dealasteal on 31/5/2004 at 18:00

---

SLuggs,

I just happened to try it when i was coming up through the airlock door at the back of the 3rd alps vent. And it gave me the "objective complete notification" on the screen. Try it when your close to the 3rd alps inn a few times, otherwise you might try it from a different save point.
I was on the easy goal mission v1.03 downloaded from sterlinos site.

dealasteal

Dafydd on 31/5/2004 at 20:43

---

What was supposed to be wrong with version 1.01? I played it, finished it, and didn't have any problems except in two areas:

1) About half the times I used the Fire key to activate the portal to Hell, when I would turn around and head for the door, I was dropped to the desktop. I actually reloaded and did this about six times -- I was trying to destroy it with what I had, not realizing I needed something else -- and on three of those times, I was dropped. The other three seemed to work fine.

2) I could never see the end credits. After finishing and seeing the completed objectives page (everything but finding all the secrets) and the stats page (1975 loot out of a possible 925, woo-hoo! :eek: ), I clicked Continue, and all I saw was my desktop. This happened all three times I tried it.

Other than those two, only one of which was even slightly a problem, I was able to play the game from start to finish.

I will note one thing that rather irritated me; but it's a design and response issue, nothing technical. Sterlino remarked earlier that he was very happy that I was frustrated at not knowing what I was supposed to do because that made it more "realistic."

Dudes, there is nothing realistic about Thief. There are no real-world equivalents to Craywomen, burricks, fairies, Hell portals, or lava creatures. There is no conceivable way in the real world to run across lava, whether or not you keep hopping. There is no such thing as a rope arrow. There are no invisibility potions. And no matter how hard you try, you cannot fall fifty feet without harm just because you gulped a slowfall potion first.

This is a game, and the most important element to a game is having fun. Please, mission authors... don't intentionally withhold readables with vital information because you think player frustration is realistic... it's just annoying. The player needs to be given within the game the information necessary to complete it. You cannot assume that every player will come here for help; many, confronted by a series of unexplained tasks where they have no idea even where to start, will respond by abandoning the FM and installing another instead.

More readables and a greater willingness to help out the players in this and other fora would both be appreciated. Most authors are pretty good in this respect; others seem to have the intention to frustrate and annoy the players.

And to echo Epithumia, version 1.01 was the third version of HoC that I downloaded and tried playing; the others both had game-killing problems... AIs who could see in the dark, through walls, and from all the way across the map to run over and attack me in the first version, and a slowdown to a framerate of one per second in the second version. Evidently, there was a version in between that I didn't play, and now there is a new version beyond 1.01.

Please, authors, this is what beta-testing is for, Goddam it. I have beta tested ten or eleven missions, and really, we usually do a pretty good job. It's especially good if you have six or seven people beta testing: nice mix of systems and playing styles, and beta testers have a charming tendency to try as hard as we can to break your mission in every possible way... doing things out of order, going where we're not supposed to be, and so forth.

We know the game will break; we expect it; we enjoy breaking it. I must have tested at least four different releases of Oracle of the Prophets (me and eleven other beta testers) before Ken finally decided to release it; and I think the only updating since it was posted was that somebody added a walkthrough.

The typical sequence is alpha testing among your friends and co-designers; then you advertise for beta testers, take almost everyone who responds, make the beta version available for download from your own Website (or a friend's)... and then you continue the beta testing until every last tester reports "all clear." (If you just can't fix some small thing, then you tell players in the mission notes not to do that.) That way, you don't end up turning all the normal players into involuntary beta testers, and you don't drive poor Epithumia into a lunatic asylum on the Isle of Elba.

Please?

Thanks,

Dafydd ab Hugh

Sluggs on 31/5/2004 at 23:56

---

:joke:

Dafydd on 1/6/2004 at 02:37

---

Oh for God's sake.

Dafydd

smithpd on 1/6/2004 at 04:31

---

I really love your work Sterlino. Horns of Canzo could be one of the all time great fan missions. I really appreciate all the work you have put into it. Nevertheless, I think Daffydd is absolutely correct in his comments about testing. There is no shame in having your work tested thoroughly. In retrospect, don't you think that would have saved all of us, including you, some trouble?

I eagerly await my fourth run through Horns of Canzo and to play any more FM's you do. I would be pleased to help with the testing.