EM Teaser & Site Updates - Official Trailer Up & Latest PREVIEWS & Blog Fan Kit - by thiefessa
Balliol on 13/5/2013 at 19:14
"Cover system"?
Oh geez. The original Thief never used an automated cover system, and it's considered (by most) as the greatest stealth game ever made. That says a lot. Why is this even relevant? It seems like they're trying to pull in the Gears of War kids but using a game that isn't structured around intense action. It's like reworking Goldeneye into one of those card battle games that were popular a few years ago, they're taking a characteristic of one type of game and shoving it into a completely different type where it's unwanted and unneeded.
Quit your shit, EM.
Chade on 13/5/2013 at 21:46
Quote Posted by Brethren
I was surprised to see it even existed, but there's a Wikipedia entry on (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cover_system) cover systems. Kind of interesting, while most the games mentioned are (of course) shooters and third person titles, they reference System Shock as the first 3D game to have a cover system.
Note that the wikipedia article uses a more expansive (and sensible!) definition of "cover system". By that definition, any game with crouch/prone/lean commands has a "cover system" as well, including the original thief games.
I agree with wikipedia here. Particularly in the context of this conversation, there's no particular reason to believe that the dev is using the words "cover system" to mean "one out of an arbitrary selection of cover system mechanics taken from pre-existing games that TTLG hates". The team might be using "cover system" to mean any system which the player can use to take cover.
(Admittedly, if I had to guess, I'd guess they mean some sort of
modal cover system ... which is still a much broader category then "one out of an arbitrary selection of cover system mechanics taken from pre-existing games that TTLG hates".)
Quote Posted by Queue
Most games don't need all the silliness that's being put in, which I find too distracting to implement in the first place (I have to push what and what to do what?). I recently played Max Payne 3, and never once used bullet-time.
But ... bullet time has been Max Payne's most important "distinguishing feature" for the entire duration of the series ... you might as well say thief doesn't need shadows! :erg:
If you're game design philosophy leads you to reject the importance of
the core game mechanic that underpins the entire game series, I think you need to sense check that.
robthom on 13/5/2013 at 21:53
The teaser is nice looking.
Admittedly an FMV experience.
But shows some style.
I like where he steals the title at the end.
:)
The style and world space is going to be what concerns me the most.
The gameplay should be in the pocket after seeing what a good job eidos-montreal did with Deus Ex.
Although speaking of the Deus Ex reboot,
the only thing that DID bother me about the otherwise fine gameplay in that game was the obviously squeenix unskippable FMV's.
Which may add a little evidence towards squeenix involvement/meddling in E-M's design choices,
which may add evidence to squeenix meddling with NuGarrets apparel and world space.
IMO,
the reason PS3 lost the last console generation to 360 (and why FF has been so bad for 13+ years) is because Japanese game designers have been badly out of touch (at least from a western perspective) for years.
That could be all it takes to make a mockery of NuThief,
regardless of how good eidos-montreal are as programmers.
heywood on 14/5/2013 at 04:55
Quote Posted by Chade
Note that the wikipedia article uses a more expansive (and sensible!) definition of "cover system". By that definition, any game with crouch/prone/lean commands has a "cover system" as well, including the original thief games.
I agree with wikipedia here. Particularly in the context of this conversation, there's no particular reason to believe that the dev is using the words "cover system" to mean "one out of an arbitrary selection of cover system mechanics taken from pre-existing games that TTLG hates". The team might be using "cover system" to mean any system which the player can use to take cover.
(Admittedly, if I had to guess, I'd guess they mean some sort of
modal cover system ... which is still a much broader category then "one out of an arbitrary selection of cover system mechanics taken from pre-existing games that TTLG hates".)
Exactly.
It doesn't necessarily imply switching to 3rd person to show you hiding behind something.
I agree it's likely to be modal. But then again, toggling in and out of crouch is modal. So is a walk/run toggle.
Dishonored's stealth "mode" was nothing more than a slight crouch with a reduction in movement speed & footstep noise. It was a more realistic perspective than having the player move through 75% of the levels in a low crouch like some kind of crab-man.
I like the idea of a peek move: if you approach an object or wall while crouching and then hold the forward key while against it, your character peeks over the top. If you approach the same object while not crouching then you mantle instead. For peeking around corners, you stay up against the wall and press the strafe key near the corner. You don't need a toggle to "stick" the player to the wall if it's all done in 1st person.
Quote Posted by jtr7
There shouldn't be a "system" at all. Give the AIs "sight" and make sure the player understands not to let those "eyes" see the player model.
