Keeper Jonas on 2/7/2009 at 07:41
Hello all,
Very likely everything I'm about to write has been brought up already. I hope so. Even if that's the case I feel the questions I mean to ask are worth considering twice. I want to emphasize the Q's aspect of this thread. Of all the questions that follow, there are only a couple answers that I feel strongly about. I'm not used to being so uncertain about Thief. I can see now that many people went through this with DS. I was so pumped at first and then I enjoyed the game when it arrived. I never felt iffy at all. Now it is different. I'll furnish my half ramble answers but I'm more interested in everyone else's.
Let me preface any opinions I offer by saying that I want a Thief IV to happen.
1.) Is there a Thief IV without Garrett?
-Personally, I will be crushed if Garrett doesn't even appear or factor into it. I feel he should continue to be the main character. His improbable life was the thread running through the trilogy. I don't see any reason why the end scene of DS should be seen necessarily as a death or retirement for Garrett.
2.) Sequel or Prequel?
-Given the strength of the story and characters, I guess I would be open to a prequel if they avoided the ironic hyper self-referencing in which every single aspect of the Thief universe is somehow interconnected within the scope of one game. It is a systemic problem in gaming and in film. I am more comfortable with the idea of a sequel, but rather a prequel than nothing.
3.) Does Thief IV need to take place in the City, never mind the time frame?
-My best friend, who's quite a fan himself, is sick of the City. He wants to go across the sea, he wants to fight in the Baron's war, he wants to explore the caverns of the Esse range. I guess I want to as well, but I don't think we should eliminate the City entirely. That said...
4.) When does Thief IV occur?
-I want it to occur one year after DS, I'm traditional. I will allow that the overall spirit of the game could be adapted to the postmodern age, but I do not want to see the franchise degenerate into a Da Vinci Code type of deal.
5.) and this is important Is there a Thief IV without ole Benny?
-Who's gonna stick up for our favorite taffer? It's easy to overlook him, but there have been a bunch of little things that really keep this game close to my perverse heart, even since I've started getting laid. Do we mind if ole Benny doesn't make it to Thief IV? I do.
If we have to leave all of this behind, why put the Thief label on it? Since 1998 there have been fifty spin-offs of the game play style already. I'm not a fan of Thief because it is a commercially viable franchise. I am all for innovations to the game play, but the story is more important to me.
6.) DS presented us with some cause to hope that Constantine and/or Viktoria would one day return.
-I'd love to see them back. For other fans their sacrifices must remain complete.
7.) What of the Keepers?
-Certainly our sometimes homicidal scholars were left upstream by the dawn of the Unwritten Times, but maybe that very loss could serve to reinvigorate what had become a moribund order. The question is, after DS, do we care? I guess I don't.
8.) We saw the Trickster, we saw Glyphs incarnate in Gamall but whether or not the Builder was with Karras is, I feel, a matter of debate. Would Thief IV be a good time to finally meet our Maker face to face?
-I'm not sure. I'm interested in the question, but I can't say what my own opinion about this one would be.
I have other Q's like these but I consider the above to be the most important. If the thread develops I'll introduce some of my other queries.
Quicksilver on 2/7/2009 at 08:21
Hey Jonas, I really like the thread, asks a lot of necessary questions. I may not be as well up on some of the out of game details that the rest of the community here is but I'm certainly a hardcore fan. That comes into play in knowing what the style of the game is and what the developers have done thusfar to keep it intact.
1) Thief without Garrett would be depressing...for most fans I'd imagine. I'd be devastated but would still play it. His witt, story and character are what has kept me playing the games over and over again. Introducing a character intended to be like Garrett would well...it would be as dispiriting as JC's replacement in Deus Ex IW.
2) I think the franchise is too developed to have a prequel, we know far too much now about our favourite taffer's life and exploits for some prequel to fill us in on the few years between leaving the Keepers and Thief TDP. A sequel would have far more scope, as I'll outline below.
3) Thief TDP was far more varied in terms of what levels you did comapred with the other two, in my opinion. There were typical manor robberies, cave explorations, graveyards and also missions within the city walls on the streets. We could see a lot more of that with excursions to outlying countryside and still have the City as the main focus. I remember reading some interview by a developer not long after Thief II that if they amde a third, they'd want a free ranging city with far more 'life' than cripted scenes etc. I imagine a free ranging city, no loading zones, no limitations when I heard of Thief DS. Perhaps that would allow far more scope, with countryside missions to see further afield.
4) In the theme of the 3 games thusfar, I'd imagine Thi4f to take place a few years after DS. Post modern Thief would disgust me and I don't want to entertain the thought so I might not be the best judge on that question.
5) Benny has to make it into the game, I reckon he needs to have a few little Benny's running around too so that his line will always survive!
6) The Trikster can always make a comeback, I don't think an explosion no matter how big could destroy an old world being such as him. As for Viktoria, perhaps a similar interesting character could be rbought along, not a carbon copy but a sister type one, allowing Garrett to have feelings to introduce some interaction.
