Rate the Levels on a scale of 1-10

[OXY]

1. Lord Bafford's Manor 8/10
2. Break from Cragscleft Prison 7/10
3. Down in the Bonehoard 3/10
4. Assassins 7/10
5. Thieve's Guild 5/10
6. The Sword 10/10
7. The Haunted Cathedral 2/10
8. The Mage Towers 5/10
9. The Lost City 1/10 (Ended up skipping this after spending hours on trying to find an escape, frustrating level)
10. Song of the Caverns 7/10
11. Undercover 6/10
12. Return to the Cathedral 2/10
13. Escape! 2/10
14. Strange Bedfellows 4/10
15. Into the Maw of Chaos 3/10

I feel like the game went completely downhill towards the end.

Post yours below! I'm interested to see everybody's ratings :)

[the big meal]

1. Lord Bafford's Manor 10/10
2. Break from Cragscleft Prison 8/10
3. Down in the Bonehoard 7/10
4. Assassins 7/10
5. Thieve's Guild 5/10
6. The Sword 9/10
7. The Haunted Cathedral 6/10
8. The Mage Towers 7/10
9. The Lost City 4/10
10. Song of the Caverns 10/10
11. Undercover 6/10
12. Return to the Cathedral 10/10
13. Escape! 6/10
14. Strange Bedfellows 7/10
15. Into the Maw of Chaos 9/10

[lionhart]

The "abandoned places" levels are my favorites: Cragscleft Prison, Bonehoard, Haunted Cathedral, Lost City. One of the reasons why Thief 2 was a letdown for me is that there are no abandoned places.

I also love The Sword because the design of the mansion is so bizarre and fascinating, with many different paths through the level.

I used to hate Thieves' Guild, but I discovered that the key to enjoying it is to ignore the maps completely (they are badly drawn and terribly confusing), and navigate with the compass instead.

The last three levels where you are fighting monkey men and bug beasts are my least favorite.

[constancejill]

Originally posted by lionhart:

One of the reasons why Thief 2 was a letdown for me is that there are no abandoned places.

Never thought of it that way but yeah, now that you mention it, Thief 2 does kinda lack something in that department.

[白起]

Hopefully you won't mind if I will rate the missions from one to five only, one being the lowest rating and five being the highest rating.

Here are my ratings for them:

• Lord Bafford's Manor 3/5 - Great beginning but the manor architecture wasn't for my taste.
  
• Break from Cragscleft Prison 3/5 - Didn't expect them to throw Undead so early, a pleasant surprise nonetheless, problem for me was the design of the prison itself.
  
• Down in the Bonehoard 2/5
  
• Assassins 5/5 - Ramirez's manor delivered a more pleasant feel than his underling manor.
  
• Thieves' Guild 1/5 - Standing as the least favorite mission in the game for me because of the complexity of the level. Great beginning but as soon as you enter the sewers all your planning you have made vanishes.
  
• The Sword 3/5 - "Constantine" did a great job at designing the mansion but he forgot to put some directional signs in it.
  
• The Haunted Cathedral 1/5 - No wonder it is called the "Sealed Section"; dark, damp and not friendly with our thief.
  
• The Mage Towers 5/5 - One of my favorites. An exceptional mission in all regards.
  
• The Lost City 4/5 - Reminiscing of a Mesoamerican civilization city.
  
• Song of the Caverns 4/5 - Garrett - the phantom of the Opera
  
• Undercover 5/5 - Stealing the Hammerites treasures from right under their noses never been this enjoying.
  
• Return to the Cathedral 1/5 - A challenging mission, if not the most challenging since you are so limited on resources. The need to rush through the rooms and the constant pestering of the Undead made me rate it so low.
  
• Escape! 4/5 - Who would have thought Constantine's basement would be filled with such horrors?
  
• Strange Bedfellows 5/5 - Re-visiting the Hammer Temple and stealing a purse with 100 gold in it was worth the trouble. Venturing into the caverns below the Temple was also enjoying.
  
• Into the Maw of Chaos 5/5 - Remarkable ending mission. A map designed to represent Garrett's descent into the fundamentally four alchemical elements world in which the Trickster resides with his minions.

