Jawless on 5/1/2014 at 00:53
Hey guys, this is just a general question about Thief, although it also applies to Deus Ex and System Shock, as well.
I loved these games, and grew up with all of them. However, I also looked up walkthroughs for getting through parts of each game, as well as had spoilers. Since I played them as a kid, I thought nothing of it, but now I'm experiencing guilt, as if I missed out on the real experience of playing these games.
I didn't use walkthroughs entirely, just for certain moments, like finding the key in Precious Cargo or the computer chip in the Engineering deck of the Von Braun. I also had Shodan's reveal spoiled a while back, and a few scenes from the other games.
Is it fair that I dislike the casualization of modern games when I relied on walkthroughs? I'm just curious what you guys think of that.
Also, feel free to move/delete this if you think it belongs in another forum category.
jtbalogh on 5/1/2014 at 06:56
You are fair. Finding walk throughs manually by clicking around only I needed it was an accomplishment in itself for the effort, not like the pompous way companies would rather advertise the walk through instantly on every second of the game now without promoting the challenge first. Also visiting other sites for a walkthrough introduced me to other interesting info that popped up about the game from third party perspectives, not like how companies dream to dominate my entire experience today for themselves and their perspective first.
Jawless on 5/1/2014 at 22:25
That's actually a great response, thank you! It's true, though, I never noticed little details about Thief until I looked up the Strange and Unusual Walkthrough, and that was after I finished the game twice! But yes, you're right, looking up walkthroughs only when I needed it did involve more personal effort.
This is a part about modern Thief, and modern games in general, that I wish would be brought up in the debate more often. I like my games very complex. Thank you for helping me see that I'm not a "bad fan" for looking up a walkthrough :)
Psychomorph on 5/1/2014 at 22:36
Modern games are Walkthroughs, there's lots of guilt in there.
Discovering stuff on a second playthrough is better than looking up things that you may have missed. When I played Constantine's mansion a second time, I discovered the giant rooms, which I completely missed the first time. That was mind blowing and an experience no wallkthrough can give you.
Funny thing is, I loved the "rats" maps in Counter Strike and UT/UT2004 and only then realized where these came from. Thief was always influential, I played whole level remakes in Unreal co-op, then played Thief and recognized a lot of the levels.
Jawless on 5/1/2014 at 23:14
Still, I manage to find new things for myself everyday with Thief in particular, including the hidden button in Truart's dungeon, or the fact that EVERY CEILING IN FIRST CITY BANK AND TRUST IS MADE OF WOOD, meaning unique combinations of rope arrows to get around certain obstacles. I had a memorable moment with THOSE arrows, and I don't see the same thing happening with the new Thief, where arrows only go at certain spots. That was something I reasoned through myself, while feeling stuck at a particular moment, and reasoning through that still gave me pride.
The most I did with walkthroughs was find my way through certain overall puzzles, and that's what made me feel guilty at first. But I'm glad its a guilt that can be reasoned through, since there's still so much to dig out of these games and their stories.
