SubJeff on 17/5/2009 at 22:45
Quote Posted by Taffer36
My point is that I disagree 100% that mainstream is mostly crap. It's just plain wrong. Halo is a great game. Guitar Hero is a great game. Call of Duty is a great game. Grand Theft Auto is a great game. Dead Space is a great game. Gears of War is a great game. Half-life 2 is a great game. Sure, there is that section of mainstream that tends to be crap (i.e. Wii games or movie-licensed games) but really, all of those truly triple A games are usually fantastic. Not that you can't hate a mainstream game, but they're still well-made games and arguments against them tend to go in circles.
I completely disagree with you here. First of the blanket statement that Wii games or movie licensed games are crap is, err, crap. Wii games may not be for you but there is some real fun to be had there. Movie licenses tend to be poor, yes, because they are often lazily made. But there is some quality. AvP, GoldenEye, Riddick, some of the LotR games, some of the Star Wars games. You get the idea.
Many of the mainstream games you mention have high production values. This does not a good game make and one of the big criticisms of them is they are all flash and no soul. I know people who love console games that look good, regardless. I'll know that a game has been universally panned by the critics but they have high production values and that is all that matters to some.
Chade on 17/5/2009 at 23:36
Well, we have this quote from EvilSpirit:
Quote:
And Thief 2 was selling better than Thief 1 did. Pretty good considering that Thief 1 has made Looking Glass millions of dollars, counting OEM deals and Thief Gold.
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.
Taffer36 on 18/5/2009 at 02:50
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
I completely disagree with you here. First of the blanket statement that Wii games or movie licensed games are crap is, err, crap. Wii games may not be for you but there is some real fun to be had there. Movie licenses tend to be poor, yes, because they are often lazily made. But there is some quality. AvP, GoldenEye, Riddick, some of the LotR games, some of the Star Wars games. You get the idea.
Many of the mainstream games you mention have high production values. This does not a good game make and one of the big criticisms of them is they are all flash and no soul. I know people who love console games that look good, regardless. I'll know that a game has been universally panned by the critics but they have high production values and that is all that matters to some.
If you re-read my post, I say "
TENDS to be", with the key word of "
TENDS". Yes, there are actually good Wii games and good movie games. Don't get caught up on that point.
Sure, high production values don't make good games but all of the games I named actually ARE good games (that's not an invitation to scream on about how Halo is shit because of some arbitrary reason like you can't carry eight weapons or that it's linear). I can understand if you dislike one or more of them, but you not liking a game is separate from it actually being a well-made game. Like I said, I ADMIT that Morrowind is a well made, good and efficient game. That said, I just can't play it. I just don't like it. But I get why so many people do.
Stath MIA on 18/5/2009 at 21:07
Quote Posted by Taffer36
(that's not an invitation to scream on about how Halo is shit because of some arbitrary reason like you can't carry eight weapons or that it's linear).
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. ;)
Dante on 19/5/2009 at 01:18
T4 will be the most successful of the franchise, I bet.
sNeaksieGarrett on 19/5/2009 at 02:20
Dang, that's a bold statement to make.:) I'm sure Rene and team will be happy to know that.:laff:
taffer19 on 25/5/2009 at 05:14
Probably not, because I am just a negative person. :laff:
Kin on 25/5/2009 at 05:18
I believe it will be successful in the graphics section. I am not sure for the rest.