New Horizon on 4/8/2007 at 13:37
Quote Posted by Dussander
I think it should have some custom stuff, as many T2 missions introduced something new
That's cool and all, but introducing custom materials requires extra work. These also aren't just any old T2 FM's, these were official missions and in building them, we should stick as close to the source as possible.
If one of the missions 'absolutely' requires a custom texture or two, that's fine...but I truly feel it would be a massive increase in productivity to simply focus on getting the missions built with the existing assets...it will also help maintain a cohesive feeling when they are added to the original missions. They shouldn't stand out as being 'custom' fan made missions...they should in theory look and play as if they were built by LGS.
Beleg Cúthalion on 4/8/2007 at 15:07
By the way, judging from those raw mission files, can anyone see some kind of way of work that the LG guys had? Does anybody build his fan missions in the same way or is this completely new, with all those roughly brushed houses, few textures and so on?
Zillameth on 4/8/2007 at 15:23
Quote Posted by Beleg Cúthalion
By the way, judging from those raw mission files, can anyone see some kind of
way of work that the LG guys had? Does anybody build his fan missions in the same way or is this completely new, with all those roughly brushed houses, few textures and so on?
There is an article by Tim Stellmach in DromEd documentation, which describes their design methodology. Stellmach called it "stepwise refinement". It's a variant of the general approach that prevails in professional gamedev (although the details vary, because they are engine-dependent). I've used both "stepwise refinement" and the naive room-by-room approach, and found the former
much better. I've also witnessed several low-budget projects go down in flames, mostly due to improper workflow based on the naive approach that lacked the preproduction phase.
Renault on 17/10/2007 at 03:32
Just to make it official - although I'm sure most of you guessed it already anyway - this project is officially dead, dead, dead. At least as far as my involvement in it. Not that I ever had a monopoly on the Thief2 Gold idea or anything, but if anyone wants to take it up at this point, you won't have any competition or comparisons to any existing project. In other words, it's all yours.
In some ways, I really would have liked to see this project happen (The necromancer castle in particular always intrigued me, as some of you know). In other ways though, when you really look at the "released" mis files, you realize there was tons of work to do and not much information to go on. The most difficult part imo was trying to wedge some of these missions into the existing T2 plotline, and most times to me it just felt way too forced.
So, good luck to anyone who wants to give it a shot, I wish you the best...
demagogue on 17/10/2007 at 04:31
So what are you going to do with all the work, files, notes, discussions, etc, that have gone in to it so far? You should probably upload it all somewhere to give it a secure home ... maybe Yandros's upcoming site? I'm sure it will be taken up some time by someone, and they would really appreciate the work. But you can't be sure when they might turn up. Anyway, just a thought.
Edit: Also, for the record, since I care about this project and what these missions mean, I should say it's too bad that it's fizzled out in two attempts ... but I can't blame you or nicked, since it really is a big project. Thanks for doing the good work, and at least advancing the ball on this project for those that will come later. I feel pretty sure it will be accomplished someday and your contributions will be very appreciated.
Digital Nightfall on 17/10/2007 at 04:49
demagogue is right. Can you use the website you set up to host everything you've done so far? It doesn't have to be for naught. Maybe someone else can pick it up the same way you picked it up.
New Horizon on 17/10/2007 at 05:21
Quote Posted by Brother Renault
Just to make it official - although I'm sure most of you guessed it already anyway - this project is officially dead, dead, dead.
:nono:
This is sad. What happened? These missions were special. Surely enthusiasm could have been sustained for a year to finish off these missions?
As I've said from the beginning. Keeping it simple and using original content, these missions could be finished and ready to roll out in a year. How many missions were there again, 4?
poison_the_well on 17/10/2007 at 19:03
i was so looking forward to the 3 or 4 extra missions
Jashin on 25/10/2007 at 12:51
It does sound forced to have to integrate these oddball locales into the original Thief 2.
They should be standalone missions. Instead of Thief 2 Gold, it should just be Thief 2 EMs, Extra Missions.
New Horizon on 25/10/2007 at 13:32
Quote Posted by Jashin
It does sound forced to have to integrate these oddball locales into the original Thief 2.
They should be standalone missions. Instead of Thief 2 Gold, it should just be Thief 2 EMs, Extra Missions.
There must be a way to do it, considering they were meant to be Thief 2 Gold missions originally.
