just be careful. My only attempt at working on a full-length campaign ended up in burnout and failure, because it turns out that where work is considered, a campaign is more than the sum of its parts. We got close under one year of work, but ended up stuck around the 85-90% mark because our team dwindled into two regular contributors, our morale fell, and we couldn't carry on. To add insult to injury, we are stuck with a bunch of huge, unreleased missions which have been sitting on a SVN repository for years now.

The moral is, don't let those micro-issues get you guys down.

[CountMRVHS]

Oh wow - as a (re)-newcomer to Thief FMs, this is incredible news! skacky, I just played through Between These Dark Walls and am starting up the much-hyped Endless Rain - it's wonderful to hear you're working on something like this.

Best of luck for everyone working on the project. I've never done any voice acting or Thief-related modding, so I doubt I can be of use, but feel free to contact me if you're desperate :P.

I do have some experience working on mods for other games. The largest project I ever did was for Rome:Total War - a mod that took over 10 years to reach completion. The developers, upon realizing the amount of time a full project would take to release, decided to release "mini-campaigns" that showcased small chunks of the map at a time. That decision kept the mod going despite a near-total turnover of contributors, in part because fan interest would bump up with each mini-release.

A model like that may not work well for a campaign like this, given the considerations of narrative pacing. But maybe it's something to consider if the project starts to take on a life of its own (as all such projects seem to!).

Anyway, best luck, so looking forward to this!

[Duncan]

This looks absolutely amazing and I love that it is Thief Gold. Always wanted to see more done with that game. I have not been able to bring myself to play anything Thief related since spending all that time working on T2X (major burn out), but this is something I definitely want to check out.

Wish you guys every success and cannot wait to play it!