GodzillaX8 on 16/11/2013 at 18:47
What a worthwhile contribution to the discussion. The core design was stealth. How does jumping around at will factor into stealth? If you can jump on the things you need to jump on, how does that hinder your ability to sneak?
Renault on 16/11/2013 at 19:12
Completely free movement was a huge part of the original Thief games. It certainly can be considered as "core" as the stealth portion. I'm replaying T2 right now (actually haven't played the OMs in years), and the levels are all designed to give the player complete freedom to do whatever they want, no matter what your strategy is. Shipping and Receiving and First City Bank are perfect examples - there are so many different ways to do things, places to jump to and from, and rope arrows can be used in a multitude of places. I won't be able to fully judge New Thief until it's out, but from what we've seen so far it appears limiting and I can't see levels like these coming from EM.
And it's faulty logic to generalize and say "well it worked for Batman and Tomb Raider." Thief is a completely different kind of game. As others have said, New Thief could very well be a good game, but that won't necessarily make it a good Thief game. By that logic you could say Starcraft is a great game, so let's give Thief an isometric view and give it a multiplayer component.
You obviously have a different mindset than other people here as far as what constitutes a good game - just remember what may be "positive" to you may not be for others.
And as far as water goes -it's obviously important to diehard fans or you wouldn't hear so much about it. I'd say at least 75% of the OMS had some swimming in them. And it's incredibly weak to argue and justify by saying "it's not realistic to go swimming." People don't play games to attain some level of realism, that's idiotic.
GodzillaX8 on 16/11/2013 at 19:49
Quote Posted by Brethren
Completely free movement was a huge part of the original Thief games. It certainly can be considered as "core" as the stealth portion. I'm replaying T2 right now (actually haven't played the OMs in years), and the levels are all designed to give the player complete freedom to do whatever they want, no matter what your strategy is. Shipping and Receiving and First City Bank are perfect examples - there are so many different ways to do things, place to jump to and from, and rope arrows can be used in a multitude of places. I won't be able to fully judge New Thief until it's out, but from what we've seen so far it appears limiting and I can't see levels like these coming from EM.
The entire point is, nothing about contextual movement inherently prohibits the kind of design you're talking about. Just because you can't ALWAYS jump doesn't mean there's no way a level can have multiple paths.
Quote Posted by Brethren
And its's faulty logic to generalize and say "well it worked for Batman and Tomb Raider." Thief is a completely different kind of game. As others have said, New Thief could very well be a good game, but that won't necessarily make it a good Thief game. By that logic you could say Starcraft is a great game, so let's give Thief an isometric view and give it a multiplayer component.
The only thing Thief needs to make it a "good Thief game" in my opinion is satisfying stealth. If they could make an isometric Thief game with some form of multiplayer and it had good stealth, that's totally fine with me. I don't think giving something a certain title forces it into any kind of corner of highly specific rule sets. If everyone followed your conventions, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night wouldn't exist, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light wouldn't exist. Zelda, Grand Theft Auto and Metroid would all still be 2D games, Fallout 3 would have been an isometric turn based game. There's nothing inherently bad about making a new style of game in the same franchise, and it's "faulty logic" to assume that it will be a bad Thief game simply because design concepts have been altered in some way.
Quote Posted by Brethren
You obviously have a different mindset than other people here as far as what constitutes a good game - just remember what may be "positive" to you may not be for others.
And as far as water goes -it's obviously important to diehard fans or you wouldn't hear so much about it. I'd say at least 75% of the OMS had some swimming in them. And it's incredibly weak to argue and justify by saying "it's not realistic to go swimming." People don't play games to attain some level of realism, that's idiotic.
I fail to see how the fact that swimming doesn't play a part in the game is somehow a negative aspect. If you ask anyone on earth what they enjoyed about any Thief game prior, swimming would hardly make the list. But suddenly, when it's excluded,
OH GOD I LOVE SWIMMING HOW DARE THEY REMOVE IT.
Also, considering many people here seem to have the belief that Thief was always a "thieving sim," I'd say realism is supposedly important to these same people. It's not realistic to jump out of a pool of water and run around drenched and dripping water everywhere without anyone noticing.
Goldmoon Dawn on 16/11/2013 at 19:50
It is rather simple. Thief was a 1st person physics simulator. With contextual jumping, there is no actual real time physics in place. Each and every jump will be scripted. Remember, you can no longer attempt to make a long jump from one thing to another based upon a 1st person physics model. If it is a known jump, you will be scripted through it. The implications on overall level design based upon this are abysmal.
GodzillaX8 on 16/11/2013 at 20:02
Quote Posted by Goldmoon Dawn
It is rather simple. Thief was a 1st person physics simulator. With contextual jumping, there is no actual real time physics in place. Each and every jump will be scripted. Remember, you can no longer attempt to make a long jump from one thing to another based upon a 1st person physics model. If it is a known jump, you will be scripted through it. The implications on overall level design based upon this are abysmal.
I don't understand how the level design will be worse if the jumps are scripted vs. forcing you to press a button to do the very same jump. Batman and Zelda games both have contextual jumping when you walk off any ledge, and there's plenty of satisfying jumping related sections in those games. It has nothing to do with the mechanic and everything to do with the level design. If you want to complain about how they've designed levels, that's one thing, but don't blame the jumping mechanic for bad level design.
Goldmoon Dawn on 16/11/2013 at 20:27
Sober up, or better yet, go get a copy of Dark Project and actually play the game, miscreant.
:ebil:
GodzillaX8 on 16/11/2013 at 20:36
Quote Posted by Goldmoon Dawn
Sober up, or better yet, go get a copy of Dark Project and actually play the game, miscreant.
:ebil:
Which copy should I play? My copy on Steam, my copy on Gog, or the original discs for Thief: TDP or Thief Gold?
Renault on 16/11/2013 at 20:52
Quote Posted by GodzillaX8
I don't understand how the level design will be worse if the jumps are scripted vs. forcing you to press a button to do the very same jump.
At some point, the player will want to jump (or do some other action) in a way that the devs didn't think of. That's the limiting part. The biggest question I have in this whole debate is - why have contextual jumping? Why not let the player do what they want to do? The only logical reason I ever come up with is that the devs are trying to control the player to do what
they want them to do. The have a path all sketched out that the player should follow, and action are only allowed along that path. Don't you see how restrictive that is?
I've never played Batman and it's been a long time since I've played Zelda, so I don't remember - when the player jumps in a designated jumping spot, are they guaranteed to make the jump successfully? Once you hit that X button, is it only a matter of having the animation play out to reach the other side? That's partially what I'm afraid of, taking all of the skill out of the player's hands and making the game a routine series of button presses.
Too Much Coffee on 17/11/2013 at 00:50
So to sum up this week: no QTE = +1. No swimming = -1. Net change on my hype meter is zero, this week. Although overall it is still very low.
The people over at EM are not being truthful. If they dumped QTE because of fan backlash, then why didn't fan backlash also make them keep Stephen Russell, keep the supernatural, keep swimmable water, and overall simply be more true to the franchise? I think the playtesters found the QTE to be very bad.
