The Keep of Metal and Gold: Complete Thief Fan Mission Archive

Contest 5

(Get the scripts you need to play some of the Contest 5 FMs here: Contest 5 Scripts)

What Contest? - These are the results of the fifth small FM contest held in the winter of 2003/2004
There were 19 missions entered and the rules restricted the building area to 512,000 cubic dromed units contained in the space of eight 40x40x40 cubes laid out in almost any manner the authors wished (twice the space of Contests 1 and 2, eight times as much as Contest 3, and quadruple that of Contest 4). Authors had about two and a half months to build their missions before the deadline of February 29, 2004 (leap day).

Voting was finished May 7, 2004.

Prizes - A set of both FM DVDs to Morrgan or Vigil (they can decide who gets them) for Into the Maelstrom! Also, one FM DVD each to the 2nd and 3rd place winners, Ramirez's old fat Burrick for The Focus, Timon for The Relic, and Dark Arrow for A Guard Called Benny! The rest of you get the intrinsic reward of that warm fuzzy feeling of releasing an FM :-)

BONUS PRIZE! A new copy of Thief Gold to Gregorius for Fate of the Art! The game was generously donated for the contest by SlyFoxx, and the prize was for the author that placed highest in the Gameplay category who didn't win an FM DVD and who doesn't already have Thief Gold. After years of research, I finally figured out that Gregorius was the winner! He could never find Thief Gold in Poland, so we're happy to hook him up!

The Contest Results Tables - Here are a few notes about the following tables:

Click on a table header to sort the table ascending. Click again to sort descending.
Keep in mind that ALL these missions were enjoyable and good creations. Congratulations to ALL the authors! Some of the "bad" or low ranking missions just didn't happen to stand out in any category, and thus got lower ratings, but they are still good and worth playing! And you authors who made the "bad" missions, don't think that! They are worthy to be played, and we look forward to your future works as well :-)

The table column headers are as follows:

Space - How well the limited space is used (mission seems larger than it is, not overly cramped, not wasted)

Tech - Visuals (effects), conversations, spells, tricks, animations, interactions, complex systems

Desn - Architecture, textures, landscaping, decorating, realism, visuals, lighting/shadows, coloring, models

Atms - Creepy, spooky, tense, exciting, thrilling, reminiscent, provoking, shocking, nail-biting, light-hearted/gay

Sound - Eerie, creepy, emotional, funny, musical, fitting/appropriate, unique, voice acting, tense

Uniq - Unusual, far out, wacky, would-never-think-of-that, new, use of Dark Engine, different

Humr - Funny, hilarious, writings, voice acting, gameplay, taunts, looks funny, tongue-in-cheek, dry, LOL factor

Story - Moving, deep, well written, voice acting, immersive, pacing, draws-you-in, thought-provoking, twists, shocking

Puzl - Challenging, traps, clues, sequences, ingenious, mechanical, detective, keyhunt, button hunt

Play - Overall fun level, replayability, varied gameplay with difficulty levels, ghosting/sneaking, forced actions

Other - Your choice of another voting category which you feel is important to rate all the missions by

Raw - The final total of all the voting and rating all put together, but not yet adjusted for category importance

Final - The final weighted total of all the voting and rating all put together!

M - The final weighted total by known males

F - The final weighted total by known females

Authr - The final weighted total by professed FM authors

NotA - The final weighted total by professed non FM authors

Kid - The final weighted total by children ages 1-19

Adult - The final weighted total by adults ages 20-35

Old - The final weighted total by old people ;-)

Click on a header to sort Ascending, click again to sort Descending

Mission	Space	Tech	Desn	Atms	Sound	Uniq	Humr	Story	Puzl	Play	Other	Raw	Final	M	F	Authr	NotA	Kid	Adult	Old
Advnturs Burrick Boy, The	5.8	6.7	6.2	6.2	5.3	7.1	6.3	5.2	4.8	5.6	5.0	5.8	5.8	5.8	6.2	5.5	6.0	6.4	5.7	5.8
At The Royal Rumble Show	4.0	6.7	4.8	5.4	5.6	6.6	6.0	3.5	3.4	3.9	4.1	4.9	4.8	4.8	5.3	4.2	5.2	5.1	4.6	5.1
Bafford's Bone Collection	5.6	4.5	5.7	5.1	4.6	4.5	3.8	4.5	5.1	5.2	5.3	4.9	5.0	5.0	5.0	4.9	5.0	4.8	4.8	5.1
Fate of the Art	7.2	5.9	7.0	6.4	5.9	5.9	6.4	6.4	6.0	6.8	5.6	6.3	6.4	6.3	7.4	6.1	6.5	5.4	6.5	6.7
Focus, The	8.8	7.2	8.2	7.6	6.4	6.2	4.4	7.6	7.5	8.1	6.8	7.2	7.3	7.5	7.9	6.9	7.5	6.7	7.4	7.6
Frozen Mines	6.0	5.4	5.3	5.7	4.8	5.7	4.3	5.3	4.7	5.1	5.2	5.2	5.3	5.4	5.0	5.5	5.3	5.2	5.0	5.5
Guard Called Benny, A	7.2	8.2	7.2	6.9	6.2	8.8	6.6	6.8	5.6	6.9	6.7	7.0	7.0	6.8	8.0	7.1	7.0	7.5	7.0	6.8
Gussie's Dream	5.8	6.4	5.6	5.7	6.6	7.2	6.5	5.1	6.8	4.9	4.7	5.9	5.8	6.0	6.1	5.3	6.1	6.5	5.4	6.2
Haunting, The	5.9	8.7	7.8	7.3	7.1	9.1	5.9	6.9	5.5	5.6	5.5	6.8	6.8	7.0	6.8	6.8	6.9	7.8	6.9	6.6
House of Random	7.6	6.0	6.9	6.4	5.4	5.2	5.1	5.5	5.6	6.8	6.2	6.1	6.1	6.2	6.5	5.5	6.4	5.6	6.1	6.4
Into The Maelstrom	7.3	7.6	8.7	8.8	6.7	7.6	4.7	7.8	6.6	7.8	7.4	7.4	7.5	7.5	7.6	7.3	7.5	7.8	7.6	7.3
Midday Escape	6.1	4.0	5.2	4.9	3.8	6.2	3.9	4.7	5.1	4.7	5.3	4.9	4.9	5.0	4.7	4.4	4.9	4.3	4.6	5.5
Plagiarism	6.2	4.7	6.2	6.0	5.1	4.9	4.4	5.9	4.8	6.1	5.4	5.4	5.5	5.5	5.3	5.9	5.5	5.4	5.4	5.6
Properly Paranoid	7.1	7.2	6.8	6.6	6.6	6.4	5.0	6.1	7.6	6.9	5.9	6.6	6.6	6.7	6.8	5.9	6.9	6.6	6.5	6.9
Relic, The	7.9	6.6	7.8	7.2	6.7	6.1	5.6	6.9	7.2	7.4	6.5	6.9	7.0	7.0	7.2	6.4	7.1	6.6	7.1	7.1
Saint, The	6.4	5.8	5.4	5.8	5.0	5.5	4.7	5.8	5.9	5.6	4.9	5.5	5.5	5.7	5.5	4.9	5.8	5.8	5.2	6.1
Summit, The	6.8	6.4	6.8	7.3	7.1	7.8	3.8	4.0	6.0	6.0	5.5	6.1	6.2	6.2	6.3	5.3	6.4	7.0	6.0	6.1
Viktor Gaspar	7.7	6.7	7.1	6.6	5.8	6.3	5.1	6.4	6.7	7.0	6.7	6.5	6.6	6.6	7.0	6.4	6.7	6.1	6.4	7.1
Working the Mines	6.3	6.7	5.4	5.5	4.7	6.1	4.9	4.9	5.9	5.5	4.8	5.5	5.5	5.7	5.1	4.9	5.7	5.7	5.4	5.8

EXAMPLE: Click on "Puzl", and notice that "Properly Paranoid" won that category, but then click "Final" and notice that the mission only tied for 6th place overall (Puzl category was rated less important by the voters, and the mission didn't particularly stand out in any other category). Then you can also notice that Authors placed "Properly Paranoid" tied for 8th place, whereas Non-Authors place it tied for 5th place. Interesting, eh?

RAW vs FINAL: You all rated the categories as well as the missions, on a 0-10 scale. For each of you, I first averaged your category ratings, then I compared each category rating to the average to get the final multiplier. Let's say your average category rating was 6.6, but your rating for "Story" was 9, then the multiplier for that category was 1.4 (9 is roughly 1.4 X 6.6). What that means is that in your mission ratings, you felt your ratings for the "Story" category were about 1.4 times as important as average (remember, it's YOUR average, so this is very accurate).
Therefore, I multiplied each and every score by the proper multiplier, and then averaged all the results for each mission to get your overall mission scores, which where then all averaged together to get the entire contest results.

Category Importance, by Demographic

Demographic	Space	Tech	Desn	Atms	Sound	Uniq	Humr	Story	Puzl	Play	Other	Average
1. Male	5.8	5.5	7.1	7.3	5.4	5.1	4.3	6.5	5.2	8.2	7.2	6.1
2. Female	6.3	5.7	7.5	6.8	5.5	4.2	4.0	6.8	5.8	8.5	10.0	6.5
3. Auth Y	6.5	5.4	7.4	7.3	5.2	5.2	3.5	7.0	5.2	8.5	7.6	6.3
4. Auth N	5.2	5.3	6.8	6.7	5.3	4.8	4.3	5.9	5.3	7.6	7.0	5.8
5. Kid	6.8	7.7	8.6	8.0	6.9	6.6	4.9	7.1	6.9	8.0	7.5	7.2
6. Adult	5.2	5.1	6.7	6.7	4.7	5.1	4.0	6.2	5.4	7.6	7.3	5.8
7. Old	5.6	5.0	6.8	6.9	5.3	4.1	4.2	5.8	4.5	7.8	6.8	5.7

EXAMPLE: Click on "Tech" and notice that while the Author and Gender ratings were very close, there is a big difference in the Age group, with Adults and Old people rating Tech as not very important and Kids rating is VERY important! Similarly, Kids thought EVERYTHING was more important than ALL the other demographic groups (perhaps kids are more uptight about their games? Or maybe the adults have become apathetic voters!).

EXAMPLE 2: The differences in importance between Authors and Non-Authors is the greatest in the "Space" category (1.3 difference between 5.2 and 6.5), suggesting that perhaps Non-Authors just can't truly appreciate how hard it is to squeeze all that dromeding in so small an area, whereas Authors can understand what it takes and thus they value the skill more!

Actual Category Average Ratings, by Demographic

Demographic	Space	Tech	Desn	Atms	Sound	Uniq	Humr	Story	Puzl	Play	Other	Final
1. Male	6.5	6.0	7.7	7.7	5.3	5.6	3.7	6.2	5.1	8.3	6.6	6.1
2. Female	7.0	6.2	8.1	7.2	5.5	4.8	3.4	6.6	5.4	8.6	7.8	6.3
3. Auth Y	6.5	5.4	7.4	7.0	4.5	5.2	2.7	5.9	4.6	7.9	6.7	5.7
4. Auth N	6.3	6.1	7.8	7.6	5.7	5.6	4.0	6.2	5.7	8.1	6.8	6.2
5. Kid	6.1	6.7	7.8	7.2	6.0	5.9	3.5	5.6	5.7	6.8	5.8	6.1
6. Adult	6.2	6.0	7.5	7.3	4.9	5.9	3.9	6.1	5.6	8.0	6.5	6.0
7. Old	6.7	5.9	7.9	7.7	5.5	5.1	3.7	6.1	5.0	8.3	7.5	6.3

EXAMPLE: Click "Uniq" and notice that Males felt there was significantly more uniqueness found in the Contest 5 missions than Females thought.

EXAMPLE 2: Click "Final" and notice that Authors proved to be the harshed judges, dishing out an overall average rating of only 5.7 (Contest average was 6.1). Perhaps Authors have higher expectations and standards. Females and Old people were nicer, giving an overall average mission rating of 6.3.

BTW, these numbers are the average of the actual ratings given to the missions; they are NOT a reflection of how important the categories are, as in the above table. However, when comparing the two tables, some interesting results show up.

EXAMPLE 3: In both tables click "Space". Notice that while Kids felt "Space" was more important than any other demographic felt, when they actually rated the missions they gave LOWER "Space" ratings than the other demographic groups. Perhaps Kids wanted better use of space, and were therefore more dissappointed with the missions in that area. Conversely, Kids rated Tech more importantly than other demographics rated it, and they also gave it the highest actual ratings, so the above analysis may mean nothing or just be a coincidence.

