New Horizon on 9/2/2006 at 16:34
Quote Posted by BR796164
But I'm curious - what great things you are interested in are unnecessarily locked down?
What would you do with them if they weren't?
The biggest is scripting. Locked down! We can not add to the existing scripting base...at least nobody has discovered a way yet...considering it's compiled into the .exe. We would have to 'gasp' reverse engineer it or something. You can often achieve similar effects to what you want to do by stringing together multiple scripts, but that can become flakey.
Hmmm, what would I do with an open scripting system? 'imagination'
I've been told of other things that were locked down, for some pretty silly reasons...but really...who gives a rats ass? If things hadn't strayed so far from the established style, there would have been little reason to want to modify the game anyway. Who the hell has time to sit around writing short stories about why one persons opinion is more important than another? Yak yak yak.
Sorry, lack of sleep.
Rogue Keeper on 9/2/2006 at 17:05
Ok, locked scripting, that's better.
I'm off as well. This "T3 good/bad" topic is very exhausting.
Just like "Consoles vs. PCs".
New Horizon on 9/2/2006 at 17:20
Quote Posted by BR796164
Ok, locked scripting, that's better.
I'm off as well. This "T3 good/bad" topic is very exhausting.
Just like "Consoles vs. PCs".
:laff: Man, tell me about it. I need a beer or something and it's only 1:20 in the afternoon here. Screw it...BEERS for everyone!!!! On me! :thumb:
Goldmoon Dawn on 9/2/2006 at 21:02
My points were never about Thief III being good or bad as much as simply that Thief: The Dark Project dominates T3 in every way. :ebil:
sparhawk on 9/2/2006 at 23:39
Quote Posted by BR796164
Is TDS modable? Indeed, the T3 editing tools have been released and people create levels with them already. Fan made texture packs have been made which can be easily installed over the game installation. And I’m sure more comes in the future.
Apparently we are talking different languages.
Just because it was possible to make FMs by fans does NOT mean that TDS is indeed moddable. The tools that we got are bascially the tools that were needed by the developers themeselve in order to sell it. If your definition of moddable is that the it is possible for the developers to create levels so they ultimately can seel their game, and that other people can use the same tools, than, in this stricted formal sense of "moddable" it is so. In my world "moddable" means a bit more, than just to allow me to do what is the minimum requirement, and with this definition TDS is definitely NOT moddable, even though we see some fanmade maps being created.
And as for 'easily installable', it seems our definitions of "easy" also differ.
Quote:
Is TDS configurable? Of course - what you can’t change in-game, you can edit in CFG files. If you care about it.
That's obviously crap, because what you say here, if I use the same strict usage of the phrase, would mean that you can change everything. This is obviously NOT the case. I already explained my definition of configurable, which also doesn't match yours. You seem to be satsified if you have one button that allows you to switch a single options. In your strict view this is indeed a configurable game, because by definition if at least one single fonfiguration option exists, a game is already configurable. Our definitions of 'configurable' differ.
Quote:
So you claim that the game is not configurable, BUT in the end it doesn‘t matter, because it’s not a problem for an average user?
It is not a problem for the average user, because the average user usually doesn't touch much options. Therefore it also doesn't become a problem for them.
Quote:
And many many computer games under the Sun have tweaking tools and mods made by dedicated people with necessary skills, don’t you think?
And what does this say? If I have to make my own tweaking tool, then by definition this game can not be configurable, because if it were, there would have been no need to make such tools which require special skills.
Quote:
Finally, we have reached core of the problem. You didn’t like the game and I did and that’s why I must be wrong. Even the necessity to configure many things and install better textures didn’t disgust the game to me. I’m looking at it from the brighter side and you are a sour grape.
So you mean that it is ok, to shell out a full price for a game, that is not even properly finished, AND the fans must create their own textures and tweaks to make it look decent?
Quote:
Yes, Dark Project was graphicaly ahead of it’s time when it was released.
Wrong.
Quote:
Yes, the Thief games didn’t need any patches.
Wrong.
Quote:
Yes, The Circle and other fansites don‘t offer dozens of fan made improvements for T1&2.
Finally you got one right. If you guessed the answers there should be a probabillity to get at least one right, so this seems to be this one.
Quote:
Yes, original DromEd is an extremely user friendly and stable level editor.
LOL.
sparhawk on 9/2/2006 at 23:51
Quote Posted by BR796164
Doom 3 / Quake / Unreal Tourney games are part of highly popular series, which are at the very top on the chart of moddable games. Do you think comparing Thief series to the above mentioned titles is fair?
Yes it is fair if you compare it on the basis of moddability. Moddabillity is NOT a popularity feature it is a design decision. Either you do it or you don't. Of course it may be indirectly related to popularity, because making a game fully moddable requires higher efforts in the planning stage, and a conscious commitment to do this. This was not the case with any of the Thief games. On the other hand, having features that can be used for moddabillity are resulting often enough NOT neccessarily in higher efforts, but stil requires proiper planing. That planing stage is part of EVERY software development cycle, and is therefore NO excuse if a game turns out bad or unmoddable.
Quote:
Development of a multiplatform game must be a pretty ungrateful challenge.
I properly done, and with experienced people, then it is not MUCH harder to do. Especially when you port from one PC onto another. It's not as if we talking here about reall porting, from one OS to another. XBox is still a Windows PC after all.
Quote:
„...They made things as they were expected to, to appeal "bosses above", but they left us many CFG/INI files opened for editation. So we can change almost every feature.“
That's where you are dead wrong. They did NOT leave it open for us. Closing this requires effort which directly can be turned over into money. It's simply a matter of money wether to close this options or not. As they did not want to spend a single penny more, than is absolutely neccessary to get it out, obviously the choice is NOT to spend money on closing INI settings.
Quote:
I didn't suggest it‘s *necessarily* a *deliberate* feature. I am aware the CFGs are a technological feature of the Unreal engine. I've had on my mind that CFGs de facto ARE left open for editation by users and that's the main thing important to me.
That they are there for players to play with is not to appeal to the buyers, it's simply an economical decision. They are required for more efficient development, and locking them down requires extra effort.
Quote:
Heritage of the Unreal engine? Excellent! In that case, we are
lucky that T3 was built in Unreal engine.
Even if they had written their very own engine, as they did for T1/T2, they would have still CFG files, because AGAIN - THIS IS A REQUIREMENT FOR EFFICIENT GAME DEVLOPMENT! The only question is how many settings you need. It might have been less, but you can't know this.
Quote:
But - would YOU bet that one or more developers didn't have idea like „If the PC Thief community won't like this and that console-like feature, they will surely find a way how to change it in the CFG files.
Even though they were aware of this, this was certainly not in any way a criteria to do it this way.
Goldmoon Dawn on 10/2/2006 at 00:01
Quote Posted by sparhawk
So you mean that it is ok, to shell out a full price for a game, that is not even properly finished, AND the fans must create their own textures and tweaks to make it look decent?
Not to mention the fact that before "Thief III" there was I and II, with an extreme hardcore fanbase established, while Warren was saying,
Quote Posted by wspector
"Right now, there are rumors circulating on the net that Deus Ex 2 and Thief 3 will ship on console first, with PC "ports" coming later. That is simply not true. Let me assure you that we have no plans to release a console version of DX2 or T3 before a PC version or to compromise one version to accomodate the needs of any other version we might develop."
Hmmm....
...or to compromise one version to accomodate the needs of another???
Jesus man!
That's it. I can no longer think about Thief III. Back to drooling over Dark Mod. :)
Domarius on 10/2/2006 at 03:06
BR796164, I'm pretty sure the simple version of your misunderstanding to what
sparhawk was saying in response to you, is this;
The configurability present in T3 was not "extra work" people put in for the community - it's part of the development process. So there's nothing to thank them for in that respect. Convenient as it is for anyone wanting to change the game, this was not extra work. The only configurability there is what they are required to put in to actually develop the game.
Extra work is when they go out of their way to make configurability for the users to change, when they could have completed the development of the game itself without doing that. Like making a really polished user friendly map editor. Or a very flexible scripting language that is capable of creating behaviours
outside of what happened in the original game.
Quote Posted by Norman Druart
It's a lot harder to render someone unconscious with one than the other. Still possible though.
Heheh...
Rogue Keeper on 10/2/2006 at 08:15
Good morning people, so what happened here since yesterday? :)
Oh joy. :( I have better things to do than this.
Quote Posted by sparhawk
Wrong... Wrong... LOL...
Sarcasm! Sarcasm! LMAO.
See you around and good luck with Dark Mod. I can't wait.
sparhawk on 10/2/2006 at 10:15
Glad you agree with me and see the wisdom of my arguments. :)
