Chade on 15/10/2009 at 21:46

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Have you considered a career in politics?

Honestly, you'd make quite a good speech writer, I think ...

Chade on 16/10/2009 at 04:31

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I was trying to be polite ...

jtr7 on 16/10/2009 at 06:55

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Wheeee! Ridin' the Burrick-Go-Round!

Buuuuurrrrrrrp!




I'm really embarrassed for these guys with their inability to argue directly to the issues, and feel they have to resort to OT quips when they've got nuthin'.


Republican? That's the first time that label's been applied to me! :laff:



Have they offered a link to show how uninhibited the world navigation is with this for a Thief game, or demonstrated how quickly and bug-free this could be implemented, or how it won't lead to 3rd-person world-building considerations, or lock the player into animation or automation? Those things can sell the idea better than anything they say. Damn Mechanists, screwing up our fair City in the name of progress, while the mainstream drools and wants to be a part of it, but all ending badly, worse than anyone can imagine, even though the Keepers had their warnings. :cheeky:






This all would've been averted if the simpler comments had been read with comprehension and without ludicrous defensiveness, deserving of guffaws. Instead of turning (paraphrasing) "It's not possible to build this in without impacting the rest of the game negatively" into (paraphrasing) "It's not possible. This tech doesn't even exist".

'Seest thou ever the circus, Garrett? 'Tis a most uncomely spectacle, with mischievous clowns and daring trapeze. And in the end, naught is ever built...'







We don't want it. We've explained why in different ways for different brains, giving everyone the benefit of the doubt they are intelligent and knowledgeable about what it takes to make it, telling you when you are misreading so you can correct yourselves, telling you your defensiveness has made you irrational (as evidenced by even more misunderstanding and baseless insults, instead of spot-on insults commanding respect) so you can calm down (lest the circus come back to town), reminding you of development NEEDS, and game-world changes that have to be made, asking you questions without receiving compelling answers that take the concerns into consideration when forming them. You don't like Thief, we get it... and we oppose views that treat Thief's strengths as moldy offal.

jtr7 on 16/10/2009 at 08:51

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Ya know, I don't mind making a total ass of myself, or being an asshole, when I feel I'm standing up for a good cause. Funny thing is, I've noticed that it's like yawning...it's contagious.

What you guys call "progress" is tacking on old game mechanics from a hundred other games INSTEAD OF developing things for the game that keep Thief unique, such as making The City and Garrett's playground finally look like the cutscenes, or giving the armed AIs the weaponry in the cutscenes and mentioned in the fiction. Those animations are more precious and Thiefy. I'd rather see time spent on quadrupeds! We haven't had quadrupeds! Garrett has yet to rob the Cash Pits of Dreckboun, Fendon, and Sunnyfair, with the famous Bear Pits.

Making Garrett navigate smoother, like improving mantling greatly, restoring ropes and adding dynamism and chains, too. Adding ladder climbing that school children could do. I was crawling all over the playground and park equipment from 5 years of age until I was 12. I was rarely swinging on the swings but climbing the chains, climbing the poles holding them up, jumping out of the swing forward and backward. And I would walk up the inside of a slide's ladder and climb around at the top, or go down the slide beneath it, grasping the sides in either hand and walking them down; I would play on the monkey bars by never swinging backwards to gain momentum, moving only forward, sometimes skipping two bars (which meant a split-second where neither hand was touching a bar, until I grew some more), climbing on top and walking across, and yes, climbing horizontally in 360-degrees around the vertical ladders. I used my youngster skills to climb natural gas pipes onto the rooftops of strip malls. The same techniques made tree-climbing fun, going around the trunk, stepping from branch to branch, stepping over onto a neighboring tree growing close enough. And at 13 I made a zipline between two trees after watching Never Say Never Again with Sean Connery, buying nylon cord and pulleys. I didn't cut branches off the trees or build a ladder or anything, just strung the line with the pulleys on it. I needed to make better handles, but nylon cord loops worked well enough for a start. And I'm CLUMSY! All I needed was a strong enough grip.

I took, and take, this stuff for granted and had no idea that 30 years later it would be inconceivable to someone making virtual "playgrounds".


Thief 4 could use serious upgrades in mission maps, weapon-use animations, varied and heavier writing such as the lacking dark poetry of the Pagans and a rule to never use the word "bes" again. Character animations need to look as natural as possible, since EM's not using mo-cap. Ambient sound needs to mask other sounds, but if the player can hear Garrett's footfalls, the nearby AIs need to if it's not so faint. We need a return of the ol' flora and fauna, and the creatures could look better than imaginable, unless they're working on a Garrett model to drag around like a stiff marionette, regardless of influence on the camera. There are many things that should be restored and then expanded upon, and the animator would do better to work on creatures (spiders, burricks, and craymen, dammit! And better frikkin' undead!). Bioluminescent 'shrooms! Hand Mages and their elemental attacks, fighting their corrupt brethren, the Necromancers. You know, story and plot and world-building. Can't have enough of that! A restoration of the Thief machinery that was ever-present in TDP--in the sealed-off Old Quarter, too, which was over fifty years prior to the Bafford job. A restoration of the vast sewer tunnels! The entire layered infrastructure of the OLD City needs restoring and then built upon in a new direction that doesn't overwhelm the familiar. I'm sorry, but these are more important to me, and EM has one-and-a-half years left, without two-thirds of the team in place, yet. Understand? I know no one believes those statistics, even though EM's got them listed on their recruitment site and Twitter page. If it was double the team size, and double the development time, I'd still be against so-called innovation and progress, that really is borrowing from other games, in other genres, for a different audience. Be innovative within the ethos, aesthetics, and world-building. Innovative in ways no other game has tried that will increase the sense of dread, stifling, entrapment, claustrophobia, and yet, with increased navigation--without animation worries!--that also doesn't make Garrett an acrobatic, rock-climbing, parkour-running dynamo.

It's not yet possible to quickly build and debug a full set of animations to match the player character's mobility without the body being just another HUD element to reassure players. More stuff intruding on the screen, distracting from the view. Prove me wrong with video.

Chade on 16/10/2009 at 21:01

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Hey man, that was only half snark. I honestly think that with a bit of learning/practise/whatever you'd be quite good!

I might weigh in a bit more substantially in a couple of days when I've got more time ...