SubJeff on 6/5/2011 at 18:26
Quote Posted by Fafhrd
Thief is comparatively simple.
Actually it isn't. To partly echo Briareos H; Thief 1 and 2 are pretty finely tuned. I don't expect a new Thief to be the same as them but I would like it to be as well tuned, even if it's tuned in a different way iyswim.
As to the original question - yes. At least we get to see what they try.
Goldmoon Dawn on 6/5/2011 at 18:50
Regardless of general circumstance, Deadly was a mockery, any way you look at it.
Sulphur on 6/5/2011 at 20:33
Quote Posted by Fafhrd
If you think that the majority of the most questionable design decisions were handed down from Eidos corporate and not dictated by the constraints of the technology ISA was working with, then you're proving you don't know what the hell you're talking about. The tiny, split levels (which necessitated limiting the possible approaches), climbing gloves, lack of swimmable water, loot glint, arrow trails, nuclear frob highlights, and the shitty movement system
all had their source in ISA trying to build a Thief game on an engine that was not remotely fit for purpose, for one of the most severely constrained hardware platforms imaginable, and spending two years hammering on it before giving up and basically throwing out all the licensed code, starting from scratch, and sprinting through to make release without enough time to fine tune the mechanics.
But please, keep clinging to the past and the idea that Eidos 'didn't get it' and your borderline persecution complex, and taking conjecture from people with the same complete lack of information as yourself as fact. I'm sure it'll pay off gloriously for you.
Deadly Shadows had far more problems than tiny, split levels anyway. Hardware restrictions were a large part of the problem, but you've got to be on some special kind of crack if you think that arrow trails and nuclear frobs and non-swimmable water were down to the
hardware.
And the Xbox wasn't the most severely constrained hardware imaginable at the time - that would have been the goddamn PS2. It's one thing that ISA couldn't code the most optimised game engine ever - the IW engine was pretty awfully optimised in general - but the Xbox managed to have working, functional ports of Far Cry, Doom 3, and Half Life 2 for god's sake. Stripped down to an extent (and rejiggered, especially in Far Cry's case) but mostly all there. Hyperbole and inept pop psychology isn't doing your argument any favours.
Beleg Cúthalion on 6/5/2011 at 20:47
Funnily enough, I have never seen anyone here complaining about the simplified Hammerite texts in TDS or the whole Pagan-Hammerite conflict cut down to a simple faction clash with only superficial background presented in the game. These would be elements indicating a decline towards "appeal to the masses" – and by the way they were the first things that I noticed when I played TDS for the first time... if you leave out the loading zones.
After all we had still ex-LGS writers at ISA and the Cradle for instance is mainly not even the work of one of them. That's why I cannot see any dominant influential dumb-down intention in TDS unless you count the dead-line and pressure thing among them. Until that it's indeed mostly about technical issues, xBox limitations (or the urge to make it multi-platform in the first place) and makeshifts to keep it running (from what we've heard the devs were aware of nearly the same problems about which the fans complained afterwards). And for that bunch of makeshifts TDS became a very decent and atmospheric Thief game.
Fafhrd on 6/5/2011 at 21:13
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
Actually it isn't. To partly echo Briareos H; Thief 1 and 2 are pretty finely tuned. I don't expect a new Thief to be the same as them but I would like it to be as well tuned, even if it's tuned in a different way iyswim.
Finely tuned != mechanistically complex. If you did a point-by-point comparison of the necessary game mechanics to make a Deus Ex game vs. those necessary to make a Thief game, the DX list would be significantly longer.
@Sulphur: Re-read my post and try parsing it properly this time. 'Engine not remotely suited for purpose' covers non-swimmable water. And arrow trails and nuclear frob highlights and loot glint
were a direct result of hardware. Shit had to be visible on a 480i display, and the maximum framebuffer on the OXbox was 680i.
Quote:
And the Xbox wasn't the most severely constrained hardware imaginable at the time - that would have been the goddamn PS2.
Which was why I said 'ONE OF,' you ass. And the constraints of the platform aren't just hardware related, MS had and has a shit ton of additional requirements that
all games have to follow to release on their platforms.
Sulphur on 6/5/2011 at 21:58
Oh, ffs. Hardware constraints and concessions for multiplatform development are two different things as far as I and the majority of the world are concerned - shit still has to be visible at 720p; why do you think DE: HR, Bioshock and every other game developed since for a multiplatform release has solid, glowing, frobbables and objective markers even though 480p/i are history in the current HD generation? If anything, games are getting even more overt now in guiding you along than they were the last generation, even though screens are bigger and sport higher resolutions.
With this current console cycle, we're at a stage where console and PC development are almost firmly in lockstep thanks to the multiplat focus. If we take your argument as it is, we should have had multiplat games by now from surviving members/fans of LGS/ISA/Origin's ideologies that are analogous to the original Thief/Deus Ex experience and don't hold your hand every other second -- but we don't. There's barely anyone who's even tried, even though current-day consoles and engines aren't starved for power.
As far as hardware constraints are concerned, I understand the term in dev circles as a function of the fixed nature of the hardware: limited memory, storage, CPU and GPU processing power. This was directly related to the chopped-up tiny levels in DS. An 'engine not remotely suitable for the purpose' is an ENGINE problem that has little to do with hardware, which if you actually take the time to parse my post, you'll see is a point we agree on, you munchkin. I'm perfectly willing to concede that Flesh was a piece of work, because it was.
Also, Microsoft's certification guidelines for Xbox development were slightly ridiculous in terms of UI specs and whatnot, but those are more or less the same issues that ThiAf is going to face again with the 360 Certification Program. I thought your point was hardware limitations and problems caused by a poorly adapted engine were responsible for DS being the 'aberration' that it is, or have you lost that train of thought?
jtr7 on 6/5/2011 at 22:02
Quote Posted by DJ Riff
QFT.
This is my hope if it's too different. I hope that if it's too much of a deviation, we won't have arguments on the boards over its inclusion. If it's different enough, it easily will not be included along with the trilogy.
Xorak on 6/5/2011 at 22:03
I often wish that Thief was originally not a FPS-styled game at all, because that genre is the absolute worst in regards for 'the masses who only care about the best graphics and the linear gameplay and the rush-through mentality'. I'm not sure of the design decisions that would make Thief as immersive any other way, but if it was something more topdown (like the Commandos games, for example) it would definitely be able to repeat whatever made it special in the first place.
Being a FPS makes Thief great, but it also essentially kills and alienates it. Now the Thiefor designers are forced to move forward into the next generation while trying to hold onto a past that only a few people really cares about or wants.
I'm optimistic for Thiefor though. I can't understand though if they include all that shit, as Briareos H says "third person sneaking, "visceral" combat, immediate identification of what can be interacted with, progression checkpoints, explicit exposition of all game mechanisms and playstyles, focus testing-based level design, hints system", why can't they just give the option to turn that garbage off. That would please everyone, the robots who need it and the people who don't. Also Thiefor might bring in some new blood, even if it just leads to the inevitable 'us vs. them' crap. Which is so absolutely inescapable I'm cringing now just thinking about it.
Pyrian on 6/5/2011 at 22:41
At the risk of sounding like flame bait, I'm all for some form of Thief 4, but I think Garrett's story is done and should be left that way. :)
Briareos H on 6/5/2011 at 23:01
Agreed. I enjoy Garrett's cynicism as much as everyone else, but I don't think having him as an avatar is integral to Thief. I would prefer seeing fresh and strong ideas developing new concepts around the city rather than rehashing the old themes/characters.
("heresy!")
