God.. they had it all in their hands and spoiled it completely...

metal dawn on 15/6/2006 at 01:26

Quote Posted by Vinny, English

One thing I didn't like was the fact that I wasn't able to really dialogue with npc's. For example, Marla was asking for an intimate (Take than pick 1. discussion 2. encounter). He didn't have a mouth?

Those moments inside the store.... what an impotence!...

Silence is its own answer.

Garrett is very stingy about speaking in general and--aside from the first reason-- who he speaks too.

ercles on 15/6/2006 at 02:52

Having conversations with the general public is not exactly the best idea when you're a thief and you aim to be invisible at all times

Jackablade on 15/6/2006 at 03:37

Quote Posted by ercles

Well yeh but so have enemies in past games. Big metal robots that stomp about and shoot canonballs at you? Seems pretty subtle to me.

Yes, I suppose that's true. I guess my gripe is with how they say their lines. I know they're supposed to be big, mindless slabs of rock, but do they have to say the same word over and over again. The player remained fearful of the robots despite them being big, loud, and obnoxious. I think the statues, in particular, called for more subtlety. After listening to them for 15 seconds you roll your eyes and laugh.

I believe it would probably be scarier if they only speak when they spot you. Imagine trying to sneak by some silent monstrosity just to have him start yelling CRUSH CRUSH CRUSH as you run for your life. It would be shocking and nerve-wracking.

june gloom on 15/6/2006 at 04:34

i disagree. for me, the repetition is what makes them creepy. they wouldn't be as creepy if they spoke normally, or not at all.

i think part of it may be the delivery. like when you're caught: "die and DIE AND DIE AND DIE"

that, my friends, is a total "oh snap" moment.

Poison Ivy on 24/7/2006 at 18:39

Quote:

no swimmable water
body awareness
key bindings
no rope arrows
poor death animations
bad lockpicking
auto blackjack
bad map system
difficulty bug
subpar graphics
bad lip syncing
arrow trails
poor menu fonts
loot glint
ragdoll physics
no briefings

Okay... Let me point out which things from that list aren't objective.... To be more precise, which things are only 'bad' because YOU THINK SO.

-body awareness: Makes things a bit more natural, neh? If you're standing on a ledge with your body facing in one direction, you can't just suddenly move off in the opposite direction.

-key bindings: Wha...? What is that supposed to mean? I never stumbled upon any problems with keys or anything like that....

-no rope arrows: I, personally, found the change to climbing gloves adequate. The only thing that bothered me were Garrett's oft-occuring inability to climb onto windowsills, but wall climbing was great fun nevertheless.

-poor death animations: You mean the spine folding thing? Sure, it was poor, but it was also VERY amusing. I can't say I'd be willing to change that if I had the chance. It adds to the ridiculous humour of blackjacking a guard who was just muttering threats into the air.

-bad lockpicking: The lockpicking was awesome, better than in the previous games. I even heard a few DP and MA fans say that.

-auto blackjack: Again, what do you mean?

-bad map system: I liked it better than the old one, if you mean the fact that the area you were located in glowed blue in the previous games... The fact that you didn't know for sure where you were in DS added realism and the challenge of orientation.

-subpar graphics: WHAT? The graphics rocked! They were certainly good enough to create a terrific atmosphere. They weren't as blurry as people say and I personally had no difficulty really diving into the world.... I heard someone say 'Garrett's belt isn't 3D!!!' Oh pleeeeease. Stop being so bitchy and demanding.

-bad lyp syncing: Rrright.... It was good enough. Most of the time you're not able to see the speaking person's face up close anyway, so why bother?

-arrow trails: ???

-loot glint: I liked that. It was one of the first things I found *really cool* You can say it takes away from the challenge, but then why do you have a problem with the map-system? I found it nice to see exactly what was valuable. You didn't have to frob useless stuff just to see if it was worth anything....And even with the loot glint, you still had to look out of sight for anything hidden.

-no briefings: If you mean the equipment purchasing part, I also prefer shops. It makes it more realistic, knowing you'd have to take a risky sidetrack to get some equipment.

All right... We take away that, and what do we have left? It seems nearly all of the 'faults' were either unobjective or... imagined.

-difficulty bug & -poor menu fonts : There are bugs in every game. O_o You're gonna say this game isn't 'as good as the other ones' because it also has some? Which, as vurt said, were fixed soon after release.

-ragdoll physics: You already said poor death animations. Why are you saying the same thing twice?

