I'm back after ages and finally got Thief 3

bukary on 21/2/2006 at 14:47

Quote Posted by sparhawk

I doubt that I did a mistake. After all, we evaluated the ideas and considered what it would actually mean for gameplay. And as I said before, the first part of your statemtent shows exactly what I said there. Such a city hub can make sense in the context of a campaign, because TDS *IS* a campaign. TDM is not a campaign.

You are right: some "universal" city hubs would be... simply impossible. But I was not talking about the toolset (TDM). I was talking about the campaign that will accompany it. You could make the campaign that would take advantage from city hubs. BTW, will it be possible to create such structure (hub - mission - hub - mission - mission - hub etc.) with your toolset?

bukary on 21/2/2006 at 14:53

Quote Posted by ZylonBane

But how "great" was it to be forced to revisit so many places if you wanted to actually cash in your loot after each mission?

It's like the devs were screaming, "We made all this content, so eat it! EAT IT! IT'S GOOD FOR YOU!".

That is only partially right. I've already said that city hub idea was great, but the implementation was lacking in some aspects. If it was annoying (but not that much), that's because each fence could buy only specific kind of loot. It could be easily fixed: just allow them to buy everything from you. No more running, no more forced visits in different quarters...

Yametha on 21/2/2006 at 14:53

Looking all over the place to find a place to sell the loot was almost more difficult than finding the loot in the first place!

Edit: bukary just said almost all I wanted to say

New Horizon on 21/2/2006 at 15:21

Quote Posted by bukary

BTW, will it be possible to create such structure (hub - mission - hub - mission - mission - hub etc.) with your toolset?

Absolutely, as I said earlier in the thread and as we have said about TDM all along, FM authors will be able to do pretty much whatever they want. Doom 3 is an extremely flexible foundation, and our source code will be released with the toolset. Eventually the doom 3 source code will be released as well, opening up the render engine.

The toolset can be improved and maintained as long as there is a Thief community interested in doing it.

ZylonBane on 21/2/2006 at 15:48

That reminds me...

Does Doom -- or will TDM -- support SS2-style loading zones where dynamic world objects are carried over across map transitions? Like, I drop a key on the floor near a transition point, load the next map, and the key is still there?

New Horizon on 21/2/2006 at 16:18

Quote Posted by ZylonBane

I know we discussed that somewhere along the line. I don't know if it's implimented yet, but I do believe we're going to have that..so I'll say yes. Until one of the programmers says otherwise. :)

sparhawk on 21/2/2006 at 16:22

Quote Posted by ZylonBane

Doom 3 supports persistent info, so you can carry over objects. I guess with this you could even recreate the original TDS maps easily. If somebody would wanted to do this. :ebil:

elkston on 23/2/2006 at 18:17

Look, I love Thief. But I am not necessarily in love with the "mission" structure either.

One of things I liked about TDS was the city. It was intriguing having this big, non-linear area to do thieving and exploring.

Now granted, the fact that they had to break it up into loading zones really messed up the gameplay.

But imagine, as a previous poster said, that it was like Gothic. A huge seamless map of places to theive, quests to solve, adventures to embark on. Any money you make could be used to buy better equipment that can help you figure out other missions. The city grows and changes depending on how your missions come out.

Now at this point, the game is resembling an RPG or adventure game. THIS IS NOT BAD no matter what ZylonBane says.

You can't tell me this wouldn't be awesome. A sort of huge RPG adventure with stealth at its core.

This is why I love big FM with large maps. They give me this feeling of living in the game. Of being in a place that has a life of its own outside of my character.

sparhawk on 23/2/2006 at 18:20

Quote Posted by elkston

But imagine, as a previous poster said, that it was like Gothic. A huge seamless map of places to theive, quests to solve, adventures to embark on. Any money you make could be used to buy better equipment that can help you figure out other missions. The city grows and changes depending on how your missions come out.

Now at this point, the game is resembling an RPG or adventure game. THIS IS NOT BAD no matter what ZylonBane says.

You can't tell me this wouldn't be awesome. A sort of huge RPG adventure with stealth at its core.

Since I'm a Ghotic fan, I really love that game. And it would be cool if TDS would have had such a kind of city as the island in Gothic. But as you say yourself this is Gothic, which means it is a campaign, so it would make sense. It's not in the scope of TDM though, because TDM is not a campaign.

New Horizon on 23/2/2006 at 18:26

Quote Posted by sparhawk

Nor is Thief an RPG. It would lose something of that episodic charm, like your being told an old story that has been handed down over time. It has happened to more than one series in the past. Gamers scream and shout that they want this and that worked into the existing structure and then find out that it changed the game they loved so completely that it no longer feels like the game they fell in love with. I'm all for huge city missions, but I think the whole..virtual city hub is hightly over rated...unless it suits the game it has been made for.