jay pettitt on 17/8/2013 at 14:03
In a surprising about face, I don't think it's anything to lose sleep over.
I'm (mostly) all for streamlining, and in a Thief game perhaps especially. Context sensitive controls don't strike me as obviously really badly wrong. Maybe they're balancing that stuff nicely, maybe they're not - but I wouldn't assume it to be a deal breaker 'till I'd given it a try.
And for once I'm kinda sympathetic with Adam too. Who knows what's going on inside Eidos, but my reckoning is that they're under a lot of pressure at EM and maybe 100 or so people who's jobs are on the line - maybe worse. Which is crappy by anyone's book. For sure, I think the PR has been a disaster and it's not obvious that the game is gonna be much different to the PR - so they've only got themselves to blame. But if there were 1000s of eager fans bouncing up and down on the Intertubes getting really excited (in a good way) for T4 it'd make life a lot nicer for the boys and girls at Eidos Montreal in all sorts of ways.
If there's a smart, sassy, interesting game being made at EM, it's a damn shame they're not telling anyone about it.
Dia on 17/8/2013 at 14:11
'Spam-jumping' during a Thief game? Who the hell does that anyhow? Did b1skit and the T4 devs have a problem while playing the original Thief games in that they kept hitting the 'jump' button by mistake? Is that where this is coming from? B1skit sounded very concerned about all the 'spam-jumping' that goes on in Thief games, yet I've never heard of anyone forcing Garrett to spam-jump through a Thief game before; this is a first. Sounds like EM (& b1skit) is grabbing at straws with this one. I guess these guys accidentally hitting the jump-button continually would be understandable since these are the same people who found the controls of the original Thief games to be far too 'complex' and 'difficult'. *insert derisive snort here* Wait - I get it now: EM is concerned that there are far too many gamers out there who would accidentally keep hitting the jump button and ruin their own immersion in the game, so they've taken away NuGarrett's ability to free-jump solely for the protection of those gamers' potential immersion. Right.
So, basically, we can't commit any actions that would take us outside the designated linear path of the game. Why don't they just come out and say that in plain English; why do they have to make statements that sound as though they're insulting the mentality of Thief fans who protest these ridiculous constrictions being implemented in T4? I mean, a blunt statement by EM that they're limiting a player's control in the game (because they honestly don't know how to reproduce the magical core elements that made the original Thief games as wonderful as they are even today) might just appeal to a lot of gamers who don't like to fail; don't like to fall off beams and have to restart that part of a level, don't like to have to actually deliberate what action would benefit his/her character the most at that point of a game, players who really do want to have their hands held throughout the entire game. B1skit has hit an all-time low with that statement, imo.
I agree with Heywood; there seems to be too many 'wannabes' on the T4 dev team; unfortunately they don't seem to be video-game-dev-wannabes. Too many of them seem to be using T4 as nothing more than a stepping stone, a vehicle to illustrate their many talents. And T4 is suffering in the process.
:(
jay pettitt on 17/8/2013 at 14:44
I know that's how it came out, but I don't think they meant it that way.
As I understand it (perhaps charitably) you've got a leap button. And you do either a sort of sideways leap (swoop) or a more vertical leap depending on the context of the environment/architecture/gameworld around you. I imagine that the occasions where you'd be getting cross because you did a more sideways leap instead of an up and down leap without some context that makes an up and down leap the appropriate thing, are likely few and far between.
Maybe it's terrible. But I'd not like to say so 'till I've tried.
Plainly there are all sorts of problems and concerns. And I'd totally buy into the notion that EM are trying to do all sorts of things because it's what Hollywood does or what Naughty Dog did rather than doing stuff because it's totally appropriate for a Thief game. But I'm not so sure that this is one of the worst offenders.
Fandango on 17/8/2013 at 15:22
Remember how Garrett could jump from carpet to carpet to avoid walking on noisy metal flooring? No?
I must be remembering wrong because "Jumping, bouncing up and down, kind of broke the immersion"
In other news, spinning in circles kind of broke the immersion so they've removed the ability to turn.
ZylonBane on 17/8/2013 at 16:02
Quote Posted by jay pettitt
But if there were 1000s of eager fans bouncing up and down...
...they won't be in-game!
*ba-dum tsshh*
SeriousCallersOnly on 17/8/2013 at 16:23
Quote Posted by jay pettitt
In a surprising about face, I don't think it's anything to lose sleep over.
Surprising? From you?
Starker on 17/8/2013 at 16:52
What does it say about the state of the industry when a game that was made in the nineties can have free jumping without breaking immersion, but a 2013 game can't pull it off?
Springheel on 17/8/2013 at 17:06
Quote:
It took a while to learn the complex controls. Numbers 1,2,3,4 - There were different types of peeking: peeking forward, peeking sideways, peeking upside down.
Ah yes, one of several dev quotes denigrating the original games. Anyone else get the sense that some of the devs don't even LIKE the originals?
ZylonBane on 17/8/2013 at 17:23
I'm still trying to figure out WTF upside-down peeking is.
At this point, the worst thing about "Thief" is that it presumes to displace the name of the groundbreaking original.
Dia on 17/8/2013 at 17:30
Now they're just making stuff up. Iirc, there was no 'upside down peeking' going on in any of the three original games. Or did I miss something?
