GodzillaX8 on 24/10/2013 at 05:32
Quote Posted by Starker
escapes from burning buildings are totally out of place in a Thief game.
What if someone made a fan mission that had you escape from a burning building? How would you feel about that?
demagogue on 24/10/2013 at 06:25
He or she would probably get some flak for it, by a few people anyway. My FM was somewhat linear and people gave me flak for that. There are certain expectation that comes with Thief maps, and players are pretty consistent in my experience in letting the mappers know what fits and what doesn't; not even FM mappers are entirely exempt from it, although of course they get more latitude considering they don't have million dollar budgets and a staff of dozens.
nickie on 24/10/2013 at 06:28
The fan mission that had that very scenario went down rather well, as I recall. Give me a few minutes and I'll remember the name of it. It might have been a contest one.
Edit. Yes, it was A Dire Return, second in the Thief Reloaded 2 contest.
Shinrazero on 24/10/2013 at 08:21
Innovation, in its simplest sense, is doing something new. I took away from the video that innovating for the sake of innovation alone can be perilous. I specifically agreed with his points on the Final Fantasy battle systems. There is nothing terribly wrong with the battle system, at a core level it works very well. Even so, SE has tried their hardest to do something radical and crazy in every subsequent iteration, distancing further and further from a solid set of mechanics. IMO the series has suffered for it. In regards to Thiaf, they are selling ideas of what gamers perceive as value. Things like mocap, hardcore dialogue, narrative. This is EM's innovation and it does nothing to advance the stealth genre. I'm not opposed to change, I just hoped for change that would expand on Thief's excellent gameplay. I am disappoint thus far.
jay pettitt on 24/10/2013 at 08:57
Look, if Jim wanted to do an investigative piece on Final Fantasy's turn based combat system (or whatever it is, I really have no idea)... establish that many gamers are finding it confusing, speak to some folk who were maybe involved in the development about what their motivation actually was, speak to some other folk who maybe have some expertise or can shed an interesting perspective on the issue etc etc then he'd maybe be doing the world a favour.
But the thing is, people aren't all the same personality type.
Imagine switching the media to music. Jim would be the guy saying that songs should have words you can hear and a proper tune you can hum along with. That music that apparently 'innovates for the sake of it' and doesn't do verse chorus verse with words you can hear and a proper tune are faffing about without regard to 'the quality' of the piece and that's and end to it.
But some people enjoy that stuff. Some people like to engage in new things. For fun and interest. For its own sake. And are even prepared to overlook rough edges and bumps to find the bits that delight them. Some people dig Jazz or Electronica. Some like modern art (which is basically art that's innovative in some way, no?). Some liked The Path / Dear Esther. Some folk find verse chorus verse with words you can hear and a proper tune you can hum along with to be a bit ho hum to be be honest. Where's the new stuff? The ideas? What are you doing that's fresh and interesting.
cyrosis on 24/10/2013 at 10:37
Quote Posted by jay pettitt
*snip*
Instead of leaving some pointless wall of text, since it doesn't appear as though you grasped his entire point, I'll just leave this quote from Jurassic Park, as I think it sums up the opinion expressed in the video quite well.
Quote:
Dr. Ian Malcolm: If I may... Um, I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're using here, it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now
[bangs on the table]
Dr. Ian Malcolm: you're selling it, you wanna sell it. Well...
John Hammond: I don't think you're giving us our due credit. Our scientists have done things which nobody's ever done before...
Dr. Ian Malcolm: Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should.
Esme on 24/10/2013 at 11:32
What I got from that video is this :-
When you have established a franchise, which can happen with the release of a single game, then a new release doesn't necessarily require major innovations to change the way it's played unless the existing play systems are obviously broken, what it needs is the existing play systems it already has to be polished, possibly tweaked to improve things or even to be left alone and focus shifted to other areas such as making larger levels/missions.
But the AAA mainstream game development industry seems to have the opposite approach, unless a game release is primarily innovative, bringing radical gameplay changes from it's predecessors regardless of whether the systems being replaced worked well or not, then it's regarded as a failure by the industry and especially by those providing the investment who have latched on to the idea of the amount of innovation in a game providing a gauge for their probable ROI.
jay pettitt on 24/10/2013 at 13:16
Which I guess is why every Fifa and F1 and COD and Assassins Creed game is hardly recognisable from the last. The AAA industry is tripping over their own endless innovation.
If there's a danger for Thief it's that they've taken a series that was innovative and will make it safer, more generic, more like other games.
p.s. when GM Burricks bust out of your Xbox and eat you, you're welcome to gurgle 'I tooold you sooo' as your last blood splattered post on TTLG. I will be good to my word and eat my lab coat.
-- Edit --
Look, you're not going to get a Xerox copy of a traditional Thief game. And if you did, you'd probably be disappointed.
One of the things that Looking Glass did well, is have a relly good grasp of the strengths and weaknesses of technology available - and they wisely designed stuff that played to those strengths and weaknesses.
The tech has changed since then. If Looking Glass were here now, they'd design a very different game to the one they did in 1998.
Esme on 24/10/2013 at 13:30
He also said it didn't apply to every franchise, hence the reason why every Fifa and F1 and COD and Assassins Creed game is recognisably similar to it's predecessor
Innovation where it's necessary is a good thing
But if it ain't broke, don't fix it, spend time on something else
Maybe I should have said "But some of the AAA mainstream game development industry...", I get too general, my bad
Starker on 24/10/2013 at 13:51
Quote Posted by GodzillaX8
What if someone made a fan mission that had you escape from a burning building? How would you feel about that?
If it was a race against time while everything collapses around you in a dramatic fashion I'd say that the FM is pretty far from Thief. For me, frantic button mashing is the antithesis of Thief, along with things like heavily scripted cinematic action sequences.
