Chade on 14/5/2009 at 02:09
One trouble I have when thinking of things you could add to thief's gameplay, is that poor Garrett is such a minimalistic bastard. He just doesn't like to try out new things. Weapons? Too stupid. Gadgets? Too complicated. Wall jumps? Just think of all that exercise! Improved AI? Are you seriously suggesting that the guards will even see Garrett in the first place?
Thief is a game where the environment mediates the interaction between Garrett and the AI. One way to add to the game is to have AI which introduce new relationships between Garrett and the environment.
So, this is a place to describe new AI behaviour which you think would be fun to sneak past.
Some random ideas:
1)
I've already mentioned this in another thread, but statues. The statue should look almost exactly like inanimate statues, and he should only give himself away when he knows where Garrett is. The idea is that Garrett needs to sneak close to the statue before he can tell whether it is alive or dead. Untill he does that, he won't be sure whether it is safe to move in front of the statue or not.
2)
On a mission intended to scare the player, I think it would be great to have an undead AI with "inverted sight". The AI should see in the dark, and be unable to spot Garrett in the light.
You can use these monsters in two ways. Firstly, stick a couple of them in a level filled with "normal" undead, and make sure the player can hear them coming, to give the player a couple of "oh shit, where can I hide now?" moments as he travels around the mission. Secondly, have an area solely populated with these creatures, so that the player can sneak as normal. Hiding in plain light should feel uncomfortable, and will also mean that the player tends to "hide" in the middle of rooms, right where the monsters tend to patrol.
I actually think this would be a great way to make reinvigorate the haunts, and make them scary again.
3)
If they do another "mages" mission, consider making the mission feel a bit more cerebral by making the mages use tightly-confined patrol routes for this particular mission. The gameplay will then involve less tension (is someone going to come around the corner?) and more puzzling (he patrols like that, so how can I get around him?).
To support this, and to fit in with the theme, you can have the mages use teleporters as they patrol around. Garrett shouldn't be able to use these teleporters, so he can't actually follow the mages around, but instead has to spend a bit more time figuring out how they patrol the area in order to make plans. The teleporters also mean that the mages can cover a larger area in a shorter time, so that it is easier for the player to sit down, watch the mages patrol around, and then figure out what to do.
5tephe on 14/5/2009 at 02:25
Actually, I think one of the best things that they could do to make the game more immersive is to make more realistic and varied behaviours in the AIs. Sure they were limited in the original releases, but I think there are all sorts of things that expanded power and programming techniques could accomplish:
* Guards that spot the drips of water you leave behind when you've been swimming, and follow them.
* Guards that 'fake' you. Pretend to have lost interest, then do a quick turn around.
* Rats that scurry out of corners, and alert the guards that something is happening in the cellar.
Also though, you could have lots more people wandering around, but with legitimate tasks, rather than just patrolling. I always wondered what all those Mages were DOING all night, just walking their routes, back and forth. If there was an astronomy class going on, or some students sneaking stores from the kitchen to their illegal alcohol still in the basement, that would be great!
Same with servants, and patrons of the Opera House: What if there was a show on, and you had to try to sneak in and out between the acts? Or attend the show, and nip out during the act to steal the locket from the lady in the Box seats, and then make your way back into the audience, without the ushers checking your ticket?
That kind of thing....
TTK12G3 on 14/5/2009 at 02:58
I think unpredictable AI would be wonderful. Someone who was sneaking down to get a midnight snack while our thiefy hero is making his or her way through the kitchen would be an interesting encounter. However, I hope there are more options other than to kill them or beat them unconscious. The AI having a small chance of fainting would also be an interesting possibility.
jtr7 on 14/5/2009 at 03:03
As I believe they should amass an ever-growing library of mo-capped motion-data to give the AI more life, and allow the creation of new AI, they should apply that to making the AI do more natural things, such as the previous example of coming down to have a midnight snack.
Neb on 14/5/2009 at 03:28
Benny, guarding a museum, giving a statue lip for staring at him.
kamyk on 14/5/2009 at 03:51
Totally agree with all of this. I love the suggestions by 5tephe. Unpredictable would be nice too.
And the idea about statues has been something in my head since I started playing Thief FMs. As the first FM I ever played, I swore the practice dummies in DP were going to move and get me, and when I realized dummies and statues in Thief were inanimate it took a small bit of the tension out. I'd love AI that you can't tell if they are actually AI or just inanimate objects.
I was actually toying with trying to make this idea work in an FM at one point.
Loved the practice dummies in DP2. It was like total gratification of my expectations of DP1.
Stath MIA on 14/5/2009 at 04:52
The more chaotic and varied the reactions the better! Make the AI react like us normal humans; for example, when a player with a weapon jumps out of the shadows in front of a guard they shouldn't just automatically react properly and attack, they should have a chance of freaking out and running for their life or (as stated previously) faint. The average person probably wouldn't react perfectly (even if well trained, which most of the guards in the City aren't).
Herr_Garrett on 14/5/2009 at 06:06
If unpredictable AI, then the "ability" to talk yourself out from some situations is called for as well. For instance, in the kitchen when encountering a student (while just looking around, not doing anything suspicious) maybe you could say that you're just the caretaker of something... AAAAnd, when the student goes away to ask the nearest guard to ask them if it's true (not alert them!), you'd have time to scurry off. Of course, your disapperance would rise the alarm, but this just another way to complicate the gameplay :cheeky:
Just imagine Garrett saying (in Stephen Russel's voice!): ' I'm just the plumber, hun...' :cheeky:
SirBlade on 14/5/2009 at 06:36
Guards with a memory, awereness of their surroundings and sense of time. If 2 guards regularly see eachother and suddenly one dissapears the remain guard should get more and more suspicious as time passes.
AI's that can revive unconcious AI's, so if they find their collegue 'sleeping', they will wake him up. Like in "Hitman - Blood Money".
A hive-mind. Probably just in one or a few missions with undeath or other strange creatures. All AI's are aware of what the rest sees and hears. Kill one, and the rest knows something happened to it and will come to investigate. Get spotted, and all know there is a thief in the building. This would make ghosting the prefferable way to get through.
5tephe on 14/5/2009 at 06:45
Oooo! Hive mind is a Good One!
I know this is bordering on veering away from an AI discussion, but several posts have alluded to it: TIME.
Perhaps Time could be a factor.
You arrive to rob a venue, and the guard shift is just changing. There are twice as many guards for a moment! (But more confusion, and conversations...)
Things could start off busy, but then lazy guards go to sleep, as their shifts drag on....
Perhaps there is a supervisor who does his rounds, and the Guards on one level of the mansion just sit in the staff room and play cards untill 5 minutes before he does his regular round....
The Students set up their still (1/2 hour of travel back & forth to the Kitchens to their shed) then run it (1 hour of mucking around in the shed) then they decant it (15 mins) then they get drunk and rouse all the Guards to round them up for being rowdy, which makes the end of the mission VERY HAIRY for you if you aren't done by then!
That kind of thing.
