Starker on 16/7/2013 at 03:14
Oh, and one more thing...
In the light of the above, take a look at these quotes from the (
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131762/postmortem_thief_the_dark_project.php) Thief postmortem by Tom Leonard:
Quote:
Focus, focus, focus. Early on, the Thief plan was chock full of features and metagame elements: lots of player tools and a modal inventory user interface to manage them; multiplayer cooperative, death-match and "Theft-match" modes; a form of player extra-sensory perception; player capacity to combine world objects to create new tools; and branching mission structures. These and other "cool ideas" were correctly discarded.
Instead, we focused in on creating a single-player, linear, mission-based game centered exclusively around stealth, with a player toolset that fit within the constraints of an extension of the Quake user interface.
Quote:
The central game mechanic of Thief challenged the traditional form of the first-person 3D market. First-person shooters are fast-paced adrenaline rushes where the player possesses unusual speed and stamina, and an irresistible desire for conflict. The expert Thief player moves slowly, avoids conflict, is penalized for killing people, and is entirely mortal. It is a game style that many observers were concerned might not appeal to players, and even those intimately involved with the game had doubts at times.
I dare say that New Thief looks to be taking a different direction from the originals.
Darkness_Falls on 16/7/2013 at 05:01
Wow, pretty prophetic...
Quote:
"What it will be is one thing that Shock was, which is a damned fine game, the like of which nobody else could
(or would) do."
That manifesto aside, b1skit your quote somewhat stood out for me...
Quote Posted by b1skit
If you truly believe that having a wider audience enjoy or appreciate the same things will somehow ruin them, or that attracting new fans is a bad thing, you're gonna have a bad time.
I wonder how it was determined that a more 'true-to-Thief' Thief game, done with today's technology and evolving naturally the mechanics and the universe we're accustomed to, wouldn't attract new fans or be a commercial hit. Were surveys sent out to non-Thief gamers, in tandem with opening up the forum to get feedback from Thief fans, where they replied saying they really wanted all the casualizations that have now come to fruition, and the linear Tomb Raider-like escape sequence? Or maybe these revelations come from the Game Developer Conferences, where industry talks to industry possibly in a bubble, where recommendations are maybe simply based on gross sales of games? "If Assassin's Creed sold millions, the recipe must be to hand-hold the player as much as possible!"
By doing all the casual things I've seen so far, I fear you run the risk of non-fans saying, "not this againnnnn" (no sale). In addition to Thief fans saying, "WTF?" (no sale) :) Oh well, the risk will probably work out by people buying into the next-gen graphics and stealth they're used to; and then Thief 5 will be a further departure because the sales must mean they loved, or didn't mind or want more of the casualizations :)
I don't know. Actually, I do... LGS and ISA are no longer. Who wants to risk making another true stealth sim in the magical Thief universe? Alas...
Chade on 16/7/2013 at 05:24
Of course LGS wanted to make a profit. The question shouldn't be
whether they wanted to make a profit. The question should be
how they wanted to make a profit.
Speaking of which: dreams of thief 2's lead designer ...
Quote Posted by Tim Stellmach
:So, after Thief II, obviously there's talk about Thief Threeee, there's--there's--there's talk about... um... other sorts of games. Like, Looking Glass, of course, is also famous aside from action/adventure games, for... uh... fantasy/role-playing gaames... and, a-you know, Thief... would be... a really natural fit for that. You know, some games have the kind of--of, like really... hit-potential, where you start seeing a-the action-figure, or the comic-book. At Looking Glass... we have some--some tremendous art talent, that, you know, some great sculptors, great artists, guys who've done comic-book before. Um... An' I'd like Thief to be the kind of game where you can... go down to your local comic-book store and pick up the Garrett and Viktoria action-figures. That'd be great.
There's no doubt in my mind that LGS saw thief as a commercial hit and wanted to develop that potential and branch thief out into other genres and even entirely new mediums ... in their own endearingly geeky way, of course.
SubJeff on 16/7/2013 at 06:23
Quote Posted by Starker
Read the (
http://www.thief-thecircle.com/darkproj/manifesto.html) Dark Project Manifesto. Does this sound like an attempt to sell as many units as possible to you?
By trying to appeal to a wider audience you will also dilute the experience that made Thief unique. Do you really think LGS developed such a following by trying to appeal to the masses?
You people are so out of touch with reality, I'm embarrassed for you.
Of COURSE LGS wanted to sell as many units as possible. Why wouldn't they? Just because the game has a very specialised and focused type of gameplay? Pffft. If Thief became the number one series in the world they'd have been over the moon.
I've said this over the years many times - a Thief game that allows for optional action or assassin gameplay
but that allows for pure Thief gameplay is perfectly possible and desirable. As long as you can set the game up to play as a stealth stealing ghosting game, like Thief 1 and 2 on Expert, it shouldn't matter to hardcore Thief fans. In fact, if playing the game as a Thief game is really satisfying, having options to draw in non-hardcore players is outright desirable because that means that the devs are more likely to make more games.
Let me give you an alternate universe hypothetical - if Thief 1 and 2 allowed you to flip a switch in the settings that made them more action orientated with assassination missions, killing guard/noblemen/competing thief objectives and an enhanced combat system would that have made any difference to how much you enjoyed the Thief experience version we all played?
And if by having that option the game sold more and allowed LGS to still exist today would that be a bad thing?
Thought not.
How you are so blind as to not be able to see this is beyond me.
