Basso The Boxman on 17/11/2019 at 15:16
Quote Posted by ZylonBane
This is some hippy-dippy bullshit right here.
ZB you need to get that stick out of your ass
FastGarrett on 17/11/2019 at 17:53
Quote Posted by nicked
Many, many reasons...
* Dromed may have a learning curve, but it's not as steep as it may appear from an outside perspective, and it's countered in the sheer flexibility. Thief is perhaps the only immersive sim to feature a level editor with the amount of flexibility and control Dromed allows.
* The game design lends itself very well to small, contained gaming/story experiences - designing a mansion in Thief with ~1 hour's gameplay is a far easier task than, say, building an hour's worth of content in a linear first person shooter.
* It has a backdrop/setting constructed from a wide variety of broad archetypes, giving a solid foundation to allow authors to tell almost any kind of story they want to.
* The game's 1998 graphics and wide existing pool of object and texture resources means that creating something with the visual fidelity of the original game is very easy. Even if an easy-to-use level editor was released for, let's say, Dishonored, the skill level required to match the visual fidelity of the base game would be far higher.
* The systemic design of Thief allows mission authors to easily make almost any changes they want to the objects and systems of the game, without any requirement for complex scripting.
* It's got a very good ratio between low barrier to entry and high level of freedom, making it still a very valid choice for someone wanting to tell an interactive story. Compare the learning curve of Dromed to the learning curve required to produce a gameplay experience of matching quality in any other engine or game dev platform and you'll soon find that Dromed is way, way easier.
* The community is welcoming, inclusive and supportive in ways that a lot of games' communities aren't. There's a collaborative spirit that leads to things like the community's shared pool of custom level design resources.
* The game itself has a strong atmosphere, a surreality, and a complexity of setting and story that are very rare in modern AAA games.
* The game has very simple gameplay rules; all of its systems are easily understandable and accessible and are tutorialised well in the original games, meaning the game is more accessible to new players that many other games from the same time period. Even compared to similar games, it has very simple rules - there's no convoluted RPG elements to figure out for example.
Wow! Thats a lot of great information. Didn't see it that way before. Thanks a lot!
R Soul on 18/11/2019 at 00:28
It looks like nicked has covered everything, or the vast majority, but I think this thread would be better in the Editors' Guild. There are more Dromed users there so there may be other things to add.
ZylonBane on 18/11/2019 at 04:09
Quote Posted by fortuni
Psych0sis is right and ZB is being ZB as usual.
No, the psycho is not right. An FM is not a precious baby. FMs do not get a gold star for participation. An FM is a technical product with the goal of being fun to play. If it is not fun to play (or in extreme cases, not even playable), then it's bad. This is not a complicated concept. Blithering that "all FMs are good" thoughtlessly devalues the hundreds of hours of hard work that many FM authors have put into making FMs that are
actually good.
the taffer on 18/11/2019 at 10:36
I agree with Psychosis. Fms take time and effort to put into it. Some might not be as good as other ones but it shows the person is trying and pumping life blood in to the Thief community. I respect and can appreciate all FMs. I don't think I ever played a FM I didn't like just some that were a bit frustrating at times.
Aemanyl on 18/11/2019 at 10:59
I also agree with Psych0sis. Please look at this from the perspective of a new player. Someone who has never played FMs before will probably look for the most popular titles such as the Rocksbourg Series, Death's Cold Embrace, Black Frog, The Scarlet Cascabel, Calendra's Legacy, etc. In 2000, at the dawn of DromED, there were only a few complex and well-polished productions, whereas the majority was rather basic or bugged. Now we have hundreds of good or very good missions and this number is increasing every year! Sure, every once in a while someone makes a mediocre or poor fan mission, but they all contribute to the wonderful Thief community we have here. For instance, I didn't mind Dewinder Manor. It is true that I've seen much better mansion missions, yet I welcome Psychosis' contribution. I appreciate his time and effort he put into creating this small and simple, but correctly designed level. As long as people learn and improve their skills, it's all fine. Last but not least, we shouldn't take Thief too seriously. We may love it, but in the end it's just a game, not real life. Thank you for reading.
nicked on 18/11/2019 at 11:36
^ This is the problem with trying to get honest, constructive feedback around here.
marbleman on 18/11/2019 at 12:12
Quote Posted by Aemanyl
As long as people learn and improve their skills, it's all fine.
And if they don't... it's also fine! :angel:
Esme on 18/11/2019 at 14:09
Quote Posted by uncadonego
Two reasons.
I am an
idiot, and I am a glutton for punishment.
Because this guy I quoted ran a competition once, once I'd dealt with the basic learning curve it was quite fun though, still got a hell of a long way to go before I'd be any good though
Lord Soth on 18/11/2019 at 16:58
I think back in the days of thief and a few others to, developers actually tried to make a good game and tried to break some new ground. Now most just want summit with plenty of loot boxes and micro buys to milk silly kids out of there money and who gives a f**k if the game is s**t and buggy as hell, its making money.
People still make fan mission as they love the game and what it did. It was so dam good at the time and is still better than most the stuff that is coming out these days that you pay over the top prices for. Rather DL fan mission for free which are bloody good fun to be frank.