Stealing Time #4 - UI Customization/Gameplay...3-Stage Lightgem...Perma-Shroud/Hands - by Vae
Starker on 6/12/2013 at 05:01
You want to know when you can open a door/use a lever/pick up an object. Otherwise you pretty much have to guess the necessary distance/centering.
GodzillaX8 on 6/12/2013 at 05:21
Quote Posted by Starker
Object highlighting is necessary. You need to know what you can interact with. Loot glint is not necessary. It's just lazy.
This is the type of opinion that I cannot understand. "This thing is fine because the original games had it. This very similar thing that the original games didn't have is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE AND RUINS THE EXPERIENCE ENTIRELY."
It also blows my mind that people can say things like "I would probably enjoy this game if it had a different name." ...what? Why does the NAME of the game make it a horrible and unacceptable disgrace? Because you had preconceived notions of what you wanted it to be? Because you have irrational expectations that must be met TO THE LETTER before you'll ever consider being satisfied? By this logic, Ocarina of Time sucks, because it totally changed the way Zelda games worked. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light was a terrible game, because it wasn't exactly the same as every other Tomb Raider game ever made. Mega Man X was terrible because it altered the formula of classic Mega Man. How dare System Shock 2 totally rework the formula of System Shock to appeal to modern audiences. How dare they call this game Quake 2 when it has nothing to do with Quake 1. Civ V sucks for using hex grids instead of standard grids like the original! Do you see yet how pointless it is to be so focused on the franchise name of a game, or silly individual gameplay mechanics, when it's the quality of the game itself that matters?
It's just irritatingly bad "logic" that purist fanboys use as some kind of lame attempt to justify their baseless bias against anything that isn't 100% the same as the original. But let's be honest, even if the game were an exact copy of the gameplay mechanics from Thief 2, you'd just criticize it instead for being unoriginal and not doing anything different.
Chade on 6/12/2013 at 05:42
Quote Posted by Starker
You want to know when you can open a door/use a lever/pick up an object. Otherwise you pretty much have to guess the necessary distance/centering.
Oh, duh! You do want some sort of indication that you are close enough, otherwise it's frustrating at the boundary.
For arguments sake (I'm not actually suggesting this is a good thing to do), if you really
really wanted to avoid any sort of on-screen indication, it might be possible to avoid the frustration of having an invisible hard boundary by fuzzing up the boundary a bit. You could have Garrett take a step forward and spend a small amount of time reaching for the object when he's just slightly out of reach. Make it so that people want to frob things some distance within the actual boundary.
Anyway, obviously that's complicated and far more trouble then it's worth.
Mofleaker on 6/12/2013 at 05:56
@Godzilla
You seem to make a habit of putting words in other people's mouths. I never said it had to be 100% identical to the originals. I said that, given its pedigree, Thiaf has very big shoes to fill. Reboots of classic franchises are a doubled edged sword - on one side you have free publicity and on the other you have a fanbase to impress. They haven't fulfilled the impress part. You're being very fanatical in your assumptions of my expectations for this game.
What did I expect? What the developers told me to expect. "We understand the DNA of Thief. This is a true Thief game". I've yet to see them actually follow through on this statement.
The difference between this reboot and your examples is simple: Thiaf brings nothing new to the table. It takes more than it gives. Contextual jumping and leaning are objectively worse than their freeform counterparts, whereas going from 2D Zelda to 3D Zelda or stamdard grids to hex grids are considerable improvements. Like I said before, I want to see improvements! It's been 10 years for crying out loud.
Starker on 6/12/2013 at 06:02
Quote Posted by GodzillaX8
This is the type of opinion that I cannot understand. "This thing is fine because the original games had it. This very similar thing that the original games didn't have is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE AND RUINS THE EXPERIENCE ENTIRELY."
Calm down. You're overreacting. There's no need to get so emotional. I'm not against loot glint because it wasn't in LGS's Thief. I'm against loot glint because it's an unnecessary element that makes the game less immersive.
Quote Posted by GodzillaX8
It's just irritatingly bad "logic" that purist fanboys use as some kind of lame attempt to justify their baseless bias against anything that isn't 100% the same as the original. But let's be honest, even if the game were an exact copy of the gameplay mechanics from Thief 2, you'd just criticize it instead for being unoriginal and not doing anything different.
I like TDM a lot and it's pretty different from Thief 2. For example, its lockpicking is flat out better than Thief's.
jtbalogh on 6/12/2013 at 06:16
Loot glint was a handholding feature 10 years ago when EM was not smart enough to show object highlighting properly. With a new graphics engine today, even the demos have shown details will be much more defined in object identification and put loot glint to shame, and hopefully a grave.
yxlplig on 6/12/2013 at 07:45
Quote Posted by Starker
Object highlighting is necessary. You need to know what you can interact with. Loot glint is not necessary. It's just lazy.
