New Horizon on 29/7/2008 at 18:02
Quote Posted by hexhunter
I think the most important thing for T4 to do is attract attention from mainstream gamers. T3 got great scores, but it was still very alien and inhospitable to most players...
It's not that the game was alien and inhospitable...it was poor marketing! A good marketing strategy can sell anything...and that is what Thief lacks. They need a marketing campaign like Bioshock, but then actually deliver a true Thief game and not some watered down crap.
sNeaksieGarrett on 29/7/2008 at 18:06
New Horizon brings up some interesting points. I still kind of disagree though. With technology these days, more and more improvements can make games more fun. Also, how are we to know why waking guards was not implemented? It could have simply been too much work with the engine (technical issue) at the time, and they didn't want to do it. Maybe your right New Horizon. Maybe they didn't allow guards to be "revived" because they wanted you to avoid violence. To me though, knocking out a guard is obviously not ghosting it, and I don't see how making them get back up later is any worse. I think it would make the game more challenging and cause you to keep yourself on your toes at all times. Think about it... What if you knocked out every guard in bafford's? This means that you would have no reason to be stealthy anymore. If they wake up, you would think twice about running through an area.
Quote Posted by New Horizon
In the end, it's just a game
But... but... it's not "just a game":( , it's a legend.:cheeky:
Quote Posted by New Horizon
Like it or not, Thief 'is' a game and the more 'realistic' you make it, the less it is Thief.
I don't agree.:erg: How is it any less thief? We play video games because they take us to another world, because they're fun, etc etc. but not so much that they feel fake - why would having it be more realistic make it any less of a game?
Also, what TheGrimSmile said. You have an interesting point Grim. (About people getting frustrated because guards wake up and just killing them to get it over with...) That would be a good point to not implement waking AI, but I don't think we should punish those who want this new feature just because we're afraid that certain folks will get frustrated and start killing stuff. That isn't our problem. If your not going to play it stealthy, then that's your problem. Those kinds of people probably shouldn't be playing it then. I think people just need to realize when they pick up a copy of thief that it's in it's own genre. That of First Person Sneaker. As long as they understand it before they start playing it they will either avoid the game entirely because that's not what they like, or they'll at least try to adapt to the gameplay mechanic. Right? Didn't someone just mention that Thief: DS got criticized for "dumbing down" as everyone calls it?
By the way, I think if thief 4 is ever actually confirmed to be "in the making," it would do us a favor to email them a link to this thread so they can see what some taffers are looking for. :) At least I think it would be interesting to see if they would take a look at our ideas and whatnot.
New Horizon on 29/7/2008 at 18:39
Quote Posted by sNeaksieGarrett
That would be a good point to not implement waking AI, but I don't think we should punish those who want this new feature just because we're afraid that certain folks will get frustrated and start killing stuff. That isn't our problem. If your not going to play it stealthy, then that's your problem.
That's the point though...the game is punishing the player...'who does play stealthy' by resurrecting the guards that they've taken the time to deal with stealthily. Realistically, those guards are going to wake up and alert all the other guards...then what? It defeats the very 'simple' concept behind the gameplay. :)
Zillameth on 29/7/2008 at 19:00
I agree with New Horizon. If knocked out guards start to wake up, it means that by knocking them out player puts self in big, though delayed trouble. A guard on partol is more or less predictable. A guard who wakes up is beyond any control, because the sheer nature of his/her condition forces him/her to improvise while in really bad mood.
This feature could be turned into an interesting gameplay mechanic, but it would require a lot of careful balancing work. Namely, there would be a kind of tradeoff: either player is ghosting, which is difficult, or they knock out guards, which is easier, but only for a limited time. Hence, the challenge of sneaking around enemies would be exchanged for a challenge to finish your mission within time limit. Obviously, this would only work for missions small enough to be reasonably beatable within that limit. More importantly, it would restrict player's options, because the relatively common style of "neutralize everybody and take your time" would be no longer viable. Personally, I would consider it a change for worse.
