EM Teaser & Site Updates - Official Trailer Up & Latest PREVIEWS & Blog Fan Kit - by thiefessa
Vae on 15/5/2013 at 09:57
I would say, The Trickster god is the personification of the primordial force of Chaos, with Constantine simply a disguised, transmuted form....and Viktoria being given life as a magical being from The Maw itself...The Maw is the plane of Chaos, from which the immortal Woodsie Lord hails, with demi-planes of Chaos such as Viktoria's Forest extending from the core. Viktoria, inherently, is a servant of her everlasting Lord...with her mortality in question, only to be discovered as the saga continued to unfold.
Yet, none of this will ever be discovered, now that EM has squandered such a magnificent opportunity...:nono:
jtr7 on 15/5/2013 at 10:06
I really hope someone interviews the original devs before too long, and asks the unusual questions, instead of, "How'd you get started in game development? How'd you end up at Looking Glass? Where'd the word 'Taffer' come from? How did you decide to make a game about a thief?"
Chade on 15/5/2013 at 13:57
Quote Posted by Starker
From the video: "A lot of the stuff that gets him out of the bed in the evening, it's about the challenge."
Right, not "he lives for the challenge" (a.k.a it's the only thing), but "a lot of the stuff". I would have said "one of the things". They used a little bit more emphasis then I would have put, but it's in the same league.
Quote Posted by Starker
Gamifying games so we can accomplish stuff while we accomplish stuff? No thanks.
So I assume you're equally up in arms about the ridiculously transparent lockpicking storyline in the thief 1, Garrett mysteriously losing whatever loot he doesn't immediately spend, his tap dancing shoes, the fact that he can blackjack a million people and never accidentally kill anyone, yet his victim's never revive during the mission, his magic backpack, and so on ...
Every game has these elements. You can't just dismiss things out of hand because their in-game justifications aren't perfect, you have to take each case on its merits.
I care a lot about showing players all the great things they could be doing while playing thief. I think it could be a good tool to encourage newbies to play properly and get the right experience. I think the downside to storing special items in Garrett's hideout is minimal. They will only affect a tiny slice of the game, and even in that tiny slice I don't think they'll be too annoying. They'll just be passive objects sitting in the background, unless it turns out that I care about the missing ones ... in which case, well, mission accomplished!
Quote Posted by Starker
Well, they have third person kill cams, so they definitely focus a bit more on the good old ultraviolence. And yes, apparently Garret will have trouble with four or more enemies, so it's not all combat focused, but as I understand it, he will be able to kill his opponents.
3rd person kill cams does not imply that combat is more viable. It's entirely plausible the kill cams will focus on asassination rather then combat.
Garrett having trouble with four or more enemies, and being able to kill opponents, sounds pretty similar to the original games on normal difficulty to me. Probably slightly easier (3 guards would have been pretty tough), but again, in the same ballpark.
You're also ignoring any news that suggests it won't be so combat heavy.
Quote Posted by Starker
That's why I said it is implied. You know how Garrett hesitates only slightly before agreeing to helping Victoria despite their less than amicable past. Doesn't it seem that he's a bit confused or his answer a bit forced?
I think that's a little flimsy. I see Garrett as not being happy, but not seeing any better options. Interesting discussion you guys had about this, though, but I have to say the discussion feels like fan-fic or wishful thinking to me.
For what it's worth, I think that using some flimsy excuse to recycle yet another Trickster or Viktoria episode would be a terrible direction to take the series in! Do we really want to ape some shitty TV serial (and in the end, everything returned to the way it always had been) every three episodes?
There is so much unexplored depth to the thief world. Why you'd want another game focussing on the pagans or the hammers is beyond me, especially as those factions haven't really changed significantly. They've had their story arc. It was a perfectly nice story arc, culminating in a nice fashion, putting each faction back in their respective box. There's so much unexplored territory in the thief world, EM should take the opportunity to use it.
The end of thief 3 left an enormous power vacuum in the city, and there is no shortage of organisations who might want to fill it. Secular power structures, the underground, the hand brotherhood, necromancers ... I'm sure there are others that jtr could dig out.
As for the Keepers, I'd actually love to see them return. I reckon you could really do something interesting with them, as they've lost their glyphs, lost their books, and presumably turned into a fractured shadow of their former selves, with different sub-factions drifting in different directions after the events of thief 3. They shouldn't be capable of pulling all the strings this time though, at least not initally, and if they do regain that sort of power, it would have to be a major story arc.
But the direction the series is apparently going to, focussing on the human side of life in the city (at least on the surface?), is a good one.