*drumroll*

-no swimmable water: All right... You realise this now appears to be the ONLY downfall? Even so, only because there was swimmable water in the previous games. My position is pretty unique, since I played DS before taking on the DP and MA. Besides, if Garrett is carrying several thousand worth of valuables, which MOST of the time he is, deepwater swimming isn't that realistic either, is it?

Oh, and a few others that were mentioned but you forgot to list:
-overly affordable equipment: If Garrett's robbed a house clean, the loot SHOULD be enough to buy him a few more arrows and flashbombs, right? Similarly, if he DOESN'T rob it clean, he WON'T have enough. Which makes you really put effort in locating the last shred of treasure in some noble's house...
Besides, missions become more challenging and equipment-consuming as the game progresses. During my first time in the Cradle, for example, I killed every zombie I could find... Afterwards I had some problems with cash because I had no idea what I'd need in the Museum and had 0 flashbombs and not enough money to buy the crown/heart replicas, either.

-bad cutscenes: If you're critizing cutscenes, you've really gone too far and have become too spoiled. That's all I have to say. :tsktsk:

-a big monster for a villain is too cliche: everything in fantasy has become cliche, in one way or another. In any case, it's not more cliche than a seductive mysterious woman who hires you and then deceives you. (Does the letter 'V' ring a bell, anyone?)

Btw, vurt, I admire your courage in defending your opinion when so many people bring up arguments like THAT and actually insult you.:thumb: And yes, it seems people are so keen to fish out faults from midair because there are very few actual faults in the game.

themetalian on 24/7/2006 at 21:48

A pleasant surprise to see this thread resurrected, mainly due to the hilarity of the first half of it :D

What is Vincent doing now, I ponder? :p

the_dark_and_clouded on 24/7/2006 at 23:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Poison Ivy
[...] it seems people are so keen to fish out faults from midair because there are very few actual faults in the game.

Wait a moment, Poison Ivy, nobody minds if you're a complete TDS fan, but Brother Renault's arguments weren't simply "fished from midair", he merely mentioned faults that lots of Taffers (including me) spotted in the game. The faults we see might be of subjective nature (e. g. "TDS doesn't feel like Thief!"), but this doesn't degrade them to invented or imagined ones. Let me set a few things right there. :devil:

no swimmable water
In my humble opinion, this is a major miss of Ion Storm. Most of the really cool Thief missions consisted partially of swimming and/or diving (Maw of Chaos, Precious Cargo, Framed, Cragscleft, Bonehoard, Lost City ...). Every single one of them would lose quite a chunk of atmosphere when stripped of swimmable water. In TDS, there isn't a single mission containing it to begin with (get a clue how good TDS could actually be with it?). Besides, isn't this silly: Garrett survived the loss of his eye, the Trickster's minions invading the City, the Maw, Karras' robots, his cathedral, but is slain instantly by a pool of plain deep water. :ebil:

body awareness
This isn't a major flaw, but for me it kind of cuts down the feeling of immersion into the game. I don't want to see my legs moving ingame, when I know they're actually resting calmly under my desk. FP games have always only portrayed your weapon arm(s) and the objects you carry/use, no need for changing this tradition by some freakin' "body awareness".

key bindings
What Brother Renault actually means (I suppose) is the strange arrangement of the default bindings (Water arrow = 8 etc.). No great deal, but why not adhere to traditions that make sense? (You need water arrows quite often, so why not leave their key close to "WASD"?)

bad lockpicking
This is more personal than my other arguments, but I simply hate minigames. KotOR, Oblivion, TDS, all newer games love minigames, but what are they good for? Passing time? I can do that with Tetris just as well! I wan't a game, not a compendium of minigames (anyone else share my opinion out there?) The lockpicking minigame in TDS isn't too bad, however, it's a waste of our and the designers' time. (remember, my own opinion!)

subpar graphics

Quote:

Originally Posted by Poison Ivy
They were certainly good enough to create a terrific atmosphere.

Parts of the game felt more like Harry Potter than like Thief. The problem with the graphics isn't that they're bad (better than the old thief games' graphs, anyway), but that they're simply too goofy and cartoony to create the immersion and terrific atmosphere I'm used to of Thief I/II. (on a pro rebuttal: the Cradle was superb, though!)

arrow trails
Same point as above, they're cartoon style and don't add anything to the specific Thief atmosphere.

ragdoll physics
They were supposed to add realism and immersion to the game, instead they were simply hilarious and laughable - an obvious con point.

no briefings
I know I'm repeating myself, but once again: Why break with cool traditions? Every Thief mission should have its neat little introductory poem and Garrett explaining what's up while you get to view sort of a medieval slide show. Ion Storm however says: "No, we think plain boring text is more adequate to introducing a mission, and to the hell with those sayings, too." I hope you get the point, why the heck did they do this to the briefings?

