van HellSing on 5/8/2008 at 09:35
I really don't get this Garrett's morality issue. He kills guards in the intros to both TDP and TMA with no remorse, not to mention that trailer where he shoots a guard with a fire arrow - nasty. But ultimately it's up to you what your Garrett is like.
As for dagger vs blackjack, I usually used the dagger on the undead in TDS. Pretty effective.
New Horizon on 5/8/2008 at 13:42
Quote Posted by van HellSing
I really don't get this Garrett's morality issue. He kills guards in the intros to both TDP and TMA with no remorse, not to mention that trailer where he shoots a guard with a fire arrow - nasty. But ultimately it's up to
you what your Garrett is like.
Separate the game from the opening cinematic. The narrative 'within' the game generally encouraged the player 'not' to kill, and I would trust that over an opening cinematic, created by a third party, which is geared towards creating excitement for a new player. If a player absolutely MUST kill, then go ahead. In a game like Thief, killing is pretty much the laziest way to solve a problem. It might not be immediately obvious, but the original games were trying to do something different. The goal of the game is to steal, and while you do have the choice of killing...I see no reason to make it any easier than it already is.
jay pettitt on 5/8/2008 at 20:27
Quote Posted by van HellSing
I really don't get this Garrett's morality issue. He kills guards in the intros to both TDP and TMA with no remorse, not to mention that trailer where he shoots a guard with a fire arrow - nasty. But ultimately it's up to
you what your Garrett is like.
As for dagger vs blackjack, I usually used the dagger on the undead in TDS. Pretty effective.
It's also made clear in the game ojectives that there is a difference and incompatibility between being a thief and being a killer and it is clear that G. is the former. You are only given leeway to freely kill on the easiest difficulty settings.
R Soul on 5/8/2008 at 20:48
It's not necessarily a morality issue. There are practical advantages for Garrett not killing people. The general public might be less sympathetic to a man who kills guards than to a man who steals from rich buggers. When you remember what happens between Framed and Ambush, it becomes clear that Garrett will want as a few enemies as possible.
Beleg Cúthalion on 10/8/2008 at 06:56
I just wondered about another comment on TDS's map size. I believe that these maps - although they were significantly smaller in size, even without the loading barriers - were somehow so compact and crammed with things so that I wondered if that compensated the smaller level size in a way. I mean, in the old TDP maps you have gigantic empty corridors or garden sections in mansions that are 50 metres long just like that and have five low poly trees in them. I cannot even figure out a special purpose gameplay-wise, but maybe someone of you can give a well-founded comment about that. I know it's the advantage of a more modern engine to have more detail and a compromise to make the small maps at least interesting, but I wonder if there are in fact consequences for the gameplay.
jtr7 on 10/8/2008 at 09:24
Not a direct answer, but some related thoughts. You'll notice it's more about how I felt--all subjective--playing the games:
Personally, I felt I had experienced more in an older mission than any TDS mission. Yes, subjective. There is the complaint that TDS maps had a sameness about them, texture and feel-wise, while the older missions had different levels of brightness and colour that didn't come so much from the colour of the lighting but the variation of the textures.
In the older games, each mission could be played individually without a need for save games. For players who've become efficient with using gear and stealth, starting loot and gear purchases become moot (unless, say, you want to buy the parchment for the Gervaisius mask loot before going to the Lost City). For me, each mission feels substantial enough on its own--huge--and the isolation of buildings make me feel I'm far away from any other mission location, which makes The City
feel more vast.
I know TDS takes place in the
heart of The City, but it made the sense of the vastness of The City disappear. Part of that, too, was the lack of dozens of texts speaking of places and people beyond The City, wars afar, mountain ranges, hunting parties in the forests, imported art, wine, brandy, antiquities, crystals, and magical constructs, as well as having a mission beyond The City to get the Earth Talisman from the Hand Mages who've come from "the east." Knowing that the Blue Herron Inn is "local", Rutherford Castle and the Pagan Sanctuary are within South Quarter, seeing the Moira's Manor from Docks, and with the Kurshok Citadel below and near Docks, makes a sense of the vastness of The City almost disappear for me.
Not only is South Quarter the hub of the game for the player, but the TDS story begins and ends there, unless the Blue Heron is outside South Quarter, but it involves the SQ Rutherfords anyway. The Eye is attuned to Garrett, he lives in South Quarter, and the fountain is in South Quarter, and the Final Glyph is activated there. The story, as it related to The City felt compacted, and it took place over nine consecutive days, instead of over a period of months, which gave the old games seasonal changes, adding to the larger feel for me.
Comparing the amount of running through streets of the Ambush/Courier map, knowing it's one mission in one district of The City, makes running from one TDS city section to another in the streets makes it feel like the zones are tiny. In TDS, the biggest sections were usually off the streets, through a loading zone, and they were often broken in two. Knowing that Rutherford Castle, in two parts, is half the size of Truart's Estate, and that I have to use a savegame if I just want to play it alone, just disappoints me. At this time, I can load up, play and/or explore the older missions, but not TDS missions. Eventually I'll have things in place to allow me to jump right into TDS where I want, but for now, it's nearly inaccessible. Keep in mind I don't play the games as much as I study them.