[Mebber]

Originally posted by constancejill:

Originally posted by lionhart:

Originally posted by lionhart: One of the reasons why Thief 2 was a letdown for me is that there are no abandoned places.

Never thought of it that way but yeah, now that you mention it, Thief 2 does kinda lack something in that department.

That was on purpose... most Thief fans did not like the abandoned/haunted/tomb raider missions, which is why this stuff was excerpted from the sequel. I think i heard the devs originally intended to include some sort of necromancer fortress on a snowy mountain or something like that originally, with many undeads et cetera, but dropped this idea... a shame, i would have loved it.

By the way thats just a piece out of my (very bad) memory, don't nail me on it.

[dunbaratu]

Originally posted by Mebber:

Originally posted by constancejill:

Never thought of it that way but yeah, now that you mention it, Thief 2 does kinda lack something in that department.

That was on purpose... most Thief fans did not like the abandoned/haunted/tomb raider missions, which is why this stuff was excerpted from the sequel. I think i heard the devs originally intended to include some sort of necromancer fortress on a snowy mountain or something like that originally, with many undeads et cetera, but dropped this idea... a shame, i would have loved it.

By the way thats just a piece out of my (very bad) memory, don't nail me on it.

Originally posted by Mebber:

Originally posted by constancejill:

Never thought of it that way but yeah, now that you mention it, Thief 2 does kinda lack something in that department.

That was on purpose... most Thief fans did not like the abandoned/haunted/tomb raider missions, which is why this stuff was excerpted from the sequel. I think i heard the devs originally intended to include some sort of necromancer fortress on a snowy mountain or something like that originally, with many undeads et cetera, but dropped this idea... a shame, i would have loved it.

By the way thats just a piece out of my (very bad) memory, don't nail me on it.

It wasn't the fact that they were abandoned that people hated. It was the fact that the main enemies were undead instead of living humans. Granted, the two go hand-in-hand (by definition if there's living humans guarding the place, it's not abandoned).

I think a lot of people never learned the game mechanics for how undead worked, which makes them waaaay more of a pain if you misunderstand their rules. Like it looks as if zombies can never be put down if you stand next to one when you "kill" it. (i.e. imagine trying to pick up the body to move it. You try for a few seconds to get the zombie to highlight and it won't, and then your proximity re-awakens the zombie. All you have to do is do this one or two times and you can come away with the impression that zombies are totally unkillable. You never learn that it's proximity that wakes them up again and you can skirt around them once they're down.

I also never learned that Haunts are hittable with the sword until much later. I thought "well, they're partially transparent like ghosts, so obviously your attacks will go right through them just like with a ghost."

Not realizing that the undead *are* fight-able but with different rules can lead to really hating them because you think you have to (no pun intended) "ghost the mission" when they're around, drastically increasing the difficulty of those missions well beyond their intended level. Yeah sure people learn about holy water arrows and fire arrows, but those are very limited resources that you can only use on a few undead.

For a long time I thought that Constantine's Sword was merely a sword that was black so it didn't ruin your stealth when you wield it like the regular sword does, and that was its only special ability. I had no idea about it's undead effectiveness because by then I'd already learned it was a bad idea to ever try to fight the undead with a sword, so I never tried using it on a zombie.

Anyway, what people hated was the undead, not the fact that the places were abandoned. It's just that the two are correlated and you can't have one without the other.

[Free Soda]

Originally posted by dunbaratu:

Originally posted by Mebber:

That was on purpose... most Thief fans did not like the abandoned/haunted/tomb raider missions, which is why this stuff was excerpted from the sequel. I think i heard the devs originally intended to include some sort of necromancer fortress on a snowy mountain or something like that originally, with many undeads et cetera, but dropped this idea... a shame, i would have loved it.

By the way thats just a piece out of my (very bad) memory, don't nail me on it.

Originally posted by Mebber:

That was on purpose... most Thief fans did not like the abandoned/haunted/tomb raider missions, which is why this stuff was excerpted from the sequel. I think i heard the devs originally intended to include some sort of necromancer fortress on a snowy mountain or something like that originally, with many undeads et cetera, but dropped this idea... a shame, i would have loved it.

