Sleuth Home - Message Boards - Newbie Questions

May-17-2006 02:45

I've already read the "welcome newbies" thread along with others on the topic, townie's hints. And I gotta say no one has given a conclusive answer. So let me rephrase the questions asked by many with a hope someone will give a proper answer.

1. When it says "so and so thinks he knows who the murderer is", it dosen't mean that the person actually knows who the murderer is. Then, whats the point of this??? Is this statement just meant to be a starting point for WEs for some detectives? It has to have some more importance than just a twist, after all your wasting a townie question.

2. When it says, "so and so dosen't know who the murderer is", does this mean that there is no chance of 'So and So' to know who the actual murderer is? I hope it does, because otherwise there aint any importance of a 'WE townie' except alibis and hidden people.

3. I've done alot of favors (hard level) till now. I'me doing ridiculously hard cases right now and was wondering how long will it take before I can do really hard, really really hard, and finally incredibly hard?

4. Lastly, i've been getting only hand equipments (about 2 types)and one head equipment while doing hard favors. Can you get shoes and coats while doing favors or should I buy them myself?

May-17-2006 03:31

1. I think the jury's still out on this one. Some are of the opinion that if a townie tells you "so and so thinks he knows", then that person will name someone either with a real or a fake alibi. Others, however, don't think you can count on this type of hint 100%.

2. Yes, I think that when you're told "so and so dosen't know who the murderer is" then you can be pretty sure that that person doesn't know anything. (Oh, and townies can also prove to be useful some times if you find yourself in a jam with everyone clammed and an incomplete list of suspects - although chances are of course that the people they'll name are the ones you've already found).

3. Haven't done the full test of these but the guess is that you level up after 10 successfully completed favours.

4. Sounds like you've just had a bad run there. You can get every kind of item from the favours, but it is a bit luck of the draw sometimes as I think what you get is just randomly generated and doesn't take into consideration what you're already wearing. Fortunately a lot of the good stuff comes from incredibly hard favours and since they're the final level you will get to see all the items offered on that level eventually. However, most of the top items are sold by the factions :)

May-17-2006 07:09

Greyling's answers are great. I have a few things to add to question 1 though.
1. I think its more useful for getting suspects if everyone has clammed. if you ask a townie, and they name a person not on your list, you can now go and interview them. Also, you will always have extra PE that doesnt belong to the killer. No reason not to have WE against people who arent the killer.

May-17-2006 09:31

Thanks for the answers. The 10 favors per level seems very probable.
But I really think some change should definatelycome to the "so and so thinks he knows". There aint a point having a "so and so thinks he knows" if the person may accuse a real or fake alibi. Quite frankly, there aint any need at all for this. I suggest that if 2 townies say "so and so thinks he knows" than one 'so and so' should accuse a suspect with a real alibi while the other MUST know a suspect with a fake alibi.

Please feel free to give your own ideas to make this a more useful statement.

May-17-2006 09:42

The point in our favor here is that you can always count on the townies to tell you the truth.

So if a townie tells you that the person knows nothing you do not have to waste questions/time asking that person anything.

If the person says they know something, they might be trying to pin the blame on someone else to get away with the crime themselves. Or they might have seen an innocent person walk out of the suspects place moments before the real killer picked the lock and killed them for missing the birthday.

I believe that there is always 3 WE unlike PE that can vary from 1 to 4. Two of the WE will point to the correct person and one will not.

I did an experiment once where I did an incredibly hard case without any PE at all (never searched the crime scene) and just used WE to solve the case. You can always trust that it will work as long as you plot out clearly which suspects to ask what questions of.

May-17-2006 23:55

K...I'm still pretty new here, so maybe I'm way off base LOL!!!

But as far as question number one goes, I have always taken "so and so thinks they know who the murderer is" to mean just that...they "think" they know, but it isn't for sure. The good thing about this piece of info from my perspective is that you know one person who in my experience will always have some kind of witness info - it isn't a gurantee of guilt, but it is a good place to start :)

I've also noticed that if you get this from a townie you better get back to that witness pronto, cause they are usually the next to get whacked.

May-18-2006 01:01

You townie hints are still useful.

My example is an incredibly hard case. Now suppose you have a really unlucky case, where you have 4 pieces of PE that are the same. You manage to get a complete list of suspects who don't have valid alibis. You have 5 suspects. You eliminate one through research and another through the PE. This leaves you with 3 suspects. If I discover two people who think they know who the murder is then if neither of them suspect the first two of the three suspects then I know the murder must be my last suspect, despite having no actual evidence pointing to him/her. Logical elimination.

I 'm not sure how clear what I just wrote is, but I used it before, and it works for me.

May-18-2006 02:45

I'm with Serena on this on in that the central word in that line is "thinks", and that it just means there's a chance that that person might know something useful - although you can't count on it :)

May-18-2006 11:38

I think it will be useful if the Sleuth God could explain it more clearly. Like on the lines of what R Anslett said that there can be 1-4 knows murderers out of which one should definately know, just like there is always 1 PE which points at the murderer.

YAAAY I finally got my image :D

May-18-2006 11:46

I do not think Sleuth Admin will ever answer to the definative on that question. That would defeat part of the fun of learning the game. We as players can speculate and by dint of experimenting discover quite a few of the game mechanics, but I doubt it would be a good thing for the "Man behind the curtain" to reveal too much to the outside world.

May-18-2006 12:12

I agree. :)