7) Keepers - well DS (which I just replayed) left us with a large clue for future possibilities. Obviously enough there was no plan for a fourth installment and the clues and end scene could have been just for fans but if they do run with it...The snippets of text we see at times say something along the lines of 'Thie first Keeper is just a proxy for the One True Keeper'. Spoiler: We see Garrett get branded with a key symbol, compared to the usual Keeper symbol of a keyhole. Showing him as the One True Keeper. ie. The First Keeper (proxy) Perhaps that means Garrett is to begin a new Keeper organisation, which can avoid the corruption from the old one. Garrett has always been drawn to his destiny to keep balance. In Thief, it was from a more imbalanced perspective (revenge for his eye), in Thief II it was more out of necessity in my opinion and in Thief DS, the cutscenes we see show him to be embracing it if you pay attention, he's not really co-erced at any stage not does he need his arm twisted too much. Perhaps Thi4f will be him embracing the Keeper way, which would allow him to be the mentor type to a new trainee. Hopefully he would be far more of an impact than Artemus was in the other games if he's not a main character but full circle in a storyline is rather admiring.
Namdrol on 2/7/2009 at 10:30
Keepers should/must play a major role.
But I see it more as a renegade faction led by a charismatic nutter much in the way of the Mechanists.
(could be argued this is similar to Gamall but I'm thinking more human crazy)
What else would bring him from retirement?
But I can not see him being in any new organization let alone the new Keepers!
Platinumoxicity on 2/7/2009 at 10:54
The keepers shouldn't play a major role anymore. They're finished. They have lost their grip of the City, the City is on it's own now and it will find a way to protect itself even without the keepers. What this protecting power is, or whether it's good or bad, we don't know yet.
Garrett should finally be able to go back to his job now that his duties as the true keeper have been completed. He is once again just a criminal, and he doesn't have any allies.
Bulgarian_Taffer on 2/7/2009 at 10:55
What about the last words of Garrett? What if he's really the one true Keeper?
This is how the Thief 4 plot should start IMO. Garrett believes he has to fulfill a prophecy on his own but he fails... or something like that.
Platinumoxicity on 2/7/2009 at 11:05
Quote Posted by Bulgarian_Taffer
What about the last words of Garrett? What if he's really the one true Keeper?
But Garrett has always been the true keeper, right from the beginning. He didn't suddenly turn into one. :confused:
jtr7 on 2/7/2009 at 11:26
Quote Posted by Bulgarian_Taffer
What about the last words of Garrett? What if he's really the one true Keeper?
This is how the Thief 4 plot should start IMO. Garrett believes he has to fulfill a prophecy on his own but he fails... or something like that.
He already did his job as One True Keeper.
Quicksilver on 2/7/2009 at 11:42
The First Keeper is just a proxy for the One True Keeper. Could that not be reversed then so that the one true keeper is the first keeper? To restart things?
jtr7 on 2/7/2009 at 12:57
The First Keeper is below the One True Keeper. Garrett's main job is done. He did what no other Keeper could or would do, and fulfilled the will of the Final Glyph. He's no leader. There are no more Glyphs. No Glyphs, no way to keep the Balance, no Keepers with any means to know what steps to take where or when or why or how. Keepers without Glyphs are no Keepers at all. The hundreds, if not thousands of ex-Keepers in The City are exposed to the world and have to get paying jobs now. Many should be expected to be completely lost in life, depressed, angry, scared, with a small but decent percentage who can adapt well and accept their failure and fate, while the most imbalanced among them would be hounding Garrett. You understand they are no longer secret, have no instruction booklets, or anymore prophecies written or memorized, because all prophecy did not predict what would happen in the days following the activation of the Final Glyph, the LAST of ALL Glyphs? You realize that without the Glyphs, Garrett would never have become a Keeper, never been trained, never been pushed and pulled by the Keepers to shift the weights in the pans to bring the Glyph Prophecies into fulfillment, never would've become the Master Thief, never would've become The One? No Glyphs, no means to keep any Balance. The City is now balancing on its own without anyone controlling anything. Garrett didn't just accidentally fulfill prophecy, the Keepers were there all the time, influencing him and others to work in his and the Keepers' favor, always. Now only Garrett remains, and the Keepers are undone. Garrett always wanted to do be done with the Keepers and their Prophecies, and now he got his wish. Be careful what you wish for...
If they get Stephen Russell and the writing is at least on par with the older games, then we should hear Benny again, since only circumstances should get in the way of having Mr. Russell reprise his triple roles of Garrett, Benny, and elder Hammerite, and maybe more--who knows? It's not going to be the same without Dan Thron's wide array of voices, too, especially as the straight man to Benny. I don't know if we'll ever hear an apebeast again, or The Eye, or another fence like Cutty, or another somber Keeper, but Benny's gotta have his straight man, if not a disarming woman to play off of. I hope Dan Thron can come back or be replaced by two people to fill in for his artistic skills and his vocal work.
Dia on 2/7/2009 at 13:23
An OT question jtr: did Dan Thron do the voices of the two guards arguing (on the rooftop guardposts) over their respective Lord and Lady (where they end up shooting arrows at each other)? That had to be the most singularly hysterical scene ever in any of the Thief games. :laff:
