Hexameron
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Join Date
Oct 2007
Posts
330
FM: Unfinished Business
File: Unfin_Biz_V1.zip
Ghost - Success
Perfect Thief - Failed
Time - 01:32:50
Loot - 4307/4701
Pockets Picked - 17/25
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 1
Damage dealt - 1 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 0
Comments - This FM is the sequel to "Fletcher's Final Mistake."
I had a lot of framerate slowdowns in this mission, which is a shame because
it's well-designed and fun to play. I loved the multiple entrances to just
about every building, the amazing implementation of textures and use of
architecture, as well as the fecund opportunities for rope arrowing. My only
gripe is the bad framerate issues I had when in open spaces or
staring out from the rooftops.
-Frobbing the coffin in the cemetery causes two
zombies to spawn nearby. They will inevitably see the patrolling guard on the
street and attack. The chain of events that follows are lengthy AI melees and a
trail of guard corpses; those zombies seemed indestructible. So I refrained
from frobbing the coffin and I could still loot the
artifact under it in the open grave.
-Dousing torches is precarious. Many guards get upset when it happens and
subsequently go on 2nd alert.
-The quiet wandering nobleman in the streets is hypersensitive. A 1st alert
action puts him into 2nd/3rd alert fleeing mode. This was very annoying to deal
with because he emitted no audible remarks; no humming or alert mutterings. So
if I was simply running by on a wood surface, I might not know that I had
alerted him until I saw him running around the streets five minutes later.
Thus, I really had to be mindful of his position at all times wherever I was on
the map. He bothered the hell out of me. I felt like he was the worst type of
AI I ever had to deal with. Haunts, combat bots, treebeasts.... they're not as antagonistic as this mute
nobleman!
-I never found the key or access to the citywatch
building at mission start
-The main objective aside from finding the mayor's artifact and 3200 loot is to
bring Cooper Barlett to a Downwind thieves guild
contact in the sewers. Once I found the gambling room with Cooper Barlett and friends, I had some problems darkening the
room. Dousing the gas lamps put the AI on 2nd alert about 50% of the time.
Where I was standing when attempting to douse the lights seemed to make a
difference. If I stood in the gambling room when firing my water arrows, I
always got alerts. When I shot my water arrows through the open cracks of the
wall while standing outside of the room, I managed to get all but one gas light
extinguished without alerts.
-I had no idea which one of these guys in the gambling room was Cooper Barlett, so I KOed them all and
read their names when picking up their bodies. I reloaded once I identified Barlett as the green-clad Ramirez-looking fellow. Was there
a hint about his appearance in any readables? I don't
recall.
-Some guards inside the warehouse by the large crates act very weird and are
undoubtedly hypersensitive. On my way out with Barlett's
body, I dropped him on the incline down to the gambling den, hardly a place
where the guard could see and the whole area is black... But the guard screamed
"Ah!" as soon as I dropped the body, as if he had heard the thud of
the corpse hit the ground! Similarly, I reloaded and tried standing next to him
and equipping my bow. The sound of my bow being equipped was enough for him to
yell "Ah!" and go on 2nd alert. What the !!
I have never experienced this where the mere sound of me changing equipment
alerts an AI. I took my rope arrows out in the first place because I wanted to
make a more stealthy exit by sneaking on the crates rather than the metal
floors. Oh well. I ended up creeping quietly in the dark across the metal floor
and made my way out the front door.
-The red spiders in the sewers are hypersensitive too. I was shocked when the
following happened: back at the gambling room, I dropped Barlett's
body on the floor so I could pick up some more loot I missed. As soon as his
body hit the floor, I heard a spider hiss. The more I listened, I realized
somewhere a spider was on 2nd alert! I can only presume this spider is one from
the sewers (perhaps the sewer area is close by and the sound propagation is
off?). I never imagined that the thud of a body hitting the ground would be
enough to alert an AI in a different room. And yet everyone else in the
gambling room exhibited no reaction.
Last edited by Hexameron; 01-13-2010
at 09:06 PM.
