FMs - Ghost/Perfect Thief Results (Part 7)

Thread: FMs - Ghost/Perfect Thief Results (Part 7)

 

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Hexameron said: 12th Dec 2009 01:23

FM: D
File: d.zip

Ghost - Failed
Time - 00:15:58
Loot - 1110/1110
Pockets Picked - 3/4
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 2
Damage dealt - 86 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 3

Causes of Failure:

1. Cannot sneak by apparition overlooking toilet and lavaflows

2. Cannot sneak by male thief that spawns above lavaflows

3. Cannot exit without either alerting a treebeast or having to alert the guard by the waterfall

4. Cannot sneak by apebeast at the mission end

Comments - I tried playing this Japanese mission many many years ago and never finished it. Playing FMs created by JIS are always interesting but frustrating. I look at his missions and wonder if he was on drugs while dromeding; they are just bizarre. The objectives text appeared to be Japanese transliterated to the Roman alphabet. As far as I could make out after completing the mission, the objectives are to collect 743 loot, kill the male thief, carry the dead keeper to the mission end, and escape.

The first trouble I had was lowering myself down to the marble-floored platforms over the lava pool. An apparition in the window always saw me climbing down the rope arrow, and falling down caused enough damage that Garrett's grunt alerted both the apparition and haunt. It's a clear bust. I was able to KO the haunt for some reason and then promptly dispatched the apparition.

I picked up the key on the toilet over the lava... and I think this is where I got stuck last time I played. It took me 30 minutes to finally realize that the two lavaflowing walls are actually water disguised as lava. Once I moved into the waterfalls, I noticed a lockbox to use the key on.

After looting the safe, I checked the belt of a dead keeper and accidentally picked his body up. Imagine my surprise when after picking him up I got an "Objective Complete" message. I carried his corpse back with me and noticed a male thief had spawned in one of the corridors. There was no way to sneak by him, so I shot him with a broadhead and then beat him to death with my BJ.

On the way to the mission start, I saw a treebeast had spawned. It was impossible to sneak past him, especially while carrying the dead keeper. So I took another route: up the waterfall with rope arrows. I decided to KO the guard to make things easier; he probably would have seen me going up the waterfall anyway.

I used the blue key from the male thief I killed to open a locked door at the mission start. Beyond this area was an apebeast I couldn't avoid alerting and the mission ended before he could attack me.

 

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Hexameron said: 12th Dec 2009 02:03

FM: Chon Migoroshi ver.2
File: chonmigorshiv2.zip

Ghost - Failed and aborted
Time - 00:16:20
Loot - 0/0
Pockets Picked - 0/1
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 0 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 0
Bodies Discovered by Enemies - 1

Causes of Failure:

1. Cannot sneak by any AI

2. Mission is incomplete and/or objectives do not work

Comments - Another weird Japanese FM with an indecipherable objective. The player begins with no weapons on a modern-day street with cars in broad daylight. I took the sewer route and startled a bunch of servants and pagans on the other side of the street. They ran to a house, alerting a bunch of bluecoats including a mutant cop that looked like an apebeast and Lieutenant Mosley spliced together. All of the servants and pagans died from the ensuing melee.

According to an old thread on TTLG, the objective is broken and no one managed to complete this FM; needless to say, I aborted.

 

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Hexameron said: 12th Dec 2009 02:16

FM: MainShock T2
File: mainshocktv2.zip

Ghost - Failed
Time - 00:48:50
Loot - 0/250
Pockets Picked - 0/1
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 660 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 5
Iron Beasts Destroyed - 1

Causes of Failure:

1. Cannot sneak by the guards at the mission start

2. Cannot sneak by frogbeasts in pool with stepping stones

3. Cannot sneak along metal catwalk without making footnoise and alerting the mechanist, treebeast, and pagan child

4. Cannot sneak up to pirate to get his key

5. Cannot sneak by zombies in boiler room

6. Cannot sneak by spider bot in crawlspace

7. Eh, let's just say you can't sneak by 70% of the AI in this mission

Comments - Another crazy JIS mission, but this time it's large and labyrinthine. It reminded me of an FPS level because all I did was race through long empty corridors and into bland rooms looking for keys. The player is given no equipment to start with, but there are a few areas where one can find flash mines, gas mines, explosive mines. I ended up using them whenever I needed to. I used my flash mines on the zombies in the boiler room. I used mines to kill the kungfu mechanist worker, pirate, spider bot, and ran out in an attempt to dispatch the treebeast. I had to use speed potions to get by him unscathed.

 

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Hexameron said: 12th Dec 2009 02:28

FM: L'Anniversaire de Joelle
File: lanniversairedeJoelle.zip

Ghost - Failed
Time - 00:10:44
Loot - 0/0
Pockets Picked - 0/1
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 0 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 0

Causes of Failure:

1. Cannot sneak by haunts on ledges

2. Jumping across ledges alerts spiders in maze and zombies in key room

3. Cannot sneak into zombie key room

Comments - A small French mission. I thought I was doing well by traversing the maze without alerting any of its denizens, but ultimately these haunts on the ledges busted me:



Leaping to each ledge alerted the spiders below and zombies in the key room. I just ran past the zombies to get the key, dropped down onto the labyrinth walls, and then made my way to the mission end.

 

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Hexameron said: 12th Dec 2009 02:40

FM: L'anniversaire de Yan
File: lanniversairedeYan.zip

Ghost - Failed
Time - 00:4:12
Loot - 0/0
Pockets Picked - 0/1
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 0 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 0

Cause of Failure:

- Cannot sneak by any of the zombies or haunts

Comments - The mission can only be played on normal difficulty. Upon starting, this is what I see: basically one room - a brightly-lit underground crypt filled with zombies and haunts.



The objectives are to find all of the golden bones. What the player needs to do essentially is jump from sarcophagus to sarcophagus to pick up the golden bones without taking damage from any AI. At times, it's necessary to run across the floor, but I had to be quick to mantle onto a sarcophagus before the speedy haunts got to me. This is a silly mission, but hey, at least I had sarcophagi to safely stand on. I'd hate to be thrown into this mission and then have to collect the golden bones with nothing but zombies and haunts in tow.

 

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Hexameron said: 13th Dec 2009 00:01

FM: The Hashishans V2
File: hashishans1c.zip

Ghost - Failed
Time - 00:56:58
Loot - 3032/3732
Pockets Picked - 21/27
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 0 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 0
Secrets Found - 5/5

Causes of Failure:

1. Must prevent a prisoner from dying (objective) by using a gas arrow on him

2. Cannot sneak by turret in corridor

Comments – I was so close to ghosting this one. I managed to sneak through the mission undetected and completed all objectives except one without incurring a ghost bust. In spite of my overall success, there are still difficulties brought on by unpredictable situations where AI exhibit quirky behavior. For example, in the starting prison cell, if I waited a couple minutes, one of the patrolling archers in the main cell block would notice a prisoner. As a result, he would attempt to shoot the prisoner (who is behind a metal door), causing massive 2nd alerts; disastrous for the ghoster:




I reloaded and observed that the archer sees the prisoner after 2-5 minutes of game time. With all of the torches in the main cell block, I wondered if the conflict couldn’t be averted by dousing all of them. So I explored the prison until I discovered any water arrows and then I reloaded when I knew where they were. By retrieving the water arrows and promptly dousing all torches in the main cell block area, I was able to thwart the archer’s seemingly inevitable 2nd alert. Indeed, when the archer passed by the prisoner, he only emitted a 1st alert.

