T2 FM - Compulsory Egress [20 July 2019]

[rostok]

I so love so much city missions with high buildings, winding alleys and bizarre interiors. Magnificent stuff.
Took me extra time to actually find the City Hall. I somehow missed the gate leading there.
Also I loved the brick wallpaper on a brick wall and still life painting with a model. Thanks!

[nightchild]

I happened to play this mission after I played your second one and I have to say that I love it!! It is the dream mission for anyone who likes diverse architecture and many routes and places to explore! I like missions that you just forget about the objectives and indulge yourself with going anywhere it takes you each time to explore. As I am currently playing it, another mission came to mind, the "Accent to Dim valley" (which I also loved).... and lo, I see now that that one was yours too! Of course, the same lovely strange mind created both! Please, keep them coming! My only fear is that I might miss some part of that huge complex labyrinth of opportunities! Someone called it boring?? I understand of course that different people have different perception about what defines "interesting" to them.
For me is just the perfect playground for a taffer.
I also want to say that the acknowledgement section was one of the most thorough I have read and shows your respect for all the people that either personaly helped you or have contributed one way or another to enrich FMs with their individual work. Kudos!

[Samantha1]

Hello. I´m currently replaying this wonderful mission with a lootlist so I can make sure that I checked out all the places.

So I´m almost done with it, but there are still two places I have no idea where I can find them or how to reach them:
-Kranz´s hideout
-Thieves den (I was in the games room right where the mission begins, but I can´t find a way there into any other rooms of the thieves den. According to the lootlist there are more rooms with loot.

Could someone tell me where to find them?

Edit: All right! 5 minutes after posting I found the thieves den There´s a hidden switch in the china shop that connects to the thieves den. So I only need to know how I can reach Kranz´s hideout

[tone_lord]

"Tangled" is a perfect description of the area, and I loved it!
I missed about 2000 in loot, but there were a couple (or more) of areas I could see I needed to get into (beckoning windows, you know) that I simply could not find the path to.
Might require a revisit.

[klatremus]

Now this was special, DirkBogan! A near perfect mission that I cannot believe I didn't play sooner. The spiraling streets to a rooftop level was just ingenious. So many hidden buildings everywhere. I almost couldn't put it away until I finished, to my wife's utter frustration, lol. So now I'm in trouble, so thanks for that DB. What do the GR and SS buildings stand for? I suspect I didn't access everything of the latter, as it looks quite big on the map, but didn't seem that big inside.

Ended my first playthrough with 9100 loot out of 10K+. Gotta go back and check again. There were no areas I didn't find access to, so it might just be random items here and there. But those frobbable windows were devious, so I might have missed a few. I did find the room accessible from the outside at the city hall, with all the masks. Found the plaque and about 4 guards or so on the out-of-bounds rooftops. Wish there were secret counts. In my list I found 6 levers that I would count as secrets. Found a cool ceiling cache in the bar at city hall also, I liked that one.

This mission fits in with the Whistling of the Gears, Into the Odd, Alcazar style with the Rocksbourg-esque narrow spaces and an unorthodox almost eerie layout. I really like the sound design also, but I had to turn down the recommended ambient level to my normal ones. I will definitely try your other creation too. In fact, I can't wait!

Edit: No wait, there is an area I couldn't enter. In the industrial area there was a street level window with a red hammer symbol inside. Can you get in there??

[DirkBogan]

Thank you all for the kind words. I'm not especially pleased with the sloppy technique on show in this map, but that's the curse of the author and I'm thrilled that it's still making people happy.

@klatremus:

• from memory, GR is Green and SS is Sandstone. Fortuni asked about this a while ago for his walkthrough, and gave more appropriate labels https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AsA...ew?usp=sharing
• I didn't do secret counts for two reasons. 1) I think the boundary between a secret and just exploring is very blurry, especially in a map like this, and 2) I didn't know how to do them
• The Hammer building in question can't be entered. I just envisioned it as a sign of urban decay and how quickly the infrastructure fell apart without maintenance.

Thanks again to everyone for playing the map. Though I haven't released anything solo for years now, I've contributed at least half-a-dozen maps worth of time and effort to The Black Parade in the meantime. I hope everyone will enjoy it when it finally releases.

[klatremus]

Finished ghosting this one. It was easier than first anticipated. Let's play will be up when I get around to recording it, hopefully in not too long. I have only one question. Testing out the new object/loot finder tool that has emerged, I found a couple of new weapons and readables I hadn't noticed before. But I also found a mysterious item that I cannot seem to get to. As seen in the first screenshot below, it seems to be underneath the stairs going down to the caretaker's basement in the Affordable Housing building. When I go down the the bottom floor, however, as seen in the second screenshot, it is now in the ceiling. Is there a hidden lever to open that mechanical wall?

[DirkBogan]

Uh, I just checked and apparently there's a random WaterCrystal in solid world there. I have no idea how or when it was placed there and it doesn't seem to do anything. It's a mistake.

[klatremus]

Yeah I figured something like that might be going on. No worries. Thanks for checking.

[uncadonego]

Is it possible I missed an entire segment of the map? I finished, but there is still about 3200 or so loot to be found.

[Marbrien]

This FM definitely repays replaying!

I have a question concerning the thieves' den which is immediately above the starting room.

On the same level as the roulette table, there is a metal door that clangs. It looks like it might be a storage space for their loot. Can it be opened?

[klatremus]

On the same level as the roulette table, there is a metal door that clangs. It looks like it might be a storage space for their loot. Can it be opened?

It can, but only from the other side. Don't worry, you'll get there much later.

[Marbrien]

You have assumed I am near the start of my explorations. I am not. I have completed all the main objectives, and am revisiting places in the map to reinvestigate and gather missing loot. So I would appreciate a clue as to how to access the place on the other side of that door.

[Marbrien]

For anybody else who missed this, once you've been through the vault and got inside the shop with the sign "Closed on account of the crisis", explore the store room at the south end of the building. There's a lever that opens a door there into another area which, eventually, leads to the door I originally asked about 3 posts back. You don't have to go back through the vault.

[styora]

Never would have thought this was your first mission. The atmosphere was amazing in this, great use of ambient sounds in that regard. I'm still missing 33% loot and couldn't find a way in every house, will definitely replay this again more carefully. Nice, balanced difficulty, I liked the verticality and routes you can take. The room with the mini "dolls" was pretty funny

[meprim]

I hate to reply to such an old Mission thread, but I just finished this mission this morning, and I have to say I absolutely loved it, and have to give praise for your design philosophy.
Even before playing the missions itself, just reading the info file got me excited, it's refreshing to see an author forcus on dialing back a mission to the core of what makes Thief fun to play moment to moment, and being convicted enough about that philosophy to mention it. The info file really let me know I was in for a mission I would 100% love, from the TDP/Gold jump speed to knowing going in that there were no cryptic hints in readables (I often end up carrying around 100 papyrus's just in case I'm missing something hidden within), no overly long, copious books to read, its great!
That's not to say the opposite of any of those is something I hate, I just feel like its rare lately that I've played such an intricate and big mission that was almost pure stealth, and didn't have me sitting around reading 10 pages of notes or picking a lock for 2 minutes. It's absolutely refreshing, and I look forward to new missions by you, knowing that you think about Thief and its missions in a similar way I do.

[<Username>]

A mission so good I immediately started replaying it on Expert after finishing it on Normal. I am at around 8000 loot now during my second playthrough and still feel motivated to find the more elusive valuables. This one is a must-play for Thief fans.

Stats:

• Normal difficulty
• 1 hour and 21 minutes
• 4780 of 10090 total loot
• 0 hints needed

Elements I liked:

• Unusual angles throughout, great environmental storytelling, slightly surreal in parts, several chances for rooftop climbing, and an unbelievable amount of hidden areas made exploring the map highly engaging. I always felt another interesting area or plot-related discovery was just around the corner.
• The mystery of what happened in Navenvolk felt intriguing: Why are there so many dead bodies in the streets, with guards casually patrolling nearby? What was the unspecified crisis that caused the compulsory egress? The revelations in the journals Garrett eventually finds did not disappoint.
• No long lock-picking, tiny hidden switches, cryptic puzzles, elaborate key-hunts, objects and loot hidden in illogical or deceptive places.
• No lengthy readables that detract from the flow of the gameplay.
• The mission does not shy away from some gruesome scenes. Examples include a dinner table with a human rib-cage and a person who messed with the wrong people crucified in a basement.
• All objectives can be finished quickly, but the mission is an open invitation to explore more areas.
• Guards shut doors they expect to be closed and turn lights back on.

Could be improved:

• If you look up the chimney of the landlord's fireplace in the Cyric-style apartment building, the texture is plain black; not black as in "covered in soot", just a plain black texture.
• I did not understand why there are some stock paintings that were defaced with crude pixel art.
• In the small bar next to the theater hall, you can snatch the goblets from the lower of the three rows and the upper goblets will continue to float in the air.

[MarchÖrDie]

hello.
firstly, i want to thank DirkBogan for this amazing FM.
i played it recently and found Medallion. not as item from inventory or gold piece, but as item, appeared above lightmeter, like crate or Unconscios Body. Medallion have mark of keyhole on it, so i wonder if it have any use in Keepers' place.
oh, and i found it in the room above Landlord's office. check left side of darkness in the fireplace.
i read the topic and searched internet as well but didn't find any information.
thx.

[Snacks2]

Logged in the first time in years to post about this mission, easily one of my favorite missions right now. Spent a little over 2 hours in-game time, picked up 7370 loot. The way so many of the buildings in the city interconnect makes this one of the few FM's I would play again right away to see what kind of routes there are. Almost every room seems to have treasure, secrets, or new ways to get around. City Hall is easily one of the best buildings I've seen in a Thief mission, aesthetically and for design. The atmosphere is such a unique mix of cozy with all of the beds strewn about for the soldiers and foreboding, because you know what they've been doing.

The only things I didn't like about the mission were 1. the whole Caretaker subplot with the slow footsteps, the weird rooms, then the reveal. But all you get for it is a bit of loot and a letter accusing the Captain of "impropriety." Well DUH, there are civilian corpses all over the streets. 2. I found one room a little tedious to work with, as somebody who plays no knockouts and minimal gear. I had to put out the lamps to get past the guard on the top floor, and getting the guard inside the office to come turn on the light while not getting caught was very finicky.