Renzatic on 19/4/2013 at 18:36

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I signed the petition to get Stephen Russell back onboard. But for me, it was more a polite "he's been the voice of the series since the beginning, and it'd feel more like home if we had him back", rather than a "screw you EM. All you're doing is pissing on the grave of our beloved franchise, and RUINING PERFECTION".

You know, I guess one of the reasons why I'm not as angry as everyone else down in T4Anticipation is because I'm at least expecting them to try and make a good Thief game. It might not be perfect. It might have some goofy modern gameplay concessions. But I feel like they're not in it just for the money, or to gut the series for the Call of Duty fratboy deathmatch audience. I dunno if they'll succeed, but I do acknowledge that they are a bunch of talented people trying to both expand upon and live up to the legacy of the previous games. Not an easy thing to do.

Everyone down in T4Ant assumed even before the first screenshots arrived they're trying to sell out the series to the COD crowd, and try to find any tiny bit of evidence to support their theory that they "don't get it" or whatever.

And that's the thing that pisses me off so much. There's no discussing the positives and arching an eyebrow at the negatives (I'm not a huge fan of sticky rafters, for instance). Nope. It's all negative. 100% of the time. All good news is completely ignored, all the bad magnified and bounced around in that echo chamber until they don't believe they've heard anything else BUT the greatly distorted version of the bad news.

And then there's the woe is me we're a special minority of smart gamers and they don't make games for us anymore blah blah blah blah blah.

...it's infuriating to say the least.



Hey. What's wrong with Monaco? They've updated the graphics so it's not quite as retro as it used to be, but before they made the change it looked quite a bit like a less ugly version of Murder on the Zinderneuf to me.

Renault on 19/4/2013 at 19:05

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Yeah, Monaco looks OK. It's lame to compare it to Thief just because they both have stealth, they are extremely different games. Different perspective, different budgets, total different gaming experience.

june gloom on 19/4/2013 at 20:00

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While I agree that the Vita is basically a bust because Sony tends to neglect their mobile games market, I wouldn't count the Wii U out just yet. it's been out, what, 5 months?

faetal on 19/4/2013 at 22:49

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At least play it before expressing disappointment. By the time games are announced, a lot of the content is likely to have been decided on, so not sure what's to be gained from slagging everything.
Let them make their game and if you don't like it (assuming you wait for reviews etc...), then vote with your wallet.

Renzatic on 19/4/2013 at 23:39

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The perfect example of what's actually pretty cool about Thiefgen, and why they'll never, ever like anything made by a big studio.

Thief is more Thiefgen's than it is Looking Glass Studio's these days. They've spent well over a decade with it by this point. Poking at it. Exploring the fiction, expanding upon it, and creating an entire fan made world around it. When EM came in and announced Thief 4, while I'm sure they won't admit to it, they probably felt it intruded on their territory. The game doesn't conform to their already well discussed ideas and theories about Garrett, The Trickster, Viktoria, Karras, The City. EM is doing their own thing. Something that, in their minds, isn't nearly as good as the stories they've come up with. After spending that much time in the Thief trenches, anything anyone else does will seem shallow compared to the grand fanscape dreamed up by everyone down in Thiefgen.

Hell, they've got a thousand FMs lying around. A thousand stories told in the Dark Engine, some of them being even better than anything LGS ever thought of putting out. There's no way anyone can compete with that.

This is both a good thing and a bad thing. Good due to the sense of community and creativity that's been fostered down there over the years.

...and bad, because they're now officially impossible to please. T4 could be the greatest game ever. The highlight of the series. But it won't matter. Most of Thiefgen won't like it because it's not their Thief. It's some random group of people who probably haven't played many FMs, read any of the fanstories, engaged in any of the debates. They don't understand the world of Thief as well as they do.

Yet here they are. Making a new game that's going to sell to hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people.

Thiefgen has become too insular over the years.

So instead of trying to like it for what it is, they're seeing T4 as the enemy. They're going to nitpick every little thing they can about it. It'll end up being a game for kids. It'll be dumbed down for the masses. It won't play anything like Thief at all. They don't understand us. They don't make games like they used to, so this new game will suck by default. You could point out a thousand good things to them about T4, but they'll all focus on that one bad thing they heard about.

olol hands.

So contrary to what some people are saying down there, I understand some of the negativity and distrust. I just don't think their reasons excuse the pure amount of snide negativity they're throwing about down there. Thief is your baby these days. I get it. But have a little more of an open mind to new things, people! A refresh of the series could open up thousands of possibilities for them. Yet none of them will see them because you're all too busy ignoring them to focus on the worst case scenario.