shadows on 16/10/2003 at 17:49
Quote:
Originally posted by p7eter a more global question:
how big is the japanese modding community? is thief popular in japan, likfe FF or some other games?
i am just curious if there is some whole othe rjapanese thief modding scene that we are unaware of Good question. Imagine there could a lot of Japanese missions out there, that are their equivalent of Calendra's legacy and we could be unaware of it.
For those who have downloaded and played the first few missions, do you think it's worth downloading? I don't like the idea that the missions are very very dark. :erg:
Also having problems connecting with IRC, keep getting timed out connection tried different servers too. :weird:
Nightwalker on 16/10/2003 at 18:25
I think the "darkness" of the mission varies by computer because I'm not finding it terribly dark at all. It's much easier to see in than the original "Elevator" that was made for T1 and also much more fun to play.
I ran into a very weird bug that may be unique but just in case it's not, I'll post it here.
I went into the room where there's a mage and a hammer guard, just after you jump down through the hole in the floor in the hallway near the kitchen. I shot an arrow and it stayed in the air. Not thinking anything of it, I ended up forgetting to pick it up again and continued on. The game kept getting slower and slower until the framerate was so bad that it started crashing back to Windows. I finally nursed it along and got back into that room, trying to see if the framerate problem was associated with the lower levels. It wasn't. It was the arrow!:eek: As soon as I picked it out of the air, the framerate dropped back to normal and the mission is playing fine. Very strange!
morrison: [SPOILER] Once you have the first lockpick, you end up in the kitchen. Leave it, cross the big hallway with the stone pillars and go through the wooden door on the far side. Go through the wooden double doors on the left side of the hallway and follow it to the end. Pick open the metal door on the right with the silver lockpick and go down through the well. At the bottom, follow the hallway to a room with some big generators in it. There's a guard standing by a chest over in the corner. Your missing lockpick is in there. [/SPOILER]
morrison on 16/10/2003 at 19:17
Thank you Nightwalker,what a fool I was...
I have been there already,but just pick that locker half
:eww:
coreyb2 on 17/10/2003 at 02:50
I'm now into the 2nd mission and when I entered the warehouse type
building everything went haywire. My computer is so slow and jumpy
that moving in any direction is weird. I haven't found either lockpick and
most of the doors are locked....must have missed something. Where is
the first lockpick? Need a spoiler please. I've only been able to find a
few water arrows and that's all. I'm playing on Hard.:confused:
demagogue on 17/10/2003 at 03:23
smithpd,
I'm just curious ... have you been speaking to JIS in Japanese, or corresponding entirely using a machine translator?
Put another way, would it help if you had a Japanese speaker in figuring out the objectives, etc? I'm pretty good at Japanese, and it would be a nice challenge to translate some FMs, or anything else you want to figure out.
(one problem, though, I'm on dialup on this computer and it would take ages to d/l this mission pack)
And for people who want to know, there is a live Japanese modding community out there. It isn't huge, but they have been putting out a steady stream of FMs that aren't bad. JIS is certainly the most prolific I've seen, but he isn't the only one by any means.
It's actually like a lot of the foreign modding communities, the biggest difference being there aren't any emissaries from them for the Anglophone boards because of the language barrier (so far as I know, _Nihon-jin_ no taffers out there correct me if I'm wrong).
If there's a lot of demand, do people want me to find some of the other Japanese FMs out there and translate them?
smithpd on 17/10/2003 at 04:05
Quote:
Originally posted by demagogue smithpd,
I'm just curious ... have you been speaking to JIS in Japanese, or corresponding entirely using a machine translator?
Put another way, would it help if you had a Japanese speaker in figuring out the objectives, etc? I'm pretty good at Japanese, and it would be a nice challenge to translate some FMs, or anything else you want to figure out.
Demagogue,
We could have used your services initially.:) I communicated with JIS entirely by the machine translator, and I must tell you it was very difficult, sometimes impossible. I am sure that your communication and advice would be helpful if we get stuck because of unclear language. I just checked, and I do not think there are any Japanese books in this version, but maybe I don't know where to look. Send me your e-mail, and if we get in a jam I will put you in touch with JIS. At that point, if it happens, you might be able to suggest other improvements. Send me your e-mail address so we can pounce quickly if need be.
Regarding the darkness, it is not too dark to me, but it is somewhat dark (and ominous). It depends on your monitor. I have a fairly bright monotir anyway, and I play with gamma turned up quite a bit in all Thief missions. I think the light balance is excellent with my settings. The original Elevator was much darker in places.
epithumia on 17/10/2003 at 04:11
I have several Japanese missions on thiefmissions.com. I would of course like to have all of them, and indeed all missions in all languages. (After all, what's the point of having an archive if it's not complete. Eventually interest will wane, and if the missions aren't collected somewhere they will become lost to posterity.) That's why I added Bezpieczna przysta, even though it's old and in Polish. Fortunately Jericho translated it.
