The Seventh Crystal (mostly about the ending, not about playing the FM)

WhiteFantom on 26/3/2004 at 10:03

Quote:

Originally posted by EmperorSteele
Oh, and there's this theory:

[spoiler]
The "M" is Mercedes, from Calendra's Cistern/Legacy ;)[/spoiler]

Ha!--that'd be something. ;-) Well, considering the connections between the two FM's in that many of the same parties were involved in both, anything's possible. It's certainly an interesting thing to think about. :-)

--Jennifer

Walker on 2/4/2004 at 12:43

Err when I start Act 4 nothing happens, the camera just slowly moves over to Garrett and Serafina, and then nothing happens. I can see a guy with the eyepatch in the shadows. So I don't get to see the ending.

TheNightTerror on 2/4/2004 at 15:02

First, try restarting the act a few times. If it doesn't work, start over, and use ctrl+alt+shift+end to skip to the end of each mission, and start Act IV again. If that doesn't work, then you're gonna have to install DromEd. If you already have it installed, open miss20.mis, and go into game mode and it should work. I had this same trouble, but in DromEd it's always worked.

If you don't have DromEd installed, then you get to install it. DromEd comes on the first Thief 2 CD, not the one you use to play the game with. It should be in a folder called 'EDITOR,' there's a readme file that walks you through it. Once it's installed, open miss20.mis, and give it a minute or two to load. Once it's finished loading, hold down alt+G, and it should go into game mode.

The sound won't start until a few second before the Act 4 writing shows up on the screen. If it still won't run, even in DromEd, then you've got a mighty big problem on your hands.

Wynne on 3/4/2004 at 00:42

Quote:

Originally posted by Vigil
Huh! I never knew they were unconscious either, I assumed they'd been murdered.
[SPOILER]Lorcan seems like less of a prick now ;)[/SPOILER]

*eyebrow raise* No offense, but why the hell is that? He was never the one who touched Bradey and Elizabeth here. I thought that was obvious.

[SPOILER]'M' of the intro was helping Garrett. She left her name's first letter on a note near the bodies.[/SPOILER]
Also, there was never any blood or arrows sticking out of them or anything. So, with that added to the "unconscious body" title when you pick them up, I am really confused as to why anyone would think they were murdered.

Vigil on 3/4/2004 at 02:49

Because it's sort of the thriller-movie convention for people who would impart important plot information to get killed before they can do so. Knocking them unconscious instead is...well, watering the drama down a bit ;)

It's been too long since I played it, so I can't remember why they had to be taken out, but I definitely didn't connect their deaths (ok, KOs) with the intro narrator at the time. I assumed after I'd finished the mission that it was Lorcan, since he was meant to be the bad guy, and killing/knocking them out sure seemed like getting in Garrett's way rather than helping him out. May be obvious to you, but certainly wasn't to me :)

I also never picked them up to check...suppose I usually assume bodies are dead, since it's so rare for an AI to be knocked out instead.

Yametha on 3/4/2004 at 05:31

I always thought 'M' stood for Mara...

TheNightTerror on 3/4/2004 at 05:50

Mara? :erm: Where'd you pick the name up from? And what the hell happened to my post? :mad: My computer's going insane, it's official!

WhiteFantom on 3/4/2004 at 07:33

Yup, Vigil pretty much explained exactly why I thought they were dead--that's the automatic assumption in thriller fiction when you encounter the prone bodies of people that had important information to share. I'm also confused as to how knocking Bradey and Elizabeth out could be *helpful* to Garrett, exactly. It helped him get Bradey's room key, sure, but that could have been done by tracking Bradey and getting it off his belt (like I assumed I was going to have to do when I overhead Bradey's and Elizabeth's conversation and Bradey took off to his room. I waited for ten whole minutes in the hallway outside the servant's wing, ready to grab Bradey's key on his way by, but he never showed, and it was only when I got sick of waiting that I made my way upstairs and found his and Elizabeth's bodies).

