Dia on 25/12/2009 at 22:52

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First of all, a seriously big thanks to Qolelis and all who contributed to this outstanding mission! I'm not finished yet (time invested so far = 2+ hours) & still have the lucky charm to find (thanks for the previous hints, Taffers!) and have about 200 more in loot to find. I have to admit to a certain amount of frustration at some of the jumps & climbs (if I never see another one of those damn beams again I'll be happy! ;) ) and also some confusion with the rope arrows (never thought of using a crate.... duh!) and I also got a tad annoyed with that last area at the bottom of the ladder that ends in the abyss since I was worried that I was missing something important but just COULDN'T make that damned jump! Otherwise I've been enjoying myself tremendously! :thumb:

I do have a couple questions:

1. Do we ever see the guy from the beginning of the mission again, or is he one of the dead thieves?

2. While standing at the top of the tower & looking out at the biggest huge rock floating next to the rock the tower's on, I noticed what looked like smoke & the top of a fire just over the horizon on that rock. Was I seeing things or is that someplace I can explore (or is that where I started from and I wasn't paying attention again)?

Thanks again for the Christmas present Qolelis! :cheeky:

Hope Vincent on 26/12/2009 at 13:52

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:cool::D:laff:

Thanxs for this mission. I just loved, loved, loved it. Very hard tho and confusing at first. I played it three times already and will play again.

Thanxs again,

Hope Vincent

qolelis on 27/12/2009 at 19:18

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I've been away over Christmas and just want to start by thanking everyone for playing and for all the nice comments :D I'm glad you enjoyed it - it makes everything (all the headaches and the sleepless nights) totally worth it.

Thanks to Tannar for stepping in and answering a lot of questions while I was away. A couple of days off did me good.



I haven't visited the Lost City either in a while, but I remember that the elemental faces are introduced and presented in connection with the four elements. I wanted to pay homage to TDP, so I tried to imitate the style.



The standard question is: Are you able to make it happen again (i.e. causing a crash when throwing the thief into space below)? If you can make it happen again and have some time to kill, could you please remove the file called tswtsw.osm from your Thief-folder (the folder into which you install TSWTSW) and then try causing the crash again? There is a small small chance that there is something wrong with my custom scripts module (tswtsw.osm). There is also a small chance that the crash won't happen again.

Removing the osm-file will cause the ropecrates (and all float effects + possibly some of the teleports) to stop working, but you should be able to use the first teleport and find the thief who stole Garrett's lucky charm on Normal - and then throw him into space.

By no means do you have to do this; I'm just mentioning it and you can do it if you want and can. I've never experienced those crashes myself, but two of my betatesters have had crashes (not in that particular spot, though), that later stopped occurring, so it's hard for me to test.



You may already have found the last piece of needed loot, but I'll give some hints anyway:

* The stargazer writes about finding a special white metal (what we would call silver) that he thinks is useless on the "asteroid" on which his tower is found, in his diary. Explore the outsides after you have freed the star, because then you won't have to worry about the shooting sun. The silver nuggets are mostly hidden in crevices.
* The stargazer also writes about his new telescope that he built from "that yellow metal" (what we would call gold). Making the telescope loot might be a bit unpexpected.
* Did you find the secret entrance in the transportation shaft? There is a button to find there.

Ask again and I can give you more hints.



Thanks for the mirror! I'll update my first post. I uploaded it before release to your site. Did that work?



Thanks for your review - and you are probably right about the difficult climbing - I've gotten so used to it myself, so I know it inside and out (I have played through it probably tens of times).



There are some clues in-game about what happened here, but maybe not that many. There are some extra hidden screenshots showing outtakes, that might give you more clues.

If you find the basketball (which is not even remotely close to where you might think it is), you will also find a rather big clue.

The stargazer should mention something about it too.

In short I can say that something really bad happened to cause all this, but the former inhabitants did kind of (indirectly or directly) cause it themselves.

