Do you want thief 4? - TTLG Forums

sparhawk on 14/8/2007 at 09:35

Quote Posted by ToolFan2007

It's a mod for what will be a severely dated engine when released in around 2010. Your point is?

And if you start modding Oblivion today into a TC Thief game, how long do you think it will take? By the time your are finished you get

Quote Posted by ToolFan2007

... a mod for what will be a severely dated engine when released in around 2020. Your point is?

sparhawk on 14/8/2007 at 10:52

Quote Posted by Zillameth

Funny you say that, because I'm a professional programmer and a professional designer at the same time (well, kind of; the company I'd been working for lately was kind of shitty).

I'm also a programmer. And a project manager, quality assurance, designer, etc. I have done almost every aspect of software development over the years. Because of my work I have seen a lot of programmers, and there are different types just like in any other profession. There are artists, who are stubbornly sticking to the golden rules they learned, and never get above it, and then there are artists who have their own vision they follow. The latter are the types who create new amazing stuff, while the others will usually always trundle the wellknown trodden paths. No different with programmers realy.

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I also speak from experience, because I had some very unpleasant conversations with programmers while doing my job. The example with decision tree is what really happened one day, only the AI in question - an end-of-game boss - used an HFSM (which isn't as self-explanatory as decision tree, and it would take a few sentences to explain it). A programmer decided he could create this HFSM all by himself, but he didn't really have any idea of how the AI should behave, so he just made it change states randomly. And of course fighting the end-of-game boss turned out to be no fun.

Well, I believe you. But from such an experience you can not make a general statement about all programmers. Just consider this: The old game designers in the 60ies, 70ies and 80ies were also programmers, because at this time, the programming aspect and the design aspect was still very closely related. In fact, on the old machines, programmers with a vision did exactly what you claim they can not do, otherwise we wouldn't have seen any good games on these old machines at all. It only became much more differentiated as the techniques improved, because today it's not enough to draw a pixelman, you have to have good skills in modelling instead. So more modern projects are not so easily done by one or two man teams anymore.

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Note that I'm mostly talking about upstart companies. Things are probably very different in older studios, simply because they are old and experienced.

"Old and experienced" can also mean that they are no longer daring as well, which means no innovations. Experience is definitely good, but it is not everything.

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Which in turn means someone who works as a programmer should at least realise there is such thing as design.

I doubt that these days you will find ANY programmer, who got an education, who would NOT know this. :)

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For some reason, though, they often don't. Maybe that's because design of a computer game is quite different from design of a database system.

You have to differentiate between the design of the game and the design of the software. They are totally different und unrelated. And in terms of the software, a game is not THAT different from a database system. Depends on the criterias of course.

qolelis on 14/8/2007 at 11:06

Even if I did suggest a remake (or rather a redo) of TDS, I realize now that the time could be spent in much better ways.

Quote Posted by imperialreign

I also agree with going how T2x went. Keep the Thief universe intact, but develop a different, believable main character.
<snip>
It's quite possible to go after a completely different cultural style in a different City, with different architecture, different denizens, which would present for completely different obstacles and hurdles to deal with.
<snip>
Garrett should be laid to rest (except for the FM's :thumb: )

I totally agree. It would give the team total freedom. It also makes breaking out of the loop easier.

This fan-made effort (whatever it would be called) should take place after the events in TDS, but it shouldn't be about what happens after TDS ended. It could touch upon the subject just as an homage to the original trilogy, but that's all.

I also agree with using TDM. From what I've seen of TDM it will be a more than great kit and as New Horizon pointed out, the source code for the Doom3 engine will eventually be released. (By the way: I think the TDM-team is doing a great job (I just wanted to point that out :thumb: )).

sparhawk on 14/8/2007 at 11:13

Quote Posted by qolelis

This fan-made effort (whatever it would be called) should take place after the events in TDS, but it shouldn't be about what happens after TDS ended. It could touch upon the subject just as an homage to the original trilogy, but that's all.

I also agree with using TDM.

In fact this is what TDM is about. A platform to do such things. If somebody would want to start working on such an endeavor now, we also would support it fullheartedly. And if you would start a Thief 4 in any other game or even from scratch, you would still have to implement all this stuff that we already implemented. Which would be quite a waste of time.

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(By the way: I think the TDM-team is doing a great job (I just wanted to point that out :thumb: )).

Thanks. :)

Springheel on 14/8/2007 at 12:37

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Itd be a bitch to do, but if we were to make a fan-made "Thief 4" (i know thatll NEVER be the name, just a placeholder), we could make our own engine, itd take longer, but again, wed get what we want. I realize what im asking : a fuck-ton of time, work, frustration, etc, etc, etc...

That's *exactly* what TDM is doing. (Especially the fuck-ton of time and frustration part). So if you're really interested in helping out, check us out.

imperialreign on 14/8/2007 at 21:24

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source code for the Doom3 engine will eventually be released.

Sorry, I forgot ID Software is like that - seeing as how it was a long while before Doom3 was even released (hell, the first rumors of Doom3 were running about back in 1998), it's been a long while since we've seen ID source code. Like I mentioned before, the D3 engine is strong in itself, and runs a lot better than the TDSed engine does. Both D3 and TDS were released in '04, and minimum specs are the same, except for system memory requirements- D3 is a little higher). But at minimum specs, it runs so much better than TDS . ..

sorry, I was ranting :cheeky:

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That's *exactly* what TDM is doing. (Especially the fuck-ton of time and frustration part). So if you're really interested in helping out, check us out.

I mentioned quite a while back I'd love to be able to help in any way, but I also mentioned my programming skillz are waaayyyy outdated. I think y'all are doing a kick-ass job with it!

New Horizon on 14/8/2007 at 22:35

Quote Posted by imperialreign

I mentioned quite a while back I'd love to be able to help in any way, but I also mentioned my programming skillz are waaayyyy outdated. I think y'all are doing a kick-ass job with it!

You're more than welcome to try out something simple, just to flex your programming skills. We have some smaller tasks for either the Mod itself, or the Dark Radiant level editor.

sparhawk on 15/8/2007 at 06:27

Quote Posted by imperialreign

LOL! That reminds me what I dreamt today, because I already had it forgotten and reading this posting just brought it back. I dreamt that the sourcecode was about to be released tomorrow, and I was already quite excited about it. To bad it was only a dream. :cheeky:

cyclops1101 on 15/8/2007 at 12:11

I for one cannot wait for the D3 engine to be implemented into the Thief universe. It will be like using an updated version of Looking Glass's Dark Engine. Something I feel that should of had been done awhile ago but alas at least we will have a brilliant engine to work with!

In regards to Thief 4, I dont believe Garretts circle has been closed with TDS. If anything it has only opened the doors further. If the circle should be closed I think that we as a fanatical audience should see it - be it death, disability or other life changing experience for Garrett. If Garrett should be to dissappear in the extreme only then should it be possible to read and hear about the Thief in the continuing Universe.

come on and Rock on Dark mod :thumb:

sparhawk on 15/8/2007 at 13:16

Quote Posted by cyclops1101

I don't know how other engines look from the coding point of view, but I have seen a lot of code in my life, and I think that the Id code (the SDK so far) looks quite nice and straight forward. There are some hacks which could have been done better, but I think for any decent programmer it should be pretty easy to learn coding in that framework.

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In regards to Thief 4, I dont believe Garretts circle has been closed with TDS. If anything it has only opened the doors further. If the circle should be closed I think that we as a fanatical audience should see it - be it death, disability or other life changing experience for Garrett. If Garrett should be to dissappear in the extreme only then should it be possible to read and hear about the Thief in the continuing Universe.

I think Thief 4 could start off with the training for the girl from TDS. Maybe garett wouldn't play such an active role there anymore, but then again, such a campaing, could also get involved into plots between the Hammerites, Keepers and Pagans, which he could get involved with involuntarily while he wants to train the girl.

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come on and Rock on Dark mod :thumb:

We have no plans to go away. ;)