By the way thats just a piece out of my (very bad) memory, don't nail me on it.

It wasn't the fact that they were abandoned that people hated. It was the fact that the main enemies were undead instead of living humans. Granted, the two go hand-in-hand (by definition if there's living humans guarding the place, it's not abandoned).

I think a lot of people never learned the game mechanics for how undead worked, which makes them waaaay more of a pain if you misunderstand their rules. Like it looks as if zombies can never be put down if you stand next to one when you "kill" it. (i.e. imagine trying to pick up the body to move it. You try for a few seconds to get the zombie to highlight and it won't, and then your proximity re-awakens the zombie. All you have to do is do this one or two times and you can come away with the impression that zombies are totally unkillable. You never learn that it's proximity that wakes them up again and you can skirt around them once they're down.

I also never learned that Haunts are hittable with the sword until much later. I thought "well, they're partially transparent like ghosts, so obviously your attacks will go right through them just like with a ghost."

Not realizing that the undead *are* fight-able but with different rules can lead to really hating them because you think you have to (no pun intended) "ghost the mission" when they're around, drastically increasing the difficulty of those missions well beyond their intended level. Yeah sure people learn about holy water arrows and fire arrows, but those are very limited resources that you can only use on a few undead.

For a long time I thought that Constantine's Sword was merely a sword that was black so it didn't ruin your stealth when you wield it like the regular sword does, and that was its only special ability. I had no idea about it's undead effectiveness because by then I'd already learned it was a bad idea to ever try to fight the undead with a sword, so I never tried using it on a zombie.

Anyway, what people hated was the undead, not the fact that the places were abandoned. It's just that the two are correlated and you can't have one without the other.

But you can kill the ghosts, or rather the spirits. Just barrage them with your sword

[Fluffy]

You carry anti ghost grenades, didn't you know? They be called flash bombs!
Finding that out was actually a fluke on my part.

[Team Vladof]

It really depends on when I played it and what I eventually found entertaining about it.

eg:

Bonehoard... when first played it was an absolute maze, the map was useless, and it was a PITA. However, upon replaying it multiple times, I really loved it. It was like an Indiana Jones adventure.

Same with the ruined city and Return to the Cathedral. Lots of folks love them. I didn't like them first time, b/c they were mazes with lots of enemies. When you're playing first time you just want to get through. But, after playing the game countless times, I love these levels. In the ruined city I love messing around and exploring. In Return to the Catherdral, I love eliminating all enemies. I just can't finish the level unless I eliminate every monster. It's a challenge, and I love it. Sword-fighting haunts is a blast.

I think The Maw is probably my least favorite. The level is just too linear and sort of boring. Levels where you can go jack around and do dumb things have really become my favorite.

[Mebber]

The undead can be easily destroyed. Yet i've heard many times that people just don't like these missions... some prefer pure "thieving" missions. No Indy stuff, just looting without any kind of detection from the guards. It's a matter of personal taste really.

Personally, i like the Undead missions - my playstyle is "just can't finish the level unless I eliminate every monster" too.
Ghosting is funny, but the neurotic inside me forces me the put everyone in every mission to rest.

Funny T1 challenge: kill all undead in "The Haunted Cathedral" with no bodies detected. Includes the undead wandering around in the cathedral itself.

[Chavinchi]

10/10:
bonehoard
songs of the caverns
assassins

9/10:
bafford
cragscleft

8/10:
sword
mage tower
city
return to the cathedral

7/10:
all the rest except

5/10:
thieves guild
the haunted cathedral

[Dust]

1. Lord Bafford's Manor 10/10, Well, it's Thief.

2. Break from Cragscleft Prison 9/10, nicely paced, zombie patrols are easy to bypass, cell blocks are cool to sneak through.

3. Down in the Bonehoard 6/10, a nice level but ultimately the best solution is to just run by every zombie. Trying to ghost this level is frustrating.