PotatoGuy
New
Player
Join Date
May 2009
Location
No Mans Land
Posts
3
Hey guys,
I was wondering if someone managed to ghost 'Under Templehill'
by The Pixie, or tried to do it. Instead of going through all those pages, I
thought I ask it instead. I'm still a bit new to ghosting, but this mission is
fun to try it, I think.
Edit: I don't think, after playing Thief for years, I agree with the title 'New
Player'.
Hexameron
Gamer
Join Date
Oct 2007
Posts
330
Hi PotatoGuy. I've created the thread FMs
- Ghost/Perfect Thief Status, which lists links to all Eidos
ghost reports. The final post on that thread thread
is a separate list of T2 FMs that have not been reported and "Under Templehill" is one of them. I've never played it
myself.
If you end up trying to ghost it, feel free to write a report here
Hexameron
Gamer
Join Date
Oct 2007
Posts
330
FM: Lady Lisa's Harbor
File: LadyLisaV2.zip
Ghost - Failed
Time - 01:40:18
Loot - 14002/14377
Pockets Picked - 7/14
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 6
Damage dealt - 176 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 4
Causes of Failure:
1. Could not dip into rushing waterfall without alerting nearby red spider
2. Could not retrieve key from dead craybeast without
alerting two red spiders
3a. Could not retrieve key from chest guarded by two red spiders
3b. Picking the aforementioned chest spawns five spiders nearby that
immediately alert upon seeing the player
Comments - There is only one (Normal) difficulty in this FM. In spite of
the many causes of failure I had, I successfully ghosted this mission for well
over an hour. It was those ridiculous caves at the end that spoiled my chances
of getting a clean success. I suffered a lot of lag and slow framerates while
in the harbor sector; sometimes it was so bad that any bodies of water in the
game would just disappear.
Ghosting the Harbor
Overall, the city streets and buildings that constituted the harbor section of
this mission were not that difficult to ghost. There were just two areas that
proved to be challenging.
(1) Lady Lisa's bedroom. Entering possibly the brightest room of the mission
triggers a guard downstairs to run up to the room and back again. Without a
doubt, every player will be surprised when this happens and, if ghosting, will
have to reload. The guy scared me the first time I entered the bedroom and
proceeded slowly towards the sleeping lady - I turned around to inspect the
furniture for loot and out of nowhere I see a guard bearing down on me. To
avoid the seemingly inevitable conflict the author intended, I had to be
outside of Lisa's room in a safe patch of shadow before the guard comes
upstairs:
He is not alerted while running upstairs. He rushes into the
lady's bedroom and then runs back downstairs. This is basically a guard who
runs, not walks, to his patrol points and back. It's funny to see him
frantically running back and forth while whistling or clearing his throat, all
indications that he is not even 1st alerted. Even with this hasted guard, I
still had time to loot the lady's bedroom a few treasures at a time. It was
also easy to slip behind the running guard and leave the area undetected.
It took me a separate BJ run to locate the Royal Statue collection, which is
hidden behind a fireplace on the bottom floor. I don't know why this was so
difficult for me to find.
(2) Lighthouse power generator station. Here is the most tedious and
appropriately challenging portion of the mission. One main objective is to
"cutover the generators to feed the lighthouse." There are directions
for achieving this - turn off generators 5,6,7,8 and turn on 1,2,3,4. Sounds
simple, but the generators are located in an open-spaced two-level building
with metal floors, very few shadows, and two problematic guards. I defy any
player ghosting this mission not to use at least five moss arrows here. Indeed,
I used all of my moss arrows to soften every inch of the metal floors. Really,
it's the only way to move about stealthily.
The patrolling guard on the top level is not bad, but the guard on the bottom
floor is. Getting to the bottom is difficult enough: the only choice one has is
the single ladder, and that means descending slowly while one of the two guards
have a chance of spotting you. The bottom floor guard is difficult to sneak
around, but thankfully he pivots three ways:
I found I could crouch behind him and remain unseen even by the guard on the
top level. Another problem with this bottom floor is the necessity for using
moss between the generators. There is simply no time to sneak anywhere: running
to the generator switches is what must be done. What fouled me up even more was
that once I got to the generators, I had only two choices of returning - I
could run back behind the guard immediately after frobbing
the switch, or I could stay put in the shadows near the generator and wait. If
I chose the latter option, I would have to randomly dart out from the
generators and hope to get behind the guard's flank again. The guard can see
through the generators, but I can't. Thus, I had no way to
observe which direction he faces at a given time. I had to wait and hope that
he had pivotted before making a run for it. Needless
to say, this was frustrating and caused me dozens of reloads. For once in my
eight years of playing Thief 2, I would have loved to have a
scouting orb! I mean, this would have been the perfect situation to take
advantage of one.
Ghost Busts
I thought everything was fine until the passageway to the lighthouse via the
caves. First up is the rushing waterfall beyond an underground chamber with a
red spider. The player must use a rope arrow to reach an open slit in the wall
and then drop into the rushing water, making a water splash. As soon as you hit
the water, you are forced downstream quickly with no ability to swim back against
the current. Therefore, I had a few seconds to listen and determine if the red
spider was 2nd alerted by my splash. I definitely heard what could be a 1st
alert spider screech, but I had to turn the volume up and listen attentively
for any further auditory indications of a 2nd alert... I reloaded a few times
until I heard it distinctly: a spider hiss. Busted.
The other busts occur in the caves at the bottom of the rushing waterfall.
Although an AI melee between three guards and a craybeast
is scripted to happen, I didn't need to approach them for any reason. I did,
however, need to find three keys scattered about the caves so I could unlock
the gate to the lighthouse. One key is on a dead craybeast
in a bright cave crammed with green and red spiders. These spiders war with
each other until the reds invariably win. I had no chance of sneaking by them,
so I killed them with broadheads:
Then there is another key locked in a chest guarded by two red spiders in an
extremely bright room impoverished of any shadows. Once again, I had to kill
them and used my fire arrows this time:
If that's not enough spiders, five more spawn right on top of
you when you successfully pick the chest!
I killed one who was close to attacking me, and then jumped over the rest and
ran away. At this point, I had alerted everything else in the vicinity
including the three guards, a couple craybeasts, and bugbeasts. I gave up trying to be stealthy and KOed anyone in my path.
Once I unlocked the gate to the lighthouse, I was close to finishing the
mission. The frogbeasts inside the lighthouse are
oblivious to the player, but it took me a long time to figure out what to do at
the lighthouse. I was definitely stuck and had to check the FM's TTLG thread to
discover that I needed to use a rope arrow to ascend to the top of the
lighthouse. Up there is the switch for turning on the warning lights (obj). Following that, I opened the portcullis separating
the lighthouse and harbor section and returned to the mission start.
Last edited by Hexameron; 01-15-2010
at 10:39 PM.
Hexameron
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Join Date
Oct 2007
Posts
330
FM: A Servant's Revenge
File: ServantR.zip
Perfect Thief - Success
Time - 00:38:19
Loot - 2003/2003
Pockets Picked - 12/19
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 0 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 0
Comments - This is a small FM conducive to ghosting. The player starts
with no equipment, although there is a guard thwacker
or BJ substitute behind some barrels in a barn. Ghosting was straightforward
and pleasant.
-I thought sneaking by the maid in the basement might be a problem because she
faced one alcove that had some loot. All I had to do was dart quickly into the
alcove and I got only a 1st alert.
-I frobbed the loot behind the locked cabinet
upstairs... I never found the key to open it
-I found a small purse and a note from the author in a niche above the bunkbed
in the basement. I guess this is an easter egg?
-Some guards had two pockets to pick such as keys and purses.
Perhaps that's why my pick pocket stat is wrong.