Overall Demographic Category Importance Ratings

Category	Male	Female	Auth Y	Auth N	Kid	Adult	Old	Final
Space	5.8	6.3	6.5	5.2	6.8	5.2	5.6	5.6
Tech	5.5	5.7	5.4	5.3	7.7	5.1	5.0	5.4
Desn	7.1	7.5	7.4	6.8	8.6	6.7	6.8	7.0
Atms	7.3	6.8	7.3	6.7	8.0	6.7	6.9	6.9
Sound	5.4	5.5	5.2	5.3	6.9	4.7	5.3	5.2
Uniq	5.1	4.2	5.2	4.8	6.6	5.1	4.1	5.0
Humr	4.3	4.0	3.5	4.3	4.9	4.0	4.2	4.2
Story	6.5	6.8	7.0	5.9	7.1	6.2	5.8	6.2
Puzl	5.2	5.8	5.2	5.3	6.9	5.4	4.5	5.3
Play	8.2	8.5	8.5	7.6	8.0	7.6	7.8	7.8
Other	7.2	10.0	7.6	7.0	7.5	7.3	6.8	6.9

EXAMPLE: Click on "Kid" and notice that the "Other" category only ranked 5th for them, whereas it placed 1st, 2nd, or 3rd for everyone else. Perhaps this means that Kids have more specifics they are looking for (Tech, Atms, Play, Desn), whereas other demographic groups aren't as particular. As a side not, "Play" only tied for 2nd for the Kids, whereas it placed a strong 1st for almost all other groups!

EXAMPLE 2: You can see overall that the most specific or narrow categories (Humr, Uniq, Puzl, Sound) scored low for all groups, while the broadest categories (Play, Other) scored high for all groups. This makes sense, since the idea of "Gameplay and overall fun level" is certainly more important than whether certain aspects of the mission were particularly unique. It also reinforces the need to weigh the categories so that the final mission ratings are as fair as possible, so that missions whose ratings are heavier in the more important categories will have that reflected in their final scores.

Other Information
There were 61 votes sent in (the best turnout ever!), many of which were only partial (didn't vote on all the missions - don't worry, I only averaged in mission votes that were voted on). Many voters failed to provide demographic information, so here is what I had to work with:

Males - 39
Females - 6
Authors - 10
Non-Authors - 44
Kids - 9
Adults - 31
Old people - 21

As you can see, the demographic pool of information was somewhat limited, which creates a rather huge margin of error, so you may have to take some of the results with a grain of salt.

Some stats:
Average Mission Rating - 6.1
Average Category Importance - 5.9
Largest deviation from Raw to Final total - 0.1
Only 25 of the 61 voters voted in the "Other" category, only ONE of which was a known female (hence the perfect "10")
"Other" categories included: Length, AI, Cohesion, Replay, Detail, Thief Style, Afterglow, and just Overall Impression.

Click HERE to download the Microsoft Excel file I used to create these results. I've removed the names and emails, but if you want to know which page was yours (to have a personalized analysis of your votes!), simply email or PM me and I'll let you know.

Quotes - Here are some quotes regarding the 1st and 2nd place missions in each category:

Category	Mission	Quotes
Use of Space	The Focus	"Seems extraordinarily large for restrictions", "quite incredible how the space was used, I never felt squashed in.", "Good use of space", "Wow, a whole little world with as many twists and turns as a regular mission. I'm speechless.", "Incredible use of space, are you sure this was a contest entry?!", "it's amazing that this much could fit into the contest limitation.", "Much larger than any contest fan mission", "It felt huge!"
Use of Space	The Relic	"Lots of secret passages. Lots of things to do.", "The biggest contest city since Garrett in tinyville.", "The best Tiny city mission ever done! ... large apartments (at least they SEEM large), a hammerite church, a graveyard, a pub, and another thief closet all in one mission!", "Lots of things to do and look at", "Beautifully designed with a great use of space", "great small city mission with passageways", "Lots to do in a clever design"
Technical Effects	The Haunting	"Ingenious", "an excellent technical achievement ... Some hard work was put into this.", "The most technically breathtaking mission I've ever seen.", "Amazing, frighteningly amazing. This might be some of the most impressive technical work I have yet seen in Dromed.", "breathtaking effects", "Lots of technical wizardry makes it interesting", "amazing scripting"
Technical Effects	A Guard Called Benny	"The technology is really excelent", "The technical side was impressive.", "a good number of technical innovations", "Technically masterful", "it's impressive", "This was awesome! ... It's interactive", "Was very impressed with this mission.", "Multiple difficulty levels/choices (sword or bow) + store are nicely done.", "With the three different shifts and two weapon choices, the replay value of this one was amazing."
Design/Architecture	Into the Maelstrom	"The person who has done this mission has created a superior item of work, superious to many other Fan Missions and all Original Missions. Everything has its place, bodies and broken rigging, excellent weathering effects." , "Gorgeous, absolutely beautiful ...the view was incredible", "pure and overwhelming beauty; stunned by the ingenious lighting, the highly realistic textures, and delightful details like the bubbles that escape when a submerged box is opened. Would have deserved at least 11 points for design!", "Awesome Light effect, Awesome undeads, very good ships ... and the best skyview ever", "great visuals", "Texture use in this mission was very Impressive."
Design/Architecture	The Focus	"Very nice architecture", "really good Architecture", "This was an absolutely stunning mission", "amazing architecture"
Atmosphere/Creepy	Into the Maelstrom	"spooky spooky spooky", "great atmosphere", "gave me shivers and goose bumps all over", "Perfect atmosphere", "beautiful and atmospheric", "Magical!", "incredible atmosphere", "Very spooky and scary feel, definite Thief feel", "Good atmosphere. Was scared to move at first...that's a good thing.", "Loved the detail and atmosphere"
Atmosphere/Creepy	The Focus	"I really enjoyed the secret passages/challenges/Keeper theme.", "Great mission", "Good ... atmosphere"
Sound and Music	The Haunting	"Enjoyed every minite of this Mission.", "it was a novel game experience.", "beautifully designed", "Highly original", "Brilliantly done. Superb", "good and very funny"
Sound and Music	The Summit	"The haunted caves had great atmosphere", "It has got this awesome atmosphere so I played it for 5 times a day", "Actually makes you feel like you need to put on a cosy warm coat", "Loved the music", "Playing in this FM gives almost mistic feeling!", "it's got an ambiance that's hard not to appreciate."
Unique/Original	The Haunting	"very cool & unique idea! i loved it", "Truly original", "Now if only you could give the people wet willies, that I would like to see!", "This was defenetly a mission that surprised me.", "extremely unique", "Cool idea"
Unique/Original	A Guard Called Benny	"Incorporating an interactive poker game in Thief, who woulda thought!", "Very creative idea (being the guard).", "Creative idea ... overall a solid and unique mission.", "it's got a high replayability, it's very very unique", "Varied gameplay is fantastic!", "I played it at least a dozen times."
Humorous/Funny	A Guard Called Benny	"Really enjoyed it", "Should have made my other category 'NPC dancing'.", "This was great.", "above all it makes me want to dance. In fact, I will! \o\ \o\| \|o\| \|o/ /o/", "Great fun all around", "Priceless idea!", "Awesome! One of my favorites"
Humorous/Funny	Gussie's Dream	"This one had be laughing and balling my fists at it at the same time", "Great in-game comments", "The pleasant music and hilarious comments made breaking your neck almost fun", "english humour is powerful in this mission, beware!", "The comments were hilariously funny", "Hahaha!", "The 'Old English' Gussie is amusing."
Storyline	Into the Maelstrom	"I was stunned by its work from the start, pure story, didn't get ridiculous, well in the boundries of the thief world.", "The pirates references were well done.", "Written text was awesome.", "Great story line. Defenetly one that any fan would enjoy.", "Pirates and ghosts and a hidden cave, oh my!", "Ghost pirates? Always a good thing."
Storyline	The Focus	"Very well elaborated atmospheric story - it's a pleasure playing the good guy now and then", "a good story, intrigue", "an interesting story", "Awesome. I love missions where you have to figure out how to do or undo something to save the day"
Puzzle Solving	Properly Paranoid	"An excellent rendition of a 3-games-in-1 mission", "Highly clever puzzles", "Excellent puzzles, and not too hard as to frustrate the average player (me).", "lots of replayability, and some good puzzles", "This was fun - I figured out all of it on my own", "The picture puzzle was brilliant.", "The different styles corresponding to the difficulties should make it interesting."
Puzzle Solving	The Focus	"lots of little secrets and puzzles", "Some clever little puzzles", "Great mission, stuff well hidden and a great puzzle."
Gameplay/Ghosting	The Focus	"Made for ghosting", "Very nice ... game play", "Very fun to play.", "the guard placements and quantities were good, so was the treasure hunting.", "Plays very well."
Gameplay/Ghosting	Into the Maelstrom	"challenging but rewarding and inventive gameplay. Loved the puzzles", "exhilirating at times", "Great gameplay", "I came close to pants wetting, whether from fright or utter disbelief I'm not quite sure."
Player Choice	Into the Maelstrom	"I'll be surprised if this doesn't win.", "Incredible. I doubt I'm the first to mention that.", "This one will go down in FM lore.", "perfect", "Awesome! also one of my favorites. Loved everything about this mission", "Well done", "If this doesn't win, clearly, I'll be shocked."
Player Choice	The Focus	"Great mission", "When it comes to overall goodness, this one has it! It's got everything a mission should have", "some nice touches. Another solid mission."