Randy Smith interview posted at EvilAvatar... - by Jandar
New Horizon on 22/6/2006 at 19:10
Quote Posted by Tony
A good example is the replacement of rope arrows with wall climbing gloves. Who was it who said, "Hey, no one likes rope arrows anymore, they're old hat. Let's replace them with wall climbing gloves! They're a lot more Thiefy." I think it's safe to say that only a very small portion of the Thief community, almost certainly made up entirely of those who did not play the original Thief or Thief II or did not do so before playing Deadly Shadows, thinks that replacing rope arrows with wall climbing gloves was a good design decision. Do you think it was?
I don't think anyone thought that. The rope arrows were left out because they couldn't get them working in time and had to go with the easier solution for verticle movement.
RarRar on 23/6/2006 at 19:17
Quote Posted by Tony
You Deadly Shadows fanboys can splutter indignantly
Ha, funny. Hey! All the Deadly Shadows fanboys raise your hands! Cause you know this forum is absolutely infested with them.
Ion had major problems integrating Havoc physics into their engine in the time they had and within the budget allocated to them by the publisher. So they had no choice but to dump rope arrows and swimmable water. I'm sure neither one of those would have been a decision any of them would have made if they had any choice in the matter. I missed rope arrows terribly but thought climbing gloves were a reasonable replacement, considering the kind of game DS turned out to be.
Tony on 23/6/2006 at 20:22
Quote Posted by RarRar
Ha, funny. Hey! All the Deadly Shadows fanboys raise your hands! Cause you know this forum is absolutely infested with them.
You don't read here often, do you?
Goldmoon Dawn on 28/6/2006 at 01:26
Quote Posted by RarRar
considering the kind of game DS turned out to be.
Precisely.
:)
Briareos H on 28/6/2006 at 02:08
By the way, new Warren Spector interview at (
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=65751) EG. We don't learn much except details on his whole gaming philosphy.
Also,
Quote Posted by Warren Spector
And check out the forums where people talk about how they solved a particular problem and others respond in amazement that they'd never thought to try that approach. Listen to people debate what one endgame choice said about you as a person, as opposed to what another endgame would have said...
Nice :D
demagogue on 28/6/2006 at 03:08
Quote Posted by Briareos H
By the way, new Warren Spector interview at EG. We don't learn much except details on his whole gaming philosphy.
Coop a Randy thread in praise of Spector ... a little on the surreal side, but I've seen worse around here.
I usually like Spector's interviews ... he's definately enigmatic and -- intentionally or not -- manages to hit most of the highs and lows that can come a developer's way. On his best days, his visions about the future of gaming can be inspiring, just as his fears about its future are truly frightening. His gaming philosophy that he repeats all the time is one that I naturally tend to share (viz. open-endedness, player freedom, richer interactivity, pushing creative boundaries, etc) ... as do a lot of people around here I'd guess. And yet he never comes across as a head-in-the-sky idealist, but is if anything often criticized as being too realist sometimes. He's sort of like Bob Dylan in that the very people that love his vision the most are often the same ones that often boo him off stage for appearing to betray it.
I personally think when Randy said something like 'whatever bitterness he may have had for some people at the time*, seeing those persons appear to succeed in another context gave him the impression that TDS's development problems were really contextual to that particular development situation' he was talking about Spector. (I also think Spector was the mystery developer who praised Bioshock to no end at E3, but that's for another thread).
* and there are some threads around you can search for and dig up that hint at some of that if you know where to look; although not from Randy really, but friends bitter in his place.
BTW, I have a little confession, sort of. One reason I was so interested in Randy's interview from the beginning was, when he was let go, it just so happened that a friend of Warren's, also a game developer, was dating a girl in my apartment during that period. So of course I couldn't help wanting to chat a little about it (and the ins-and-outs of of game development generally), and he naturally took Warren's side and I knee-jerk took Randy's side ... (of course, now that I know more about what happened I can realize that "taking sides" really isn't the right way to think about the situation.) But anyway what came out of that chatting was a much better appreciation of how remarkable something like game development really is as an industry, how personality, and technology, and business, and art, and all these things get mixed into a bag together, and then you have really great and enigmatic minds working together ... and sometimes great things happen, and sometimes less than great things. It sort of made me feel like I had some inside connection to that world, although it really wasn't much on reflection. But anyway, Spector will always I think remain one of those enigmatic minds that I'd probably rather have making games than anything else he could be doing in life.
Holywhippet on 28/6/2006 at 03:12
From a design point of view though, climbing gloves are a better decision. You can run out of rope arrows if your aim is off. Even if your aim is good and the rope deploys, sometimes its hard to climb up the damn things anyway. Take that pit in the Bonehoard level with that face who warns you not to steal his eyes.
Briareos H on 28/6/2006 at 03:24
Quote Posted by demagogue
Coop a Randy thread in praise of Spector ... a little on the surreal side, but I've seen worse around here.
Thanks for your precious opinion
New Horizon on 28/6/2006 at 03:42
Quote Posted by Holywhippet
You can run out of rope arrows if your aim is off.
Dude, that's kind of the point of rope arrows. They're a valuable gameplay commodity...something with 'real' value! With gloves, they can't be used up...much like anything in TDS...there is just too much of everything. No challenge.
demagogue on 28/6/2006 at 03:51
Quote Posted by Briareos H
Thanks for your precious opinion
Haha ... no problem. I hope you realize it was worded that way mostly for comedic effect. Although I didn't want to let it pass too easily or uncommented on, either. Remember this is still the guy who canned the person about whom this thread is ... um ... about. I was just hoping R wouldn't come here looking for a little pick-me-up and find it suddenly raining on his parade. But I can see how it fits here as well as anywhere else, thinking in terms of recent interviews, so it's not really a big deal, to me anyway.
And of course none of it detracts from what's interesting about the WS interview here. It's as top-notch as most of the other stuff he's been saying publicly recently. He has some very welcome ideas that I seem to never tire of hearing, even though I've heard most of them so many times before.
