Randy Smith interview posted at EvilAvatar...

ZylonBane on 15/7/2006 at 13:25

No, pretty much just you.

themetalian on 15/7/2006 at 13:49

A shame the interview didn't unveil any hint on the future of Thief :(

Goldmoon Dawn on 15/7/2006 at 19:04

For anyone who doesn't know already, LGS created the Dark Engine themselves. They didnt "rent" the popular engine of the day and try to "make things work". The differences between Dark Project and Deadly are vast, as well as the two teams that worked on them.

With the Project, LGS created the tech to fit their vision. That is a large part of why the game is so memorable.

Gestalt on 15/7/2006 at 19:33

There's nothing wrong with licensing an engine. It worked pretty well for System Shock 2, Deus Ex and Morrowind, to name a few. I certainly don't think the Dark Mod is going to be compromised because it's using the Doom 3 engine rather than something coded from scratch. If ISA had stuck with the Unreal engine, development likely would have gone much more smoothly. It was creating their own tech that caused a lot of problems for the ISA team, since Flesh turned out to be much more difficult to work with than originally anticipated.

Licensing an engine and then adapting it to suit your needs is often the best path to take, since that way you can start with a stable foundation and a set of well-documented, functional tools.

Goldmoon Dawn on 15/7/2006 at 19:40

Quote Posted by Gestalt

I certainly don't think the Dark Mod is going to be compromised because it's using the Doom 3 engine rather than something coded from scratch

All true, but for a free unofficial effort, they sure are rearranging *lots* of things, no?

:ebil:

Tony on 15/7/2006 at 21:14

Exactly. Goldmoon Dawn is talking about Deadly Shadows, not the Dark Mod.

Gestalt on 15/7/2006 at 21:45

Goldmoon Dawn is talking about modifying an existing engine vs. creating one from the ground up to suit a specific game.

Goldmoon Dawn on 15/7/2006 at 21:53

Yes, Gestalt, that too. All within the framework of comparing The Dark Project to a one Deadly Shadows.

Gestalt on 15/7/2006 at 22:13

Aye, and I was pointing out that the comment about "renting" an engine was a red herring. Both TDP and TDS used engines that were developed in-house, Dark and Flesh respectively. In the case of Dark, it worked out. With Flesh it complicated things a great deal. ISA's difficulties didn't come from hacking things into Unreal, they came from ditching that engine and using a custom-built one instead.

Goldmoon put forward the idea that using a custom-built engine is a mark of artistic purity or something like that. I'm pointing out that that's rubbish, since different projects require different things and what works in some situations won't in others.

Goldmoon Dawn on 15/7/2006 at 22:40

In keeping with the tradition of comparing LGS to ION / Dark to Deadly:

Thief: The Dark Project is one of the last classics from a bygone era of elite gameplay design. The way it was developed has everything to do with this artistic purity.

The Dark Engine was but the last thing LGS did!

I hope you didn't forget about System Shock I. The Underworlds?? LGS was from a time of much higher calibre than the Deadly Team. Therefore, Dark Project is by default the better of the two games. :)

We had better start arguing about the same things, soon.

:p