Lockpicker on 4/1/2015 at 02:51
I would say that if we want quality T1&2 FMs then we might have to be willing to pay for it in the future. I don't know about you, but if I look at my annual PC Game budget I'd say there's easily $50 that I'd give for 2-3 solid FM campaigns. Kickstarter or indegogo anyone?
klatremus on 4/1/2015 at 04:14
Quote Posted by Lockpicker
I would say that if we want quality T1&2 FMs then we might have to be willing to pay for it in the future. I don't know about you, but if I look at my annual PC Game budget I'd say there's easily $50 that I'd give for 2-3 solid FM campaigns. Kickstarter or indegogo anyone?
I second that! If I knew the author(s) and trusted their capabilities, I'd donate $15-20 a mission in a heartbeat. There would have to be somewhat of a timeline and a size guarantee, but if it gave me at least 3-4 hours of gameplay per mission and there was a high replayability factor (i.e. fun to ghost) I'd be all over it.
Tannar on 4/1/2015 at 05:10
Quote Posted by Lockpicker
I would say that if we want quality T1&2 FMs then we might have to be willing to pay for it in the future. I don't know about you, but if I look at my annual PC Game budget I'd say there's easily $50 that I'd give for 2-3 solid FM campaigns. Kickstarter or indegogo anyone?
Quote Posted by klatremus
I second that! If I knew the author(s) and trusted their capabilities, I'd donate $15-20 a mission in a heartbeat. There would have to be somewhat of a timeline and a size guarantee, but if it gave me at least 3-4 hours of gameplay per mission and there was a high replayability factor (i.e. fun to ghost) I'd be all over it.
Nice idea, but that would be in violation of the EULA and we do not condone such behavior at TTLG, nor will we allow discussion of it on the open forum. On the bright side, as long as there are authors making missions, new Thief missions will always be free. :D
Azaran on 4/1/2015 at 08:01
Quote Posted by Xorak
As wrong as it might be to say it, it seems plausible that the 'apparent quality' of missions might actually drive away potential builders who feel they aren't good enough for whatever reason, or who fear that they're stylistic idea of what a mission should look like is ten years too old.
That's a good point, the bar of complexity keeps getting raised and people probably think they have to surpass it, which might explain the decline
Melan on 4/1/2015 at 10:23
It did not help that Thief 4 was unambiguously terrible, but even outside that issue, I see a general decline in amateur level-building activity. Modern engines are hard to build for, and publishers tend to keep editing tools proprietary anyway (I'm pretty sure we would have Dishonored levels if we had the tools). There are exceptions and alternatives, but not very many.
On the other hand, thousands of people build intricate, interesting stuff in Minecraft and similar games, so the spirit is there, it just isn't expressed through the release of single-player missions for complex games.
Finally, NewDark is a great boon to the community, but it does not help the beginner much. It removes some of the upper limits, which is great for authors working on advanced, complex missions, or intermediate people realising that special something they wanted to do wasn't possible due to some arbitrary limitation, but it doesn't streamline those first steps which form the most formidable barrier before a newbie. So if you want more people building NewDark FMs, you should think of that question.
Kurhhan on 4/1/2015 at 12:08
It is good that the level of criticism is not too big at ttlg. New authors are not overwhelmed by expectations, Sorry I know the freaks who think that ttlg should "grow up" and criticize more and more and more authors for their work for the community.
I hope i will release my first Fm in about 2-3 months. Maybe some "My first FM" contest ? :cool: Many new authors show their screens at "What are you working on RIGHT NOW".
Calibrator on 4/1/2015 at 12:34
Well, there is something to be said about the lack of criticism here: I've often enough seen people hacked into pieces here because they dared to express their dislike with a certain mission, even though they usually have arguments to back their opinion up.
For each criticism you get five "No, the mission is fine!" statements - and I often get the feeling that some commenters will say absolutely everything to just keep the author producing more missions.
IMHO, though, an author has to withstand public criticism when he publishes something - and should at least listen to it (note, that I'm not talking personal attacks here!). As authoring a Thief missions undoubtedly requires quite a bit of intelligence they shouldn't have a problem separating between taste (not every mission can be a favorite of everybody) and substantiated criticism.
I even think that authors don't need some sort of "protection" of other posters. After all, they were able to publish something which is still more than us "only-players" have done.
That being said, my impression is that the construction quality of missions from first-time authors has increased over the years! But this is of course only a subjective impression even though I play every new mission that is announced in this forum and that supports a language I can understand.
However, another subjective impression is that more and more published missions (first-time authors or not) have technical problems and need patches. This can be witnessed when the first few pages of a new mission thread consist of technical advisory and not story-related posts.
I don't know whether these problems are based on the more complicated runtimes we have nowadays with several expansions, additional files etc. or based on "hasty" beta testing to get the mission out as quickly as possibly. Don't get me wrong: I like a new mission as the next guy - but I like missions that are playable to the end and feature no game-stoppers.
Mofleaker on 4/1/2015 at 12:36
Looks to me that there was only a single contest in 2014, and with only 5 contestants. If all goes well with the word challenge contest, we should have
14 missions in the next 2 months. I also have 3 additional missions on the backburner which I plan to release somewhere between 2015 - 2016.
I don't think the sky is falling quite yet, people.
Honestly if you want more authors, we should start reducing the barrier of entry. Most online resources for Dromed are years out of date. (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFIcXS4qx4E) Dale's excellent tutorial series is what really got me started, so go promote the crap out of that.
I'm also curious now, what the hell happened in 2006 that caused such a spike in releases?
Ricebug on 4/1/2015 at 13:53
Quote Posted by Mofleaker
I'm also curious now, what the hell happened in 2006 that caused such a spike in releases?
For one thing, there were 3 contests that year, 19 missions belonging to the notorious Crap Contest. Another 13 made up the SSR contest.
Also, Sony had announced release of the PS3 for that year, so game companies were holding off on putting any more PS2 titles out the door. (They later released them, making buyers think they were buying a fully-blown PS3 title, when in fact, they were "transition" titles--games developed for the PS2 with the PS3 header code and some graphics updates.) Gamers were in limbo during this time, giving some enough incentive for making a Thief mission.
Speculative horse hockey for the most part, but my best guess.
nicked on 4/1/2015 at 17:38
On the subject of criticism, as an author, it's invaluable. You can't learn to improve if nobody tells you what's wrong after all.