Hexameron
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Join Date
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Posts
330
FM: Damsel in Distress
File: Distressv2_3.zip
Ghost - Failed
Time - 01:47:58
Loot - 2407/3117
Pockets Picked - 9/12
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 8
Damage dealt - 8 Damage taken - 4
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 0
Iron Beasts disabled - 2
Secrets Found - 2/2
Causes of Failure:
1. Could not sneak by mechanist blocking entrance to watcher control room
2. Could not sneak by watchers on third floor of mechanist estate
3. Could not sneak around combat bot watching Elayne
4. Escaping from scripted trap necessitates breaking wood planks
5. Could not sneak beyond the fountain to mission end while carrying Elayne
Comments - Although the AI in the streets are initially non-aggressive, by
the mission end when numerous mystical beasts spawn and start melee attacks,
the AI will turn hostile towards the player.
-I was ultimately busted in the mechanist estate. In order to enter a room with
a required "Elevator Key," I needed to turn off two watchers. The
watcher control room, however, is guarded by a mechanist standing in the only
door frame of the room. I managed to turn off the electric lights by shooting a
water arrow at the light switch. But even with the lights off, the door frame
is not dark enough to wiggle through and remain unseen. I ended up KOing all three mechanists in the area:
-I disabled a combat bot observing a brightly-illuminated safe. I wasn't sure
if something important was in it or not. Once I found what was inside, I
shouldn't have bothered with it: a blue sky gem that adds a checked-off
"New Objective."
-The combat bot guarding Elayne cannot be avoided:
The room is bright and the floors are metal. To avoid a direct assault, I had
to dispatch the mechanists in the preceding chapel so that I would have room to
draw the combat bot out of the large chamber. I KOed
all mechanists in the chapel and then lured the combat bot there so I could use
water arrows on its boiler.
-To complete the "Find Elayne" objective,
the player must stand near her pen and frob the
locked gate. When this happens, a barrier of metal fencing instantly appears,
trapping the player while the antagonist of the mission (a mechanist
servant-looking fellow) gives his bad guy speech.
The only way I saw to escape was to break a couple of the overhead wood planks
and use a rope arrow on a ceiling beam. The key to Elayne's
cage is on the control box. Pushing a red button causes her to fall, but I
reloaded instantly when that happened, thinking maybe the button kills her.
Just to be safe, I KOed her myself.
After the aforementioned scripted event, some weird mystical treebeasts spawn throughout the mechanist estate and city
streets and attack the AI residents. I don't know what else to call these
monsters. They are clearly treebeast models, but are
reskinned with a translucent white-dotted texture, as if they are made out of
stars. They emit their own light source and are annoying to encounter because
they appear invisible from afar.
The secret passage that got me safely into the mechanist estate was blocked
when I returned with Elayne's body. I had already
pinpointed other possible exits and knew that carrying Elayne
while trying to get out would be dangerous. I dropped her into the walled-off
secret passage so that enough of her body was frobbable
from the other side of the barrier. This way I could easily return for her once
I was back in the streets:
-I escaped through the front doors with no problems, especially with the watcher
disabled. Being on the streets again was now troublesome. Lots of AI were
alerted from the mystical beasts. I could not reach the starting house without
being seen. I ended up carrying Elayne to the house
with at least two guards and two mystical beasts in tow. As sluggish as I was
running while carrying Elayne, I avoided taking
damage until the last few seconds when I got to the ramp of the house; one
hasted guard slashed me before the mission ended.
Hexameron
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Join Date
Oct 2007
Posts
330
FM: Simple Enough
File: simpleenough.zip
Ghost - Success
Perfect Thief - Failed
Time - 00:59:15
Loot - 2320/2804
Pockets Picked - 4/5
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 0 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 0
Secrets Found - 1/3
Comments - Most of the mission was straightforward and I had no ghosting
problems. I did get stuck, however, and could not find Clarkham's
wine collection. After many hours of searching in vain, I checked the FM's
thread on TTLG and discovered that I had to frob
some keys of the grand piano in a specific pattern. I never found a readable
that hinted at this. The grand piano has four separate clusters of frobbable piano keys. Frobbing
each of the four sections produces a dissonant sound.