Don't get me wrong, TDS is a good game, but has lots of faults as well and can't surpass the genius of the first two Thief games (few games can :thumb: ). I don't want to force my opinion onto you, however, so you're welcome to see things different, of course. :cool:

New Horizon on 24/7/2006 at 23:27

Quote Posted by Poison Ivy

Okay... Let me point out which things from that list aren't objective.... To be more precise, which things are only 'bad' because YOU THINK SO.

I felt the need to chime in with some points of my own.

Quote:

-body awareness: Makes things a bit more natural, neh? If you're standing on a ledge with your body facing in one direction, you can't just suddenly move off in the opposite direction.

The body awareness in TDS crippled player control, clear and simple. Realism at the expense of good controls simply isn't worth it.

Quote:

-no rope arrows: I, personally, found the change to climbing gloves adequate. The only thing that bothered me were Garrett's oft-occuring inability to climb onto windowsills, but wall climbing was great fun nevertheless.

As you said, you 'personally' found them adequate but a great number of people didn't. Who's right, who is wrong? Nobody I guess, but the rope arrows were dearly missed by many who have played the series since the beginning and such a core part of the Thief gameplay, really shouldn't have been sacrificed.

Quote:

-poor death animations: You mean the spine folding thing? Sure, it was poor, but it was also VERY amusing. I can't say I'd be willing to change that if I had the chance. It adds to the ridiculous humour of blackjacking a guard who was just muttering threats into the air.

It undermined the atmosphere of the game. The humor in Thief pretty much always came from the characterization, not silly prat falls. The maturity level of TDS vs the originals was definately lower. The bending spines weren't intentional, but the oil slicks sure were.

Quote:

-bad lockpicking: The lockpicking was awesome, better than in the previous games. I even heard a few DP and MA fans say that.

The lockpicking system was definately much nicer...and with a few 'post-release' enhancements, to remove being sucked into the lock picking mode, it was exceptional.

Quote:

-auto blackjack: Again, what do you mean?

Surely, this is one of the most obvious and despised design decisions. When you creep up behind a guard and have either your blackjack, or your dagger out...the player arm 'raises' automatically. This was an ok feature for lower difficulty levels...but 'hard' and 'expert' should have disabled it. We don't need to be told..."psst, hey...you're in the blackjacking zone...press the button".

Quote:

-bad map system: I liked it better than the old one, if you mean the fact that the area you were located in glowed blue in the previous games... The fact that you didn't know for sure where you were in DS added realism and the challenge of orientation.

I don't have much of a beef with the map system not showing the areas you have previously entered, but I do despise the horrible map drawings. The maps in the first Thief never glowed but they were wonderfully drawn and you could tell what you were doing. The TDS maps were just plain ugly.

Quote:

-subpar graphics: WHAT? The graphics rocked! They were certainly good enough to create a terrific atmosphere. They weren't as blurry as people say and I personally had no difficulty really diving into the world.... I heard someone say 'Garrett's belt isn't 3D!!!' Oh pleeeeease. Stop being so bitchy and demanding.

The graphics were alright, but the art direction was poor for a Thief game. The originals felt far more realistic but TDS leaned more towards a cartoonish approach. I would have taken the original games graphics over TDS any day.

Quote:

-arrow trails: ???

The blue trails that follow the arrow when you shoot it. Superfluous eye candy...and just made TDS reak of "I'm a game".

Quote:

-loot glint: I liked that. It was one of the first things I found *really cool* You can say it takes away from the challenge, but then why do you have a problem with the map-system? I found it nice to see exactly what was valuable. You didn't have to frob useless stuff just to see if it was worth anything....And even with the loot glint, you still had to look out of sight for anything hidden.

Again, a complete undermining of thief gameplay. You're supposed to work for your loot, not have it handed to you. If the loot items had been properly textured, you wouldn't need loot glint.

Quote:

-no briefings: If you mean the equipment purchasing part, I also prefer shops. It makes it more realistic, knowing you'd have to take a risky sidetrack to get some equipment.

No, he is referring to the 'briefing movies' of the original games. They were in black and white and had garrett speaking over them, explaining what his mission was to be about. Instead, they were cut and we got to read along while garrett rushed through the spoken briefing.

Quote:

All right... We take away that, and what do we have left? It seems nearly all of the 'faults' were either unobjective or... imagined.

The faults were certainly not imagined. Just because you don't agree with them, doesn't make them any less real.

Quote:

-difficulty bug & -poor menu fonts : There are bugs in every game. O_o You're gonna say this game isn't 'as good as the other ones' because it also has some? Which, as vurt said, were fixed soon after release.

The difficulty bug should have been found by the beta testers, it was pretty easy to catch. I watched the community submit a lot of bugs that could have been included in that 'one' patch we received...but we only got the one bug fix. The difficulty bug.

Poor menu fonts were never fixed by Ion Storm. I replaced them in The Minimalist Project...which reminds me, I need to finish one last revision to those fonts.

Quote:

-ragdoll physics: You already said poor death animations. Why are you saying the same thing twice?

No, the death animations and ragdoll physics are separate issues. Death animations rarely play, and the ragdoll physics just look silly.

*drumroll*

Quote:

-no swimmable water: All right... You realise this now appears to be the ONLY downfall? Even so, only because there was swimmable water in the previous games. My position is pretty unique, since I played DS before taking on the DP and MA. Besides, if Garrett is carrying several thousand worth of valuables, which MOST of the time he is, deepwater swimming isn't that realistic either, is it?

..and since you played DS first, you're coming at it from a completely different perspective. Dark Project and Metal Age were definately of a higher standard and the Thief community expected that Ion Storm would deliver a game of equal quality...exceeding the originals was not really necessary.

Quote:

Oh, and a few others that were mentioned but you forgot to list:
-overly affordable equipment: If Garrett's robbed a house clean, the loot SHOULD be enough to buy him a few more arrows and flashbombs, right? Similarly, if he DOESN'T rob it clean, he WON'T have enough. Which makes you really put effort in locating the last shred of treasure in some noble's house...
Besides, missions become more challenging and equipment-consuming as the game progresses. During my first time in the Cradle, for example, I killed every zombie I could find... Afterwards I had some problems with cash because I had no idea what I'd need in the Museum and had 0 flashbombs and not enough money to buy the crown/heart replicas, either.

You're completely missing the point. The ingame economy was serverly underbalanced. The original games took into account that Garrett had other expenses...like rent, or other debts. It was far too easy to max out on equipment in TDS. You never really had to struggle to make ends meet. That was part of the character in the original, you felt like you had a reason to steal, because you were always so damned broke.

Quote:

-bad cutscenes: If you're critizing cutscenes, you've really gone too far and have become too spoiled. That's all I have to say. :tsktsk:

It's a simple fact. The cutscene quality was spotty and far below the originals.

Quote:

-a big monster for a villain is too cliche: everything in fantasy has become cliche, in one way or another. In any case, it's not more cliche than a seductive mysterious woman who hires you and then deceives you. (Does the letter 'V' ring a bell, anyone?)

Depends how it is portrayed. Even the tree beasts in TDS were less intimidating than their Metal Age counterparts. They were fantasy, but worked so well within the world, you never questioned their existence.

Goldmoon Dawn on 24/7/2006 at 23:44

Quote Posted by Poison Ivy

-key bindings: Wha...? What is that supposed to mean? I never stumbled upon any problems with keys or anything like that....

Okay. Here is someone who obviously doesn't play computer games. You know, the "keys" on a keyboard? :)

Quote Posted by Poison Ivy

You just said it. The gloves offered very little. Assuming you never even played Thief I or II, how do you even know how good the Rope Arrows were?

Quote Posted by Poison Ivy

-bad lockpicking: The lockpicking was awesome, better than in the previous games. I even heard a few DP and MA fans say that.

I doubt you've even played the originals.

Quote Posted by Poison Ivy

-auto blackjack: Again, what do you mean?

The way the arm raises when you are close to a guard. Thief I and II didn't do that, remember? :) Someone said before, what if you ghost behind a guard with NO intention of blackjacking? It makes the "auto-raise" kinda stupid and pointless.

Quote Posted by Poison Ivy

OMG! Have you never played Thief I?? The maps were artistic and vague. Each map was unique to the story and Mission! ALL maps in TDS were the same boring cookie-cutter map.

-arrow trails: ???

Idiot.

-loot glint:

crap

-no briefings:

crap

-difficulty bug & -poor menu fonts :

crap

-ragdoll physics:

crap

-no swimmable water:

all crap!

edit - whoah, everyone took a piece of that one! :D

New Horizon on 25/7/2006 at 01:17

Quote Posted by Goldmoon Dawn

edit - whoah, everyone took a piece of that one! :D

Well, we have to set the record straight. :) TDS was a good game, but it still doesn't measure up. That's not meant to discredit the developers, they were handed a bit of a dodgy engine to work with....I seriously wouldn't have wanted to be in their shoes. Basically trying to build a game with tools that are being built while you're using them. It's like trying to bang a nail when all you have is the handle of the hammer.