Saving Lives with a Gas Arrow

The major ghost event of this mission occurs in the corridor with the turret and pagan prisoners. One objective is to prevent any of the prisoners from being killed. Here is the scenario: the player enters a corridor and triggers the turret to open fire on a prisoner.



Doing nothing causes the prisoner to die and the mission ends in failure:



There is a button in an alcove that looks like it would deactivate the turret. However, frobbing the button had no effect on the turret. I tried racing into the corridor and hitting the button before the turret opened fire, but that had no effect. Did I miss something? Is there really a way to take the turret offline?

My solution as I saw it was to use a gas arrow on the prisoner(s) before the turret barrage can kill him. I can’t help but wonder if the author intended for this; I mean, there is a gas arrow conveniently lying on the ground right outside of the cell! So I reloaded, opened the door to the corridor, and leaned forward to grab the gas arrow. Then after careful timing (to ensure the pivoting female cop near the button was looking away), I ran in and fired the gas arrow on the prisoner. The gas cloud of my arrow impacted both prisoners and the turret still got off one shot before they fell:



Incidentally, the turret can only see one of the two prisoners, so it’s really just one prisoner whose life is in danger. It goes without saying that I could not sneak by the turret without it spotting me. I could make a mad dash through the corridor without the turret firing, but it was plainly rotating and aiming for me as I passed by.

Other Notes

-I had to nudge the mechanist worker in the bathroom a little bit so I could reach the lockpicks on the sink.

-There are two rooms where the player can activate a friendly combat bot to go on patrol. Doing so results in noisy AI melees.

-If the player reads a particular book, a new objective to save a treebeast is added. Freeing the treebeast leads to another inevitable melee, so I avoided reading the book.

-I was often short on water arrows and used them sparingly. However, there are a few rooms where using water arrows are a must: (1) Two gaslights in the basement. Sometimes the patrolling guard would turn on the gas light after it had been doused, but if I reloaded, this didn't happen again - strange randomness. (2) Two gaslights in the pub. I couldn’t use a water arrow to douse the one over the counter without alerting a bluecoat; I was, however, able to use a gas arrow to extinguish the gaslight without any problems.

-I had to use moss in the basement kitchen so I could get into the room with the safes. I also needed to use moss on the lift because I couldn't simply step onto the left; I had to jump on it.

-Exiting the prison into the outside is difficult because of the bluecoat archer by the campfire. Dousing the campfire will cause a 2nd alert. Fortunately, there is a tiny patch of darkness against the building to the left of the double-doors. Running and sinking myself against this back wall worked fine; I only got a 1st alert in the process.

-When I got back to the main cell block after 45 minutes of game time, two archers were yelling and screaming at that same troublesome prisoner I mentioned earlier. At least they weren’t firing broadheads into the metal door.

-Releasing the Hashishans is a random affair. They are supposed to run out of the cells and open a locked door for you and then disappear. But this happens 30% of the time. During one game, they ran into the room and locked the door behind them. Another time they opened the door and left it open. After one more reload, they opened the door and closed it without locking the door. Although the Hashishans must be released to satisfy a particular objective, it’s not imperative to follow them into the room. They leave a key to “The Pit,” but I saw no reason to explore the pit. It’s possible to sneak around down there, but I only found 400 loot. 300 in diamonds are located in the pit itself where an arena melee ensues. It wasn’t worth the trouble since I already met the 3000 loot requirement.

 

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Hexameron said: 13th Dec 2009 00:12

FM: Run thief... RUN: Director's Cut
File: run.zip

Ghost - Failed
Time - 00:10:09
Loot - 0/0
Pockets Picked - 0/3
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 0 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 0

Cause of Failure:

-All AI in this mission cannot be stealthily avoided

Comments - Clearly this is not a serious Thief mission; it's a race through a maze to avoid AI and reach the mission end. The player is dropped into a pool of water, which alerts two guards. There's no way to leave the water without them seeing. Then there is a maze with a series of levers that need to be hit in order to open a door. Out of this door is a drawbridge with two archers that must be alerted. All of the floors are marble, by the way.

Things got intense towards the end with all of those combat and spider bots. I'm lucky I was able to jump and strafe to avoid all the projectiles. I didn't take any damage during my play through.

 

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Hexameron said: 13th Dec 2009 00:20

FM: Makiko ver.0833731
File: makikover0833731.zip

Ghost - Failed
Time - 00:30:12
Loot - 0/0
Pockets Picked - 0/3
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 3644 Damage taken - 70
Healing taken - 69 Kills - 12
Bodies Discovered by Enemies - 1

Cause of Failure:

-Cannot accomplish objective (kill one of the AIs) without alerting her and every other AI

Comments - Why do I put myself through these JIS missions?

I couldn't understand the objective, but this is a melee fest. The player is given hundreds of frogbeast eggs, mines, fire arrows, broadheads, etc. About 5-7 AI with insane amounts of HP become alerted after starting the mission. They run around and attempt to attack the player. I saw the apebeast mutant on the tower and assumed I needed to kill this thing. I spent a long time slashing it with my sword until the thing fell off the tower to the ground below. It was then I realized I had more destructive weapons in my inventory. I used all my frogbeast eggs and mines. Then I hid under a staircase and repeatedly used fire arrows until nearly everyone was dead. The person I was supposed to kill, however, was a maid that kept running in place because she was stuck in a railing.

 

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Hexameron said: 18th Dec 2009 03:02

FM: MISTR: Efekty Specjaine
File: mistrzFX.zip

Ghost - Failed and aborted
Time - 00:05:12
Loot - 0/0
Pockets Picked - 0/1
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 0 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 0

Cause of Failure:

- Cannot sneak by zombies in tunnel

Comments - This is just a Polish demo mission demonstrating various and impressive effects that can be produced in Dromed: a moving statue that crashes into a wall and causes parts of it to crumble, a statue that falls through the ceiling, lightning effects, a floating body in a pond, and a moving cart that obliterates zombies.

-It's not really worth reporting this mission, but it can't be ghosted because of the zombies in the tunnel. The author intended for the player to activate the mining cart which propels forward into the zombies making them explode.

-Once I found the square lockpick in the burning house, I lost my triangle lockpick. Did I even need my lockpicks for anything here?

-Moving down one hall causes a portcullis to fall. If you're fast enough you can get by before the portcullis reaches the ground, but that leaves you trapped in an empty room. If you're too slow to make it, however, the portcullis still falls and bars your way. I had no idea what to do in either case, so I aborted.

