cemeth on 5/9/2008 at 19:15
Quote Posted by Syndef
Well....when I first started playing Thief, I thought every mission was going to be more or less like Bafford's mansion--breaking into the houses of rich people and taking everything valuable. And really, I would have been okay with that (I think). But then the game started becoming more supernatural.
So no, I suppose a story isn't
really necessary, but...it does make the game A LOT better. I suppose there really never was a Thief game that focused JUST on thieving. But if that happens, is it still a Thief game? Sentimentally speaking?
If it's well done... I liked the scary levels with undeads in T1 and the great(!) Shalebridge Cradle in T3. I disliked "random" placement of undeads like in some T2 missions (in cellars or so). I also disliked crawling through caves with Burricks in T1. But I think T1 had a good distribution of normal thieving missions, scary levels, and crazy things like Constantine's mansion.
Captain Spandex on 5/9/2008 at 23:35
Quote Posted by jay pettitt
Watch the end of the third game again and compare with the other two. Anyone want more of that?
I agree with some of what you say. Garrett did become more of an errand boy... but I still felt like he was independent, ultimately. I mean, my memory could certainly be fuzzy, but didn't Garrett go
against the Keepers' orders in destroying the Clock Tower and speeding up the Prophecy? To me, he was still behaving like a loose cannon, and even though the end seemed to suggest that he was not only a Keeper, but
the Keeper, his relationship with them still seemed - to me - to be one of convenience.
At any rate, even if one were to pick up where we left off after Deadly Shadows... who's to say that precludes Garrett from leaving them? Remember, most of the Keepers were wiped out, so with the organization in shambles, Thief 4 could begin with Garrett having nothing to do with the Keepers whatsoever. Perhaps power struggles within the organization as they try to rebuild have made him outcast... there's actually alot of opportunity, here, as I see it. Maybe Garrett could skip town in the wake of what went down with Gammall... giving the opportunity to introduce a new locale, new groups with new motives, and the like.
A next gen Thief should be different. It should have the same aesthetic... but it should also be an opportunity for the average Stealth fan to pick up from chapter 1, while sacrificing none of the gameplay complexity. I mean, if Splinter Cell's befuddling controls and complex stealth gameplay don't prevent it from being a top-selling title, I don't think Thief should be any different. The two franchises are actually very similar in terms of gameplay mechanics.
I reject the idea of Thief being pushed into the future, though... Assassin's Creed is already going to be doing that with the next game. No need to strengthen the already-numerous comparisons between the two franchises.
Neb on 6/9/2008 at 00:43
Quote Posted by Digital Nightfall
Is it so hard to imagine a Thief plot that doesn't involve saving the world?
Of course not, and I'd welcome one. I think that was me just being cynical of the possibility that the story for a new Thief game would follow the conventions of its predecessors and maybe try to 'out-epic' them.
Neb on 6/9/2008 at 03:05
The only thing that particularly interests me about the possibility of a modern Thief is how the supernatural fantasy elements would play out (if left in). We've come to accept that the past can be full of magic and myth, and that the present and future is something to be scrutinised. That's something particularly hard to crack, but if done correctly would be pretty fantastic.
I've always appreciated the series for mainly rejecting high fantasy conventions, yet beneath the surface the seeds of it are brooding away like a hidden tide within a city full of ambitious, power hungry cut-throats.
There's one thing that I've always wondered about regarding the story for The Dark Project but I can't be bothered to make a whole thread dedicated to it. Were the writers in any way influenced by Discordianism?, because I see bits of it subtly floating around in the plot. Garrett rejects the Keepers who oversee order and balance, yet his discordant attitude inevitably brings about their goals and prophesies. Also, Garrett ends up tricking a trickster god almost literally in the vein of the proverb; "an eye for an eye".
To top it off, in DromEd, scripted events are called Fnords.
jtr7 on 6/9/2008 at 03:36
Thanks for pointing that out! I think many of us are aware of the ironic moments in life, and poetic justice in stories, the pagan and Hammer factions really being different sides of the same coin, opposed but sharing many traits, and so on. I've recognised and used it in my own stories without ever hearing the term "Discordianism". I'll remember that, now. Thanks again. It's possible the devs knew of it, but like I said, it's observable in life and the arts. I'll do some digging.
