Namdrol on 5/6/2009 at 08:53
It's not nostalgia, not at all.
It's immersion, the feeling that it's you there, in the screen.
And 3rd person can't do this to the same extent.
TDA TMA TDS(1stperson) might not have had perfect manoeuvrability but they worked as is evidenced by this whole forum, and I suspect if they'd been 3rd person we wouldn't be here.
Captain Spandex on 5/6/2009 at 10:07
Thief: The Dark Project is arguably the first 3D stealth game ever, so... we would certainly be here either way.
But that's no argument for stagnancy. Just watch Assassin's Creed in action. Wouldn't it be great to have Garrett similarly free to move? I'm not arguing for no first-person mode. I'm just arguing that third-person should be included. I, for one, can remember how fun the 'Life of the Party' level on Thief II was... but can you imagine if you'd had more freedom to move around, if you could shoot rope and vine arrows into wood and have a climbing mechanic for the ropes that wasn't stiff and awkward? Mirror's Edge is one of the better examples of first-person platforming, but even their ladder-climbing mechanic was testy and resulted in more than a few unintentional deaths. Third person is the way to go.
Yandros on 5/6/2009 at 10:17
Sorry, but I found nothing "stiff and awkward" about T1/T2's first person view, I thought it was the best movement of any FP game I've played. The lack of immersion kills third person for me.
I want to feel like I'm there, being Garrett. I don't want to watch from a detached viewpoint. And I certainly don't care to watch Garrett run along walls and do triple backflips off a drainpipe. Thief is not a platformer and hopefully never will be... if you want that, go play Tomb Raider (which I also love, but it's not the right game style for the Thief series).
TheGrimSmile on 5/6/2009 at 12:36
One of my lleast favorite things about 3rd person was that you could see Garrett. I really did love the mysterious air about him, and he always had shadows covering part of his face. Seeing him all the time was... weird...
Assassin's Creed needs 3rd person to pull off those amazing sequences, but Garrett isn't an assassin. He's a very talented thief, and jumping skills don't mesh with stealth too well. First person worked well because you didn't need to be able to jump around, that wasn't the goal. Therefore, it doesn't matter if your action range is limited in 1st person, you don't really need those skills anyway.
Anyway, one thing I love about 1st person is the ability to discover as a person would, which is part of immersion. It's more exciting to look around each corner when you don't know what's there.
You know what Jimminy says:
"Don't cross a bridge or peek 'round the corner until you're there."
New Horizon on 5/6/2009 at 12:43
Quote Posted by Yandros
Thief is not a platformer and hopefully never will be... if you want that, go play Tomb Raider (which I also love, but it's not the right game style for the Thief series).
Precisely, it's not a platformer, but we have Ion Storm to thank for planting the seeds of Third Person, so now we'll never here the end of it. They shoe horned Third Person in. I have a feel that no matter how hard the fans beg and plead, we're stuck with third person and the effects it will have on the game overall. Thief was definitely such a pure and simple gaming experience. The minimalism of it all was so refreshing. Yet, people only want to tack parts from other games onto it...missing the point of it completely. Less was more.
Dia on 5/6/2009 at 13:31
Quote Posted by New Horizon
Thief was definitely such a pure and simple gaming experience. The minimalism of it all was so refreshing. Yet, people only want to tack parts from other games onto it...missing the point of it completely. Less was more.
Well said NH; well said indeed. :thumb:
Platinumoxicity on 5/6/2009 at 14:31
They should design the game completely for first person, with narrow hallways and small, cramped rooms like in T1, and add the third person as an afterthought, disregarding the possible camera placement problems. That's the only way the 3rd person mode can be kept entirely separate from the 1st person mode, and everyone's happy.
Except those who try to play in 3rd person and see how badly it suits the narrow areas and low ceilings, so they have to change to first person and say:
"Oh, lawd. How can I have been so foolish?"
Captain Spandex on 5/6/2009 at 22:06
You do realize that Garrett had exactly two physical 'modes', correct?
Standing and crouching. Play Velvet Assassin and I think you'll agree, a stealth character needs more than two 'modes'. It's stiff, it's terrible, and frankly it ruins immersion. Velvet Assassin is basically a top-to-bottom rip-off of Thief on every level. Yes, it takes place in third-person, but it PLAYS like a first-person Thief game. And it serves as a better argument than I could ever deliver for why Thief 1 and 2's outdated mechanics do not work in the present day. You can be standing at the bottom of an alley, looking up at a window not five feet above your head and be thinking "If this main character was a halfway decent thief, wouldn't he be athletic enough to get a small push off the opposite wall and pull himself up?"
But no, instead, he ends up having to find some long, circuitous route - no doubt, one that passes through guard patrols - in order to enter a room that even a semi-athletic child could have entered with no difficulty. To refuse to acknowledge such a control scheme as stiff beyond reason is, frankly, just drinking your own kool-aid.
Platinumoxicity on 5/6/2009 at 22:10
Quote Posted by Captain Spandex
You do realize that Garrett had exactly two physical 'modes', correct?
Standing and crouching. Play Velvet Assassin and I think you'll agree, a stealth character needs more than two 'modes'. It's stiff, it's terrible, and frankly it ruins immersion. Velvet Assassin is basically a top-to-bottom rip-off of Thief on every level. Yes, it takes place in third-person, but it PLAYS like a first-person Thief game. And it serves as a better argument than I could ever deliver for why Thief 1 and 2's outdated mechanics do not work in the present day. You can be standing at the bottom of an alley, looking up at a window not five feet above your head and be thinking "If this main character was a halfway decent thief, wouldn't he be athletic enough to get a small push off the opposite wall and pull himself up?"
But no, instead, he ends up having to find some long, circuitous route - no doubt, one that passes through guard patrols - in order to enter a room that even a semi-athletic child could have entered with no difficulty. To refuse to acknowledge such a control scheme as
stiff beyond reason is, frankly, just drinking your own kool-aid.
Use your rope arrows then. ;)
Anyway, what has this got to do with 1rd person/3rd person discussion?
New Horizon on 5/6/2009 at 23:00
Quote Posted by Captain Spandex
...and frankly it ruins immersion.
Immersion...immersion...immersion. Blah. You know what has ruined immersion? Lack of imagination.
Thief movement doesn't need to be any more complex than it is. The idea of Garrett was that he wasn't an athlete, or an expert swordsman. He was just a good Thief. The mechanics of Thief were minimalistic, and purposefully so. The majority of games on the market are about super human characters. The idea of Thief was to go in the opposite direction, you were just a pretty regular guy...except for the Thieving gift. It's not about being swift or able to scale a wall.
People just don't get that and it drives me nuts. The way to make Thief better ISN'T by making it like other games. It's to make it stand true to the core of what it was about. Minimalism.
...and 'oh yes' Velvet Assassin is exactly like Thief.
(
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/739-Velvet-Assassin)
