FMs - Ghost/Perfect Thief Results (Part 5)

 

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1.            5th Dec 2003, 07:52 #126

Peter_Smith

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Dafydd,

 

It is nothing more than systematic looking around. I keep my nose to the ground, I climb up on everything, I look behind furniture and rocks, and look up at the walls and ceilings to see if there might be some place accessible. It is second nature for me to run around a place like a bloodhound. A loot hound, actually.  With rope arrows, I try not to leave a beam, the top of a bookcase, or anything else up high unexplored. It is also a question of trying to find and go into every passage in the map. The biggest problem I have is remembering to look up. I am getting better at it. And, I try to do this while maintaining ghost, if at all possible, the first time I play a mission.

 

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2.            5th Dec 2003, 17:20 #127

Sneak

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 NO Knockouts in Ghosting

Well I am dumbfounded. I was reading above and went to check out the Ghost Rules in the archives.

 

They aren't complete, things are missing there. And anyone reading them new is not going to completely get it.

 

In Ghost there are no knockouts allowed whatsoever. Not by Blackjack, Gas Arrow or anything unless there is an Objective to do so.

 

Also in there is says no damage taken or recieved. Duhh, re-read that sentance and see what is wrong with it. Should be No damage given or taken.

 

But I am seriously disappointed that I don't read NO Knockouts in the rules set because that has been since day one.

 

Also there is No Killing allowed in Ghost and I don't see that either. Did someone think that was covered under no damage given which is not in there either?

 

What happened to the rules?

 

Old Man,

Right on there. Down to the Spirit of Playing Ghost.

 

Dafydd,

Old Man is right, long ago when he use a Gas Arrow in that mission to drop an AI he was Busted. Plain and simple. But I can't back that up with the rules posted.

 

There have been No Knockouts and No Killings allowed in Ghost since day one except for the amendment that if an objective requires it, it is OK if you can do it without alerting anything.

 

Utterly beyond belief on this one. I never read those archived rules because I have always known the real ones by heart since the beginning.

 

Hey Peter,

You have been around as long as the rest of us Ghostwise. Read those rules if you would please and tell me it ain't so!

 

Am wondering, we, many of us posted rules that we quick typed up as a reply to a post where someone requested what Ghost was about long ago. This was before there was an archive even on the old board that we could refer people too. Could this be what we have up?

 

God I hope there is an original Kosher set from Clayman around some where. Will look on my comp.

 

I KO nothing by any means while Ghosting unless there is an objective to do so. That's Cutpurse work!

 

No insults intended to those who are insulted! 

Just Sneakin' Through!

 

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3.            5th Dec 2003, 19:55 #128

Old Man

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If I can trust my old memories it was that the original rules covered killing and knocking out via the "no damage given in the final stats" clause. That's why I even tried the Gas Arrow. LGS had left the damage inflicted off their use. Same with killing with a Hammer or Mace. Nothing showing on the statitistics page.

 

And I recall a vote being taken at some point regarding receiving damage so I'm thinking it wasn't there in the original rules. And I think what everyone felt early on was that "no damage" meant from melee or trap and damage from falling or whatever was okay. We all played with no damage received so we may as well write it into the rules.

 

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4.            5th Dec 2003, 21:18 #129

dafydd

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Superghosting Sisterhood

[Folks]

 

It could still possibly be done even with the harsher rules enunciated by Sneak & Old Man:

 

1) You can flip the switch to open the inner gate to the cathedral (not the watcher/gate switch) in the security room by nudging the female guard forward enough; don't need gas there.

 

There are at least three invisibility potions in the game; I only used two of them (didn't find the third, but others have). I only used two: one to rush forward and get the candlesticks in the haunts' chapel on the cathedral grounds, the other to get a shot off against the two Mechs who beat up Sara Deavant.

 

You could ghost the two places where Vanguard used a blackjack thus:

 

2) The guard in the security office in the police station off Cathedral Plaza -- just gulp a potion, run into the room, flip the two switches, and run out again.

 

3) The guard in the weaponsmith's basement guarding the safes -- gulp a potion and whip into the room and around behind him. Nudge him forward and to the left into the corner left of the doorway. Open the door and loot the safes. Exit by running out at an angle from the left inside the door towards the right outside the door; he shouldn't see you.

 

But here is the problem; that's two potions, and you only have one left. You need to use one in Sara's house:

 

4) You do not need Sara's key... but you do need to step a little into that room to check off the objective. So you get into the anteroom, as I did, open the door, gulp a potion, crouch-walk forward just past the door to get the chime, then back out again and out of line of sight before the potion wears off.

 

This means you don't have a potion to use to get the candlesticks, and unless you get extraordinarily lucky in the haunt-fight in the chapel -- let's say just one haunt left, and he's left facing the wrong direction -- you can't get the candlesticks for 100 loot.

 

But I ended with 2094, so without the candlesticks, I would have been just 6 loot short of the objective. There must be a coin stack or some other minor thingie I missed, since there's 2594 loot total, and we're only accounting for 200 that we can't get (the candlesticks and the two gold cups behind the bar at the Tippled Burrick that cannot be got without triggering the melee)... leaving an additional 300 somewhere in the mission.

 

Thus, it should be possible to ghost this on the strict rules, without having to gas anyone.

 

Later on I'll try.

 

Dafydd

 

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5.            7th Dec 2003, 08:55 #130

dafydd

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The Darkness Falls: the Royal Garmyth

FM: The Darkness Falls: the Royal Garmyth

File: royalgarmyth.zip

 

Play mode: Ghost (success)

Perfect Thief (fail)

Time: 2 hr 18 min

Loot: 3143 of 3338

Pockets picked: 5 of 6

Backstabs: 0 Knockouts: 0

Damage dealt: 0 Taken: 0 Healing: 0

Killed: 0

Secrets: 3 of 4

 

Comments:

 

Shrug.  (<-- that's a yawn)

 

Dafydd

 

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6.            10th Dec 2003, 02:43 #131

dafydd

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Karras' Diary

FM: Karras' Diary (Karras' Tagebuch)

File: karrasdiary.zip

 

Play mode: Ghost (fail)

Zero damage (success)

Time: 5 hr 53 min

Loot: 6310 of 7050

Pockets picked: 1 of 2 (all)

Backstabs: 0 Knockouts: 0

Damage dealt: 70 Taken: 0 Healing: 0

Killed: 2 (others)

Secrets: 5 of 5

 

Reason for failure:

 

- Had to kill two spiders in secret corridor en route to Diary Room.