On the easiest difficulty, there are pencil markings on the score that suggest
the code of 3422. So that means you frob the third
cluster of keys, then the fourth, then the second two times. To figure out this
code on other difficulties, and this is according to the author, you are
supposed to read the score on the piano and "guess [the code] by which
staff is carrying the theme" from a movement by Mahler, which plays in the
background. I could barely hear the music; it was always faint and didn't seem
to have a source. So here we have a code based on which staves of the score the
melody is notated on? Yikes! I'm
a music graduate well-versed in reading and analyzing music scores, but I would
have never figured that out. I would not think to memorize the
theme of the faint music and then examine the score to determine which staff is
carrying it.
This should have been alluded to in a readable. All it would take is Clarkham to have a diary that says something like, "I
have hidden my wine collection well. The servants shouldn't be able to guess
how to find it unless they can read the music score on the piano. I've managed
to rig the piano so that when four groups of keys are played in the right
order, the passage will open... The melody starts on the third staff, fourth
staff, second staff, and then..." I really think this puzzle called for a
detailed hint or specific instructions in a readable. Otherwise, it's too
esoteric and difficult to solve let alone understand. I suppose I could
eventually open the passage after randomly frobbing
the keys, but still...
Once I found the wine collection, I had to complete my explicit objective to
taste the wine. Doing so teleports the player to a large and bright dining room
where a nobleman stands alone. The player cannot move and has no equipment
while this teleportation (or hallucination?) is in effect. I reloaded and
replayed the scene several times and noticed two possible outcomes:
(1) The nobleman stands still with his back to you and does nothing until you
are transported back to the wine collection room:
(2) The nobleman turns around and screams with a hammerite
voice and casts a purple projectile in your direction; you transport back to
the wine collection room before the projectile can hit you:
These two outcomes are clearly the result of a scripted event, but I reloaded
until the hallucination ends before the nobleman turns around and sees me. This
happens about 50% of the time.
-There were many keys in the mission, but just about everything was pickable, so I feel like I didn't use them.
-To exit through the main gate, I had to position myself so the pillar by the
side door blocked the guard's view. I waited for him to pivot to his right and
then I raced along the wall and through the gate before he pivotted
again.
Hexameron
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Join Date
Oct 2007
Posts
330
FM: Frobable Cause
File: FrobableCause.zip
Ghost - Failed
Time - 00:20:52
Loot - 2489/2489
Pockets Picked - 1/2
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 0 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 0
Secrets Found - 3/3
Cause of Failure:
- Must slash banner to retrieve an essential key
Comments - A small FM with nothing too difficult as far as ghosting is
concerned. All loot in the mission must be obtained on expert.
-I had to douse the gas light in the nobleman's house so I could move over to
the footlocker in the darkness. Once the bedroom is dark, I could CCC very
close to him and circle around the bed.
-I was busted by having to slash a banner in the accountant's office so I could
get the key for progressing further. The key is not contained in the
footlocker, but rather under the footlocker itself. I can't remember if I had a
rope arrow or not, but I don't think the ceiling could receive an arrow or I
might have tried banner transmigration.
-I had quite a few surprises when sneaking around the vault area. I could not
figure out why I kept triggering an explosion and dying when hugging the right
wall. Finally, I inspected the floor with Garrett's mechanical eye and saw an
armed mine concealed in the shadows. I was able to disarm it with the lockpicks and move to the number pad next to the vault.
-Earlier I found a readable that suggested the vault door combination was too
easy to remember. So I thought to myself, what is the easiest four-digit code
to remember... 1234 maybe? Yep! It worked. I stepped into the vault and died
again from more mines. Good thing they could be disarmed with the lockpicks. There was another mine on the floor of the
treasure room hidden under the lip of the door frame. Having died five times
already from these mines, I was cautious enough by now to see it before
stepping on it. Since the floor was metal and some loot was shoved far back on
the upper shelves, I had to lean in various directions to nab some of it. I
also stacked some scrolls and other inventory items for the elevation necessary
to reach other loot; normally, I would just jump to reach it, but the metal
foot noise would have alerted the patrolling combat bot and thief outside.