4. Assassins 7/10

5. Thieve's Guild 8/10, couldn't find a way to Donal's mansion for some reason.

6. The Sword 8/10, I get where everybody's coming from. It's an amazing level and you're supposed to get lost and very confused. I just wish I had been very confused in a good way, I kept looking for a way out and ultimately this frustrated me more than anything. I will admit that I felt extremely uneasy though. That slow descent into madness from the level itself was something.

7. The Haunted Cathedral 6/10, Cool but I felt it was way too labyrinthic.

8. The Mage Towers 5/10, Nice potential but the towers are absolutely dreadful. Either they were completely pointless (tower of Water is just a big expanse of water, you just have to grab the talisman and get out with over half your air remaining; tower of Air was just a series of slow-moving platforms that's impossible to fail, not sure why they did it this way) or they felt incredibly furstrating to play through (tower of Fire has metal floors all around, the Mage's patrol routes are very short so they WILL detect you and everything is constantly illuminated, and tower of Earth is just plain annoying with the constant patrols).

9. The Lost City 8/10, Nice level through and through. I somehow missed the Keeper's diary that stipulates that one of them suggested to climb the tower, so when I found out within seconds that I could use a rope arrow on one of the wooden beams on the exterior of the tower I felt immensely rewarded.

10. Song of the Caverns ?/10, I'm not rating this level because either I'm the biggest dumbass ever or it's way too hard to find the key that opens up the secret passage that leads to the talisman. I ended up knocking every guard out using every gas mine and AI exploit just so I could run around and look high and low for that damn key, never did find it though. Otherwise, the first part of the level felt a little tacked on for all the hype it got during the intro scene, with the obvious meat of the level being the opera house.

11. Undercover 6/10, Cute gimmick but ultimately it felt annoying having to constantly time the guards' tight patrol routes and slip between the extremely short windows so that you don't get caught going in the restricted areas. Another level that is frustrating to ghost, especially the switches.

12. Return to the Cathedral 5/10, Oh God, oh God, oh God, please, not the Haunts... being chased by one of these things is horrifying. The level was very well thought out, but holy hell was that quest line (or beeline) annoying. Snatching the Eye and therefore putting every zombie in the level on alert, then looking for a way to open the cloister gate, then coming back to the main entrance, then hearing the eye say "the gate's closed off now ! ♥♥♥♥ you :D", and THEN realizing that Brother Murus wasn't a blind hostile ghost but a friendly ghost, AND THEN going on a Zelda quest to get ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ five items to make him rest in peace so that he can say "you're out of luck, the cloister gate's key's been lost ages ago. have this key instead, it'll open the armory that's at the very top of the cathedral with all the undead on red alert and constantly patrolling inside ! have fun !", AND THEN trying a dozen times over to get the bomb placement juuuuust right so that it knocks ONE of the doors down... oh, and the bomb alerted one of the Haunts nearby, so I ended up waiting for the "mission complete" screen while running in circles absolutely panicked with a spooky skeleton breathing down my neck and absolutely losing his marbles laughing, cue the Benny Hill theme. Needless to say, that mission nearly got me to put down the game forever.

13. Escape! 5/10, way too much trial and error. The amount of enemies is ridiculous. However I do appreciate the changes made to Constantine's manor.

14. Strange Bedfellows 4/10, This mission was the most boring of all. There was no thieving to be done, the level design wasn't exactly impressive, the setting wasn't Tomb Raider-esque enough nor Thief-esque enough...

15. Into the Maw of Chaos 6/10, Holy linearity, Batman. Pretty cool though. Constantine's section was... underwhelming though, to say the least. Just had to fire two moss arrows, swap the eyes, and wait on one of the upper platforms for the booby-trapped eye to blow up in his woodsie face. He had the time to complete just one symbol before I swapped the eye, so the time after that was spent leaned back into my chair with arms crossed and waiting.

[Grillsen]

1.Lord baffords manor 10/10: classic pure thievery mission. A perfect introduction level

2. cragscleft 8/10: The beggining of the level was fun. I enjoyed exploring the mines with zombies. However once you reach the actual prison it started to get rather tedious and same looking. The concept of the level is really cool though and if it had a little more variety it would have been perfect.

