New Dark 10 Year Anniversary Contest
To celebrate the 10 year anniversary of New Dark, we’re going to hold a contest. Several people contributed and helped to bring this contest to light, including skacky, Supremcee, Yandros, and several others who posted their ideas to the forums.
Here’s the idea:
Create a brand new mission for either Thief 1 or 2, heavily inspired by an existing mission from any of the official Thief games.
The initial idea was to create a new mission using one of the original mission’s exact objectives, word for word, but we decided in the end that was too limiting. Everyone is still encouraged and welcome to attempt this, but it is not required.
Some examples of missions you could create:
-Steal Bafford’s scepter from his snowy, victorian mansion in the countryside.
-Obtain the Talisman of Fire from the molten slopes of the Esse Mountains north of The City.
-Kidnap Cavador from his secret Mechanist laboratory on an island off the coast of Cyric.
-Escape the Crippled Burrick and evade the City Watch over the rainy rooftops of Mourningside.
Definitely feel free to create unique situations in the Thief world that do not exist or that are counter to what the lore or canon is from the existing games. This could also be seen as an “alternate universe” contest as well.
Some background: The New Dark patch was announced on the french forum ariane4ever on September 24th, 2012, and then posted here on the TTLG forums by DrK on the following day, September 25th. The author of the New Dark patch remains a mystery, but several updates have been made and released over the past 10 years and continue to this day. You can see the original post on TTLG here: https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140085. This patch expanded the limits of what was possible in the Dark Engine and also made the game much easier to play on modern PC hardware.
Now you may ask, what’s allowed? Unlike the Thief Anniversary contest which restricted authors to use stock resources, we want to go the other direction this time. Essentially anything goes. New Dark expanded the limits of what Dromed is capable of and what Thief fan missions can be, and we want the contest to reflect that. Use any kind of custom resources you like, make your missions as large as you see fit, and in general strive to do things that couldn’t be done in Old Dark.
The official deadline to submit your level is 11:59PM on September 24th, 2022 (Central Standard time in the U.S). The missions will then be released on the following day to commemorate the anniversary here on TTLG.
Make sure to state the name of the mission you are modeling your mission after in your readme file (Hopefully it will be obvious anyway).
Voting will be kept simple this time around, all missions will be rated on an overall scale of 1-10.
Good luck to all!
Last edited by Brethren; 1st Jun 2022 at 16:04.
While discussing this on Discord, some examples of existing missions that already do this sort of thing were also mentioned, and these would have been acceptable for this contest:Originally Posted by Brethren
-Unbidden Guest, a re-imagining of Thief 2's demo.
-The Builder's Paradise, a re-imagining of Soulforge.
-The Chalice of Souls, a re-imagning of Thi4f's brothel mission. And yes, TDS and even Thi4f missions can be used too.
I like the theme of remaking original missions with NewDark engine capabilities. It is similar to the Thief Reloaded Contests from 2010 and 2012.
Quoting the Thief Reloaded Contest objective from the original thread:
Create a new mission in Dromed using any existing Thief level as a base.
Yep, but keep in mind it's the complete opposite of the Reloaded contest. This time you're using the premise of the mission but totally different architecture and construction.
So instead of copying the objectives, the original mission's idea is simply reimagined in a new setting, using NewDark to the full. I like it. Really look forward to this. Good luck to all the authors.
Wahoo! I love the contests - so many wonderful missions have come out of them. Very much looking forward to this one too. Good luck everyone who enters
My understanding of 'the complete opposite of the Reloaded contest' is that, instead of using the OM map as a (recognizable) base with different objectives, ND10Y is to use the OM objectives as a (recognizable) base with a new mapSo instead of copying the objectives, the original mission's idea is simply reimagined in a new setting, using NewDark to the full. I like it. Really look forward to this. Good luck to all the authors.
ie, how would "Strange Bedfellows" be done on an entirely new ND map with the same objectives? I guess you could port over the OM convos and motions too
fiction_0: "The Hammerites have been preaching about the Trickster for years. Maybe they have some advice on how to deal with him for real. But with all the trouble you've been to them lately, you'll have to sneak in past their guards to talk to someone in charge."
text_0: "Sneak in to find the Hammer High Priest, and warn him about the Trickster."
fiction_1: "Looks like there's been trouble for more than just you. Before the Hammers can help you, you'll have to find them."
text_1: "Investigate the situation, and locate the Hammerites."
fiction_2: "If the beast-creatures are still besieging them, the Hammerites must still be alive. You'll have to get past them."
text_2: "Get past the siege of beastmen to connect with the Hammerites."
fiction_3: "Find the Hammer High Priest, who's being held hostage by the Trickster's creatures"
text_3: "Find the Hammer High Priest"
fiction_4: "Return the High Priest to the besieged Hammers."
text_4: "Return the High Priest to the besieged Hammers."
fiction_5: "If they won't help you without their chisel, fine, you'll go get the chisel for them..."
text_5: "Retrieve this 'Builder's Chisel' the Hammerites seem to think is so important."
fiction_6: "The Hammers will never help you if you make the situation any worse. Better stay out of any more fights with them."
text_6: "Don't kill any Hammers."
fiction_7: "Those bug-ladies make your skin crawl. You're not leaving any of them to get out into the city."
text_7: "Destroy all of the insect-beasts."