Starker on 15/5/2013 at 14:28
Quote Posted by Chade
Right, not "he lives for the challenge" (a.k.a it's the only thing), but "a lot of the stuff". I would have said "one of the things". They used a little bit more emphasis then I would have put, but it's in the same league.
Like I said, just one example.
Quote Posted by Chade
So I assume you're equally up in arms about the ridiculously transparent lockpicking storyline in the thief 1, Garrett mysteriously losing whatever loot he doesn't immediately spend, his tap dancing shoes, the fact that he can blackjack a million people and never accidentally kill anyone, yet his victim's never revive during the mission, his magic backpack, and so on ...
Every game has these elements. You can't just dismiss things out of hand because their in-game justifications aren't perfect, you have to take each case on its merits.
I care a lot about showing players all the great things they could be doing while playing thief. I think it could be a good tool to encourage newbies to play properly and get the right experience. I think the downside to storing special items in Garrett's hideout is minimal. They will only affect a tiny slice of the game, and even in that tiny slice I don't think they'll be too annoying. They'll just be passive objects sitting in the background, unless it turns out that I care about the missing ones ... in which case, well, mission accomplished!
These are entirely different things. None of these change Garrett's character.
Remember how there was a ton of stuff that wasn't pointed out to the player in the original games? Like for example the peepholes in Lord Bafford's guest rooms in T1 or secret optional objectives in T2. Now that's a proper reward for exploration.
Quote Posted by Chade
3rd person kill cams does not imply that combat is more viable. It's entirely plausible the kill cams will focus on asassination rather then combat.
Garrett having trouble with four or more enemies, and being able to kill opponents, sounds pretty similar to the original games on normal difficulty to me. Probably slightly easier (3 guards would have been pretty tough), but again, in the same ballpark.
You're also ignoring any news that suggests it won't be so combat heavy.
The original game combat was not a viable option unless you practiced it. Just watch a few blind let's plays if you don't believe me.
The new focus assisted stringing up of bone crunching blows sounds entirely unappealing to me.
Quote Posted by Chade
I think that's a little flimsy. I see Garrett as not being happy, but not seeing any better options. Interesting discussion you guys had about this, though, but I have to say the discussion feels like fan-fic or wishful thinking to me.
For what it's worth, I think that using some flimsy excuse to recycle yet another Trickster or Viktoria episode would be a terrible direction to take the series in! Do we really want to ape some shitty TV serial (and in the end, everything returned to the way it always had been) every three episodes?
There is so much unexplored depth to the thief world. Why you'd want another game focussing on the pagans or the hammers is beyond me, especially as those factions haven't really changed significantly. They've had their story arc. It was a perfectly nice story arc, culminating in a nice fashion, putting each faction back in their respective box. There's so much unexplored territory in the thief world, EM should take the opportunity to use it.
The end of thief 3 left an enormous power vacuum in the city, and there is no shortage of organisations who might want to fill it. Secular power structures, the underground, the hand brotherhood, necromancers ... I'm sure there are others that jtr could dig out.
As for the Keepers, I'd actually love to see them return. I reckon you could really do something interesting with them, as they've lost their glyphs, lost their books, and presumably turned into a fractured shadow of their former selves, with different sub-factions drifting in different directions after the events of thief 3. They shouldn't be capable of pulling all the strings this time though, at least not initally, and if they do regain that sort of power, it would have to be a major story arc.
But the direction the series is apparently going to, focussing on the human side of life in the city (at least on the surface?), is a good one.
Now who's writing fan-fic?
I would not want Victoria back, it's just idle speculation. I would not want keepers back either after they were shown to be complete and utter morons in the third game. In fact, I think the third game also did a lot of disservice to both hammers and pagans, as it made them a gamey faction you could gather "respect" for. Very GTA...
I would personally like the game to be about Garrett's new apprentice, and, if it were up to me, I would kill off Garrett in the next installment.
SlySpy on 15/5/2013 at 15:14
In regards to Garrett looking forward to the challenge of the job, I'd say it's at least partially correct. He does take a certain pride in how well he does his work, and along with the money, he'd also be into the context of what he was doing. However, as has been stated before, it is interesting to note that he has tried to retire on a high note before, probably because although he is the best at what he does, and he does take some pride in his work, he might find the work to be increasingly dangerous and tiring. Hell, he lost his eye over getting royally screwed by a client, who turned out to be a god, who came close to taking over the entire world. Of course this is conjecture on my part, but it seems pretty plausible that someone would have thoughts about quitting after experiencing all the crazy shit he had to go through just to get screwed, then to have to fix his own mess with his one dumb eyeball in his head.
