No, not another "will there be thief4" thread, but...

CD Set on 13/4/2008 at 21:56

The only good thing I see in multiplayer would be a scenario where you and your comrade has to work together to complete the mission (much like the Coop-campaign in Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, if you've played that). You know, helping each other over ledges and stuff like that. Maybe one of the players could sneak through a heavily guarded area while his friend aids him by shooting water arrows and distracting guards... or the mission could be split up into two parts where an action in one changes the premises of the other... I don't know. It would probably be considered a rip-off, though.

Multiplayer seems to be standard in games nowadays, but if they were to implement it, at least it should be good.

jtr7 on 13/4/2008 at 22:11

Exactly! I can't see it being fun at all to play against each other in this established system and for why we like to be Garrett. Make everybody a Downwinder without Keeper training (heh...yeah, that'll go over with fans). Co-op and done well. As with Tos' work, the problems with meeting objectives, and what constitutes a mission fail or accomplisment would require a whole new system, or obvious technical bypass workarounds that seem bizarre, but make the game winnable. All players would have to be able to make enough loot to make necessary purchases, or an inventory with slots would be necessary to keep players from hording and taking so much for one's self as to make everyone esle miserable. Balance! It's not at all just two thieves working the same map. I'd find it too distracting if it wasn't co-op. And like I said in Tos' thread, if the players used headsets, I'd like to have the sound coming from the player characters' location, not directly into the headphones. Even though everybody would sound like stormtroopers, you'd have to be near each other to speak, or you could be heard yelling from a distance. If the player characters had Thief world technology to explain away (feebly) the electronic sound of the voices, that is.

Gambit on 14/4/2008 at 00:44

No need for headphones.
There could be standard commands like in Counter-Strike.
But it would be only heard within a radius because the players are not using walkie-talkies. So you need to be next to your friend to issue a "Follow Me" or "Go ahead" command.

That wouldn´t stop people to use Team-Speak anyway.
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I´ve also been thinking about new ways to break into a place...
Let´s say technology in the City went just a little bit further, they finally embraced it without the fear of a Karrascide.

Then we could have harder locks, traps, security.

Some advanced things:

Wirecutting -
No need for a new tool. Can be done with a dagger.
Used to disable electric machines. To disable traps that are activated when you touch wires. To cut ropes. Sabotage. Etc.

Heat-control - Invisibility -
Some devices (or monsters) would be deaf and blind, but could detect heat. The thief would need to keep himself cold, avoiding fireplaces, firearrows, running, jumping, etc.
Also some monster could be invisible - or very translucent like the ghosts. The best way to see them and avoid them is with a heat-vision (an enhanced Karras-eye with zooming, scout orbs and heat/night-vision)

Lasers -
Optical tech is already availiable with cameras and mech eyes. So...
Disabled with jumping, or pushing a hidden "off" button. Or using an invisibility potion.

The new spider-bots -
To really make this a 3D game the spider-bots can climb the walls... Oooh, you´re not safe on the rope-arrows anymore.

Super-climbing -
To make this a REALLY 3D game the climbing gloves/grapplers/whatever can make the Thief hang on ceilings too. Not every ceiling of course. Maybe it can grab only on wood and cracked stone.
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Ok, you´re all probably going to just say no again :D
Well, just thinking some crazy new things anyway...

jtr7 on 14/4/2008 at 00:58

No.

There, go that out of the way.;)

If we go with the idea that there are former Mechanists around, and we know some of them were corrupt enough (Vilnia) to keep them as bad guys, but even decent ones are plausible, let's have a tinkerer who lost his/her faith, but still has the inventive mind he/she had. Heck, let's see working scurry-bots. Clockwork animals as pets (not a lot, just to add flavor to a map).

Garrett's eye needs maintenance, or a replacement, and it turns out to also be a clockwork spy camera that the maker can see what Garrett's doing. Which reminds me, Garrett's eye should almost conk out at a certain point in the story, making some mission more challenging, and he has to go pick up a bottle of the eye fluid. Later on, the eye gives out completely, and he would like it working again.

In a sequel I would like to see the existence of former Mechanists and former Keepers who market their skills, weakened as they are without the glyphs or Builder's blessing, yet skills nonetheless.

Melan on 14/4/2008 at 09:29

Quote Posted by thiefinthedark

If i were Eidos i would be going:
...
"Well, this means we can guarantee that X # of people would buy this game, so lets use an outdated and already built engine (assuming they use TR's like they did for DE3) so that even if only they buy it, we recoup the costs! Genius"

To be frank (and I will admit to knowing absolutely nothing about how TR's engine looks or works), I would really love it if the developers used a slightly out of date engine and pushed that to the limits. Graphics would be slightly less fancy, but it would allow much larger levels and fewer cut corners than up to date technologies (which may also have hidden problems, like we had with Deadly Shadows).

I don't know. I am not having too much hope, but if I am not setting my expectations too high, I may be pleasantly surprised, as I was with Stalker. besides, we have T1-2 to fall back on, and we will soon have TDM... so even if this fails, it will not be the end of the world. :)

El Carnemago on 14/4/2008 at 11:42

The entire basis of the Thief universe to me, is Garrett. Sure, you could always introduce another cynical, one-eyed world's greatest thief, but it won't be the same without the original. Storylines can always be changed to accomodate sequels, especially if there's magic involved.

Henri The Hammer on 14/4/2008 at 12:10

I for one would really like to see at least some form of co-op mode. Ever since I played Thief 2's Bank mission for the first time I've wished that I could play it with some other taffer in LAN. :cheeky:

slightly offtopic?: Co-op is really underrated. Why is there almost never a co-op mode in modern games? It's just the same boring deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the [insert object here]...

SubJeff on 14/4/2008 at 12:21

I agree on the co-op and I like lots of Gambit's ideas for MP.

MMORPGs allow for large scale co-op and vs gaming and that is what makes them so popular (of course).

At the moment we only have co-op in confrontational (vs) games but if devs cotton on to people wanting co-op in story led game we might end up with a "3rd" way.

It needs someone to take that step but with the popularity of Halo's co-op I can't imagine why it's not more popular.

Malleus on 14/4/2008 at 12:40

Quote Posted by Subjective Effect

It needs someone to take that step but with the popularity of Halo's co-op I can't imagine why it's not more popular.

Adding co-op is requires a lot of dev resources (proper netcode for handling players and multiple AIs, AI tweaks so it can handle the presence of multiple players, etc), and unltimately not worth the investment neither in time, nor in money (especially in a game that is originally SP only), because it usually doesn't make the game sell that much better.

EDIT: Ubi couldn't get the SCCT Co-op right for the first time, and then they just threw it out. It wasn't worth it, though it was almost revolutionary (there was Thievery, yes, but that's not really co-op), it was fun, and there were/are no other co-op experiences like that on the market.

CD Set on 14/4/2008 at 15:58

Quote Posted by Malleus

Of course it's going to take a lot of time and money to get it done, but something tells me that the demand for multiplayer is going to be too big for the developers not to include an MP mode (assuming Thief 4 is going to be made).

That being said, if they in fact decide to include one, they should at least make it worthwile (meaning; no deathmatches or stuff like that). Since many people think that SCCT's Co-op campaign is one of the best parts of the game, saying that a multiplayer mode is automatically going to make the game bad is not true, either.

That being said, I would prefer if they just focused on making the single player experience as good as they can, but well, who knows...

Oh and for the record, I agree with everyone saying that Garrett should be the main character. He's a big reason why the series is so great.