"THIEF" - Your current THOUGHTS & SUGGESTIONS & CONCERNS - All General Discussion

[Hypevosa]

Originally Posted by jtr7

this picture made my night. It's so simple... but so awesome.

[Nate]

I'll say it again, I don't mind if they decide to use an apprentice, but I would still prefer the story be about Garrett.

Either way, I'll buy and play the game.

[ToMegaTherion]

The apprentice idea is quite lame. If the protagonist is going to change, it's easy to do without being lame. I'm sure supporters of The Girl can come up with a better way to have her as the heroine.

[Platinumoxicity]

If the protagonist is going to change, it's clearly not going to be in Thief 4 because Garrett needs a reason for his removal, and a worthy "outro" so to speak. Also there would have to be extensive introduction of some candidate for the new protagonist in T4 because there have been no candidates yet in the series. And I really don't want a game that I've been waiting since the disappointment at TDS to be 50% introducing a new character that nobody couldn't give a flying taff about, and 50% artificially erasing Garrett out of the picture and fabricating some pathetic reasons for the fans to not want him to be in the next installment anymore. But in the end the switch from Garrett to that new character would have to take place in Thief 5, not Thief 4.

If it does take place in the start of Thief 4, the worst-case-scenario has come true. Eidos Montréal was never interested in continuing the story of this brilliant series. All they needed was the permission to hijack a successful franchise and produce something that prints money for a short while. They never cared about the game, they just wanted the name.

[Vae]

This is a lurking horror, that dwells in the back of the mind...

[Voodoo]

I sincerely hope not that would be a travesty.

[Vae]

No one wants to believe that it's possible, but until we hear any news to the contrary, the dreaded fear lives deep within our hearts...

[Demetrius]

In this thread I will try to gather all my wishes which I have for developer team.
Everybody please feel free to comment. Unfortunately my browser said me good-bye when I have already finish my post, and it's hard to write all from the beginning, so I will just post some short description of my wishes.

General
Thief 4 must be a game with a mature story, solid characters and very dark and brutal world. Main character - Garret (don't change what is good), place of the game - well known City.

Levels
Needed to be such as in T1&2 or even bigger. Please make a big City with a possibility to go in every house which you want. Make an options to take side quests during a story missions (like in the T3 when we must drown a body). Also we must have time to sell a loot, steal some new, buy weapons, equipment, armor and so on. Even just to wanderlust in the city full of the aggressive guards, brutal bandits, dirty prostitutes... It will be an ultimate game experience.
Gamers must feel free in the game to go wherever they want and to do what they want.
Also I think it would be good if 75% of the game will be city landscapes (mansions, offices, warehouses, strongholds, castles etc.), other 25% - forests (T2), abounded places (T1), graveyards (little in T2) - be creative!)

Stealth mechanics
Please make an option to choose clever AI which can hear further than a 5 meters, which can see more than 10 m before them. Made an ability to change such parameters, or try to experiment in the real life to create good AI.
Don't make such mistake like in many other stealth games (Thief series also have such): when an enemy in the normal state - one headshot will kill him, when in alert state - more than one. It's kinda stupid moment in the game.
Also I think that no one will run to the enemy when will find him. First of all guard will raise alarm (call other guards) and only after that he will try to stop intruder.
If guards will find blood or dead/knocked body it must cause alarm for the whole building for the time till the sheriff comes from the city.
If mission is not far from the city it will be good if some city guard will come to help when alarm begins.

1. Loot
There are diamond rings, golden crowns, ancient vases, silver tableware, precious jewelry, beautiful paintings, securities, different artifacts and so on and so on. But please remember that thief is not Santa Claus, and he can't take all this loot from the level by alone. I think it will be very interesting to choose which loot you take, and which keep on the level. It will solve the problem with big amount of useless money, increase replayability and keep gamers busy with learning "what costs more?" and "where to find it in the City?". Between the missions thief can take a walk to exchange some loot and to grab some new. Time of such missions is limited by the duration of the night.

2. Weapons.

Sword.
It can be used in many different ways, such as breaking wooden doors, barrage which blocks way, padlocks on the doors and chests, to cut ropes and banners and so on. And I'm not talking about the fighting.

Knife.
It can be used for more stealthy kill than with a sword and also can be thrown into the enemy or other targets (you can pick it up after that). With the help of the knife we can for example take some loot from the statues (for instance eyes of statue are made as a diamonds) or cut off paintings. All this loot features must be implemented as a mini games.