That all being said, in regards to him wanting to steal things that he can't have himself, that he would look at with sentimental value, to the point of even keeping them around as decorations? That's not Garrett's character at all; it seems more like a cliche'd cat burglar from any earlier 1900's noir film or television show. I've elaborated on this subject once before, and I don't mind reiterating it. Garrett has never ever showed any signs whatsoever of sentimentality toward the things he has stolen. In TDP, he had to steal back an artifact with his actual EYE attached to it. Even something with one of his own organs attached to it isn't enough for him to want to keep it around. He even left the eyeball in the thing and got a new mechanical eye to replace it. Why would he suddenly give a damn about having golden goblets and candle holders in his apartment? It's even hinted at that Garrett looks upon any sort of materialism from nobles with a sort of disgust. Off the top of my head, I remember him introspectively mocking the pretentiousness of Lord Bafford's palace, as it has all of these gratuitiously extravagant decorations all over the place.
No Thief game, not even the polarizing TDS, has Garrett developing a complex where he must have all of the loot because he compulsively wants to hold it and keep it for himself. It was a survival instinct, and it's how he got by in life, even from his childhood.
Aside from a few other things, this character change is admittedly something that bother's me about this reboot, because this could be a red flag for how the rest of the lore, and even for how the central story itself could be handled.
Chade on 15/5/2013 at 22:02
Quote Posted by Starker
These are entirely different things. None of these change Garrett's character.
That's not true. I guarantee you that if they introduced some of those issues in this game, you'd be hearing all sorts of complaints about why is Garrett such an idiot now for putting on those boots ("I'll be trying to sneak around the mission like Garrett when ... THUD THUD THUD! How can they possibly butcher butcher Garret's character in this way? He's supposed to be a master thief!"), why has he become so absent-minded that he loses all his loot. Why does he have to earn his lockpicks again like an amateur. Etc ...
Whether or not these things reflect on Garrett's character is mostly a matter of perspective.
Quote Posted by Starker
Remember how there was a ton of stuff that wasn't pointed out to the player in the original games? Like for example the peepholes in Lord Bafford's guest rooms in T1 or secret optional objectives in T2. Now that's a proper reward for exploration.
Lord Bafford or Lord Ramirez?
Yeah, those are great. Other things can be good too.
Quote Posted by Starker
The original game combat was not a viable option unless you practiced it. Just watch a few blind let's plays if you don't believe me.
The new focus assisted stringing up of bone crunching blows sounds entirely unappealing to me.
Combat was absolutely a viable option on normal. I know, because I blundered into it all the time. Yes, you'd lose health and it was quite punishing. Yes, you couldn't afford to get into combat all the time. But taking on 2 guards (or even 3 guards if you have some healing potions handy) is something that happens to thief newbies, and the game is tuned to let them scrape through it.
Quote Posted by Starker
Now who's writing fan-fic?
Heh, that's probably fair! All I really want to say is that there's a wide world of opportunity out there to write a thief story which doesn't copy the old games. There's a lot of meat in the thief world that has nothing to do with the keepers or pagans vs hammerites.
(Actually, I did start to write a thief fan-fic at one stage, well before thief 3 came out, and it did involve the keepers! Although the plan was that the keepers wouldn't actually be real, they'd just be something the protagonist was imagining in his delusion that everyone was out to get him. But I was too young and undisciplined to see the story through, and I had no skeleton to organize myself around: in the last few chapters I wrote before giving up I was just kinda flailing around without any clue how the story should progress.)
Starker on 16/5/2013 at 00:25
Quote Posted by Chade
That's not true. I guarantee you that if they introduced some of those issues in this game, you'd be hearing all sorts of complaints about why is Garrett such an idiot now for putting on those boots ("I'll be trying to sneak around the mission like Garrett when ... THUD THUD THUD! How can they possibly butcher butcher Garret's character in this way? He's supposed to be a master thief!"), why has he become so absent-minded that he loses all his loot. Why does he have to earn his lockpicks again like an amateur. Etc ...
Actually, a lot of people have made fun of Garrett's tapping shoes. It's a gameplay mechanic though, to signal the player that they are making lots of sound, not something that Garrett does in the game universe.
Also, he presumably spent the extra money between missions (perhaps on the gear that you start with in the shop) and when exactly did he have to earn his lockpicks again?
Quote Posted by Chade
Lord Bafford or Lord Ramirez?
Ramirez, a little slip of the tongue there.
