Captain Spandex on 23/1/2011 at 21:12
Yeah. You're right.
I didn't step into the internet age until about 2001, and sadly, LGS was gone by then. :(
That sort of honest approach in dealing with your fans is a big part of what's missing in gaming. It's all trailers and carefully-planned E3 presentations. More effort goes into creating the hype machine than goes into making sure the game is worthy of said hype.
lost_soul on 24/1/2011 at 19:35
You should have been there in 1994, when the game developers would openly respond to fan-made FAQs regarding upcoming or recently released games with lots of helpful info. Just look at the Doom FAQ and all of the help the author got from John Romero and folks at id.
ElizabethSterling on 26/1/2011 at 01:40
Back in the day where a top-flight game could be made by a team of three men with C++ and pixel paint program, sure. Complexity is ever-increasing with cutting edge gaming and team sizes and budgets are swelling while deadlines shrink. Even compared to Thief 2 Thief 4 will be a significantly more complex and expensive undertaking worked on by more people.
From having worked with a software team that worked in tandem with a number of big name non-software companies I'm all too aware, also, that NDAs are standard fare and very prohibitive these days. When working for a big publisher or when you've got a big commercial deal they want messages to be approved by the marketing department as much as possible.
Cobak on 26/1/2011 at 04:56
Quote Posted by jtr7
Capt. Spandex wasn't here when LGS spoiled the hell out of us with information, not as much in quantity, as timeliness and quality. It wasn't ruined or blown out of proportion by marketing. It was raw and real. We had a Project Diary and Q&A's long before the games came out, not in the final crunch. We had behind-the-scenes video interviews. We were told of changes made before we found out for ourselves. The way LGS did it, there was relatively little backlash or anger, and they have our loyalty, because they didn't talk to us in just marketing-speak and BS hype, nor condescend to us.
The problem is really that, as an industry, gaming has grown up. Much of it has turned into a big budget industry and so we get fan contact more like the movie industry would have rather than what, say, LGS offered back when they were pretty much an indie developer.
This is generally fine, but sad for us, since Thief is now part of the big budget industry (which is both good and bad, of course) and we do not get the type of direct interaction. I think you have to applaud Ion Storm for at least TRYING to still offer that same feel on the big budget title that was TDS.
I think the only places we're going to get anything like the "good ol' days" would be from indie developers, and well, they aren't making Thief 4.
That interaction is definitely still out there though.
If I could use an ex-LGS person as an example, you just might have to play iphone games to take part in it:
(
http://www.tigerstylegames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=28)
Also, for a PC example, the first big indie game I thought of (Torchlight) coming out with a sequel:
(
http://forums.runicgames.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=16286)
Renault on 26/1/2011 at 07:02
Yes, comparing the productions of the original Thief games to Thief 4 is very much apples and oranges. LGS had probably 10-15 employees, and I believe Eidos Montreal has over 80 (might be more by now, I always wonder what all these people do!), not to mention they have Square Enix looking over their shoulder. Too many lawyers and too much politics.
But you do still get that same LGS feel from indie developers like Frictional, where the guys who run the company and do all the work regularly post on their public message boards. They don't have to justify their actions to anyone besides themselves.
lost_soul on 26/1/2011 at 09:39
Yep, I remember seeing a thread on the Frictional forums where the developers were asking what the fans wanted to see in Black Plague/Requium.
jtr7 on 27/1/2011 at 06:08
More employees shouldn't mean less public contact, and by this time into DX:HR's development, there were quite a few significant media releases.
kabatta on 2/2/2011 at 08:21
What I find interesting is that the publishers of Eve online did share information on the upcoming vampire the masquerade based mmo and a teased that shows the thematic. They in a very early stage of the game, conceptual basically. The character generator that will be used is known. I wouldn't mind to know some stages of development on Thief from early on. Still, it's been almost 2 years since we found out about the game. Even Duke Nukem Forever released more information. And what ever they may have told until now is just steam in the face for all I care.
I find this technique quite damaging, since some basic information could attract new buyers and this particular company is not exactly indie in it's nature. The hidden nature of the development is childish. "Oh, we won't give you anything, but we can promise that it will be awesome." What are we? The community bicycles? :mad:
Fafhrd on 3/2/2011 at 00:04
Quote Posted by jtr7
More employees shouldn't mean less public contact, and by this time into DX:HR's development, there were quite a few significant media releases.
The problem with this statement should be pretty obvious: We don't actually know what stage of development Thief 4 is in right now. Chances are it's still extremely early. And as I said before, any marketing for Thief 4 will distract from the marketing for Deus Ex, so they're not going to start showing stuff until after DX is done.
Digital Nightfall on 3/2/2011 at 00:51
You've heard even less about what we're working on at Arkane; a game that's been in development longer than Thi4f.
;)