Bow.
In all previous Thief games bow's range of fire is just like slingshot's. It must be fixed because range of the short bows reached 275 yards (~250 m). For longbow range can be reached up to 300 m.
As far as I know speed of the arrow is somewhere around 90 m/s, so please keep this in mind. In-game bow must feels as real one.
Also I think that there is no point in the noisemaker arrows, because you can throw anything which you can take into the hand and it will make noise. But if people like it - keep it. In medieval some archers use noisemaker arrows to intimidate the enemy.
Rope arrows can be changed with a hook. So you will have one more mini game.
We need new type of arrows - bodkin arrows. Long bodkins were used for piercing mail. Short bodkins were used for piercing armor plate. If its too complicated for gamers - just use one type of bodkin arrows.
Fire arrows can be modified to the arrows with wick which we must set to fire. So fire arrow can be more stealthy from the one sight, and keep gamers to think when to use it from another.
There is no point in the moss arrows - I can use moss lining under my shoes, also arrow which falls onto the ground make too much noise.
Water arrow also must made some noise when hit a wall, but you can pick up arrow without tip after the shot.

3. Equipment
Interesting idea is to customize equipment in Garret's house before the every mission.
You can choose different bows (short or long), swords, equipment (different bombs, mines etc), big or small quiver (for example 24 or 40 total arrows), take coat or no. It will be good to create a limited space for equipment for the Garret. If you take many and big ones - you will be less stealthy, but more ready for the fighting, take nothing with you - you can walk very quiet and is almost invisible in the shadows.
Also you can by in the shops different coats (idea of camouflage), weapons, shoes, quivers, bags for loot and so on.


I think it will be enough for the beginning. Thanks to everyone who will read this post!)

P.S. Sorry for the bad English.

[DarknessFalls]

I agree with some of that and disagree with some. Many have discussed these before. I like Garrett being Santa Claus, like rope arrows as is (hook not needed, they're magical and they don't need to become uber functional/utilitarian), knife not desirable for me (blackjack and sword are good enough), arrows need to be fun to use even if not realistic (short range, big arc like T2, otherwise they feel boring and bullet-like), moss arrows and noisemakers are fun (keep 'em)

[Hypevosa]

Someone else who wants both a knife/dagger and a sword on person at the same time It brings my heart joy to see it in one of these one post wonders.

It's like EM is thiefy santa and these are the letters....

I guess that makes us the nosy elves who open the letters and pre-approve them before santa reads them XD

[Nate]

Bring back the ability to purchase NON REFUNDABLE tips/info in the mission briefing screen.

The ability to buy off guards/servants to leave their posts/leave valuables out/leave doors open/not show up for work would also be an AMAZING addition!!!!

[Demetrius]

Originally Posted by DarknessFalls

I agree with some of that and disagree with some. Many have discussed these before. I like Garrett being Santa Claus, like rope arrows as is (hook not needed, they're magical and they don't need to become uber functional/utilitarian), knife not desirable for me (blackjack and sword are good enough), arrows need to be fun to use even if not realistic (short range, big arc like T2, otherwise they feel boring and bullet-like), moss arrows and noisemakers are fun (keep 'em)

First of all I wanna make game more serious, realistic and hard.
As for the knife and other equipment - you can choose it before the mission. Don't like it - don't take it.
As for the arrows - what is more fun for you: shoot from the real bow or real slingshot?)))

[Hypevosa]

Originally Posted by jtr7

Customizing so many things is not more serious at all, it's playing with virtual dolls.

They're not dolls! They're action figures!


XD

[Platinumoxicity]

Originally Posted by Hypevosa

Someone else who wants both a knife/dagger and a sword on person at the same time It brings my heart joy to see it in one of these one post wonders.

I'm not sure if we agree but I just want to say this.

There's still obviously this scenario:

"Hmm... I would really like a stealthy weapon like a knife. But when I look at Thief 1 and Thief 2 I see that the sword already is about as stealthy as the weapon I'm proposing, excluding the minor stealth decrease when I draw the weapon. How do I get around this problem...

Oh! I know! Let's artificially make the sword worse than it normally is, to bring the knife closer to it's level to justify it's addition! It's like taking a Swiss army knife and separating all the tools to individual objects! It's brilliant! Now you can finally have a can opener that's not attached to a knife! "

No I don't want to discuss. I just wanted to use the Swiss army knife analogy somewhere.

[Demetrius]

Originally Posted by jtr7

Realistic in what way? First, get rid of the "Garrett" guy, since what he wants doesn't matter, and the fact he needs little equipment, usually none, to do his job masterfully.

Customizing so many things is not more serious at all, it's playing with virtual dolls.

Realistic in the way to create more clever AI, better physics, fighting system, stealth mechanic and so on.

