New Horizon on 10/3/2007 at 13:34
Quote Posted by ToolFan2007
A majority of the earlier Thief veterans on this board are scared of change.
I don't see them being scared of change at all Toolfan, they're not. There is nothing wrong with modernization if it is done well. As for that game review...well, a sequel IS and extension or add on to an existing game...that's no surprise. A sequel is supposed to continue the world that the first in a series establishes. An example of a poorly done sequel is the difference between the first Highlander movie and Highlander 2. TDS is nowhere near as bad as Highland 2, but the approach to interpreting the source material is similar. Change isn't an issue...all things change, including our perspectives of the original games as we age....it's HOW things were changed that matters. That being said, Ion Storm was a very different gaming company...so their choices and sensibilities were going to be very different. Personally, I believe the underestimated the maturity and intelligence of the mainstream to handle a game like Thief.
Dia on 10/3/2007 at 14:17
Quote Posted by ToolFan2007
A majority of the earlier Thief veterans on this board are scared of change.
Incorrect. It was the nature of the changes that still piss some of us off. Sacrificing the non-linear type gameplay of the earlier two games for the 'new and improved' graphics is a good example. Part of the charm of TDP & TMA was being able to roam and explore. If you go back and read some of the posts made pre-TDS you'll see that most of us were all excited about the prospective changes that we'd heard were going to be made in TDS.
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At least when I play Thief Deadly Shadows I can see the series has progressed and has been modernised
In this case modernization meant that the type of gameplay of the original two games was sacrificed in exchange for new lighting techniques, new graphics and a game that could be played on a console or a PC. Therefore, many of the changes that were made in TDS were obviously made more for the prospect of increased sales by covering two types of gamers in one shot, not for the sake of improving on the previous two games. I think a lot of us felt that the trade-off wasn't satisfactory. So once again; it was the nature of the changes that were made in TDS that were objected to.
New Horizon on 10/3/2007 at 15:33
Well said Dia.
I for one was chomping at the bit AND drooling at the prospect of playing TDS. I believed the spin put on things by the Devs...especially when faceless would come out and do his "I'm the bad boy of the dev team" PR dance. Sadly, it just turned out to be nothing but spin.
Thirith on 10/3/2007 at 15:57
Quote Posted by New Horizon
It was scary, but it wasn't any scarier than Haunted Cathedral. The scripted events lose effectiveness upon replay as well.
I think it is, and that's mainly because of how the horror is created. The Cradle is a lot more psychological in what it tries to achieve, as far as I'm concerned - it gets into your head and imagination much more than the Cathedral.
Gvozdika on 10/3/2007 at 22:06
Quote Posted by Dia
Sacrificing the non-linear type gameplay of the earlier two games
How so? It is Deadly Shadows where you are given the choice in which order
to play some missions. Not the previous two. It is Deadly Shadows where the city stages can be explored over and over again or almost totally left alone. There are multiple ways to solve each mission in T3, too. There even is a greater variety in possible play-styles since there is a greater amount of equipment which leaves you with more choices. T1 and T2 had larger levels by far, I give you that. This is the one major advantage over Deadly Shadows. But honestly, I can think of no other.
Jashin on 10/3/2007 at 22:38
Quote Posted by Dia
Incorrect. It was the nature of the changes that still piss some of us off. Sacrificing the non-linear type gameplay of the earlier two games for the 'new and improved' graphics is a good example. Part of the charm of TDP & TMA was being able to roam and explore. If you go back and read some of the posts made pre-TDS you'll see that most of us were all excited about the prospective changes that we'd heard were going to be made in TDS.
In this case modernization meant that the type of gameplay of the original two games was sacrificed in exchange for new lighting techniques, new graphics and a game that could be played on a console or a PC. Therefore, many of the changes that were made in TDS were obviously made more for the prospect of increased sales by covering two types of gamers in one shot, not for the sake of improving on the previous two games. I think a lot of us felt that the trade-off wasn't satisfactory. So once again; it was the nature of the changes that were made in TDS that were objected to.
This is the kind of rotten attitude that caused the series to die and sequels to be canceled, that somehow it's possible to trace responsibility to some ill-intentioned corporate bean-counting - in light of how T3 turned out. For the record, Thief is about 3 things - Stealth, stealing, and story locations. T3's still nonlinear, still possesses the Thief atmosphere, the sounds, the characterizations, the Thief tone. Everything that is important is still in T3. When a series is transitioning to new technology, both engine and platform, it needs the support of its core audience, and it tried hard to buy that support. You can argue the little discrepancies all day long, fact remains it could've been much much worse. It could've been a cash-in, a Fallout ---> Fallout Xbox.
And this train of thought isn't even original, you probably got it off of somebody else who posted this earlier. Watching out for the bottomline is how a business like gamemaking survives, as would any business.
New Horizon: Art style and 1st/3rd perspectives, those are things that fans of any games have to adapt to in between titles in a series. And no, I'd not call older Thief titles realistic by any stretch of the word, nor would I argue that realism is somehow better than artistic expression.
Cronkhite on 10/3/2007 at 22:47
Quote:
For the record, Thief is about 3 things - Stealth, stealing, and story locations. T3's still nonlinear, still possesses the Thief atmosphere, the sounds, the characterizations, the Thief tone. Everything that is important is still in T3.
