deathshadow on 23/6/2008 at 19:33

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Just tried it again - and it seems that if I don't drop the book before he's done telling me to 'leave the book here', it doesn't register. There's a couple seconds after he's done flapping his gums where it still works, but if you take too long he walks away from the table, and it stops working.

Which doesn't give a whole lot of time given the amount of stuff the inventory fills up with.

DrK on 23/6/2008 at 22:20

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Sorry to see you didn't enjoy it as much as the two previous ones, deathshadow. But well, it's a completely different kind of mission, and I guess it's all about one's taste. Don't worry, 4th part will be a city mission, I think I'll find back the original fun I had with dromed :D

When you push the engine too far, problems are expected to happen. Next parts will be simpler, technically speaking (I'm fed up with this, I went a little too far). You can't imagine the number of bugs I had to deal with, and despite all my efforts and the betatesters' work, there are still a few problems which can occur. Especially that book bug : I never had it and it isn't supposed to happen, it just doesn't make any sense.

And hey, it's a 6 missions campaign. The story is thought as a whole, you discover it little by little. The end isn't flat because this is not the end, it's a "to be continued" ;)

baeuchlein on 28/6/2008 at 14:47

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I finished this great third mission in the Rocksbourg series a few weeks ago, and I have to say - it's brilliant!

The voices are well done and loud enough to be heard. I dimly remember that this was a problem with the first two missions.

The look & feel of the place is strange and unsettling sometimes, which means it is very good in this case, since it does build up atmosphere. The readables and the strange people and creatures fit into this very well. I guess it took DrK a lot of time to create all this, but it was worth it.

The story, if added to what the first two missions offered, looks interesting and I can hardly wait to see its conclusion in the coming missions, completing the campaign. Perhaps Yandros should teach DrK how to speed-build missions, I'm impatiently waiting for part 4. :cheeky:

Thank you very much, DrK, for this mission! Apart from the part near the end, where almost all Souls turn hostile, I enjoyed every bit of this mission (oh well, perhaps not the zombie I met on the walkway in the dark zone... made me jump... -SPLAT- Garrett pancake. :ebil: )

I played the mission without any custom scripts, but had no problems delivering either one of the books. Whenever (and where-ever) I dropped the Book of Names in Thales' room, the objective ticked off, and when I picked it up again the objective became un-checked again, as it should. Even tossing the book into the fire triggered an "objective complete". Thales was calmly watching this from in front of the fireplace... Looks like he doesn't need that book ever again. :cheeky:

After completing the "Book of Names" objective the first time, I immediately checked the computer, which was still in game mode, by accessing the hard disk via network. There were no tnhscript.osm or script.osm files in the game's directory, thus I did not have any custom scripts installed, and Darkloader (4.3) did not install them either. By the way, AFAIK Darkloader does never install any custom scripts (unless they are contained in the mission's .zip file). It only installs the newest version of convict.osm, which is a script from the original Thief games.

I used Windows 98 Second Edition to play the game. Is it possible that only people with certain operating systems (e.g., Windows XP) are plagued by the problem? And perhaps the Telliamed scripts somehow act as a bug-fix then?

Another small bug I noticed: When I lifted an unconscious (or dead) Soul, there was no small icon displaying the Soul. Not much of a problem, though.

About the introductory movie: If I remember correctly, one or two people had trouble playing it, but not the original game movies, even when using the Indeo version of the briefing video.

I used the Indeo version of the movie, and there was one small problem with it. The movie's resolution is 720x480 pixels, but if Thief 2 is set to use a 640x480 resolution, the right part of the movie is cut off (i.e., not visible on screen). Playing the movie with Windows' movie player, however, works fine. I re-scaled the movie to 640x480, and it played OK even in-game. Maybe this is the reason why some people could not see this movie, but those from the original game worked fine. Thief 2's original movies use a 640x480 resolution.



I have not used Nameless Voice's Enhancement Pack yet, but I have a small idea concerning that as well. Perhaps one could create a file EP.CRF which contains a copy of one of the mission's textures, and put this file into the mission's .zip file. Maybe Darkloader would place this EP.CRF into the game's directory when loading this mission (thus avoiding the problem with crashes when picking up the Order's paintings), and restore the EP.CRF file from the Enhancement Pack again once the player chooses another fan mission. Just a thought of mine, but I don't think I'll be able to test this for some time now, otherwise I'd have verified this "fix" before posting it here.

One last thing... When I listen to AI's conversations, sometimes I don't hear anything, ususally if the AI is located at a 45-degree angle towards my left. This is not a problem with fan missions in particular, but it seems to be yet another problem with the Dark Engine. Therefore, if the speakers move around, like Thales did when first addressing Garrett, a part of the conversation might get lost. This was not a problem with this mission, since I found every information I needed in the book Thales left on a desk for Garrett. But perhaps mission authors should be made aware of this problem - unless it turns out to be a problem with my computer(s) only.

DrK, please do not misunderstand me - I don't want to rant like, "all these bugs, bah, could this author not test his mission properly". I just want to mention things I noticed which could lead to explanations and possible fixes for the problems which occurred with this mission. If you ever release another version of this mission, you can decide whether you'll fix such problems or not.

Perhaps you should release a "Gold" version of Rocksbourg 3. I can already see the announcement: "Rocksbourg 3 Gold - now comes with FREE diapers for the Dark zone!" :ebil:

deathshadow on 29/6/2008 at 01:44

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Well, the mission itself was fairly enjoyable and had some good moments... The glitches trying to get dropping the book to work followed by the rather flat ending just soured me on the rest.

It does have some really bright points... The very start for example going down the elevator. Anyone who played the first level... the moment that elevator comes to a stop you go "Oh No.... NOT AGAIN!?!" - As someone in the threads about parts 1 & 2 said, "I don't even want to play that part again - and where do I send my laundry bill" - Because to be honest, that part was THAT WELL DONE. Doing a 'little tribute' right at the start set a tension that would make the player wait for the shoe to drop despite going through a library full of friendlies... You spaced any encounters right out long enough so that when you DO hit upon the little 'suprise' in the transit zone, it's a kick to the groin. Again as I said in another thread, it reminds me a good deal of F.E.A.R. in that regard. (and so far as the horror FPS genre goes, that's the highest compliment that can be given these days as far as I'm concerned - Doom 3? Bah, that was for wussies.)

The figure constantly seen running away, as well as the busted cage/display near the upper catwalk - the statue pointing at the glyph, the conversations about statues coming to life - again, all set a tension that carries over nicely.

You still have the darndest placement of loot (I've still not found it all - and I don't go for the loot list/walkthrough nonsense) but you didn't go for the 'key hunt' this time out which was likely a relief for a lot of players. The Stone and Fire area's were somewhat expected, but water and Air did impress me despite their... simplicity. (I'm still missing an ingredient for the earth area)... Some areas like ICE though left me asking 'what's the point?'

Ghosting through that spiral staircase when you get back with your needed items - THAT was suprisingly difficult. It's well lit, it's too narrow to hide in corners - getting to the bottom and THEN getting back up to the top after dropping off the book was a good deal of effort - which is why the 'payoff' of the ending just seemed flat. Since as you said there's a mission following it, some sort of cliffhanger would have been more appropriate. (though some people might complain that left it feeling unfiinished)

The chase right after getting the dead shadow was great because the maze was non-descript, you couldn't see your enemy but you certainly could hear them, and you made it so there was no way you were going to turn it into a stand-up fight... Problem was the area immediately before that with the roaming zombies and the three switches was... just too plain. It had a retro feel like "When did this turn into Wolfenstein 3d" - a little bit of variety in that terrain would have been nice... though I realize you kept it all uniform blocks to make it easy for the player to get turned around.

The part with the numbers I can see why some people had problems - being I was playing at 1600x1200 I was able to make them out halfway decent, though the number in the hole could have been either of two numbers, thankfully I started trying from the bottom... and the one behind the cage was really hard to make out.

There was a LOT of gear I just didn't use though it looked interesting. Dark grenade, light arrow, flaming oils... For your more aggressive players those likely came in handy, but it would have been nice to see the need to use them forced. You seem to be building levels on taking players out of their comfort zone - and there is no bigger comfort zone for thief players than avoiding confrontation. Forcing the issue in a few spots would have gone a ways towards making the level even more tense - perhaps an idea for the next level is to give a few more of those specialty weapons and devise situations where the player HAS to use them? (Dark zones cropping up in the city, Garret has to close them with light arrows? You already have some book text that implies something along those lines)

It is a well done fan level - and it hit a lot of marks right on the dot - it just didn't quite feel up to the quality of the previous two gameplay-wise.

klatremus on 2/7/2008 at 08:18

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LHoG:

I think you are in the wrong thread, if you are talking about Rocksbourg 3. I will respond to it anyhow, and a moderator will probably move the posts.

You are absolutely right that there are special objects needed to make keys. Each of these objects gives a pling when taken, so you know it is needed for the keys and nothing else. Read the instructions book in the keys room for hints on how to combine objects. Each key needs two objects, totaling 8 keys altogether (16 objects). Each key corresponds to a certain element (ice, fire, earth, dakness, and so on) and a certain door of the same elemental type. Note the sound and color at each pedestal to know which element you're dealing with.

If I remember correctly, the darkness key opens the unpickable lock you mentioned, but I could be wrong.

If it all becomes too confusing, I have a list on (http://home.online.no/~ajnilsen/hn/hn.htm) my site under 'FMs' breaking down all the special objects and where they are used, as well as all the loot and secrets. I wouldn't suggest using this except as a last resort.

I hope this helped and good luck! :D