Maybe when you play Garret you need very little equipment - it's good, then don't use customization. Someone players have other styles of playing and they need more equipment. I think that customizing is good, because it can make game more fun, if you don't agree - don't use it.

Originally Posted by jtr7

His bow is much more useful and stealthy when used to toss a crystal or noisemaker. It never needs to have punching power, except when the player is in killing mode. It pretty much is a slingshot. It also hints to the player to slow down and strategize a bit more, and that's much more important.

I have already told that even short bow shoots with other physics. So in my opinion it will be good to have real bow or change it to the slingshot which must looks like slingshot and not be called "bow".

Originally Posted by jtr7

You want the game to not be playable by most, which EM is certainly not going to go for, however, a Master difficulty might give you what you're after, and you should wish for an SDK/Editor no matter what, so it can be made less of a game for a million or more people, and more of a personal virtual reality simulator for yourself.

Things are tuned the way they are so the game is more playable. It is a game, after all. None of your changes to the game-mechanics weren't already thought of by the devs. and even built and disabled or reduced. There are mods to make them harder.

I wish good sales for the Thief 4, and I want it to be playable for the many gamers, but I hope it will not be easy casual game. If you are worry about the difficult - use easy, medium, hard, master. Problem is that in most games hard means that you have less health, enemy have more health than in normal, and you must make much more shots right into the head to kill the enemy. It's rare when enemy on hard difficulty think better, use tactic and so on.
Also in thief series when you increase the difficulty you can't kill anyone or even knock out somebody. I like to play as assassin, knocking out or killing everyone on the level (^_^), so it will be less fun with such conditions.
Virtual reality simulator sounds good.)
As for the devs. How do you know what they think? Also there are no mods on the consoles.

Originally Posted by jtr7

Don't like it/don't take it isn't much different than don't want it/don't select it from your inventory.

When you use long sword - you are more visible to the enemy rather than don't take any sword onto the mission. It change stealth mechanics.

[Nate]

*I've always loved the idea of Garrett having a loot carry limit, and having to leave the less valuable stuff behind.....and learning as the game progresses what is generally worth more, and what less.

That would be an AWESOME addition to the series!

Also, the ability to leave/buy even the basic blackjack/dagger/sword/bow in the mission briefing would be awesome!!!

[Flashart]

The loot carry mechanic could be worth looking at. If it was integrated into the level design,
so you'd have to make two or more trips to the exit point to get 100%.
Or if was aligned to the equipment it would make those who like to shop consider what is worth taking. (That's assuming you could never leave a level with 100%)

Plot items would be weightless, as with cash/gems, but then a say, 30kg to hold a possible 50kg of loot?

[Jack Lantern]

I can't fathom a Thief game without Garrett, but I would be open-minded enough to a different character IF there is a reasonable explanation that after TDS, Garrett just gave up thieving. Which there isn't one, so no dice.

I wouldn't mind another thief entering the City as some kind of mysterious rival to Garrett, but again, that would have to be a subtle performance. Say that Garrett reaches an area that holds a valuable item, only to discover it's already been stolen. That kind of thing maybe, but I wouldn't like the idea of the two dueling in the street goin' "Hiiiiii-yaaaa!", like Square would do.

Maybe another thief who was hired to track and take Garrett out or something. But again, it would need very subtle performances.

[Hypevosa]

I'd be pretty pissed if they forced me to drop loot at the exit and return for more...

In fact I'm pretty sure I would stop playing.

In fact if I knew about it before hand, this is something that would break the game for me and I would no longer purchase it.

I'll say this - the title THIEF screamed at me from across that Babbages store for a reason. Going out and stealing lots of loots sounded like alot of fun to me... if that was hindered in any way, shape, or form... I wouldn't buy the game again.

[DarknessFalls]

There are enough good non-Garrett Thief fan missions. We can play those to get our fill of non-Garrett gameplay. Thief 4 and future Thief games should let us play official, Stephen Russell Garrett. We don't get enough or too much of that.

[Nate]

No, there would be no 'going back and forth' with arm loads of loot....you would only be able to carry out a certain 'weight' in loot at the end of a mission.

So, the player would need to learn what the most valuable loot is, and what to leave behind.

[Jack Lantern]

The only problem I have with huge, open worlds where anything goes is that often, the game world and mechanics become less focused. I like having options within options, but I wouldn't want the world to be so huge that the developers spread themselves too thin.

I like Thief as it is. Very big game world with loads of options, but the developers still keep firm control and set boundries.

[Demetrius]

Originally Posted by Nate

No, there would be no 'going back and forth' with arm loads of loot....you would only be able to carry out a certain 'weight' in loot at the end of a mission.