My Japanese is pitiful (two years at the University level about six years ago) and has been mostly displaced by Norwegian, which I'm investing significant time into at the moment. My attempt at translating a Japanese mission was far too slow to be of any use. I still have a pile of dictionaries and can still use them. (For those that don't read Japanese, think about how you would "alphabetize" thousands of characters and you'll understand why you need a modicum of skill to use a Japanese character dictionary.)
You are of course welcome to translate, and I will host your translations. We generally prefer that you get the permission of the authors before releasing a modified or translated version of any mission but I understand that's not always possible.
smithpd on 17/10/2003 at 05:42
Quote:
Originally posted by coreyb2 I'm now into the 2nd mission and when I entered the warehouse type
building everything went haywire. My computer is so slow and jumpy
that moving in any direction is weird. I haven't found either lockpick and
most of the doors are locked....must have missed something. Where is
the first lockpick? Need a spoiler please. I've only been able to find a
few water arrows and that's all. I'm playing on Hard.:confused: I don't know about your jumpy computer. See Nightwalker's post about the bug with the floating arrow. I have an Athlon 1.2 with GeForce 4 Ti 4200 and it runs just fine.
Mission 2, like the original Elevator Mission, is full of switches that open doors in remote locations. You need to first find the switches and then figure out what they did. Frob all switches once. There is a lot of back and forth movement.
The warehouse area is at the very beginning of mission 2. Here is how to make progress past the warehouse area and find the lockpicks. Do not read this spoiler unless you really want to be spoiled.:) This is a semi walk through for the first part of the mission. [SPOILER]Enter the warehouse by the first elevator. The first switch you need to find is in a room with a guard near an upper catwalk. It is possible to sneak in the room by climbing on boxes and jumping over a rail. This switch opens a door back near the first elevator, to a room containg a guard. I think there is another switch in there. Anyway, now proceed to the back of the warehouse, and you will a key that opens a locked door, which takes you to an extensive set of passages. Enter a room near the beginning of those passages, turn right and find a well. Go down the well and find the silver triangular lockpick. Race with the zombies to open the door and get out of there. Now you have access to a whole bunch of passages. In one you see window in the floor. Below the window is the second lock pick. You can get to that basement room by going to the far end of the brick passages and turning left. Find a room with a guard in it. There is a switch in there that opens the wall at the end of that corridor. A banner? I forget... Anyway, go in there, go down stairs, and find the second lock pick. [/SPOILER] The rest of the mission proceeds in similar fashion and is quite large. I am about 1/2 way through it, if it is anything like the first Elevator, which it seems to be so far.
Melissa on 17/10/2003 at 06:14
Alrighty. Playing 2nd mission on Expert. I'm in the cathedral, past the one-way doors.
[SPOILER]I've explored everywhere I can: pushed the button by the haunt. Found the room opposite with the metal "door" slid to the right, revealing a lock opened by a gear. Can't find the gear to open it (I have a gear key, but it opened the jail cells below). Continuing out that hallway, find an absolutely useless city block and one annoying haunt. Opposite, explored the other hallway which led to the hallway with doors. Room opposite room with ghost - painting that frobs and is locked - nothing opens. Can't find anything to release it.
Forwards - went up stairs that led to room with desk and bottom that slides over fireplace. Can find nothing else in that room.
Moving on to camera/3 jail cells. Went in second one, picked the lock in the small tunnel-thing, picked the lock in the first one, then went into the third which takes me to a well with ladders.
At the bottom, found the guy before the window looking over the large worship area. Found the frobbable (finally!) grate, and explored the length of both hallways to the end. Another useless city block, as far as I can tell. Scored 6 rope arrows (FINALLY!).
After wasting my 4 previous water arrows to put out torches, I finally used my invisibility potion to run and grab the book on the altar.
It's some engineer's 31 year old note??? I have NO objectives fulfilled! Not ONE. Now I'm stuck. I can't find any more things to push/pick/etc., and nothing seems to have changed. I can't leave the blasted cathedral.[/SPOILER]
I tried looking at the older Elevator thread since Smithpd said this was similar, but it wasn't very helpful, I'm afraid.
Thanks for your help!
Cheers,
-M
coreyb2 on 17/10/2003 at 06:31
smithpd
Thank you!
I had to restart mission 2 and got to the room with the 2 Hammers, near the
well with the zombies (which I have been avoiding) and my system crashed with a severe error message. I'm talking to Microsoft about the problem now. I'm not sure if
I will be able to continue this FM. BC
:sweat:
