The Results of the 1999 Survey

Lord Bafford's Manor

Lord Baffords Manor. The first really mission of the game. The first mission where you could introduce baddies to your blackjack. And also the mission that was well-known as the first demo of the game.

The first mission of the game about that everyone agreed that it was a indeed a mission. It got very good ratings, and is place 2 of the missions of the entire game. The people liked that mission, and so far that no one gave it the 13 (that means that no one defined that mission as his least preferred mission).

[Descriptive Data], [Scores], [Comments], [Final Comments]

Descriptive Data about this mission

So, the majority of the people gave that mission the score 2. The mission seems to be not the absolute favorite one, but the number 2, even at this first look at the data.

The distribution of the scores

Score	N	%	Y-axis: "N", X-axis: "Score"
1	24	10.7
2	58	25.8
3	41	18.2
4	23	10.2
5	21	9.3
6	11	4.9
7	12	5.3
8	17	7.6
9	5	2.2
10	2	0.9
11	5	2.2
12	6	2.7
13	0	0.0

Well. What can I say now? More than 50 % of the subjects gave that mission indeed one of the tree highest scores. This distribution, btw. would lead every psychologist that I know to sheer happiness, and the wish to test its similarity to a normal Gauß-function. The mission seems to be a good one, no question.

And now continue with the highly interesting facts: The correlations of Bafford with the other missions.

Well. What have we here? A relatively high correlation to 'Training' (.29 **). A very high correlation with 'Assassins' (.39 **). Negative significant correlations with 'The Haunted Cathedral' (-.29 **), with 'Lost City' (-.18 **), with 'RTC' (-.32 **), 'Escape' (-.29 **), 'Bedfellows' (-.18 **), and with 'Maw' (-.19 **). Whoever Bafford gave a high score, rated the Monster missions lower. And, btw., with Age (.19 **). The younger the subject, the more likely he gave Bafford a good rating. Or, otherwise: The older the subject, the more likely he did not like Bafford so much. With none of the other variables any significantly correlations.

Another short and harsh analysis: Young people, again. And people who did not like the Monster/Undead missions. Hm. Another hint for the Human/Monster-hypothesis.

Comments

Short Summary

Well, as usual I did not quote everything. The quotes are hinting at the Humans/Monster-hypothesis, too, btw. Well.

The positive aspects are the normality of this mission, the dialogues of the guards, the atmosphere and the fact that this mission was a good introduction for the game.

The negative aspects are the easyness of the mission, the shortness, and the lack of flexibility.

Of course there were more positive comments than negative ones, but I am a subjective person, and so I tried to get the negative comments in here, too. I seem to have the wish to balance the positive stuff and the negative, at least. And the positive remarks were all very similar, if you ask me. :-)

Positive Comments

Freedom.
Human Opponents.
Interactivity.
Architecture.
True thievery, possible without any violence.
Great introduction.
Guard conversations.
Well placed shadows.
'A great mission! Everything is perfect. I wish there were some more.'
Good sneaking mission.
Nice level design and atmosphere.
'I felt the most like a thief in this one, and that's why I got Thief.'
'The essence of thieving.'
'Nothing better than stealing from a fatcat.'

Negative Comments

Too short and too easy.
Not very challenging.
Dumb and boring..
For beginners.
'The idiocy of the guards.'
Would have been more fun if other weapons were already available, i.e. rope arrows.
'Can't kill on Expert.'
'I don't quite remember this mission except it is too easy. I played Normal.'
'A good first mission, but not as flexible as others.'
Too hard in the first time.

Some personal comments

This mission seems to be loved by the explicite Zombie-haters. Some comments stressed the positive fact that here were no Zombies or Monsters. My wicked question is now, of course, if those people might not have found the Spider cave... hehe.

Well, it is indeed a good starting mission. So far I do agree with the ratings. Nevertheless, I would have never rated it so high, because it is really far to easy. It is dasigned for fun, not for scaryness. And I prefer scary levels. But, of course, I have played this mission very often, too. I enjoyed to walk on the roof, to lock up awake guards in the well-house or in the sewers behind that gate, and I enjoyed the roof per se. And of course the possibility to sneak through this level without harming anyone (Yes: That includes not blackjacking anyone.)