So, the player would need to learn what the most valuable loot is, and what to leave behind.

Exactly!

Originally Posted by jtr7

If Thief goes open-world:

Thief 4: Your World is Our Cat Box Sandbox

You think this is bad when you can go to the City whenever you want?

[Hypevosa]

Originally Posted by Nate

No, there would be no 'going back and forth' with arm loads of loot....you would only be able to carry out a certain 'weight' in loot at the end of a mission.

So, the player would need to learn what the most valuable loot is, and what to leave behind.

this is worse, and would have the same result of ruining the game for me. I may love Garrett, the story, the gameplay, etc... but as I've said - THIEF screamed at me from the shelf in the face of hundreds of other games, not just because of the lettering, but because of what it implied... and if my THIEVING is inhibited in any way shape or form, the game will be not fun enough for me to the point that I won't bother picking it up.

[Hypevosa]

Originally Posted by jtr7

Yep. I do believe in maintaining what is a nicely distilled gameworld, where the room for growth is more vertical and inward than outward sprawl or by packing in more new additional stuff to cover newbies expectations, and having it all suffer from being too generic (what Thief doesn't need any more of) with more rubberstamp filler places and more filler objects and grinding and retreading.

I know we've talked about this alot - I don't understand why you think that Open world automatically means the devoid of content expanses of the capital wasteland?

Open world simply means the player goes where and does what he wants. It doesn't mean respawning loot and guards... it doesn't mean empty filler housing that's not inhabited for some reason, and has no flavortext or any points of interest... it doesn't mean grinding and having to retread the same ground over and over. Just because there has never been an open world game that has what thief requires doesn't mean it's impossible.

Thief by very necessity would need to be the most content enriched open world game ever created if they went that route.

It would need to have secret passages and doors, 3 dimensional approach to nearly any space, people where they should be, loot where it should be, necromancers hiding in dark corners, guards doing nightly rounds, watchmen investigating housing due to crime, bar brawls and eavesdropping on the aristocrats around the corner - the city and people within would need to be like a real city.

There would need to be personal diaries, love letters, posters, papers, books, spell scrolls, blueprints for fantastic new steampunk devices - there would be need to have flavortext wherever the player may tread, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem.

Guards would need to stay KOed until helped out by others, loot you've stolen would need to stay gone, and after being fenced, maybe reappear at certain patrons' residencies. There should be no need to grind because people shouldn't be able to replace all of their stolen goods overnight.

After alerting a complex during a barely pulled off job there would need to be guards in the streets, some on the rooftops - there would need to be thieves ready to intercept the man they know now has the loot and saved them the effort of robbing the place themselves.

Dashing across the rooftops you could hear all the life in the streets while people still bustle around before you reach your mark, and see it from the building's edge - and not only that but you could choose to experience it if you wanted.

Then, on the way home, long after you left, you could experience the serenity of the silent night, laugh at the guard stumbling over drunk and falling over the edge of the bridged waterway. See other thieves dashing from roof to roof, just having pulled off a successful job themselves, or maybe not so lucky thieves running from guards in the street. See that drunkard from the earlier bar brawl has managed to pass out in the alley behind the pub.

JTR, I understand what you fear - I understand that you're afraid if it's open world it won't be the thief you know and love. What the others and I see is a series that would finally create an open world worth experiencing. Up until now, every single "open world" I've seen has been one for sight seeing. Open expanses of pretty or awe inspiring nothingness. Thief is a series that, in order to truly be Thief, would need to break this cycle - change open world from just an artist's paradise to a place that actually lives and breathes.

If Thief 4 is open world, and is not the way I've described, then you're right JTR, it isn't Thief and that would disappoint us all, but realize that it's not the open world that we wanted either. We want a Thief open world, because it would be an absolutely amazing thing to get lost in... up until we broke into the city archives to get the master plans for it so we wouldn't get lost again. It wouldn't be spending an hour running some place and getting bored with the scenery. It wouldn't be respawning loot and enemies that you have to constantly grind through because you're a perfectionist. It would be an experience worth having. Maybe it isn't possible and I just don't know it, but I hope it is in the future if this is the case.

I know I'm naive in this respect, but whenever I've asked for an open world thief, I've assumed that the devs would know what makes Thief so wonderful, and that they would know that all I wanted was more of it in a way that I can experience it without boundary. That's all I'm saying when I say I want an open world thief - and if Thief 4 isn't it, and EM aren't the ones to do it, I hope someone does, because it would be amazing... and awesome... and may just be the last game I ever play before my bar is set too high.