Quote Posted by Chade
Combat was absolutely a viable option on normal. I know, because I blundered into it all the time. Yes, you'd lose health and it was quite punishing. Yes, you couldn't afford to get into combat all the time. But taking on 2 guards (or even 3 guards if you have some healing potions handy) is something that happens to thief newbies, and the game is tuned to let them scrape through it.
Sure, you could get by a couple of guards that way, but combat wasn't a serious alternative playing style. The game was never meant to be played like Doom. Re-Thief, on the other hand, will reportedly have a much more visceral and action oriented combat.
Chade on 16/5/2013 at 13:43
Quote Posted by Starker
Actually, a lot of people have made fun of Garrett's tapping shoes. It's a gameplay mechanic though, to signal the player that they are making lots of sound, not something that Garrett does in the game universe.
Also, he presumably spent the extra money between missions (perhaps on the gear that you start with in the shop) and when exactly did he have to earn his lockpicks again?
Yeah, we make fun of it, but we don't take it too seriously. We don't insist that it reflects Garrett's character in any way, despite the fact that we could see it that way if we chose to. Likewise with the money issue, although there is no good in-game rationale for it, we choose not to perceive it as reflecting Garrett's personality, even though we could if we wanted to (oh, he spends money like he's got a hole in his pocket).
The lockpicks thing refers to Garrett not having lockpicks (or a whole lot of other equipment) to start with, despite supposedly being a master thief with a lot of experience. We all know this is just a way of trying to ease the player into the game, and we choose not to make the obvious connections with Garrett's personality.
Quote Posted by Starker
Sure, you could get by a couple of guards that way, but combat wasn't a serious alternative playing style. The game was never meant to be played like Doom. Re-Thief, on the other hand, will reportedly have a much more visceral and action oriented combat.
I think if you look at the information in the previews, both good and bad, rather then just focussing on the bad, you will see statements that suggest combat is easier,
as well as statements talking about how the game is focussed on stealth and the player won't spend much time in combat.
FWIW, here's my current expectation, although this could change quickly as more information comes along:
1) assassination will be more viscereal
2) combat without focus will be hard
3) combat with focus will be easier and "cooler", but ...
4) focus is a finite resource which can't just be spammed throughout the entire mission
5) killing someone will use more focus then just knocking them over and running away
So basically, they discourage combat not by making it frustrating and tricky, but by burning some of your precious focus resources.
Starker on 16/5/2013 at 18:50
Quote Posted by Chade
The lockpicks thing refers to Garrett not having lockpicks (or a whole lot of other equipment) to start with, despite supposedly being a master thief with a lot of experience. We all know this is just a way of trying to ease the player into the game, and we choose not to make the obvious connections with Garrett's personality.
Garrett is better than most thieves because he misuses the skills that he got from his keeper training for personal gain, not because he wants to become the best thief ever. Also, being a master thief doesn't mean Garrett is perfect. Not everyone is an expert in all the things. Getting proficient at something takes lots of time and keeper training didn't necessarily teach the finer aspects of lockpicking. Furthermore, Garrett grew up as a pickpocket, not a burglar. Those are two very different skillsets. All that considered, I'd say it's not a big surprise that there are locks that Garrett can't pick and that Basso is a better lockpicker.
Quote Posted by Chade
1) assassination will be more viscereal
*cringe*
Quote Posted by Chade
2) combat without focus will be hard
Hard for modern audiences? Like the combat in Bioshock or Assassin's Creed was?
Quote Posted by Chade
3) combat with focus will be easier and "cooler", but ...
Actually, as it's described currently, combat with focus will be scripted, not easier. You slow down time, select areas that you want to hit and Garrett does the rest. It's basically a cheat button.
Quote Posted by Chade
4) focus is a finite resource which can't just be spammed throughout the entire mission
The definition of sparse resources seems to have changed a lot since System Shock 2.
Just take a look at this preview:
Quote:
"The demo concludes with an arrow-shot to a weak slab of masonry (helpfully highlighted in Focus) to drop a hulking statue onto two men guarding an exit, followed by a quick melee scuffle before Garrett flees. Remember, Garrett's a thief, not a fighter. While he can use his blackjack to club a guard or two into unconsciousness he'll struggle when faced with more opponents. By spending some Focus, however, he'll just about handle three or four guards at one time.
Thief's standard melee fighting is still under wraps for now, but the demo's final scuffle is a Focus-fuelled affair that's a bastard combination of QTE and rhythm-action game. Our demo pilot manually targets specific limbs with a reticule for a custom disarm-and-takedown animation, before moving the cursor into specified areas on the enemies' bodies to counter incoming blows."