Jah on 29/7/2008 at 19:12
Quote Posted by New Horizon
Realistically, those guards are going to wake up and alert all the other guards...then what? It defeats the very 'simple' concept behind the gameplay. :)
Hence the suggestion of being able to bind the guards, so that they only get back up if someone finds them and frees them, which really wouldn't be all that different from the way things work now. If a guard discovers a body, they will become alert and go to search mode. The only real difference is that in this scenario, you would have two alert guards in search mode instead of one.
demagogue on 29/7/2008 at 19:21
Quote Posted by RavynousHunter
Don't you mean just GT? :cheeky:
Grand Theft Horse maybe?
I think it would be hilarious if you could walk up to a guy on a horse, push him off, jump on and ride off. Not that it'd be good for Thief ... but horses are pretty cool.
Zillameth on 29/7/2008 at 19:40
Quote Posted by Jah
Hence the suggestion of being able to bind the guards, so that they only get back up if someone finds them and frees them, which really wouldn't be all that different from the way things work now. If a guard discovers a body, they will become alert and go to search mode. The only real difference is that in this scenario, you would have two alert guards in search mode instead of one.
Then why even bother? It wouldn't add anything to game, it would only introduce another ritual and burden player's memory with yet another detail. There is no point in making a game more "realistic" if it doesn't become more entertaining.
New Horizon on 29/7/2008 at 19:41
Quote Posted by Jah
Hence the suggestion of being able to bind the guards, so that they only get back up if someone finds them and frees them, which really wouldn't be all that different from the way things work now. If a guard discovers a body, they will become alert and go to search mode. The only real difference is that in this scenario, you would have two alert guards in search mode instead of one.
Which again punishes the player for being stealthy, since now they still have to contend with the guard they 'properly' removed from the play field. Binding them up essentially cancels out any need for the guard to wake up since a guard who finds an unconscious guard is going to go up in alertness anyway and notify other guards.
We debated all of these pros, cons and options to death in our private Darkmod development forums. lol We considered having waking guards, and after lengthy debate...we unconsidered it. lol
Quote Posted by Zillameth
Then why even bother? It wouldn't add anything to game, it would only introduce another ritual and burden player's memory with yet another detail. There is no point in making a game more "realistic" if it doesn't become more entertaining.
That's essentially the consensus we came to on a lot of 'cool' ideas. If the idea offered must be counter balanced in such a way that it is essentially canceled out, then leave well enough alone...and concentrate on making the AI smarter...not necessarily more complicated. Making the AI smarter is not the same as making them more complicated to deal with.
nicked on 29/7/2008 at 20:25
Modest as well, New Horizon! :laff: But I totally agree with everything you've said.
Less is certainly more. I remember the first time I found out some in depth details about Half-Life 2 before release, and I thought "what the hell!? They've removed all the aliens and xen stuff, there's less weapons, they've pasted in some crappy story just to allow for a repeat of the grunt fighting from the first game, and zombies!" and then I played the game, and I realised that tons of aliens and weapons would not have added to the experience any more than hiring a voice actor for Gordon Freeman. They trimmed the fat and were left with a leaner, tighter, tenser game that felt all the more real and exciting for it. And I finished it and I asked myself, "Would it really have been a better game if Dr Breen had injected the T Virus into himself or something at the end just to provide an exciting boss fight? No, the streamlined, character-based ending was ultimately more provocative and left the unanswerable moral questions unanswered and ambigious."
That's quite a tangent, but the same is true with Thief on a smaller, less obvious scale. Yes, they added scouting orbs to T2. Does anyone ever use scouting orbs? I know I don't. Same with invisibility and slowfall potions. And TDS's oil. All I need to play Thief is my wits, maybe a blackjack and the odd water and moss arrow.
I also agree about open city levels in TDS. By showing the whole picture, it removed the mistique surrounding the City, and transformed it from a sprawling imaginary dark metropolis that constantly broods on the edge of thought to a mere computer game level.
If you can't be bothered to read all that, here, I will sum up:
Less is more!
hexhunter on 29/7/2008 at 20:46
Less is not allways more!
So what if you never used those items, did their being there depress you? Did it detract from the experience? Less is only more when the Development Studio skimps out on the important stuff.
It's a single player game, there's nothing wrong with other players playing easier difficulties, cheating, or just playing without the same care that others would use. Anyway, the game is probably going to use pre-made engines, Eidos may not toy around with the numbers that much...
