Dia on 18/7/2010 at 21:30
What needs to be improved from Thief: Deadly Shadows?
Just about everything, imho. If you're gonna make a computer game, then make a computer game - not an Xbox game converted for the computer. I've played other games that were created first for consoles then converted for the computer and not one of them was worth the effort.
Re: sword vs. dagger - I used to think I preferred the sword, but upon reflection I realize that I totally sucked at swordplay, wound up getting slaughtered by guards 90% of the time, and the blackjack and bow were so much more stealthy and easier to use; so I could really give a flying rat's ass whether they include the sword or the dagger. I'll probably end up not using either. But if the blackjack is included, please don't make my character so bad at judging distances that I end up blackjacking thin air instead of my quarry and end up having to be practically on top of my opponent before I can knock him/her out.
Though the graphics in TDS were great, the game was so linear that you weren't allowed to explore very much of those great graphics at all. You had to go from point A to B as the creators of TDS dictated (usually in a semi-straight line). That sucked.
I also hated sneaking into yet another overly blue-tinted room only to have the loot lying on a dresser across the room flash at me like a neon sign saying 'Take Me!'.
I want my rope arrows back, want to be able to swim, and I don't want load times that are so long that I could have shit, showered, and shaved my legs while waiting. And make 3rd person optional while you're at it, please. And include the 'lean forward' option too - without falling off of whatever perch you happen to be crouching on while in the process of leaning, of course. Last but not least, please get rid of the cumbersome lockpick system used in TDS!
Okay; well, I did rather enjoy the option of being able to 'melt' into a wall, so Eidos M. has my permission keep that one.
darkrahnoehk on 19/7/2010 at 02:06
The loot glint in TDS was only made necessary because of the monochrome-ish color scheme and lazy object creation the devs put into the game. Used to be that a gold cup was clearly treasure and a dull grey one was junk. But in TDS the ONLY thing that distinguishes a normal cup from a valuable one is the glint. Without the glint you would have to pick up every goblet to check if it was valuable because both use the same sprite.
That leads to another problem. Garrett forgot how to drop things quietly. This is where I saw the console-influence affect his actions negatively. Used to be that the object dropped from the center of your view so you could choose the height from which to drop an object. You could look level and drop it to make a distraction, or look directly at the ground and put it down silently. I guess console-gamers can't be bothered to direct Garrett's gaze into the floor (especially in third-person) so pressing the Drop action causes the object to thump/clang on the floor from chest height no matter what. Whenever I accidentally picked up an object I had no silent option of getting rid of it. On tables, on the the floor, nothing. You can't PLACE an object anymore, you can only hope to find some carpet and DROP it, or hurl it out an open window or something. One other thing: it seems that Garrett treats all objects the same now with regards to picking up and dropping. Used to be that you needed a certain amount of room to drop a body, that I understood. A cup though, you could drop right in front of you. But in TDS all things, bodies, books, cups, etc. need like a foot of space otherwise Garrett says, "uh-uh". Another indicator of the dev's lack of effort.
The blue selection highlight needs to be gone, lighting the object up was far less intrusive on the experience.
Garrett needs to re-learn some other things too, such as how to lean, swim and move properly:
In TMA Garrett would lean and the crystal would light up slightly because he was only slightly more visible. In TDS Garrett does NOT lean. He steps out. (Watch him in 3rd person to see what I mean.) Leaning is supposed to be a 'tilt my head to see out there' action. TDS Garrett slides his whole body out to take a look. In fact more of his body is in plain view than around the corner. Why is this? It's like the devs told themselves, "Meh, ppl are gonna use the camera trick to peek anyway, whatever. Let's just give him a cool pose and leave it at that."
He should swim so he can have as many entry and exit options as possible. How would TDS Garrett have gotten into Bafford's mansion hmm? Riddle me that. Or the Lost City. What's that you say? The access to the Lost City is through this UNDERWATER TUNNEL!? oh deary me whatever shall I do? :rolleyes: As far as putting some realism feel into it, let's assume Garrett is in shape enough to not drown instantly upon submersion but when he climbs out of the water he would leave a puddle trail for a short amount of time, until the water slicked off his oil cloth robe or something like that.
Movement. The 'body awareness' thing is cumbersome and didn't help me to feel any more immersed, nor did it feel more 'realistic' than my good old floating torso. For so-called 'purists' like myself who play in 1st person only the body awareness only got in the way. I felt that little aspect was geared towards 3rd person players who could see his whole body. (These players would also be the one's who were not affected by Garrett's misapprehension of the action of leaning) I'd like us to assume that Garrett, master thief that he is, would be graceful and agile enough not to knock over a table as he slipped by, not to trip over a body and not to have the turning maneuverability of a trolley. When I turn the camera I expect the body to turn, not just the head, such that when I turn and move to the left at a 90 degree angle I don't find that my body decided to continue moving forward for a moment before catching up.
