5tephe on 12/10/2009 at 05:35
My workplace is great for pretending you're in thief, in one way at least. The strip-lighting isn't very evocative, but the FLOORS are.
There are weird angled corridors, with sections of cheap carpet, alternating with tiles. Then, when you move into the stairwell at the back, there is a painted concrete floor, which sounds just like stone in Thief. And as I have just bought a new pair of leather shoes, with hard heels, I make a HELL of a lot of noise on the tiles and a little less on the stone.
But today, I stepped outside the building, and noticed that the footpath has tiles in a section too. Only thing is: without the walls all around me, my footsteps were a lot less noticeable.
Got me to thinking: Does Thief take this into account - the reverberation or echoing of sound off walls? If so, should it? Lines up a lot of other questions, too. Like a larger variety of footfall sounds, and ideas like the noise you make coming out of water being noticeable, by AIs too.
So, this is my question:
The soundscape of Thief was one of the most powerful tools that the original designers used to generate a believable world, and a deeply immersive gameplay. Still, with all the modern improvements in tech and the like, are there any suggestions we can make for improvement of the soundscape in Thief 4?
jtr7 on 12/10/2009 at 06:01
The AIs don't respond to the reverberation in the games, and just react to the source volume they hear after it propagates around the terrain to them, which is not the same. I think most of us have been interested in at least the feasibility of the game to have sounds mask sounds, have better propagation, and other more realistic in-game sound--as long as it doesn't make things too easy or too hard. Having a factory full of sounds that mask the PC's footfalls would eliminate that stealth mechanic, so it would have to be tuned to less than realistic levels for the game's sake, as with all other factors. If the experience can be enhanced without pushing the game mechanics into non-fun territory, I'd like it. Of course, if EM can even match the effectiveness of the LGS games then I would be content.
Captain Spandex on 12/10/2009 at 07:06
The Splinter Cell series has had the ability to mask your own sounds with other sounds for awhile. I would love to see Thief IV do this. A similar philosophy to the interactive enemy shadows that you can hide in during Deadly Shadows (One of that game's cooler features).
A noisier variant of noise arrows could be used, perhaps? Or a new gadget entirely? It would be an interesting mechanic.
5tephe on 13/10/2009 at 22:26
A discussion has been had over at the Advanced Stealth Ideas thread about more variable floor textures, to whit - Weathered looking floorboards that creak more, and walking through leaves, that kind of thing.
Personally, I would love to see some innovations around structural sounds and air sounds.
By structural sounds I mean the little creaks and groans that (especially wooden) buildings make, the hum of unobtrusive machinery (say, mine ventilation) the creaking of a door in a draft, the gentle bang of a shutter.
Air sounds are of course, just that: the gentle noise of a draft, which can be altered by the opening and closing of various doors, that change the way air flows around a building.
I'd like to see these things have some physics of their own, and be tied to actual objects, places, or events (rather than just be sound-tracked files attached to areas). It would be very subtle, but I think there is a lot of ambiance and immersion that can be generated by such features. And frankly I'd like to see development time and effort spent making the game FEEL different from other games.
Bakerman on 14/10/2009 at 04:56
I think that if the soundscape were made more realistic, it would beg the question all the more - why Garrett is wearing tap shoes? :p The more sounds the AI does notice, the more it stands out when they don't notice things like people being blackjacked (would people object if they were no longer able to BJ a train of enemies without the ones at the front hearing the ones at the back hiting the ground?). It's fair enough from a gameplay perspective that these sounds go unheard; but when the rest of the game becomes more realistic, it draws too much attention to the places where gameplay concessions are made. So maybe you add a feature to let Garrett lower bodies softly to the ground... and then you've caught a bad case of feature creep...
I do think that's a great way to proceed, though; the sound is one of the most important parts of the gameplay, as well as the ambience.
