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Jun-13-2005 05:02

When given a hint: [suspect] "thinks he/she knows who the murderer is.", what does that mean? Does it bypass the requirements for two WE + no/bad alibi = murderer? Since the converse shop hint [suspect] "..has not heard or seen anything" means that you cant trust their WE, surely if they know, they should give accurate WE?

I should add that I'm playing at 'hard' at the moment, so the 'honest but inaccurate' WE that I've read about shouldnt come in to play yet, should it?

Perhaps I should just drop the case since I've only got one WE (from someone who thinks he knows'), and everyone in the game has irreversably clammed up on me! ;p

Thanks:)

Jun-13-2005 05:38

Unfortunately the townspeople aren't especially well-informed in terms of their guessing who among the suspects might know who the murderer is.

Phrased in another way, asking if a townsperson has heard anything about a case is ONLY useful if you haven't been able to get a full list of suspects. Whether or not the person they mention is said to think he or she knows who the murderer is or not know anything about the case has no truthvalue at all.

What you need to go by in terms of witness evidence from suspects is, as mentioned in one of the other threads, that in every case there will be 2 suspects naming the murderer and 1 suspect naming 1 person with a real alibi.

If you don't know or haven't been able to otherwise determine the alibis, you will need to get the 2 suspects to name the murderer to be sure who it is.

If, however, you do know the suspects alibi to be false, all you need is either 1 piece of physical evidence matched to that person, OR 1 suspect naming that person as the killer (or to have ruled out all the others) :)

Jun-13-2005 05:40

I need a course in speed-typing I see :D

Jun-13-2005 05:58

Thanks both of you:) I misread CFM's post to me previously. I hadnt realised that the false WE always implicates alibi'd suspects:)

*solves case, finally*

Jun-13-2005 08:49

Greyling, I disagree on the usefullness of the question. If a townie says that X thinks they know who did it, in my experience they always do think someone did it. (They might no think the correct person did it, but they will think someone did it.) If you want to verify this, experiment with the low level cases, where people wont clam up on you too quickly.

Jun-13-2005 09:03

Hmmm, guess I'll need to go back and check again, admitted it has been a while, as I dropped using the townspeople very early on, because their statements on this issue didn't seem to be trustworthy to me, but maybe they shaped up :D

Jun-13-2005 10:00

I have to agree with V Buster here, my experience has been the same.

The other reason asking the townies if they know anything can be useful is to restart a dead suspect list.

Say you open a case, and as sometimes happens, the first few suspects all clam on you. If you find a townie that gives you a name that you didn't previously have, the name will be added to your suspect list. You will still have to find a motive for that person if they turn out to be the guilty party, but at least you have a chance at getting a decent suspect list, instead of having to quit the case immeadately.

*still loves this feature, especially when hunting away from home*

Jun-14-2005 03:22

Oh, for a glorious second there you almost had me convinced that the townies had come around, but after a little testing, I'm right back where I was before still claiming that they are only useful if one hasn't been able to get a full list of suspects.

Test case:
Murderer: Chanda Hu
Hints:
1. Stage Manager: Kabir Zhang thinks he knows who the murderer is.
2. Tea Merchant: Zoe Zhang thinks she knows who the murderer is.
3. Fish Monger: Hai Zheng thinks he knows who the murderer is.

Since 3 people were named by various townies as possibly being able to identify the murderer, these 3 would ideally have been the 2 people fingering the murderer and the 1 person poiting to someone with a real alibi.

Now Kabir died before giving evidence so it could be that he would have said "Yes, I suspect Chanda, because I saw her doing this and this". However, neither Zoe nor Hai suspected Chanda.

If both of them were to have implicated someone else, regardless of the persons named having a real or a fake alibi, it would mean we couldn't work from the assupmtion that in each case 3 suspects will have witness evidence against them.

On the other hand maybe it isn't just 3 (have never really checked this), maybe more than 1 person with a real alibi is/can in fact be mentioned??

As it stands it may be that some are able to find a useful way of employing hints given by townies to their case solving strategy, I'm just not one of them :)

Jun-14-2005 04:17

Regarding to my LOW experience, the formula is that:
"Mr.X thinks he knows who the murderer is" >>go ask him for a motive
"Mr.Y has not heard or seen anything suspicious" >> no need to question Mr.Y whom he suspects