Muzman on 13/5/2011 at 10:57
Quote Posted by PigLick
well which level was it goddammit!
Hah, snared in my trap (not really, just enjoying the vibe of seeming like some question planting politician/wanker)
It's the Museum. It's the only one that's really big enough and complex enough to seem like what it's meant to be and give that sense of adventure. The Overlook Mansion was pretty good though, and the Cradle. Would have been really good in its original incarnation though. It's got different goals than being a Thief level so I can let it slide.
Quote Posted by Fafhrd
Generally hardness complaints from the press come from when a game seems arbitrarily hard, though. By which I mean the player/reviewer seems to do everything right and the game seems to just decide 'fuck you, I'm going to kill you anyway' with little to no hint as to what it was, exactly, that you did wrong. Psychonauts' much maligned Meat Circus is a pretty strong example of this (though I honestly never understood the complaints on that one. Took me two, maybe three tries). There's definitely a tendency to overcompensate for moments like that, but there are times where the hardness complaint is valid.
True, mostly. I think it is a really fine hair to split on when they are justified and when they are just being impatient and I can't really say what is happening in a given review and get all scientific about it. But there's been quite a lot of instances in the past few years when some aspect of some game gets a negative paragraph or two and people point out that they didn't check where the camera control was, or didn't check on how to change the config etc (and sometimes it turns out that pre-release review code is to blame for that as well), accusations of people not playing games long enough etc.
The cases vary a lot and it could just be because of the internet that it's more obvious when it happens. I do detect a vibe though, rightly or wrongly. I think if you are making games then you would see that a shorter more exciting experience that's also smooth it's not only cost effective, you're going to make the reviewer's job easier and get a better review.
There's a lot of variables of course, but it's a vague trend. I don't think reviewers necessarily like it either. They do ponder at times how reflective a review done in a week is of an MMO, say. I suppose I think that also applies to a lot of other games too.
Tomi on 14/5/2011 at 09:34
Quote Posted by Fafhrd
Psychonauts' much maligned Meat Circus is a pretty strong example of this (though I honestly never understood the complaints on that one. Took me two, maybe three tries).
I think the problem with that mission was that it was so much harder than the rest of the game. It was a challenging mission, but I wouldn't call it
too difficult - it took me some time to get through it, but I did it eventually without even losing my nerves. :p
However, a friend of mine who's only a "casual gamer" simply couldn't finish it, and in the end I had to help her to beat that mission. Those frustratingly hard boss fights and places used to be common in computer games, but in a way I think it's just bad game design if a player can get stuck in a place that's just too difficult for them.
New Horizon on 14/5/2011 at 14:17
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.
Tech that they in part created. :erg: Had the coder they asked to slightly 'modify' the unreal renderer not completely gutted it and written a new one, I think they would have gotten much more bang for their buck on the xbox.
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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...
Well, there was really nothing wrong with the unreal engine. I think you're getting the story a bit mixed up here. The unreal engine was just fine for what they needed to do, it was the 'unrequested' gutting of the renderer that hurt them so badly and put them so far behind. They never asked the coder to do this...and it wasn't until much later, when that coder had left the project, that they discovered how many resources this new renderer ate up.
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...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.
Not sure where you're getting these ideas from. Ion Storm didn't spend two years hammering the unreal engine and then toss out the licensed code. Their engine coder had ripped out the unreal renderer very early on, but it wasn't until late in development when they realized they were in trouble....when they actually tried to make the levels 'fit' on the xbox. It partially came down to poor planning. All the levels were originally joined into single maps, with high res textures and high poly models. It would be great if the original maps still existed with the original high poly models.
Since they decided to use Havok physics, they didn't have enough time to develop swimmable water or rope arrows...as they said, they tried but couldn't get it to work.
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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.
What's worse...is that very early on in the development of TDS....key designers at Ion Storm were the ones who didn't get it.
Muzman on 14/5/2011 at 15:23
Quote Posted by New Horizon
Well, there was really nothing wrong with the unreal engine. I think you're getting the story a bit mixed up here. The unreal engine was just fine for what they needed to do, it was the 'unrequested' gutting of the renderer that hurt them so badly and put them so far behind. They never asked the coder to do this...and it wasn't until much later, when that coder had left the project, that they discovered how many resources this new renderer ate up.
