Sulphur on 15/12/2009 at 18:28
Garrett's already lost the one eye, you know
irredscrall on 17/12/2009 at 02:10
Trimble Bracegirdle wrote:
> Your comment J.H. illustrates the problem barrier any sequel comes up
> against.
> You hate T3 ..many complained that it was not right.
>
> BUT I started the Thief games with T3 & with some reservations like it.
> I went to T2 later & like it but dont have a need to compare.
>
> T4 would be hated both by T3 & separately, T2 people .
> Its only hope for a good reception is if its just very good .
> __/
> =.=
> "_" mouse cant please all of the people any of the time sometimes
>
>
i think they made it impossible themselves to be happy with any new
thief game. the ending was ridiculous the outcome of the main
storyline meant we would never have our thief back as we knew him.
providing 3rd person view mistake as an option destroyed the feeling
of being there, and gave garett an identity outside of the player. we
never really had a face before outside of shadows and some artwork. and
garrett turned out to be one uuuugly dude
jtr7 on 17/12/2009 at 04:17
The converse is also true, and rarely acknowledged. TDS-preferring fans hate on the older titles and older fans, often like a child mocking the adults, sounding overly smug and with glaring gaps in knowledge and experience, which of course, fuels the disappointment in TDS for bringing in the arrogant little goading taffheads that argue from emotion and impression, rarely from cold facts. T4 is going to bring in a wave of little taffheads that mock everything and everyone that came before--guaranteed--and they will demonstrate perpetual surprise that they are loathed. The TDS-preferring fans will get a taste of their own bitter medicine. Since it is inevitable, I will be curious to see if the arguments suddenly swing around, and if we will finally see nice posts from the TDS-preferring fans listing out the cold facts we've proportionately lacked, that require no emotion to communicate, but delivered passionately anyway.
The time between TMA's and TDS's releases was four years. The time between TDS and T4 will be pushing 7 and 8 years. Unless EM pulls a miracle and fools us into thinking LGS/early-Irrational have been reincarnated, the new "taffers" that are introduced to the series through T4 will even more greatly removed from the veterans. With TDS-preferring fans calling fans who prefer the older title(s) "old" over a 4-year gap, they will now be the "old" ones with double the gap in age-difference, tech-difference, industry-difference, and what they take for granted.
I can't think of any new gameplay ideas for an official new Thief game that haven't already been done in FMs or are not original or appropriate.
I just want to see if EM can create a fundamentally grounded Thief game, period before adding new gameplay in.
Just having dynamic ropes and improved climbing alone will greatly expand the possibilities, as well as increased accessibility to the buildings Garrett runs over, under, around, past, and through. Those three things alone would be a great gift to players, but still amount to disappointment if the world is not ground in fundamental Thief.
Bakerman on 17/12/2009 at 14:37
Quote:
that argue from emotion and impression, rarely from cold facts.
To be fair, there are no cold hard facts involved on either side of the argument. Everything comes down to personal preference.
jtr7 on 17/12/2009 at 15:03
Wrong. Blue-colored lighting is blue colored-lighting. Brother Murus was a ghost and Garrett helped him. A texture of a stained glass window represents a stained glass window. Frobbing a book that highlights usually takes you to a screen with text to read. Garrett is a man. A list of Thief facts like this would fill large volumes. It is arguments that state untruths out of emotion and pure subjectivity that I speak of. Many desperate arguments against the fans of the older titles all too often come from emotion rather than fact, and when the fans of the older titles happen to argue from emotion without the facts that exist in spite of them, they are not often corrected by the TDS-preferring fans, 'cause they don't know the older titles. Whenever an argument against something about TDS comes up, some TDS-preferring fan has to tell them they are wrong without the cold facts.
"There's so much unnatural color!"
"Nuh uh! The blue is supposed to be from the moonlight."
"Inside? Away from the windows?"
"Well, I liked it. I never noticed the lighting, anyway."
"Most of the steampunk is gone!"
"Nuh uh! There's steampunk. Look at the Clock Tower and Museum."
"MOST of the steampunk throughout the world is gone!"
"(dumbass excuse just to defend poor TDS)"
Bakerman on 17/12/2009 at 22:33
Quote:
Blue-colored lighting is blue colored-lighting. Brother Murus was a ghost and Garrett helped him. A texture of a stained glass window represents a stained glass window. Frobbing a book that highlights usually takes you to a screen with text to read. Garrett is a man. A list of Thief facts like this would fill large volumes.
But those 'facts' aren't themselves criticisms of TDS or reasons to respect TDP/TMA - they're facts about the games, which you have personal opinions about. If we want to argue 'which is better, apples or oranges?' you can't just say 'apples are green. QED!' Facts are not an argument because everyone responds to facts differently.
Quote:
"There's so much unnatural color!"
"Nuh uh! The blue is supposed to be from the moonlight."
"Inside? Away from the windows?"
"Well, I liked it. I never noticed the lighting, anyway."
"Most of the steampunk is gone!"
"Nuh uh! There's steampunk. Look at the Clock Tower and Museum."
"MOST of the steampunk throughout the world is gone!"
"(dumbass excuse just to defend poor TDS)"
Okay, you've made the point, TDS fans are poor debaters... but the point is, neither of those facts you start with is a criticism of the game in itself. A TDS fan could simply have said 'yes' to both points and gone on their merry way, without even bothering to argue. Because there is nothing to argue! "There's so much unnatural color!" is a fact, but it doesn't somehow sit on your side of the argument. I could say, "There's so much unnatural colour - I love the lurid dreamlike visual style the game has!" There, the fact supports my argument.
zachary1975 on 18/1/2011 at 02:16
Quote Posted by andycain
Hi guys.
I'm a big thief fan and here's a few ideas that I've had about the upcoming thief game. Be interested to know your thoughts...
1) A game set in modern times but with a similar gamplay style. (Prehaps Garrett's descendent)
2) Ability to pick a 'side' at the begining of the game. Prehaps a faction driven storyline that you get to see one side of depending on the faction you choose at the begining. You have to play the game twice as each faction to fully understand the story. Lots of gameplay time. This could work by allowing players to progress through missions even if they fail objectives which influence the storyline.
3) Character can wear disguises to fool guards.
Thoughts and opinions?
A game set in modern time does sound fun but to me it seems like there are to many games that take place in modern times no matter if they are for a pc or game console and I like thief just the way it is. another thing who would mary a thief and why would he get married.
Dia on 18/1/2011 at 12:37
Holy run-on sentence! But you do have a point about someone marrying a thief, z1975 - unless that someone was also a thief to begin with. As far as a modern-day setting: no thanks. I also love Thief just the way it is.
negativeliberty on 18/1/2011 at 20:59
Quote Posted by andycain
1) A game set in modern times but with a similar gamplay style. (Prehaps Garrett's descendent)
There are no modern times. Thief is not a medieval setting, it's a fantasy steampunk universe which has its own timeline. If by "modern times" you're suggesting it takes place hundreds years or a millenium after the events of Thief I can only ask why? There was a clear theme of modernisation in the form of an industrial revolution of sorts in the first Thief games' settings. I think going hundreds of years into the future will only serve Eidos' habit of vastly distancing and removing sequels from their original IP.
Also, it can't have escaped your notice that playing as Garrett's descendant is pretty much a blatant copy of Assasin's Creed entire (stupid) premise, which itself borrowed heavily in all the wrong ways from Thief itself and this is becoming a feedback loop which wouldn't be beneficial to the quality of the game. I can only hope you're not an employee of Eidos.
Bakerman; despite this odd trend of surrounding literally everything with relativism, the quality of a game is not entirely subjective. Yes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but that still doesn't make TDS a great game, merely a game better than most, but far worse than its predecessors.