I would like to participate in this contest. I won't be going all out on the custom resources, though
I would advise anyone participating not to go all out on the custom resources with only 8 months to build it in. More likely to get some finished missions to play that way!
Good luck to all participants. Out of curiosity, would the following scenario be acceptable:
A few days after Garrett has left the Keepers. The intro and Garrett's diary would explore the exact reasons why he decided not to be a Keeper anymore. Garrett is starved and penniless. While he is looking for a place to stay in and some loot, he accidentally locks himself in an old tomb (Bonehoard), which leads him to an abandoned city section (Haunted Cathedral), that eventually morphs into a twisted Pagan mansion (Escape/The Sword).
My interpretation of the “rules” here is that creative licence is encouraged and there is freedom to take whatever interpretation you like. It just needs to be inspired by an OM or even a collection of OMs. I don’t think the same objectives need to be used but open to correction on this.
Oooh, this seems to be a great idea, i can barely imagine what potencials are hiding in this sort of creative freedom.
Exciting!
Good luck everybody.
This could be a very interesting contest, I wonder what Nicked will come up with.
Thanks everyone. Keep in mind the real intent here is get some strong community participation, so don't overthink the rules too much, no one is getting disqualified. Also, I wanted to emphasize what someone mentioned above, don't get too hung up on using huge amounts of custom stuff or making massive missions just because it's a New Dark contest. It's still only an 8 month build time, so it's more important to get your mission finished by the deadline.
Can't wait until those guys (forget their names) will finish their modern substitute for dromEd. That will grant a huge amount of new missions. I will try to make something playable too.
A while ago I tought of a mission in which you start in the same room as in A Keeper's Training, but this time a different door opens and a whole new set of trials awaits you on the other side. I wouldn't mind someone using this concept.
This is great contest !
There are not much limitations which gives the authors a lot of freedom.
What I like most is that contest missions can be reimagined missions from thief 1,2,3 and even thief 4. Because of the variety of different levels the authors can really focus on what setting they like most (Mansion, City, Pagan, Horror......).
I also like the concept of reimaginating missions we all know from the original game.
I wish all Authors who take part in this contest a lot of fun.
Thanks to all Authors.
*This is gonna be fun*
What are these limitations? It looks like the only thing forbidden is OldDark.
Can anyone describe the essence of this concept in more detail or give more examples?I also like the concept of reimaginating missions we all know from the original game.
The essence of the contest is that authors can chose one mission from all 4 thief games and create your own version of this mission.
The recreated mission can be anything the author wants it to be, the only limitation is that the mission should have the same core as the original mission you are recreating.
Here are some more examples:
If you want to reimagine the Thief 1 Mission "Down into the bonehoard" one of your mission objectives should be get the horn of quintus since it is the core of the original mission. How the bonehoard looks like is completely up to the Author.
Another example if you chose Thief 3 Mission "into the pagan sanctuary" your mission objective should be about getting the "Jacknalls paw" in the pagan territory (core of the original mission). The pagan territory can be anything the author wants it to be (for example forest, swamp, cave, etc.).
So on the whole there are hardly any limitations. You can also add bonus objectives and other stuff the original mission did not have.
You could also say the essence of the concept is: If you as an author would ve created one of the original fan missions, how would it look like. And ofc the new version should use new dark !
I'm playing around with an idea for this contest, however I'm not exactly sure if it would adhere to the rules.
If I were to create a mission based on the concept of "The Lost City" (TG OM), does that require an objective to "steal the fire talisman", or would an objective to "steal the water talisman" work as well?
I know that sounds like nitpicking, but the examples given by Akai™ indicate to me that the quest items must be exactly the same?
See Brethren's post above:So yes, that would be a fine concept for a mission.Keep in mind the real intent here is get some strong community participation, so don't overthink the rules too much, no one is getting disqualified.
It´s so great news to hear that a new contest is in the work! Good luck and a big advanced thank you to all the participants!!
Great to see this
So all in all - just do what you want but give the mission some obvious credit somehow
Oh yeah could you guys please recreate all of T4 missions in a good way and please add your thoughts and ideas to the story and charactersworst case - it's still better than the original
thief reboot is not thief 4 ,pretty please with sugar on top don't use the term thief 4 anymore
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