nuThief storyline makes me sad

Dia on 29/7/2013 at 13:18

Quote:

(by Master Taffer)
•Guards mentioned burricks in their banter, referring to their situation as being "stuck in a burrick hole." The Crippled Burrick Pub is also in the game. The physical burricks are not physically present in the game as pointed out Daniel Windfeld Schmidt, but they weren't in Thief 2 and DS either so it shouldn't be a big deal.
•The House of Blossoms is built in the old Keeper Library. I asked Emanuel Garcia (lead artist) about it, and he said they went back and looked at the layout and architecture to reproduce it then slapped the brothel's decorations over the top to make it look like it was moved into. Not to mention there are secret glyph doors in it. Where the Keepers are is unknown at this time, but they definitely were a part of the lore of this reboot. Which brings me to:
•Glyphs are in the game, and we already confirmed that back in March. Heck, you can see them in this screenshot.
•They rebuilt the City's layout from information in the previous games. They even have a master map of the City in their office that is built from stuff pieced together in Thief 1, 2, and 3.

Wow. So EM is 'mentioning' a lot of aspects of the original games and 'slapping' NuStuff over old stuff from the original games ..... so what?! 'Slapping' a brothel's decorations over the Keeper's compound architecture makes it a true Thief game, does it now? Using 'pieced together' map sections from the original City in the original games makes it a true Thief game as well? Oh wow; EM is also 'slapping' glyphs on walls, so it MUST be a true Thief game, right? 'Mentioning' burricks must also mean that NuThief is a true Thief game too, then? Merely ripping-off aspects of the original games and inserting them into T4 does NOT legitimize T4 as a true Thief game, imo. It takes a lot more than naming a bird 'Jenivere' to make T4 a true Thief game afaic. And imo EM is failing miserably at that. I think what pisses me off the most right now is MT's statement, 'so it shouldn't be a big deal'. Wrong: it IS a big deal to a lot of Thief fans so please stop posting as though you've been nominated by the rest of us Taffers to be our spokesperson! It worries me that someone who, while being a fan of the original Thief games, is so lackadaisical and accepting about the way EM is trashing the Thief saga. I find it very concerning that this Taffer, who is obviously an EM 'yes man', not only has EM's ear on the subject of T4, but also seems to post as though he's representing the rest of us and our collective opinions. I do not agree with Master Taffer, nor does he speak for me or represent my opinions. Unfortunately, EM doesn't want to hear opinions on T4 from the likes of me; only from those who blindly and unconditionally support them and the trainwreck they're creating.

Also, am I the only one who is truly bothered with the whole brothel thing? It just feels so ..... wrong. But then again, if the devs saw fit to include vulgar expletives then I guess in their little minds anything goes. Afterall, fifteen year olds fling the f-bomb around freely because they think it makes them kewl and all grown up and it seems EM is creating a game aimed at that level of gamer. All I can do at this point is shake my head in serious disappointment at the travesty EM is creating in the name of Thief. Because that's all it is .... in the name of Thief and nothing more. And there the similarity ends.

svs on 29/7/2013 at 13:43

Quote Posted by Esme

And there were lots of complaints at their absence, so why shouldn't there be continued complaints at their continued absence ?

I keep hearing statements like "This compromise were making shouldn't be a big deal for the players", "Discarding/rewriting the canon shouldn't be a big deal for the players", "The switch to contextual movement shouldn't be a big deal for the players", "Forced 3P & QTE events are minimal and shouldn't be a big deal for the players", "Play it and you'll see it's not so bad"

I thought LGS originally left in-game burricks out and toned down the undead/magic stuff due to fans' feedback. Anywho, I'd love to see burricks in-game, personally, although it's not a biggie. The lore isn't such a big deal to me, anyway, and what EM is doing with it seems interesting enough. If they give me free jumping it's prolly gonna be a Day 1 purchase for me (otherwise I'm gonna try it out before I decide to buy). Even better if rope arrows work as they should and 3rd person shifts are optional or controllable/avoidable somehow, though these admittedly are most cringeworthy "features" to be had in the first place.

Quote Posted by Dia

Also, am I the only one who is truly bothered with the whole brothel thing? It just feels so ..... wrong. But then again, if the devs saw fit to include vulgar expletives then I guess in their little minds anything goes.

No, I am bothered with it, too. I think it about ties in with the current implementation of the rope arrow on the level of being irritating (not to mention being pretty pointless and superfluous) IMO. I think a game that tries to be mature by adding explicit mature content usually just ends up being less mature. I touched upon the subject from a slightly different angle in my first post here on TTLG, too:

Quote Posted by svs

Key factor here, is in my opinion the presentation. That needs to be along the lines what LGS did with presenting the lore. They must not push their points too hard and leave much of the world open to interpretation. That said, I feel already that they actually are pushing some of the points too hard; by having the plague and utter misery around, contrasting it with tawdry ribaldry among the City's elite. That's similar over-underlining the point Dishonored did with its world.

