Chade on 4/9/2013 at 23:31
Quote Posted by Vae
Which doesn't provide any real difference in actual gameplay, because the designed geometrical constructs are essentially a form of a contextual hotspot. Free, non-contextualized movement, is still being subjugated.
It makes an enormous amount of difference. It's not ridiculous to believe that we can travel to almost any part of the level that we could have traveled to with free-form jumping. It's not crazy to believe that contextual jumping could work with things like moveable boxes (not that we've seen any sign of those so far). It's quite likely that I'll be able to look around the level and plan my route through it in advance, relying on a set of movement rules that are consistent throughout the entire game. All those things would be virtually impossible for EM to achieve with manually placed hotspots.
Quote Posted by Vae
There's no free-form jumping, only contextual jumping...nothing essential has changed.
As always, you're completely certain about things that none of us really have any idea about. How many times do you need to be wrong before you think twice? Wasn't all that long ago you were dead set certain that contextual jumping was based on hotspots, and I was crazy for even asking how it worked.
Vae on 5/9/2013 at 00:11
Quote Posted by Chade
It makes an enormous amount of difference. It's not ridiculous to believe that we can travel to almost any part of the level that we could have traveled to with free-form jumping.
Only if they place geometrical hotspots that tell the player they can jump there...On the other hand, natural, spatial, free-form jumping can produce unplanned events...using creative, "out of the box" thinking.
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It's quite likely that I'll be able to look around the level and plan my route through it in advance, relying on a set of movement rules that are consistent throughout the entire game. All those things would be virtually impossible for EM to achieve with manually placed hotspots.
Keep in mind, the game still has to determine whether the player can do something based on a set of contextual rules...The fact that these hotspots are integrated into the geometry are still just as contextual as if they were manually placed there. Ultimately, it will be the level design itself which will determine how many "contextual options" the player has...yet, objectively, we're just talking about minor freedom variations when compared with true emergent possibilities...due to the inherent limitations of contextuality.
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As always, you're completely certain about things that none of us really have any idea about.
Really?...They've already told us jumping is contextual and not free-form...we've heard nothing to the contrary.
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How many times do you need to be wrong before you think twice? Wasn't all that long ago you were dead set certain that contextual jumping was based on hotspots, and I was crazy for even asking how it worked.
I haven't been wrong yet, Chade...You simply interpreted my broad use of the term "hotspot" as something I did not specify...All we know now, is that jumping is based on hotspots inherent in the geometry, rather than separate, manually placed ones.
Chade on 5/9/2013 at 00:54
Quote Posted by Vae
Only if they place geometrical hotspots that allow the player to do that...On the other hand, natural, spatial, free-form jumping could produce unplanned events.
Free-form jumping travels in a specific arc, the mantle command grabs things within specific bounds. All the calculation that determines what happens when the player does those actions is available to the algorithm that determines where you can jump to.
There will be some instances where this isn't true, sometimes because multiple combinations of jump/look/lean/mantle are meaningfully different from the player's current position, sometimes because of bugs in the dark engine that won't be replicated. But the vast majority of the time the result of a "free-form" jump is a simple function of location, direction, and speed.
Whether they use all that information in their algorithm is another question, but it is plausible.
Quote Posted by Vae
Keep in mind, the game still has to determine whether the player can do something based on a set of contextual rules...The fact that these hotspots are integrated into the geometry are still just as contextual as if they where manually placed there.
Once you're talking abut algorithmically calculating possible jumps, these lines blur. After all, there was a "contextual algorithm" that determined whether you can jump across a gap in earlier thief games ... it was called the physics system, and it was applied over a period of time after the player pressed the jump button.
Forcing the contextual algorithm to figure out the player's movement for the next half a second at the point he presses the jump button restricts half a second of interaction between the player and the contextual algorithm, but it's not the sort of black and white difference that exists between interacting with a system and choosing from a platter of hand-picked options.
Quote Posted by Vae
Really?...They've already told us jumping is contextual and not free-form...we've heard nothing to the contrary.
They also told us swoop and jump were one button. Things change. When one thing changes, there is a reasonable possibility that closely related things change to suit. Moving swoop to another button leaves a big hole in the actual jump button which swoop used to fill. We don't know what (if anything) they'll do with that hole yet.
Quote Posted by Vae
I haven't been wrong yet, Chade...You simply interpreted my broad use of the term "hotspot" as something I did not specify
I don't want to get into another big argument that's going to require the effort of going back and digging up months-old posts, so I'll let this slide. I shouldn't have said anything in the first place.
ZylonBane on 5/9/2013 at 01:18
Quote Posted by Beleg Cúthalion
I just remembered the short sword discussion where you made some completely incoherent statement and dismissed my criticism with an unjustified comment just as this one. So, here's the Sesame Street version: ....aaaaand Springheel ninja'd me.
The
point is that Springheel has been trying to argue that the footstep noise system is fundamentally flawed and unrealistic, when what we've established is that it is in fact a quite realistic simulation... of an unrealistic selection of footware. Thus, the details of shoe construction in that approximate time period are about as relevant as debating why Gordon Freeman doesn't wear a helmet.
Chade on 5/9/2013 at 01:33
Quote Posted by ZylonBane
The
point is that Springheel has been trying to argue that the footstep noise system is fundamentally flawed and unrealistic
Can you point me to the post where he said this? AFAICT, he just claimed that the noise levels produced by said footsteps on different surfaces are unrealistic. Talking about what sort of shoes Garrett would likely have access to and what sort of noise they'd make is entirely appropriate.
ZylonBane on 5/9/2013 at 02:15
In this very thread he called it the "silliest, most unrealistic element of the original games".
Chade on 5/9/2013 at 02:49
Quote Posted by Springheel
The "tap shoe" feature has got to be the silliest, most unrealistic element of the original games.
What makes you think that that "tap shoe" refers to the entire "footstep noise system", and not just the fact that your shoes sound like tap shoes on tiles?
At the time he made that comment we were specifically talking about the noise made by your shoes on the loudest surfaces.
Shayde on 5/9/2013 at 04:42
Quote Posted by Chade
Talking about what sort of shoes Garrett would likely have access to and what sort of noise they'd make is entirely appropriate.
And unbelievably boring!
There needs to be a mechanism to illustrate the noise caused by player movement.
Yes Garrett could wear ballet slippers.
No it wouldn't be more fun to play the game if he were truly silent.
Chade on 5/9/2013 at 05:20
If you go back and read the original arguments on page 1-3, I think you'll probably agree that nothing you said is really all that relevant.
Not surprisingly, when TTLG takes one small part of that conversation and harps on it incessantly for 3 pages, you lose the original context and the conversation becomes so in-grown that it looks like a pretty weird thing to be talking about. But that's just something that happens with long arguments, it's not a problem with the topic itself.
IMO there is nothing intrinsically boring about discussing what is arguably the second or third most important gameplay mechanic in thief.
TriangleTooth on 5/9/2013 at 10:15
Um. I'm not sure for certain, but the way they describe the contextual system makes it sound like it isn't actually hotspot at all - rather they have animations for various sorts of sizes of mantle-able ledges or jumpable gaps and the game can detect how low a ledge is or how far a gap is automatically, meaning it doesn't matter what the environment is built like, if it should be possible it is.
Of course, that system sounds... extremely difficult to make and get working. But if so, even player created (crate stacking) ledges and paths would work with the system.
Also, this doesn't help with the carpets thing unless they've started counting those as jump points. And another point I am starting to wonder if they'll cave and put pointless AC style free-jumping that achieves nothing just to please us, making the jump very limited and essentially only any good when used contextually anyway.
