DDL on 12/8/2009 at 13:32
DX had 3 types of keypad, 3 kinds of switches, totally mover-based vent covers (so could be anything from a manhole cover to a huge OMG HIGH TECH airlock or whatever), 3 kinds of fans, and so on.
So yeah: prop scarcety and just general prefab feel to everything. It's like..I'd prefer a map to feel like it was an actual place, even one poorly suited to what I want to do, rather than some small stage exclusively designed using stuff from the props cabinet for my usage in a stealth based secret agent scenario.
Papy on 13/8/2009 at 01:08
Quote Posted by heywood
But I do agree with his main point that the level design is the biggest problem with immersion in IW.
Not for me. My biggest complaint is characters. Except for NG Resonance, they all had very little personality and were completely uninteresting (if not despicable). Second complaint is the problem of the gameplay which is far too easy. It's certainly difficult to be immersed in a game when you are completely bored with the gameplay. In third, I could say the fact that choices just don't matter. The article says : "[Invisible War] is just about your choices. It's about doing what you feel like." That's one of the problems! How could I be immersed in a game, when the whole game is about me?
Of course bigger levels would have been great, but for me that was only a minor problem.
d'Spair on 13/8/2009 at 11:48
That is odd since I really think that level design was one of the strongest aspects of DX2. And loading zones never bothered me in DX2 and T3.
rachel on 13/8/2009 at 13:24
What irks me is that the whole Seattle section is so small. It's like anytime you turn a corner, a level loads up. Yet later in the game (Cairo etc.) the levels are way bigger and work without a hitch. They could have made the whole Tarsus Academy as a single level, and Seattle could have been expanded too.
Part of what blocks me from replaying the game (and I try!) is that the first couple hours are a succession of loading zones. Even on my PC which was I built after IW was released, the loading/playing ratio is way out of hand, and that really sucks.
ZylonBane on 13/8/2009 at 14:30
I occasionally toy with the idea of installing IW to a ramdisk to see how that would affect load times. But I'm not sure if anyone even makes ramdisk software anymore.
d'Spair on 13/8/2009 at 15:08
Quote Posted by raph
What irks me is that the whole Seattle section is so small. It's like anytime you turn a corner, a level loads up. Yet later in the game (Cairo etc.) the levels are way bigger and work without a hitch. They could have made the whole Tarsus Academy as a single level, and Seattle could have been expanded too.
This is all Xbox's fault. T3 level designers stated that it was completely possible to merge all Thief 3 missions into single levels (not split them in two maps), and T3 maps are quite bigger than DX2 maps! (I mean, Museum levels are huge!) So, if not Xbox RAM limits, we could have DX2 levels twice or thrice bigger than we have.
And if you put together all Cairo levels into one big map, I'm pretty sure the resulting megalevel would be bigger than most of the DX1 areas.
lost_soul on 13/8/2009 at 19:07
IW spoilers ahead...
What makes me laugh to this day is that IW's last level (which was in the same location as DX's first level) was split up into three locations! THREE! The IW version was still smaller than that of the original too, because you couldn't actually go up into the statue. You also can't go by where the terrorists originally held Gunter hostage in the first game.
To this day, I blame the Microsoft XBOX for derailing the Thief and DX franchises.
Papy on 13/8/2009 at 22:08
It's polygons and lighting effects which are important, not the space between them. Considering IW didn't have a good framerate in a lot of parts, I blame players' desire for pretty graphics more than the X-Box.
ZylonBane on 13/8/2009 at 23:21
Quote Posted by Papy
It's polygons and lighting effects which are important, not the space between them. Considering IW didn't have a good framerate in a lot of parts, I blame players' desire for pretty graphics more than the X-Box.
You're doing that thing again, where you have a complete argument in your head, but then only write down the odd-numbered bits of it.
heywood on 14/8/2009 at 02:51
The framerate is low because they wrote their own real time lighting engine and incorporated Havoc physics, and their forte was not engine development, and it was unoptimized for the PC. I think the decision to roll their own lighting engine turned out to be a major mistake. I believe Harvey Smith admitted it distracted their attention and constrained the game. And if you've ever played with the dynamic lighting turned off, it really didn't detract all that much from the game's appearance.
lost_soul's example is perfect. Liberty Island in IW looks like a freaking joke compared to DX. In DX, it's actually laid out like a real place and feels at least a little bit like a real night on Liberty Island might feel. In IW, they had to concoct a stupid freezing story to cover up the fact that the engine couldn't do water and background landscapes. And the level of detail inside the old UNATCO HQ building was appalling.
It was easily the low point of IW for me.
