A Keeper of the Prophecies a Thief 2 campaign by frobber Episode 4: Oracle of the Prophets Release Version 1c ========================================================================== RECOMMENDED: CLOSE ALL OTHER PROGRAMS AND PLAY ONLY ON A FRESH RE-BOOT ========================================================================== Overview The Keepers have sent you to the “other side of time” – wherever that may be! Since time in the normal sense does not seem to exist in this place, your pocket watch is frozen and you are no longer getting sicker. But all is not well. A permanent antidote can be found here somewhere. That is what the Keepers had hoped. So you must now explore this strange world to find what the answer may be – and a way home. Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. Supported Features: Custom weather system Custom fog system EAX (environmental sound) Absolute Bare Minimum System Requirements: 600 Mhz CPU TNT2 graphics card (or equivalent) 128 MB RAM Thief 2 Patched to Version 1.18 (unpatched Thief 2 not tested, but may work) Minimum Recommended System: 1.2 GHz CPU or faster GeForce 4+ graphics card (equivalent or faster) 256 MB RAM or more EAX compatible Sound Card (highly recommended) CREDITS for Oracle of the Prophets Voice Acting SlyFoxx – Garrett, Arcelious, The Guardian frobber – Karras (on Victrolla) Also, lots borrowed from System Shock 2 and various free (and legal) on-line sound sites. Design Elements frobber – mapper, story-writer, overall slave-driver (and slave) Cyberblutch – custom AI models Shadowspawn – custom objects (including one animated AI) Thorin Oakenshield – frobber logo AVI 'movie' animation Purah - with permission, textures borrowed from the Calendra's series Saturnine – CamVator technology SilentSleep – fade-up from black technology Goober – comments and suggestions Play Testers Nightwalker SlyFoxx Peter Smith Jericho Dennis Nixon Hawklette Griffin Madwolf Shadowspawn Goober Dafydd ab Hugh ffox Audio A fair amount was record and altered by myself. I have also sampled a bit from at least one well-known cultural icon and downloaded from numerous free (legal) sound sites. Sound was processed using CoolEdit 2000. Playing Information Do not save and reload when Garrett is attached to a CamVator. There are two CamVators in this mission and in both cases he will stop at the end and stay attached for a while. If you save and reload, at best, things may seem screwy; and at worst, you may break the mission so it can not be won. (For those not sure of what I mean – “CamVator” is short for camera elevator, where Garrett is attached to an invisible moving platform so the player’s viewpoint can be transported as though watching a movie). Gravity is that of another world – about the same as Mars. It is part of the design to assume that Garrett can therefore climb on very steep angles and jump down from very high places which normally would be out of the question. Just because something looks nearly impossible, it may not be – and may, in fact, be required. Some odd fogging effects are implemented using a custom technique, so it does not matter if you have these settings on or off in the Thief 2 configuration screen. It will work either way. The lighting may seem a tad bright. This is done for those machines which display the game too darkly. If you usually run at maximum brightness, your game may not appear as realistic as I have planned. Use the minus (-) and plus (+) keys to adjust your screen for a proper on-screen feeling. Because of the complexity of the terrain, EAX ambient sound is highly recommended. Typical 2-speaker or headphone use simply may not tell you enough about your threat situation, and you will be at a decided disadvantage. Having said this, I have most definitely tweaked audio for 2-speaker and headphone use – it just isn’t as useful as EAX 4-speaker sound. In four cases, the player must touch (frob) an object from the inside. This may be mentioned in a mission journal, but not always – so I also mention it here to limit confusion. As with all of my missions, except for the level of annoyance, there is no real difference between Normal, Hard, and Expert. So it’s really a matter of how long you want to play, and how annoyed you are willing to become. There is still more to come… If you win this mission, there will be a "to be continued" screen at the end. You have been warned! Oddities and minor bugs that won’t be fixed GeForce 2 graphics cards may cause the sky effect to flash with an occasional dark triangle. This is a graphics board issue, and I have not seen it on other machines. It only happens rarely, and since I have limited the CPU needed to run the sky effect as much as I can bare, this will remain as it is. The sky sometimes changes brightness abruptly. At first I tried to fix this, but have decided that it merely adds to the odd feeling of the place – and since I can’t fix this, I declare it a “feature” rather than a bug. Using Windows Media Player tends to prevent Thief movies from playing on many PCs. If you have been playing any sort of media using Windows Media Player prior to playing Thief, you may need to re-boot your computer unless you know how to disable Media Player from being the default program for AVIs. General Information Game: Thief 2: The Metal Age Mission Title: Oracle of the Prophets Filename: oracle_v1c.zip / miss22.mis Difficulty Settings: Yes Equipment store: Nothing for sale Map / automap: No map – this is “the other side of time” and there are no mapmakers there! New graphics: Yes New sounds: Yes New objects: Yes New AI: Yes Custom sky: Yes Terrain: Completely built from scratch Build time:12 weeks from first brush to beta testing Multi language support: Only English CamVators: Yes, at the beginning and end of the mission. Briefing AVI: “frobber” logo, only Revision History for Oracle of the Prophets Version 1a – December 20, 2003 – Initial Release Version 1b – December 30, 2003 – Made a way to leave a boulder in the magma chamber. Minor tweaks. Version 1c – “Judy” can no longer be dropped; (per request) the pocket watch is working as a compass. Copyright Subject to the copyright limitations specified on the Thief 2 game CD... All original content of this fan mission is copyright (c) 2000-2005 by frobber, a.k.a., Ken Ramsley. Hosting of this fan mission is allowed on any public or private network so long as distribution is at no extra charge (beyond normal access to the network) and the zip file is kept intact and unmodified. Re-distribution of an altered version of this mission including changes to any supporting files is not permitted. Without my permission, an unaltered version of this fan mission may be included on a CD/DVD-release mission pack, provided that this CD is sold for the cost of production and shipping only, or is a freebie given away in some other form such as a magazine-published mission pack promo. Disclaimers Any resemblance in the real world to events or people found in this fan mission are entirely unintended, purely coincidental, and a complete figment of your imagination. This fan mission is not made by nor supported by Looking Glass Studios (RIP), Eidos Interactive or Ion Storm of Austin, TX. Support Post a message in one the following locations. Someone there will have an answer to most questions: Fan Mission section of the Thief Underground Forums http://www.3dactionplanet.com/thief/ Fan Mission section of the TTLG forums http://www.ttlg.com/forums Eidos Thief Missions Forum http://www.eidos.com If are really stuck, you can write to me… frobber@edanet.com … and I’ll see if I can help. (I also enjoy feedback, criticism, and any other sort of player mail.) BTW Here are some of the places where this mission was built and tested… Commuter train, Ashland to Boston, MA South Station in Boston. Flying to and from Washington. Various airline terminals. Accela train Boston to Washington DC Union Station Washington DC. Various restaurants while waiting for food. Various hotel rooms instead of sleeping. Back seat of various limousines. (Occasionally) at home in my office. Enjoy!