ElizabethSterling on 18/1/2011 at 21:44
'Modernisation' is a poor idea; you'd essentially be throwing away much of the world as it existed as well as the characters, the memorable weapons and tools... it'd be a sequel in name only, like one of those movies that gets tacked on to an existing franchise it has nothing to do with to make it sell better. Why bother hyping a 4th Thief game if it's not going to take advantage of that? Secondly, I suspect the one small 'preview' we've seen puts pay to modernisation plans, or at least hope it does.
As for the idea of a prequel... I'm hesitant. First off it suffers from the obvious prequel problem - we know how it ends already! Save some surprise revalations on how things reached the state they do in TDP what surprises could there be? Seriously, can you imagine a Thief game without some nice juicy surprises to uncover? Secondly I think there's a real danger that by learning too much about Garrett's origins we would take away all the mystique he has. Thief 1 gives about a minute to pre-keeper Garrett and five to his training, everything else is... well, in the shadows where Garret works best. Third and finally I've read some of the lists of people you could include from the Thief franchise in a prequel and there's a real danger it'd STINK of fanservice the same way the vomit-inducing Star Wars prequels did.
What I'd want is what the name suggests - a fourth Thief title that expands the horizons of the series. Wasn't the key issue with Thief 3 that it streamlined and simplified everything so much? Simpler gameplay, simpler missions (for the most part).
I'd love to see the mechanical eyes, traps, security drones and electric lights return but wouldn't it be so much better if we saw them advancing, becoming more effective and prolific. They wouldn't even resemble what they used to, you'd just hear a mechanical whirring and got that extra chill because we knew where they came from originally. To see them advance would be wonderfully chilling in its own right as there'd be the slow, dawning realisation that things could never go back to the way they were, that even a master thief has his limitations.
We've seen Garrett vs. the Pagans, Garret vs. the Keepers, Garrett vs the Hammers/Mechanists... my suggestion is essentially Garrett vs Garrett. I honestly find the idea that Garrett could have to risk more and more as society around the keepers and the factions left them behind. I can't deny I hated the faction system in Thief 3 as it was so to see them marginalized would be fascinating IMHO. Picture this:
The clock has been set forward maybe 5 to 10 years, the 'next big thing' is the proliferation of industry and the emergence of the middle-classes. Sheriff Mosely has been arrested for corruption and Garrett is older now, age is a ticking clock but he can't sit still, those who are getting rich off of the boom are so powerful they can now buy the watch and have them do whatever they want. This and the advance of technology has made Garrett's life more dangerous with every passing job whilst his yield is ever decreasing.
Missions: Payout decreases, missions get harder. A few nice open-ended sneakers like the first few missions of Thief 2.
Garrett starts to get edgy about the re-emergence of what appears to be mechanist technology but in his usual fashion he doesn't want to put himself out unnecesarily. It's only when he goes for some 'big prize' at the end of a mission and activates an elaborate security trap and barely survives that he's forced to find out where these companies are getting their goods from and how.
Mission: Garrett goes right to the source like the magnificent bastard he is, in a fit of pique invading an ultra-high security facility that is the home of one of these companies to find their secrets.
There is no dark power, no mechanist re-emergence - Garrett has been his own worst enemy. He's discovered that they had been the ones hiring him for the purpose of perfecting their technology too. He finds out that after defeating the mechanist order their goods have been in the hands of others who have had a long time to come to understand and replicate them and now the keepers are devastated and the Pagans are a seemingly spent force they can go public with them. The corporation is even secretly funding the war against 'the City'. What Garrett has done, what he has been a part of has made this possible. Worse still he finds that they've been tracking him via, of all things, his own mechanical eye. With the realisation they know exactly where he is and what he's seeing he has to choose to abandon the eye and all its advantages. Half-blind and furious he now has to escape the facility.
Mission: Garrett returns home to find his place destroyed, his contacts are dead or have ratted him out and he's truly alone.
Mission: Trail of Blood style mission in to the depths of Pagan territory save Garrett has no thieving equipment but a black-jack. It's here he finds that the plant he saved in Thief 3 was the rebirth of Viktoria.
After her death and the damage her clan took she's lost any semblance of the humanity she developed in Thief 2 and is once again cold and hostile to Garrett in the extreme Through the small amount she has retained she is finally convinced to help him however at a cost - he must sacrifice his magic sword and a small part of himself in blood help restore their trickster god.
Mission: Garrett goes deeper in to a dark, disturbing and highly magical area of forrest where he faces all kinds of one-off threats in a bid to get to the point he needs and make the sacrifice.
Now it's done his eye is restored and he is told he is no longer welcome in the woods. Garrett returns to the city in a search for allies, largely through blackmail. He must find out what the old money is doing and the ever-absent ruler of the city.
Mission: Life of the Party style mission - using what little the pagans gave him - strange versions of his own equipment. (vine instead of rope, acid instead of fire arrows etc.) He has to go through the rich quarter with the requirement to find A of B dirty secrets about nobles, C loot and definite clues to the whereabouts of the power in this city from the ruling family, D.
Mission: Now to use the information. Garrett finds the items in the city that will incriminate said nobles and leave them little love notes telling them he's got their number, using it to pressurize noble family D. He can also force them to get the ingredients for the thieving supplies he wants and nobody can cut them off.
Member E of family D breaks down and decides he can use Garrett to save the city. He/she's no happier about big bad company and if this means revealing all the secrets of the city so be it. Garret learns that the Baron is long dead, his war is lost and his power has been divided up but the city is set to fall. The only way to prevent it is to stop the company funding the enemy to the city's war effort. Garrett realises he must now act quickly - that this knowledge could be disseminated through the Hammerites. Start a ground-level revolt.
Mission: Garret has finally got all his old toys back and can deliver the information and evidence to a Hammerite compound and make good with the gold whilst he's at it.
Mission: Garrett must now sabotage the corporation's main industrial plant and put it out of commission for good. Get the plans, make no mistake in making it irreparable.
Garrett's activities haven't gone un-noticed, the keepers have decided that he's dangerous the cause and his recent activities mean he must be stopped. Garret meanwhile must prevent the same mistake happening again, get those who were once keepers to not only see sense in what he's doing through the revolt but join it, to slip in to the crowd and make sure every last piece of mechanist technology is accounted for.
Mission: Garrett must track down keepers hidden within the city, (they are hidden with subtle clues and even traps hiding their whereabouts) and convince them of his plight.
Mission: With the support of your new found allies in the former keepers go to what is left of the order and convince them of what you've done. Garrett must now find and enter the heavily defended compound. No stealing, just really dangerous stealth to get where you need to be.
Once the keepers are convinced and go ahead with Garrett has to deal with the city watch who are cracking down on protests. Garrett's keeper friends will help stir up the unrest (though it was a hard sell) and Garrett has to find Sheriff Mosely, (deposed) and return her to power.
Mission: Garrett finds evidence to exhonrate her, get her out of jail and guide her to a confrontation with the new Sheriff at which point the disaffected watch officers, (buying in to keeper propaganda) will sweep out the new Sheriff.
As Garrett makes his escape and is finally double-crossed by E of D and Mosley, caught and arrested. The keepers refuse to save Garrett and he's to be hanged.
Final mission: Garrett orchestrates his escape from death-row, covering his tracks by faking his death as the mission bows out. He has everything he wants - his eye back, his revenge and his independence but must weigh the cost of getting it.
Ending: You can insert your own ending here, I'd need to work out the particulars more to feel what'd be a fitting ending for Garrett - keeper trainer, still the badass thief we all love or retired somewhere in luxury and wealth or even cut to him returning to the city under a new identity swearing to use the knowledge he gained on the noble families and such to get what he wants.
