Official: No Hammers. No Pagans. No Keepers. - by thiefinthedark
Chade on 18/6/2013 at 02:52
I hear strawmen are going cheap this season.
fett on 18/6/2013 at 02:54
Quote Posted by Renzatic
You obviously don't understand, Fett. :mad:
Well, as has been pointed out at length, I don't really know anything about Thief. :)
I seriously start to wonder how long it's been since some of you have actually played the original games. I have no idea what you're even comparing T4 to anymore.
demagogue on 18/6/2013 at 02:58
I'm open to having a focus on new factions... It doesn't necessarily mean the other factions don't exist (they're close to my heart like everybody else), just that the focus is on new ones, and if anything it makes The City feel like a big, Byzantine place with lots of groups & intrigue & energy, like it should be. That's in theory a good thing.
That said... The City Watch as a leading faction sounds pretty bland. Even if we have a tyrannical Baron, there's just not much color in a city watch by itself to make a whole faction & fiction from them. I just imagine they'll be generic guards like we had in the originals, and whatever story is to them hangs on the baron, which still leaves them pretty colorless.
And as for The Ravens, the name makes them sound like a crew of bandits (I realize this is speculating too much to be very fair), but just going from the name, they don't strike me as at the heart of the City & its universe like the Hammerites or Keepers ... just a group of bandits that are causing trouble. That's just a gut feeling, though & I could be wrong. I feel more confident about the Watch being a dumb focus for a faction.
tl;dr. I'm open to a focus on new factions. My instinct is that The Baron/City Watch & some group called "The Ravens" don't strike me as good fodder for a central faction though. But I could be wrong.
Goldmoon Dawn on 18/6/2013 at 03:03
Poor 'ol Cutty is turning over in his shallow grave. :ebil:
thiefinthedark on 18/6/2013 at 03:05
Quote Posted by fett
It's not a strawman. If it is a strawman, you should be able to explain to me why it was okay that there were no Mechanists in T3, and why you were okay with no Hammers in T2. I'll wait.
There were Hammers in T2. In fact they aid you in one mission and pop up in several others. At one point you can eavesdrop on a conversation where they discuss their waning power in the face of the Mechanists, and after the slaughter by the Trickster at the end of TDP. T3? There were references to the Mechanists, and their absence was in line with the story given that 90% of them would have died at Soulforge, and the others would have either gone into hiding or destroyed any evidence that they were associated with the order.
I finished a playthrough of the first two games last month, with the sourcecode patches they run pretty nice and the audio propagation in Dark Engine is really still amazing even today.
Nuth on 18/6/2013 at 03:09
There were zombies in TMA, too.
Chade on 18/6/2013 at 03:10
Quote Posted by thiefinthedark
T3? There were references to the Mechanists, and their absence was in line with the story given that 90% of them would have died at Soulforge, and the others would have either gone into hiding or destroyed any evidence that they were associated with the order
What makes you think this isn't true of thief 4?
EDIT:
SECOND EDIT: Moved new paragraphs to new post, as conversation is moving so quickly.
Vae on 18/6/2013 at 03:13
Why is this even an argument?
Quote Posted by Vae
"
Because it's a reinvention, we are not going back to the old factions."
So you see, by their own admission, they choose incongruency with the THIEF Universe...and as such, have chosen unwisely.
thiefinthedark on 18/6/2013 at 03:15
Quote Posted by Chade
What makes you think this isn't true of thief 4?
This:
Quote:
There may be some references back to keep the following happy, but it will be all new groups.
The phrasing here is clear that developers have built their own unrelated universe, and beyond throwing out a few token nods have no interest in the pre-existing backstory. They need to just be blunt and admit this has nothing to do with the original series, at all, and is to the Thief universe what the (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=BIMzs5O3QWo#t=66s) Dark Camelot pitch was to Arthurian legend.
If they keep trying to act like this game has anything but the most tenuous connection to the original games, people are going to keep getting angrier. I mean, have you SEEN the /r/games threads recently? It's a bloodbath.
VVVV: Fett, your point is a strawman because those factions appeared and disappeared organically within the overall narrative of the series. In this case, EM has simply tossed out the works and gone "Meh, we want our own writing and nothing else, to hell with the entire fiction as it stands."
fett on 18/6/2013 at 03:17
Quote Posted by thiefinthedark
There were Hammers in T2. In fact they aid you in one mission and pop up in several others. At one point you can eavesdrop on a conversation where they discuss their waning power in the face of the Mechanists, and after the slaughter by the Trickster at the end of TDP. T3? There were references to the Mechanists, and their absence was in line with the story given that 90% of them would have died at Soulforge, and the others would have either gone into hiding or destroyed any evidence that they were associated with the order.
I finished a playthrough of the first two games last month, with the sourcecode patches they run pretty nice and the audio propagation in Dark Engine is really still amazing even today.
Most of that is incorrect.
What mission were the Hammers in in T2? Their only appearance was a single Hammer in discussion with a merchant in Shipping and Receiving. That's it IIRC. As for helping you with the Trickster, that was TDP. They were largely absent in T2. Why? Because it would have been boring to have them as a central faction again.
90% of the Mechanists died at Soulforge? That's interesting, because you only encounter 10-20 Mechanists in the entire level and those are converted servants. What about the ones at Angel Watch? Or guarding the Cetus Amicus? Or in the Lost City? How did they die? More likely they disbanded, but either way, they didn't appear in T3 because their story was over. What if T3 had been largely about either of those factions again? Boring.
At the end of T3 the Keepers left the city. If they had Keepers in the story, everyone would be bitching about the lack of continuity.
All games move on to new protagonists. This is no different. Which was my [non-strawman] point.
