Zillameth on 25/7/2007 at 15:01
Quote Posted by Palantir
Sounds like a RPG for me....
No main story-line, Zillameth?
Thief already has strong RPG elements. For instance, the kind of equipment you buy before starting a mission is not as much a tactical choice as a way to express your play style. There is no "optimal loadout". During the game, you assume a very well defined role. You are a thief, you have to think like thief, and you have to assume thieve's "way of life" (such as: "stealing is good").
The whole idea of "ghosting" is one of ways to redefine this role, create a new one. And frankly, it's just one of several possibilities. Personally, while I enjoy a good ghost mission, I prefer the style I would describe as "there is enough blackjack for everyone". It's like inventing a new character class. And the best thing is, you don't need a character sheet, you don't need character attributes, you don't need experience points, it all comes naturally. One could say playing Thief is like LARPing.
That's why giving the player some kind of "ideological" choice doesn't need to mean turning the game into KOTOR. When I decide to knock all the guards out, but leave the servants unharmed (that's what I do), I'm making an "ideological" choice. Nobody's giving me points for it, but I don't care about that.
TDS tried to expand on the same notion, but it made a step in a wrong direction. It gave you a Pagan-o-Meter, and a Hammer-o-Meter. You could steal from a Hammer and then kill a few rust mites, and everything would be all right. Now *that* was KOTOR.
This is all about interactivity, really. You act, and the game reacts. What I'm trying to do is think of some new ways for game to react to player's actions.
Of course there would be a storyline, only I think it's a trap to start game design with the storyline. Stories are ultimately non-interactive and have no gameplay whatsoever, while games spontaneously create stories. To make a story interactive, you have to mix it with a game. I think it's better to start with the game and its general setting, because then you're taking something big, and clip it where it doesn't fit. When you start with the story, you take something small and try to stretch it.
Besides, I believe in the concept of "implicit narrative". The main storyline cannot have too many branches, because it would be to expensive. In fact, it would probably need to be completely linear, with maybe only the last mission customizable in the similar fashion as Area 51 in "Deus Ex". Therefore, game needs little things, like some seemingly unnecessary interactions between the world and the player. The beggar in the garden is an example of this: the game wouldn't tell you "there is a beggar in the garden, you have the following options, choose one". That would be KOTOR. The game would simply put you in the garden and tell you "there is a beggar somewhere around here, do something about it". Then you would proceed to do something about it and you would actually create the story by yourself:
"So there he was, sleeping in the bushes. I tried to pick him up, but he woke up, so I tossed a flashbomb and hit him in the head. On the next day I heard him talking to his friends about running away from a monster. And they decided to hunt it! They came next evening, and I just knocked them out one by one, but a friend of mine used a Victriola he found in one of early missions. He used a recording called "The Sounds of the Forest". He put the Victriola in the garden and scared the hell out of them. But he says there was no special bonus for doing it this way".
And there really would be no bonus. Only if someone was killed, it would be noted (but not in the form of an instant message). The narrative justification would be "that was evil, you're an evil person", but the actual trick would be to penalize the player for playing non-thiefy. Thief is about patience and discretion. Killing the beggar is the easiest way out, but it also means rejecting the challenge the game created.
The idea of side missions is not an attempt to introduce subquests into game (although some OMs did have "subquests", because secondary goals didn't have much to do with the primary one; also, there are subquests in TDS, and they work fine). It is an excuse for the game to contain some harder or less popular gameplay modes, such as ghosting, or missions with lots of undead, or hardcore loot hunts (such as "Haunted Cathedral" in TDP).
As for the storyline, I already made a few assumptions. The common theme to all three games is destiny. Although Garret does have a free will, his choices don't matter, because "life has a way of finding him". Also, the City is basically a stable system. There are several forces (most notably - Hammerites and Pagans), who try to tip the balance in their favour, possibly leading to some extreme conditions, but Keepers keep them in check, maintaining the status quo.
Well, that's no longer the case. Garret has fullfilled his destiny, and Keepers are no more. That is, the Keepers as people still live, but the organisation is in shreds, and without access to you-know-what they would be severely crippled anyway (not to mention suddenly uncovered). Garrett can work as the last Keeper for some time, but by the time the girl grows up, he's going to be some fifty years old. There is only so much jumping in the rain you can take before you get arthritis.
When the fourth part starts, The City is in state of huge conflict. There is still some stability, because everyone keeps each other in check, but the stakes are rising. The Pagans are mobilizing, the Hammerite strenght is renewed (beacuse when times are difficult, fanatics always get a bonus), and other, smaller powers also try to get their share. So it's all slowly warming up, and it's going to explode, eventually.
So the new character's destiny would be to do prevent "the explosion". Only this time there is no status quo to stick with, because everything is in flux. You would have to decide, what the new status quo would be, whether it would be balanced or not. Hence multiple endings. I'm not thinking about anything apocalyptic. I didn't like the choices "Invisible War" offered. What I have on my mind is making a difference between "there it is, the City, spleeping well again, calm and peaceful... but there is something sinister lurking in the shadows, waiting for its chance to strike", and "there it is, the City, sleeping well again, calm and peaceful... someone is watching over it, making sure everything is well", and "there it is, the City, sleeping well again, calm and peaceful... its heart pounding to the rythm of the Builder's forges", and so on.
The loss of Keepers created a vacuum a single person cannot possibly fill. The City needs a new group. Hence the friends you make during the game. But if there is a group, then it needs headquarters. Hence the mansion. Decorations and somesuch are only minor details (but I really want the greenhouse).