That is the essential element of *every* cover system.
jtr7 on 14/5/2013 at 05:12
Simulating an illusion of being seen or not isn't a "cover system". The operative word in the term is "cover". It's not about lines of sight. Cover systems I'd like T4 to get the hell away from are those dependent on objects--including terrain models--that exist only as a view-blocker for AIs and mark zones for cover to the player, with code applied to them for that purpose, so the world is littered with rubber-stamped objects perfectly suited for hiding the player model behind, even if feet, knees, elbows, shoulders, or the top of the head would be visible if the AIs could really see and understand what they are seeing. Keep the game world organic and break up the patterns. TDS tried to bring in moveable shadows to hide in, and T4 could develop that further. Don't broadcast "Hide Here" in typical ways. Even if it's obvious, like a 3-foot deep burrick tunnel in shadow off the side of a lit tunnel, at least that situation is tied to the fiction and not repeated so clearly and exactly in mission after mission.
Inline Image:
http://bulk.destructoid.com/ul/186770-preview-deus-ex-human-revolution-it-s-in-the-details/DXHR_Screenshot_GateCover-620x.jpgheywood on 14/5/2013 at 05:30
I agree that the level design should look natural and not brimming with architectural oddities like opaque hip walls under every hand rail.
Chade on 14/5/2013 at 06:08
jtr, I think everyone in the known universe would agree that EM should avoid your strawman cover system. Thankfully, there's no real evidence suggesting that's what the twitter post was suggesting. (Apart from mere existence hip-high walls ... which are a perfectly natural thing to sneak behind, as long as they aren't overused.)
I doubt you'll see the same "convienient" architecture littered everywhere in thief. With the ability to hide in shadows, the level designers won't have to rely so strongly on that sort of thing.
(BTW, I doubt the cover system in DX:HR had hard-coded "cover zones" either. I would bet it was calculated dynamically, similar to the implementation of mantling in thief. But that's not very relevant to our discussion.)
Renzatic on 14/5/2013 at 06:40
Quote Posted by Chade
(BTW, I doubt the cover system in DX:HR had hard-coded "cover zones" either. I would bet it was calculated dynamically, similar to the implementation of mantling in thief. But that's not very relevant to our discussion.)
HR was fairly clever about it's cover system. Most of the time, the objects you could crouch behind blended seamlessly into the environment. There was never a moment where you'd walk into a room with a bunch of conveniently placed, identically sized crates in the middle of a hotel lobby and think "oh, I'm about to get into a gun fight".
Mass Effect did this, and it was horrible. DX was much more smart with its level design.
Chade on 14/5/2013 at 12:41
Heywood, sorry I didn't respond to you earlier. I wanted to double check my idea of what a modal interface was first:
Quote Posted by Jef Raskin in The Humane Interface (via wikipedia :p)
An human-machine interface is modal with respect to a given gesture when (1) the current state of the interface is not the user's locus of attention and (2) the interface will execute one among several different responses to the gesture, depending on the system's current state.
Quote Posted by heywood
It doesn't necessarily imply switching to 3rd person to show you hiding behind something. I agree it's likely to be modal. But then again, toggling in and out of crouch is modal. So is a walk/run toggle.
Obviously I agree that the cover system doesn't necesarily imply switching to 3rd person (and in fact, I think it's more likely then not to be 1st person).
However, toggling crouch isn't what I was thinking of when saying the cover system was likely to be modal. Toggling crouch does obviously change the mode of one part of the game's state, but the different modes have a minimal effect on other user commands (it does affect the speed of and range of other movement commands, but IMO this is not significant enough to make the crouch toggle a modal interface).
DX:HR's cover system, on the other hand, very much met criteria (2) from Raskin's definition: the forward, jump, and even strafe commands, all had significantly different effects while the user had cover system enabled. Whether it met criteria (1) isn't so clear. I guess when I call a game's interface modal, I'm really thinking more about criteria (2).
Quote Posted by heywood
I like the idea of a peek move: if you approach an object or wall while crouching and then hold the forward key while against it, your character peeks over the top. If you approach the same object while not crouching then you mantle instead. For peeking around corners, you stay up against the wall and press the strafe key near the corner. You don't need a toggle to "stick" the player to the wall if it's all done in 1st person.
Thanks!
I was imagining something considerably less ambitious: with a dedicated button for peek mode. The player is in peek mode whenever they hold this button down. The player can move around as per normal while in peek mode. When he/she is in peek mode they will peek around any nearby edge close to the center of his view. Peek mode has no effect if there is no suitable edge or the player is going above a certain speed.
Getting rid of the dedicated button, as you suggest, would be awesome ... but I guess I'd have to play it to be convinced that it could be implemented well. I'd be worried that I'd want to strafe away from some surface, but the interface would assume I wanted to peek around it instead.