As for a modernised Thief, I would be interested if it could build on the steampunk, factions, keep the magic as something available in the everyday, the elemental crystals and other elemental aspects, the corruption, the social classes, without seeming futuristic. If there were no torches, or gaslights, the water crystals wouldn't be such a versatile tool. The blackjack could be made even more important. Necromancy and undead could still be quarantined and incinerated as part of a City extermination service.
From the big thread:
Quote Posted by jtr7
Increased maneuverability is very desired, but gymnastics and parkour as necessary tools to solve the game are not. Give us the freedoms we were promised in TDS. Add motion-capture to the improved AI. Give us quadrupeds already! Give us scary enemies that rival our preconceived notions of what the Enforcers were going to be, before we found out they were lame. Do something radical and risky for the good cause of being different and cool, and because it will get stolen by other game companies for being ground-breaking. Don't turn the sneaker into a shooter. Make head-bob a slider-adjusted option. Give us true wide-screen. Don't make it modern day earth as we know it. Don't make the player character a thug or a gangster or a car-jacker. Bring back the sewers 'cause real cities and old Thief had sewers. Give us crime lords, hitmen, petty thieves, a corrupt mayor, street cops, industrial religious fanatics encouraging urban sprawl, religious fanatic farmers fighting for their shrinking land, and a shadowy group of immensely powerful people that influence the people of lesser power in charge.
It could be in the same timeline, but decades, or a century into the future, and the very same world with all its strangeness, only the people have adapted and changed and The City with them. The Hammerites and pagans could be responsible for keeping technological advances at a minimum, the same way the Hammers purged The City of most Mechanist invention. Whatever brought about the Glyphs and glyph magic could come back in the first few missions, and it could be the force that changes everything again, with the shadow government trying to harness its power with disastrous results (not apocalyptic at all, though), and a Garrett-like character who holds...the key...to controlling it. The rich can still only care about being rich, and the poor can still have no real aspirations to move up. Bloodlines can still define a person's place in the world. The shadow government could give way to the more decent folk within it, happy to see its dissolution, but who are still barely trustworthy, yet the least of all the prevalent evils with power. The neo-Keepers arise with the Garrett character's hesitant help. How long can he/she keep the new world order of Keepers in balance? The One True Keeper has to use his/her fully realised abilities and expanded potential as the true First Keeper of the Order.
Syndef on 6/9/2008 at 04:13
Thanks for the link, jtr7. I never saw that picture before. Now that I think about it, perhaps a modern take wouldn't be so bad. I'm sure it has never been done before. But thieves in the modern day are so...shallow. Thieves of the past were seen as dashing, cunning, and even attractive in their own ways. I don't think the thieves of today are cast in the same light. People tend to think of thieves as shallow sons-of-bitches these days. The modern drawing of Garrett looks like a character straight out of GTA. And that's NO good! He's even holding a gun! If a modern take is done, I hope it's done right. Trouble is, I have no idea what "right" is!
jtr7 on 6/9/2008 at 04:14
Thou hast achieved wisdom!:D
Unless we get some some teaser info that really sinks our hopes, we'll have to play it to know if it's right for us, or not. We'll know pretty quick--most of us, anyway--if it's even worthy of the Thief name and niche.
Neb on 6/9/2008 at 04:34
Quote Posted by jtr7
Unless we get some some teaser info that really sinks our hopes, we'll have to play it to know if it's right for us, or not. We'll know pretty quick--most of us, anyway--if it's even worthy of the
Thief name and niche.
Deffinately. Part of me wants to demand that it be true to 'this' or 'that' element, but the rest of me just wants any potential developers to go a bit mad to some extent to keep things fresh and intriguing.
I think I've said it before but I'd quite like to see something set way back during the prime of the lost city.
By the way...
How many Precursors does it take to change a light-bulb?
None. The lights still work after thousands of years.jtr7 on 6/9/2008 at 04:46
Heh heh. :thumb:
Those darn Precursors! So intriguing! Did Karras really interpret the meaning of the Precursor technology correctly? And what were they doing with it?
