Rekrul on 1/7/2007 at 10:17
Quote Posted by Chiles4
In Lord Bafford's Manor, I was not successful in blackjacking the guards who patrol on the upper level. Approaching them from behind in a crouch even when on the narrow hallway rugs was never successful. I was always found out and summarily whacked. It turned out, IIRC, I did not even get a key off their belts but luckily found it somewhere else.
I never had a problem with those guards, however I did it a little differently. The guards patrol in a counter-clockwise direction, so I always enter that area from the room on the right (sorry, I don't know the compass direction) so that I will be behind them. When I come out of the room, the area the guards patrol is to my left. This area forms a square which the guards cycle around endlessly. You exit the door and turn left. Straight ahead is a long hallway. If you walk forward you will pass a short hallway on your left and before reaching the long hallway proper, you will pass through a doorway (but no door). This is the perfect spot to take out the guards.
When I exit the room, I turn left and check for guards. You can see any that are walking down the long hallway and you can hear any approaching from the left. I usually like to wait until one of them is about halfway down the long hallway before I start. When the coast is clear, I run and hop over the gap in the rugs between the starting door and the corner of the guards' patrol route. I go up to, but not
through the doorway that marks the start of the long hallway. Once there, I stand off to the side, against the outside wall so that I will be on the guards' right side when they walk by.
The light gem should go completely dark and the guards won't even notice you, they'll walk right by even though they're close enough to smell your breath. When one of the guards comes around the corner, raise the blackjack and as he walks by, you can pick his pocket and then knock him out. Quickly grab the body and run back to the door where you entered, drop the body and run back to your position by the doorway. If you're quick enough you can pickpocket and knock out both guards in one cycle.
If you're not that sure of yourself, you can do it in stages. Pick each guard's pocket as he passes, then knock one out, run back to the door, drop the body, wait for the other guard to pass, then get back into position and take him out on the next pass. :)
Quote Posted by Chiles4
Is the garden's upper floor where you see the statues and can look through a portal out over the pool?
When you first enter either of the garden areas, there will be a doorway straight ahead and if you look left or right (varies depending on which side you're on), there will be a set of steps leading to an upper level. When you go up these steps, there will be a stone walkway that runs the length of the garden area, as well as a tiled passage through to the other side, from which you can look down on the pool. At the end of one of the stone walkways is where you'll find the banner hanging on the wall. When you cut it down, there's a secret passage behind it.
Quote Posted by Chiles4
I was there but didn't find anything, not even banners. Then again, I'm playing at default brightness so I can barely my nose in front of my face and may have walked right by it.
Crank the brightness up until you can see what you're doing. Sure, it looks cool to have a lot of dark areas, but if you can't see to play the game, you're not going to enjoy it anyway. You should be able to just make out the walls in very dark areas, and the garden area definitely shouldn't be so dark that you can see anything. There are places in Thief where I turned the brightness up as high as it would go because I literally couldn't see where I was going.
Some general tips;
Thief is rather primitive when it comes to how it handles light. For the most part, it only matters if your feet are in a shadow. You can be standing in a shadow in the middle of an otherwise well lit room and be invisible, even though common sense would seem to say that you'd be seen. Likewise, you can stand in a doorway in a dark hallway and lean into a well lit room and you still won't be seen. In Bafford's manor, you can lean all the way into the upper level room with the two servants standing around and they don't notice you. The guards also seem to be a little nearsighted. You can be standing in bright light, but if they're far enough away, they won't see you.
AIs can hear footsteps, dropped/thrown objects, weapons and will occasionally notice an opened door. They seem to ignore the sounds of lockpicking, someone being knocked out, opening chests and usually ignore opening doors, even if they're standing right next to them. When playing the Assassins mission, there were three guards walking patrol in a line. I hid in the shadows until they had passed me, then came up behind them and backjacked them one after another. They also won't notice objects disappearing around them.
I like to save at the start of each level, then while playing the level, I quicksave before anything that might get me injured or killed. If I screw up, I can always start the level over again. Also, you might want to go into the Thief directory, look for the files DARK.BND and USER.BND and edit them. These are the key bindings for the game, including some that you can't change from inside the game. By default Quicksave and Quickload are F11 and F12. This makes it too easy to hit the wrong key by accident, quicksaving in the wrong place. I usually swap F9 and F11, so that F9 is Quicksave and F11 is the compass. Much less chance of an accident.