The addition of real time lighting was requested though. I thought it was that and the attempt to implement their own physics initially that caused the drastic measures. I also heard that the guy was fired for it too, rather than left. And they had to reverse engineer his work, sift undocumented code etc to figure it all out. Which suggested (if heard it right) an exceedingly acrimonious exit. Normal downsized folks, even those who did the job wrong, don't walk on systems they've half developed and leave their fellow developers mired in someone else's stuff (my experience of programmer pride is admittedly limited, but I've seen it). It's like the guy was off limits, or made himself so. Sounds nasty.
But what do I know, all the way over here.
I know nothing about developments ins and outs, but the part that is really just unfathomable is that Invisible War ran like dog. It
still runs like a dog on my machine, relatively speaking, which compared to the Xbox is a quad core super computer. Even with a 640x480 target I really don't know how it's even possible that they didn't notice "until it was too late" as we've been told. I just find it completely inconceivable that those old screenies and films of large levels and magnetic bombs with real time lighting and so on, in what sure looks like the same engine, were made with no one noticing the thing wouldn't run. It seems to me either lies or it's utterly staggering, gobsmacking incompetence. I can't imagine it unless all the development computers would have run Crysis at Eyebleed detail level and/or there was no testing regime
at all.
My dev knowledge likely lets me down again, but I also don't understand why upon making this discovery you can't roll back to another version of the engine and carry on, with some retrofitting of the levels. It's quite possible they costed this and found moving forward the better option. But again I really can't see how it wasn't obvious earlier that there was a problem in the timeline as I remember it.
But anyway, I reckon there's a great tell-all book in the Last Days (years) of Ion for someone.
TheUnbeholden on 4/6/2011 at 21:20
Quote Posted by Dia
TDS was no aberration; it was a totaly f-up caused by Eidos pandering to the unclean masses rather than trying to remain true to all the things that made TDP & TMA successes (in the eyes of die-hard Taffers, that is). Your statement regarding advances in technology proves that you're totally missing the point.
Should there be a T4? Sure; why not? It's fun to be a little masochistic now & then.
What the... Thief 3 was largely faithful. Sure they overused some of that blue mist, but a graphic mod replaced with darker theme.
Apart from ropearrows getting the kick, climbing gloves still get the job done.
The environments where small but you can blame that on the engine, same goes for Deus Ex: Invisible war. The engines limitations where a real shame for these 2 what where promising sequels. The fans actually prefer thief deadly shadows over the previous games. I remember reading a PC Powerplay reader top 100. The votes from the fans said they preferred Thief 3 Deadly Shadows over the T2... eventhough PC Powerplay team prefer Thief 2 is superior.
You could argue that popularity =\= quality.. but that same top 100 list had Deus Ex Invisible at number 79.... and had the original Deus Ex at number 3.
Sounds pretty right to me.
jtr7 on 5/6/2011 at 06:51
Quote Posted by TheUnbeholden
What the... Thief 3 was largely faithful. Sure they overused some of that blue mist, but a graphic mod replaced with darker theme.
Apart from ropearrows getting the kick, climbing gloves still get the job done.
The environments where small but you can blame that on the engine, same goes for Deus Ex: Invisible war. The engines limitations where a real shame for these 2 what where promising sequels. The fans actually prefer thief deadly shadows over the previous games. I remember reading a PC Powerplay reader top 100. The votes from the fans said they preferred Thief 3 Deadly Shadows over the T2... eventhough PC Powerplay team prefer Thief 2 is superior.
You could argue that popularity =\= quality.. but that same top 100 list had Deus Ex Invisible at number 79.... and had the original Deus Ex at number 3.
Sounds pretty right to me.
You've got a hell of a lot of catching up to do, taffer. There are hundreds of threads and thousands of posts breaking it all down. Popularity polls have nothing to do with our collective and personal history with LGS and the older titles and how ISA and TDS disappointed. There's nothing you can say--not one thing--to change the history or how people feel. You can, however, learn some more facts to inform your disagreements. The engine has nothing to do with map size. Memory limitations are the problem. The engine was gutted and left unfinished, and we lost swimmable water, original map designs, time rebuilding maps after time wasted trying to make the maps work, and we lost rope arrows, and no, the climbing gloves don't even begin to make up for the kinds of movements the rope arrows allowed. There's so much more you had better learn before posting more like you have been, if you don't want to just push buttons or encourage T3's mistakes to be built as features in T4. There were major continuity breaks in gameplay and the writing, and TDS screams dumbed-down. And before another taffer pushes another button, we aren't talking about flaws in all the games, just the ones TDS invented, or brought in from the outside to broaden appeal and make more accessible.
Beleg Cúthalion on 5/6/2011 at 11:48
Quote Posted by jtr7
There were major continuity breaks in gameplay and the writing
What? Where?
Quote:
And before another taffer pushes another button, we aren't talking about flaws in all the games, just the ones TDS invented [...]
That might indeed be the problem preventing many self-proclaimed old-school taffers from not adumbrating T4 in a completely neutral manner ("neutral" meaning to have the most objective survey about what elements should be present etc. to form a true Thief playing experience). And that's not just about the too many monsters in T1 and too many robots in T2 thing. As long as people sweep flaws in T1/2's plots, gameplay etc. under the carpet, they cannot arrive at the superior knowledge about said playing experience no matter how stingy their criticism of TDS is. And that's more or less what comes through in many discussions AFAIK.
And the generalities aside, your latest habit of tearing apart people's posts with what you present as the bitter truth is not only questionable from the point of politeness, but it has IMHO two weaknesses: One being the imputations you bring forth even if the statement/view you believe to have found cannot be taken clearly from the post itself, and two the fact that neither THE game industry or THE original Thief experience exist as such to provide a static reference.
Rga_Noris on 6/6/2011 at 22:58
Quote Posted by jtr7
You've got a hell of a lot of catching up to do, taffer. There are hundreds of threads and thousands of posts breaking it all down. Popularity polls have nothing to do with our collective and personal history with LGS and the older titles and how ISA and TDS disappointed. There's nothing you can say--not one thing--to change the history or how people feel. You can, however, learn some more facts to inform your disagreements. The engine has nothing to do with map size. Memory limitations are the problem. The engine was gutted and left unfinished, and we lost swimmable water, original map designs, time rebuilding maps after time wasted trying to make the maps work, and we lost rope arrows, and no, the climbing gloves don't even begin to make up for the kinds of movements the rope arrows allowed. There's so much more you had better learn before posting more like you have been, if you don't want to just push buttons or encourage T3's mistakes to be built as features in T4. There were major continuity breaks in gameplay and the writing, and TDS screams dumbed-down. And before another taffer pushes another button, we aren't talking about flaws in all the games, just the ones TDS invented, or brought in from the outside to broaden appeal and make more accessible.
I agree that TDS was flawed, but far from a bad game as a whole. It is Thief, and it follows perfectly. The first two were about the balance shifting one way then the next. The third was about the balancers themselves. The art style is still quite Thiefy...
TDS suffered from deadlines, as you mentioned. Although you are wrong when you say the engine has nothing to do with map size... as the engine plays a large roll in how much memory each map will consume... I'm with you if you are referring to the memory that the consoles had limiting the map sizes for us PC users.
I would like to make one point, though: Hundreds of posts on here does not mean a heck of a lot. There 2604 registered members with more than 50 posts. That number shrinks when you exclude inactive members. It shrinks further when you exclude those active on other boards, not Thief boards.
Although its impact will be increased because of people viewing the discussions, you need to compare that number of people to the number of copies of TDS sold. We do not represent a large portion of those that will buy. Unfortunately, Game Devs/Publishers exist for the sole reason to make money, and none other. They make money by balancing quality with cost. You can have an extremely high quality game, but if it took too long, or was on a limited market (PC Only), it will not sell and then what's the point? On the other hand, you could rapidly produce a game, push it out super fast, and due its low quality not sell many copies. Again, what was the point?
The community is going to need to learn to give a little. There will be sacrifices made. We need to overlook things like third person, sideways bows, loot percentages, and instead focus on the good parts.
Now if you back out, and stop focusing on things like that and you still have a bad game, then there we clearly too many sacrifices made, and I will be right there with the crowd calling out the Devs for it. But if you want an updated game graphically that plays just like Thief: TDP, then give up now: You will not get it.
Azaran on 7/6/2011 at 00:40
Thief 3 is a great game, but with serious flaws (especially Garrett’s movement…God that pissed me off :mad:). I think some of it was the developers trying to appeal to the masses, but most of it was just lazy programming. Their discussions probably went a little something like this: “We could add rope arrows, and make the levels bigger, but it would take longer to program all that in, and we’re too lazy to spend a few more hours polishing it up, so let’s just keep it the way it is”
Beleg Cúthalion on 7/6/2011 at 07:04
Actually from the input we have quite the opposite is the truth.
