The Results of the 1999 Survey

Down into the Bonehoard

The Bonehoard. An ancient place where now extinct families used to store their dead ancestors. Now the ancestors are walking happily through the place, as our best friends the Zombies. Additional to this fact, some Burricks have settled down here and have founded some cute and happy Burrick families. To add more creepyness the the atmosphere, some former members of some expeditions lie dead on the ground.

The quests are relatively simple: Find a way to the catacombs in the north, grab the Horn of Quintus, grab two very valuable gemstones, and grab some additional loot. Happy hunting.

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

Descriptive Data about this mission

Well. The majority of the subject did obviously not like that mission. Nevertheless, some loved that map and gave it a really high score. But because of the relatively equal distribution of the scores, the Modalvalue has not such a high worth here.

The distribution of the scores

Score	N	%	Y-axis: "N", X-axis: "Score"
1	7	3.1
2	10	4.4
3	7	3.1
4	10	4.4
5	13	5.8
6	23	10.2
7	17	7.6
8	19	8.4
9	18	8.0
10	22	9.8
11	26	11.6
12	22	9.8
13	31	13.8

This distribution looks odd, at the first view. The Median of the distribution is 9, not a very bad score. That means: About the half of the subjects gave the mission a score lower than 9, and the other half a score higher than 9. So, this appears to be a mission that is - no question - not one of the most preferred ones, but also not the absolutly least preferred mission of the game. Notice the low gradient of the distribution of the scores, and notice the fact that there were many people (~ 10 % ) who considered that mission to be one of the top 3.

The correlations of the mission with the other missions: 'Bonehoard' correlates relatively high with 'Cragscleft' (.21 **), with 'THC' (.20 **). And relatively highly negative with 'Sword' (-.19 **), with 'Undercover' (-.36 **), 'Escape' (-.26 **), 'Bedfellows' (-.35 **), and with 'Maw' (-.19 **). As I mentioned earlier, it is odd how significantly these really low correlations are. This was caused by the large number of subjects. Well, nevertheless: The high correlations with Undercover and Bedfellows are very interesting. Maybe we have another factor, not only the Human/Monster-hypothesis, but also a factor with the special Trickster beasts?

None of the correlations with the other variables was significant.

Comments

Short Summary

Well, I am a wicked beast, as you know. So, I quoted with a evil grin in my face the comments about the Burricks that were from people who called them 'lizzard tingies' or 'dragons'. Comments that stress not really the communality of the person with the game. *eg

The positive comments were mainly about the puzzles, the creepyness, and the fact that the people loved the Tomb Raiderish feeling of that mission.

This time the quality of the negative comments was not so high as in Training, i.e. The negative comments were, well, written in very common language. They were based on the dislike against Zombies or Burricks, mainly. And about the difficulty to navigate in the place.

Note, once again probably, that some aspects are both on the negative side and on the positive side. What one loves, hates the other one. This is what I call a really good mission concept. :-)

I have put, as usual, the most funny and most extreme quotes in here. And tried to avoid repeating them.

Positive Comments

Scary atmosphere.
The traps.
Ideal Size.
The puzzles.
The extra-quests in the higher difficulties.
'A pretty level, but more Tomb Raider than Thief.'
The locations of the loot were good.
'Superb! I like this level. I like the big halls (the graphics). I like solving puzzles.'
'I liked the dragons.' - 'The dino beasts were fun.'
'Burricks and Zombies force the player to be sneaky for the first time.'
The huge number of Zombies was cool.
Very easy to navigate in the caves.
The talking face in the wall with the gems.
'The most adventurous mission, liked it a lot.'
The climbing to the horn.
'This is one of the really good levels. The designers have really been thinking.'

Negative Comments

Confusing.
The design could have been better, not only this grey everywhere.
Too many Zombies.
'I don't like those big lizzard thingies.'
'I hate it... as much I can hate some mission in Thief.'
Boring.
The 30 second limit of the holy water arrows.
The loot was too well hidden.
Too big. Too complicated.
The glowing mushrooms did not fit into the atmosphere.
Depressing music.
Bugged [probably the bug of the hopping Zombie skulls or chests on the broken stairs that lame the movement so much down. - explanation by Lytha]
'Hmmmmm... is that a thief level ???'
The design of the Zombies per se.
The fact that you can get trapped after wasting every fire arrow before you go to get the Mystic's Soul.
Too small.

Some personal comments

So... The place for my own rating, I presume. I did not give that map a really good rating. But I liked it, though. Hm. Maybe time for a odd tale from the crypt: Not long ago, I managed it to get a Zombie up into the Burrick caves infront of the Horn. I watched him happily, as he slayed every Burrick in there. The oddity was that the Burricks did not take any notice of that fact.

I loved the extra quests, even though the jumping part down to the Mystic's Heart is not very funny - either I am too clumsy or it is really difficult not to fall down there. But of course, I was pretty annoyed and scared in the first time I played it. As far as I remember correctly, I was almost ready to refuse playing this game ever again. But - somehow - I continued. And I became a fan of the Undead.