 

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Hexameron said: 18th Dec 2009 03:30

FM: Island of Iron pt 2: Confrontation
File: IslandofIron2-Confrontation.zip

Ghost - Failed
Time - 01:18:35
Loot - 1577/2127
Pockets Picked - 1/11
Backstabs - 1 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 48 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 1
Bodies Discovered by Enemies - 6

Cause of Failure:

- Cannot kill Arbez (obj) without alerting him and multiple AI

Comments - Ghosting went fine up until I spawned Arbez. Other than that, I had no problems ghosting this large fortress with plenty of shadows and areas to explore. Although I missed quite a bit of loot, I believe at least 400 worth of gold candlesticks are on an altar that cannot be ghosted due to a mechanist priestess observing it. The loot requirement is 1500 and I barely satisfied it.

Brother Arbez and Exiting the Fort

The two main ghosting issues here are killing Arbez and leaving the fort afterwards. Arbez spawns after the player reads a scroll on an altar above the lab. His hitpoints and vulnerability have been altered because a single backstab will not kill him and attempting to knock him out with the blackjack only causes him to recoil as if taking damage. I had no gas arrows or gas mines, so I was out of luck. Additionally, two mechanists spawn along with Arbez, making it hard to kill him without bringing about a melee. Three mechanists downstairs in the lab can also hear the commotion if I attempt to kill Arbez.



Fortunately, I had collected two invis potions in the mission. So I downed one and just kept overhead-slashing Arbez until he fell. Then I raced to a pitch dark corner just in time before the invisibility wore off. When Arbez dies, some mechanist announcer broadcasts that the undead are attacking the fort. I waited for Arbez's retinue to calm down and then used my last invis potion. Since I now had the book room key from Arbez's corpse, I could rush through the lab and get to the book room while invisible. Interestingly, the book of dark magic that I had to acquire was titled "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."

I didn't see any undead until I made it back to the second floor. I had no problems slinking around the melees that were occurring everywhere. It seems like the mechanists and undead were even matched. In some areas, the mechanists won and in others the undead overwhelmed. What worked in my favor was the prevalent darkness of the fort's interior; I was able to skulk around while most of the melees were still happening. I just needed to douse more torches along the way to ease the sneaking, but exiting was rather painless. I will say I was startled when I reached the end of the long sewage pipe and found that a previously dead mechanist worker had transformed into a zombie - a nice little scare.

 

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Hexameron said: 18th Dec 2009 03:51

FM: The Gallery
File: Galleryv1.2.zip

Ghost - Failed
Time - 00:25:01
Loot - 4860/4860
Pockets Picked - 6/8
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 30 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 1

Cause of Failure:

- Cannot sneak by apebeast in order to reach the mission end

Comments - A small mission that takes place at an art gallery.

-I had to follow a long train of patrolling guards outside until I could get close enough to snatch a key from one of their belts. That was the only difficulty in the art gallery part of the mission.

-To get the loot in the main lobby, I had to circle around one of the pivoting guards and hide near the gallery's front door. I used moss so I could run across quickly and snatch the loot on the front desk.

-I was able to frob a purse and pick the locked box without slashing the banner in the office.

-The pagan realm under the gallery is where my ghost bust occurred. I just couldn't get by that apebeast near the vine; too many light mushrooms. I couldn't plant my rope arrows anywhere useful and the ceilings ate them up. Moving slowly or quickly along the grassy inclines surrounding the apebeast's lair didn't work and he still saw me. So after an inevitable 3rd alert, I slashed the apebeast to death.

 

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Hexameron said: 18th Dec 2009 04:35

FM: The Hole
File: TheHole.zip

Ghost - Success (Chemical)
Perfect Thief - Failed
Time - 01:01:18
Loot - 2605/3130
Pockets Picked - 0/4
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 0 Damage taken - 7
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 0
Secrets Found - 1/1

Comments - Hmm. I'm almost disappointed that my ghost fail streak is over: the previous 16 missions I reported were all failed. But I'm also proud because this mission is tough and the AI are very strange. Some are normal and others are so sensitive that you can barely leave pitch darkness without instigating 2nd alerts.

-I couldn't help but taking damage after falling down the chimney to get into the prison, hence the 7 damage taken in my stats.

-The craymen in the lower prison cells are hypersensitive. What would normally cause a first alert puts them on second alert. Therefore, supreme ghosting them is what I had to do. I took the left path around the cell block. I made a habit of leaving the shadows only when the two patrolling craymens' backs were turned or they were not visible from my vantage point.

-The bugbeasts in the eyeplant field were normal it seems and I had no trouble getting by, although I did make a number of eyeplants stop and gaze at me. If I recall, the ghosting community decided this was not a bust back when the T2 OM "Trail of Blood" was reported.

-The two haunts in the undead area were a nuisance. They were just like the craymen: hypersensitive and must be supreme ghosted. The one who patrols the strange library/mausoleum is a problem because of the bright areas. Moving around the perimeter is the only possible way to avoid alerting the haunt. To get to the church doors, I had to wait at the upper left corner until he approached and turned his back. I also mossed the marble platform in front of the mausoleum so I could collect the loot. Taking the goblet sets off an arrow trap, although this doesn't alert the haunt or apparition. Getting close to the apparition wasn't too hard and I had the large bookcases shielding me from the patrolling haunt's view.

-Getting into the church was even more difficult because I not only had the aforementioned patrolling haunt and idle apparition to worry about, but another hypersensitive haunt patrolling inside the church. It goes without saying that I reloaded dozens of times until I figured out how to get into the church alert-free. First, I needed to watch for the haunt in the library/mausoleum to make sure he was out of sight. Second, I had to wait for the pivoting apparition to turn his back to me. Lastly, I had to enter the church only when the haunt inside was far enough away with his back turned so he wouldn't see me. That's a lot of required variables, but it can be done. Once inside the church, I crouched and hastily followed the haunt's backside so I could get the loot on the altar and then make my way to the crypt.

-The zombies in the crypt behaved normally and could be first alerted.

-I had one dilemma in escaping the mines: the exit was guarded by two mechanists and two robots. The area preceding the exit is permanently bright and the ground made of gravel. Ghost bust, I thought... However, I found an invis potion in a nearby footlocker and I still had 4 moss arrows left. What I did was create a trail of moss patches extending from the entrance of the room to the exit door. There isn't enough moss to generate a seamlessly connected trail - I had to plant the moss patches in such a way that they reached all the way to the door, which means there had to be some spacing between a couple islands of moss. All I needed to do was my drink my invis potion and hop from one moss patch to the next:


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Hexameron said: 18th Dec 2009 21:45

FM: Safe Haven
File: SafeHaven.zip

Ghost - Success
Perfect Thief - Failed
Time - 00:13:03
Loot - 935/1665
Pockets Picked - 1/4
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 0 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 0
Secrets Found - 2/2

Comments - A short mission that can only be played on Normal difficulty. It can also be completed in 2 or 20 minutes depending on how long it takes to find the wax key copy. There is only one objective to find a copy of a key to the hotel. Once you know where the key is, you could probably get to it in less than a couple of minutes.

