A Keeper of the Prophecies
a Thief 2 campaign by frobber
Episode 4: Oracle of the Prophets

oracle_v1f.zip – July 17, 2005

==========================================================================
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 (Required)

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)

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 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

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
TheNightTerror


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_v1d.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

oracle_v1a.zip – December 20, 2003 – Initial Release
oracle_v1b.zip – December 30, 2003 – Minor magma chamber terrain change. Minor AI tweaks.
oracle_v1c.zip – May 6, 2005, Made “Judy” undroppable; the pocket watch now works as a compass.
oracle_v1d.zip – July 14, 2005, Updates in preparation to become part of the complete campaign release.
oracle_v1e.zip – July 17, 2005, Judy could be tossed away. No longer possible.
Oracle_v1e.zip – July 20, 2005. Revised ending.


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 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…

At 65 MPH on a commuter train, Ashland to Boston, MA
Waiting at South Station in Boston for a train
At 550 MPH Flying to and from Washington
Waiting at various airline terminals
At 140 MPH on the Accela train between Boston and Washington DC
Waiting at Union Station Washington DC
Various restaurants while waiting for food
Various northern Virginia hotel rooms instead of sleeping
Back seat of various airport limousines
Once in a while on my living room sofa while watching TV


Enjoy!