jtr7 on 7/4/2013 at 19:19
Myth, the one who can empathize with you the most on these boards for this topic will be Beleg Cúthalion.
For me, the tilted or horizontal bow just visually doesn't work for me as readily as plain vertical. It clashes with intuition. In a game, we need feedback to know the controls are being responded to, so the sounds give us that before the animation is visible and completed. The new bow makes no sense, and doesn't even collapse far enough to justify having it do that. It's supposed to be credible? It's not in the least. It takes up more room than the original bow. While it's full-length is inches shy of the old bow, it's much thicker, and the depth from string(s) to the front of the grip is doubled. I know the new bow is 29.1 inches in length per the specifications, but until I see the written measurement, it looks to collapse to only 86-ish% of that, and the slack string isn't shown clipped to anything. All this to emphasize that it is not credible, though EM thinks it is.
TDS does have the fatigue factor, but it's 20+ seconds from initial draw. It also has the zoom effect around 10 seconds. The fatigue takes longer. I guess Garrett built up some strength he hadn't had for many years prior out of nowhere. :p
Tomi on 7/4/2013 at 19:22
Heh, those videos in the original post are actually pretty cool, the one about drawing swords made me laugh. :D
I don't really care about that degree of realism though, but I suppose that stuff like that can bother someone who's passionate about swords and bows.
The "gangsta sideways bow" is a bit worse than that, but maybe it's kind of an indicator that the player is crouching. Perhaps it makes a tiny little bit sense too?
Using torches indoors doesn't make much sense of course, and it's a very common cliché, but I couldn't imagine Thief without torches. :p
The mechanical bow is totally fine with me, I don't get what the all fuss is about. Yeah, it's flashy and probably not the most effective bow in the world, but not everything has to make perfect sense in games. Like Renzatic said, there were mech battle robots and really hi-tech stuff in TMA, so a mechanical bow seems really simple compared to those. Personally I think it looks quite awesome, and the fact that they actually built such a bow in real life makes it even better.
Renzatic on 7/4/2013 at 19:29
So we can accept robots, CCTV cameras, and arrows with ropes attached to them that can somehow support a 160 pound man carrying a bag full of candlesticks and golden chamber pots while being stuck in a quarter inch of wood in 16th Yee Olde Art Deco Anglishland...
...but a collapsible bow that's only slightly smaller than the one he had in the first two games is absolutely ridiculous.
I will admit that gangsta style shooting is pretty dumb. But the bow itself is no more beyond the pale than...well...everything else in Thief.
edit: forgot the rocket propelled grenade arrows.
edit 2: Oh, and that a bunch of people using roughly 19th century tech managed to make a brain-machine interfacing biomechanical eye that can receive video signals transmitted OTA from a remote camera.
Seems some people are very selective about what they choose to suspend their disbelief for.
Nuth on 7/4/2013 at 20:10
I was able to accept the extraordinary elements in Thief because of the strong presence of magic in the Thief games. I assumed that mage-craft had to be at work even in the Mechanist creations. Strip magic out of the game, and I become much less forgiving of things like moss arrows or pseudo-Victorian era combat bots. Reduce the magical aspect of Thief and the world has to become more ordinary. That's one of the things that has me concerned about NuThief.
Goldmoon Dawn on 7/4/2013 at 20:14
Quote Posted by Renzatic
So we can accept robots, CCTV cameras, and arrows with ropes attached to them that can somehow support a 160 pound man carrying a bag full of candlesticks and golden chamber pots while....
Everything you are talking about is called suspension of disbelief, and before all these fancy modern game engines and computers that make "photo realistic" games, we needed that suspension. In my opinion, it added that extra charming quality to games, that I feel is mostly lost in "modern time AAA games". If you are making a video game, you can do anything you want with it! You can try and be as super realistic as you think is possible, you can also focus on gameplay instead. Nothing presented here in this last post is new information by any stretch.
Vivian on 7/4/2013 at 20:26
Thanks for the input Goldmoon. Go back to your crochet.
Renzatic on 7/4/2013 at 20:37
Quote Posted by Nuth
I was able to accept the extraordinary elements in Thief because of the strong presence of magic in the Thief games. I assumed that mage-craft had to be at work even in the Mechanist creations. Strip magic out of the game, and I become much less forgiving of things like moss arrows or pseudo-Victorian era combat bots. Reduce the magical aspect of Thief and the world has to become more ordinary. That's one of the things that has me concerned about NuThief.
But they're not stripping magic out of the game completely, just toning it down. Which as I said in the GenGaming thread, could mean a thousand and one things.
I mean New Garrett still has a magic/mechanical eye that allows him to do things. I doubt they're just gonna throw that in there without having any fiction to explain it.
Nuth on 7/4/2013 at 20:46
Quote Posted by Renzatic
But they're not stripping magic out of the game completely, just toning it down. Which as I said in the GenGaming thread, could mean a thousand and one things.
I mean New Garrett still has a magic/mechanical eye that allows him to do things. I doubt they're just gonna throw that in there without having any fiction to explain it.
That's why I'm only "concerned" about it at this point. I'm very interested to see how creative this new team will be.
SubJeff on 7/4/2013 at 20:51
Whoa whoa whoa.
Thief is set in a Steampunk world. Steampunk is sci-fi. A collapsible bow is the least of things you could have in this setting.
jtr7 on 8/4/2013 at 03:02
Yeah, Renz', the new bow isn't magic or relating to any tech we've seen in the canon at all. A Mechanist bow was a little pistol crossbow that makes much more sense to look at if you want to change Garrett's bow to be smaller and evoke power, while deriving explanation from that universe. This new bow's overkill for a stick launcher, and the reasons for its design are the opposite of what they produced. It's not credible and not more portable. That's it.