There is one potentially major ghosting issue, however. To ghost this mission, the player must get into the water hole outside of the apartment before the patrolling guard reaches the metal fence. If he reaches the metal fence, he will get stuck and continuously walk into it forever. Reloading doesn't fix him and I restarted the mission three times to see if he is always destined to get stuck; he is. If this happens, the mission cannot be ghosted because he is too close to the water hole (which is the only route to the hotel):



And I tried. I attempted every conceivable way to get into that hole by mantling on the fence, creeping behind that little tower building, trying to nudge the guard away from the fence, and it's probably impossible. The only choice the ghoster has is to gather as much equipment as possible and quickly rush out of the starting apartment and into the water hole before the guard gets close. By having to race to the water hole, the player can't explore the other parts of the city or achieve a perfect thief.

With only one objective, there is really no incentive to collect loot, but I still went around the hotel gathering as much as I could. The wax key copy is in the stock room to the left of the hotel lobby. Frobbing a lever under the shelves reveals a compartment behind the sword display.

 

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Hexameron said: 18th Dec 2009 22:22

FM: Graduation Day
File: GradDay.zip

Ghost - Failed
Time - 00:14:58
Loot - 0/0
Pockets Picked - 2/2
Backstabs - 1 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 30 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 1

Cause of Failure:

- Cannot complete "Improvisation" test without alerting a haunt

Comments - This mission is akin to T1's "A Keeper's Training" OM. There are six objectives and five of them are individual tests that must be completed: Observation, Improvisation, Creeping, Agility, and Death.

The Observation test entails using a vine arrow on a very thin strip of wood to reach a switch that shuts off a nearby watcher.

The Improvisation test is where I got busted. The player must drop into a pit with a haunt and a key.



I saw only one way to get out of that pit: shooting a vine arrow at the lift button, which lowers the elevator and opens the white-hued wall panel revealing buttons that send the elevator up. Equipment is sparse - unless I missed a water or moss arrow in the Observation test, the player should only have one vine arrow and one noisemaker. Shooting the vine arrow at the red button alerts the haunt, and getting onto the lift puts him on a definite 3rd alert.

The Creeping test is easy - just move slowly on the marble floors in the shadows and pick the speed potion from the pagan's belt.

The Agility test is certainly the most difficult and frustrating of them all and I reloaded a lot. The test area is a long vertical chamber filled with awkward ledges, slopes, and platforms that the player must skillfully traverse. One wrong move and you could be stuck or unable to get back up and retrieve vital equipment. Compounding this difficulty is the fact that a mechanist bomb turret is constantly lobbing bombs against a wall (thankfully not at the player) and two other traps are set to fire at a wall. It took me some time to figure out how to collect all of the equipment needed to satisfy the objective.

First, I had to run, jump, and mantle onto the highest metal structure with machinery. Then I looked down to the small ledge where a fireball trap repeatedly explodes. During a pause between explosions, I jumped onto the ledge with a vine arrow ready. I aimed for the small faucet-looking structure which has a barely-visible wood texture. I shot the vine arrow there, jumped onto another pre-existing rope to collect the sword. When the fireball hits the wall, it makes the rope and vine ripple violently, but I didn't fall off. I then leapt from the rope to the vine and then mantled onto the faucet structure so I could get the lockpicks. With that done, the objective is complete.

Getting down without taking damage is tricky. I waited on the faucet structure for a pause after the turret lobs its bomb. I dropped onto the vine arrow, turned my facing 180 degrees, and climbed down to the bottom level just in time. Any other path and I would have taken too much damage from falling.

The last Death test is interesting. The player must navigate through a crawlspace and out one of the floor holes into a room with a patrolling haunt. I was able to hide in the hole closest to the door. I thought I could leap out of the hole and try picking the door for a few seconds while the haunt faces away and then go back to the hole before he turns. The problem is that the lock is complex and it normally might take 30 seconds to pick it. Considering I could only pick the lock for a few seconds at a time, it seemed like it would take forever. The objective "Death" is clearly vague. Just out of curiosity, I decided to backstab the haunt and see what happens... "Objective Complete" is what I got.

The final room contains the Keeper medallion and diploma with piped in music of Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance." Considering the door could have been picked, I find it funny that if I had the patience, I could have gone through to pick up my diploma without killing the haunt and completing the Death test.

 

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Hexameron said: 19th Dec 2009 22:47

FM: The Two Towers [Thief 2 Version]
File: twotowersT2.zip

Perfect Thief - Success
Time - 00:31:27
Loot - 2250/2250
Pockets Picked - 0/1
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 0 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 0

Comments - This is an old Thief 1 FM converted to Thief 2. What struck me about the mission is how, despite looking so unfinished and empty, the interior architecture is so distinctive - I've never seen anything quite like it. I'm just a layman who occasionally dabbles in dromed, but it appears the author sculpted the towers out of solid brushes only. The sound propagation is consequently off in a lot of areas, and the interior is riddled with beams, rafters, slanted room shapes, and messy blocks jutting out of the ceiling. I spent and wasted a lot of time exploring the towers, which are filled with strange empty rooms, closets, crawlspaces, and alcoves that hint a little at Constantine's mansion from T1's "The Sword." There are only two places of real interest in the tower as far as loot is concerned: the upper library and the cabins.

Ghosting is a no brainer - the AI are few. The objectives are straightforward as well.

 

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Hexameron said: 20th Dec 2009 00:40

FM: The Haunting
File: c5Haunting,The.zip

Ghost - Failed or N/A ... I'm not sure
Time - 00:55:56
Loot - 0/845
Pockets Picked - 0/1
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 0 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 0

Possible Cause of Failure:

- Manipulating objects can be interpreted as alerting the nobles, but they are not technically alerted at all.

Comments - I say ghosting is either failed or not applicable for this mission because you cannot perform an action that will make you succeed or fail at ghosting. This is not a real FM because there is no way to technically alert or affect anyone other than what is scripted. The player is not Garrett, but a ghost who has no health bar, light gem, weapons, or inventory, and can move through walls with no clipping. There is only one objective to scare the two nobles until they leave your house. The options for scaring the AI are quite interesting and the custom animations and scripted events are impressive to behold.

None of the AI exhibit normal alert behavior; the animations are all scripted and you can't instigate a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd alert of any kind. Still, as the old ghost debate about the FM "The Cistern" has proven, some ghost busts aren't technical, but can be interpreted from the story. Yes, the nobles aren't technically on 2nd alert saying "I'm worried - strange things are afoot," but they do react to manipulations by running over to the disturbances. And ultimately, they run away from the house.

Each night, the player can manipulate objects in an attempt to frighten the nobles. Pouring salt into the soup while the nobles eat is one option. Turning on the victrola disturbs them enough to run over and turn it off. Similarly, frobbing the piano produces banging tone clusters or a performance of Chopin's "Funeral March," and wherever the nobles are, they will rush to the piano and close the lid. Other pranks the ghost can do: move the telescope, turn pages in a book, change the time of a clock, throw papers on the ground, open a locked safe, and walk through the nobles giving them a chill.

