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#101
03-20-2013, 01:17 PM
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Finished my recorded Masks Ghost run this morning. Compressing the video then uploading; will post once it's up. Wound up being 34 minutes and change, which is longer than I was hoping. I was aiming for sub-30 minutes, and may do that yet, but right now I just want to get it out there.
There's a door near the beginning of the mission that seems to break the game's sound while I'm in the door-frame, every time and without fail. During some of my failed runs and practice attempts, I got some extremely weird sound bugs with the Vine Arrows, where they were making the sounds of the ghosts while active (arrow in wall and vine hanging), and would end once I pulled the arrow out. That one didn't happen on the recorded run though. Also, I goofed up hilariously while getting the cultivator, and thought for sure I'd busted my run, but somehow the thief gods were too busy laughing to have the guard or the robot alert, when both were in spitting distance. 
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#102
03-20-2013, 02:43 PM
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Game: Thief Gold
OM: Mission 4 - Assassins Ghost - Success Perfect Thief - Success Supreme Ghost - Success Perfect Supreme - Success Time - 54 minutes 37 seconds Loot - 2705/2705 Pockets Picked - 3/9 Locks picked - 7 Backstabs - 0, Knockouts - 0 Damage dealt - 0, Damage taken - 0 Healing taken - 0 Consumables - None Summary A fairly straightforward mission to ghost here with a lot of darkness, few loud floors and almost no "difficult" areas. I might even be tempted to do an Ironman Perfect Thief (not supreme) but we'll see... Ramirez himself is a little awkward as he has a somewhat random movement pattern. He only seems to move between 4 locations but to get the chest on the back left (as you enter the room) I needed to stand on one of his spots, meaning he would see me if he happened to head that way. He does tend to stay still for a few seconds once he has moved so if you're quick its okay. Otherwise the only issue I had was that I tried to get out at the end without picking any more locks. There are (I think) 3 rooms I got into using picks that I couldn't then relock and one chest. I may have misremembered though. Anyway, I wanted to get out at the end without unlocking any more doors that couldn't be relocked. I'll go into more detail below but suffice to say I didn't manage it. Still, it doesn't bust Supreme as it couldn't be relocked rather than just not doing so... Detail Started by following the two would-be assassins back to the mansion. I got maybe one first alert (for which I reloaded) but mostly it was fairly straightforward to tail them without alerts. The entrance to the mansion itself was the point where I realised that my earlier "casing" of the place hadn't really tested the "ghostability" at all. Although it had seemed like there was plenty of darkness and grass so that I would have free reign outside, in practice it was a lot more difficult! Going right on the way in is, I believe, impossible without first alerts from the archer overlooking the area, I tried a few different methods. Going left is definitely possible but I had to make a few false attempts before succeeding. One guard kept walking around just when I didn't have any way to hide but if I waited for him he didn't seem to come until I moved forward. I got to the point where I decided he must be triggered, although I'm not sure if this is actually the case. Either way, I eventually got around the side of the mansion by moving forward and then backtracking when the guard came around. No first alerts. I didn't want to use lockpicks more than necessary so I ignored the tower that allows a hop over to the balcony. I ran around to the back where there are 3 guards that patrol and two that talk before going inside. The patrollers all went right (away from me) and I triggered the conversation, waited until it ended and then closely followed the two as they went into the house. This allowed me access without any lockpicking. Inside at last... Once inside I scooped the Courtyard key from a patrolling guard although later regretted that as I was trying to avoid unnecessary pickpockets and this one definitely was unnecessary. I didn't even use the key before I got an upgrade! I went around to the side of the house by the kitchens / barracks and around to the nearby stairs to the basement (not the ones in the kitchen). I followed the basement around (no-one here at this stage) and waited for the servant to take his basement key. Using this, I immediately gained access to Ramirez' counting room and got the "Key" which as far as I know unlocks every door that is unlockable with keys (i.e. it counts as a Courtyard, Basement and Storage Room key combined). I took the various loot from Ramirez but importantly not the purse from his belt. This triggers guards to spawn at various inconvenient locations and I didn't want that yet, I mainly came for the super-Key. Scooping the loot The next section of play mostly involved clearing all the loot from all of the rooms. I was forced to use picks on the three upstairs rooms which don't have keys (including the Master bedroom with about half the loot in the mission!). I also had to pick the chest upstairs in the library. As detailed below, on my way out I picked the library balcony doors as well. I think those were the only picks that never got locked again and I'm not sure if there is a way to do Perfect Supreme with fewer than 5. Obviously I also picked a couple of extra locks (one in the courtyard with the fountain and one immediately after that in the dark room before you get into the house proper) but both of these were entirely avoidable and also relocked. The loot is all in really easy places to avoid detection. I'm not sure if any except Ramirez' room actually has a person in the room itself (other than those that leave after a conversation) so really its just a matter of not blundering into a guard and knowing where to go. Packing up, moving on I had by this point dropped my Courtyard key on the path of the guard that had "dropped" it so that was already returned. I had left the steel door to Ramirez' dungeon unlocked, reasoning that the servant might not have realised he had lost his key (or at least not made a huge fuss) if he was still able to get in and out of the dungeon. I snuck back in to Ramirez, took his purse, replaced the "Key" and left. Once the servant had been with the latest wine / bread combo I relocked the steel door with the Basement key and dropped it by the door. The servant would then get to the door, find it locked, panic briefly and then find the key where he must have dropped it, right by his feet. A foolproof plan! Exeunt left, or right? Or...um. Here is where I now tried to get out of the house without picking another lock (or obviously using a key that I could then not return to its rightful owner). I so nearly made it too, but was foiled at the last, had to come back into the house in disgrace (using picks on the courtyard doors) and eventually left via the balcony in the library (from where you can just jump into the water and swim out to victory). Back to my initial escape attempt, I eventually got upstairs without using a locked door and decided to try and jump out into the courtyard. After a little work, I realised this could be done without noise, or damage and I would land in the fountain pool in full darkness. Result! I now just had to leave the courtyard, turn right and run for the water and safety. I thought maybe the triple guard patrol that I had seen earlier would cause an issue, but I almost immediately saw them all head off left out of the courtyard section, clearing my way. I ran down the path and was about to bound into the water when I noticed the black shape of one of those "Ramirez doesn't know his purse has gone but we're going to spawn anyway" bastards. He was looking directly towards the water I wanted to get into. I tried several approaches to making it out without a first alert but none succeeded. I would always get a slight bark. Somewhat disappointed, I gave up this approach and tried to head back around to the other side (the way I had come in). I figured if I can't just jump in the water, at least I can get out via the streets! However, another black-clad teleporting menace was standing in the shadows by the main gatehouse and would definitely alert if I went that way. I considered an approach along the battlements but a quick look told me that wasn't even worth attempting with full light and at least two pairs of eyes. At this point it was getting late, I wanted to finish tonight and I had no ideas (I still don't) so I had to settle for picking my last lock and jumping out the easy way. Final thoughts Pleased to have completed this mission, I still really like it although perhaps I don't remember it being quite so easy. I may look into doing some sort of Ironman attempt at the weekend as I know it fairly well now and maybe the added pressure of no saves / loads will give me some respect for Ramirez' guards. That will no doubt be a "standard" ghost as Woodchuck is doing as first alerts are really easy to get in a few places. I still fully expect to fail but it could be fun! Not sure where to go next. I think most likely it will be the Opera House and then the Mages Tower. I have no idea how tough either of these are to ghost so I don't know if I'm letting myself in for a horrific beating or another stroll like Assassins but I always liked those missions when I played previously. Until next time... Last edited by Itko; 03-21-2013 at 02:30 PM.
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#103
03-20-2013, 04:52 PM
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Game: Thief 2: The Metal Age
OM: 14 - Masks Ghost: Success Perfect Thief: Failed Supreme Ghost: Failed Perfect Supreme Ghost: Failed Time: 34 Minutes and 25 seconds Loot: 2842/3667 Pockets Picked: 0/11 Locks Picked: 11 Damage Dealt/Taken/Healed: 0/0/0 Secrets: 9/11 As mentioned before, Perfect Thief, Supreme Ghost, and Perfect Supreme Ghost were not attempted, as I was doing the mission as a single-segment recording. That means I start the mission fresh (not even carrying over the completed objective from the previous level), and run through from start to finish with no saving and/or reloading. The only load is from a save made at the very start of the level, 0 seconds in, to start the mission. Practice runs to figure out my route, along with failed attempts, meant that for the early parts of the mission, up until right about the point where I finish Second Floor North, I knew exactly where every guard was going to be, and I just flew through the early segments, happily gobbling up first-alerts left and right. There is an odd sound bug that I've encountered every time I play the level. On first floor south, exiting the room that has the watcher controls, the door seems to break the game's sound for the entire time I'm in the door frame (you can see this at 1:25 in the video). The lockpick sound effect doesn't work, and the guards footsteps in the hall are silent, until that door opens and I get out into the hallway. During practice runs, I also ran into another odd sound bug, where my vine arrows would make ghost sounds. That is, once the vine arrow was in a wall, with the vine dangling, it would make the exact same sound as the Ghost NPC in the library, for as long as the arrow was there. As soon as I'd pull the arrow, the sounds would stop. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, that particular one didn't happen in the final run. During the Cultivator segment, there was a nearly disastrous goof on my part that nearly busted the run (22:20). Right after having grabbed the Cultivator, I was trying to retrieve my vine arrow. Watching the video, I can see that it was perfectly within reach, but for some reason while I was playing, I didn't notice it highlighted and thought I needed to get closer. So I reached for the ALT button with my thumb, trying to lean forward to grab the arrow, and accidentally hit spacebar, and jumped. The sound did not attract attention. Then I did it AGAIN, and this time hopped right off the ledge, down to the floor below. Miraculously, I not only landed on the carpet, but neither patrol alerted, and I scrambled up the vine back onto the ledge, got my arrow, and got out. On the way back down through the mansion, when I passed through the bar area, the servant was nowhere to be found, but I heard the sound of walking, and it didn't sound like it was moving (30:15). I assume the servant got hung up on something and wound up walking in place.
