By July, the team had begun initial construction of the game's levels. "Thief II"s increased focus on stealth necessitated new level design concepts: the most stealth-based missions in "Thief" had centered on urban burglary, but Pearsall explained that this "would get tired pretty fast" if repeated in every level. The team diversified "Thief II" by designing missions with such objectives as kidnapping, blackmail and eavesdropping. The first two levels were designed to seamlessly introduce new players to the core game mechanics, without a tutorial mission that might lose the interest of experienced players. When creating a mission, the team would often begin by deciding on the player's objective, after which they would produce a rough level design. The mission would then undergo a peer review to determine if it should be added to the game. Each of the game's levels was a team effort rather than the work of a single designer. Designer Randy Smith explained that, while "Thief"s levels had been designed to fit a pre-existing story, the "Thief II" team "tried to think of really good missions first" and then adjusted the plot to suit them. He noted that it was highly difficult to harmonize the two.