Glyph Doors

[pengy404]

Do you think they should have put more glyph-doors into The City? They are fun and add an element of magic to the game...

[Catman]

I vote yes, but only if they include public toilets for all those people wandering around the streets.

[Rambis]

restrooms are over rated.

[herechickychicky]

Only if they didn't lead you to a loading zone, there were enough of those as it was.

[littlek]

Agree with the loading zones. I grew weary of the loading times.

[grafixmonkey]

I'm gonna go OT for just a sec then come back...

You know, I'm starting to wonder about people who don't like the loading times. I have a pretty normal gaming machine with no RAID or Raptors or anything, and all the loading screens take less than 5 seconds for me. All I've got is a 200GB Maxtor drive with 8mb cache, 7200 rpm, connects through plain old parallel ATA 133 ribbon cable. The only problem I have with loading times is that the two quotes flash by so quick that I can barely read them, which is sad because they are really cool and atmospheric.

So... I think if your levels take a long time, something is wrong. Here's the relevant stuff from my system so you can compare:
Athlon Mobile 2500 OC'd to 2.23 ghz (so it's like an Athlon XP 3200)
NForce-2 motherboard, (NO nVidia IDE drivers installed)
Windows XP Pro, all updates & service packs
Maxtor 200GB pata drive, 8mb cache
NO antivirus, firewall, or anything installed. (handle all my security through common sense, internet smarts, and my router.)
1 gig of RAM, 1.5 gig of pagefile.
(and R9800 Pro, Audigy 2 ZS Platinum, Lite-On CDRW drive and no-name DVD drive, gigabit ethernet, but that stuff doesn't matter for load times.)

So... maybe antivirus programs increase loading times? Or maybe slower drive speed makes a big difference? If those of you with long load times have smaller 60 or 80 gig drives, it might be drive speed. Otherwise I'd guess not enough RAM (that can really do it), antivirus software, nVidia IDE drivers, or slow hard drive, in decreasing likelihood of being the problem.


- a n y w a y - about the glyphs:

I loved the glyph doors. I think all the glyph stuff was a tremendous success in the game. It's kind of like "Thief meets Zelda", it's great. If there's a sequel planned, and I really hope there is, I hope Garrett gets more cool tools that he can pick up throughout the game. Maybe dig into some D&D voodoo mythology stuff and give him a working Hand Of Glory that he can taff about with. And put those tossable eye-probe cameras from Thief 2 back in, and instead of climbing gloves (those ended up kinda gay) give him a grappling hook or something, so he can cross gaps between buildings if there are suitable railings.

And, yeah more glyph doors. But next time, different levels of "security clearance", and don't make them sit there glowing in your face from miles away, make it so you have to do something to see them, so you have to be looking relatively close to the location to find the door. Like a hand-wave gesture that makes any nearby glyphs glow for a few seconds. With that, you could even put more interesting play into it, and have glyph-enhanced objects, like a mask on the wall that can see you and yell for guards unless you know to avoid it, or a lock that can't be picked until you hit it with your new "unbinding glyph" blackjack.

Anyway, yeah there was always magic in Thief, but before it was all in the cutscenes. Now it's part of the game, and it's awesome! So give us more!

[herechickychicky]

My computer loads them pretty quickly too, it is just that it disrupts the flow of play for me. I am just trying to get from point A to point B and I have to stop and get asked a stupid question about wanting to go to "wherever" and then have to hit yes or no then wait for the load then continue. Just don't like it.

[grafixmonkey]

Yeah a simple instant transition would be nice, but I actually find myself using the doors to hide in and having to click "No" a couple times here and there. I think someone is doing a "Minimalist" project that includes removing those questions and having it always load. It may be something as simple as an INI tweak, who knows.

[PokingAbout]

what would have been cool would be to have different level doors, so you can see and unlock more doors as you grow higher as a keeper *coughexpansioncough*

think on it....

[Guineapiggy]

No, levels simply don't belong. This is Garrett the master thief, what does he have to learn? It just doesn't fit in with the gameplay style either.-

[grafixmonkey]

He had to learn to use the Keeper glyph doors, didn't he? And he got certain weapon upgrades throughout the game. The keepers had to *allow* him to use the glyph doors, that's the catch. They could have had certain "more important" doors that they only let truly trusted Keepers use.

(warning, possible ending spoiler)

I'm just trying to figure out a good way they could bring Glyph magic back, now that it's gone in the storyline. They left it just mysterious enough, that there might be a way to do it without being really corny about it. Like, the old glyphs lost their powers, but maybe some new ones are found and the research picks back up, just without any prophecies because the old books are all blank now. It does kind of feel like the end of the Thief storyline, doesn't it?