Johnny01 on 23/8/2013 at 03:08
*sigh*
People, it's not about all the features they removed. This whole game is a complete fault from the way it's built up in the first - and foremost - place. And I knew exactly that this would happen, just this way.
It's about the way development strategies and corporate game design is set up these days.
Hundreds of specialist drones doing menial tasks that mean nothing to them personally, taking orders from the top, all with a PURE focus on production values.
Story is outsourced from some failed, pretentious Hollywood screenwriter, and design just focuses on throwing a coat of one prefab style over every part of the game, and making it look as slick and expensive as possible.
In order to ensure these production values, that are like playing a damned interactive action-film, they prescript EVERY option in the game. CHOICE is lauded these days in gaming, but what it should be - and used to be - is FREEDOM.
These days we can choose to take one of about three (at most) predefined and scripted paths, instead of just being dropped into a meticulously designed (by a small, connected team with a vision) situation and having the FREEDOM to deal with this environment and situation by your own means.
I had been playing some of the most lauded modern stealth games. Then I went back for a round of Thief and was amazed at how much more immersed I was. Corporate developers have no idea what an actual game even is.
Oh, and not to mention that there's going to be another main focus on the incredibly obnoxious and annoying 'dialogue', with Hollywood characters being forced down your throat in scripted sequences every 2 minutes, catering to the new-age, "story"-pretentious kids who think that playing one of these thrill-ride interactive films makes them enriched in some sort of way. I barf at the people insisting that games like The Last of Us are amazing and so much better than "old, stupid" games, because what they are looking for in a game is 'great dialogue, that can make them laugh AND cry...' Pretty much every FM made for Thief has a better story (and way of conveying it) than any modern blockbuster game. Not to mention the original Thief universe conveyed through the original developers.
The exact same thing happened to every single franchise that I loved and was revamped in the past year or two.
Being pushed through a narrow, prescripted path, without any real freedom and as much control as possible being taken away from you, with scripted scenes, quicktime events and annoying characters along the way every few seconds.
Lady Rowena on 23/8/2013 at 13:46
I can listen to almost any type of music, from mediocre to good songs. But for some reason Ijust can't stand a bad song (for me of course) from my favourite band. I skip it, and jump to the following track.
It works the same way with games. I played so many, and I managed to enjoy most of them in spite of the aspects I didn't like at all.
One for all: Fallout 3. I didn't like VATS, I didn't use it. I don't like having companions, I only picked the dog, but I almost always left him at home. :D I didn't even like the (many) silly objectives, like the idiotic Nuka Cola stuff. But yet I played the game two times.
Generally speaking, I take the game for what it is. But Thief is special, I already know what it is, what it originally was and what it should be if there is a sequel, a prequel, a reboot, or whatever they want to call it.
Probably I might even enjoy a game like the one EM is developing, if it didn't pretend to belong to the Thief series, because it doesn't. The game DNA? They used it to make an OGM IMO.
Vasquez on 28/8/2013 at 07:39
Quote Posted by Rope Arrow
In this day and age of near photo-real graphics and technology that would have made the crew at Looking Glass piss themselves with jealous envy, we
should have an astoundingly immersive experience where every command is under our control, with excellent body-awareness and tactile feeling. Free to mess up and look stupid, of course.
Amen.
I was trying to stay hopeful, but this makes it impossible :(
Vae on 28/8/2013 at 07:48
I know...It is indeed a terrible shame to see something so potentially wonderful become a mockery of itself...In time, even the most hopeful souls will have to come to terms with this.
Shayde on 28/8/2013 at 08:02
I was playing Bioshock 2 last night. If a Big Daddy can jump whenever I want him to, why can't a master thief? I just don't think I'll be able to look past the rails to enjoy the good parts of the new thief. :(
Esme on 28/8/2013 at 12:36
In the original 3 games - I want a humbug, I'm given a humbug.
This game - I want a humbug, I'm given a lemon drop, caramel, peanut brittle, box of raisins or a humbug depending on what I'm doing, where I'm looking or where I'm standing at the time.
And if I complain that I didn't get the humbug I asked for and also paid for, someone tells me I'm getting a sweet, it may not be exactly the sweet I thought I wanted, but it's still a sweet and further I'm not going to notice the difference in the sweet I wanted and the sweet I got because they've carefully engineered all possible situations so that I won't actually want a humbug but will want whatever sweet they give me.
I still want a humbug and I don't want someone telling me that it's not required in this context or that I won't notice the difference between what I want and what I get because they've been ever so clever.
I can't wait for McDonalds to adopt this strategy, "Big Mac please", "Certainly mam, here's your Filet-O-Fish and a long condescending ramble about how your not going to notice the difference and won't even miss the Big Mac because in this context it's not necessary, have a nice day"
henke on 28/8/2013 at 12:49
Well since you know it won't be a "humbug" ahead of time you could simply just not buy it, y'know.
xxcoy on 28/8/2013 at 12:51
Quote Posted by henke
Well since you know it won't be a "humbug" ahead of time you could simply just not buy it, y'know.
Must have been telepathy.
Esme on 28/8/2013 at 13:12
Quote Posted by henke
Well since you know it won't be a "humbug" ahead of time you could simply just not buy it, y'know.
That is what I'm currently thinking
Renault on 28/8/2013 at 14:37
ITT, henke and xxxcoy completely missing the point.
If you're going to make a Thief game, and use Garrett as your protagonist, then do it right.
Otherwise, just make your own unique stealth game and call it whatever you want. I'll probably still buy it.
