My 2 cents on the new Thief and the community

webe123 on 11/7/2013 at 08:30

Well I think the OP is WRONG! He is putting everyone in a world where they seem to view the original games as perfect, when that is not the case at all.

But it is also true that I was one of the people who pre-ordered thief 3....and was also one of the one's who only played it through ONE TIME!

I STILL think the game is crap and still think thief 4 based on the gameplay videos will be absolute crap also.

Thief is about STEALTH and STEALING in places you would not normally go, not "hiding in shadows and clubbing people" as the OP seems to think it is.

I do not dislike this new thief game because I have not given it a chance. I really wanted it to be better than thief 3...but it looks like that is not going to be the case...it looks WORSE than thief 3, just without the idiotic fog in between levels...well I guess you could say THAT was some improvement, though not much in my eyes.

Let me ask the OP a question....what exatly do you think XP for headshots adds to a thief game that is SUPPOSED to be about stealth? This is thief...not hitman! So I do not see the reason at ALL behind adding this stupid feature to a game of stealth!

To please "console kiddies" is about the only reason I can think of. And that reason is stupid within itself.

Briareos H on 11/7/2013 at 09:21

Thief is a quasi-simulation specifically created to attain the highest levels of immersiveness, for which burglary is a perfect medium as it merges smoothly the requirements to make the game immersive with the game itself: reducing layers of abstraction through interface minimalism is possible because the interaction set of a thief with his world is reduced (move/steal/use external object/use tool) without the need for complex, identifiable systems; contributions to player agency match well between real and simulated, with the thrill of exploring places that appear unreachable on first approach, with pre-planning and decision making phases, both for slow and methodical progression or for quick, dynamic behavior with a strong focus towards enemy encounters, managing to make moving unseen by AI or confronting them feel intimate; information is almost never fed directly to the player, it is rather there for them to take of their own volition, actively involving them and establishing clearly how the simulation is to be interacted with.

No game has managed to pull this off so well since Thief.

operativex on 11/7/2013 at 17:27

Quote Posted by webe123

I agree that on the surface it seems unnecessary, but Chade brought up a good point about XP distribution. If ghosting or blackjacking gains the player more XP, then I think it could be an enticing way to change the play styles of modern players.

I would need to see what other activities reward XP and by how much to tell whether headshot xp is a bad idea or not. In other words, i'll reserve judgement until I get more info.

operativex on 11/7/2013 at 17:41

Quote Posted by Briareos H

That's a great detailed explanation of Thief but can you reduce that to 140 characters (a typical twitter tweet)? For me, it essentially boils down to shadow creeping, stealing loot, and clubbing people.

Specter on 11/7/2013 at 20:15

Quote Posted by operativex

Then please enlighten me what the core mechanics of Thief are.

I wish you guys/gals would think critically, as opposed to zealots that believe Thief is gods gift to man. Not even the original devs hold Thief to such a high standard and point out many of its flaws and shortcomings in interviews.

You are comparing two games based on the lowest common similarities. Its laughable. A Ferrari owner wont accept a 1985 pick up truck simply because they both have four wheels and an engine. A cat owner wont buy a tiger because they are both felines. And Thief is not comparable to Skyrim simply because there is a form of stealth system and its possible to steal things. You can have any opinion on any thing. What I disagree with is that you are not only comparing two things that are very unalike, but you are trying to then claim that the dissimilar game is BETTER than Thief... in a forum dedicated to Thief! Give your head a shake! Did you expect to find general agreement?! I am not a zealot for liking and defending a game in a corner of the internet dedicated to that game.

Quote Posted by Chade

I dunno, for an eight word description, that not bad. Crouching, shadows, blackjacking ... what else would you say in eight words or less? I'm curious what different people would mention.

You're right. If I had to boil away everything that is Thief, and put it into its most simplistic terms, then that is what you would have. But since when are things rated by what they are in their most simplistic form? All paintings are not equal just because they each use paint and canvass, and the discussion is not about what elements in their simplest form make up Thief.

operativex on 11/7/2013 at 21:11

Quote Posted by Specter

You are comparing two games based on the lowest common similarities. Its laughable.