Here's the length and breadth of the Auldale we see superimposed over the length and breadth of the Thieves' Guild.
(
http://imageshack.us)
Inline Image:
http://img395.imageshack.us/img395/9505/thievesguildauldaleam1.gifNow there is an instance where a mission that was considered
too big, may have felt more reasonable if it had been divided between Donal, Reuben, and the Casino.
ToolFan2007 on 10/8/2008 at 09:58
- The different factions fighting against each other later in the game
- Atmospheric graphics and incredible lighting
- Pagans are a lot more vocal
- Best story in a Thief game
- Best music in any Thief game
Oh yeah and have you guys trashing the dagger ever heard of "cloak and dagger" movies? Is it feasible for a Thief to use a sword against trained guards and win? Bobbins.
Beleg Cúthalion on 10/8/2008 at 11:09
There are texture families (matlibs) for almost every single mission/location in TDS and also the City sections' styles vary significantly, so that cannot be the cause per se. It would be a lot of work (and simpler trying out the same thing with fan missions) to avoid all the blue and violet stuff like the distance fog and the light shafts at the windows.
But that's not really about gameplay. :p I mean, in a castle the vastness of the City doesn't matter. The question for me is whether a player needs a lot of open space as a matter of principle or if it is enough to keep him busy with all the things he finds in a certain area (walls, cupboards, columns, furniture in general, loot, i.e. all things that need to be considered while playing). If that was the case players might find a small mission "big" enough in a way that it takes time to get through it.
And I didn't get this savegame thing I fear. :weird: You don't need savegames to play through TDS, do you?
jtr7 on 10/8/2008 at 11:55
I don't need savegames to play THROUGH the game, I need savegames to play a specific mission without having to play all the way up to that point. I didn't know I wasn't clear about that.
After all this time I believe it will never be quantified to your satisfaction. I know how each mission of each game makes me feel to inhabit it. I cannot describe it to you. TDS feels alien compared to the feeling of the older titles. I cannot tell you why, especially if you are going to act like it's only one thing here and one thing there, instead of showing an understanding of the infinite subtleties that affect human experience, memory, and response.
If someone tells you they are having a negative reaction to the colour, then you should know, as a human being yourself, that that statement is not all-encompassing and complete, but rather, a starting point. I also stated it was a lighting issue. I've been stating all along that the hues of TDS (which was and is a problem I had with the concept art years ago, too) regardless of how they are created in-game, are often not pleasant to MY eyes, and do not put me in the mood of the older titles, nor does the colour hearken to my experiences of playing the other games. I played TMA first, and quickly acquired a taste for the look--strangeness and all. I then played TDP and was struck by the muted colours, and the "grittiness" that we understand yet cannot describe with simple words. Again, I acquired the taste for the style created by the devs filtered through the limitations of the Dark Engine at the time. With TDS I've never acquired the taste of the style or gameplay. I keep asking "Why can't I just (blank) like I can in the other games?" I cannot describe it to you but it's measured by my reactions to the moment-by-moment of the game, both conscious and unconscious. Any attempt to put it into words makes a pale, lame, and inaccurate shadow of what I just understand within myself.
If I say, "Everything looks old and/or dirty," you won't really know what I mean in the context of TDS as compared to the old and/or dirty of TDP that doesn't bother me. If I say, "The pipes all look like rusted and chelating cast iron," you won't know that I'd have to write five pages to describe what I really mean, and that it goes way beyond rusty pipes. Rusty pipes makes sense, so why does it bother me? We know what we mean, and words are grossly inadequate. Perhaps if I was a highly-qualified art critic I could find the words to describe why one aesthetic of old and dirty is pleasant and why another makes me grumpy, like why one healthy tree is not as beautiful to me as the dead gnarled one, or why I find one woman's face more attractive than her identical twin's.
Maybe if you could word your questions so they could actually be answered by a lay-person without delving into the psyche.:p We know we disagree, so statements to that effect are really pointless. You don't relate to or understand the common distaste, period. We have not much helped each other understand the other's point of view. It's been four years and the same things are still being said, by scores of different people, just with different phraseology.:laff:
Jashin on 10/8/2008 at 13:17
There's a remarkable difference b/w DX2 and Thief 3 and their relative comparisons to the predecessors.
With DX2, they mutilated the core features. They literally rearranged its DNA and created a FPS with gimmicks in place of a 1st-person RPG.
Compare to that, Thief 3 is a godsend. The trademark mood and tension of the series are in tact, in several missions they're even better than the original. Granted it's not 1 for 1, but that's beyond a reasonable expectation.
To be honest Thief fans are a bunch of ungrateful bastards. Get it into your heads - you had purist friends on the dev team who gave their best with what they had. It could have been way worse, it could've been like DX2.
