greypatch3 on 26/4/2009 at 17:59
However it goes, I think the main key to a lot of what makes Thief great is the subtlety...very little of the game is shoved directly in your face, instead learned through reading books on shelves, notices tacked to walls, and so on. You can still get the plot just through playing the game, sure, but a lot of foreshadowing and clues as to what is happening and why can be overlooked by people just blowing through a level. Instead of the "beat the level in 20 seconds" mentality prized by the Resident Evil-type games and Doom, Thief is a game about patience. Even though it's played from the same perspective as a lot of FPS games, it's not just different in atmosphere, the very aims are different. Heck, even System Shock 2 rewards you for moving quickly, since monsters will respawn in areas. But Thief is about taking your time, searching through every nook and cranny for the last little bit of gold or jewelry, listening to conversations in other rooms, rewarding your patience with an extra snippet of story.
I don't want to repeat myself too much from earlier, so I'll try to keep this short. Garrett is a great character, and what led to the charm of the first three games was his cynical, nonchalant attitude towards the goings-on throughout the City. But Thief is the sum of its parts, not just relying on Garrett himself (hands up who loves Benny, too?). If they did end up changing the main character to someone else, it would probably alienate some, sure, and it wouldn't be quite the same as the other games. But I don't think the game would be utterly ruined; not unless they make the main character some whiny, sniveling doofus, that is. Would I like to see another Garrett adventure? Certainly. But if he wasn't, as long as the rest of the world stayed as interesting as it was, I don't think I would be upset for very long.
jtr7 on 26/4/2009 at 22:12
And we can't let anybody forget: The City itself is a character, not fully explored, and with greater history and depth than any inhabitant.
Quote Posted by Zahr Dalsk
Why would it? You play as a Mechanist, most likely one who was more involved with the actual business of inventing and designing than simply a guard. You really don't want to get involved in combat at all; if identified as a Mechanist after the fall of the order, you'd likely face angry mobs and thus don't want to be identified as such, because you'd not be very well prepared for fighting a lot of people... or even a few. Diplomacy would also be important, as a matter of dealing with the factions that aren't quite ready to kill you. You wouldn't want to try fighting your way through.
Combat would be minimal, and it would function more along the lines of an adventure game.
You haven't elaborated enough to dissuade my view that it wouldn't be fun. But this bit of explanation sounds like a small kids' game, if there's no combat, and then it may as well be a puzzle game with generic factory worker's and farmers, since there's nothing Thiefy about it, really. The Mechanists were genocidal and carry huge hammers around, killing every pagan, invading pagan villages and slaughtering everyone, or doing grisly experiments, and turning street-people in Masked Servants, and in the meantime they build stuff. You would never be able to invent something, you'd have to assemble things already planned out for you. Unless you envision every mission like a Soulforge experience, without the plants and doomsday scenario. As a Hammer, you'd kill or enslave every pagan that came too close to your territory, and if you kept them alive, you'd work them to death, and they'd rise as undead. You'd have to fight off undead, including the possessed bodies of your brethren--the Haunts. You'd build walls, repair stone structures, and create boxloads of hammers from molds. As a pagan, you'd seek ways to destroy the Hammer-built structures, or undermine their efforts, and do so by spreading plantlife at key places throughout The City. You would relish the level-ups you'd get from killing a Hammer or Mechanist with a blade, and feeding their blood to your plants. You would have to defend your village from Mechanist invaders bent on slaughtering every one of you, and all you would really want is to be a farmer. The factions are ever at war with each other, and frankly, the best aspects of a game like that--again, without further elaboration from you on your vision--would be the combat to progress towards your faction's goals.
I obviously don't know what you have in mind. :D
FriendlyStranger on 27/4/2009 at 08:22
I think he means a game like Thief in which you control a mechanist instead of Garrett. The mechanists has (after the TMA events) more or less to live like Garrett - hidden and secret, because people do not longer accept mechanists and would kill him, the same way the guards would kill Garrett on sight.
As mechanist you would lead the life of a cast-out, who also has to rely on stealing food, hiding in shadows to survive - assuming people knowing that you were mechanist.( But since evryone seems to recognize Garrett as Thief, that won't be a prob)
Neb on 27/4/2009 at 08:28
Quote Posted by FriendlyStranger
As mechanist you would lead the life of a cast-out, who also has to rely on stealing food, hiding in shadows to survive
By making use of exotic and highly illegal mechanist technology? ;)
Kin on 27/4/2009 at 08:35
Quote Posted by Neb
By making use of exotic and highly illegal mechanist technology? ;)
Like stuntgun and a shotgun:cheeky::eww:
jtr7 on 27/4/2009 at 09:11
Quote Posted by FriendlyStranger
I think he means a game like Thief in which you control a mechanist instead of Garrett.
That's precisely what I'm commenting on. Mace-wielding, genocidal, arrogant, committing atrocities without qualm, inhuman medical experiments, Nazi-like. :weird:
Quote Posted by FriendlyStranger
The mechanists has (after the TMA events) more or less to live like Garrett - hidden and secret, because people do not longer accept mechanists and would kill him, the same way the guards would kill Garrett on sight.
As mechanist you would lead the life of a cast-out, who also has to rely on stealing food, hiding in shadows to survive - assuming people knowing that you were mechanist.( But since evryone seems to recognize Garrett as Thief, that won't be a prob)
Now at least this give me something to work with, but I still don't see how much Mechanist it can be. Give Garrett a different name, a different backstory, and a tweaked set of equipment, never let him ally with the Pagans, and turn him into Batman making gadgets without letting anyone know (except the Keepers would be onto him if it was ever anything to shift the Balance). Actually, send him to another City entirely, having escaped the "Hammerite Heresy Trials" the Keepers mentioned. A Mechanist with a crossbow pistol. Does he still believe in Karras's vision?
Very simply, if he's a thief, he's not a Mechanist in the least.
FriendlyStranger on 27/4/2009 at 09:33
There are always some ppl who aren't corrupted to an genocidist extent - even in the worst organisations, systems. (You brought up nazi, so I give you Schindler as an example) Not every single mechanist needs to be a murderer straight away... Sometimes also rather good people are blinded by a certain ideology. (And to prevent any misunderstandings I do not want to justify any past or present crimes with that...)
but it's not the way I want to be T4 to be anyway - I already stated that I want only a Garrett-sequel.
And Neb well you will get your highly illegal equipment when Deus Ex 3 arrvives --> "wall climbing tentacles" *barf* ^^
*edit: But wouldn't such an escaped mechanist member make a great new enemy for Garrett - he could be like Soth Sil in Morrowind's clockwork city. That's a picture well fitting into the Thief concept after TMA. (Ok Sotha Sil wasn't evil I think but you can always change that...)
jtr7 on 27/4/2009 at 10:08
Until TDS there were no real gray characters. The most decent Mechanists still held to the Hammer fundamentals, but one big one: They placed the boiler and gear higher than the hammer. That's the splintering point. There were Mechanists that didn't believe Karras or his vision were all important, but they still were against.
The factions don't have a lot of gray, and very nearly all can be expected to act exactly according to their rules, or it's a splintering off.
The games have the characters adhere to their factions fundamentals--except Gamall, who was among them, yet separate for centuries.
Only one pagan voice file has an expression of doubt in the Trickster's wisdom, but that character would act exactly as a Pagan is expected to act in all other things.
Drept breaks rules, but mostly rituals and minor things, though his heart is in the right place so the infractions are tolerated. He can get away with not attending services, but Brother Reginald got in trouble for not offering a prayer of thanks at a St. Edgar statue on two occasions, and his work-shift was doubled.
Thievery among the Hammerites and Mechanists is unheard of. It's considered primal and savage and smacks to them of the pagan-like beginnings they happily came out of, never looking back. It's not Thief-like to suggest gray areas, but that would be fine for fan-fiction, or speculation. He/she would not be a Mechanist, he/she would be a former Mechanist, but we would never play him/her as one, except for the choice in gadgets and weaponry and other reminders.
The factions are what they are and the rules of each are simple and predictable.
I can't see Garrett hunting down a former Mechanist, and it would have to be something special to not seem Karras-like.
FriendlyStranger on 27/4/2009 at 10:23
Still there is no absolute devotion to a cause when it comes to humans - there is always the chance that someone changes his/her mind -especially when the hierarchy of an organisation, its controling influence falls apart. You cannot exclude this possibility. Sure its speculation -but also a little speculation has to be allowed when discussing a possible future storyline of a yet not even officially announced title.
Btw: Who says Garrett hunts him down and not the other way round... you could add him like the Nemesis in RE2 (the game - not the awfully stupid movie) appearing only on certain occasions forcing you to escape...
But anyway I don't really want that storyline for the obvious reason you already stated: it could repeat TMA's story basics.
jtr7 on 27/4/2009 at 10:45
Enriched and realistic characters that don't adhere to the code of their root factions don't exist in the Thief games. The rules of the games determine how far a character can move within a faction, never so far out of it that their roots are murky and gray. That's for the novels, not the games. Another way to state it is, the game has rules. Change the rules, you change the game. The factions are the game pieces and they always move according to their kind, they just give it a dark twist when they are corrupt, but they will never be confused with another faction--ever. Absolutely recognizable. They are not truly human with all our variations and ability to change allegiances, or act out of character. The game-mechanics determine how much a character can change. Change just a bit too much, and you have a splintering.
Techno-Thieves? Mecha-Taffers?
So, perhaps a psycho-Mechanist that makes Karras look like Father Norrell, and hates Garrett for Karras' death, the scattering, and the heresy trials, whom seeks to assassinate him like Gamall, her statues, or the Enforcers, but more threatening and only in cutscenes until the end (can't have the player kill him/her too soon).
I know you don't really want this, but I'm trying to see how this could work.
