Chade on 15/7/2013 at 21:27
Quote Posted by legoman
[Thief DNA is] A very long discussion and totally subjective!
Oh, that's easy: it's crouching in shadows and clubbing people. :angel:
Quote Posted by Brethren
I don't think that's quite right, B1skit is new, he was just hired last fall I believe, so he doesn't have a lot of history with any of these people.
Err ... doh! :o
So yes, that's true. Still, I doubt their relationship sprung out of nothing. Presumably the moderators had plenty of prior interaction with previous representatives, so I think the "for years" aspect is still relevant.
Quote Posted by Brethren
I would bet more than half of them played through the games for the first time in preparation for E3.
Oh, come now. They've stated that's not the case, and I don't think you have any real reason not to believe them. The vast majority of fans of a particular game don't go to the length of posting on fan forums either, they just like the game and have played it several times. Such fans won't know every detail that a super-hardcore fan posting on forums for > 10 years would, but they still know a lot.
legoman on 15/7/2013 at 21:34
Quote Posted by Chade
Oh, that's easy: it's crouching in shadows and clubbing people. :angel:
EM have nailed it! Lets all send our congratulations! :thumb:
Renault on 15/7/2013 at 21:45
Quote Posted by Chade
The vast majority of fans of a particular game don't go to the length of posting on fan forums either, they just like the game and have played it several times.
Normally I'd agree with that - HOWEVER - they're posting on the same company's message board about
other games (and not just casually so), so you know they are forum type people. They have 3000 posts in the Deus Ex forum, but only 10 in the Thief forum - and they're big Thief fans? I seriously doubt it.
Chade on 15/7/2013 at 21:57
Brethren, I didn't say that they're big fans, but I don't think post count is any reason to doubt they've played the games exactly as much as they claim. Reading gaming history from post count is too circumstantial for me.
It's not like they're claiming to be big fans either, apart from Master Taffer, who did post a lot in the thief forums. I would say that they have been pretty open about their relationship with EM, and the amount they've played previous games, and I'd say that the evidence stacks up nicely in favor of their claims.
(I guess you can argue where you draw the line between fan and non-fan. I don't know if that's a very productive discussion.)
b1skit on 15/7/2013 at 22:27
Quote Posted by Brethren
That's a weak justification.
It's a fact, not a justification.
Quote Posted by Springheel
If you just keep that in mind, everything else makes sense.
Remember, the ultimate goal for each of the classic Thief games was to sell as many units as possible. This really shouldn't come as a shock to anybody :thumb:
Even with this goal, the classic Thief's still managed to develop a hardcore following.
Quote Posted by Brethren
Of course it makes perfect since. But since they haven't (and won't) come right out and state that's their strategy, I've got to challenge them on it.
Challenge accepted: Yes, we would like to sell the game to as many people as we can. *gasp* :joke:
Wanting a commercially successful product and having a large, passionate audience are in no way mutually exclusive.
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.
Quote Posted by Chade
(I guess you can argue where you draw the line between fan and non-fan. I don't know if that's a very productive discussion.)
Nor will it change anything :)
Esme on 15/7/2013 at 22:38
@b1skit As you seem to be on forum any chance you could have a think about what EM considers to be Thief's DNA & get back to us with a description ?
Renault on 15/7/2013 at 22:39
I think I officially just got depressed about how unlike the original Thief this game will be. :(
Hey B1skit, how many copies of Thief do you think you'll need to sell for it to be considered a success? 4 million? 5 million?
jay pettitt on 15/7/2013 at 23:26
Quote Posted by b1skit
Challenge accepted: Yes, we would like to sell the game to as many people as we can. *gasp* :joke:
Wanting a commercially successful product and having a large, passionate audience are in no way mutually exclusive.
They're not mutually assured either. So how about you tell us about some of the other motivations at Eidos M ...'cos some people associate chasing quantity of sales often times with a race to the bottom with quality - and for a PR guy, you're not doing a great job at dissuading anyone that's not the case the case with T4.
Honestly, posting at TTLG is an opportunity to win people over. Stop wasting it.
Starker on 16/7/2013 at 02:22
Quote Posted by b1skit
Remember, the ultimate goal for each of the classic Thief games was to sell as many units as possible. This really shouldn't come as a shock to anybody :thumb:
Even with this goal, the classic Thief's still managed to develop a hardcore following.
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?
Quote:
We've spent years in pursuit of a truly immersive experience, and we see a continuous line of development from Underworld through System Shock to the Dark Project. We touched off a lot of discussion on the 'net (and yes, we were reading it all) about whether System Shock was an RPG, or a Doom clone, or whatever. Like as not the same people who thought System Shock was a Doom clone will think that this game is a Quake clone. And they'll be just as wrong.
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.
Btw, this is a letter sent to them by a fan at that time (yes, they were not afraid to listen to their fans, negative feedback included):
"You fellows ought to be ashamed. The quality of your work only serves to point out how truly awful the rest of the industry is. Don't you realise that if you want to get rich, ya gotta pander to lowest common denominator. ...the bucks are in fast-turnaround no-brainers that require only twich reflex."
-Anne Elk
Oh, and here's another one:
"Fortunately Looking Glass has chosen NOT to use the no-risk approach to creating a game - I was getting real tired of companies churning out variations of popular games. Sure it's safe investments for the companies - fast implementation - low costs - reasonable income. But where's the computergame evolution - where are all the wierd games, the in-depth plots and the ingenuity"
-"RocketScientist"
Quote Posted by b1skit
Challenge accepted: Yes, we would like to sell the game to as many people as we can. *gasp* :joke:
Wanting a commercially successful product and having a large, passionate audience are in no way mutually exclusive.
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.
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? Thief is still to this day one of the most immersive experiences out there and this is due to their passionate goal of making something that people had never experienced before.
You can't make a game that's about patient waiting and observing and at the same time satisfy the trigger-happy gamers. These are two entirely different games that require very different pacing and design. One of them is about making waiting engaging while the other is about minimising waiting. By trying to appeal to both of these groups you end up pleasing neither of them.
Dia on 16/7/2013 at 03:10
Well said, Starker. Indeed.
Quote Posted by b1skit
Wanting a commercially successful product and having a large, passionate audience are in no way mutually exclusive.
No, but the type of gamer to which EM seems to be attempting to appeal is the type of gamer that blasts through one game after another (if you look at the popular games out there appealing to mass audiences, such as CoD, to name one); and I rather doubt you'll gain a 'large, passionate audience' with that crowd. It almost sounds as though EM wants to have its cake and eat it too. Let me know how that works out for you.
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.
Do you mean a wider audience all enjoying T4 at the same time, or are you erroneously implying that the 'same things' are the vague resemblances (and I'm stressing 'vague' here) of T4 to the classic Thief games, classics which we here at TTLG enjoy? Just how many of us Taffers have to tell you how many times that NuThief is NOT 'the same thing(s)' as the classic Thief games? It's nowhere NEAR 'the same thing(s)' as the classic Thief games, and not just because it's a reboot. Call it 'Thief' all you'd like, call your main protagonist 'Garrett' all you'd like, but that does NOT make it a true Thief experience. What your 'wider audience' will be playing is part Assassins Creed, part Mirror's Edge, part Dishonored, and part DX:HR (great game, btw), - not to mention a protagonist who wears creaky leather, too much black eye makeup, and a ridiculous mask and corset - with barely a
touch of the classic world of Thief sparsely sprinkled on top. Now if this 'wider audience' decided to start playing and enjoying TDP and TMA (ok, for the sake of argument I'll include that travesty TDS :p), then I'd say
that would be sharing the appreciation and enjoyment of 'the same things' - for us. But of course, EM wouldn't be making a profit from that.
Quote Posted by b1skit
Nor will it change anything :)
Yeah .... we already got that.
Several times.
:rolleyes:
