WhiteFantom on 23/2/2006 at 18:38

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I know this subject's been talked to death, but I've never vented my own opinions about T: DS, T4, and the series in general, so I'll take this opportunity to stick in my own two coins worth.

In my opinion, the story of Thief is resolved--it has a beginning, a middle, and an ending (an ending which has been built towards since the beginning), and it needs no more. There is no *need* for a Thief 4. Continuing with Garrett would prolong a storyline that has acheived proper completion, and continuing with a different main character would simply not be Thief and might as well be a brand new series with a new name (and honestly, I wouldn't be opposed to a new game in the Thief-verse with a different main character, but it really *would* have to be its own series, not the fourth game in the Thief series. T2X showed the promise of this concept, and it seems like the Dark Mod for Doom 3 may as well).

This kind of sentiment is strange coming from me, because I'm all about long-running series. I like series that continue indefinitely, because when I fall in love with a world and a set of characters, I never want to leave them. I always hope for more books in a book series because that means I never have to say goodbye to that world or those characters. And before I played T: DS, I probably would have said the same about Thief--keep making them as long as my eyesight holds out to keep playing them. ;-) But after playing T: DS, I feel that the story is complete, and to add more would ruin it. And, if I'm remembering correctly, the Thief storyline was originally envisioned as a trilogy even before the first game came out, so it seems fitting that the story is completed by the end of the third game--it wasn't intended to go any further.

And from the sounds of it, I think I may be rather glad Ion Storm did go belly up before tackling T4, because the quotes from IS insiders about the concept for T4 leaves me cold. A retelling of the original story in a modern steampunk setting? With guns? You have got to be kidding. The Thief series has always straddled the line between Medieval and modern (you've got guards in armor with swords flipping switches and electrical breakers, for instance), but it's always maintained itself as being a kind of gritty Fantasy setting. It's primarily Medieval, with a few anachronistic touches that give it a kind of hard-to-pin-down flair. But it still feels like Fantasy, and when Hammerite Priest cast spells in your direction or when you follow an ancient Pagan god into another realm, you believe in this world with its simpler technology and laws of magic. But magic is sort of hard to make work alongside guns and computer terminals and such. Hammerite Priests and Haunts and zombies and burricks and frogbeasts and obscure Pagan nature rituals would feel terribly out of place in the kind of setting T4 seemed destined for. It would take the heart and soul out of Thief, in my opinion, and would cease being Thief so much as yet another big-guns FPS clone (even if you did more sneaking than sniping). While I believe continuing the story after T: DS would hurt the integrity of the story overall, I think the kind of continuation IS was planning would have outright *ruined* it. So perhaps it's for the best that IS is no more and the Thief series calls no studio home anymore.

As for T: DS, I'm not an "I loved it!" person, and I'm not an "It sucked!" person, either. It had some extremely enjoyable moments (*twitch*TheCradle*twitch*), and a lot of the visuals were quite nice (the biggest disappointment for me visually, though, was the flat water that looked a bit like low-lying fog in certain areas. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time came out very close to the same time T: DS did, and it had gorgeous water with distortion and ripple effects, real physics, realtistic misting and splashes, etc., so I know they *could* have done a better job, from a technological standpoint...they just didn't). I was also satisfied with the story and the character portrayals--Garrett felt like Garrett, the keepers seemed believable as Keepers, etc. The Pagans were a bit odd, though--I hated the subtle changes in the Pagan dialect, and I wasn't terribly impressed with the new "tribal" appearance of the Pagans, either.

There were also plenty of things I didn't like about it, too. The usual complaints apply--insta-death water, no rope arrows, slightly over-muscled zombies, Haunts that looked more frail than fearsome, sluggish blackjack response, third-person Garrett looks like he's waddling with a full diaper, loot glint (a.k.a. "Thiefing for Dummies"), and that horrid aquamarine glow on frobbable objects--fairly standard complaints. I had more specific ones when I first played it, but it's been quite a while, so I've forgotten some of my more nitpicky gripes. Overall, I thought it succeeded wonderfully a little of the time, failed miserably a little of the time, and was fairly average most of the time. I'm not one of those fans who sees T: DS as an apocrophal abomination to the Thief series--it's "Thief 3" to me as often as its "Thief: Deadly Shadows"--and I don't reject it as the third installment in the series. There were a lot of things they could have done rather better, and it definitely didn't feel as much like Thief as the first two, but it was okay, and it was actually better than I expected coming from a totally different studio than the original games.