Not at all. I wouldn't call stealth and thievery (in a game called Thief) a lowest common similarity. In fact, almost every mission requires the player to acquire a certain percentage of loot for each mission and the game even features a small economy system for buying supplies. Stealing is one of the core elements of Thief. Maybe in Skyrim's case since stealing is not the primary focus of the game, but I would say that's a testament of how great a game it is. Even one element of the game completely blows another game dedicated to stealing out of the water. And please people, stop confusing thievery (i.e. To take (something) by theft or commit theft, I don't know how many times I need to italisize that word) with stealth gameplay. I've already said Thief is a good few notches above Skyrim in terms of stealth (though I would say Skyrim's stealth mechanics are pretty solid). But Skyrim competly and utterly destroys Thief when it comes to acts of thievery.

One simply needs to aggregate the score of both mechanics to see why Skyrim destroys Thief: when it comes to stealth I would give Thief (from 1-10, 10 being the perfect stealth game) a 9 and Skyrim a 7. When it comes to thievery (the amount of loot in the game to steal, how important it is to the games' economy, the variety of loot, etc) Thief gets a 2 out of 10 whereas Skyrim gets a solid 10.

Quote:

A Ferrari owner wont accept a 1985 pick up truck simply because they both have four wheels and an engine. A cat owner wont buy a tiger because they are both felines. And Thief is not comparable to Skyrim simply because there is a form of stealth system and its possible to steal things.

I don't see how any of these analogies are apt to what I am saying. They seem more like straw-men to my argument more than anything. A more fitting analogy would be: would a Ferrari owner accept a 1985 pickup truck if the pickup could accelerate to 0-60 in 1 second even if the exterior/interior were not as attractive? That would really depend on why someone wants a Ferrari. For the speed or social statement? With regards to Skyrim, I am willing to overlook the weaker stealth mechanic for the opportunity to rob any house/castle/cave, etc in the entire Skyrim world.

Chade on 11/7/2013 at 21:27

Quote Posted by Specter

If I had to boil away everything that is Thief, and put it into its most simplistic terms, then that is what you would have. But since when are things rated by what they are in their most simplistic form? All paintings are not equal just because they each use paint and canvass

Keep in mind the post I was responding too was claiming that his description was completely inaccurate, whereas actually it's quite good IMO.

I think it's always valuable to boil things down to their essence. It's a good place to start, and you can branch out from there. Your "paint and canvas" line is a bit of a strawman. If I were to boil a painting down to it's essence, in particular if I were comparing two paintings, the essence of each painting would be a short description of the motivation and/or contents of the painting. Likewise, operativex didn't say thief was a few CPU instructions on a DVD.

In any case, as the discussion moves on, operativex seems to be slowly switching from insulting everyone to actually describing in more detail which part of the thief experience he believes is better in Skyrim. Speaking of which ...

Quote Posted by operativex

And please people, stop confusing thievery (i.e. To take (something) by theft or commit theft, I don't know how many times I need to italisize that word) with stealth gameplay. I've already said Thief is a good few notches above Skyrim in terms of stealth (though I would say Skyrim's stealth mechanics are pretty solid). But Skyrim competly and utterly destroys Thief when it comes to acts of thievery.

So operativex, when you say that thievery is better in Skyrim, do you simply mean the act of choosing which loot to go after? Is there more to it then that?

EDIT: And btw, no-one is confusing what you call thievery with what you call stealth. If you want to draw that distinction, that's fine, just make sure you explain that clearly in your posts so we understand what you're saying, and don't expect us to follow your lead just because you said so.

operativex on 11/7/2013 at 21:34

Quote Posted by Chade

So operativex, when you say that thievery is better in Skyrim, do you simply mean the act of choosing which loot to go after? Is there more to it then that?

I described that here:

Quote:

One simply needs to aggregate the score of both mechanics to see why Skyrim destroys Thief: when it comes to stealth I would give Thief (from 1-10, 10 being the perfect stealth game) a 9 and Skyrim a 7. When it comes to thievery (the amount of loot in the game to steal, how important it is to the games' economy, the variety of loot, etc) Thief gets a 2 out of 10 whereas Skyrim gets a solid 10.

Azaran on 11/7/2013 at 21:34

Also operativex, keep in mind that Dragonborn in Skyrim is pretty much devoid of personality, while Garrett has character, another thing that makes Thief unique.

operativex on 11/7/2013 at 21:37

Quote Posted by Azaran

Also operativex, keep in mind that Dragonborn in Skyrim is pretty much devoid of personality, while Garrett has character, another thing that makes Thief unique.

I completely agree. Above raw game mechanics, Thief has incredible characters, plot, and a unqiue setting.

But unlike movies or books, when you break down a video game, the first things described are the mechanics -- not the plot and characters. Our medium is one of interactivity and player agency, not a written narrative.