Queue on 12/8/2009 at 23:28

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Saw it, pinched it, spent it--and giggled all the way home.

And games are for doing "immoral" acts (like picking up a hooker, having your way with her, then whacking the bitch so you can get your money back) that no one would ever think of actually doing in real-life. In this manner, one can fulfill some fantasy-related urge, whether realized or not, that in some strange way contributes to one's peace of mind.

Elentari on 13/8/2009 at 03:49

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Personally I haven't felt all that bad about it, in a general sense. I mean, really, picking up the loot in Thief - apart from the gameplay is no different from all those other games (adventure games, etc) where you pretty much go around picking up and collecting anything thats not nailed down anyway. Its just, in those, they don't call it theft (usually - Morrowind managed to startle me, and had me confused for a bit as to why people kept killing me as soon as I picked something up. heh A friend of mine had to explain to me that that was actually considered stealing here. . .but most games. . .yeah, if you have to 'pay' for it, an NPC is usually holding it and you have to trade). So, in that sense, Thief is really no different. Just that the layout/gameplay of these makes it a bit more. . .well, Thiefy.

As far as story goes. . .yes, I have felt quite bad. Widow Moira - I actually tried hard to get around that. I felt quite bad. But I was playing on the wrong difficulty and it was either take it or quit the game. There have been places in FMs where I've felt guilty for taking the money from the servants, or the poor orphans, or whoever - and if the loot requirement would allow it, I'd probably leave it.

That's part of the fun about it, though. To me, I mean. Some of it, you feel absolutely no compunction about stealing them blind. . .those nasty rich nobles rather deserve it. I feel a bit worse for the lower classes that have obviously scraped to get a small pile together - but then again, half the readables make you happy to relieve them anyway. Seriously, this City has got to be one of the worst places I've ever seen. 99% of the people we see are spoiled, selfish, sick and twisted. There are very few 'normal', decent people. :laff:

And I do agree with people here about Garrett. He has always struck me as something of a victim of circumstances. He was forced to steal to survive. . .and while he's an adult now and could probably try to change that. . .the society doesn't strike me as one that would be easy to try to change your class. Maybe if he wasn't so bad with the money he does get. . .but he's also at a point where he does seem to enjoy what he does too. If just a little. He also doesn't strike me as all that 'bad'. Cynical, yes. Wary of trusting people, definitely, a bit quick to get mad and take 'pay back', yes, actually bad. .not really. Of course, those FMs where we end up doing little good-deeds along the way don't hurt that impression.

But yeah, I do sort of like the switch from most games where you are playing a character that is either 'privileged' in some form or another, or the 'innocent country kid' who goes to the big city and ends up saving the world. . .and, oh, by the way, ends up so richly rewarded they become privileged in the end.

Garrett, on the other hand, is a reasonably strong character, but he's on the bottom of the 'heap'. Totally off the bottom of the 'social class ladder', and while he probably COULD start climbing and changing his class if he really wanted to, there's no real motivation for it. I mean, from what we've seen among the nobles. . .why would he -want- to become one of them? This way, at least, he's his own man, free to make his own choices. Even if half of those are motivated by the fact that he needs rent money yet again. Heh

SneakyJack on 13/8/2009 at 05:20

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I too feel badly stealing from servants and such - I very rarely kill any unarmed folks for the same reason.. just seems unfair.

I enjoy playing the robin hood style thief whenever a mission allows it - one particular example is throwing a small birthday party for a little girl who's mother could not afford it in a bonus objective in Pirates Ahoy.

I do enjoy how most of the major targets in the Thief series seem to be heartless bastards that kill for fun or for profit - I never feel bad taken them for everything they've got.

Queue on 13/8/2009 at 12:23

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Garrett always uses a cunning plan. :D

demagogue on 13/8/2009 at 15:38

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I think somewhere deep inside me, I know when I take something that when I start the game again they'll get it back ... And then I can take it again. :sly:


Edit: Or another way to say it, because the world itself is bound to the game, the real cost the game-world guys would actually feel (if they felt) isn't feeding their kids; it's just limited to the "Awww! What happened?!" reaction that you might laugh at in high school when a kid realizes that somebody just buried his gym shoes or something.