Quote Posted by GodzillaX8
This is the type of opinion that I cannot understand. "This thing is fine because the original games had it. This very similar thing that the original games didn't have is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE AND RUINS THE EXPERIENCE ENTIRELY."
Are you pretending not to understand the point he was making or do you really not understand? It's very simple. There is no crosshair in a Thief game. The game needs to convey to you what object you are interacting with. It also needs to convey whether you can or cannot interact with the object. The game would be kind of broken without an object highlight. Loot highlights being on or off doesn't reduce the playability of the game, but having them on does outsource some of the thinking the player would have to do to the player character. This breaks simulation/immersion and is frowned upon by purists.
By itself it may not seem like a big deal, but all these little changes in design philosophy do add up quickly. At the end of the day you have a game that plays nothing like the way we would prefer it to.
Renault on 6/12/2013 at 07:54
Quote Posted by GodzillaX8
It also blows my mind that people can say things like "I would probably enjoy this game if it had a different name."
Again, you just don't get it. It's not just the name, it's the entire legacy and pedigree of the game itself. "Deadly Shadows" was a really stupid name, but that's not why people hated it. They hated the fact that the levels were small and there were loading zones surrounded by purple haze, and that body awareness was awkward and cumbersome, and that the game didn't have swimmable water and rope arrows (among other things). Tell me honestly - would you be happy with New Thief if it were a 3rd person, multiplayer action game where your only goal was to frag as many guards as possible? I enjoy playing Doom or Quake or Team Fortress or whatever, but that's not what I want out of my Thief game, sorry.
Quote Posted by GodzillaX8
It's just irritatingly bad "logic" that purist fanboys use as some kind of lame attempt to justify their baseless bias against anything that isn't 100% the same as the original. But let's be honest, even if the game were an exact copy of the gameplay mechanics from Thief 2, you'd just criticize it instead for being unoriginal and not doing anything different.
No one is against change as a whole. But after Deadly Shadows, most people can spot change for the worse when they see it. We've seen enough of it this time around to be concerned, and we're not the only ones who are noticing.
Dia on 6/12/2013 at 15:19
Well said, Brethren.
:thumb:
GodzillaX8 on 6/12/2013 at 15:36
Quote Posted by Brethren
Again, you just don't get it. It's not just the name, it's the entire legacy and pedigree of the game itself. "Deadly Shadows" was a really stupid name, but that's not why people hated it. They hated the fact that the levels were small and there were loading zones surrounded by purple haze, and that body awareness was awkward and cumbersome, and that the game didn't have swimmable water and rope arrows (among other things). Tell me honestly - would you be happy with New Thief if it were a 3rd person, multiplayer action game where your only goal was to frag as many guards as possible? I enjoy playing Doom or Quake or Team Fortress or whatever, but that's not what I want out of my Thief game, sorry.
No one is against change as a whole. But after Deadly Shadows, most people can spot change for the worse when they see it. We've seen enough of it this time around to be concerned, and we're not the only ones who are noticing.
You guys do realize that just about the only people who hated Deadly Shadows were ultra hardcore purists, right? The game was reviewed very well, and was a pretty good game in its own right. You're living in your own imaginary bubble where everyone hates Deadly Shadows, when that quite simply wasn't the case. Same thing with Deus Ex: Invisible War, Bioshock 1 2 and Infinite, and whatever other games that this community demonizes like they're monsters that don't belong in this world. I don't disagree that the original games are better than the successors, but I also allow myself to enjoy the successors for what they are, because I don't spend so much time focusing on what they "should have been" or whatever.
I've never once said that the game will be as good as the originals, and I don't think it's even a logical thought process to expect it to be. Games essentially have to be dumbed down enough now for idiots to be able to play them, or they'd never sell enough copies to make back the production cost, that's how the industry works now. Luckily, some games are still enjoyable despite the dumbification of mainstream gamers. I expect this game to be one of those games. I just think it's insanely ridiculous to throw out statements wherein you decree that subtle changes in how you move around the world (i.e. contextual jumping, leaning, lack of water levels,
a specific visual effect for crying out loud) are indicative of the entire game being dogshit not even worth spending 20 seconds of your life on.
Also, if there were a third person multiplayer action Thief game, I'd judge it as a third person multiplayer action game first and a Thief game second. I don't genuinely care what name is slapped on a game unless the game itself is bad. They made a Halo RTS, they made a Metroid pinball game, Mario's got just about every genre of game under his belt at this point. I don't think a franchise needs to be restricted to one very specific game type. Would I prefer a classic Thief game to a multiplayer action Thief game? Of course I would. But I'm a gamer first and a Thief fan second. I play games that are good and that I enjoy playing. If I enjoy them, I don't care what they're called. I can understand being disappointed that they don't make the style of game you enjoy anymore, but it's beyond ignorant to proclaim that the entire game will be terrible trash by all standards simply because it's not what you'd prefer it to be.
