Albert on 1/5/2011 at 16:03
A sole concern of mine is whether they'll at least try and make the movement system as minimal as possible; this time, I want to BE Garrett, and not his mentally challenged puppet master receiving instructions on where to move through a flaw in a wall... :nono:
Myagi on 2/5/2011 at 21:00
A foot note. Achivements or not isn't a choice a console (360 at least) developer has. You must have them to pass MS' TCR.
Chade on 2/5/2011 at 22:15
My understanding is that, compared to objectives, achievements are:
1) flashier,
2) cover a wider range of things you might want to do in the game,
3) not compulsory,
4) not given as goals in advance.
I can see why people have a problem with all of these things put together. 1 and 4, in particular, make the player feel like a kid opening boxes in the chocolate store ... who what he might find! This is clearly inappropriate for the thief series (although it seems like it could be quite appropriate for a lighter-hearted thieving game, but anyway ...).
I don't see the problem with just combining 2 and 3, though. I see it as a way of drawing new players into the wider possibilities of the game. There would be a UI problem with presenting such a large number of optional objectives to the player, though, and only presenting objectives that the player might be interested in. Most people here would not be interested in receiving any achievements, except maybe a handful of extra objectives as in the previous thief games.
It might also be nice to shift optional objectives from being explicitly presented by the UI, to being implicitly presented by the level design, in increasingly less obvious ways, as the game progresses. Consider optional objectives as a sort of "creativity tutorial".
demagogue on 3/5/2011 at 18:25
For what it's worth, I had a similar thought with the Dark Mod statistics, and actually got so inspired by it I made a new statistics .GUI page that ended up being liked enough it got integrated.
I thought it would be a good idea to track the actual *busts* at each Alert level, so it could help you set your own personal goals, not only of ghosting, but even if you just want to minimize your busts as much as possible, you can track it with that screen. I'm happy with the way it turned out (except for the one remaining hiccup of tracking when you've been spotted).
Anyway I'm on board with that kind of thing too, have relevant statistics around if it brings more out from the gameplay than *only* the bare objectives and story, and a sandbox of stuff you might do... As long as it isn't over the top arcadish things a la GTA.
Goldmoon Dawn on 3/5/2011 at 19:09
Dammit, I guess the dream really is dead...
Chade on 4/5/2011 at 04:43
Quote Posted by demagogue
Anyway I'm on board with that kind of thing too, have relevant statistics around if it brings more out from the gameplay than *only* the bare objectives and story, and a sandbox of stuff you might do... As long as it isn't over the top arcadish things a la GTA.
Indeed, if the game is going to "officially" endorse something, it has to fit in with the existing atmosphere. Ideally they are goals that reasonable interpretations of "Garrett" could come up with (although the game should avoid making an explicit connection, as every player will have their own slightly different interpretation of his personality).
Even if it just makes some people think "hey, you mean it's possible to sneak past that?".
fett on 5/5/2011 at 04:54
The first thing that made me fall in love with Thief was being able to climb out of it. I thought I was smart because not only was I beating the game, I was beating the devs.
We can't have that now, can we? :(
Chade on 5/5/2011 at 05:04
Why not?
intruder on 5/5/2011 at 10:00
Quote Posted by fett
The first thing that made me fall in love with Thief was being able to climb
out of it.
This is so true, nothing beats the "I did it"-feeling after two hours of crate-stacking or rope arrow acrobatics...
betpet on 6/5/2011 at 13:56
Another point with acjievements that hasn't been mentioned is that it also acts as a confirmation that you have actually managed a particular task. Take, for example, an achievement that requires the player to have ghosted each and every mission. I personally have problems keeping track of every day stuff, never mind something in a game. If I want to ghost each mission, it would be nice to get the fact I actually did ghost it recorded somewhere. It will also confirm that I haven't (unknowingly) messed it up without realising.