3.Down in the Bonehoard 9/10: Amazing and atmospheric level. You feel very lost and isolated in the underground tomb surrounded by traps and zombies. It feels so satisfying
completing it on expert and excaping with all that treasure.

4. Assassins 9/10: Another great pure breaking into mansion thievery. Breaking into the seceret entrance through the balcony made me feel so immersed as a thief. The only
problem with the level is the trailing part in the beginning goes on for a little too long.

5.Thieves Guild 7/10: I used to hate this level for a long time, but after i have beaten it many times and know where everything is, its an alright level. The sewers aren't super fun to explore becuase it all looks the same and they are very confusing, but when you are in each of the mansions it is pretty enjoyable.

6.The Sword 11/10: Absolutely mind blowing mission. Possibaly my favorite in the dark project. This level is a prime example on how to masterfully tell story through gameplay and level design.

7.Haunted cathedrial 7/10: An overall pretty decent level. It was cool exploring a old ruined city with a map of what the city looked like while still intact. However those
freaking dinosaur things were everywhere and a pain in the ass. Also i felt the level dragged on for a little too long. furthermore when i play this mission on expert i ALWAYS
end up just barely reaching the gold quota at the end of the level, so i have to go ALL THE WAY BACK looking in every nook and cranny for one more little piece of gold so
i can complete the level. This really gives the level a sour ending for me.

8.The Mage towers 7/10: This level has a really cool concept. I enjoy traversing through each of the towers because they all have there own theme. However it gets rather
tedious having to run back and forward through the central tower to get to each side of the compound so i can get to the next tower.

9. Lost city 6/10: An interesting idea, and climbing the tower to get the talisman was pretty cool, however i found myself getting bored while playing it for some reason, maybe because all the buildings looked the same idk.

10. Song of Caverns 9/10: Another great pure thievery mission. The opra singing guy always makes me laugh.

11. Undercover 4/10: The idea of this level sounds pretty cool, however it was not executed very well. The disguise did not impact that gameplay that much and felt like a wasted opportunity. Also the level is pretty small and it only took me like 35 mins to complete,
(which is the same for the last 2 levels) thats pretty short because it takes me about an hour or more to complete almost every other level.

12. Return to the haunted cathedrial 8/10: Probably the scariest level in the game. In the beggining of the level when your locked in the cathedrial with all the haunts making creepy noises was frightning and thrilling. The only problem with this level is later when your exploring the area and buildings you have to be constantly fighting those anoying hammer haunts, and if you dont kill them first then the ghost guy will require you to kill them later in order to complete his quest which is a pain in the ass.

13. Escape! 7/10: For some reason i kinda liked this level. I felt the trippy level design in the basement was done very well. The level design and the enviroment reminded me of down in the bonehoard. The problem is there is too much combat envolved unless your able to sneak past all of the enemies but i couldn't be arsed so i just slautered all of them.

14.Strange Bedfellows 3/10: Pretty boring and short level. I also dont enjoy replaying the same area again esspecially when it was a location i did not particularly enjoy. Also there is not gold to steal which sucks. This level is pretty fun to speed run though.

15. The Maw of Chaos 3/10: Interesting looking environments but nothing i havent seen before. The level is very linear and kinda boring as well. It was pretty cool robbing the
trickster in the middle of his ritual though.

[dunbaratu]

I find it difficult to rate Song of the Caverns because the first part of the mission, the part it's named for - the caverns, I really hate. But then there's the "surprise" that the level is actually about the Opera House and the second part of the mission is there. I really like the Opera House a lot. I just wish it was a mission that didn't have the cavern part and just spent that same "polygon budget" on putting more stuff into the Opera House instead. I'd have been fine with the mission just telling you up front that the talisman is in the opera house and starting you on the streets just outside it. (Also there's a big writing mistake in the level, in that the objective changes that start talking about some kind of "opera house" will appear while you're still down in the caverns long before any sight or mention of an opera house happens in the game, before you meet the singer at the base of the way up. This is very confusing on a first time blind playthough.)

If I could split Song of the Caverns into two missions, I'd give the cavern part a 2/10 and the opera house part a 9/10. But because I have to rate it as one mission together I don't quite know what rating to give it.