Beleg Cúthalion on 18/3/2013 at 15:41

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I fear we'll have to prepare an in-depth analysis of historical elements in Thief architecture, clothing, armour, society and mind-sets if we want to get rid of that mish-mash that people seem to see in those games or rather: what words they use to describe it. :erg: Not that any dev comment has yet proved that they take it seriously like that (I can only remember "Victorian times which is quite Gothic" or something), but just for the record. It was interesting for me, for instance, to see that T1/2-like Steampunk architecture with lots of pointless metal beams in buildings looks utterly ridiculous with TDS's graphics... while it still works somehow in T1/2, as we know. I can imagine this as a reason for instance why the same level of Steampunk cannot be visualized in an environment that at the same time manages to appear as medieval as e.g. T1.

Tomi on 18/3/2013 at 18:54

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What? You didn't play DE:HR*, the previous Eidos Montreal game that was set in the 1700s?

*Deus Ex: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Revolution) Haitian Revolution

Starker on 18/3/2013 at 19:41

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I think he meant 1900s and that's the vibe I've been getting from some of these screenshots too. It could work. Hard to say without seeing it in the game. T2 had a lot more modern/clockwork technology than T1 and it turned out fine. It added to the theme of technological progress affecting the society in the context of the political situation. Out with the old, in with the new.

If handled well, I bet the new game could work out something good with the themes of decadence, people struggling to cope in the modernized world etc... Take T2 themes even further/to a different direction.

Jason Moyer on 18/3/2013 at 21:21

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I'm pretty sure 18th century English speakers didn't talk like LARPing idiots.

jtr7 on 19/3/2013 at 11:48

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It must be serious and not a satirical stab!









Thief[4] will be awesome if Paul Weir's work is as homemade and admiring of the Brosius years as his shared media for Thief[4] suggests!


It will be awesome if ambient noise can mask Garrett's sounds, finally, and mask AI sounds to the player, as well.

We will have puddles to splash in, and the apparent reflectivity see int he screenshots might add the advantages and disadvantages of a mirror. Hey, maybe we'll see mirrors in a Thief game, for once! Will AIs see our reflected legs before we see them (doubtful, but maybe someday)?

There are piles of dead naked "plague" bodies on a cart.

There's a store for buying coal, so we'll see if it's for steam-engines and boilers, Birmingham-like industrial black smog, or just heat.

Can we climb or pull the ropes on the pulleys?

Can we grab and move horizontally, hand-over-hand on the ropes tied across over the streets, even walk 'em like a tight rope (Caarefuuul...)?

Yay, the barbers are back!

Yay, classic small brick and mortar work, like at Rampone's, only maybe not red.

Maybe the City Tribune or Chronicle are still around, judging purely by the visible "Th[e?]" in that newsie gothic font.

There seems to be a lot of scaffolding in the screenshots shared. Is there a City-wide restoration project going? If the Hammerites are around, are they involved, having been the main builders? Are things in disrepair 'cause the Hammers are gone? Has that old war come to The City, especially without the Mechanists' machines for people to feel secure as some of them had?

The paintings visible are more interesting than in TDS, but will they look like the works of 20 different artists as in TDP/Gold/TMA, and without Lizotte's real world art-appreciation goals?

Are those Venetian blinds in the windows?

Will we ever see a Thermotech factory, or any device they manufactured?

What's in the "Emerson" building, I wonder?

With birds in bird cages in the storyboards, and birds in the sky in the concept art, the presence of birds will finally add to the in-game and world-building experience.

Are these images brightened so we can see, or are all the colors washed out no matter the lighting?

With all the wood supports, railings, ramps, molding, beams, joists, etc., the classic rope arrow abilities would provide hours of climbing around if they were there, so how will the new grapple work in comparison?

Why all the Keeper statues? Are these different scenes from one locale, or are we seeing more Keeper Compound. We never did see in-game any section of Compound as massive as was shown in the Metal Age Prophecy cutscene. Hiding that with Glyphs within The City would lead to a much bigger shock than the portion of the Compound exposed near the Clock Tower in TDS. The sight of a medium stadium's worth of bookshelves filled with blank books would be astonishing, once the frightening part was over.

Is the sign with "The WATCH Family" hinting at a fascist dictatorship, or something warm and fuzzy?

Who's face graces some of the Watch signs? It would be odd if it was The Baron himself as some have suggested, maybe the new Sheriff?

Will we finally see halberds in-game? I see daggers, shields, some swords, and a morning star, so far.

I'm still stoked about finally seeing The River and walking across at least one full bridge, seeing the ships.

We got barrels. We likely have crates. Can we stack 'em again, unlike in TDS, but better than ever? And what of other object interactions?

I hope we have merchants, smugglers, and pirates from other cities, again, and travelers from afar.

I haven't seen gargoyles yet, or signs of food or sport animals. Will we see trophy heads again?

Is that something like razor-wire to the sides of the guards?

If it's not just the concept art, we may finally have people of different heights, not just one adult height and one child height. Speaking of, will we see or hear infants, toddlers, teenagers, or are they still missing in-game?

Electric lighting of different types!

Again, clocks, will they tell time like in TMA? The clock in Dr. Troy's Druggist store might actually work!

Can we pinch out candles like in TDS? Lots of candles going on in the Glyph device scene. Are those all individual candles and flames, or are they combined objects?

Scales on a shelf, and something unidentifiable on the same shelf--just decoration, set-dressing for flavor, for counting money or weighing Spice, or tied to the world of the Keepers?

Will illicit Spice make a come back?

Can the fabrics and wood be set on fire? Will there be a game where the world reacts to fire, heat and cold, like the LGS dev had once intended?

The City Watch crest on the Watchmen's helmets incorporates more elements of TMA's City Watch banner than TDS's.

The Watchman behind the one Garrett's trying to...choke?...is wielding a morning star, so at least Ramirez isn't the only one who had one, finally.

The man with guard at front and back invokes memories of Cavador, only this guy is not armored in the least. But he's wearing glasses, so they are back, too.

There's some sort of tank with a big valve wheel on the ground outside a building. Will we ever see water tanks atop flat roofs?

I see a manhole cover.

Lots of dangling ropes and strung ropes.

Garrett holds the bow almost horizontal at full draw, with the arrow shaft reaching back enough toward the center of the screen to suggest Garrett is standing sideways. The bow horizontal at the bottom of the screen reminds me of the crossbow from the earliest TDP vids. There are 4 long springs in this new bow. If it were real, it'd be noisy, almost like four cheap screen-doors, with less resonance.

TMA guards spoke of coffee, TDS guards spoke of smokes, TDS merchants spoke of pills, TMA workers spoke of Spice (marijuana analog), and TDS's Lady Elizabeth spoke of poisons, so will we see these things around?

We've seen stocks, iron maidens, and heard of hanging. Will we see people in them this time around? TMA had a man struggling on a rack, and a Pagan was inferred to have been "autopsied" to death. The mocap suggests a man is on the ground with his wrists manacled or trapped above his head, and the TMA manual early concept art showed Truart strapped to a frame, blindfolded, surrounded by cloaked figures. TDP/Gold's Cragscleft prisoner books mentioned many methods of puinshment. Will we see more of these things before our eyes, or still left to the imagination?

I see two large elbows of pipe, three-feet wide.

While lockpicking, since it's apparently full-screen 3rd-person minus the person, will game time stop, and if not, can we instantly break away?

Yay, lots of chimneys spewing choking smoke, and flat-roofed buildings!

Looks like they kept the turkey feathers for fletching.

Bowl of fruit: edible objects or one combined object?

Dangling from rope down into room, good.

Will we ever see hanging, swinging, candle-lit street lamps?

With three images of the man with the glasses and two guards, a sign on the ground saying Library Books, a Cathedral-like building with Keeper statues and a figure with a red face-mask like Garrett's greeting him, I almost get a sense of an official coming to look at something important. I hope it is Keeper related.

Can we type on the typewriter, even just frob and sound?

How much of a geisha does the one woman look like? Does this mean the Thief Universe has an Asiatic region?

Anybody spot any ladders or signs of lifts not in the concept art?

Bags in the Dr. Troy's Druggist store with the City Watch logo on them.

Yay! Stone Market (Changed from the trilogy's "Stonemarket", or just split in two to fit the sign?)! I hadn't noticed while staring at the scaffolding and rooftops before. That is the Stonemarket Clock Tower, but why's it decrepit? What's happened to The City that so much is run down? Interesting.