Quote:

Who is the thief that died in a shaft with the red lights and a broken ladder? The place is above the wall with the Precursor messages. I did not find anything to identify him. Dying alone in a place like this, not knowing in which forsaken, derelict place you are, and no way to get back, that's just a terrible thought. For some reason, this had a strong emotional impact on me.

He is one of the thieves who tried to rob Abdjilan's crypts and never came back. The briefing talks about how Garrett couldn't find anyone who had actually been inside the crypts and there were no maps to find.

Abdjilan's connection with these "asteroids" will be explained more in the sequel (whenever that gets released). For now it's open for speculation, but some clever guesses could be made perhaps!?

[SPOILER]

Unfortunately no. I had some ideas for it, but I decided to keep it as it is. In my head, that door leads to a very interesting area, but in "reality" there is nothing behind it. The sequel is very likely to contain that area (I haven't even started on the sequel yet and I have other missions in the works that will be released before).[/SPOILER]



Hint: On Normal he was killed by the sun and dropped the lucky charm close to where he died.
Hint: On Hard he was killed in the same place as on Normal, but he dropped the lucky charm in a very unfortunate spot.
Hint: On Expert he was hurt by the spiders and left a trail of blood.
Further hint: On Expert you will find the lucky charm close to where the blood trail ends.

I can give you more hints if you need it.



1. Hint: The ring belongs to the stargazer and where would the best spot be for a stargazer (astronomer) to be found?
3. See above.
4. PotatoGuy is working on the walkthrough, but it's not ready yet. I think it could be worth waiting for (there are some (or maybe even a lot of) extra hidden stuff)... While waiting for that, you can always ask in this thread and I will answer as soon as I get a chance (if you haven't already gotten an answer by then form my excellent betatesters or dito players :) ).



:D I'm glad you liked it. During beta-testing I added a number of extra areas, thanks to my excellent betatesters (whom I can't seem to thank enough), so they are to "blame" too :cheeky:



You can only open that from the other side.
There is a similar sign in another area.



You have to find a button which will open a secret entrance.
The button is medium-sized and in plain sight, but you will have to do some other things before finding the button.

Outright spoiler:
1. Activate the Ring of Clarity inside one of the elemental chambers and you will get access to a new area.
2. Go to the bottom of that new area and look around.



Small hint (LarryG might call it a very small and subtle hint, though :sly: ): Lord Abdjilan's secret writing chamber contains something that might seem unimportant at first glance...



Small hint: What could the emergency exit be for? Why is it needed?

Not so small hint: The normal entrances to the transportation shaft is opened by activating the Ring of Clarity.

Right out spoiler: Go inside the transportation shaft and drop an important item.



There is a lootlist, but it will be released together with the walkthrough, which is being worked on. While waiting, you can ask in this thread and I tihnk someone will be able to answer (I will answer as soon as I get a chance). There are some hints in this post.



That area is not supposed to be accessible and there is nothing to find there, but there have been reports about people getting there anyway. You're only reward is that you get to brag about it :cheeky:



I think you will understand when you find the lucky charm.



You were not seeing things... That fire is a clue.



I can tell you that there is a lot of extra hidden stuff (other than the official 5 secrets) and in very unusual places at times... I expect only the most stubborn explorers to find them... (consider yourself challenged... :sly: ).



1. Slightly. Some things are in different places and one objective will be a bit more involved. Normal has no spiders... There are also less clues and less helpful items on higher difficulties. One teleporter takes you to different places on different difficulties.
2. See spoilers above.
3. No. You are not supposed to, anyway.

Urumo on 28/12/2009 at 09:00

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Thank you very much for your answers. I will have a look at it tonight.

Cheers

<Username> on 28/12/2009 at 11:02

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I tried shooting fire, water and rope arrows down, up and to the sides. This didn't crash the mission. I hurled a ropecrate down in the the void. Again, the mission didn't crash. Then I dragged the dead thief from near the office out into the open and off the rock. This time the mission crashed immediately.



Sorry, I only got one of the discs at hand and can't do a full reinstall right now, but thanks for all your suggestions!