storyline suggestions

santaClaws on 26/10/2001 at 18:13

[Since no one responded to my last thread, I'm reposting it under another name. Did I do anything wrong? :confused: If so, please tell me! IMO this post is in no way stupid or pointless.]

Most of the games in any way comparable to DX I played (recently and less recently) started off great, but lost a lot of their effect later on. They got more console-like, plastered with dungeons, rather linkless to the levels before.

Examples:
Deus Ex itself. In the beginning, eg in Hells Kitchen, you could access six maps at the same time. Later on, in Vandenberg, in the Submarine base, in A51, the game got pretty predictable and one-lined. It's still better that all the other examples still to come, but it could have been way better.
Max Payne starts in this NYC setting with a lot of dors in the different hotels, traps, innovative levels. In the end, you're just going up that skyscraper, the way you're going is always the only one possible, there are no more secrets or riddles.
Both Thief and Thief II were rather ego shooters in the end. Especially in Thief, in the cavern of the Dark Lord, you were just murdering the opponents rather than trying to outwit them.
The crucial point of Unreal was the alien mothership. it was way harder than the rest of the game before, but so boring. I started playing Unreal about thirty times, but finished it just about five times because there's just no motivation in this damn mothership levels. Furthermore, there's no story there enymore.
Half Life didn't do any better. There were a bit more puzzles, but that was it already. This ZEN dimension didn't do the game any good.
Even Quake II comes to my mind now. While the number of enemies increased versus the end, the whole game was making me yawn. I just ran through it, killing everyone and everything, and suddenly, it was over.

What I'd like to see in DX2 is:
More accumulated, simultanously-accessible maps (like Hells Kitchen), even towards the end.

Such large areas can (and should, naturally) contain a lot of different subplots which can, but don't have to be solved.
A more obvious storyline. In DX, all of a sudden, this researchers daughter got kidnapped - so you rescue her. For no reason, you suddenly have to go to this submarine base. The player get's the impression that those locations were just implemented in order to make the game longer.

But anyway: DX still was the second best game I ever played (if it just had come out before Thief! :)), and I'm convinced that DX2 will make every other game available right now look pathetic.
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santaClaws

[ October 26, 2001: Message edited by: santaClaws ]

cybernetic on 27/10/2001 at 17:17

you should listen to the interview with Warren Spector at <a href="http://www.xgr.com," target="_blank">www.xgr.com,</a> where he mention features that they didn't do, or didn't do as well as they wanted with DX that they want to improve in the sequel. Non-linearity comes up...

But there were many locations throughout DX that had several accesible maps. NY, Paris, Hong Kong... and what are you complaining about A51 for. There are several ways to enter the complex which means you can start it from several points AND it comes down to 3 different solutions(requiring you to visit vastly different parts of it). Not shabby at all in my eyes. <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

You must have missed something concerning the sub-base. I know there was a perfectly fine reason for going down there, I just can't remember it just now... wasn't it something about there being some necessary data down there or some part needed for the UC? Something like that. the point is that there WAS a reason - and one crucial for the plot. add to that the showdown with Simons when tryin to exit the place! DX is one of the few games that i forget are games when i play them, and i almost never felt i was forced anywhere.. even if i was, hehe.

As for Thief, I hardly even touched anything on the last level, so i guess you just went berserk for some reason.(which i on the other hand understand since i'm no fan of the Tricksters, and would gladly slay them if it weren't easier to sneak past them) <img src="tongue.gif" border="0">

and Max, HL and Q2 are straight railway shooters so i don't see them having much to do with anything. They're the opposite to what DX atleast attempts.

well, now i've complained about pretty much everything you said so... BYE! <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

santaClaws on 27/10/2001 at 18:20

Quote:

Originally posted by cybernetic: You must have missed something concerning the sub-base. I know there was a perfectly fine reason for going down there, I just can't remember it just now... wasn't it something about there being some necessary data down there or some part needed for the UC? Something like that. the point is that there WAS a reason - and one crucial for the plot. add to that the showdown with Simons when tryin to exit the place!<hr></blockquote>

That's just what I said - you're prooving my point not even knowing so. Thing is: The designers couldn't think of a way of fitting the showdown with Simons into the story - so they invented this missing part of the UC. This part was neither mentioned before, nor was it afterwards. Its purpose is just to make a new level (namely the sub-base) possible. This is, IMO, a storyline breech.

As for your Thief argument: Since the last level contains a lot of arcade-like sections (with areas that remind me of a 3D-Jump-n-Run), it didn't fit into the whole setting. OK, I know it would have looked strange for a human to sneak past the closest servants oft The Trickster, but still: There could have been more possibilities for knockouts, for instance.

I said "in any way comparable", not "exactly the same" as DX. Please notice that. Furthermore, my point concerned the storyline, not the game concept. You'll have to admit that sneak-past-'em-without being noticed and blast-everything-you-see both improve with a better storyline.

santaClaws

cybernetic on 27/10/2001 at 19:43

Quote:

Originally posted by santaClaws: 

That's just what I said - you're prooving my point not even knowing

<hr></blockquote>

i would rather say i don't remember because it's been QUITE a while since i played the game. even how much i'd like to, i don't have augmented memory banks that store all info i come across forever. <img src="tongue.gif" border="0">

i just can't complain that they made the oceanlab, when it makes the game longer and was just as lovely to play as the rest of the game. atleast it was too me... but i'm not one of those who analyzes things down to small pieces and look for errors. takes the fun away IMO. but sure, i wouldn't mind the whole thing to be more free next time round(and since they ARE improving this in DX2 there isn't really much to discuss). i just think it'd be awfully hard to make a game like this with so strong story and plotelements as freeform and non-linear as, say old Daggerfall or as i presume Morrowind will be where you more or less make your own story. not that you said you wanted it to go to such extremes...

and what arcade elements in last Thief mission??? we can't have walked the same way. i didn't even blackjack anyone(ok, might've blackjacked one or 2 of those green insects but that's it). i just stayed to the shadows and observed patrol routes and took my chance when the time was right and advanced.

Quote:

I said "in any way comparable", not "exactly the same" as DX. Please notice that. Furthermore, my point concerned the storyline, not the game concept. You'll have to admit that sneak-past-'em-without being noticed and blast-everything-you-see both improve with a better storyline.<hr></blockquote>

i didn't say "exactly the same" either... <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

and well... yeah... although not necessarily. i think Doom2 is still one hell of a blaster but you sure don't see a storyline in it. on the other hand, all stealth games i've played have had stuperb storylines so i really couldn't tell.

[ October 27, 2001: Message edited by: cybernetic ]

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