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#104
03-21-2013, 01:30 PM
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Woodchuck, just found time to watch the video and that was absolutely inspirational! I can only imagine the amount of work that must have taken.
At around the 31 minute mark, you kept switching sides by a door and presumably listening for something but I couldn't work out what - was it the camera? I haven't played Masks in a very long time so not sure what is nearby... How do you prepare to do a run like that? Obviously you must do it a few times prior to recording but how do you decide on a route? Do you map the place out, trial and error, what? Are we likely to see more soon or is there going to be a delay now? I know you said when you posted Bafford's that you had Masks almost down so I'm wondering if it will take a while of prep. work before you can do another or if you plan to start knocking one down every few days!!
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#105
03-21-2013, 02:18 PM
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The door at the 31 minute mark, I was listening for the Guard who patrols up into that storage area (you can see him enter the area a little later, at the 32 minute mark). I'm always extra careful going through that door, because I had more than one run busted by him being right there when I opened it.
The reason for switching sides is because on one of the practice runs, he'd patrolled up there and got stuck walking against the pillar. He had been facing to the right, so going in from the left put me more out of his line of sight, but then I moved back to the right because I had the thought of blocking the right door with my body so that only the left would open, giving me a bit more cover. Luckily, he didn't get stuck on the final run. Planning the route is the hard part, and the part that definitely takes the most time. I usually get a general idea of a fast route that links the basic objectives, and then do a couple of runs following that path and seeing how feasible it is. Then I modify it to avoid unexpected trouble spots, and then finally figure out where to grab loot to meet the loot objectives along the resulting path. For Masks specifically, I was originally planning to cross from Second Floor North to Second Floor South without returning to the first floor, and was able to a few times, but not in a way that was reliable, or maybe I'm just not good enough. So I wound up modifying it by basically retracing my steps back around to near the start, and going up that way and through the bar. I haven't decided on what level to attempt next, but was thinking about possibly doing Song of the Caverns or The Sword from Thief Gold. How long it takes will definitely depend on how difficult the level winds up being to find a route through, and how reliably I can make the pieces of the run fit together. Masks for example, is actually a pretty easy level, because every segment has a simple flow. It's all just about sticking to it and playing carefully. I know a lot of people dislike Masks (probably because it's preceded by Casing the Joint, which wrecks the fun of both levels in the context of the total game), but Masks is actually one of my favorite levels in the series.
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#107
03-21-2013, 02:46 PM
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Assassins was one of the levels I considered doing after Masks as well, but I'm going to try sticking to the levels that I really love for at least the first few, or I'll probably burn out fairly quickly.
Part of me is eager to try running Life of the Party, but I think that one will have to wait a while. That's going to be one heck of a project.
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#108
03-21-2013, 02:52 PM
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Hmm - my vague recollection (which might be completely wrong) is that there is something in Life of the Party that will require a ghost bust. I think someone spawns when you pick something up? I'm not sure if it can be avoided with liberal use of water arrows as maybe I'm thinking of Supreme attempts (where water arrows can't be used). Definitely worth checking out though.