Does not exactly fill one with confidence, does it. Using your blackjack like a club in melee, dropping statues on people, taking down whole groups, playing a combat mini-game...
The first two Thief games did a lot to discourage you from the combat. Not only with messages like "You're a thief, not a murderer" and "killing is the mark of an amateur", but also by humanising your opponents. They were not just mooks to mow down, they were people with lives and families. They went to the bear pits after work, struggled with modern technology changing their lives, got drunk and chatted up the barmaid, and complained about the soot from the factories.
Chade on 16/5/2013 at 22:03
Quote Posted by Starker
Garrett is better than most thieves because he misuses the skills that he got from his keeper training for personal gain, not because he wants to become the best thief ever. Also, being a master thief doesn't mean Garrett is perfect. Not everyone is an expert in all the things. Getting proficient at something takes lots of time and keeper training didn't necessarily teach the finer aspects of lockpicking. Furthermore, Garrett grew up as a pickpocket, not a burglar. Those are two very different skillsets. All that considered, I'd say it's not a big surprise that there are locks that Garrett can't pick and that Basso is a better lockpicker.
Absolutely, but we're not talking about Garrett being the best lockpicker ever. There's lots of locks he can't pick even once he acquires lockpicks. We're talking about him not having lockpicks at all.
Garrett's been thieving for a while by the start of Thief 1. Once Garrett acquires his lockpicks, he uses them all the time, in places that Basso couldn't reasonably get to unless he was just as skilled at sneaking as Garrett (plus a better lockpicker!). There's no way the lockpicks can reasonably go from "something he only occasionally needs, and gets someone else to do whenever he does", to "you are going to need these on every second door you come across". Are we supposed to believe that Basso followed Garrett around everywhere Garrett went?
(And while I'm at it, it's not just lockpicks, but all the other tools of his trade that get slowly introduced throughout the game, although there isn't any attempt to tie that into the fiction at all ... LGS just does it and hopes to brush it under the carpet without the player thinking about it too much.)
Quote Posted by Starker
*cringe*
Agreed.
Quote Posted by Starker
Hard for modern audiences? Like the combat in Bioshock or Assassin's Creed was? ... The definition of sparse resources seems to have changed a lot since System Shock 2.
Some modern games are easy. Some modern games aren't. Combat in DX:HR was extremely unforgiving on Give me Deus Ex difficulty,
vastly more unforgiving then DX1 ever was.
As for thief 3, who knows? We won't have any way of finding that out until the game gets released, I'd say.
(System Shock 2 was something of an outlier with regard to sparse resources, too.)
Quote Posted by Starker
Actually, as it's described currently, combat with focus will be scripted, not easier. You slow down time, select areas that you want to hit and Garrett does the rest. It's basically a cheat button.
So ... Garrett performing whatever commands you enter on the keyboard/mouse, like every single other game in the history of gaming ... is considered cheating now?
Of course, there is some grey area here. When you enter a command, how long does it take him to complete that action? A tenth of a second (immediately)? A second? Five seconds? If it's a long time, can you interrupt in the middle? At some point on this spectrum, the game will go from feeling like you're in control of the character, to feeling like the game is in control.
If you look at mirror's edge, for an example, which people regularly cite as a game which had fantastic character control, the game often took control of the character for up to a second or so, while you vaulted over a pipe, rolled, recovered from a jump, stopped sliding down a pipe, disarmed a guard, etc. (The guard disarms were considerably longer then a second, actually, and IMO they crossed that line and felt like the game was in control ... but interestingly I didn't hear many people even on TTLG complaining about that, even though character control was the central aspect of that game.)
The focus combat is in some danger of crossing that line, but ultimately we don't know yet. And what's more, it will probably only cross that line if the player deliberately chains up several hits, so ... similar to the disarms in mirror's edge, I suspect people will take to it better then you might otherwise have thought. Anyway, this is all just speculation at this point in time.
By the way, I am
very happy that the player will not have a dedicated melee weapon. You say that using the blackjack like a club is a bad thing? Why? It sounds a whole heck of a lot better then skewering people with a sword!
And again, "taking on whole groups" refers to 3-4 guards, and requires using up some of the players finite focus resource, which is also something Garrett can do in the earlier games if he expends some of his finite equipment (health potions, arrows, fire arrows, mines, etc).
We don't yet have any information about how humanely the guards will be portrayed in this game.
Not too happy about the falling statue, admittedly.