It took about five nights of doing all this until the nobles finally contacted a hammerite priest. I don't know if the player has any influence on the number of nights in the mission. When the priest comes, he performs an exorcism in each room and emits a fan of white mist that can damage and kill you. The priest can't see you, though. The trick to surviving him is to be on the opposite side of the house in a corner to avoid the white mist that passes through the walls. For the next two nights, the nobles call the priest back to try again. On the night following that, the nobles can't persuade the priest to help them anymore. Finally, on night 8 (after you keep manipulating objects in their presence), the nobles have had enough and leave: "objective complete."

This is certainly one of the more original Thief FMs I've encountered and I love the idea of being a real ghost. I just wish the mission wasn't so long and spectator-like. You really can't fail at this mission unless you do nothing or let yourself be killed by the priest. As such, the FM is more like watching a movie. Also, the number of objects to manipulate gets monotonous after five nights. Can I say I ghosted it when I was a genuine ghost? Ironically, no.

 

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Hexameron said: 20th Dec 2009 01:56

FM: Amnesia
File: Amnesia2.zip

Perfect Thief - Success
Time - 00:30:54
Loot - 1757/1757
Pockets Picked - 0/1
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 0 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 0

Comments - A small FM that takes place in a thieves guild-type building. The player starts with seven health shields and apparently has no idea how he ended up there, hence the title "Amnesia." I found the brief throbbing blackouts realistic, although sometimes annoying. I couldn't understand any of the auditory hallucinations either. At one point while I was crouched in shadows observing a patrol, a new objective popped up directing me to destroy the evidence about "Merle." I already found an envelope that had Merle's name written in it, so I dropped the envelope in a nearby fireplace and that did the trick.

To ease the sneaking throughout the corridors, I removed many lanterns and shoved them in an obscure corner. Overall, this mission was easy to ghost. The only cause for reloads I had was with one keeper-looking thief in a room. Entering the room is vital because of a required key. But the keeper-thief is quick to see anyone in the door frame. He pivots occasionally and faces two directions: the bookshelf and the table. Based on my attempts, it's not possible to get the key when he faces the table; only the bookshelf.



I waited for him to face the bookshelf and ran towards the table right past his profile. I got a first alert in the process. Running back out while he's on a sustained first alert won't work. You have to wait until he goes back to zero and then run out, which might seem easy, but it can be a problem if the patrolling thief outside walks by.

Then there is the thief guarding the way out:



At first, I thought I might need to nudge him, but you can get close enough to the door with only a sliver of his body in view. Note: My back is facing the exit door in this screenshot.

 

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Hexameron said: 20th Dec 2009 03:29

FM: A wonderful reception
File: Une_merveilleuse_reception.zip

Ghost - Failed and aborted
Time - 00:05:46
Loot - 0/0
Pockets Picked - 0/1
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 0 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 0

Cause of Failure:

- Cannot satisfy objectives without alerting zombies

Comments - I really didn't try very hard in this mission. My objective is to blow out the candles on the birthday cake. I do that and a new objective is added to say "farewell" to my party guests; at the same time, a zombie rises out of the cake and starts attacking others. Apparently, when he attacks them, he turns them into zombies and they're all alerted to my presence. Even if I get behind the glass door where the gifts are without alerting anyone, I still didn't know how to proceed.

Another curious thing is the gifts. They can be picked up and the names of the presents should spell out a sentence, but how is the player supposed to know which order the gifts need to be picked up? I did a quick search over at TTLG and found out that I needed to pick up a key on the floor and then activate some switch back at the mission start. Well, seeing as how this is not a serious mission and the zombies will certainly notice me if I try to go back to the cake room, I decided to abort.

 

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Hexameron said: 20th Dec 2009 03:48

FM: Masque of the Red Death
File: masque.zip

Ghost - Failed
Time - 00:19:55
Loot - 4541/5651
Pockets Picked - 0/1
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 2
Damage dealt - 2 Damage taken - 192
Healing taken - 189 Kills - 2
Secrets Found - 0/2

Causes of Failure:

1. Cannot get through tunnel without destroying a barrel blocking the path

2. Cannot stealthily approach or kill the Red Death AI without alerting it

3. Cannot exit without blowing open a door with a fire arrow

Comments - This mission is small and visually arresting. It's obviously based on Poe's work of the same name and involves the player stealing items from Prince Prospero's party. I had to laugh when I saw the haunt dancing to the music. At some point a noxious red gas fills all the party rooms and kills the inhabitants. Initially, the player suffers some damage visible by the absent health shields. But after that, Garrett only coughs and gags as if taking damage, but no additional health shields are deducted. Judging from the stats, it looks like the player does take damage, but somehow instantly recovers it (compare the Healing taken stat).

It took me some time to figure out how to exit the party. Since I had to push my nose real close to lots of items in order to frob them, I inspected the little fountain very closely until I noticed a button inside. This opens the passage leading out of the estate. But a spider is down there along with a barrel blocking my path. I tried nudging the barrel all the way down the L-shaped path, but I would still get stuck. If I really wanted to push the barrel out of the tunnel, I could, but it would take me 30+ minutes. Also, it wouldn't change my ultimate ghosting fail because the Red Death can't be stealthily killed. So I KOed the green spider and destroyed the barrel with my blackjack.

This alerted another green spider stuck in a crevice. In the crevice is a web (reskinned banner I guess) blocking access to a holy water vial. I had to break the web with my blackjack and then I KOed the alerted spider. Just outside from this area, the Red Death is standing in a graveyard. He always sees me when I exit the tunnel; I suppose he heard the barrel bashing earlier. No matter. With the ability to use holy water arrows, I quickly dispatched Red Death. Now what? A fire arrow crystal drops when Red Death is killed, so I assumed I needed to use it. I fired it at one of the large hammerite doors, which blew it open.

I still hadn't completed all of my objectives though. I needed to find Prince Prospero. It dawned on me that he should have been killed at the party, so I raced back there and checked the corpses. Sure enough - he was the dead nobleman in the dark room. Picking him up checks off the objective, so I carried him back to the mission end.

 

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Peter_Smith said: 20th Dec 2009 04:31

T2 FM: Out for a Revenge
Ghost - Success
Perfect Thief - Failed (missing loot and secrets)
Time - 06:15:49
Loot - 2045/2200
Pockets Picked - 24/25 (presumably all)
Damage dealt - 0, Damage taken - 0
Kills - 0, Knockouts - 0
Bodies Found - 0
Secrets Found - 2 of 5

This mission came out in 2004, but it has never been described in a ghost report. I never would have noticed it except for a suggestion by Hexameron.

"Out for a Revenge" was designed with ghosting in mind. This is evident both in the design and in some comments by the author in the mission thread at TTLG. In my opinion, that practice often results in a mission that is too easy, since the AI can be avoided by most testers, and the significant challenges that are often present in unplanned missions are absent. This mission was not too easy. Instead, challenges were introduced, it seems, simply to make ghosting harder. In the end, I think it made ghosting more tedious. Overlooking this fact, the mission has lots of good aspects including some fairly decent architecture, a TDP quality, lots of areas to explore, and a complicated map that will keep you busy for hours.

I started out badly by not reading the Darkloader readme file in its entirety. The readme says that in Expert mode the only way to get a blackjack is to use all your money and buy one at the loadout screen. I picked up my usual water and moss arrows and went on my merry way. Several hours into the mission, when I became lost and stuck, I wanted to do a BJ run to find what I was missing. No dice.

It turns out, in my case at least, that I did not need to use any water or moss arrows, so the BJ would have been a wise purchase.

Another clue in the readme concerns the fact that the Lord Ramsden is alerted when he "sees" a metal cover to a safe compartment open. That fails the mission. I toyed with that situation for over an hour, not realizing the cause of the alert.

So, if you play this mission, be forewarned: read the readme.

The mission starts in a town with lots of buildings to explore. One of the first buildings contains a lockbox that cannot be picked in one shot without being seen. There is no place inside the building to hide. So now we have a lesson in ghosting 101: go far enough away (outside the building in this case) so you aren't seen and dart in and out, making a few picks on each trip. That is fine, and it is doable. The problem is, the author used this trick 6-8 times. It wears thin after a while.

Another thing you find immediately is that there are many dark niches outside the buildings and along exposed passages to hide. To compensate for this easy aspect of the mission (or vice versa), the AI are swarming all about, often in criss-crossing groups. So, you have to time your moves and sometimes you are lucky. With practice you are lucky most of the time because you have the hiding places and you learn the patrols. Initially, though, the fairly dense AI do present a ghosting challenge. Nothing is extremely difficult in itself, but there is constant pressure.

The author plays a semi-dirty trick by having a servant, who is carrying a key to the "restaurant", head immediately to the restaurant at the start of the mission and lock himself in. Thus, an easy way to navigate to other parts of the mission is lost unless you realize what is happening and pick-pocket the key before he makes it inside. I was relaxing in the early part, sniffing out the AI, and missed that servant, so I had to take the harder route.

The harder route involves finding a black key on a thief in town that opens a door labeled "To Where?" on the map. "To Where?" is the rest of the mission, which is most of the mission. I was just being stupid, so I played the whole town 2-3 times, repeating all the ghosting moves and not finding the key. That is when I wanted my BJ -- badly. Hexameron came to the rescue in a PM.

The town was actually a substantial area in itself, but after I got the missing key many new areas opened up. One objective is to enter Lord Ramsden's mansion. To get there, you need to travel through spider caves, a thieves den, and sewers. There is something for everyone in this mission, folks. Actually, I enjoyed the variety and the exploration at this stage. There is lots of sneaking to do, but none of it is particularly difficult.

The only significant ghosting challenge to me was to open a safe in Lord Ramsden's library. In the end, that was not so much a ghosting problem, per se, as understanding the requirements of the game play.



Unbeknownst to me, but described in the readme, Lord Ramsden alerts whenever he sees that the metal cover to the safe compartment has been opened.

To open that metal door, you need to do one of those dash-in-dash-out sequences. There is a handy secret passage behind the library that makes it easier to circulate around and do your picking without being seen. I thought I had made it without being seen several times, but Ramsden always alerted. When he alerts, he says "Help! Thieves!" and the mission ends with a failed objective, "Don't let Lord Ramsden die or know of your presence in the mansion." In retrospect, maybe it should have been obvious, but I never connected that remark with his seeing the safe cover opened. It is not a typical reaction in Thief. In fact, he was not looking at the safe when he made those remarks, so I thought it was a script that automatically activated, as when taking the eye in Return to the Cathedral. I spent over an hour trying to avoid that reaction. Finally in desperation, and without much else to do, I pressed a button that looked like an alarm button to see what would happen. It was not an alarm. It was a light switch!



There are four such switches in the room. Each switch turned some lights on and some lights off. It was a light switch puzzle! Then I found that by hitting the switches in a certain combination the one light over the safe would go off, and that stopped the alert. Bingo.

Finding the loot in this mission is a problem. On leaving the mansion and finding everything I could in every area I knew about, I was still 75 short of the 2000 total I needed. And, I should say, that 75 is a huge gap. The author chose to give most loot items reduced values, so that 2000 required loot represents nearly 100 items with an average value of just over 20. A coin stack may be 5. Most purses were worth only 20. Strange as it may seem, this devaluing of loot had a depressing effect on my morale. 2000 seemed at first to be so simple, yet, after finding many, many items, it turned out to be a large effort with a goal that was just out of sight.

The breakthrough came when I finally found the restaurant with Hexameron's help. There are lots of ups and downs in the sewer, the mansion, the thieves den, and the spider cave. Most of them provide a means to go somewhere that might be a little challenging with the AI on patrol. I had missed a down ladder in the spider cave (I was focused on spiders) that went to a part of the sewer that was otherwise inaccessible, behind iron grates. That was the route, and that was where I found the necessary loot. Still way short of Perfect Thief, but that could partly be in the three secrets I am missing.

I'll post back with an update if I manage to Perfect it later.

I think that "Out for a Revenge" is quite good for architecture, mood, ambient sound, route finding, and AI interaction. I'll say again that the ghosting seemed a little repetitive and tedious. I think that playing in Hard with a BJ might be more fun.

 

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Hexameron said: 13th Jan 2010 21:24

FM: Out for a Revenge
File: outforrv.zip

Ghost - Success
Perfect Thief - Failed
Time - 01:55:35
Loot - 2160/2200
Pockets Picked - 23/25
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 0 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 0
Secrets Found - 3/5

Comments - I came so close to perfecting this one, but ultimately 40 loot still eludes me. Like Peter, I did not purchase the blackjack at the loading screen, which forfeited my chance to go on a BJ run and search for the remaining loot. My ghosting experience is not unlike Peter's, but for some reason I enjoyed this mission and found it a pleasant challenge. The mission is AI-intensive and sneaking around without using water/moss arrows certainly keeps the player on his toes.

-Getting the loot in the first building near the mission start is somewhat tedious. A merchant patrols behind his counter, walks upstairs, and comes back down. There are no shadows on the bottom floor and the patrolling guard outside adds to the difficulty of entering the building at the right time. To get the moneybox behind the counter requires patience and timing. I had to wait for the merchant to walk upstairs and then I dashed over behind the counter, picking the moneybox for a few seconds, and then racing outside into the streets again, making sure the patrolling guard was facing away. It's only a matter of rinse and repeat until the box is picked.

-To get the gold hammer on the hammerite altar, I roped up to the beams and scooted over to the far edge overlooking the altar. Dropping down and getting the hammer can be tough because of the two hammerites and their unforgiving patrol routes. What I did was place a rope arrow in the wall, as I was afraid of taking damage from the fall. I fell onto the pre-placed rope, climbed down quickly and looted the hammer, and then shot a rope arrow back to the beams and climbed back up. It took a few reloads:



-As Peter discovered, leaving the vault door in Ramsden's library open will cause problems, specifically Ramsden noticing and yelling "Thief!" followed by a mission fail. When I picked the vault door and left it open, I hadn't yet found the key to the safe. Mere moments after picking the vault door, I turned about 180 degrees to see Ramsden heading back to the bookshelves. Since I saw him recoil when facing my direction, I assumed he saw me, but soon realized it was the sight of the open vault that upset him; I actually caught on quickly to what had happened. So I left the unlocked vault door closed and returned when I had the safe key. Also, turning the middle light off is essential, as it provides darkness over the vault and helps keep the player undetected whenever Ramsden or the guard makes his pass. Once I had the safe key, I could nab the evidence and close both the safe and vault door without alarming Ramsden.

-I didn't have the same issue as Peter with the restaurant servant. I found the restaurant late in the game after I finished with the mansion. I will say that finding loot in this mission is a chore since many items' loot values are decreased. Since 2000 is required on expert and only 2200 is available in the mission, the loot hunt is the most tedious part of this mission... and the author is good at hiding loot. I still missed two secrets and I thought I explored thoroughly. It pains me to leave a mission unperfected by 40 loot, but I have to draw a line between healthy ambition and unnecessary obsession: ghosting a large mission in order to scrounge for 40 loot crosses the line, I think. Normally, I would assume I'm missing two loose coins, but with the devaluation of loot in this mission, I wouldn't be surprised if I missed five or more separate pieces of loot.

 

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Hexameron said: 13th Jan 2010 23:18

FM: Just Take a Look
File: JustTakeALook.zip

Perfect Thief - Success {Chemical}
Time - 01:22:44
Loot - 3639/3639
Pockets Picked - 5/7
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 0 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 0
Secrets Found - 9/9

Comments - I didn't realize until finishing this mission that Dafydd had ghosted and reported his success back in 2004. I'm certainly in awe of his report because there are a few spots in this mission that are insanely difficult. At times, I was close to resigning and accepting a ghost fail. I perservered, though, and if I had even more patience, I could have succeeded without using an invis potion. But more on that later.

What makes this mission so difficult is the loot requirement, quirky AI, no moss arrows, and a limited water arrow supply. Opening doors in some cases will put AI on 2nd alert. Dousing torches in many areas also results in a 70% chance of a 2nd alert occurring. And yet in order to ghost this mission by obtaining the required loot, the player must use just about all of his water arrows sparingly and systematically. There is no room for error by wasting a water arrow. Essentially, all or at least 90% of the water arrows must be used to achieve perfect thief.

Ghosting the Downstairs

(1) The kitchen. Sneaking around the kitchen is important only for obtaining loot in the cupboards. The kitchen is impossible unless a number of gas lights are extinguished. It's not only that mech servant who is at issue, but a patrolling maid not seen in the screenshot. I probably used more water arrows than I needed to, about three or four:



(2) The dining room. To get the loot in the dining room, all four gas lights must be doused. Since the electric lights by the fountain can't be turned off, there is only one viable entrance into the dining room: from under the lobby staircase where I'm currently crouched in the following screenshot,



Of course, the guard and servant in the dining room do not respond well to doused lights. They will go on 2nd alert about 70% of the time. To make matters worse, the guards upstairs can sometimes hear the water arrow splash and go on 2nd alert as well. Ugh!

In the dining room, I discovered that it is possible to avoid 2nd alerts as long as the AI are not on 1st alert. That is, if you try to douse another gas light while the guard (to the left and not visible in the screenshot) or maid are on a sustained 1st alert, they will always reach 2nd alert. So my solution was clear: douse one gas light at a time after everyone settles back to zero. For mysterious reasons and just when I thought I had discovered a repeating pattern, the AI wouldn't always behave the way they should. Sometimes when they were back to zero, dousing a gas light would still upset them. I just kept retrying different arrow trajectories and bow string tension until it worked.

Ghosting the Upstairs

There are four problematic areas upstairs.

(1) Opening doors when any of the patrolling guards are on earshot is a recipe for a ghost bust. They hear doors open and go on 2nd alert. Obviously, the only solution is to wait until they are far away before opening a door.

(2) Moving past the foyer. The noblemen on the steps of the foyer will always go on 2nd alert if I move across the hallway past the lobby. The trick is to stand, not crouch, when running past. It's hard to tell when the noblemen are alerted because their bodies are obstructed from view; you can only see the the tops of their heads in the foyer, but they can still see you just fine. Darting by and instigating a 1st alert is the only method to use here.

(3) The two noblewomen in the bedroom are a major pain. We all know the kind: AI that go berserk when a torch is doused.



To even enter the room undetected, I chose to the come the back way through the gambling room. The player must douse the gas light in the alcove, which doesn't cause problems. Two other gas lights must be doused to enter the room. A strange situation occurs here. I could douse one gas light fine and get only 1st alerts from both ladies. However, once one of the ladies sees the doused light and says "Hmm, strange," the other one screams and goes on 2nd alert! Good thing I didn't quicksave after thinking I successfully doused the lights...

I figured out how to beat this problem, though. The trick is to have your water arrows equipped and move forward quickly enough to cause a 1st alert in one lady. In essence, you are provoking a 1st alert on purpose. Once that happens, I doused one gas light, which puts the other lady on 1st alert. Nanoseconds after she goes on 1st alert, the one already on 1st alert says her "Hmm, strange" remark. For some reason, this sequence works and doesn't result in any delayed 2nd alerts. I wish I could explain the science behind this. Why did I have to provoke a 1st alert before dousing the torch in order to avoid 2nd alerts? Nevertheless, I performed this maneuver twice on two gas lights to complete success. To reiterate, I intentionally put one lady on 1st alert, doused the gas light and 1st alerted the other, and voila - no problems. It doesn't make sense, but I'll take it.

(4) Two Mechanists in Library



These two mechanists constitute the greatest hurdle in this mission and one that Dafydd had trouble dealing with too. He was more capable than I was in the end, but we both shared the same frustrations. Upon first glance, this doesn't look so bad does it? Looks like lots of shadow and sneaking room, right? Wrong... The problem is that there are two electric lights that brightly illuminate most of the floor around the mechanists. It may look like there are dark patches of shadow, but they're not enough to sneak by while on the floor. Dafydd reported that he did sneak by while remaining on the floor. I couldn't and I tried for hours. Just a reminder: there are no moss arrows in this mission, which would have helped the situation.

If these guys were standing just a few feet or even inches away, everything would be significantly easier. I just could not sneak by them in any direction without one of them seeing. Whether circling around their right flank and hugging the bookcases, or staying to the left and keeping my back against the plant table, nothing worked. I couldn't CCC slowly and I couldn't run quickly without them seeing.

I thought if I could nudge them away, maybe I could have a chance. So I found some potted plants and tried to place them at their feet, thinking the plants, which are really like crates, might gradually crate-hook and nudge them away a la Sneak's Golden Child success in LotP.



I left the mission running for several hours and came back to check. I'm no Sneak - it didn't work . I tried one more time with two potted plants hooked to one guy's feet and it still didn't work. I reloaded after leaving the mission running for eight hours and tried to think of something else. Bear in mind that the player is given an invis potion and can use it to sneak by them, which is required to complete the mission. A huge cache of loot (700) is beyond the library behind a locked door. Sure I could use an invis potion and run to the loot, but how would I get out again? That's what tripped up Dafydd - he used the invis potion first to get into the room and then had trouble getting out. It was the reverse for me.

