Goldmoon Dawn on 15/6/2013 at 07:49
Quote Posted by Renzatic
If everything was predetermined from on high, then why did EM spend 5 years burning through beaucoup bucks so they could experiment with various gameplay ideas?
A frightening question indeed! I wish I could link to that thread where the guy was suggesting that they were smoking weed for the past 5 years. ;)
A more serious response to your little question would be something akin to I dont know why in the hell they spent all that time *cough* "experimenting" only to reveal in the end that their intellectual outcome is to predetermine exactly when and only where we can shoot a rope arrow. Are you f***ing kidding me?!?!
jtr7 on 15/6/2013 at 07:51
On a forum, Starker, yes. In conversation out in town, in college dorms, you don't have the concentration you'll find on a gaming forum. Putting Thief in the title of a thread increases the chances of people in the know coming by.
Renz', I've been asking that question since March! They didn't need to figure Thief out, study it and break it down, and discard most of what they saw, make an Assassin's Creed clone with extra stealing, get a new Producer in asking why they did this and that with no good answers why, and all that stuff they've said straight out they stupidly did. I've been wondering how they are going to recoup all the money spent with no product to sell on employees alone all these years! The eventual merch and providing QA for other companies certainly helped, but man! Millions on unfocused goals, and borrowing heavily from non-Thief sources they had worked on as former-Ubisoft employees. I saw that coming and was not surprised but very disappointed. The demos this far out continue to show too much work on razzle-dazzle and not on basic Thief. When is someone going to show the sound propagation for this game? They've had to Audio Directors!
Starker on 15/6/2013 at 07:58
From what I know of game development, people generally don't work there to just make money. There are easier ways to do that than enduring 80+ hour weeks with less job security than they would get elsewhere.
Personally, I think they are shooting too wide and too high.
Renzatic on 15/6/2013 at 08:01
Quote Posted by Goldmoon Dawn
A frightening question indeed! I wish I could link to that thread where the guy was suggesting that they were smoking weed for the past 5 years. ;)
A more serious response to your little question would be something akin to I dont know why in the hell they spent all that time *cough* "experimenting" only to reveal in the end that their intellectual outcome is to predetermine exactly when and only where we can shoot a rope arrow. Are you f***ing kidding me?!?!
Yeah. The rope arrow thing. I'm hoping that's temporary.
It's obvious not everything was peachy keen at EM over the last few years. All that strife, arguing, turmoil, and staff changes. Who knows how it could've affected the game. Chances are good it probably wasn't for the best, but...well...you never know. Weirder things have happened.
But one thing we don't know is that all those years of experimentation were completely for naught. We haven't seen much of the game, and what we have was rough and unfinished. As far as we know, they could still be bringing all their ideas together into one cohesive whole we have yet to see. The end results of which could be absolutely astounding...even with all the weird consoley BS floating around alongside it. This early on, it's hard to make a final judgement call on what the final product is going to be like.
To quote myself yet again, Thief 4 is either going to turn out amazing (barring a few hiccups, because long projects ALWAYS have hiccups), or be complete crap that isn't even worth the disc it's printed on. When it comes to situations like this, you rarely ever get merely mediocre.
jtr7 on 15/6/2013 at 08:06
People get into the industry to make cool stuff, and then the business-end of the reality stick beats them into submission--that is, if they aren't into the dumbed-down kewlness and totally into the mass-market formula.
There's a reason there are hundreds of articles and lists warning people about trying to join the video games industry. No one is ever really prepared for the Marketing and Publishing people's notions of what the creators should be doing with their time.
Renzatic on 15/6/2013 at 08:19
Quote Posted by jtr7
There's a reason there are hundreds of articles and lists warning people about trying to join the video games industry. No one is ever really prepared for the Marketing and Publishing people's notions of what the creators should be doing with their time.
It's a neverending battle of wills, and none of us have any idea on how much EM has kowtowed to the higher ups. You like to assume they've folded completely, and T4 will end up being nothing but a shallow flash in the pan, not nearly worthy of its namesake.
I think SE knows that Thief, like Deus Ex, is important to do right. For the ratings at least, if not the money. It's one of their prestige titles (for lack of a better word). Even if they don't make the money up on sales, the property itself is still worth tons to them, and they wouldn't want to do anything to harm that. That, alongside EM's previous success with DX:HR, makes me think SE give them a good amount of room to play in, and only breath down their necks when absolutely necessary.
Of course there will be concessions that have to be made. There always will be when it comes to big games with big budgets. Even LGS had to make a few in their day. But it's likely not anywhere near as bad as you believe it to be.
Starker on 15/6/2013 at 08:41
The thing is, we don't know what's happening. Publishers aren't always the demons people make them out to be, even if they aren't necessarily a good influence in general. I think it's pretty pointless to speculate about people's motivations when it's the results that count here. The important question for me is whether this will be a Thief game and from what I've seen so far it does not look that way.
I'd sure like to be wrong. Maybe EM will change direction, maybe modders will fix everything, maybe things get better later in the development. Maybe it will be so extraordinary that the sky will light up and the Moon will spin and the gods themselves will shit comets with glee.
jtr7 on 15/6/2013 at 08:44
That's why, in this case, back to EM and Thief, we complain that they, the devs themselves, don't appear to know Thief, only that it had this and that in it. EM's getting the personal blame, not Square-Enix. Squee gets the blame for being anti-modders and the biggest obstacle to getting an editor even if EM was all for starting another wave of Thief FMs, and for jeopardizing their financial health so badly.
Tomi on 15/6/2013 at 09:24
Quote Posted by Goldmoon Dawn
Just as the Avatar strived to follow the virtues, so did LGS strive to craft games that broke the mold of precedents.
Oh boy. :p And EM is like the Fellowship?