If the pagans make a reappearance, and why shouldn't they, I hope whoever makes up their dialogue has a better grasp of it. I thought the TDS dev team was comprised of at least some of the old crews so I am not sure what happened. Maybe the guy responsible for pagan dialogue didn't make the cut or something but to me it really sounds like whoever wrote for TDS had a really poor grasp of what pagans are supposed to sound like. I always liked their odd manner of speaking in the first two but in TDS, to put it bluntly, they sound like retarded people. Here are snatches of pagan speech for comparison.
TDP:
Viktoria: Bids he then the spruces to singer him an anthems! And the Woodsie
Lord binders them fleshes to stone!
Viktoria: He am the leaf that feeders on the fleshed ones.
Viktoria: Thems that calls themselves Builders and wielded up a hammers against him!
Trickster: Mine lilacs and mine thistleaids must feeds, and I?
Stands He then in the greens and festered Maw and speeds He out his
judgements upon the weeps and writhing manfools!
TDS:
m13c0501: What bes that you havers?
m13c0502: A lettering from Dyan...I bes sticking it up heres...so them thiever, Garrett, he bes reading it.
m13c0503: Him? Bes I want to deading him! Not leaves him letters!
m13c0504: Me too. But Dyan says him coulds be of using to us. Her says no kill...not yets.
m13c0505: Bes you think him will reads them letter?
m13c0506: Bes not matter what I thinks. Dyan thinkers him will, and Dyan bes always right.
m06c0201: Hey, Jacksweed, bes you seesie them crown?
m06c0202: I seesie Kurshok guards it...in them Throne Room.
m06c0203: I tells you, it bes them gold and powering crowner! They bes never deserving it.
m06c0204: Woodsie One will bes pleased to we bringers it back.
m06c0205: We bes not strongs enough. Thems Kurshok beatsy us always.
m06c0206: Thems Kurshok bes never earns it.
See/hear the difference? What the hell happened?
One last thing: the ragdoll physics. Poorly implemented. It was more realistic for animating a guy I just dropped down some stairs yes, but feel free to leave the static animation when I blackjack him. Most people do not have the natural flexibility to bend over backwards into a complete O, unconscious or otherwise. Also, after the flopping and moving, make them, for all intents and purposes, 'flat'. Again, assume Garrett is sure-footed enough not to get tangled in the limbs of a body on the ground please. Or at least, make the AI trip up too. Actually that's not a bad idea.
Dia on 19/7/2010 at 02:29
I have to admit that in TDS I did have a bit of fun picking up the bodies of those I KO'd then flinging them down again just to see if I could make them land in a more believable position. Forget about trying to get them to land on a bed properly though.
Beleg Cúthalion on 19/7/2010 at 07:23
From left to right:
copper loot, silver loot, gold loot, ordinary metal goodness texture
(
http://s1.directupload.net/file/d/2225/fy6a92ic_jpg.htm)
Inline Image:
http://s1.directupload.net/images/100719/temp/fy6a92ic.jpgAdmittedly, these are not the T1/2 kindergarten colours but those how still care about it can see the difference. The ornamants are still visible with the blue or copper highlight overlay. It's just that people probably didn't bother at all when they saw the loot glint. I think it's purely an xBox feature, PC players wouldn't need it.
Brian The Dog on 19/7/2010 at 07:38
twisty has a good thread (
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=132717) here where he has recently played T3 after a good 5 years away, and lists the problems he sees with it. I pretty much agree with everything there, the only one I'd add would be automated black-jacking - black-jacking (like everything else in the game) should rely on the skill of the player rather than having the developers say to you "wait,wait,wait, you can blackjack NOW!" :p
Good image there, Beleg - I've never noticed the difference before. I just randomly pick stuff up and then drop it from a crouched position if it's junk.
jtr7 on 19/7/2010 at 08:53
The copper looks more like junk, not too different than rusted tin. Primary colours, eh? Wrong again on two levels. Aside from there being a hell of a llot more colours that are richer and more intense than just "primary colours, the preference is not for the colours (or are you applying some individual's comments to all you oppose?), rather, it's about attention given to distinction of appearance so a band-aid fix like loot glint isn't necessary. Colour-wise overall, TDS is derided for its five basic sickly-coloured lighting schemes that wash out so much colour from the textures it makes The City look dead and repetitive instead of distinct, alien, and interesting to just look at, from the richness of hues and juxtaposition of colours and intentionally exotic qualities that speak to that world's cultures and industries, as unrealistic as it is to make out colours in dim light, but even brighter coloured lighting still washes out the art. And how about not using exaggerated or extreme or inappropriate bump-maps that are unrelated to the materials the object is supposed to be appear as? When I see the large pale junk bottles in TDS, they look like they are carved from wood and bleached, instead of glass or some appropriate bottle manufacture. I don't care how realistic it looks, as long as it's appropriate and a consistent style that conveys the message from a reasonable distance in average lighting without needing band-aid fixes. The only other major thing that T4 could really please us all with is an intuitive and simple way for dealing with picked-up junk objects without making a game out of just putting them back down.
The monochrome blue shell-like overlay only needs to be replaced by a slightly brighter (not full bright at all) uncoloured light, that lets us appreciate the texture and form and not distract from, or wash-away, the artists' work, and without chasing the shadows away off the contours. If the hand-held target audience needs help for poor cohesion of art direction, instead of loot-glint, a junk object could highlight differently.
Beleg Cúthalion on 19/7/2010 at 12:08
I think one and a half years ago you had a pretty balanced view on everything but now, maybe for the sheer fear about Thief IV, you're overstretching a lot of aspects just for the sake of denigrating them, thus narrowing your vision of Thief down to something niggling and instable.
You're seriously stating that sick looking colours are unfit for a dystopic and alien look of the City? Have you seen a single fan artwork which doesn't show the City with some sort of colour grading? There's no need to turn everything blue but your rant was just a blurry sweeping blow. The City of TDS isn't less diverse in style or colours than the one of T1/2, but most of all none of these cities is actually colourful.
The loot colours of T1/2 which make the things look like toys are surely "consistent" and "convey the message", but I wonder if this kind of crutch still works in 2005 or 2010. And hey, I think a thief's job is to go through houses and steal the valuables. It's not - despite your current anti-realism track - about going into a room and frobbing everything with a bright and shiny golden texture. It seems a bit ironic to me that those who rant against the loot glint still want their distinct loot colours and shapes (while T1/2 didn't have too many differences in shapes of loot either; how often did you frob the wrong thing back then?) which in the end results in game design that is just as obvious as a blinking emitter? Why do they rant against retarded console players but don't bother looking at those things carefully either? The argument shouldn't be "TDS made everything look equal and added the glint emitter for the noobs" but rather "The TDS lootglint was pointless for us because we were already able to distinguish it from junk". Plus, I never had a problem dropping things in TDS without being noticed, even if this was partly due to the AIs' low sensory multipliers.
Platinumoxicity on 19/7/2010 at 12:59
Just like jtr7 said, I didn't really have that much of a problem with the slightly more realistic colours of the loot in TDS (Although the use of shader technology in the texture was insufficient and the textures looked a bit rough) but the "blue canvas" frob highlight made it impossible to distinguish loot items from non-loot items of the same shape. Worse yet, the improved physics system in cooperation with the horrible object manipulation system* made it risky to test the value of items in the presence of AI.
I have an idea to counter all of these problems even if it's overkill to improve the system to that extent:
-Loot items can look whatever they wish, and even the texture can suggest that the item is worthless. Some wooden ornamet could have some value if it's unique enough but you can't tell that by just looking at the material.
-Frob highlight should be similar to the original. Simply applying extra lighting to the surface of the object in order for the player to know better what they're looking at.
-I liked the "drop or throw" system in TDS, but not it's implementation. So if the player presses the "attack"-key, Garrett throws the held object to the direction of view. (Not straight ahead in one static arc starting from exactly waist level in all stances like in TDS.)
-If the player taps the "use"-key again, Garrett releases the object in arms reach from the exact position in the center of the screen like in the originals. (Not in a static position starting from exactly waist level in all stances like in TDS.)
-If on the other hand the player holds down the "use"-key, a translucent version of the object appears in the game world in the position where Garrett would normally drop the item. The player can position the translucent object avatar on any straight surface and upon release of the "use"-key the object appears in that spot, stationary and completely silently without alerting anyone in your presence.
*The horrible object manipulation system in TDS: Regardless of the player's aim direction, any object, be it dropped or thrown, was always spawned from the players interface into the game world in a static position in a certain height of the surface that the player was standing on. You could not aim the object anywhere but straight ahead, and you had no control over the height that you wanted the object to be dropped from. You couldn't even silently position an object on the floor by crouching and dropping it, because it always dropped from the height that would've been on the waist level if Garrett was standing up.
darkrahnoehk on 19/7/2010 at 14:40
Beleg, that is a good pic, I really didn't see those differences in-game, although I am not sure if this is because I never looked that hard or if its because I use the Low Quality Texture option (for performance). Just to be sure, you didn't use any downloaded texture patches did you?
Brian, I don't know if you maybe didn't pay attention to the details or something, but next time you drop an object, notice that crouching doesn't make a difference as far as drop height, Garrett will drop it from Standing waist height regardless.
p.s. I hope everyone might also take note of how... drab the color is in that screenshot. And I don't buy 'atmosphere' as an excuse for this ugliness.
Beleg Cúthalion on 19/7/2010 at 21:30
What you describe as drab might be part of an IMHO homogenous look. The Dark Mod for instance looks colourful but because of that if always gives me the impression of a scenery being filled with objects from ten different free 3D objects websites. TDS, on the other hand, looks homogenous. Maybe a bit blue or grey at times, but with one style, take any screenshot and you'll see.
About the loot texture, the table and wall have JohnP textures but for the loot there is apparently nothing except for a normal map (see below, tinted to make it look less ugly than the usual normal map blue-violet). I guess the different colours in the game are done with material library tinting options. Judith's the guy to ask for such things.
Inline Image:
http://s5.directupload.net/images/100719/oyajygl2.jpg