I'm not saying that Thief 4 WILL live up to the promise of being able to play hardcore Thief-style, especially since things like fixed points for rope arrows tell us that it already won't, but the IDEA of doing it this way is
by far the best approach. Shame EM aren't meeting the target.
b1skit - read some of my post history. I'm not one of these crazy naysayers, I'm a fan with a logical approach to my love of Thief. I get what EM are doing but they are doing it wrong. I'd love to ask you questions about Thief but I know they aren't the questions you want asking.
Starker on 16/7/2013 at 06:40
Quote Posted by Chade
There's no doubt in my mind that LGS saw thief as a commercial hit and wanted to develop that potential and branch thief out into other genres and even entirely new mediums ... in their own endearingly geeky way, of course.
But they didn't branch out within the main series -- it remained an incredibly focused effort of delivering the best immersive stealth experience. A Thief RPG on the side, not unlike Arx Fatalis, would've been fun, certainly.
Let me quote a little from the aforementioned postmortem:
Quote:
In the end, some missions didn't achieve the stealth focus we wanted, particularly those originally designed for "Dark Camelot," but the overall agenda was the right one.
And if all they really wanted was to deliver a hit, why did they continue to develop a game that they didn't think would have succeeded in an action oriented market?
Quote:
When the game finally did come together, we began to sense that not only did the game not stink, it might actually be fun. The release of successful stealth-oriented titles (such as Metal Gear Solid and Commandos) and more content-rich first-person shooters (like Half-Life) eased the team's concerns about the market's willingness to accept experimental game styles.
Chade on 16/7/2013 at 10:27
Starker, the source of Tim's quote is the "making of thief 2" video that came with thief gold. It's not some early mission statement about what thief was meant to be from day 1. Unfortunately, LGS never had a chance to build on those aspirations.
Here's some links, btw. Found a cleaner transcript too.
1) Cleaned up transcript with pictures: (
http://thief.wikia.com/wiki/The_Making_of_Thief_II) http://thief.wikia.com/wiki/The_Making_of_Thief_II
2) Video: (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOaDp7FYX50) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOaDp7FYX50
And look, thief
did succeed! Particularly by the time of Tm's quote, they believed they had a hit on their hands. And, well, it was a hit. Stealth isn't as mainstream as some genres, and pure stealth in particular seems to be getting rarer. But it's hardly some obscure genre that nobody can appreciate. It has more mainstream appeal then many other once popular genres.
jay pettitt on 16/7/2013 at 10:49
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
You people are so out of touch with reality, I'm embarrassed for you.
Thanks.
Quote:
I've said this over the years many times - a Thief game that allows for optional action or assassin gameplay
but that allows for pure Thief gameplay is perfectly possible...
Arkane might argue that such a project is a major undertaking and actually very difficult to deliver / balance. Compare/contrast (
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-10-08-dishonored-review) Dishonored with (
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-07-08-dark-review) Dark for example.
Desirable for who?
You're suggesting a solution whose alleged advantages amount to wishful thinking for fixing a problem that doesn't exist. Thief 2 sold in excess of 2 million units. By any measure/standard it was both a commercial and critical success.
Quote:
And if by having that option the game sold more and allowed LGS to still exist today would that be a bad thing?
Thought not.
You're confused as to the reasons Looking Glass closed down. LGS was solvent, its parent company was a large military tech firm who dabbled with gaming/LGS, but eventually didn't see a video game company as being anything more than a distraction/sideshow from its core activity.
Quote:
b1skit - read some of my post history. I'm not one of these crazy naysayers, I'm a fan with a logical approach to my love of Thief.
No Subjeff, you're not a special case. You're as fallible as the rest of us. The sooner you wake up to that fact and quit poncing around calling everyone else names, the sooner we can talk nice.
SubJeff on 16/7/2013 at 10:58
I'm not special, I'm normal.
Forget what actually happened with Thief 2 and LGS. I'm talking about hypotheticals, about the future. And 2 million units these days would be unsatisfactory.
Desirable? To everyone. A Thief game that is really good for hardcore and non-hardcore alike and thus sells loads so the company can make more of the same would be desirable to the players and the devs., no?
jay pettitt on 16/7/2013 at 11:04
I don't have a problem with you being wrong about stuff. I have a problem with you being a jerk about other people.
If only Thief was a hypothetical magical game that appeals to a hypothetical audience whose development is hypothetically untroubled by balancing and other issues is wishful thinking, and a bit odd as ambitions go when Thief already successfully appealed to a mass market audience. It's not obvious you've got a brilliant point. It's not at all obvious that your secret formula for T4 is necessarily better than anyone else's.
Esme on 16/7/2013 at 11:36
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
...2 million units these days would be unsatisfactory...
Yeah it would
But that was two million units ten years ago when the market was a lot smaller than today.
Who knows what that figure could have been if the market then, was the same size as todays market.
First site I tripped over on a search (
http://www.statista.com/statistics/190134/us-computer-and-video-game-dollar-sales-since-2000/) http://www.statista.com/statistics/190134/us-computer-and-video-game-dollar-sales-since-2000/
US Video game sales in 2000 was ~ $5.5Bn
US Video game sales last year was ~ $14.8Bn
So with a lot of handwaving and extrapolation the market is roughly 3 times as big this could translate to 6 million units sold, would that have been satisfactory for LGS ?
I know, I know, there's no direct correlation and this is pure guesswork, but the market has grown so I think its fair to extrapolate a larger number of units being shifted today.
I've probably got that horribly wrong as no doubt someone will point out.
Also, as far as I remember, and please correct me if I'm wrong, LGS was starved of funding because it's parent company was throwing resources at another game they thought would appeal to the masses more, and was then given an immovable deadline to get Metal Age out of the door before the parent company finally pulled the rug out from under them.
So the parent company ignored the proven product, went for what it thought was a mass market, got it wrong and LGS paid the price.