 

- Destroying the Flesh Transmuter machine alerted the nearby guard.

 

Comments:

 

All of the damage and both kills were the two stupid spiders; my only alternative (I thought) was to fight the two combat bots instead  .

 

However... I now believe the spiders can be ghosted!

 

At the very beginning, in the courtyard with the big statue of Karras (though it looks more like Karras's fantasy of what he wanted to look like  ), directly across from where you begin and up high is a little park with trees. The first secret is up here, and you can get various equipment including an invisibility potion.

 

The easiest way to get up there, which involves no crate stacking and only one impossible leap, is to head out into the main street to the Keeper's house; take one of the boxes; then head back... but just before the arch into the courtyard, hang a louie and ascend the ladder. Drop the box so it's partially on the platform and partially on the ladder itself (as much over the ladder as possible without it toppling). Hop aboard the box; you can now jump-mantle onto the wall between you and the courtyard.

 

Once up there, crouch and walk across the spikes to the other side of the arch. Here is the only tricky part: you have to line up on the clear wall southwest of you -- the boundary wall of the tree park -- back up as far as you can on the wall you're standing on, stand, run, and leap. If you hit your jump just right, you'll land on top of the tree-park wall, and you can just run right off the edge into the park. The switch is at the south end, the hidey-hole in the middle of the west wall.

 

You need that inviso potion, plus the one you get later (in the Keeper's house, I think) to ghost the spiders: I think you should be able to creep close to them, just before you get a first-alert chirp, gulp the potion, and crouch-walk past them and jump onto the ladder. On the way back, use the second potion.

 

(I used one of the potions to dart over and get the church moneybox; but I already had plenty of loot before that and didn't need it to finish. I didn't use the other invisibility potion.)

 

But still remains the dreadful problem of the female guard near the Flesh Transmuter machine.

 

I have an idea about that, in case anyone is interested in trying: if you douse the torch near the standing guard, it might be dark enough to slowly, gingerly nudge her farther and farther away from the machine. It would be tricky, as she spins a lot -- and you'd have to back away before she spun to avoid detection, I think.

 

But if you conducted a long dance of {nudge, back away, save}, I suspect you could get her quite a distance.

 

Hm. I just tried it, and it's easier than I thought; she moves pretty quickly... and when you're pressed up against her north side, she won't turn north to face you. You'll still get popped if she's sideways to you and you're too off-center towards the direction she's looking; but if you're patient, you can do it. I managed to nudge her half way down the river.

 

I don't know how far she has to be before she won't hear the explosion; don't forget, before you throw the switch to scrag the Flesh Transmuter, go upstairs and close that window!

 

I don't know if you can get her far enough away. Even after nudging her as above, when I returned to the machine, stood in the "sweet spot," and shot off a fire arrow, she alerted. In fact, she alerted when I shot a broadhead into the machine  ; she must be pretty sensitive! One good thing: once you've nudged her, you can see her through the window, so you know for sure whether or not you're busted.

 

Now to more pleasant areas. I didn't bother with the wine bottles in the pub; they're only worth 100 total, and I wasn't going to burn my invisibility potions so early in the game for that. I later used one to grab the loot from the church collection box: I crept as close as I could from the other side of the altar -- there are several dark spots, and you can move from one to the other when both guards turn away (or as much away as they will) -- then I mossed my path and dropped the key on the ground.

 

(One of my favorite techniques: if I quaff the potion, then go fumbling for the key, it takes a while flipping through my inventory... burning scarce invisibility time. So I drop the key on the ground at my feet instead, then I swallow the potion; it's the work of a moment to snatch the key, which automatically puts it in position to use.)

 

It took a couple times before I got the timing right, but I was able to get back to a (semi) dark spot before I vizzed in again.

 

I didn't find the candlesticks all that difficult. I crept up the stairs as close as darkness would allow, then mossed a path; when both guards turned their back (lot of waiting time), I ran forward. After being busted a couple of times, I learned to keep the altar in between me and the guard up there with me.

 

I was able to creep right up to the altar without the raised guard seeing me; from there, I could frob the nearest candlestick. When the guard watching Karras's body turned his back (and the squirmy raised guard was looking away), I stood, frobbed the other stick, then crouched again. I was able to return exactly as I had gone, and I got nothing more than a first alert from the lower guard.

 

As to the guards in the treebeast area, I triggered the fight (which is scripted -- should it count as a bust, since it's possible to avoid it?), but it only took the guards three or four minutes to calm down after killing the monster. I didn't know about the tiara then, but I got it on my way out, after robbing the church, and I didn't even draw a first alert.

 

In the escape room with three doors, I easily (and quietly) opened the one directly before me and the one to the right (leading to the first Riddle Room); but shooting the switch for the left door with a broadhead always alerted the guard. Actually two guards -- somebody came through the gate; maybe that parade was just passing by.

 

I was out of moss, but I did have one water arrow left: I plugged it on the second attempt, and nobody was alerted. As it happens, there is nothing of value in that room anyway, unless you want another picked lock: all you get is a fire arrow, and you don't need one.

 

As several people have noted, you can open the door to Riddle Room 1 by just throwing a flare at it -- an odd programming mistake, I think. You don't need to blow off the explosive charge, and you don't need to nudge the guard there.

 

(I wonder if that will work even before retrieving the explosive charge and the fire arrow? Can you bypass those two rooms? Alas, I don't have a save game from that spot except for the one where I was nudging the guard above, and that's too far away to test the door. Too much work. Too lazy.)

 

I must say, after all the screaming and the crying, the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth over on TtLG, I found the riddles (for the door combinations) curiously disappointing; they were much too easy, especially the first one, which just requires a little algebra. The second was more interesting, but even so, it took me only two minutes or so to figure it out and exit.