However, that being said, I still stand by my relief that T4 is out of Ion Storm's hands. They may have made a Thief 3 I reasonably enjoyed, but my stomach ties itself in knots to think of what might have happened if they'd been able to follow their particular vision of Thief 4.

--Jennifer

WhiteFantom on 23/2/2006 at 19:14

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What I mean is, the story has accomplished what it set out to do. The entire series has been building on Garrett as a prophesied major player in a kind of appocolypse--that's the "promise" the story has been making as it builds through each installment, and the ending of T: DS is the fulfillment of that promise. That's essentially the elements of storytelling in a nutshell--the author makes certain "promises" to the audience in the beginning (questions that are raised that we as the audience trust the author will eventually answer, problems we trust the author will resolve, etc., particularly when these questions and problems form the central focus of the overall plot), and the rest of the story builds piece by piece the culmination of those promises and answers. Once the prmoises are fulfulled and the questions answered, the story has accomplished everything it set itself up to do. It's neat, completed, and self-contained. This not to say, though, that all questions get answered at the ends of all stories--that wouldn't be much fun, would it? :-) But the questions that are set up by the author as "promises" to the audience *must* be answered...and once they all are, the story is resolved and complete.

What kind of story could reasonbly continue after the end of T: DS, anyway? Considering Garrett's new role, it would be unrealistic to expect him to continue breaking into fat noblemen's houses and stealing trinkets. He'll probably always be a thief, but that no longer *defines* him anymore--his character has a new role definition, and it has major implications on his life, and on how he could realistically function as the protagonist in a game. The child at the end would be a far more realistic choice as a protagonist (and if T4 ever did get made, that would be my vote), but again, without Garrett as the player-character, it doesn't feel like Thief so much as a new series in the Thief universe. It would be a new series, a new character, a new storyline--not the fourth installment in a currently ongoing storyline. I'm not opposed to that kind of game being made, but it's not T4, it's Something-Else #1.

--Jennifer

New Horizon on 23/2/2006 at 19:41

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Translation...that's what you 'READ INTO IT', not what anyone here implied. Of all the people on here, your posts are simply the most demeaning and degrading to other members. (Sorry Zylon, I know you try, but ToolFan wins. ;) )

I look forward to your first FM by the way. With your strong understanding of Thief gameplay and lore, it should be the FM to end ALL FM's. I see no need for anyone to make any further FM's after yours. Seriously.

Gingerbread Man on 23/2/2006 at 19:48

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ToolFan2007, chill the fuck out. You're acting like a gimp.

I'm not even a very clever person and I can find at least one way to phrase the exact things you said in this thread without coming across as a ridiculous and trolling asshat. So unless you're even stupider than me, I'm going to have to assume that your choice of words is deliberate. Which doesn't bode well.

jermi on 23/2/2006 at 22:18

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Mmhm. And why did we do that? Because it was pretty obvious based on the pre-release information, screenshots, videos, what have you, that the game was going to be less than great. Once you learn to read, do indeed go back to those old posts and witness giddyness turn to cautiousness, then doom and gloom - as it turned out, quite rightly so, too.

Nothing can diminish the greatness of Dark Engine Thief, but in my eyes at least Deadly Shadows certainly dropped the franchise, and the people who worked on TDS, from the pedestal. That's fine, though. Now that TDS has made a mockery of the whole franchise, I no longer have to care what happens to it. So bring out the Deadly Shadows sequels, however craptastic they may be. At least I'll have a lot fun photoshoping the pre-release screenshots again.