Renzatic on 19/3/2013 at 03:52

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There's a couple.

jtr7 on 19/3/2013 at 03:53

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Thanks. I was hoping that wasn't the case.

jtr7 on 19/3/2013 at 04:38

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I've said it before a few times over the last couple of years, so hopefully it's nothing new to you, but stealing is practically typical in gaming, and already has quite a lot of precedent with Thief classes in RPGs, adding a stealth layer or bonus to it, so I hope Thief does something atypical with it, not the same old thing done thousands of times. It's too easy to make a game about a guy who steals. I know a lot of gamers will be glad if it is about a guy who steals, sandbox style, and little else matters other than it be state-of-the-art.



Garrett wasn't about stealing everything in sight. Like ghosting, that's what players brought to it. The games allowed it but the story-driven elements weren't ever focused on that, even when Garrett was getting revenge and seeking to embarrass someone who'd gone after him. I like clearing out some missions and just getting through others, and like forced ghosting, forced 90%+ loot goals are something I hope to never see in Thief[4].

If Thief just has more stuff per mission to steal, and words in the objectives referencing the stealing, then that would be beneath Thief's potential.


I'm just looking for information to help me understand some things.

henke on 19/3/2013 at 07:09

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Define stealing. If you mean picking up guns and medpacks that don't belong to you, then I don't think there are any FPS protagonists that don't steal.

jtr7 on 29/3/2013 at 07:30

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I'm including that, and yes, that's half the point. How many FPSs aren't designed for the player to ransack gamespaces, take down AIs, tear 'em all apart for equipment, information, quest items, and loot, to really just facilitate more violence and the survival of it, dressed up in a story, if any? Keeping that focus nowhere near the primary gameplay of Thief will separate it from the rest, even as it allows it, to hopefully, continually, a lesser degree. If they change everything else but keep the game centered and balanced toward stealing AND not getting caught, it will remain its own genre. The more it becomes like so much else, with only more treasure to frob, the less I'll care for it. Been there, done that, since before the Pac-Man heyday. It's not worth keeping up with the tech for only more detailed and larger worlds of the expected.

Hell, even though ex-LGS are big on pen'n'paper RPGs, and CRPGs, I was already laughing at the ridiculous neverending game mechanic of slashing a monster to spill its gold and gems, buy upgrades, keep slashing. Diablo is entertaining as a time-kill that's better than Solitaire, and I was really mostly fascinated with the sound design, music, and wondering how many unique items there were to uncover. Waiting to see what new item might show up after a kill or corpse-loot, or when visiting a townsperson, and hoping I'd frobbed enough gold to get it if I liked what I saw, were the only things that made it a little more than a time-kill. Between Diablo and Blood & Magic, the grinding and farming were already getting old, and certainly became put-offs for future titles. I realized there was no difference between playing those games and watching somewhat interesting mindless television into the wee hours. It was more a waste of time than really rewarding, a waste of money, and definitely not as productive as reading a good book.

Not having money to stay on top of tech made it easy to not buy into the fads, even though I'd read up and lurk online to see what was really rising above the mediocrity for people, and play what demos I could. The influx of now-common game-mechanics that I found irritating to look at, irritating to control, or required a new piece of equipment, all just ensured a lack of interest. If it's not fun, it's a waste. If I have to starve to get a game or console then it had better be worth it to me and for years on end.



TDS remains the only Thief title centered on stealing, rather than the previous title's centering on pride of mastery of undetection and getting away with "it", which could be loot, artifacts, humiliating enemies, staying alive, undermining plans, or whatever the mission goal specifies, and TDS leaned a bit more toward violent means to an end than mastery of undetection, too. Stealing is what Garrett likes, but he's hired for his skill set, not his greed, and his greed is used against him to manipulate him into larger schemes. He's used and exploited, and compared to what's been done to him, how he gets back at the perpetrators concerns something much much larger than himself. When someone makes an attempt on his life, he doesn't get revenge through direct FPS killing, he gathers information and humiliates them if he can, and at the worst, he tricks them into taking themselves out with their own dark devices, but is more likely to turn others against them. It's only when the stakes go far beyond his own survival that he goes for the terminal solution. In the canon, only two deaths are ascribed to him by those who record his actions and seek to destroy him. Even they have no deaths to pin on him without lying or denying facts for themselves. The player can ignore nearly all of this, but as long as the game is designed with mastery of undetection in mind, the rest can fall into place. So, again, I just hope there's no increase in the typical FPS formula, and the game is balanced around undetection. I'm wary of using the term "stealth" anymore, since brutal violence and death aren't excluded at all by it. I'm also not even bringing the real life brutality that a blackjack can cause. In the game, it resembles almost nothing close to real life, as most aspects of the games aren't, nor should be.