T2 FM. Bad Venture - Old version (Released 12/25/14) - by Soul Tear
Pemptus on 5/2/2015 at 16:49
Finished. Oh man. A very pretty mission, chock-full of detail, but it annoyed the crap out of me. Style over substance, unfortunately. I wrote this negative feedback for it to be useful, not to vent my frustrations... mostly. :P
A random list of the things that made this quite a chore to play:
- The unconventional, unintuitive use of the crowbar + lack of feedback. A creaking sound would be nice, anything.
- The spider "puzzle" at the end is by far the worst offender. Adventure game logic at its worst. There were many spiders in the level, but you needed that one barely visible bastard. Also, you needed this exact jar, despite there being literally hundreds of viable containers all over. Oh, and of course you needed to put the jar on the guy's bed, and nowhere else. The objectives don't help, either.
- The climbing in the Thief engine isn't great, at all, even with the NewDark mantling. Yet this mission is full of awkward climbing spots, especially when you want to do some loot hunting.
- The alerted guards' AI in Thief is awkward. It's best to not overuse it. The bit with breaking the glass demanded way to many quickloads, especially since I still had the loot goal to complete. It would've worked if this was the final objective, with a mad dash to the finish. Also, non-hostile guards like to be clairvoyant and get aggressive the moment you raise the blackjack. Dark Engine, man - it's good for some things, bad for others.
- Excessive pixel hunting for essential items. Thankfully, there were no tiny switches (or I didn't find any).
- Hard to determine which objects can be interacted with and which can't. Most can't, sometimes for arbitrary reasons (like two pieces of bread that can be picked up, and the third one that can't).
- The red herring, unopenable doors - the ones that use both lockpicks, but remain locked. Ohgod, I hate those.
I like challenge. This mission though, for the most part, was not challenging - it was trial and error-fueled busywork.
I hope the next part will keep the incredible aesthetics and do away with the bad design decisions.
Orfeus21 on 10/2/2015 at 20:26
ok this is a classic masterpiece by now... the only thing missing is a good film so you might think about making one! and to fix the errrors to make sure the game will always run smoothly
Acolyte6 on 16/2/2015 at 03:05
Quote Posted by Tannar
I finally finished this mission (well, more or less - I still have some secrets and achievements I may go back in to find). Soul Tear, I applaud your work wholeheartedly. It has been many years since I've played a mission that actually challenged me and I enjoyed every minute of it. There was nothing about the mission that bothered me, not even the three-pick doors. I had read the readme file beforehand so when I encountered those doors I just assumed I would get into them later. I loved the difficulty of the mission and the need to really think your way through certain situations. I think that aspect of it was brilliantly done. And it is stunningly beautiful. I am still amazed that I was playing a Thief mission. This is truly a tribute to your hard work and talent and to that of all who have pushed Thief into the new century. Amazing. Thank you for many hours of truly enjoyable gameplay.
I would like to know how to get into the Building of Science. Can you down right spoil me? Be'n at it over 4 hrs now...
Acolyte6 on 16/2/2015 at 07:58
I think I've run around too long. For the life of me I can't find my way back to the gate that leads to the dark forest. I've passed it several times. I saw the thief on the other side of the gate. Which part of the city & which direction does that gate face? I'll play more tomorrow. Now I'm just getting frustrated.
Acolyte6 on 16/2/2015 at 15:01
...this president's day?
Tannar on 16/2/2015 at 16:45
You can't actually get into the house of science in this mission. It's difficult to tell you what to do next without knowing what you've already done. What objectives have you completed and what still needs to be completed?
R Soul on 16/2/2015 at 17:59
The gate is near the House of Science. There are two nearby gates, one to the north, one to the south. The gate you want is the one that isn't a huge wooden thing.
Acolyte6 on 16/2/2015 at 19:54
I should maybe put in that I just upgraded my system, and haven't played this mission in over a month, so I kind'a forgot where lots of stuff is. Been back to Adeline as well, where is the wine cellar everyone keeps posting about? The elevator don't work to the basement it says on a sign outside. Is there another way in?
No wonder I couldn't find the elusive gate, it was in the north wall across from Adeline. That's not going towards the woods lol...looks like That gate can be opened, but I'm sure that's later too. Anyway, I read in the forum that there's an archer shack/tower I have to find after leaving Thereon's room. Where is that?
My Objective now is to steal the key in the forest, but how do I get passed the mages magic walls leading to the forest? Found a tunnel in some basement with that same wall. After
reading all the spoliers I know it's on the roof of the barracks, but where is the barracks? How do I get to it? :confused:
R Soul on 16/2/2015 at 20:26
Quote Posted by Acolyte6
where is the wine cellar everyone keeps posting about? The elevator don't work to the basement it says on a sign outside.
Is there another way in?The entrance is near the base of the
collector tower building marked on the map. And there's no way in to
Lady Adeline's basement.
Quote:
My Objective now is to steal the key in the forest, but how do I get passed the mages magic walls leading to the forest? Found a tunnel in some basement with that same wall. After reading all the spoliers I know it's on the
roof of the barracks, but where is the barracks? How do I get to it? :confused:
The tunnel
doesn't go anywhere. The magic barrier is south of the House of Science, and it should be gone after you read the Thief's diary..
Acolyte6 on 16/2/2015 at 21:40
That was it? Ran around for hours. Had reloaded to an earlier time, where I had the diary, but hadn't read it all the way through, again... oops!
I did not find the forest key on the roof of the barracks, however there was a gold coin stuck in the roof planks. I looked all on top of the wall after killing the 3 guards up there, but no key there that I can find. There's a locked gate on the roof. Does that open? If so how? Please let me know where the key is so I can go back to the inn or tavern, get some rest, & be on my way to the next chapter :)
I'm guessing the barracks door doesn't open in this episode either (kept reading about these doors in the forum).
***By the way. This FM works fine with my 6 year old machine. Besides the upgrades; OS Win8.1-64Bit, 2 Tb HDD, and of course the 16 Gb DDR3 RAM a few days ago :ebil: it works just fine. In fact, it's so smooooth, All Thief's, dating back to T2, is ridiculously smooth now :thumb:
