ManicMan on 16/3/2009 at 08:39
one of the reasons for the rat-man mistake (i thought) was that they look like Rat-men, they act like Rat-men and sound like Rat-men... well, to me anyway ^_^
Oh and Alot of different Monkeys have tails.. Ape's don't but maybe they are NOT Ape-men but anthropoid-Men. That means they can have tails ^_^
jtr7 on 16/3/2009 at 09:12
Except for the conversations and blowpipe attack, the T2 apebeasts share all the same sound files and motions with the T1 apebeasts. And that's not a rat's head on those T1 apebeasts. If just the tail had been left off, I doubt the association would be so strong. There is zero mention of the word "rat" attached to these AI in all the gamefiles, and there are many remnants of other name changes for other things. Impressions are subjective, fanon is fanon and it's fun as hell with profound emotional bonds, but canon is canon. Show me official materials or dev quotes and I'll soften my stance.
Since the term "monkey" is applied to them in the gamefiles, as well, "monkeymen" was my suggestion earlier.
Melan on 16/3/2009 at 09:40
When I played the original game, I definitely thought they were ratmen, and wrote up their oddities to the same reasons there are gas-belching giant lizards in the game: artist's fiat.
Now, "rat-ape" is perhaps the best term for them. ;)
ManicMan on 16/3/2009 at 10:42
my point was more they do look alot like rats, to me (and it seams alot of others) atlest. Yes, when you look at the texture files, you can see they are more monkeys (as the file name says).
Oh, and looking in the Thief 1 Meshs, intresting to see the Bug Demon that was removed is there and the Orge (Ettin) is there.. and the Eel. i think i have seen a version of the Orge in a fan mission but are the model in Thief or just the meshs left over?
ManicMan on 16/3/2009 at 16:44
i'm an idiot!
the early Bugbeasts DO appear (Blooper Reel)...
jtr7 on 17/3/2009 at 01:00
Quote Posted by ManicMan
my point was more they do look alot like rats, to me (and it seams alot of others) atlest.
Which is what I had said many times in this thread already.:laff:
Meisterdieb on 17/3/2009 at 01:43
Looking at this bit and though knowing that they're supposed to be apebeast, the first impression I get is rat (well, the second actually, the first being simply "monster").
But it's really interesting that the notion that we're dealing with RATbeasts (and not ape-/monkeybeasts) is so resilient, and that many of the gamers and also the reviewers (independently) came up with the term (or at least with the connection to rats and not to monkeys) is a very telling revelation.
One reason may be that monkeys or apes are generally more well-received or regarded as funny and nice than rats, or even depicted in a better way. I.e. dancing monkey with hat vs. plague rat.
jtr7 on 17/3/2009 at 03:55
Absolutely. It's that tail, and everything else falls into place in the mind, after that. I don't mind it as a fanon term, and it lets people know exactly what one is talking about, but the truth is, it's...fanon.
I can't help but see an amalgamation of lizard, rhino, and monkey in that concept art. Another thing to remember is that early in development, there were going to be abominations of nature, creatures made from a mix of things, or just deformed-looking, until the devs changed their approach and just went with the concept of a straight humanoid variant of an animal race, different races represented. The original SpiderBeast, CobraBeast, and sweels (which don't sound like Trickster beast, really) had to be dropped for other reasons. At least they kept the existence of CobraBeasts, with their numerous trophy heads all over The City.
YuSeF on 17/3/2009 at 14:27
Are you able to find these dropped creatures anywhere in the game files? I would love to get my hands on an early version of the game if there was one before they made changes to the game.
