Thief (4) Features. What we know is in, what we know is out.

Lady Rowena on 18/7/2013 at 10:37

Are you sure that it will work that way? I just can't believe it...

If these are the modern, new generation games prefer to replay Quake or Duke Nukem 3D. At least they had swimmable water, which I for some reason became uncommon in modern games. :(

Chade on 18/7/2013 at 11:20

Quote Posted by Vae

You're question was "Can I jump onto a mantleable wall?"...and I told you that the player could, provided there is a hotspot that would allow that particular contextual action. ... You are confused by this answer, because you fail to understand how compromised free-action has become in NuThief.

Damnit Vae, am I taking crazy pills here? This is like talking to a brick wall! I Know! Even if we assume you're right about the mechanism here, my question simply becomes: will the designers place such points? My question is completely independant of the way in which this works. Whether that action is made available through predefined action points or calculated by the geometry of the level or comes with prefab components or whatever is irrelevant. All your responses to this question were completely irrelevant. How many ways do I have to say this before it sinks in?

Quote Posted by Vae

2) Climbing, Jumping, and Swoop...are all controlled by the same Contextual Action control key ... If the player is not in a contextual hotspot, and the Contextual Action Key is used, the game automatically determines that the player wants to Swoop, and does so with a hyper-sprint action move.

You'll need a source for the that.

Quote Posted by Vae

- If the player comes to a ledge on the 2nd story of a building, and the game determines that there is a gap that can be jumped to another ledge, and they press the Contextual Action Key, the game will perform an action move of NuGarrett jumping from ledge to ledge, without error.

I don't understand how you can read my previous post and think that this is news to me. Indeed, the two examples I gave differ primarily in the way the game determines that there is a gap to be jumped.

SubJeff on 18/7/2013 at 13:18

Don't be daft.

Chade on 18/7/2013 at 14:01

So you think I am taking crazy pills? How?

Vae on 18/7/2013 at 14:08

Relax Chade...it's okay...:)...He wasn't talking to you...There were some deleted posts...we'll talk later.

Quote Posted by Lady Rowena

Are you sure that it will work that way? I just can't believe it...

I know, it's hard to believe, yet it's true...I wouldn't lie to a Valkyrie...;)

Need some sleep now...:bored:

Goldmoon Dawn on 18/7/2013 at 15:47

Quote Posted by Vae

I know, it's hard to believe, yet it's true...

Sadly, yes. Vae speaks the truth. A truth that this community was made aware of almost immediately with one or two broad strokes from the new team. The shock was such that some of us stumbled forward blindly, into the oncoming flood of PR that followed, digesting and rationalizing as best as possible.

Regardless, the decision was made to strip the classic Looking Glass Studios free form exploration game play model, and as I had previously mentioned, they announced it early on. Several of us saw this right away, stood our ground, and havent been glazed over by the media blitz.

:ebil:

Much of what follows is a travesty of true gaming of *any* kind:

Speaking to CVG, Eidos Montreal's (http://www.vg247.com/2013/04/04/thief-dev-wants-the-challenge-to-be-in-game-not-in-the-controls/) Daniel Windfeld Schmidt said that old school fans probably want to play the same game again with new content, but the broader audience isn't patient enough to learn Thief's fiddly control scheme.

Quote:

“Today's gamers are a lot less patient. They expect a lot more from the developers in terms of features and so on. Even for menus that are easy to use. For a lot of things that weren't as extensively developed back in the day. For example: control inputs.”

“It took a while to learn the complex controls. Numbers 1,2,3,4 - There were different types of peeking: peeking forward, peeking sideways, peeking upside down. They had all these things that were very complex and it worked for the hardcore gamers, but a lot of people backed off early on because it was very difficult."

“So our focus has been to say, ‘we want the same amount of challenge, but within the game and not within the inputs.' I don't personally have the patience to learn the super, super old games and all their fidelities and hard-learned lessons. I want it to be more streamlined.”

OK, so, the decision was made that we just dont need all that confusing and confounding exploration junk anymore because the focus is now on some horde of mindless zombie children. So who are these supposed next gen console kids who want that kind of gameplay? At the very least, one should think twice about resurrecting an ancient corpse of this magnitude without valid reason. Think of the tarnished results that Deadly enjoyed! I dont understand this crap, but one thing is clear...

Quote Posted by Vae

In NuThief, there is: No Free-Jumping...No Free-Climbing...No Free-Leaning...No Free-Falling...No Free-Roping

All of this amounts to a soul-sucking, emergence-destroying nightmare for a THIEF game...:mad:

Again, one must think long and hard before haphazardly opening the cursed ancient tomb.

:ebil:

Lady Rowena on 18/7/2013 at 16:32

“Today’s gamers are a lot less patient. They expect a lot more from the developers in terms of features and so on. Even for menus that are easy to use. For a lot of things that weren’t as extensively developed back in the day. For example: control inputs.”

“It took a while to learn the complex controls. Numbers 1,2,3,4 – There were different types of peeking: peeking forward, peeking sideways, peeking upside down. They had all these things that were very complex and it worked for the hardcore gamers, but a lot of people backed off early on because it was very difficult."

IMO is a silly motivation. Come on, today kids use tablets, cellular phones, they are used to type sms at supersonic speed, which I wouldn't never be able to get to, and learning to press 1,2,3,4 is too complex?
Maybe the lazyness belongs to the developers, not the players. The players can only make a choice among what the market offers. Maybe it's the market that have a bad influence on the players.

Goldmoon Dawn on 18/7/2013 at 16:42

Also, peeking upside down. Peeking upside down?!?!

This guy actually said that, setting the disrespectful tone early on.

Renault on 18/7/2013 at 17:00

I've seen several mentions this year in Thief interviews to the effect of "gamers have changed" or "gaming isn't the same as it was 20 years ago." I think that's BS. There's always been gamers who enjoy complex controls and also gamers who like simplified controls.

But the only way to sell 5 million+ copies of your game is to make an attempt to appeal to both. If you shoot for something between complex and simple, maybe you'll hit the jackpot. Or, go the simple route, and try to make it up to the "complex control" people in other ways. It's your standard lowest common denominator argument.

Springheel on 18/7/2013 at 17:05

It's funny, because I was going to make a comment in another thread that the EM devs frequently speak about the original games as if they didn't even like them, but I thought, naw, that's probably too harsh.

Quote:

“It took a while to learn the complex controls. Numbers 1,2,3,4 - There were different types of peeking: peeking forward, peeking sideways, peeking upside down. ... I don't personally have the patience to learn the super, super old games and all their fidelities and hard-learned lessons.

:rolleyes: