How about multiplayer?

*Zaccheus* on 17/6/2009 at 11:46

Quote Posted by Subjective Effect

Co-op missions would be nice, but I don't really want any versus stuff.

My thoughts exactly.

Taking a friend along when you plunder a house would be great. There could be some nice co-op gameplay scenarios, such as helping each other climb over a wall, carry off heavy loot, and so forth.

Now whole point of thief is that the guards do not even know that Garrett is there, so something competitive along the lines of Thief vs Guards just would not work IMO.

jtr7 on 15/1/2011 at 02:46

What does this mean for Thief 4? Too bad no one will answer this soon (in the literal sense, not the time-dilation sense of "years" or "many months"):

(http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=253257)

Alic on 15/1/2011 at 21:57

what about if a player who is controlling the guards is given control of severel guards all in different locations which have automated patrol routes which the player can set, and during gameplay you are given an overhead view of the map (or a similar method of viewing all the locations at once). You can only control one guard at a time, so you are forced to moniter all locations until they think they have detected the thief, which they will then proceed to investigate. Could be some problems, but its an idea to work on

Also there could be sounds or visual disturbances which are similar to those made by a thief, which get activated at random intervals. this means that you can't always be certain if the thief made the sound or if it was "just rats" :sly:

jtr7 on 15/1/2011 at 22:49

If someone wants to make a Thief-themed strategy game, that'd be fine, but for T4, no way. :thumb:

Brian The Dog on 16/1/2011 at 00:16

I'm not even sure a co-op thief multiplayer would work. How are you supposed to know where the other thieves in your team are? If the guards can't see them, then why should you be able to? Unless they go down the whole "the mechanists gave us tracking beacons and receivers" route, but even then it should only give a range and direction.

Also, bear in mind that the Thief gameplay means that single players can take out an entire map of guards. The only reason you could argue you'd need multiple players (from a gameplay perspective) is if you had a time limit (e.g. Bafford will be getting back in 1hr from his hunting lodge, etc).

What would happen to players who got caught and "killed"? Would they have to sit out the rest of the mission? I'm not sure that'd go down too well with the 3hr "Sabotage at Soulforge" map complexities for new players.

Malleus on 16/1/2011 at 18:09

Quote Posted by Brian The Dog

You don't need any indicator on the other player. Just communicate - ask him/her if you don't know where he/she is. It would need some explanation for the communication method though - that might still seem weird in the Thief universe (mechanist stuff? telepathy?). I don't think it needs any extra method to hide the players from each other - seeing each other in basic ambient light would be okay, IMO.

Quote:

Also, bear in mind that the Thief gameplay means that single players can take out an entire map of guards. The only reason you could argue you'd need multiple players (from a gameplay perspective) is if you had a time limit (e.g. Bafford will be getting back in 1hr from his hunting lodge, etc).

Oh come on, lot's of possibilities. Players could help each other get up to a higher place (stand on the others shoulder, reach a higher ledge), one could lower a rope for the other to descend/ascend on, there could be security systems that reqire two keys turned-, or two levels pulled at the same time, etc. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCU6nG2MuA8) It's been done already.

Quote:

What would happen to players who got caught and "killed"? Would they have to sit out the rest of the mission? I'm not sure that'd go down too well with the 3hr "Sabotage at Soulforge" map complexities for new players.

IMO the best solution is to have savegames in Coop - this eliminates that problem and there could be a simple mission failed rule if one of the players die. If that's too hard, then you could allow players to revive the other - this could be limited in number. The other solution is to have the dead player respawn, but I don't think that suits a Thief MP.

That said, I think SP should be the priority with Thief.

lost_soul on 20/1/2011 at 22:54

They can just concentrate on the single-player, but integrate a TCP/IP stack and release an editor with the game. Then the community would make a multiplayer expansion for them for free.