The Results of the 1999 Survey

Return to the Cathedral

Return to the Cathedral (RTC). Use the talismans and enter the Cathedral. Grab the Eye. Face the fact that the Eye is a sadistical thing with an odd sense of humor. Try to backdoor, and find a really well designed cloister, inhabitated by friendly Zombies, spooky Apparitions, and scary Haunts. And you meet Murus, who wants you to find some things for him, and to do some odd things (depending from the difficulty.) The search for the items of Murus guarantees that you will most probably enter almost every room of the cloister. And finally, you get your reward. Even though your exit is probably very unsneaky, it is fun to blow the gate open, to leave via the front entrance, or to leave via the roof. And finally, the greatest reward for finishing the mission is a really great cutscene.

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

Descriptive Data about this mission

The mean score is with 7.25 not very high. It is obviously not one of the most preferred missions of the game, but it is the top score of the non human missions. The modalvalue of 10 is definitely low. One more interesting point: The second often given rating was place 1 (25 people gave the mission the rating 1). The StD of 3.79 is the largest of the missions. It indicates that the subjects were not of one common opinion about the mission.

The distribution of the scores

Score	N	%	Y-axis: "N", X-axis: "Score"
1	25	11.1
2	11	4.9
3	7	3.1
4	19	8.4
5	17	7.6
6	15	6.7
7	19	8.4
8	16	7.1
9	17	7.6
10	26	11.6
11	16	7.1
12	19	8.4
13	19	8.0

Notice the fact that this mission is definitely not normal distributed, it seems to be more a two-peaked or a equal distribution. The two-peaked distribution would have the peaks on the scores 1 and 10. That would mean that the people either loved or disliked the mission. The equal distribution would suggest that the differences between the scores is only caused by random effects.

The mission correlates highly positive with 'THC' (.20 **). It is somehow obvious why: It is almost the same place, and both are mainly Undead missions, and additional to these facts both are designed by the same level designer. 'RTC' correlates highly negative with most of the Human missions: With 'Training' (-.28 **), 'Bafford' (-.32 **), 'Assassins' (-.29 **), 'Sword' (-.14 *), 'Undercover' (-.30 **). These correlations are amazingly high, if I may ignore the low correlation with 'Sword'. They are a good indication that the 'Undead/Human' hypothesis might indeed have some explanatory value - but they indicate also that it is not the 'humanity' of a mission that makes it opposite, but its realism. The not so realistic human missions (Cragscleft and Sword) correlated not so highly negative with 'RTC' as the very realistic missions did. It is also interesting that 'RTC' does not correlate in any significant way with the Trickster beast missions.

'RTC' correlates also relatively highly with some of the other variables: With the rating for the least preferred mission (.29 **) That means that the people who gave RTC a lower rating did the same with the least preferred mission. This time the correlation is amazingly high. It correlates also with the preferred difficulty (-.16 *). That means: People who preferred the normal difficulty mode gave 'RTC' a lower score. This is the first time that this variable correlates significant with one of the missions; so, I have a closer look at that variable. The preferred difficulty correlates with the number of times played (.19 **) (the more times played, the higher the preferred difficulty mode) and - most interesting! - with the education (-21 **) (the higher the educational level, the higher the preferred difficulty mode!). Very interesting. :-) 'RTC' correlates also highly with the number of times played (-.15 *) (the higher the number of times played the higher the rating for 'RTC').

Now, a short analysis of the people who enjoyed 'RTC': These people gave the realistic missions a lower score. They seemed to enjoy the very closely related mission 'THC', maybe because the architecture and the kind of monsters were similar. They played the game many times. They had a high educational level. They gave the least preferred mission a good score. They, dear interested reader, could indeed be the people who replay the game for several times, and who enjoyed the entire game really much.

