A Keeper of the Prophecies

Episode 3: The Insurrection

a Thief 2 fan mission by frobber

Insur_v1h.zip – July 17, 2005

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W A R N I N G

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VISUALLY-INDUCED SEIZURES ARE POSSIBLE!

DO NOT PLAY THIS FAN MISSION IF FLASHING

LIGHTS CAN TRIGGER YOU.

This is NOT a joke!

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IMPORTANT: CLOSE ALL OTHER PROGRAMS AND PLAY ONLY ON A FRESH RE-BOOT

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SCREEN FRAME RATE -- IMPORTANT NOTE:

During the first few minutes the screen frame rate may be lousy. This should improve fairly quickly,

and by the time you really need better frame rate, it should be a lot smoother.

Supported Features:

Weather

Fog

EAX (environmental sound)

Minimum System Requirements:

600 Mhz CPU

TNT graphics card (or equivalent)

128 MB RAM

Thief 2 Patched to Version 1.18 (Required)

Recommended System Requirements:

1.0 GHz CPU or faster

Geforce 4 graphics card (equivalent or faster)

256 MB RAM or more

EAX compatible Sound Card (highly recommended)

Game Saves

For any mission, including the originals, Thief 2 might create a corrupted Quick Save file on very rare

occasions – so it’s wise to save every so often to a named slot in the ‘Save’ screen.

CREDITS

Voice Acting

Saturnine - Vicar Feluxis, High Priest Encellon, The Evil Mechanist

SlyFoxx - Garrett

frobber - Keeper Orlet, "Brother" Karras

Design Elements

frobber - designer, writer, mapper

Shadowspawn - Cathedral clock and Magatfree's pocket watch

SilentSleep - BlackOutBomb consulting

Thumper - custom script (cl.osm as used in Calendra's Legacy)

Thorin Oakenshield - AVI 'movie' animations

Daemonite - enhanced Thief 1 AI skins

Schwaa - custom textures

Tomi - custom map background

Goober - lots of suggestions

Play Testers

SlyFoxx

Suttytx

diana50322

Lizanneh

Shadowspawn

SilentSleep

Vanguard

TheNightTerror

Playing Information

"To-Be-Continued…"

… Book 1 is only Book 1 – there is more to come… If you win Episode 3, there will be a "to be continued"

screen at the end. You have been warned!

Background story

The Insurrection is a continuation from Hallucination (Episode 2) where Garrett is trying to gain access to

the cathedral because he is poisoned and dying. He has been told by some Keepers that the solution to his

problem lies in accessing a certain Precursor Portal located somewhere inside the Hammerite area which

will lead him to a place where he can get some help.

This goal is not intended to be the end of the campaign, since accessing the portal is only a gateway to the

next mission – Oracle of the Prophets.

First few minutes

During the first minute of a bit longer, just about any machine might run a little choppy. This is because

A real battle is taking place and the engine needs to devote resources to these fights between AI. Once

the dust settles a bit, the game should much better after this.

Reloading during conversations

Some AI are a bit long-winded, and if you happen to save during their speeches, things may not seem quite

right when you reload the mission. You may see gestures which do not match the speech – but nothing

more harmful than that.

Lock picks and land mines

It would be handy to learn (or remember) that lock picks can be used to disarm proximity mines (not true in

all missions, though).

Using bodies for a weight

Unconscious and dead bodies can be used to toggle a floor switch, but we have discovered that once the

mission has been saved and re-loaded, the bodies no longer will be holding the switch in place. (I've since

made the switches latch, but this is still worth knowing for all missions ... not just here).

Audio notes

An EAX environmental sound card is not required, but it is highly recommended due to cool effects inside

the cathedral. It is perhaps the only place I have ever heard where the longest echo setting possible actually

sounds exactly right. If you have ever been to a real cathedral or stone building of this size, you will

understand what I mean.

About the cathedral

The terrain is loosely based on a detailed study of Cathedral de Chartres in France including interior and

exterior dimensions that are within a few percent of the real cathedral. Stain glass windows and exterior

"roses" are also from Chartres. Much of the exterior doors, windows, and stone texture is from a humble

Catholic church located in Hopkinton, Massachusetts.

Clocks and Megatfree's Watch

This is a timed mission. The clocks really keep time. And if you run out of time, the mission will 'fail.' On

NORMAL you will have almost two hours (which should be plenty of time). On HARD, you'll have 80

minutes, and on EXPERT, just 65 minutes. The clock, however, stops running when you review the map or

open a scroll to read (in scroll-mode).

Ways to Crash the Mission (as in crashing the game or your computer)

So far, I know of only a few areas that might cause a game crash:

1. The upper (green portion) roof of the cathedral near the gable ends.

Without a speed potion (or some fancy trick) you can't get up there anyhow,

but somebody is bound to try.

2. Jumping through the ice and looking back up at the cathedral. This is probably

okay -- but in theory it might be a problem. At any rate, if you jump through

the ice, Garrett will die anyway due to the current which sweeps him away and the

freezing water.

3. Scouting orbs have a wider field of view than the normal screen, and in some

places this was causing screen complexity crashes -- so they have been removed.

Speed potions were removed because this would allow access to all sorts of

evil locations (with respect to screen complexity).

A way for Garrett to die (unplanned or expected)

Seems Mr. SlyFoxx (and I) have gotten into the habit of dumping knocked-out Mechanists through the

balcony openings onto the main floor below. But wouldn't you know that leaning out through such a

narrow space while holding a body will confuse the dickens out the dark engine. Most likely (if anything

happens), Garrett will get launched out into the space above the main sanctuary, which is not healthy at all!

No way to fix this other than putting a warning here.

General Information

Game: Thief 2: The Metal Age

Mission Title: The Insurrection

Filename: Insur_v1g.zip -- miss21.mis

Difficulty Settings: Yes

Equipment store: No

Map / automap: Map

New objects: Yes

New textures: Yes

New sounds: Yes

Multi language support: No (only English)

Briefing : No (Previous mission "Hallucinations" is the briefing)

Copyright

Subject to the copyright limitations specified on the game CD...

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-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.

See copyright.txt for Telliamed’s usage statement.

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.

Revision History

Insur_v1b.zip – Sept 29, 2002, Released

Insur_v1e.zip – Oct 13, 2002, Revised to improve reliability

Insur_v1f.zip – Aug 7, 2003, Mission database is now the same as “Book1”

Insur_v1g.zip – July 11, 2005, Updates in preparation to become part of the complete campaign release.

Insur_v1h.zip – July 17, 2005, Judy could be tossed away. Now no longer droppable.

Support

Post a message in one the following locations. Someone there will have an answer to most questions:

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 fan mail.)

Enjoy!