SubJeff on 26/1/2008 at 12:56

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They most certainly do not.

Beleg Cúthalion on 26/1/2008 at 13:52

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If the climbing gloves were just a tool for creating a realistic climbing system (facades etc.), it would have been fine. But we have that hardly now, three years later, with Assassin's Creed - and apparently for the first time.

By the way, I never had crashing loading zones (only with some FMs or while working with T3Ed) and I think automaps are rather unrealistic; if you need maps at all. I usually make my own map in my head and use the real ones only if there are some special locations marked in it.

theBlackman on 26/1/2008 at 23:03

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True TDS is and will be what it is. But, with luck, if there is another. The complaints will make it closer to the original in concept, options, and play. As well as use a engrossing plot line that augments the story.

Slayer56 on 27/1/2008 at 00:13

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I disliked the fact you could not swim

jtr7 on 27/1/2008 at 01:50

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If the water was swimmable, I would be quite content just knowing it was possible, without ever having to swim to complete an objective.

Digi: :thumb:

theBlackman: Thanks for the reiteration. Hopefully it'll sink in, and those who have a problem with it, will see the constructive and positive wishes wrapped within the negative presentation.

Okay,
The IDEA of the climbing gloves was cool. The mission design didn't make them very enjoyable. I love utilising rope arrows in areas that have nothing to do with meeting objectives, for the views, for the sense of free-roaming. If the climbing gloves would let me look over my shoulder--an additional 60-degrees in both directions--I'd enjoy them more, because I could then climb up and look around to enjoy the view.
The Pagans didn't say "bes" so frikkin' much in the other games. Instead of just sounding Gollumesque, they sound like they've been forced to use a gimmicky "bes" and at times when it sounds less hackney and more butchered. If this added element of Chaos was intended to irritate as much as Karras's Droopy Dog does to some, it worked. I personally don't have a problem with Karras, and understand it's intolerable to some, but TDS Pagans grate on me. Reading through the schemas made it much more tolerable. In TMA and TDS both, there are voice-actors who are uncomfortable speaking Paganese, and they don't make it sound natural at all. Dan Thron, Terri Barous/Brosius, and Joffrey Spaulding made Paganese believeable. The writing was consistent and showed depth that TDS Paganese was hit and miss about. "Bes". That one word alone has caused the majority of distaste. Also, in the first two games, there were Paganese speakers that knew how to speak like a Cityhead. No Pagans speak "normal" while dealing with Garrett in TDS.

Beleg:
Inconsistencies with The EYE, the Wall/barricades/sealed sections of Old Quarter, steampunk, the City Map, architecture, technological innovation, no old landmarks, the Keepers were so dumbed down, the Clocktower clock-face, blah blah blah... All of which will be addressed in detail, in the future. It's gonna take awhile to present the canon issues in a way that lays the facts out without either side using fanon for argument. Opinion isn't fact. Our emotions are a real experience, but they are not coded into the games. If you can't understand what the majority are saying, then that's your burden. The majority will not stop believing their own experiences are invalid. Your opinion is as real to you as we all believe in ours. When our opinions are presented as facts, we have lost balance. But there are the cold facts, and there are more facts to support the majority. I don't care what the subject matter is...if someone's emotional response is based on a sliver of the whole, they will be considered loony. It's natural--incorrect and intolerant as it is--to try to snap someone out of what appears to be a clear delusion. If the response to TDS-hatin' is merely "I don't understand", with the possible addition of what is clearly personal opinion, when the facts would have more weight, then I can only agree that, yes, the poster doesn't understand. I may, and others will, try to help them understand.

My comments about Thief fans versus TDS fans are based on my definition of a Thief fan. In my biased and personal opinion, a Thief fan looks at all of Thief, warts and all. If a person is a fan of only a part of the whole, they are not Thief fans, but fans of that part. There is bigotry on all sides, but one side has earned their bias, while the other side sounds more emotional than factual. The heavy focus on TDS, AND the apparent inability to see the problems the majority of players see, separates those fans from the fans of the trilogy or the first two acts. I'm here for LGS, and what TDP/Gold and TMA brought to my life. Being a Thief fan who had become enamored with the first games, and was wishing to know the rest of the story, I'm looking at everything--fanatically--and trying to make it all work together somehow, because I didn't experience a fully-integrated Act 3.

As long as we keep looking at each other as though one or the other is on the outside, we are creating a strong schism. Do you know where I can find TDS-specific information on par with that found in the old Dark Project days before Gold? Do you know where I can find a forum of TDS fans lovingly combing through everything and arguing over what it all means, utterly fascinated with it? Do you know where I can find someone who knows T3Ed well-enough to show me how to gather all the in-game information we will need for the ETU to be complete. It has to include TDS. We need to know where and when texts and conversations and scripted lines are found or spoken throughout the games. The ETU needs the maps, as they correlate to the nine days. We want to account for everything from the tiniest devations to the gross inconsistencies across the board. We want to account for which text and voice files are experienced in-game and which are not. This will establish hard canon from soft canon. I will take great care to say probably, maybe, perhaps, and likely whenever there is a doubt, and show all the evidence to argue for or against my case. This way, a productive counter-argument may be made, since it will be known how I came to a conclusion.

The inconsistencies are mostly the result of some constraint OUTSIDE the game world. I think Terri had too much of the writing responsibilities on her, and it's lacking the Laura Baldwin approach. It's apparent that the designers could not model the elemental crystals after the originals. WHAT I MEAN by that, is that they weren't simply improved upon, but totally re-imagined, so it's no longer a matter of an evolving Thief Universe. There are so many bothersome inconsistencies that TDS seems like it was made by different people altogether. TDS suffers from the devs having such a long break before getting a frustration-riddled chance to finish what they started. The inconsistencies between the first games were not this bothersome. It was far easier to imagine simple fanon ideas to make sense of them.

I am by no means able to address the issues here. I'll reiterate, there are inconsistencies between ALL the games when compared to each other, but TDS has the most.

The devs jumped in--ready to go, being fans themselves but with a highly unique perspective of it all--and all that positive energy was spent banging their heads against a defective toolbox. Once they figured out what they could and could not do, their determination to finish came from a different energy. Then, time, money, and patience ran out, followed by sincere apologies and embarrassment.

I don't mean it to be offensive for offensiveness's sake. I know this can and will be taken wrong. I can't stand what sounds like sugar-coating. Please present facts to give arguments real power. All the pros and cons of rope/vine arrows vs. all the pros and cons of climbing gloves. What did they allow you to do to meet objectives and increase the feel of the environment? Did the environment allow for extraneous fun? How far could the tool be pushed? How did the tool increase or restrain replayability?

I could go on, but I know this is overlong for all concerned. If you don't relate, you don't relate. You'll have to tell us it's not a choice, but an inherent inability to relate, otherwise people will naturally feel compelled to "help" you.

I apologise to any and all who cannot relate to any piece of what I said that rubs you the wrong way.:( If I said anything obviously incorrect without an acknowledgment of bias, please correct me.