T2 FM: Gerrard's Temple (Oct. 30, 2003) - by jericho
Sluggs on 1/11/2003 at 23:37
At least you don't have to learn Braille to play through it! :thumb: :cheeky:
jericho on 1/11/2003 at 23:51
Foot - I went and took a look at what you mentioned. Indeed, you can see a wall through the chair... This looks strange. But this is Dromed, I couldn't do anything about it. The only thing, which comes to my mind is - I could have used a different chair... I'm glad you enjoyed this FM.
smithpd on 2/11/2003 at 02:37
Quote:
Originally posted by Sarik Jericho, I'm pretty sure it's impossible to hit that light switch without alerting the priest. At the distance required to frob the switch, the priest can already see you perfectly. I've tried and tried and I'm pretty sure it's impossible.
It is possible. Both Jericho and I have ghosted the mission successfully, i.e., without alerts. I am glad to see it is not too easy.;) Here is the way.[SPOILER] Assuming that you are starting on the table by the window and the priest is standing on his bed in an unalerted state (saying his chants), then grab his key first. Then jump from the table onto the bunk bed at the right. Keeping to the right wall, go to the end of the bed, drop down silently, lean to the switch, and frob it.[/SPOILER]
Dafydd on 2/11/2003 at 12:54
[Jericho, et al]
All right, I finally ghosted Gerrard's Temple. At the end, I was still short on loot -- so I had to save my ghost game, then go on a mad bashing spree, blackjacking or killing every AI in the mission.
Then a loot hunt; after taking careful notes, I reloaded the ghost game and rounded up what I could get. At last, I managed to find enough loot to finish the mission. I ended up with 4608 out of 4700, with 75 loot in plain view but impossible to ghost:
1. I was completely out of water and moss arrows, and there was one candle left in the dining room -- so I couldn't get the vase (50) there.
2. There is a gem down in the basement which it appears you have to slash a banner to get to... which is not allowed in ghost mode (property damage). So I had to let it lie, even though I sure could have used the 25 loot value.
The hardest room to ghost was the dining room with the guard who appears to have Superman's super hearing and X-ray vision. Maybe if I had just one more water arrow, I could have gotten that last vase.
A nice mission, Jericho; but it's marred by a ridiculous loot percentage required to complete the mission on Expert. It got to be very frustrating, not to mention tedious and boring, inching closer and closer to the 4500 requirement at the speed of a snail on Quaaludes.
It's also marred by the fact that one piece of loot is only obtainable by slashing a banner. This makes it physically impossible to get Perfect Thief: either you slash the banner and blow your ghost, or you leave it be and fail to get all the loot... either way, that busts a Perfect Thief.
The mission itself was great, but I really think you need more loot in it, so that we don't need to find 95.7% of it just to finish the mission!
Dafydd
jericho on 2/11/2003 at 18:40
Dafydd - OK, what you say is true. Well, all I can say is that it was a big learning experience for me and I will keep everything you say in my mind for the next mission (which by the way, I'm already working on). I want to thank you for your comments.
The total loot in the mission is 4700. How much do you think should be an objective on Expert instead of 4500? Maybe something like 4200?
What you say was repoirted to me by beta-testers, I should have changed that... (Jericho bashes himself on the head :p ) Anyway, as I understand these are (fortunately) minor issues and as I said - I will take them into consideration next time.
Dafydd on 2/11/2003 at 21:09
[Jericho]
I don't think it's a hard and fast number. You made a point of saying the mission was ghostable (which it definitely is, as I ghosted it)... but this indicates you were thinking about ghosting. If you're going to the trouble to make a mission ghostable, I think you should go whole hog and make it accessible to Perfect Thief as well: no loot that requires busting a ghost to get; that is, nothing that requires slashing a banner, nothing that actually requires alerting a guard, &c.
(The alternative is to work the ghost bust into the objectives, since that makes it all right. For example, in Ominous Bequest, you are required to steal the Horn of Quintus... but the only way to do this is to slash a power cord. This is one of two things that make OB unghostable -- unless you deliberately don't read a particular book, which is what gives you the objective. But it could have been taken care of by saying something like "grab the Horn of Quintus, no matter what you have to break to get it," or somesuch. And on the other item that makes that FM unghostable, an objective like "blow the Horn and suffer the consequences" would cover alerting the Burricks, which happens when you blow the Horn.)
But of course, many people like me are not good enough at loot hunting ever to get Perfect Thief. It's not only acceptable, it's encouraged to make some of the loot so obscure, it will drive Perfect Thievers batty trying to find it. They like that sort of thing. But my rule of thumb would be that any loot that takes betatesters more than fifteen minutes to locate should be optional :weird: . So if you had 4700 loot in an FM, and your betatesters reported that 440 of the loot drove them nuts trying to find, then you should have a loot requirement of, say, 4200.
So how much loot should be required depends upon loot placement: it's quite proper to require (on Expert) grabbing any loot that is easily found, plus any loot that can be found with some thought and searching. But loot that is virtually impossible to find shouldn't be required to complete the mission, or people end up in seemingly endless treasure hunts, unable to complete the mission and growing increasingly frustrated and annoyed.
But really, the mission was a lot of fun; the architecture was very nice, the AI placement was great -- just enough to make it tough without making it a terror to play -- and I liked the sort of unexpected twist regarding the tower story and the basement.
Dafydd
jericho on 2/11/2003 at 21:43
See, these are very good comments and thanks for sharing your impressions. You're right about the banner, it is not consistant, it should have been solved in some other way (perhaps a door-like banner?).
Still, I'm happy that the only serious "bug" is fire arrows, although they do not spoil the game play by much. There are other things, which might be a bit of a dispute, like loot objective too high or no clues for the secret switches etc...
I didn't want to make this FM too easy, especially considering its rather small size. And I treated ghosting as an extra option for some players, so as mentioned in the readme, some places are a challenge for ghosting (priest in the entry room, guard in the dining room, a spider in the dungeon tunnel, a priest in the prayers room etc.) Yet, you are perfetly right that the banner slash spoils a Perfect Thief rule and this should have been eliminated before the release.
Well... my intension here is not to argue. I take everything you say into account. And I will improve it in the sequel mission.
I'm glad you like the FM and I tried my best to come up with an "acceptable" architecture and storyline. (it's not easy to build a good FM these days, because I thonk there were some really great FMS released, so it's hard to keep the pace) My target was not to create an FM from a "top shelf", but an FM with a solid architecture and a solid storyline for all the taffers to enjoy. I think/hope this target has been achieved.
bohemian on 2/11/2003 at 22:07
Okay, I found the switch in the room to the right of the altar. What does it open? Where is the little door?
:p
jericho on 3/11/2003 at 00:34
bohemian:
[SPOILER]Did you find the key to the tower? It's together with Gerrard's diary. If so, go to the tower and explore. You will find a secret enterance to the dungeon. That's where the crypt is. Just keep exploring.[/SPOILER]