Stealth was relegated to an
option in Thief 3, so that a wider array of players wouldn't feel restricted by precisely what the Thief series was supposed to entail: STEALTH.
Atmosphere, yes. Sounds, yes. Characterizations, yes. Tone, sort of. Stealth? Not really. Stealth should never have been reduced to an option of the Thief player, and that's precisely what TDS did. What's worse, is that it is arguably easier to bypass stealth in order to defeat the game more easily.
Jashin on 10/3/2007 at 23:13
Quote Posted by Cronkhite
Stealth was relegated to an
option in Thief 3, so that a wider array of players wouldn't feel restricted by precisely what the Thief series was supposed to entail: STEALTH.
Atmosphere, yes. Sounds, yes. Characterizations, yes. Tone, sort of. Stealth? Not really. Stealth should never have been reduced to an option of the Thief player, and that's precisely what TDS did. What's worse, is that it is arguably easier to bypass stealth in order to defeat the game more easily.
Thief has never been about pure stealth, there are swords and arrows. T3 made them a more viable option than in previous titles.
Stealth is still the modus operandi. It's when stealth botches and you're discovered that T3 allows for an effective action-oriented "out".
New Horizon on 10/3/2007 at 23:30
Quote Posted by Jashin
This is the kind of rotten attitude that caused the series to die and sequels to be canceled, that somehow it's possible to trace responsibility to some ill-intentioned corporate bean-counting - in light of how T3 turned out. For the record, Thief is about 3 things - Stealth, stealing, and story locations. T3's still nonlinear, still possesses the Thief atmosphere, the sounds, the characterizations, the Thief tone. Everything that is important is still in T3.
It wasn't the lack of core audience that killed the prospect of further sequels, that's absolutely ridiculous, it was that the game failed to break the mainstream as they expected it would. Come on...it has bean counter written all over it. They knew the core audience is small, that's why many of the finer details were disregarded. Yet, the core audience bought the game...and the game didn't break the mainstream as they hoped.
For the record, I know what Thief is about...and while I agree that the core elements are 'somewhat' there in TDS, but they have been watered down enough to make the game feel juvenile. Atmosphere and Tone are far more scattershot than the originals, it's more like a parody of the originals. As I mentioned elsewhere, this has a lot to do with the artistic style of the game. Had they gone with the more 'realist' approach of the originals, it would have counter balanced a lot of the sillyness that happens in Thief games. It just went too far in the comedic direction.
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When a series is transitioning to new technology, both engine and platform, it needs the support of its core audience, and it tried hard to buy that support. You can argue the little discrepancies all day long, fact remains it could've been much much worse.
Well, I bought the game...and many more 'core audience' members did as well.
We didn't bail...we stuck around.
Transitioning to new tech shouldn't matter, so long as the tech is designed to fit the game and not the other way around. Deus Ex 2 and TDS are examples of games shoe horned to fit ill designed tech, while doom 3 is a fine example of an engine that was designed to do what they needed to pull off the game.
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It could've been a cash-in, a Fallout ---> Fallout Xbox.
It WAS a cash in....why else build the build the game for multiple platforms, but only aim to meet the requirements of the lowest spec (x-box)? Economics....expend as little effort and money as possible for a quick return. You certainly didn't see any further patches to correct issues with the game, did you? That's right, you didn't...because TDS failed to take in enough money and Ion was shut down. Id built doom 3 for PC first and then tailored it for console...it turned out much better. T3 should have been given the same treatment, but it was rushed out the door. TDS on PC is essentially like playing on an xbox emulator.
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And this train of thought isn't even original, you probably got it off of somebody else who posted this earlier. Watching out for the bottomline is how a business like gamemaking survives, as would any business.
What exactly needs to be original in this line of thinking? As for...'the bottomline', competent management and competent game making are two separate things. From my understanding of the situation, there were a few loose cannons on the TDS dev team. There was the person who redesigned the renderer from the ground up, when all they were asked to do was make some alterations to the existing renderer, or something of that nature. It was too late to do anything by the time they found out how much this crippled the levels....extremely poor planning.
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New Horizon: Art style and 1st/3rd perspectives, those are things that fans of any games have to adapt to in between titles in a series. And no, I'd not call older Thief titles realistic by any stretch of the word, nor would I argue that realism is somehow better than artistic expression.
I wouldn't say the originals were 'realistic'...but the first two games DID use a more 'realist' artistic approach. First and Third perspectives are fine for games that support that type of game style...but Thief was and IS a first person stealth game. Third person doesn't enhance the stealth within the game, it undermines it.
Jashin on 11/3/2007 at 00:07
I hate it when people take my posts apart, and you don't know enough about what actually went on, so I'm just gonna say this: The game succeeded in its intention to be more newbie-friendly; the reasons why it failed commercially are many, including budget and deadline issues and problems with the engine rewrite.
The staunch hardcores are trying to desperately construe it as a sin to god, it isn't so. Feeling like you've been deprived of something that never existed is stupid and inevitable I'm afraid, since the original games are terrible material for a post-millennial sales-figure-conscious market with rising dev costs.
