theBlackman on 22/1/2010 at 01:57
Good book. I've read it, among others, and the manual actually does clue you in to the play mode and intent.
As for the controls, in the options menu of TDP/Gold and TMA you have a choice of Unreal, Thief default, and Quake. No reason for that UNLESS THEY ARE DIFFERENT.
Chade on 22/1/2010 at 02:05
The differences were minor even ten years ago, and interfaces have been getting increasingly standardised and streamlined ever since.
EDIT:
The options menu in T1/2 does nothing to prove that modern games require manuals, because:
1) T1/2 are not modern games.
2) The player only needs to know how to move forward and change direction before playing: once he knows these commands he can then navigate whatever parts of the game will teach him the rest. These commands do not differ between modes.
3) The options menu contains exactly the same out-of-context instruction that the manual gives you.
Bakerman on 22/1/2010 at 07:58
Am I the only one who just jumps in and presses buttons to see what they do? There's a finite number of keys on a keyboard... granted it's no console controller but the control scheme for first-person action games is standardised enough that there's no basic requirement to RTFM to begin playing. Also, a good number of systems should be intuitive enough that you don't need to read the manual beforehand to understand how they function. For example, fall damage works basically the same way as it does in real life. So do, to some extent, AI senses. You don't need to read all about Thief's AI, its ramp-up/down levels, FOV cones, and the way it processes movement, light and darkness to understand the ideal way to go about avoiding being noticed.
That's as it should be. You're not learning how to fly a spaceship; you shouldn't have to be subjected to a lecture before you immerse yourself in the world and gameplay.
Now, I guess the CTL does obey the common-sense nature of other systems... especially if given verbal cues, it does make sense that if you murder people in a particular location, they'll be a bit suspicious around there for a while (I like the idea of murder becoming something serious again... in almost every other game it's completely divorced from consequence or gravity). what I take exception at is the feedback loop it creates in gameplay. To an extent Thief does this already - as you start to fail at being stealthy, guards become more alert, which makes it more likely that you'll fail at being stealthy... but that feedback loop is the game, it's the meat of each individual encounter and level... you have to balance on the edge of failing just enough to complete your objectives and failing so badly that you can't complete them. Adding a meta-feedback element over the top, which spreads throughout the entire game, not just a single mission or encounter, isn't something I'd immediately jump on. I acknowledge it could be carefully balanced to make sure it's not making things ridiculous, but at what point does it cross the line from unnoticable to too noticable?
Brian The Dog on 31/1/2010 at 14:51
I would have thought that level design would dictate how much killing was allowed - no killing was allowed in the first mission of T2 (which helped, from a design perspective, to get new players into the genre easily), whereas some of the undead levels in T1 were kill whatever you like (e.g. Lost City, Bonehoard).
If you talking specifically about the City Hub "level" which they used in Thief III, then (a) as jtr said, the devs took pains to encourage the player to play sneakily via the feedback from the Fences, and (b) it would be problematic from a playtesting point of view. But they COULD do it if they did good enough level design (which is true about most things in Thief!).
One thing as a developer you would need to take into account is that the people at TTLG are mostly the hard-core fans who know how to play Thief in general. They need to make the game playable and enjoyable to new players. T1 and T2 did this by only introducing the no-human-kills on the highest difficulty setting, which worked well. So if they did introduce a "City Threat Level" Feature, it would have to be on the higher difficulties only, as it would scare the new players.
jtr7 on 31/1/2010 at 20:23
It's not a problem, unless the game world takes after TDS. :eww:
