4th June, 1999
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Mission Title: A Noble Death v1.1
File Name: gilder.zip
Author: Ben Meadows (AKA Ishy)
Contact info: ishy666@hotmail.com
Homepage: N/A
German translation: Kyloe!
Contact adress: kyloe@snafu.de
Homepage: N/A
Date of release: 4th June 1999

Description: An Assassins/Bafford style mission. Creep to the top of a noble's town house and assassinate her. Has books, extra objectives for harder difficulty levels and so on.
New in version 1.1: Compatible with Thief Loader. Also fixed and easy installation via Thiefmod, and support for German. Two versions available: "Update" for those who downloaded version 1 and "full" for everyone else.

Briefing: No
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* Play Information *

Game: Thief: The Dark Project
Level Name: A Noble Death
File name: miss25.mis
Difficulty Settings: Yes
Equipment store: No
Map / automap: No
New graphics: No
New sounds: No
Multi language support: Yes, English and German


Briefing : No

Difficulty level info: Easy, Hard and Expert.

* Construction *

Base: None
Build Time: About 30 hours. Really, I lost track of time.



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* Loading information *

Full version:
If you have Thief Loader, simply move the noble.zip file into the missions directory and run it through Thief Loader.
Otherwise, unzip the file into a folder under your Thief folder (eg C:\Games\Thief\Noble) and run Thiefmod.bat. That's it: the game should run. Just choose "New Game" then "Skip Training." Thanks to Wes Morrison for creating Thiefmod.

Update version:
If you have Thief Loader, simply add the file "miss25.mis" from your original version to the noble_up.zip file, then place noble_up.zip in the missions directory. It can then be run through Thief Loader.
Otherwise, unzip the file as above, then locate "miss25.mis" from the original version and move it into the folder you unzipped into (the folder with Thiefmod.bat in it.) Now run Thiefmod.bat as above. It is also now safe to remove any other parts of the original. Sorry about all the problems, it works properly now.

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* What the briefing would have been if I'd had the time or inclination to make one *

Garrett: Cutty's been approached by a man wanting my services to rid him of an enemy. This kind of thing isn'tmy style and normally I'd have told Cutty to turn him down, but he's offering a very respectable payment. The... subject... is the Lady Catherine Gilder, one of the richer nobles I've heard of. Luckily, she spends most of her time in her town house on the North-East edge of the city. Less fortunately, that area is under curfew from nightfall to sunrise, with all the gates shut. I'll have to skulk in an alley until night, do the deed, and then get back to the alley and wait for morning. Still, Cutty says Gilder's got plenty of money. Not for much longer, either way...
The town house has three floors. The guard room is on the ground floor. The second floor has guest rooms and an audience chamber. Gilder's private rooms are on the top floor.

Objectives:

*Kill Lady Gilder.
*Steal 500 loot.
*Get back to the alley.

Additional at Hard difficulty:
*Steal 1000 loot.

Additional at Expert difficulty:
*Steal 1250 loot.
*Steal the Golden Skull of Gilder.

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* Comments, Features and "Unintended Features" (AKA Bugs) *

Sometimes, when starting the mission, a warning box will appear, saying someting about "getmass". I think it only happens when you run it from DromEd, which you shouldn't be doing, because then you don't get to see the fiction objectives, difficulty levels, stats etc. Anyway, I know about this, and IT IS A FEATURE, NOT A BUG! No, really. Honestly...
Just click "cancel" and the level will work fine. It's not so much an error as Thief detecting something which it thinks could be an error. (For detail fans, I set something to have a mass of 0 so it would stay where it was, and it seems Thief checks for weightless things and thinks they are errors. Sort of logical.)

Do not try to look at the map! The game will freeze! I tried to make a map, but I couldn't get it to work.

There were *supposed* to be Edible Shrooms in the level, but they won't work no matter what I do. The same for guards with fire arrows. I could get them working in DromEd, but when you saved and loaded, they were back to normal. I tried saving the .gam, but I still can't get it to work. Pity - there's nothing quite like being chased by 4 archers with fire arrows while eating mushrooms :)
(Note - I think I know what I did wrong now. But you'll just have to wait for my next map :)

I would have liked to make the outside area more detailed, but the framerate was already through the floor on my Voodoo2. Oh well. It's so dark you barely notice the completely blank walls... :(

Want to report bugs? Complain about how hard it is? Offer me a job as a level designer? (yeah, right). Well, E-mail me at my contact adress above. Or at someone else's adress, but don't be suprised if I don't reply.

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* Copyright *

This level is (c) by Ben Meadows, 4th June 1999.

Distribution of this level is allowed as long as it is free and the package is kept intact, including this unmodified file. You may not include this level to any map pack without my permission.

This level was not made and is not supported by Looking Glass Studios or Eidos Interactive.