T2 FM: The Night Falcon (Sep. 4, 2003) - by epithumia
ShadowWolf421 on 10/10/2003 at 05:49
ok im so happy now i could take on a whole army of haunts.
anyway i got mission 4 to end, i was playing on hard the first time and i went back and played on normal and it ended :)
btw, ty schma for tryign to help , forgot my manners there for a second.
JACKofTrades on 12/10/2003 at 02:39
[SPOILER]Where is the key to the metal door in the sewer?[/SPOILER]
I've completed all the objectives but damnit, I want to see everything!
Dafydd on 12/10/2003 at 12:49
[Folks]
I've been trying to ghost this mission pack, and I ran into trouble in Mission 5, The Mysterious Tower. I don't believe this mission is strictly ghostable:
[spoiler]The only way to get into Lord Hafner's place -- which is an objective, since you need the "Precious Bracelet" -- is to skulk through the sewers; I tried the surface-street route, and you can't get in the doors: one is unpickable, the other unfrobbable. There are no windows.
But the sewer requires you to go past a pair of exploding frogs. No matter how slowly I slunk, they would pick up on me, hop over, and explode. Busted! So I tried gulping an invisibility potion and running... but they heard the noise and went to investigate. Even though they didn't find me, merely alerting them is a bust.
If someone has a really clever way to successfully pass these pests without alerting them, let me know![/spoiler]
Other than that one incident, I haven't had any serious problem ghosting along. The two hardest moments (so far!) where I actually succeeded in ghosting were:
1) In Mission 2, Lord Wellhofer, when you enter the training room, where the two guards are beating on the pells.
[spoiler]First, you can't leave that door open; other guards will hear the commotion of the guards practicing and start investigating... busted! You have to close the door behind you. I did this, but I was dreadfully short on water arrows by this point, so I couldn't knock out all three toches; I hit the two on the sides, and it wasn't that difficult to get to the chests left and right. But that center chest was a real bugger... the guards are rotating around the pells like crazy, and I had to time it, creep close, stand and lean and frob the chest, then crouch and slide backwards. I swear, I must have reloaded twenty times before I finally got it right.[/spoiler]
2) In Mission 3, The Hammerite Monastary, you have to open a door to a monastic cell where there are two Hammerite guards.
[spoiler]This is necessary, because one of them has the key to the crypt.[/spoiler]
But it seemed that every time I opened the door, the sound of it alerted one of the two guards, and he began searching. Busted again!
Finally, one time he didn't go on alert; I have no idea why not, but I quickly saved it there. Then I had to creep in and lift the key -- along with the contents of a trunk on the far side of the room... which meant creeping right between the two guards. Boy that was another nightmare!
But so far, about halfway through Mission 5, The Mysterious Tower, I have successfully ghosted everything except for those darned frogs.
I still think there is too much ambient light in some missions, but that's a whole 'nother story....
Dafydd
Old Man on 12/10/2003 at 13:10
Dafydd,[SPOILER]Regarding the Exploding Frogs in the sewers. I didn't bother trying to Ghost them, using my Plan B, Lytha Style solution. However, I do recall wondering while I was at it whether or not I mightn't be able to slide along the curb so as not to make sloshing noises as I went past. Angle away from the water and into the wall and you may be able to generate enough force to keep from sliding into the water. But then the Invisibility Potion may not give you enough time to get by them this way.[/SPOILER]Luck!
Dafydd on 12/10/2003 at 18:44
[Old Man]
Quote:
[spoiler]Regarding the Exploding Frogs in the sewers. I didn't bother trying to Ghost them, using my Plan B, Lytha Style solution. However, I do recall wondering while I was at it whether or not I mightn't be able to slide along the curb so as not to make sloshing noises as I went past. Angle away from the water and into the wall and you may be able to generate enough force to keep from sliding into the water. But then the Invisibility Potion may not give you enough time to get by them this way.[/spoiler]
...That was the first thing I tried! :weird: Both with and without the inviso potion. Without invis, there is too much light; they see me, hop over, and ebulliently explode. With invis, as you say, there is insufficient time: after rounding the corner, even in the darkness, they hop too close randomly and notice me. If I go quickly, they still get curious at the sound and move to investigate (either way, it's a bust). If I try to shoot a moss arrow, the last tuft of moss manages to make a big "kerplunk" noise in the water -- and they hop over to investigate. And of course, if I shoot an arrow or somesuch to lure them away,
that busts the ghost, too!
