Chade on 17/5/2009 at 23:36

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Well, we have this quote from EvilSpirit:



So: Thief 1 was a big success, and Thief 2 was probably also doing pretty well (although it's budget was probably bigger).

This doesn't necesarily mean much, however. Game budgets are bigger now, and perhaps the audience that made thief a success isn't large enough to make T4 a success. The sales of T3 would be a better indication, and Digi has recently told me that T3 didn't make a profit at the time ISA closed.

Again, though, this doesn't necesarily mean much: as much as I love it, T3 is a poor quality game in many highly visible ways. It's just not very well polished, which is one thing that all good sellers seem to need.

So I don't think the history of the thief series can really tell us whether thief has what it takes to be a success in todays AAA market.



Breaking thief down into some component parts.

1) Core gameplay.

Splinter Cell is a huge mass market success, with similar core gameplay to thief, and I'm told that recent games have become less linear too (the demo of Chaos Theory I played was comparable to ToB, LoTP rooftops, Cragscleft mines, etc, in terms of how linear it was - and that was just the demo, I have no idea what the full game was like).

So thief is not necesarily a going to be unsuccessfull just because it requires a bit of patience and skulking about in shadows. It's still an action game, in the sense that the player is in direct control of the physical actions of his avatar, and must skillfully execute the correct string of actions in a tense and often time constrained environment. The main difference is that the player is in charge of the pace of the game, and is penalized for going too quickly.

I see two main differences between the core gameplay of SC and Thief (ignoring nonlinearity because I don't really know how far recent SC games have come).

- SC "degrades gracefully" ... all stealth games penalize the player for being spotted, but SC doesn't penalize the player as quickly or as hard as thief. The player still gets to feel like an action hero after being spotted, because he has plenty of good options available when guards are searching for him or during combat. I wouldn't be surprised if EM give you plenty of ambush opportunities when guards are searching for you. Guards might also delay yelling "thief" untill they have actually run up to you and engaged you in hand to hand combat ... so if you are good at combat (assume they bring back the sword) you have an oppurtunity to dispose of the guard quickly and run away to a different room before other guards get there.

- SC has the player doing "cooler" things while ghosting. In SC1, for instance, where a linear "ghosting path" is designed into each level, ghosting regularly requires some form of special move on Fischers part. I would be interested to know how this works in Chaos Theory, which I'm told is less linear. I wouldn't be surprised if Rope arrows get put back in alongside MAJOR PHYSICS. Also, castles may be less monolithic, and more a series of buildings and towers within jumping distance of one another. And on that acrobatic note, while they probably won't give Garrett wall jumps or anything like that, I expect he will at least be able to keep up with Riddick.

2) Core fantasy.

Being Garrett in a steampunk world. I think Garrett is potentially quite a mainstream sort of anti-hero. There nothing really unusual about action heros being too cool for school, and generally not giving a shit. I don't think it's Garrett who stands in the way of thief being a mainstream success.

Would it be fair to say that the most niche aspect of thief's core fantasy is the steampunk world? Steampunk always seems to be a niche thing. I don't know why, because steampunk has always seemed like a pretty mainstream concept to me. Maybe somebody who is more exposed to "culture" can tell me?



Thief has been a mass market success in the past. There are also similar games to thief which are successfull right now. I think thief could definately be a success with a bit of massaging ... whether or not such a game would please everyone here is another matter ...



EDIT: SE, I suspect you are saying the same thing as Taffer36 ... "high production values" is probably identical to "well-made game" in his post.

Stath MIA on 18/5/2009 at 21:07

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Ouch, but yes, even I who am generally disgusted by Halo must admit that it is well made. I think everyone is saying generally the same thing:

"Being a mainstream game can hurt a game's (especially Thief's) quality but it does not guarantee it."

In my opinion, Thief still has a good chance of being what we want and being a commercial success. What EM really needs to do is expand options (as suggested in "An idea for pleasing the fans and pleasing the new blood"), so that more casual gamers can enjoy it and we can still have the quality game we all hope for. Still, there are no assurances one way or the other, so I won't start placing bets just yet. ;)

sNeaksieGarrett on 19/5/2009 at 02:20

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Dang, that's a bold statement to make.:) I'm sure Rene and team will be happy to know that.:laff:

Kin on 25/5/2009 at 05:18

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I believe it will be successful in the graphics section. I am not sure for the rest.