 

All in all, it was a terrific mission, as usual for Mr. Oakenshield; and I really wonder whether it may be ghostable after all... if you have the patience to walk that stupid guard all the way down the quay to the other end.

 

How far away do you need to get her before she won't hear the explosion?

 

(Say, here's a thought: maybe she'll always hear it because it's scripted! If so, it's not a bust; but I don't know DromEd, so I can't go check. The question: does she hear the explosion, which isn't very loud, because she actually hears it, being close and sensitive enough, or because her alert is a scripted event?)

 

Dafydd

 

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7.            11th Dec 2003, 04:24 #132

dafydd

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The Taffer's Tower

I feel kind of silly even posting this, but....

 

FM: The Taffer's Tower

File: TaffersTower.zip

 

Play mode: Ghost (success)

Perfect Thief (success)

Time: 1 hr 30 min

Loot: 53,000 of 53,000

Pockets picked: 0 of 1 (all)

Backstabs: 0 Knockouts: 0

Damage dealt: 0 Taken: 0 Healing: 0

Killed: 0

Secrets: 0 of 0

 

Comments:

 

This is basically a "joke" mission, though it's rather fun. I didn't find out about the quick way to get up the tower until I finished -- but that's all right; I really enjoyed the exercise in infinite box stacking!

 

From the top, I took a detour and did a nice swan dive off the tower all the way down into the water, then gulped a speed potion and swam through the underwater tunnel to the temple, emerging literally one second before I would have taken some damage. (Since you start with only one hit point in Expert mode, even landing hard is fatal!)

 

There is nothing much there beyond a holy basketball: I understand that if you throw the basketball at the floaty fairy thingie -- a wisp? -- and hit it, you get a breath potion. (To get a health potion, you have to kill and cook the spider, which is a no-no in ghost... but in fact, your ceilling is one hit point in Expert mode: I grabbed the health potions around the sacred fire and gulped them, but I didn't gain any health.)

 

I suppose if you got a few breath potions, you could swim back; then you could use the ejection button to get back atop the tower. So you could go there and back again, without having to reload, as I did -- not knowing about either the breath-potion ritual or the ejection button.

 

All the absurd amount of wealth comes from the giant-sized masks on the first floor (the floor above ground floor) and the regular-sized masks on the ground floor.

 

The Bubble-Blowing Burricks on the ground floor are really myopic, at the Mr. Magoo level of blindness; if you stay farther than about twenty feet from them, they won't see you even if your gem is completely bright with a red subgem. I just crouch-walked slowly around the periphery from the stairs to the door to unlock it.

 

I played with them later, which is how I know they blow bubbles instead of burping Burrick gas. That was a lot of fun, too: I stood on the stairs, lured them close by hurling boxes at the floor... then when one got in position, I jumped off the stair and got to ride a Burrick for a couple of minutes!

 

Then he moved and I fell off. But it was still fun -- but I made it to the bell, yee-ha! Ride 'em, Burrickboy!

 

I will say that using the "Frobozz Magic Crate Device" was a blast; I wish we could buy one at loadout. You can create an infinite number of crates, allowing you to stack your way up a tower that is as tall as Angelwatch. I did some stacking on the inside, too, to get the masks, and also to get up to the rafters (nothing there). The speed potion is on the second floor (third button from the bottom) catwalks; there are climbable cables... atop one of them is that weird, gingerbread-looking guy whose name I don't know, and he has a speed potion.

 

(If someone will tell me how to post screenshots -- I made they jpegs to save space -- I will add a couple of shots of goofy, mile-high stacks of boxes!)

 

A lot of fun, but really just a giggle.

 

Dafydd

 

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8.            11th Dec 2003, 06:08 #133

Peter_Smith

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Dafydd,

 

Good work in Karras' Diary. I beta tested the mission and ghosted as much as possible, so I had a lot of time to practice and lots of fun doing it. In spite of the bust(s) it is a terrific ghosting mission.

 

I ghosted the spiders once cleanly (no invisio) and failed on another attempt. I don't know what the difference was. Just lucky timing, I guess, or maybe Thorin made them more difficult in the final version. I think you don't have to go past them on the way out. I used the elevator and the front door by the tree beast park door to exit. I ghosted the money box in the church without invisio. That was really tough. It took extreme creeping and some delicate hops, as I recall. I'm pretty sure I also did the pub, but I don't remember the details at all. The guard by the transmuter machine is impossible, unless of course you nudge her to the other side of the map (too much like work). I never tried that. Funny, it never occurs to me to use invisio. Hate the stuff. 

 

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9.            11th Dec 2003, 20:58 #134

dafydd

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Spiders, &c.

[Peter]

I think you don't have to go past them on the way out.

No you don't. You can go past the two combat-bot sentries right outside the front door instead  .

 

Going through the door from the room with the two combat bots, the elevator, and the bones in the corner, you come to an anteroom. Directly ahead of you is Karras's office, and there are two more combat bots right outside, pulling guard duty. They are in bright electric light (no switch that I saw) facing each other on either side the door, separated by perhaps eight feet.

 

If you'd prefer to sneak in between them over trying to ghost the spiders, well, you're welcome to it! :lol

 

Wow, you must have a heck of a lot of patience to ghost the moneybox without inviso. By that point, by the end of every mission, I'm getting restive and just want to finish out. I had those two potions sitting around, and I just thought, what the heck.

 

As to the bottles in the pub, as I recall your writeup, you did use invisibility there. Did you find a way to ghost them later, without inviso?

 

Dafydd

 

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10.          11th Dec 2003, 21:02 #135

dafydd

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By the way....

[Peter]

 

This "part 5" is now longer than any of the previous parts.

 

Isn't it about time we tucked it into bed and started part 6?

 

Dafydd

 

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11.          12th Dec 2003, 03:21 #136

Peter_Smith

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Re: Spiders, &c.

Originally posted by dafydd

Did you find a way to ghost them later, without inviso?

Evidently not. I even forgot that I wrote it up -- September, 2002 is past my memory horizon.  You have to watch what you say around here. It may come back to haunt you.

 

Having read my writeup, I see that I failed to ghost the money box. I got in there with a lot of trouble, but I could not leave. I may have done it in another attempt, but we will never know. Oh well.  The only solution is to try it again some time. 

 

As for moving on to part 6, I would like to change the policy and make the threads longer. I would like to reduce the work of moving things around and making links between threads. With the old BBS we used, long threads were purported to be a problem. With VBulletin, I don't think they are. Threads with 400 posts or more are common in other places.

 

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12.          12th Dec 2003, 12:41 #137

dafydd

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Part V Lives!

[Peter]

As for moving on to part 6, I would like to change the policy and make the threads longer.

I prefer longer threads; it's a pain in the patootie to search every page of five different threads anyway, just to find whether anyone produced a ghost report for Flying Ferrets of Fear FM in the last two years.

 

Hm... I wonder if we could produce one single monster thread combining all the parts? I suppose not. I sigh wistfully.

 

Dafydd

 

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13.          12th Dec 2003, 12:59 #138

dafydd

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Timoteus

FM: Timoteus

File: timoteus.zip

 

Play mode: Ghost (failed)

Zero damage (success)

Time: 5 hr 17 min

Loot: 8292 of 8937

Pockets picked: 8 of 9 (all)

Backstabs: 0 Knockouts: 0

Damage dealt: 0 Taken: 0 Healing: 0

Killed: 0

Secrets: 3 of 4

 

Reasons for failure:

 

1) In order to get through the secret passage from the Swimming Pool Room to the Labyrinth (and the book with the combinations), I had to slash a banner.

 

2) In order to get the vase (per objective), I had to break the box in which it was packed.

 

3) In order to get into the room with the book that would tell me the members of Capitula, I had to break boards.

 

4) Breaking the above boards alerted the nearby patrolling guard, even though I waited until he was at his farthest point.

 

5) (Will this ever end?) Placing the explosive device on the floor of the cell to exit -- you have to blow out a wall... and yes, you're way ahead of me for number 6 below! -- made a noise and alerted the nearby stationary guard.

 

6) Blowing up half the building alerted the stationary guard standing a couple of feet away. Surprise, surprise, on the jungle cruise tonight.

 

Can I come up with any more? Oh, yes, I forgot:

 

7) Blowing up the wall blew up the wall.

 

8) Some insects and amoebas were probably injured in the explosion, though it didn't show up in the stats (phylum centrism! phylum centrism!)

 

Comments:

 

Amazingly, though I was buried in rubble, and it took me four and a half minutes to work my way free, I didn't suffer any damage at all in the explosion. Musta been rats, taking the brunt and shielding me from harm.

 

I am proud of one thing: you have to shoot a fire arrow at a statue in the Swimming Pool Room to open the secret door -- and I managed to do this without alerting the patrolling female in the next room. Calloo, callay! I timed her patrol, calculated when she was at the farthest point, and she didn't hear the fire arrow. I know this because I immediately opened the door and listened, and she was still walking normally.

 

It's a fun mission, but it's really not ghost-friendly. Aside from those forced busts -- at least I think they're forced -- I ghosted the rest of it... which wasn't easy, betimes, because I quickly ran myself out of water arrows and had to slide rapidly (often across tile) from one sliver of shadow to the next.

 

The toughest thing that I successfully ghosted was the Librarian's Key, inside the Library, on the glass floor inside the central rotunda (that's what everyone calls it). A guard patrols all around that narrow space: I had to mantle up when he was walking away, but stop on the railing... then edge forward and drop silently onto the glass floor, then back quickly into a bit of darkness at one edge. To get out, I had to run-jump-mantle up a corner, oddly enough; I couldn't do it on the flat part of the mini-wall.

 

One thing that annoyed me no end: I have never before seen so damn many "disappearing door" tricks in my life. I'd say about a third or a half of the doors would vanish into the Fifth Dimension when I opened them, either the first or second time. This made it doubly hard to ghost, since I had to dart into shadow every time the patrolling guard walked by in the corridor outside, since there was no door to shield me from his prying eyes!

 

Anyway, not a bad attempt; maybe I'll hunt through the old archives to see if anyone actually ghosted it, or at least ghosted any of the parts I couldn't.

 

(Just checked: Vanguard played the Polish version, and he didn't have to slash the banner... but that's because there was a master key left on an office floor; I think that key was removed in the English version -- at least, I never found it -- which means the only way to get the combination book and the Library Key (not to be confused with the Librarian's Key) is to go through the secret passage from the Swimming Pool Room... which requires slashing the banner. With a master key, you can enter the Reading Room directly, filch the Library Key from the snoozing guy, go backwards through the Labyrinth and get the book, then backtrack and exit the way you entered.)

 

Dafydd

 

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14.          13th Dec 2003, 06:15 #139

Peter_Smith

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Re: Part V Lives!

Originally posted by dafydd

Hm... I wonder if we could produce one single monster thread combining all the parts? I suppose not. I sigh wistfully.

I think not. The only way I know to combine them is to use an HTML editor and make a page that has no vBulletin functionality, such as edit or reply, and no connection to the forum data base. That is what I did to create the first two threads from the old forum in the FAQ / Archives pages. It is a lot of trouble. All the links between pages need to be reinstated manually. I only did it because the information would have been lost otherwise.

 

Do you know of a method to search all pages of an entire thread, and only that thread? I've been flipping through the many pages manually and searching each page using a browser search. This is no different from bringing up separate threads. Is there an easier way to search an entire thread?

 

Good work in Timoteus, by the way. Exactly the same experience I had, and I agree that it was a lot of fun doing it in spite of the busts. 

 

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15.          13th Dec 2003, 07:38 #140

dafydd

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Searching

[Peter]

Do you know of a method to search all pages of an entire thread, and only that thread? I've been flipping through the many pages manually and searching each page using a browser search. This is no different from bringing up separate threads. Is there an easier way to search an entire thread?

Search me.

 

(I couldn't resist. Alas, no; if there is a way to search all pages of an entire thread in one swell foop, I don't know it.)

 

Dafydd

 

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16.          16th Dec 2003, 23:21 #141

dafydd

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Garrett & the Beanstalk

FM: Garrett & the Beanstalk

File: beanstalk.zip

 

Play mode: Ghost (success)

Perfect Thief: (failure)

Time: 2 hr 12 min

Loot: 2950 of 3150

Pockets picked: 1 of 1

Backstabs: 0 Knockouts: 0

Damage dealt: 0 Taken: 0 Healing: 0

Killed: 0

Secrets: 2 of 4 (actually 4 of 4; two didn't report in the stats, even though I found them)

 

Comments:

 

Garrett must climb a beanstalk into a cloud, dodge cloud beasts, rob the giant's castle, steal the magic harp, and rescue the Unconscious Damsel In Distress... what could be cooler? 

 

(You can even collect cloud-beast poo if you want, though I'm not sure what you're to do with it.)

 

You start with just a couple of vague objectives, but more get added... usually already checked off as you do various things.

 

Warning! One of the objectives that can land on you, to free all the giant's prisoners, is an automatic ghost buster: if you free them, they will run riot and eventually get into a melee with the giant's dwarf guards. You must not allow yourself to incur this objective. But I have no idea how it appears, or even if it ever appears on Expert. I only know about it from reading online; it never cropped up in my run, even when I experimented with releasing the prisoners. It's possible that Kfort, the author, knew it would be a ghost bust and didn't put it in as a bonus objective on Expert level; she did at least one other thing to make sure the mission would be ghostable -- see below.

 

There are four secrets, but some don't properly check off, especially (with one) when ghosting. There is some loot -- well, a lot of loot -- behind the banner in the main (entry) room of the castle. But you don't have to slash it, at least not on Expert (I didn't try on any other level); if you have the Giant's Amulet in your possession (see below for its location), then you can just push through it. Kfort has said that if you don't slash the banner, it will not check off as a secret found, even though you found it.

 

(The other secret that wouldn't check off for me is the frobbable door in one of the rafter posts in which is found a fire and a weird invisibility potion named the Giant's Amulet or somesuch, even though it's a drink-me type item. You must have this in your possession in order to push through the banner without slashing, per above.)

 

Most of the ghosting is pretty standard; there is one difficult spot: when you get through the secret banner into a hall lined with pedestals, you will notice a harp at the other end. You have to steal the loot from the pedestals before you go for the harp, because it will be ten times as difficult afterwards. Use your vine arrows to get high enough up to frob the loot.

 

When you grab the harp, which you can get by simply jumping and frobbing, you get a new (checked off) objective. But also, three floating eyeballs spawn, and I think a purple energy bolt also fires up the aisle toward the door. Get off that line immediately and into shadow and crouch; the eyeballs spawn unalerted. I had no difficulty crawling along the right-hand wall (as seen looking towards the door) all the way up to the steps; I suppose you could use either wall.

 

At the other end, I got a nasty surprise: when you frob the singing harp, a big, spikey set of bars lowers, blocking the door. After some skulking around, I found a lever on the left side of the doorsteps.

 

When you enter the giant's room (like Squire Trellaine in the old Star Trek episode "the Squire of Gothos," the giant turns out just to be a child), you will find his "pet," who turns out to be either a fairy princess (per the objective that appears) or an Unconscious Damsel In Distress (which is how she is identified when you pick her up). You have to haul her all the way back down the beanstalk.

 

All in all, I really enjoyed this little FM. Two thumbs up!

 

Dafydd

 

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17.          21st Dec 2003, 03:31 #142

Vanguard

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OM: The Bonehoard (Thief Gold)

 

Play mode: Ghost (success)

Time: 1 hr 29 min

Loot: 2350 of 2450 (2000 required)

Backstabs: 0 Knockouts: 0

Damage dealt: 0 Taken: 0 Healing: 0

Killed: 0

 

Comments:

 

I decided to try ghosting those missions (OMs and FMs) that I've failed before, especially after seeing in the ghost rules that I could take damage as a last resort. I thought I couldn't take any so along with the ongoing review of clarifying the ghost rules in another thread, I felt like tackling some oldies. Rather than argue some more over the rules, I figured to just go ghost some of the OMs and FMs that I had failed before. I had ghosted some other FMs recently but Daffydd kept beating me to it for reporting a ghost attempt and I didn't have much, if anything, to add.

 

The only problem area in Bonehoard is getting past the fire dude to get the gem (forget its name). Getting past the burrick cave required getting to the exit tunnel side and hiding in shadow until eventually the 3 burricks were wandering on the other side of the cave and not in line of sight. Getting back out after getting horn requires waiting until the burricks go back to sleep and then going to the right as you reenter the cave, taking the path between the groups of burricks, and jumping just right to land on the edge of the ledge on your way out so you make no noise. But the fire dude and the enclosed zombies were the hardest to ghost.

 

The idea is that you light 5 torches with fire arrows but that puts lots of AIs on full alert. Old Man and maybe others had talked about stacking stuff to get to the ladder for the exit from the gem room; i.e., you go in by the exit route. I couldn't find enough stuff to stack that was quiet and wouldn't put the nearby zombies onto 2nd alert (detected by their voice change). I found barrels up above the walkway to the fire dude room. This is on the last bit where you exit to get outside (I don't remember if going all the way back to the beginning counts as exiting the mission). So I checked around for where the zombies were, pushed the barrel over, and it landed below which is the same level as the fire dude room. I checked again and even with the sound volume all the way up I could not hear that a zombie went on alert. So I ran back down, doused torches (since nudging is a slow process), and pushed the barrel into the fire dude room under the opening in the ceiling with the ladder.

 

I had Felix's bedroll but it was still too low to snag the ladder. I could just snag the ladder but I'd get stuck at the bottom of it (i.e., I got the ladder but could not move up). I then tried crouching, dropping, and jumping atop a skull which would land silently atop the bedroll. Still not enough height. I started to wonder what else I could stack. Another skull would make too much noise landing atop the first skull, and trying to get the bedroll to land atop a skull was possible but then any jumping atop the bedroll moved it too much and I'd fall off.

 

Aha! I happened to check inventory and noticed that I had 3 health potions, a speed potion, and 2 holy water vials. More than enough for stacking and these stack atop each other better than using bedrools, cheese, apples, or other irregularly shaped objects. While atop the bedroll on the barrel, the fire dude would pass me and not notice me, but atop just the barrel and he would spot me as he passed by. Yet when I got to the top of the ladder, I had to hurry to position myself at the right height to jump off onto the tunnel floor without making noise before the fire dude passed by and saw me way up there.