I almost considered the mission failed from this. This single area troubled me so much that I did cross the boundary into neurotic obsession. It was one of those problem spots that irks you so much you just can't leave it alone - you ghosted everything with much effort up until this point and you can't accept defeat.

It occurred to me to try and get up on the walls dividing the room. I used a rope arrow, but the source of the electric light is situated on these walls - it's a no go. I knew my only chance of success was staying in the darkness surrounding the walls. I noticed the table and plant to my left and wondered if I could mantle onto it.



Progress! I mantled onto the large vase. And with only a 1st alert I could crouch and lower myself down to the crack between the desk and the table. However, no matter where I moved to from the crack to the desk, I hit a bright yellow light gem spot. It's enough to set off one mechanist, but I kept trying until I only instigated a 1st alert. I then carefully CCCed to the edge of the desk. Moving off the desk still resulted in a bright yellow light gem long enough to get a few 2nd alerts. Reloading and trying again finally got me to the floor:



I knew I was home free and I finally made it to the back office behind the locked door:



Unfortunately, I was exhausted at this point. Dafydd managed to escape from the office without using an invis potion, but the task of climbing the furniture or trying to skulk around the floor was too daunting for me. I used an invis potion and ran past them. It's interesting how Dafydd problem solved to get out and I figured out how to get in without using an invis potion, but we couldn't do it both ways .

 

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Hexameron said: 13th Jan 2010 23:46

FM: Close Encounters V2
File: closeencountersv2.zip

Ghost - Failed
Time - 00:38:04
Loot - 8350/8350
Pockets Picked - 0/1
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 51 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 2

Causes of Failure:

1. Could not sneak by large spider at bottom of ladder

2. Could not sneak by tiny green spider at sewer bend

Comments - There is only one difficulty (Normal) for this mission. This FM is a little bizarre. It's a large abandoned town and Garrett says in the briefing, "If people fled this old town in a hurry, they may have left behind certain valuables in their rush to get out. I guess I will have to pay a visit to this old town, see if I can find myself a few extra Christmas presents." Well he couldn't be more wrong. I found barely any loot in the town and most of the buildings were empty. I remember 2 gold cups, a gold nugget, and some gold coin stacks. The many footlockers scattered about the town were filled with useless junk and equipment like scouting orbs and healing potions. Much of the loot count, 8000 to be exact, is collected in the crashed spaceship.

There are two entrances into the sewers, which lead to the crashed spaceship. Unfortunately, one entrance is only one-way. It is a large slit window that you could crawl into and drop into the sewers, but you couldn't jump back out. The other entrance is blocked by a large spider at the bottom of the ladder. I couldn't get down and detach myself from the ladder without having to jump and make foot noise; I had no moss arrows to soften my fall:



I had no choice but to kill him and move on. I was busted again when I found a brightly-lit bend in the sewers with a tiny green spider observing the walls. Needless to say, he's impossible to sneak by so I killed him:



There is another ladder with a tiny spider at the bottom, but I could actually leap over him and when coming back, I could descend to the bottom and detach myself from the ladder without disturbing him.

I have an observation about traversing the top of the walls to get into blocked off areas in this town. There is a damaged house accessible via planks and rubble. Inside the house is an orange key, which allows you to escape through the hammerite church once you make it over to other side of the town. I may be wrong, but it seems to me if you make it over the other side of the town without getting this key first, you will be stuck and unable to escape and complete the mission.

 

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Hexameron said: 14th Jan 2010 02:33

FM: Firefly
File: fireflyv1a.zip

Ghost - Success
Time - 00:47:10
Loot - 3809/5124
Pockets Picked - 6/10
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 0 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 0
Secrets Found - 2/4

Comments - This mission can be ghosted only if certain "New Objectives" are not triggered. The only new objective I accepted was to find Bruno's diary. I reloaded whenever I triggered any others. There is one new objective (after reading a book) to "Rescue Kevel" from the jail, but the jail looked impossible to ghost: I couldn't sneak by the prisoners or guards on any floors, so I avoided it. In another saved game, I figured out that I could let a conscious Kevel out of jail, but letting him out alerts the guards.

Other areas I avoided are the Healer's house (I didn't find any loot there anyway) and the bunny-infested grounds and ogre cave. Those rabbits are a hassle to deal with. They are non-violent and act blind, but it's still possible to alert them. If they bump into you, they stagger back without making any noise and continue hopping about. Since there's so many of them in addition to frogbeasts, I gave up trying to collect all of the silver nuggets lying around the grassy areas. Dousing the pagan torch in front of the passage to the healer's house puts the patrolling guard on 2nd alert, so I had a further incentive to stay away from this area.

I found Magrin's Torc, which satisfied an optional objective, by exploring the rooftops of the village near the drunk guard and small pond.

 

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Hexameron said: 14th Jan 2010 04:26

FM: Fletcher's Final Mistake
File: Fletch_Low_V1.0.zip

Ghost - Failed
Time - 01:24:31
Loot - 3581/6170
Pockets Picked - 4/5
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 10
Damage dealt - 190 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 3

Causes of Failure:

1. Could not sneak by thieves in the gambling den of the Dragon guild

2. Could not obtain secret stash (obj) without alerting numerous undead

Comments - This is a fun mission to ghost and I was fine for over an hour of gameplay - I just happened to be double busted during the last 15 minutes of my game.

-Guard in front of casino is quirky; what would normally cause a first alert puts him on a weird fleeing 2nd alert state. Making the slightest foot noise or appearing out of shadow for a fleeting moment makes him stagger back and yell "Guards, this way!" He then proceeds to run away - this is a guard we're talking about. Is this a script of some kind I wonder? Regardless, he prevented me from even approaching the casino.

-Fletcher is the male thief patrolling in a short circle in an apartment accessible only by rope arrow and locked shutters. I removed the mushroom light above the window and picked the shutters. Fletcher can see through the shutters, so it's important to be in darkness while dangling on the rope. After I maneuvered through the window, I BJed him and carried his body out of the apartment:



I took him to a secluded place and beat him to death:



-My only ghost busts occurred in the Dragon guild, where I resorted to KOing all of the thieves in the guild hideout. Here is the situation: I cannot sneak through the gambling area, which is the only viable path to finding the key that leads me to the secret stash (obj). Dousing torches in the gambling den is a must, but doing so causes delayed 2nd alerts. Indeed, it takes twenty or more seconds for the thieves to finally react to the doused torches. I tried many times and even dashing into the room does me no good.



There are too many of them to deal with, so I lured them to my vicinity and knocked all of them out. Even if I found a way to avoid alerting them, once I open the door to the secret stash, I'm greeted with this:



The undead are blocking my path to the chest containing the secret stash (obj). I think the zombies have augmented hitpoints because I dropped all of my flashbombs, used all my holy water arrows, and fire arrows, and still one zombie survived the onslaught. After my final objective was satisfied, I made my way to the exit, and some guards on the street were alerted from all the commotion I made in the Dragon guild.