Dishonored is almost upon us. What space for Thief 4? - by SubJeff
SubJeff on 8/10/2012 at 16:28
Reviews and opinions are filtering in and there are mentions of Thief in relation to Dishonored.
We'll know in a few days whether it lives up to the hype and how much of a Thief gap it can fill, and if it really is good - what then?
I ask because I don't know how you can take Thief to a new level for Thief 4. Unless they are really, really sticking to the Thief 1 and 2 formula, super-refining it, making it really lean, really hard, really tense. Very high quality AI and a tight movement model that is both realistic and flexible, hard to master but most elegant and deep. A new darkness, sinister and wretched, grim and diabolical with mature and emotionally engaging characters and story. A screwed up dark romance, an addiction, a disturbing madness.
I just can't imagine what they can do that won't pale in comparison to Dishonored.
Of course I haven't played it yet but I've talked about enhancements to the Thief skill/toolset before and we know that Dishonored does this in a similar fashion.
Albert on 8/10/2012 at 19:11
Also, the second thing is longevity. Most titles these days (regardless of who is making them) are less than likely to have any modification capabilities tacked on out of the box besides the usual visuals modifications. I'm just saying... Will Dishonoured live long enough to see a map editor like the Thief games? Because from what I've seen, there are some amazing ideas in the first mission alone that peak my interest in playing this (If I only had a new GPU or 7th gen. system), but unlike Thief, this game will probably only be as fun to replay as the options present. But we'll see, we'll see... ;)
Hit Deity on 11/10/2012 at 21:18
So far, I find Dishonored to be really good and very intense. And I've only played a little bit (like the first 3 missions) and there is a lot of potential. The only way I could see it getting a real boost is if they incorporate some darkness in the game!! It's freakin' bright!! Nothing but daylight areas mainly, so far. But it's really, really good. Very fluid and fast, intuitive gameplay, lots of cool stuff to do. It was definitely worth the money, and definitely worth at least a few playthroughs, as you can do things so differently from one time to another.
Peanuckle on 12/10/2012 at 02:53
Improved AI is the best thing they could do for Thief 4. Imagine that a guard stumbles across a body you carelessly forgot to hide. Rather than going into search mode for 5 minutes then resuming his patrol over his friend's dead body, he runs to the nearest group of guards and rounds up a group of them, then they split into a tight patrol routine of the area, making it significantly harder to get in or out of said area. After a while, they spread out their patrol routine, but don't just go back to doing what they were before, because they found a freaking dead body in the place.
Oh, and they hit any alarms as well.
So not only would you have to be careful with killing/KOing people and hiding their bodies, but you'd also have to run interference on anyone who found a body, making an ever bigger mess in the process.
Great incentive to play stealthily.
Gabucino on 12/10/2012 at 05:35
Dishonored is the modern first FPS in which I started a second playthrough instead of uninstalling. If Thief 4 is at least as good as this, then that's all I can wish for.
(And it's "fairly obvious" that some of its developers played Thief.)
ZylonBane on 12/10/2012 at 05:42
Quote Posted by Peanuckle
Improved AI is the best thing they could do for Thief 4. Imagine that a guard stumbles across a body you carelessly forgot to hide. Rather than going into search mode for 5 minutes then resuming his patrol over his friend's dead body, he runs to the nearest group of guards and rounds up a group of them, then they split into a tight patrol routine of the area, making it significantly harder to get in or out of said area.
Making AI go apeshit on the player isn't very hard at all. The problem in stealth games is that doing so makes the player treat guard alerts as a failure state, instead of something that can be recovered from. This is a classic case of too much realism being the opposite of fun. Or it's a case of Thief not being Rainbow Six.
jtr7 on 12/10/2012 at 06:05
Quote Posted by Gabucino
(And it's "fairly obvious" that some of its developers played Thief.)
One of the co-founders of this very forum, Daniel Todd, a.k.a., Digital Nightfall, was a little ol' level designer on Dishonored! :cool:
Frikkinjerk on 12/10/2012 at 06:19
Quote Posted by ZylonBane
Making AI go apeshit on the player isn't very hard at all. The problem in stealth games is that doing so makes the player treat guard alerts as a failure state, instead of something that can be recovered from. This is a classic case of too much realism being the opposite of fun. Or it's a case of Thief not being Rainbow Six.
Mucking up a job so bad it causes organized sweeps is mission failure for a burglar. I wouldn't mind a more reasonable sort of tangential effect whereby enemy ai becomes more concerned with their surroundings, diverging from their regular patrol routes or stopping to look around at a whim (poor example: the Assassins mission in Thief). Guards that know there is a threat would naturally have more concern for their surroundings. I do agree though that realism shouldn't trump fun in a game. Video games are played to escape reality.
Renault on 12/10/2012 at 06:32
While there's a heavy dose of stealth in Dishonored, it still doesn't measure up to the stealth in Thief games. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, Dishonored is just doing it's own thing, creating it's own style and giving the player multiple ways to play. It's not trying to top Thief IMO. People will play Thief for the sneaking, but they also play for the world of Thief with Hammerites and Pagans and Keepers and The City. And (hopefully) Garrett. I don't think you really need to make some huge leap and revolutionize the stealth genre, you just need to essentially stick to what works (this is a sequel after all), maybe refine it a bit but create a compelling narrative, and put a lot of effort into designing some creative and interesting levels. In short, I don't think Dishonored will change or alter any standards EM will feel forced to measure up to with the release of T4.
Thirith on 12/10/2012 at 09:40
Quote Posted by ZylonBane
Making AI go apeshit on the player isn't very hard at all. The problem in stealth games is that doing so makes the player treat guard alerts as a failure state, instead of something that can be recovered from. This is a classic case of too much realism being the opposite of fun. Or it's a case of Thief not being Rainbow Six.
This is something that could be addressed in the game's learning curve - but it'd have to be done extremely well. Guards early in the game could be less competent and dumber, which means that if they discover a body they go into bumbling alert mode. As the game progresses, you get more and more guards who are better trained and more professional, so having them discover a body results in the guards teaming up, searching the premises smartly etc. By that point in the game, the player should have been trained a) not to leave dead or unconscious bodies lying around and b) how to evade the smarter guards.
