demagogue on 26/1/2011 at 18:27
I can see what he was thinking. It's hard not to see Deus Ex with an agenda to bring freedom of gameplay styles into every freaking level and scene ... tactical, brute force, or stealthy. Thief was great for bringing openness into levels and taking them off rails, but it had its own agenda to punish combat and really push a new style of gameplay altogether, sneaking (which is different from stealth combat).
I see it as ultimately just two different philosophies on freedom in gaming, and what they wanted to afford regarding gameplay, each with its own strong central vision that led to two great games. (Games don't usually come with paradigm-defining visions much anymore, at least not good ones.)
New Horizon on 26/1/2011 at 18:52
His comment doesn't make any sense. Thief didn't force the player into combat, it discouraged combat. It goes against what he said a few years ago about how he wanted Thief 3 to have more options for combat because the previous games discouraged it.
I think the interviewer misunderstood something.
demagogue on 26/1/2011 at 21:23
Yeah, I think what Spector actually meant was that Thief usually forced the player into one method for making progress, sneaking, not combat. And he wanted a game where the player could get by in whatever way they wanted, sneaking, combat, talking to an NPC, finding hidden paths, etc, and the game didn't privilege one way over another (explaining Deus Ex and the Thief 3 comment). Then the interviewer misunderstood him I think.
ElizabethSterling on 26/1/2011 at 21:51
Either that or Spector wasn't up to the task of ghosting. Still, if you want combat you're not exactly limited in your choice of games, it's the stealth that made the Thief games special.
Spector missed the point of Thief from day 1 tbh and it shows from the development period of Thief 3. (I'm not knocking Thief 3 its self.)
DJ Riff on 27/1/2011 at 07:10
Quote Posted by New Horizon
His comment doesn't make any sense. Thief didn't force the player into combat, it discouraged combat.
Spector left the project in 1997, when Thief's AI as we know it was not ready yet. Look at early gameplay videos. I think it was not possible to bypass AI at that time, and the only benefit of stealth was higher damage on unaware opponents.
