The Nay-Sayer on 4/3/2005 at 09:30
Quote Posted by EndlessDespair
Null and Krypt and especially Alex D certainly deserve praise for their efforts on your behalf both pre- and post-ISA. Let us raise a toast to them!
I, on the other hand, am merely a bitter, malicious, downright nasty programmer ever eager for the chance to say something snide about a previous project. :sly:
Well then by all means son, let loose. I'd love to hear some dirt. It's not enough to accept ISA as dead... I need to poke the corpse.
It's the same as seeing that engine demo that Troika had for Fallout 3 before they didn't get the license. It just makes it all the more tragic and disappointing to see them gone.
I know when I look at some of the german videos of "DX2" or some of the screenshots from the very early days I wonder "what the hell happened?" or "how could all of this content have simply been removed?"
Remember that shot of the Templar's standing around a table? On the table was a shotgun!!! A real shotgun... whatever happened to that model?! It's not very effecient development to be creating content only for it to be totally abandoned.
Anyway, someone needs to write a book.
Edit: Oh, and incase that comment came across as some kind of anti-DXIW post or anti-Harvey Smith post it WASNT. Over at the ISA boards I was one of the only staunch supporters of IW and Harvey around. Great (but flawed in many obvious ways) game.
Anyway, we need content. We need some Troika-style video of engine tests that were never used in the end. We need videos of the game running back in those early development days.
EndlessDespair on 4/3/2005 at 10:58
Quote Posted by Brodieman
Are you working on any new games at the moment Endless? You were AI programmer in TDS right?
I was a junior programmer, brought on towards the end of the project to help out the senior AI guy, as well as some other random features I'd rather not bring up. I quit ISA immediately after Thief III went gold, and went to work for a Sony-owned game studio. It's been fun, but putting out a title every year is tough!
Now that I don't work for Ion any more and can speak candidly, I really want to mention once again how much Null and Krypt and Sledge and the rest of the design team fought for the Thief you guys wanted. The fact that they're on these boards shows how much they genuinely cared about the kind of game it was and the kind of story it told.
The Nay-Sayer on 4/3/2005 at 11:04
Quote Posted by EndlessDespair
I was a junior programmer, brought on towards the end of the project to help out the senior AI guy, as well as some other random features I'd rather not bring up. I quit ISA immediately after Thief III went gold, and went to work for a Sony-owned game studio. It's been fun, but putting out a title every year is tough!
Now that I don't work for Ion any more and can speak candidly, I really want to mention once again how much Null and Krypt and Sledge and the rest of the design team fought for the Thief you guys wanted. The fact that they're on these boards shows how much they genuinely cared about the kind of game it was and the kind of story it told.
Giddy up.
I don't think any fan worth his salt really looks down on them. There's many entities to pin the blame on but in the end the intention is clear, fail or otherwise.
mol on 4/3/2005 at 11:15
Quote Posted by EndlessDespair
I, on the other hand, am merely a bitter, malicious, downright nasty programmer ever eager for the chance to say something snide about a previous project. :sly:
Come, come, now. You know we love you, too. ;)
*pats EndlessDespair on the head*
And I'll join you for that toast (and it
is Friday, so I recon I'll be toasting you guys with a nice, refreshing GT later this evening). :cheeky:
The Nay-Sayer on 4/3/2005 at 11:26
On a completely seperate but dispirately connected topic... why is everyone calling the engine Flesh? I know it has something to do with TDS but back in the days of IW it was known as Iris.
It was called the Iris Engine.
Anywy, I'm sticking to T3ed.
downwiththatsortof.. on 4/3/2005 at 11:49
Quote Posted by The Nay-Sayer
On a completely seperate but dispirately connected topic... why is everyone calling the engine Flesh? I know it has something to do with TDS but back in the days of IW it was known as Iris.
It was called the Iris Engine.
Anywy, I'm sticking to T3ed.
This explains it (Raen, it seems is Sledge)
(
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1207726#post1207726)
ZylonBane on 4/3/2005 at 15:43
Quote Posted by EndlessDespair
Now that I don't work for Ion any more and can speak candidly, I really want to mention once again how much Null and Krypt and Sledge and the rest of the design team fought for the Thief you guys wanted.
Who were they fighting? And do things like loot glint/atomic frob/laser arrows represent losses in that battle?
Harwin on 4/3/2005 at 19:32
Quote Posted by ZylonBane
Who were they fighting? And do things like loot glint/atomic frob/laser arrows represent losses in that battle?
I can't speak for everyone but I personally like loot glint. Too much loot in Thief 1 and Thief 2 was indistinguishable from junk. Would crystal clear art distinctions maybe be better? Maybe, sure, but it also takes a lot more work and you need to make absolutely sure you're consistent.
As for the other one... (again, personal opinion) Based on what came out of the DX 1 editor release vs. what came out of Thief 1 and Thief 2, I personally didn't feel like making it a crusade to release it. Thief was always about standalone missions, so it's easy for fans to do single missions that work. You don't worry about where on the power curve the player is at that point, etc. DX inspires whole campaigns... but that's a daunting project and too many projects fell by the wayside (from what I saw when we evaluated some of them way back for that GOTY contest). So while I cared very much about making sure that the T:DS editor got out the door... I really didn't feel like pushing the DX:IW one.
Not that I wouldn't have helped release it if someone else pushed it, only that I wasn't going to crusade for it. So before you assume higher-ups didn't want the editor released... remember that at least one of us lower-downs didn't feel like fighting for it.
And no, the editors aren't compatible. As much as we tried to make systems as generic as possible, there is a) a lot of custom code in DX:IW outside of the properties and b) a lot of properties that aren't available in T:DS.
ZylonBane on 4/3/2005 at 19:56
Quote Posted by Harwin
Too much loot in Thief 1 and Thief 2 was indistinguishable from junk.
This really isn't true. The vast majority of valuable objects in T1/2 were obviously goldish, silvery, or jewel-encrusted. And the frob highlight in those games didn't completely obscure the texture of the highlighted object.
Krypt on 4/3/2005 at 20:52
Quote Posted by ZylonBane
Who were they fighting? And do things like loot glint/atomic frob/laser arrows represent losses in that battle?
I tend to agree with Harwin on the loot glint subject. I feel it was a necessary feature to help the player with telling the loot apart from decoration junk objects. In several cases the exact same mesh was used for a piece of loot and a junk object that were occasionally placed right next to each other. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't find much fun in picking up and dropping every junk object in a level to find which ones were loot. I think it makes for better gameplay to be able to easily see a piece of loot on the other side of a room and have the ability to formulate a plan for getting around whatever obstacles might be in your way to steal it.
I never understood why people hate the frob highlight effect, or "atomic frob" as you put it. It is just a graphical effect used to show that you have an object highlighted, and it accomplishes that... My only problem was the fact that it creates glowy highlights on objects instead of lighting up the whole thing. It was sometimes hard to tell when you have an object highlighted if the glowing part is on the other side.
I don't really know what you mean by laser arrows. The arrows have a pretty decent arc to their trajectory, so if the complaint is that they're too easy to aim then I'm not sure what the problem is. Unless your target is a within 20 or so feet of you, you have to aim up to account for the arc, which can make for some challenging shots at longer ranges.