If there is a way, it has to be cleverer than that... and so far, cleverer than I.
Dafydd
Dafydd on 12/10/2003 at 19:28
[Old Man]
I finally managed to ghost the frogs. Here is the secret:
[spoiler]First of all -- and this is vital, since you DO NOT want to do this a second time -- when you're up in the little room with the two switches, just before the frogs, grab the key and open that door! You'll thank me for it in the morning.
Now go back down the ladder -- stepping off quietly and crouching the moment you're off the ladder -- and head towards the frog corner.
If you creep as close as you can without being bright enough to be seen, then sit and sit and sit and sit for several minutes, you start to notice the frogs have slightly different patrol paths... enough so that they shift into and out of phase with each other. Eventually -- it took seven minutes in my case -- they will align, so that they're hopping in the same direction. For a couple of cycles.
You cue up your invisibility potion and wait. When they are almost aligned, SAVE THE GAME -- you may well blow it, and it's a lo-o-o-ong wait for the next blue moon. When you see them actually align -- separated by what appears to be about five feet or so and hopping the same way -- and hop to the right, you wait a couple of beats, to give them a chance to get to the far end of their patrol path. Then you stand up, gulp the potion, and whip around the corner.
You'll end up in the water; this is why they need both to be as far away as possible. You keep running in the few seconds of invisibility, but you head up the left curb again, so that by the time you round the second corner, you're back out of the water and on the curb.
If you can get around the second corner before your invisibility runs out, you'll be in deep shadow... or close enough that you can probably crawl into it (quietly -- they're close!) Once there, crouch in the shadows, unmoving, and check to make sure both frogs are still hopping: when they're alerted, the first thing they do is freeze... so if you see only one frog, you're busted. (But you may have missed seeing a frog, so wait a couple of cycles before concluding that you alerted the AI; if you're busted, it won't start hopping for a little while, and it will be obvious.)[/spoiler]
After that, just creep very slowly and quietly, staying up on the curb until you round the third corner. At this point, you're far enough away and out of line-of-sight, and you can chug through the water and up onto the stoop, where you enter the Hafner house.
[spoiler]Obviously, you never go past the frogs again: rather than going back through the sewers, once you get the household key inside the Hafner dump, you can open the door below where Hafner is snoozing away, lean out (while staying in shadow) and extinguish the torch directly over your head (wait until the patrolling guard is at the far end of his patrol, or else he will alert). Now it's not too hard to creep all the way around the Hafner place and into the covered walkway that zigs a couple of times. Halfway down, you will notice an open door... it's the switch room! Now, aren't you glad you opened this one back before you dealt with the froggies? slide inside, down the ladder, and you're past the frogs when you head back towards the ladder to the Hammerite church.[/spoiler]
Of course, I have only proven ghostability in theory: I did it and successfully got by them... but my actual game is far enough ahead of that point that I really don't want to go back and replay the entire cathedral and crypt. So the actual game I'm working on isn't a ghost... but it could be, if I weren't so lazy.
So I'll call this a "piecemeal ghost," which I hereby define as having ghosted each and every part of a mission -- but not all together in one swell foop.
Dafydd
Old Man on 13/10/2003 at 10:54
Good stuff, Dafydd! Really!
Scott8688 on 13/10/2003 at 14:08
How I usually play Thief is probably different from all of what I hear & how you guys play. I learned from Thief 2 how to play thief the way I like to play..
First I would start off by scoping out the beginning of the mission, I would find a nice cozy spot to hide, from the hiding spot I would watch the route of the guards protrolls and watch how many they may be. There are times when I come across a few guards and by me scoping out the area, I can usually determine where and how many guards there are. What I would normally do is find the best way to knock them out with my club. Most times, say out of all the guards, I would wind up K.O.ing mostly all the guards, with the exception of a few, when I am unable to knock them out, I usually get caught and I wind up high tailing it to a hiding place of where I can go instead of fighting them on their terms.. It usually works out pretty well, I dont normally just follow the objects, what I do is go through the whole level, seeking, searching for guards to K.O. then I go off and find the Objects. It usually works great that way, may take much more time, but I have such a fun time playing it that way.
With the Night Falcon, I had a great time playing it, I would do the same, check the levels, hide, account for most of the guards routes, protrolls, number of Guards. At times I love using the Gas arrow, worked great when the guards come together after chaing me. I can Gas like 3 or 4 at a time.
With Lord Wellhofer I found a bit odd after reading the posts, I went down into the sewer and found only 1 exploding frog, I found him while all the gates were still closed, this before I found the actually way in to activate the switch to open the gates. I acutally had a very easy time disposing of the exploding frog, I hung around the corner, pulled out my sword, swung, and hit the frog without losing any health at all. I did not run into any other exploding frogs after, only 1 which was disposed of very easily.
In the Hammerite Monastery, I pretty much K.O.ed all the guards, I used only 2 weapons of choice, The Noisemaker arrows, along with my trusty blackjack. I got most K.O.ed with the noisemaker arrow, those who did chase me, I found the small house with the ladder, climbed up, waited, then gassed those who stood down at the bottom. I had an easy time with most levels, only 1 I found difficult was the End of the level with the vampires, which it was I forget, I could not for the life of me sneak past them, I read in the walkthrough it was pretty tough to beat them, Never tried using my sword on them, oh well, had to end the level and move on to the next one.
I find that when I check the protroll routes of every level, I had a very easy time K.O.ing mostly all, I really like it when the guards gave me chase, I hid, waited for them to stop searching, the went after them, sneaking up on them, then K.O.ing them.
Right now I finished most of the game, I am up to the last level, the Brotherhood of The falcon, I have made it to the Mysterious old Riuns, have not gone it yet, Had to take a rest, but it looks like a fun ending
I had a great time with all the levels. I see that most try to k.o. or kill the guards the hard way. I have learned a great deal of patience playing a Thief the way it should be played, who knows, maybe it just the way I like to play it.
Also, when trying to Blackjack all the guards, I learn that most all of the time I dont use as many weapons as is needed, by the end of the level, I have a great deal of stuff left, like Flash mines, Gas mines, Arrows, an a few other items..
:thumb:
Dafydd on 14/10/2003 at 12:23
[Folks]
All right, I finished this mission pack. I "ghosted" it -- in quotation marks because it's not really a ghost, in the proper sense.
This pack was definitely more "thiefly" than, e.g., The Ruins of Originia: I played the entire set of seven missions in stealth mode... no contact with any AIs, no alerts, no damage inflicted or taken.
BUT it isn't actually a ghosting, because this is, again, a mission pack so complex that I was really stuck unless I used the walkthrough. Using a walkthrough automatically busts a ghost... so I did The Night Falcon series in "pseudoghost mode," another neologism of mine. Additionally, as I mentioned before, I didn't ghost the frogbeasts the first time through; I alerted them running past invisible. I just moved on, but later, I returned to the savegame before I alerted them and figured out how to ghost past them. Finally, in the last mission, it's not possible to ghost -- because you must enter the tunnels that lead you to the castle, but the tunnels are boarded up; the only way in is to smash the boards -- a total ghostbuster (destruction of property). Unless there is some other, secret way in that doesn't require smashing wood?
So pseudoghosted is the best I can come up with.
I think I like the normal-sized missions better, where I don't feel so lost without a walkthrough. I didn't need one for Ominous Bequest or Equilibrium, my two favorite FMs so far (out of about thirty played); I was able to figure everything out on my own, eventually, or at least with a hint or two from the TTLG board.
I tried playing the last mission, The Brotherhood of the Falcon, without using the walkthrough; I did pretty well, but I missed one critical thing and had to look it up:
[spoiler]I missed the downstairs frobbable torch and had to go back down and get it.[/spoiler]
I really liked the cut scenes at the beginning of each mission and at the end, and the music was superb. There was a fairly good story, and it didn't get in the way of the action. My only beef is the difficulty: I suspect Nightwalker and her kind had no problems with it -- but I sure did!
Dafydd
ziltron on 16/10/2003 at 00:12
Hi...
I'm on the last mission and everytime I get near a vampire.... thief crashes to the desktop. I'm assuming this is a polygon issue..
Is there a way around this...besides a fresh reboot.
I have a 7oo mhz athlon
384 megs of ram
and a 128 meg radeon vid card...
I know I need to upgrade but i bought a new car instead...:p
latez...
Im almost done and i cant finish it.....ugh...
thanx for any help....