 

Now I was in the booby trapped gem room. You can jump across the pressure plates at the foot of the stairs and land on the first or second step. Every other step after that is a pressure plate. I then jumped onto the wide stone railing and went up to the gem. Indiana Jones to the rescue. I couldn't snatch the gem without its pressure plate rising to set off the traps. But a skull at the foot of the pedestal worked as a counterbalance. Drop it in, then take the gem, and the pressure plate doesn't move.

 

Getting out was easy. Because I positioned the barrel and stacked potions near the backside of the ladder tunnel, I could jump off the ladder to release it, hit the backwall, and fall straight down atop the stacked objects for a no-noise landing.

 

There'd be no way to Supreme Ghost this OM the way I played it as there would be no way to get the barrel back up where it was. Objects won't push up stairs.

 

I suspect the 100 in loot that I was short of the maximum amount was the gold vase in the first level room where a boulder trap triggers when you open the door to enter. The boulders hitting the floor and each other will alert the zombies so I had to skip that vase.

 

I did get the vase in the room with a display case and about 5 sleeping zombies in the room. One zombie will awake when you slither by but won't be on alert. I'm assuming this follows the rule/exception that says a sleeping AI popping up in bed does not count as an alert if that AI is indeed not in alert status after popping up. If that gets counted as a ghost bust, I probably had enough other loot to satisfy the loot objective, anyway.

 

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18.          21st Dec 2003, 09:26 #143

dafydd

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The Skull of St. Yora (director's cut beta)

FM: The Skull of St. Yora (director's cut beta)

File: theskullofstyora-1-1-beta.zip

 

Play mode: Ghost (success)

Time: 4 hr 28 min

Loot: 4030 of 5027 (4000 required)

Pockets picked: 8 of 9 (all)

Backstabs: 0 Knockouts: 0

Kills: 0

Secrets: 0 of 0

 

Comments:

 

When Vanguard ghosted (?) this mission a while back (page 2 of this thread, I think), he seems to have collected the 400 loot from the statue on the altar in the cathdral. But you can only do this by tossing a flare at the thing, which melts it away with a poof, leaving four nuggets of gold @ 100 each.

 

But I think this constitutes destruction of property... so with a sigh, I kissed that 400 loot goodbye  .

 

I found an easy way to get into the gated garden with the golf-tee torch: I jumped from the wall onto the top of the nearest tree, then slid down to the grass: zero damage, and no noise.

 

I would really love for Vanguard to give a clearer description of how you use eye orbs to climb... do they hover in the air, like the books in A Keeper's Betrayal?

 

In this new version, the dining room in St. Yora's has a newly installed lightswitch! So I made up for not getting that 400 from the statue by scooping up all the gold plates and glasses there.

 

Pretty much the same as Vanguard for most of the rest; little differences here and there. I exited the garden by nudging the female guard way up and into the far right corner (from her POV), so I could scale the ladder without her seeing me.

 

Dafydd

 

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19.          21st Dec 2003, 16:16 #144

Vanguard

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Dafydd,

 

You're right about the property damage of the statue where you can get the gold nuggets. I don't remember if those got included in the loot total; if so, I'd have to go back to find another 328 in loot to make the loot objective (I'll wait until the beta of this FM gets released, though). I don't recall the objectives, so if it wasn't listed then the nuggets from the statue were a no-no for ghosting. Sometimes I forget to go back to look at the objectives. So few FMs have maps (other than a blank one to keep the game from crashing if you look) that I've even gotten into the habit of never looking to see if I have a map.

 

The orbs stack just like potions or anything else you drop under your feet. Crouch, look straight down, and just after you release the object to drop it straight down then jump up to get you feet (which cannot be seen) atop the dropped object. Orbs are about as stable as stacking bedrools, potions, skulls, rib cages, and the like: you can manage to stack-jump them but only jump once, else multiple jumps atop the precarious pile will often make them fall or you slide off. As I recall, the orbs behave similar to apples. Once you drop them straight under and jump atop of them, you're really not quite on top of them. You can jump another time and get a bit more altitude as the orb creeps up a bit. It's like you really haven't gotten your feet above the orb and your jumping pushes up the orb and you move with it. However, I think about 3 times is as much as you can inch up the orb before it then falls off the stack, so do a save after jump-stacking the orb, count how many times you can jump after that to inch up the orb before it falls off, reload, and jump one less time before using another orb. I'm not guaranteeing this is the exact procedure. I'd have to go into a mission where I had multiple orbs to test it again. It's one of things that you notice a behavior when stacking and jumping that you have to practice at, or do a lot of reloads.

 

I consider it a quirk, like banner transmigration and nudging. I use nudging a lot. I've never been any good at banner transmigration and used it maybe twice (but have tried lots and given up). I've been more successful in bouncing off a rope arrow to land somewhere than using it for transmigration.

 

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20.          21st Dec 2003, 20:24 #145

Zaccheus

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Re: Re: Part V Lives!

Dafydd, nice work and thanks for beta testing!

 

The final version is now out.

 

Originally posted by Peter Smith

Do you know of a method to search all pages of an entire thread, and only that thread? I've been flipping through the many pages manually and searching each page using a browser search. This is no different from bringing up separate threads. Is there an easier way to search an entire thread?

I believe there is !

 

At the bottom of the page, click on "Show Printable Version" and then at the top right hand side click on "Show all [N] posts from this thread on one page". You can then use CTRL-F to search the whole thread.

 

 

EDIT:

For some reason, the "show all posts" does not show all posts.

 

The Honest Thief - FMs, screenshots, DromED, links ... Zaccheus' hospital blog

 

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21.          21st Dec 2003, 23:52 #146

dafydd

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Searching possibility

[Peter]

 

One possibility: if there is a particular thread you search often (say, this one), you can probably click on "show printable version," as Zaccheus mentioned below; then you click your insert point before the first post, use the scroll bar to scroll to the end, and shift-click after the last post on that page; this should select all the posts in between. Copy, then past this into a text editor.

 

Do the same with all succeeding pages, appending each one to the end of the same text file. When you finish, you will have the entire thread as a text file, which you can search later when you need to find something.

 

It's just a snapshot, of course; but if, for example, you did this with all the Ghost/Perfect Thief Results threads (in chronological order, I suppose), including this one, then you would only have to search that archive text file and whatever is the current page of the actual thread to find something. As new pages are added, you can just append them to the bottom of the text file, keeping it more or less up to date.

 

Edit: Slight modification... I just checked, and the archived threads don't allow for displaying in print mode. But no matter, the technique above works perfectly well displaying in the normal mode, too; I just made a text file of the entire part 1, and it took me only about a minute and a half. There are some indentation oddities, but it's perfectly clear where one post ends and another begins.

 

All of part 1 ended up being about 379K for three pages, so about 125K/page; so projecting outward, I think you could bring the entire series of five parts into a single text file around two megs in size, and it shouldn't take you longer than twenty minutes to do it.

 

Dafydd

 

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22.          24th Dec 2003, 09:39 #147

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Torner Island

FM: Torner Island (English version)

File: torner.zip

 

Play mode: Ghost (failed)

Zero damage (success)

Time: 6 hr 3 min

Loot: 2699 of 3334 (2500 required)

Pockets picked: 3 of 8 (not all. duh.)

Backstabs: 0 Knockouts: 0

Kills: 0 (one zombie, didn't show up in stats)

Damage dealt: 18 (the zombie)

Bodies discovered by enemies: 1 (guess who; I will explain)

Secrets: 0 of 0

 

Cause of failure:

 

- Mission requires zombie to be killed, not in objectives. The killing alerts every other zombie in the graveyard.

 

- Mission requires you to slash a banner (only a possible failure, see writeup), not in objectives.

 

- Dafydd's dorkiness required him to gas a couple of guards; but I doubt any of you could do better. A challenge!

 

Comments:

 

Let's hit on the failures first; I'm feeling gloomy anyway, so we'll get this part out of the way quickly!

 

In reverse order....

 

You must get a number of things from the house of the Master of Science (the erstwhile Brother Humbert, I think; perhaps he was thrown out of the monastery after that unfortunate incident with Lolita?) Alas, the only way to that house is through a long corridor... the front end of which is guarded by two stationary guards, one with a lantern!

 

This is ridiculous, like a bad parody of unghostability. He's standing facing the door; the door is locked, and you have to pick it. What's worse, it opens out -- right into you. You have to cross in front of it and pick it from that side.

 

You can't even sneak up behind the lantern guard to knock him out, if you're playing that way, because the other stationary guard has his back. Finally, there is a third guard, a stationary archer on the second floor of an inaccessible building, and he looks right down at door, lantern guy, and sentry, the whole kit & kabootle.

 

Clayman would pull the covers up. Old Man would have a seizure and plotz. Even Vanguard would scratch his head like Saddam being checked for head lice.

 

There ain't no way into there in ghost mode -- and I will take off my hat to anyone who can do it. I'll go put on a hat just so I can take it off to you.

 

I had one gas arrow from somewhere; I stood off a distance and dropped both guards with one arrow. It was a great shot; unfortunately, I had to do it again and again until lantern guy finally fell so that his lantern was below the surface of the street; otherwise, Captain Archer above me would see them lying there and become completely unhinged.

 

But the fun had just begun, because there was also a patroller whose route took him right past there... and even with the lantern buried, there was just enough ambient light for him to see the bodies and begin yelling about murder (or maybe it was Mordor; I couldn't quite tell). So I had to hide the bodies.

 

But this raised a new problem: as soon as I picked up lantern guy, his lantern would become visible and begin shining its revealing light of wisdom all over me, lighting me up like the Fourth of July. I solved the prob by creeping towards the body, snatching it, and backpedalling immediately under the overhang, so the archer had no line of sight to me; all I got was a first alert. I hotfooted it down a street that I knew was deserted, dumping the body there. Then I ran back to grab the other sentry, since there was still enough ambient light (coming from nowhere now) that I might get busted. I hauled the other body into the corridor, dumping it where it would be sure to get in my way every time I tramped up and down that stupid tunnel (which was about thirty times, it seemed like).

 

One failure down; two to go.

 

The second one was moving from the corridor in the monastery patrolled by the haunts to the corridor patrolled by a single zombie. There was the remains of a shredded banner blocking the route... but even though there was nothing but a few dangling threads, it acted just like a full-blown banner and wouldn't let me pass. I had to slash it.

 

But is this really property damage? It was already ripped to shreds. It makes little difference, since the third failure is absolutely unavoidable.

 

This is the biggie: you need the Scepter of Might (it's an objective). The scepter is hidden inside a panel in the old chapel (patrolled by two ghosts). The panel only opens when you read a certain book. Book is in safe. Safe requires combination. Combination buried with brother selected to be fly-ridden, zombie sentinel. (You following this?) Brother said combination only revealed over his dead body.

 

Therefore, you must kill a zombie to spawn the scroll to read the combination to open the safe to read the book to open the panel to grab the scepter that lived in the house that Haman built. Alas, ain't nothing about killing zombies in the objectives. So we're all screwed.

 

Especially so, since both holy-water arrows and fire arrows alerted every other zombie in the joint. That was the one body "discovered by enemies," by the way. See? I told you I would tell you.

 

But aside from these failures, the ghost was a complete success! I know it sounds ludicrous, but it was actually quite an achievement. I ghosted the big spiders in the Mute Eye altar room. I ghosted the Master of Science's house -- there is a scripted zombie destruction, but it's a direct result of something that is an objective, bringing Dolly back to the child who was zombified. I ghosted the factory, which was actually a pretty studly feat.

 

First, the factory. After entering, I saw something I've never seen before: an AI walked over onto the elevator, pushed the button, and rode it up to another level! Dang, that's cool.

 

Anyway, I had heard in an argument between him and another guard that there was an office upstairs; I figured it would probably be the top floor, so I rang for the lift and punched the top button. As I rode up, I received a first alert from one of the guards on the intervening floors, but nothing worse. After some fumfahing around (I had to consult the two Torner threads on TtLG several times), I found a switch that promised to open a trap door underneath the bottom of the elevator.

 

Alas, when I crept all the way around the metal catwalks, drawing several firsts but nothing worse, and took the elevator down again, that guard who had clucked at me on the way up went into full search mode ("I'll find you!") when I went down. I tried every corner of the elevator and just could not find a spot that wasn't lit up enough for me to be spotted every time. I had to find another route down.

 

The metal catwalks followed the inside perimeter of the building, one for each floor. In addition were two shafts that rose from floor to ceiling; approximately the same level as the floors were small metal catwalks around the shafts, along with little metal bridges connecting the perimeter catwalks to the circular ones.

 

Three guards: two stationary (archer and swordsman) and one patrolling sword guy.

 

I crept down onto the top level of the circular catwalk that was farthest from the stationary archer on the top floor. I drew a first alert before sliding into deep shadow. Then, angling myself as much as I could to keep the shaft between me and the archer, while still aiming close enough I could make it to the perimeter catwalk next floor down, I crouch-ran off the circular walk, just catching the edge of the catwalk below. I discovered that if I just caught the edge, I didn't make any sound landing... so long as I didn't take even one step past that landing!

 

I was in rotten shadow here, so I held my breath while the patroller passed beneath me, but he didn't notice anything.

 

I then repeated the trick to drop down to the next circular catwalk a floor below, running off to just hit the edge of the walk and STOP. (The "Garrett bounce" busted me many times.) Finally, I did it a last time to drop to the "floor," which was actually one floor above where I entered. I carefully crawled to the elevator shaft, then crouch-ran through it to drop to the basement level, where I'd entered. From there, I was able to hop onto the ladder down the secret passage to the lava pits. Whew!

 

I had no difficulty with the run-of-the-tomb haunts or the blind and deaf ghosts in the big chapel; the only time I attracted their attention was when I would run a little too close... Garrett's stilletto heels on the tile floor woke them up, and they shot magic missiles (reload! reload!).

 

But I did have a bit of a time ghosting the spiders in the altar room. You teleport there after dropping a hunk of masonry on a pressure plate on the altar of the little chapel. The room is very brightly lit, and there are about four or five big spiders in there. They notice you after a moment, then they alert, then they charge; you end up running around in circles, flapping your arms and squawking like a chicken.

 

I dropped the stone, then immediately I arrived, I gulped the only invisibility potion I had. I got a single first-alert chirp from one of the spiders, then he gave his "all okay" rumble. I ran to the altar, frantically flipping through my inventory for the Mute Eye, used it on the altar (opening the escape hatch); then I ran (one more first-alert chirp) and dropped down, just as the inviso wore off. (A couple of times I tried to scoop up some of the equipment littering the floor there, but I could never make it to the hole in time not to be spotted when I did that.)

 

Once you have done that, you are dubbed an "adept" of the Brotherhood of the Gobbledygook, and you can now read the book in the library safe (before it just snarled at you and said it was for adepts only). When you read the book, that opens the panel at the back of the altar in the big chapel, where you can take the fiercly glowing version of Lord Bafford's scepter, which is the Scepter of Might in this FM. Only one slight difficulty: as soon as you pick it up, you light up like Rudolph's nose (or my Uncle Isaac's nose when he's been at the kosher Manischewitz). This is true whether it's top in your inventory or buried. Since you have to carry it with you to find the item required by the last objective, the Mask of the Nameless (I guess Haman was scraping the bottom of the creativity bucket by then), you can forget hiding in shadows: the only way to ghost the last bit is to hide by distance.

 

I discovered that haunts spot you a mile away; spiders can see you move and will chirp; zombies can walk right past you about ten feet distant and only grumble; and the ghosts in the big chapel wouldn't notice the test explosion at Alamogordo.

 

But I actually managed to ghost this part as well... albeit I had to creep very slowly in the graveyard towards the escape tunnel; the stationary zombie archer (fires poison-gas arrows) was very hinky and would alert at any fast movement. But if I moved slowly, he would look right through me as if I weren't there.

 

And down, through, and out.

 

Plenty of room for improvement... but if anyone here can actually ghost it -- or even just ghost the lantern guard -- I'll eat my... well, my lunch.

 

Dafydd

 

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23.          24th Dec 2003, 14:40 #148

Old Man

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Actually, when I noticed that that lantern archer patrol settled in for the duration just outside the door to the tunnel to the Minister of Science's house I reloaded and timed things so if I lured the two zombies out of the graveyard peephole room they'd mug him. From then on no problemo!

 

Thanks for the Christmas present, dafydd. Went just right with my morning coffee.

 

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24.          24th Dec 2003, 21:18 #149

dafydd

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<Chuckle>

[Old Man]

 

An amusing approach (and dirty pool... using an FM's own monsters against each other!), but just as big a bustier as what I did  .

 

Note that all it would have taken to make this a possibly ghostable FM would have been to make that lantern guard a patroller; to have appear as an objective something like "do whatever you must to get the combination," and to make one spot in the zombie's patrol where the other zombies wouldn't hear it being killed; and make it possible to wriggle through that rended tapistry without having to slash it further... none of which would even be noticed by other players except the first -- which would have made play easier at the door but harder elsewhere to make up for it.

 

It's one thing to say, quite properly, that authors shouldn't deliberately design their missions to be ghostable; this leads to missions where ghosting is too easy. But it's another to say, also properly, in my damn opinion, that authors shouldn't deliberately put forced busts into their missions so as to make bloody sure nobody can possibly ghost them, regardless of skill, luck, or daring.

 

Dafydd

 

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25.          29th Dec 2003, 13:37 #150

dafydd

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Torner Island claim

[Folks]

 

According to Oneiroscope, if you approach the lantern guy for the first time coming from the graveyard, he will have a conversation with the other guard, and then lanternhead will go on patrol.

 

It doesn't work if you approach him prior to visiting the graveyard. I don't recall whether this makes any sense -- whether you can get into the graveyard before getting into the Master of Science's house... but if you're just starting to play, it's something to try!

 

Dafydd