Zillameth on 28/2/2008 at 08:06

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As for the Creed - well, yes, they went down the pulp fiction way, but at least Assasins are depicted as a sect that sometimes sends an assasin out. There are some interiors, although not too many. The visuals feel a bit like Deadly Shadows, only it's day instead of night, and the horizon is much farther away once you climb above houses.

As for politics, there is always the risk of overloading. Thief is already quite "content-packed", because briefings are long and contain much background information, and there are many casual conversations during missions. The problem is, adding another layer of information might cause the game to lose its focus. In other words, the developer might need to give up something else.

But then there is the faction system from Deadly Shadows. It's very simple, but it does work, so there is some potential to expand the game's "social" aspect. There are two important questions, though:

1. Do we want more open City at the cost of less mission content? Because that's the tradeoff. You can't simply make more of everything, because the budget is not unlimited. I suspect that if the fourth part is at all created, it's going to have a pretty tight budget, because it's going to be a risky title.

2. Does the setting really support believable politics? I mean, the world of Thief is very polarized. Hammerites are brutal fanatics who want everybody to be either pure or tortured to death. Pagans are brutal fanatics who want everybody to live in treetop huts. Keepers, as an organisation, are gone, their backbone broken. Everybody else is either greedy or irrelevant. The only kind of politics I can see in such environment, is petty schemes of vain nobility and ruthless criminals. Frankly, it's not something I would like to take part in.

jtr7 on 28/2/2008 at 17:43

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A bunch of ideas:

The Baron comes back from the war with Blackbrook, bringing ideas for changes he'd like to see in The City, especially after the so much has happened with the factions and the City Watch whule he was away. Perhaps the Queen has commanded him to make the changes. The war was profitable, and the Baron dragged it out as long as he could, but it's truly over, now, and The City is slipping into an economic depression. The Queen and the Baron make harsh demands on the citizenry. The Downwinders revolt. The Baron has also brought something back to The City as a spoil of war, which could cause problems if the Downwinders get ahold of it, but he uses it as a fear-inducement to subjagate the masses. The noblility is outraged and are taking their anger out on their servants/slaves.

The former Keepers are networking, and trying to remember what they've read in the prophecies. In the meantime they work as secretaries, book keepers, librarians (the Grand Library, too), translators, interpreters, guards, servers of food and drink, cartographers, City planners, historians, scientists, mercenaries, etc. Wherever their age and skills will allow them to gain employment AND place them where they can continue to observe specific people and places and things throughout The City. They still have a secret society, but it more resembles the ones we have in real life, instead of within an invisible Compound. They now have a type of "Holy Grail" they seek to restore the Glyphs.

Whether Garrett is the main character or not, the Keepers still bother him, thinking he is their "Key" to the Rewritten Times. He's the one true Keeper, so Garrett will never willingly help them. Any possible way to regain the Glyphs will remain hidden while Garrett is alive.

jtr7 on 28/2/2008 at 19:38

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Haha!:thumb:

Increase my income by at least another 50% and I will!:) Seriously.

Zillameth on 29/2/2008 at 14:29

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I actually liked exploring City in TDS. It was fun for as long as there was something new to see or do. What the design didn't take into account was that when you walk down the same street for the n-th time, it's no longer interesting, so you want to do it as fast as possible and move on to something more relevant.

The problem with Assassin's Creed, on the other hand, is that its environment doesn't have its own story. Most streets and intersections look alike and they seem to be connected randomly, so they feel more like a maze rather than a place where people live. This is the main feature of the game as a whole. It's never a one big experience. It's always chopped up into a series of small, repetitive experiences that could be shuffled in any order without any loss of essence. I think that's why so many people feel it's boring. It's a sandbox with very little sand.

To me, a game called Gothic is in some respects an ideal exploration-based game. For starters, virtually every place is a landmark. There is always something interesting to look at, and it's very hard to get lost. Even when you pass through a relatively bland looking forest, there is some tension, because you're either hunting (which means you're actively scouting for prey) or trying to avoid danger (which means you're trying to stay out of predators' sight). Most of exploration-based quests are issued in first two chapters, and the game gets gradually more linear with time (although it only rarely puts you on rails like most action games do all the time). A very simple trick (quite old, but rarely used): the further you get, the more fast travel abilities you gain, usually in form of access to various teleportation spells (you can also polymorph into a fast animal, and run much faster than usual). But they never just put teleports randomly, like Diablo 2 did. If there is a teleport, it's because someone has put it there on purpose. Usually that purpose is obvious, and when it's not, it makes you want to explore the place thouroughly, to solve the mystery. And that's how a story can be created with just the environment, without a single word being said.

piano-sam on 29/2/2008 at 20:11

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If Bethesda gets the contract for Thief, I'll seriously consider drinking hemlock tea. I've only played Morrowind and Oblivion, and while both are fun, the degree and amount of technical faults, and stupid qwerks is personally offensive. I would rather there not be a new Thief game made - ever - than to pass it off to a developer, like Bethesda, that will most certainly, and without a doubt, screw it up.

Assassin's Creed:
I love Assassin's Creed. I'm also one of those strange beasts that loved TDS, so maybe thats telling? I don't have any problems with the story really, because to be perfectly honest I only pay attention half - or a quarter of the time anyway. I didn't start playing it for compelling narrative. Running, climbing, fighting, and patiently executing assassinations is how to have fun in AC. (By the way, you don't have to get a viewpoint for suspects. I've bumbled my way into several) It would be nice though, to have had a stealth mode even as arbitrary as sneaking. [I stick to shadows when I can anyway, regardless.] :P