Comments

Short Summary

The positive and negative comments seemed to be in a equal number. The negative comments were not as primitive as we know them from the other undead-missioons. No one simply shouted that he hated Undead. :-)

The positive points were about the scaryness of the place. About the fact that the Undead were not annoying here. About the replayability of the mission. About the changing objectives and about Brother Murus.

The negative comments were about the difficulty of this mission, about the toughness of the Haunts. About the scaryness of the place. About the fact that it was, again, one of the 'Undead-missions'.

Positive Comments

Scary.
Great level design (objective and architecture. Especially the design of the Cathedral itself.)
'Shivers! Many shivers, great!'
Brother Murus. Brother Murus as a 'tour guide'.
The Undead. The Haunts.
The high difficulty.
'Ah, poetry in level design. Absolutely terrifying.'
'Scared silly almost the whole time I was there.'
'The scariest most involvin game settin Aye ever had. The sound alone made me love Thief.'
The changing objectives.
Very rewarding once finished.
The replayability.
'I actually shit myself when all the ghosts charged out when I got the eye.'
The possibility to finish the mission in the 'Ghost-way' (in < 5 minutes, leaving through the main entrance). Or over the roof. (= Freedom how to finish the mission.)
'Scary! Honestly this level gave me nightmares. I played with white knuckles!!'

Negative Comments

Brother Murus.
The praying book was too well-hidden.
The Undead. The Haunts. Too many enemies in the Cathedral.
'Heh... If I want action I would rather play Duke 3D. Thief must be a game with puzzles!!!'
The changing objectives were not consistant to the storyline.
Too hard.
Garrett should have had commentary on Murus' missions.
So scary that some people did not want to replay it.
Too few arrows.
The monsters are too tough.

Too much fighting. Carrying Renault and Martello to the graveyard.
Where is the blackjack?
'Impossible to play. From this level on, the game goes drastically downhill.'

Some personal comments

Yes. Writing this page was far more fun than the last one. :-) Because the data could be analysed in some various ways, and because the rating of this mission was not so striktly opposite to my own.

I love 'RTC'. It scared me like hell, as I played it for the first time. I needed several retries: Firstly, the Haunts in the Cathedral slayed me. Secondly, I ran in my panic after grabbing the Eye first to the closed main gate, and then into the cloister. Without any break, I ran to the cloister gate. And got slayed, again. Thirdly, I could not find the praying book. And the the candle. I sweared that I would not replay this mission. To explain this, I should maybe mention that I did not know the ways to kill the Undead - at this time, I knew only about holy water arrows. I did not know about the effects of fire arrows, mines, even broadheads, about backstabbing, or about flashbombs. Well... I was a newbie. :-)

But then, I replayed the game in a higher difficulty. I had already developed some good strategies against human opponents, and I decided to enter 'RTC' again, in Hard. This time I knew more: I knew that fire arrows and mines worked against the Undead. And I knew about backstabbing. It was tricky, but I did it. And I repeated is in Expert, about 2 times, I think.

Then, finally, I heard of the fast way to finish the mission, and tried it. After I had figured out that I should really hurry when playing in the fast style, I enjoyed it very much. Finally, I learned of the effectiveness of flashbombs against the Undead.

At this time, I was already testing the 'Lytha-way'. I found out that this was really rewarding and challenging in 'RTC'. Because it took time, and because the waiting moments in the shadows (until the place was relatively clear) were really scary: To test it, simply annoy a Haunt. His laughter in the next hours will scare the hell out off you. I know no better adrenaline raiser than sitting ducked in the shadow right from the entrance of the cloister while 3 or 4 Haunts are searching for me. Or than being hidden in the small shadows in St. Yora, while the Zombies and the Haunt patrol in the hallway where I sit.

The really funny approach is: Steal everything (act as a sneaker and don't hurt anyone). Then grab the Eye and leave through the main gate. Or over the roof. Or in the normal way, with the extra-objectives of Murus - but still without harming anyone, until he demands that you kill the Haunts.

'RTC' is the mission of the game that I am looking forward to play, when I start a new game. :-)