Starker on 31/10/2013 at 02:45

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The light gem stays in view, so you can get the information without losing sight of the action and you can react to changing conditions quickly. I'm not certain that you could replicate it with looking at how well lit your body is while keeping it easy to use and precise. The idea that a player could gauge the visibility based on the environment and body visibility alone is certainly interesting. I just don't think it could be an adequate replacement.

The Shroud on 31/10/2013 at 20:45

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You know, this reminds me of some very, very old discussions back when a bunch of us were debating ideas for the then-in-development Thief 3 (before ION Storm came up with the "Deadly Shadows" moniker). On one side, there were people saying that stealth couldn't work properly without the light gem for the same reasons you describe, and on the other, there were some of us who had actually played through TDP and TMA with the light gem disabled (I forget exactly how that was done, maybe someone else will remember). Basically, we had been seeking ways to make the game more challenging for ourselves, and the idea of playing through TDP and TMA without the light gem's aid was an intriguing experiment.

As it turned out, not only did stealth gameplay without the light gem prove to be possible, it was actually a lot of fun for those of us who tried it. And of course, that was without the ability to look down at Garrett's body and gauge the light and shadow on him. All we had to go on were our instincts -- "stick to the shadows, avoid the light" -- and due to the fact that TDP and TMA had such a high quality of level design, wherein effective hiding places were both readily available and intuitive for the player to gravitate toward, our instincts proved to be all we ever really needed from the beginning. Where previously some of us had believed it was the light gem that enabled our stealthiness, we discovered it was actually our own wits (coupled with excellent level design) that really made sneaking possible.

Now, I don't fault LGS for including the light gem -- back then, the whole concept of a first-person game based around sneaking and conflict avoidance instead of combat was a novel and somewhat experimental idea. People weren't even entirely sure it would work, so they gave the player a sword, broadhead arrows, fire arrows, and explosive mines, among other things, just in case the whole sneaking theme wasn't enough to win over the player's interest. It stood to reason that they saw a need to make sneaking as simple as possible by providing the player with a light gem, so that stealth could be a more obvious solution to the game's various challenges. They needed to hammer in the concept of avoiding your enemies rather than confronting them, in order for that mentality to stick. To have left out some sort of visibility indicator from that early experiment would have sabotaged the whole objective of introducing the stealth-and-avoidance mindset to a market that consisted almost entirely of FPS players used to solving problems by shooting down anything in their path.

But now, stealth gameplay is in the public consciousness, it now exists as a viable premise, one that has been proven to work -- and that being almost entirely owed to the Thief series' pioneering of that theme. Now, I feel, it's time to move forward and develop that theme further. I think gamers are finally ready to advance to the next stage of stealth gameplay, which is total reliance on player skill. We moved from 3rd-person stealth with rendered visibility-cones and exclamation points appearing over guards' heads, to 1st-person stealth with a light gem and visual and audio cues from AI. The visibility meter (whether it be Thief's light gem or Oblivion's or Skyrim's eye-icon) is the last remaining artificial asset to stealth gameplay. I believe that now, finally, just as Thief did in 1998, it's time to again break through the status quo with something new and bold -- something that challenges what is widely believed to be impossible. What better title than Thief to pave the way forward for stealth gaming by being the first game of its kind to rely completely on the player's sneaking skills? Is that not the way of the future for stealth gaming?

The Shroud on 31/10/2013 at 21:15

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Well I'm not sure that Deus Ex really nailed stealth, honestly. I mean, yes, it didn't have a visibility meter, but to counter that, the player had so many options available to simply combat or assassinate their enemies that actual sneaking wasn't quite as central or essential to the game as it is in Thief. It was just one possible approach to solving problems rather than the core of the gameplay itself. That was apparent in the level design as well, with the way the game's engine propagated light and shadow -- hiding places themselves weren't as intuitive as they were in TDP and TMA. Plus, you get much darker shadows with torchlight and candlelight than you do with modern lighting, which is what was in Deus Ex.

Starker on 1/11/2013 at 01:18

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Well, I certainly don't see a reason not to include an game mode without a HUD for the hardcore players, but I really doubt that the average player is good enough to play without the light gem. The light gem is a tool that makes it easier to iterate and to test the boundaries while you learn to play stealthily. I imagine that removing it would result in a much more trial and error learning experience.

ZylonBane on 1/11/2013 at 17:10

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Yeah, instincts developed from years of playing that exact game with the stealth gem enabled.


I think you're totally full of crap. Even real life doesn't provide reliable feedback to people on how sneaky they're being. In a video game, that level of uncertainty is unacceptable. Stealth-focused games need a concrete indicator of stealthiness. Otherwise players will inevitably feel cheated when the stealth system doesn't work exactly the way they're forced to imagine that it does (see Deus Ex's much-maligned stealth).