I think you'd find Assassins very straightforward really. Maybe one to do if you get frustrated with the tougher ones 
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#109
03-21-2013, 03:27 PM
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Quote:
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#110
03-23-2013, 03:30 PM
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Woodchuck, you inspired me to do an Ironman (single segment) Perfect Thief of Assassins. I knew it would be a challenge but there was a decent amount of frustration! Still, I managed it and will upload the video soonish. I've not created many videos at all (previously just a few Eve Online fights) so it might take me a few days to get around to getting it all together...
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#111
03-23-2013, 07:29 PM
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Hey that's awesome; I'm looking forward to seeing it.
I decided on Song of the Caverns for my next. Then I remembered those damn spiders near the beginning. I promptly changed my mind and decided on The Sword. I've currently got my route just about planned, and this is actually looking surprisingly easy. Assuming I don't stumble on any unexpected roadblocks, I can start doing attempted runs probably as soon as tomorrow. With any luck I'll have a video of The Sword up by the end of the weekend.
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#112
03-24-2013, 01:11 AM
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Yeah I looked at Song of the Caverns too as I remember the main level being fun. Whoever put those spiders there...
 Think I'm going to go for Mage Towers next. Will work on getting the video up today unless I run into any major problems...
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#114
03-24-2013, 12:53 PM
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Very nice! The commentary adds a lot, I think, which is probably the best answer to my earlier question about whether or not I should include it in my own.
I've got a few successful test runs of The Sword down, going to start doing recorded runs today. I think this will be the first that I add commentary for, and then maybe I'll retroactively add it to Bafford's and Masks. As for embedding youtube videos, the only way I've found to make it work with this board software is to take the identification segment in the youtube url (the part after the '=') and put that between the "youtube" tags. So for example, yours would look like: [ youtube ]Ou3G-uBLSA4[ /youtube ] (minus the spaces between the brackets).
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#116
03-25-2013, 12:11 PM
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Just finished my recording of The Sword. Compressing now. I probably won't get around to recording commentary today, but I may put up the video without later this morning, and then add commentary later. Wound up being 26 minutes and (I think) 11 seconds, which was right around what I thought I'd get. Oddly enough, getting the sword itself was not a problem at all. I was able to consistently run upstairs and have that in hand without being detected by the 3:20 mark or so. It was routing to collect all the necessary loot that took some time and effort.
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#117
03-25-2013, 03:38 PM
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Game: Thief Gold
OM: The Sword Ghost: Success Perfect Thief: Failed Supreme Ghost: Failed Perfect Supreme Ghost: Failed Time: 26 Minutes and 16 seconds Loot: 1511/2656 Pockets Picked: 2/10 Locks Picked: 3 Damage Dealt/Taken/Healed: 0/0/0 I went into this mission completely backward on how difficult it was going to be. I remembered the main objectives being my struggle on my first time through the game. Getting the sword itself and the evidence without being detected sounded extremely tough, while getting the loot sounded like it would just be an incident part of the path to the goals. It actually wound up being exactly the opposite. From the start, I ran straight to the Sword, grabbing a few items along the way while waiting for patrols to get out of the way. Making a straight shot to the sword actually fit so well that I didn't have anything to worry about, and after a few practice runs, I could get the sword consistently before the 3:30 mark without any second-alerts, and sometimes without any first-alerts. If I ever decide to try and do a single-segment Supreme run, this mission is looking like my testbed. There are a couple of areas in the mission where I put out torches that didn't need to be extinguished. The first is just prior to the sword. The guard that paths in that hallway seems sort of random as to which route he's going to take, and dousing those torches gave me some more wiggle room in that segment. Later, when leaving the bar area, I heard an approaching guard and extinguished the torch out of panic, just in case a patrol rounded the corner. I knew that guard couldn't possibly be there right then, but I was closing in on the end of the run, and rational thought took a back seat to panic. Right near the end (just after clearing the bar), there's a segment where I'm leaning to the side to watch for a patrol, and somehow the game flung me out into the hallway. I just barely managed to make it back to the doorframe shadow before the guard rounded the corner. After nearly running face-first into the guard in Bafford's, the cultivator screw-up in Masks, and now this, I'm convinced The Thief gods would not bless a run of mine with success without first giving me a heart-attack near the end. I'll be adding commentary to this and my other runs a bit later.
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#118
03-25-2013, 11:05 PM
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Sounds good, I'll take a look when I get time either today or tomorrow. I always found Constantine's place really hard to navigate when I was younger so I'd be interested to try it again myself.
I'm not sure about doing Mages next. The Tower of Fire is very difficult to avoid alerts (3rd alerts are common never mind 2nd!). It's definitely the sort of place that makes Ironman very tough. I may switch to Thief 2. Framed and Blackmail were two I always found enjoyable.
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