Could "T2X: Shadows of the Metal Age" be better than TG and T2? - by Sanctus Germanus
thief-outside-a-box on 3/10/2016 at 09:58
Quote Posted by Luthien
The magic of TDP/TG/TMA is not defined mainly by its missions.
On average the missions were okay, no more that that. What really makes Thief stand out is the complete freedom it gives to the player (even to do things not anticipated by the developers or which they actively tried to prevent), the credibility of all of the the game's aspects and the immersion that goes along with it. And of course that you don't have to kill or hurt anybody in the game.
Okay, I did not expect this. Well, the overall feeling/atmosphere/story and promise by the missions before pulled me through. Plus back in the days, it was a rather fresh concept.
Quote Posted by Luthien
Alas, the series went downhill from the start, or let's say from TG. TMA has a less fascinating story, and
opposition too much focused around the childrenWhat do you mean?
Quote Posted by Luthien
T2X was nice, but the American voice acting didn't work for me. Having to listen to American voices in a medieval game always makes me cringe. Fan missions in general have the problem that their authors were often too intent to force the player along one predefined path and taking away the freedom from the player (can't remember this about t2X though).
The voices did not bother me. Maybe the female lead oversold the "naive excited girl" part a bit too much, especially with the reveal in the first debriefing-cutscene.
About the fms, I think it's hard to hit the balance especially with new_mantle, as soon as you give the player a mere crate somewhere or place a door/torch carelessly it opens the possibility for them to break out of the path. And then post in the fm-thread about being lost having unknowingly bypassed a place. I'm currently replaying Keeper Investigations and basically can bash open almost all relevant doors with the sword.
Quote Posted by downwinder
does anyone know if its possible to get the missions from t2x singley?
I never heard of this. But you can download the whole campaign and jump through it by code or use the missflag.str to play a specific mission.
marbleman on 3/10/2016 at 10:04
My guess is "Chilren of Karras". But I don't agree, apart from Soulforge, the robots are a minor concern.
Luthien on 3/10/2016 at 13:37
Quote Posted by thief-outside-a-box
What do you mean?
Karras' children, i.e. robots.
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About the fms, I think it's hard to hit the balance especially with new_mantle, as soon as you give the player a mere crate somewhere or place a door/torch carelessly it opens the possibility for them to break out of the path. And then post in the fm-thread about being lost having unknowingly bypassed a place.
Isn't that just a sign of careless mission design? In the original missions there was litte scripting just to prevent the missions from breaking if the player took an unexpected path. Instead of prodding the player along a certain path it's possible to force her to visit most of the mission by placing an important switch or key on one end of the mission and an unbreakable door at the other end.
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I never heard of this. But you can download the whole campaign and jump through it by code or use the missflag.str to play a specific mission.
Or simply put
starting_mission N
in the user.cfg file (where N is the mission's number).
Luthien on 3/10/2016 at 13:43
Quote Posted by marbleman
My guess is "Chilren of Karras". But I don't agree, apart from Soulforge, the robots are a minor concern.
But dealing with the children is so un-thieflike. There's really almost no way to get rid of them in an inconspicious way. Either you have their bodies lying all around, or you have to bang them with the blackjack, alerting half of the guards in the mission. And often they are near large patches of metallic floor which does not work too well in the game because basically you're almost forced to make lots of noise there. Anyway, for me the robots felt like mechs from a sci-fi movie. The demon type monsters in T1 could at least be knocked out if done right.
marbleman on 3/10/2016 at 13:48
How about just sneaking past them? That is the most thieflike way.
To me, the robots and watchers did not "ruin" Thief atmoshpere. It's a different age from T1, a Metal Age, which has every right to happen in this universe. Moreover, robots integrate variety into human missions. Before it was either humans only, mosters only, or undeads only, or if there were different types of enemies, then they would be found in different parts of a mission. In T2 you can have both humans and robots in the same mission, in the same room, which compenstaes for the lack of montsers and undeads.
Speaking of monsters, there is no way of "dealing", as you put it, with burricks, craymen, bugbeasts, frogbeasts, and spiders either. You can't pick them up and hide them in the shadows.
Luthien on 3/10/2016 at 14:24
Quote Posted by marbleman
How about just sneaking past them? That is the most thieflike way.
How about not telling the player that there's only one proper way to deal with a problem?
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To me, the robots and watchers did not "ruin" Thief atmoshpere. It's a different age from T1, a Metal Age, which has every right to happen in this universe. Moreover, robots integrate variety into human missions.
Mostly they introduce the message "you'll have to spend lots of time to deal with this situation" to the mission. The watchers are fun though.
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Speaking of monsters, there is no way of "dealing", as you put it, with burricks, craymen, bugbeasts, frogbeasts, and spiders either. You can't pick them up and hide them in the shadows.
Lure them to the place where you want the body and knock them out there. (Knocking out frogs is fun, by the way.)
marbleman on 3/10/2016 at 14:41
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How about not telling the player that there's only one proper way to deal with a problem?
That's basically what you said. That the only way to deal with the problem is a loud one. I merely pointed out that there is another option.
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Mostly they introduce the message "you'll have to spend lots of time to deal with this situation" to the mission.
And there you go agian.
But I digress. You know what they say about opinios, right? Everybody has one. The way I see it, none of us will change the other's opinion, so developing this argument is pointless.
Luthien on 3/10/2016 at 14:46
Yeah whatever. Only that your reasoning does not explain that TMA is considered to be inferior to TG by most players. If it's not atmosphere/thieving it must probably be the lack of kangaroo jumping in TMA (engine).
marbleman on 3/10/2016 at 14:54
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TMA is considered to be inferior to TG by most players.
I know that. I understand the reasons and agree with some of them, while disagreeing with the others. But it does not mean that I'm also obliged to consider TMA inferior.
I cannot pick a favorite between TG, TMA (and T2X for that matter). Every game has diefferent good and bad sides, but the bad ones are clearly outshined.
thief-outside-a-box on 3/10/2016 at 15:29
I like the bots. Or rather, without them, what threat would Karras have been? The trickster was a near-indestructible being with an army of critters thrown in as a bonus, while Karras was human after all, as he hid in his chamber and left the rest to his children. If a combat bot could just be backstabbed or knocked out with one hit that would take away a lot of the story. Or rather the change/ (future) threat the mechanists represented.
Of course TTLG could have done T2 with Victoria as endboss and thrown in some more critters, though I don't know if that would not have been too repetitive.