I mean, sure, while that might be realistic and something that actually happens, it could be done with much more subtle ways than by explicitly showing the player. It should merely be hinted about in the conversations and readables scattered around the missions, like the original instalments did. Imagination is sadly pushed way too much to the background when the visual fidelity starts allowing more accurate representations of things.

Vivian on 29/7/2013 at 13:46

There's an argument for swearing being just a part of language, however. I swear a lot, and I am neither juvenile nor stupid. I find it a useful and entertaining way of putting emphasis on things (to the point where I am faintly suspicious of people who appear to find it truly offensive, if I am being honest - in-universe, 'Taff' means exactly the same thing as f*** etc, so it seems pretty much entirely artificial to make the distinction between that and a 'vulgar' swearword). Absolutely everything hinges on the skill of the writer, however. You can have awesome dialogue with or without swearing. It's inclusion doesn't prove anything per se. The generally sub-par writing we have seen so far, however, does seem to indicate it will be more along the lines of swearing-in-lieu-of-verve that you are worried about. Difficult to say without any examples, although if I was a professional writer and this game was my latest opus I would be extremely irate about the sheer lack of style in the flavour text they are releasing as teasers.

Chade on 29/7/2013 at 14:04

Quote Posted by svs

Keeper compound: the second item on the list. The fourth item is encouraging, as well.

He doesn't actually say that it is still currently the keeper compound, however, just that keepers are still in the fiction in some way, which if you take a more pessimistic interpretation could be just to the extent that we already knew.

svs on 29/7/2013 at 14:10

Quote Posted by Chade

I didn't mean to imply anything more.

Keepers might be a group that existed at some point in the reboot's history, nothing says they are still operational.

SubJeff on 29/7/2013 at 14:43

Wow Dia, way to overreact.

Esme on 29/7/2013 at 15:51

Quote Posted by svs

I thought LGS originally left in-game burricks out and toned down the undead/magic stuff due to fans' feedback...

First I've heard of it, as far as I'm aware over on the EM boards there were 4 years of the fans making suggestions, then pleading, then begging, then arguing and finally descending into infighting due to the lack of feedback from EM.

Don't remember any massive pleas from the fanbase asking for Burricks to be removed, one or two didn't want spiders or undead because they got the heebies with them but not many, generally fans asked for more, not less.

There were at least as many asking for magic, burricks, spiders, undead etc.. as there were who didn't want them, pretty sure it was more.

I'm fairly sure that anything that was taken on board from the fan suggestions wasn't acknowledged or discussed by EM, unless I missed it, it'll still be on EM's forum if it happened.

R Soul on 29/7/2013 at 17:23

My understanding is that LGS (not EM) found that sneaking around was popular, so they didn't feel the need to include 'action' levels (zombies etc) in T2.

SubJeff on 29/7/2013 at 18:05

To clarify Dia. I'm not having a go, but try and look at it this way and perhaps it won't by so annoying. ;)

Quote Posted by Dia

Wow. So EM is 'mentioning' a lot of aspects of the original games and 'slapping' NuStuff over old stuff from the original games ..... so what?!

I know this is a "reboot", but it sounds more like it's a sequel that is trying to distance itself so that it doesn't get bogged down in someone else's mythology.

So don't think of these as "mentions" but as nods. Garrett has been away for a while and now he's back its still The City. This stuff is like the artifacts of his past.

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'Slapping' a brothel's decorations over the Keeper's compound architecture makes it a true Thief game, does it now?

I actually think it's pretty cool if they have used the real architecture of the compound. In the original cannon it was a hidden compound and now that it's revealed and unused why wouldn't someone take it over? To have Keeper statues around is kind of cool.

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Using 'pieced together' map sections from the original City in the original games makes it a true Thief game as well?

There is no other way to do this. There was never one complete map which is why we had the mapping project.

Quote:

Oh wow; EM is also 'slapping' glyphs on walls, so it MUST be a true Thief game, right? 'Mentioning' burricks must also mean that NuThief is a true Thief game too, then? Merely ripping-off aspects of the original games and inserting them into T4 does NOT legitimize T4 as a true Thief game, imo.

Again, these are nods to the originals.

Quote:

Also, am I the only one who is truly bothered with the whole brothel thing? It just feels so ..... wrong.

I don't mind it. It's does remind me of Dishonored though!

Note: I'm not saying that this is going to be a good Thief game. Indeed the news about the contextual movement has put me right off.

But having links to the past is, imho, better than having a totally separate reboot where the Keepers never existed.

Esme on 29/7/2013 at 18:07

Oops sorry I misread thatI thought svs was talking about EM not LGS

Please ignore me

Where's the 'slap oneself in the head' smiley when you need it