Hexameron
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Join Date
Oct 2007
Posts
330
All
Torc Campaign
FM Campaign: All Torc
File: alltorc.zip
Mission 1: Welcome to Robington
Perfect Thief - Success
Time - 00:59:08
Loot - 735/735
Pockets Picked - 5/6
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 0 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 0
Comments - This is not a very large mission, but it took me a long time to
complete because there is so much to explore and yet loot is so scarce.
-I was almost positive that I would be busted getting into the "staff
only" room of the inn. Picking the two doors preceding the staff only room
makes a guard scream "Hey!" but not go on 2nd alert. Then there is
the "staff only" room door, which is locked and well
lit with a guard watching. Picking this door will cause the guard to
yell "Hey!" and this time attack. Before reloading, I went into the
"staff only" room and saw the button that opens a secret passage out.
I wondered if there wasn't a secret switch elsewhere to open this passage from
the outside. Well, it's not quite a switch, but there is a little pressure
plate in the corner by the inn's side door exit. Standing on it will keep the
passage wall open briefly. It was a nice touch on the author's part to place a
chalk arrow decal on the wall. It's tiny, but it helped me find the pressure
plate.
-Many of the AI in the streets are not alerted to Garrett's presence. The loot
hunt in this mission is what kept me busy for 45 minutes. Hard-to-find loot
includes one loose coin on the floor in the inn diner, two loose coins on a
window sill with one open shutter, gold and loose coins on the ground by the
podium in the mechanist church, and a purse on a guard near the police station;
there is no loot to be had in the industrial section.
Mission 2: Are We There Yet?
Perfect Thief - Success
Time - 00:08:45
Loot - 935/935
Pockets Picked - 1/1
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 0 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 0
Comments - This is a spectacular albeit short mission that takes place on
a moving train. I was really impressed with the technical execution of the
mission. Just for fun, I tried jumping off the train, but of course I died as
if I was falling into lava. The only thing to do in this mission is find food
and one piece of loot, an amulet worth 200 in a niche by the bunkbeds in one
cabin. It seems the loot count for this mission carries over from the previous
mission, hence my 935 total.
Mission 3: Fort Montoya
Ghost - Success
Perfect Thief - Failed
Time - 00:53:18
Loot - 2714/2814
Pockets Picked - 11/14
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 0 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 0
Comments - Ghosting is pretty easy; I didn't use any water or moss arrows.
Idle guards tend to pivot a lot and there is at least one shadow in every hall
and room.
-As soon as the player emerges from the starting point basement, an alarm goes
off, but no one is alerted to it. I found out later from reading a note that
the alarm is supposed to go off every once in a while. Turning it off is okay
and also deactivates a couple of watchers in the mission. You can still bypass
the watchers while they're active.
-I could not retrieve the loot in the crypt of the abandoned lower levels. I
would have to destroy mounds of dirt and debris with a fire arrow in order to
get the loot.
-There is a strange trap in the abandoned lower levels that confused me. When
following the yellow wire through the lower levels, suddenly a huge wall closed
behind me and I heard zombie body parts squish around. Then Garrett said,
"Heh, I think I deserve a pat on the back for that one." Huh? I
never saw a zombie in the first place and I reloaded to watch the wall extend
outwards again. When it hits the wall, the zombie parts go flying, but was the
zombie even a threat? Well, I didn't get it, so I reloaded and refrained from triggering
this trap.
Hexameron
Gamer
Join Date
Oct 2007
Posts
330
FM: The Cell Next Door
File: celldoor.zip
Perfect Thief - Success
Time - 00:15:58
Loot - 524/524
Pockets Picked - 2/2
Backstabs - 0 Knockouts - 0
Damage dealt - 0 Damage taken - 0
Healing taken - 0 Kills - 0
Comments - A short and very TDPesque mission. I
wish the author had decided to make a larger FM because I like his style.
Playing on expert (renamed to "Ghost") basically enforces ghost mode,
as the player has no equipment. There were no ghosting problems. Once I looted
the purse behind the barrels under the pub, the mission ended. So to obtain
perfect thief, even though the loot objective is 500, it's probably necessary
to find all other loot, particularly any coin stacks/loose coins before
retrieving this purse.