Also, I only picked one of them up by accident (and put them back down immediately, because I was trying to get the key *off* the body, not the body itself), so were it not for that, I would never have thought to pick them up at all in order to have the chance to see that it said "Unconscious Body" rather than "Corpse." In a mission that purports to be the "Alfred Hitchcock thriller of FM's," and which is filled with foreboding hints of Very Bad Things, it's rather natural to assume that when you stumble upon a pair of bodies, they're dead, and the card beside them is their murderer's "calling card." It never occurred to me (nor to most of the others in here who've played it, it would seem) to think they were knocked unconscious by the mysterious Voice who was trying to *help* Garrett.

And Wynne, your name looks familiar--did you work on "The Seventh Crystal," by any chance? Or maybe it was "Calendra's Legacy"--I know I've seen your name recently in the credits of an FM I've played, but I'm not sure which one.

Oh, and one other question that I'm lead to since we've cleared up that Bradey and Elizabeth weren't murdered--if they weren't murdered, then who *was* murdered? When the charges against Garrett are read, they include murder (which is why he is to be hanged)--so who got killed? I assumed the murder in question was Bradey's and Elizabeth's, but if they weren't dead, that's obviously not the case. Was it Lord Saturnine himself, perhaps? (And what was the arson charge all about....?)

--Jennifer

TheNightTerror on 3/4/2004 at 13:07

Well, I don't have all the answers, but I'll throw out a couple guesses. For why Bradey was stopped, my guess is maybe Saturnine wanted us to not have a time limit on when we could get there. I don't know if version 1 had a map or not, if it didn't then he might've thought that it might be pretty hard for some taffers to get ahead of him, so he stopped him, then liked the idea of the player stumbling across the bodies and kept it.

Since my one post kinda disappeared into thin air, I guess I'll rewrite one thing I thought about the cards. First off, why would Lorcan leave 2 cards with 'M' on them if he was the one helping Garrett? After all, 'M' couldn't exactly mean anything when there was only an open door. :idea: Hello sudden idea. Plus, why would Lorcan open the door to Bradey's room? He would've gone into the deal only knowing about the crystal, and he'd have no reason to help Garrett get something he didn't know existed.

I think Wynne did some plot work on this FM, (what exactly was the plot work, if I got that right?) but I'm pretty sure she did the voice for Seraphina. Not sure if she did voice acting for anyone else, but if she did I'd guess Elizabeth. Plus, I seem to remember she's done ALOT of voice acting.

About the murder charge bit, for some stupid reason, lack of sleep probably, I just had a weird idea. What if Garrett was charged with Alexandria's murder? Obviously she's still alive, but the police might not think so. The money/wife exchange couldn't have gone through, and in the letter the "kidnappers" made it clear if it was messed up she'd die.

If they hadn't found her, and had no suspects, who better to point the finger at than somebody already in jail for breaking into the mansion where she lived? They thought he hid the crystal well enough that they couldn't find it, then why couldn't they think he was able to hide Alexandria just as well?

But there's two huge problems. A. Wouldn't they have searched more than a week before giving up? B. Why no charges of kidnapping or mention that Garrett murdered a noble in closing arguements?

Ah well, it was only a weird idea my overtired mind thought of. And now, I better go sleep before I say anything else even stupider than that, lol.

Wynne on 3/4/2004 at 13:28

Quote:

Originally posted by Yametha
I always thought 'M' stood for Mara...

Me too. :D Mara was the lovely, talented voice actress of the woman in the intro. Very hard act to follow!

WhiteFantom--You recognized me! *clings* ;) I do voices on quite a few FMs; Calendra's Legacy was indeed one of those (I played the dowager duchess who sounded like she was grating orange peels in her throat when she talked) and Seventh Crystal is as well.

As NightTerror mentioned (another person who recognized me! *clings to Night too* :cheeky: ), I did some plot work and voices. Mostly I wrote some little diaries for guests, servants, and Alexandria to complement Saturnine's plot--but honestly, he's a really good writer; I think he could've done everything I did, if he'd had the time. As to the voicing, I did Seraphina and Elizabeth--good call, NT!

I don't know if Sat will have me do anything for the sequel, if he's still working on it, but either way I am totally hankering to play it. *daydreams and drools* :thumb: