THE CITY WATCH 2012 - News/Tweets -UPDATE: EM & Crystal Dynamics collaboration for TR

[xAcerbusx]

Nothing at all arrogant about that approach.

[Kyle Hyde]

I'm in my early 3os, played almost every Looking Glass masterpiece at release and still loved Deadly Shadows.

I would like people to stop with that "true fans" bull.

Most of those "true fans" didn't even give Deadly Shadows a proper chance.
I remember very well that a lot of people on Thief - forums didn't play the 3rd game back then because Garrett couldn't swim, the 3rd person view and missing rope arrows.
They were whining about that all day long (and still do as I can see in this forum) instead of just trying it.

Maybe they played it some time later just to confirm themselves that its a bad game.
That way it couldn't have been fun.


For me TDP and TMA are a straight 10/10.
TDS has some minor flaws but it is still a 9,5/10.
A much better experience than most other games.

It has nothing to do with "console gamer", "true fans" etc. That is ridiculous.

[wep0n]

well deadly shadows was pretty good, but there was just something missing...
i also like the first one better than the second one.

the difference between dark project, and the newer two games is the lack of survival elements. there are less situations of imminent danger... like the catacombs for example.
and thats why i think i love dark poject the most. i liked the scary, mysterious, dangerous parts. i loved the catacombs, the cathedral, constantines house and the lost city from dark project. those elements got missing in the newer two games, and they started to focus more on regular people, streets, realistic stuff...
(of course there are some very nice levels from the newer ones, i love the cradle for example and karras is my favorite villain. but such levels are less common.)

to wrap it up: the first game had more SURVIVAL elements, and thats why i love it the most. there were more situations of imminent danger and the urge to hide somewhere... afterwards being rewarded with a treasure is the best feeling ever! i miss the days of sweaty fingers and pure fear...

also this link wraps up the qualities of thief in general:

Originally Posted by Pieter888
Finally a good public article about thief IV
http://www.incgamers.com/Features/48...4-must-include

[Viktoria]

Originally Posted by Kyle Hyde

I would like people to stop with that "true fans"...

I quite agree, it's an unnecessary statement that has no bearing. As fans of the game, we're all equal.
Hopefully we can all continue without having to draw these kinds of comparisons as it always spoils sensible debate, imo.

[Old Gold]

Hello. Hello?!?!

As a first person sneaker, the movement in Deadly Shadow was broken! How could anyone have missed this? You look to the left and decide to move forward. No! Your body has to swing around first before it starts moving in the direction you are facing! Thats third person movement, not first person. The difficulty levels were broken! How could anyone have missed this?

These are the reasons that Deadly is intrinsically flawed.

Also, I dont believe you fanboy tools who say "Oh, Ive been a fan from the start" No, you havent. I can tell you have no idea, you are lying to make yourself "look cool". lol well, I hope it works with your imaginary network of other fake fans.

[Kyle Hyde]

@ OldGold: Ok, you are an awkward guy, I get that now. I'm not in the mood to convince anybody that I have been a fan of the series from the start (which doesn't make much difference anyway imo). But Dark Project is the only game I have in my native language (normal version and gold) as well as in english, just out of curiosity. So I have three versions of the same game and it is my Top 1 game ever.



^^I definitely agree that part 1 and 2 are more polished and thought-out (longer as well).
But the controls weren't perfect as its often stated. Climbing a ladder, knocking down guards etc. there have been situations when it all felt a little clunky too.
In TDS the implimentation of first person was a mistake, I agree with that. But playing in first person view did work for me and the graphics and light/shadow effects greatly contributed to the mood. The sound was great too.

Imho some of the levels in TDS had the best architecture and atmosphere (cathedral, clocktower, the cradle, seaside mansion, museum..) in the whole series.
I always liked the games more for these aspects (the story as well) than pure gameplay features or replay value (yes, I know now I can't be a "true fan"...).

Many people talking about TDS tend to think in extremes. Failure, a joke, etc.
That's just not true. Even "decent game" doesn't do it justice, imho.

There easily could have been no 3rd game at all and I really would have missed this great experience.

[Old Gold]

Originally Posted by Kyle Hyde

I always liked the games more for these aspects (the story as well) than pure gameplay features or replay value (yes, I know now I can't be a "true fan"...)

Thats all well and good, but... how did you ever get through the Underworlds, and System Shock I, hell even Terra Nova if you dont care as much about gameplay?! I cant imagine getting anywhere in those games without not only appreciating gameplay but mastering it! I agree that the story in the first System Shock has rarely been rivaled by anyone to date, but the gameplay was crucial to surviving the game!

I mean, LGS pioneered much of what we see today in first person games. Ultima Underworld was not only one of the first free moving 3d environments, but was certainly the very first with such a complex level of interaction. System Shock I took this even further, and I have yet to see anything since that captured all of the elements the way that game did. Deadly Shadow, for some strange reason, shifted gears to try and please a third person market. Why?!?! It can only mean that the next Thief will be more of the same. A game geared towards third person with first person being a hacked up afterthought! Im not even complaining about the reality of forcing third person view into a Thief game, but for Gods sake, make the first person view actually work right! Is that so much to ask?

It may seem outlandish at face value to some, to suggest that Deadly not only betrayed the series, but LGS legacy as a whole. But there are many underlying reasons that fans of LGS (from the start) feel this way. As I have said previously, there is a very long and rich history to LGS way before Thief was even a thought. It is important for any "fan" of Thief to understand this and at the very least take the time to observe that history.

And yes, I am a fanatic of the early Ultima, Might Magic, Wizardry, Underworld era. Rabid, frothy fanatic. (where is my ebil smiley from TTLG when I need it )

[Kyle Hyde]

Originally Posted by Old Gold

Thats all well and good, but... how did you ever get through the Underworlds, and System Shock I, hell even Terra Nova if you dont care as much about gameplay?! I cant imagine getting anywhere in those games without not only appreciating gameplay but mastering it! I agree that the story in the first System Shock has rarely been rivaled by anyone to date, but the gameplay was crucial to surviving the game!

I was only referring to the Thief series. (but in the two Underworld games as well: the gameplay was not my favorite part - but the atmosphere and it was a new and unique experience at the time).

Of course I liked the gameplay (I wouldn't finish any game without having any fun actually playing it) but the real triumph in the Thief series are the moments when you don't do much at all.

Crouching in a dark corner, just waiting and listening to the footsteps of a guard or him mumbling some words to a passing colleague. Or moving slowly from shadow to shadow just about when the hammerite looks in the other direction. For me it's about patience and atmosphere and therefor total immersion.
These things still worked in TDS very well (just not as good).

Shooting arrows was also just as fine. Maybe knocking down guards was tricky sometimes but these were few moments.

And while I was playing it I didn't really miss the rope arrows although I liked them in the first games.


The thing I didn't like about TDS were the non existant mission-briefing cutscenes and that voices (especially Garrett) were not localized anymore.
I think this was mainly a financial issue and hopefully they will return in Thief 4 (with a similar artstyle).

[Old Gold]

ok man, that all makes good sense to me. Let's hope that Thief 4 attempts to maintain the classic features you just listed, because I agree with you. Those are the reasons why the first two Thief games are just so damn memorable to me!

Cheers!

[wep0n]

Originally Posted by Old Gold

As I have said previously, there is a very long and rich history to LGS way before Thief was even a thought. It is important for any "fan" of Thief to understand this and at the very least take the time to observe that history.

true!
i am currently trying to comprehend the whole history... please tell me where i can find good sources!
i am really interested in the whole team! i am wondering who from the old team is now working on the new game, and what the other guys of the old team are doing now.
only thing i know is that Stephen Russel is the great voice actor doing most voices, also eric brosius is the guy who did a brilliant job on making the sound! his wife did also work on thief, no idea what she did... not to forget they both also worked on system shock
i am wondering who came up with the main concept of thief, aswell the story, leveldesign, artwork... i have seen the credits, but i dont know who of these guys had the biggest impact, and if they are still influencing the game...
also i have seen a documentation about the eidos montreal making of deus ex, and there is that guy called belletete or something, he had thief glyphs all over his arms and he is the art director of deus ex. so hes obviously a very big thief fan, and might have worked there, but no idea how much he was involved in the process...

[Kyle Hyde]

Originally Posted by Old Gold

ok man, that all makes good sense to me. Let's hope that Thief 4 attempts to maintain the classic features you just listed, because I agree with you. Those are the reasons why the first two Thief games are just so damn memorable to me!

Cheers!

I'm glad we are meeting somewhere in the middle!

I would also prefer that Thief 4 moves a little bit more into the direction of the originals than of TDS - so I'm with you on that too.
But if I have as much fun with Thief 4 as with TDS , I will be happy nonetheless.

[massimilianogoi]

Originally Posted by Nephthys

you can find it on Amazon too. I've gotten it to work almost perfectly on Vista without patches but it doesn't hurt to use them if it doesn't work at first. You do need to make sure they're running on one processor though, like other copies. All in all though, it was a worth it buy. And you can easily put mods in on top of them. I got the Minimalist Project running for Deadly Shadows and it works perfectly.

It's in widescreen already?

[Nephthys]

Originally Posted by massimilianogoi

It's in widescreen already?

mm I don't think I had any problems with that. I can't remember for sure, but I don't remember it having black bars on the sides. Since it's formatted to work on Vista I would assume that they upped the resolution to widescreen options too.

[Kyle Hyde]

I bought this version to own Thief Gold in english. As far as I remember there was no Widescreen Patch installed and I even needed one or two of the other fixes to get the game running.
But I still have Win XP.

The price was good but if you don't mind that it's not a retail version I would wait for the GOG Version which will probably include most of the fixes.

[Viktoria]

Latest news regarding GOG:

Many other fantastic games from Square Enix will be released on GOG.com service in coming weeks from a number of other IPs, but for now swing by the digital distributor and pick up either Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition or Hitman: Codename 47 and relive some of the best moments in classic PC gaming.

For more information visit www.gog.com.

http://www.ripten.com/2012/01/26/gog...-year-edition/

[tarvis79]

TDP and TMA are my favorite games, and have been since 2000 (I started at the release of Thief 2, picked up TDP and then TG because I loved it so much), but I still liked TDS. I don't like TDS as much, but I think the vitriol that gets spewed at it is over the top to the point of being ridiculous. Yes, it lacked polish and was rough around the edges. Not being able to swim was not a huge deal, and while the lack of rope arrows hurt, I wouldn't say that the use of rope arrows was an incontrovertible part of the souls of the first two games.

The one major criticism of TDS that I really do buy into was how badly the tiny levels and load zones hurt the feel of the game. They were terrible, but everyone knows this and modern consoles no longer demand them, so I'm not worried that this mistake will be repeated.

All that said, there's definitely a tendency to see the first two games through rose-colored glasses. I'm replaying TG right now. Nobody seems to complain about the total dysfunction with ladders, Garrett's inability to mantle when it matters, and the infamous "greased rope" attached to the rope arrows everyone loves so much. These are minor flaws, to be sure, but to hold the first two games up as fully polished, flawless masterpieces is a bit of a stretch. This doesn't even account for the other quirks of the Dark Engine, like keyholing, banner transmigration, NPC jumping, nudging, fidgeting...the list goes on and on. The unpredictability of vertical detection is another big flaw in the originals. The shutdown/restart of patrols on distance triggers and the way this sometimes got patrollers stuck is another huge flaw. I say this as someone whose absolute favorite game of all time is Thief Gold, but I could keep a list of its flaws going for pages if I wanted to.

EDIT: And there are places where TDS was almost inarguably better, which are usually ignored. The improved sophistication of the AI was terrific. Sure, it was still a cakewalk for an accomplished thief, but guards really should notice when loot is missing and when the lights go out. They also have *gasp* peripheral vision, unlike the blinder-wearing guys in the first two games. The lockpicking in TDS was intuitive, more realistic, and more fun than in the originals. The city hubs, while flawed in their execution, were a good idea I'd like to see implemented properly like they were in DX:HR. I'd actually be quite unhappy if these improvements were stripped out and the new game returned to the way things were done in the originals.

Bottom line: The first two weren't perfect. TDS was a little worse overall but still good in most of the places it mattered. The tiny levels were the only really serious problem with it, but there were also some things it did better.

[The Deuce]

Well said, tarvis79. I think the first two Thief games were substantially better, but TDS was still quite a good game. One very serious flaw in it that you didn't mention, imo, was the loot glint. That by itself broke the whole thieving mechanic of Thief. I managed to get 100% on every level without even really trying, because the loot just announces itself.

But yeah, ladders and ropes in the first game especially were broken. I had to save every time before I grabbed one in the air, because you're never quite sure whether Garrett is going to do what you expect, or whether he's going to perform some physics-defying stunt in which he somehow flings himself 300 feet into the air and then falls to his doom.

Incidentally, if they bring back rope arrows (and I hope they do), I hope they also introduce a swinging mechanic. In real life, you can't just jump off of a rope sideways, as if it were a hard, immobile fence post. You have to build momentum by swinging.

[tarvis79]

I agree about the loot glint, but this is another error I'm not worried will be repeated after the hell that was raised over object highlighting in DX:HR.

[PJMaybe]

Originally Posted by tarvis79

The tiny levels were the only really serious problem with it

Hmm... maybe we were playing different versions of TDS? I had become very frustrated with it long before the size of the levels started bothering me. I seem to remember the awful frob highlight came first; closely followed by the child-like ease at which you could escape from any situation by running through a load-zone; and that was followed by realising that the lean function was defunct and I had to go 3rd person to peer around corners Level sizes probably came 6th or 7th for me.

You're right about the improvements though, the AI, peripheral vision and (concept of) the city hub were all good. Wasn't enough for me to play it more than 1.5 times though.

[tarvis79]

I included the load zones as part of my critique of the tiny levels. I don't understand people complaining about the "broken" lean function; it wasn't as useful, sure, but I found leaning in TDS much more realistic (and therefore, admittedly, more frustrating). If you stuck your head around a corner, a guard would see it. I didn't like the frob highlight either, but that was a minor aesthetic issue for me. I zero in on the tiny levels/load zones (and the loot glint, an oversight in my first post) as the only flaws that really struck at the core of the Thief experience.

My only problem with the city hubs was that they were only interesting the first time you went through them. If they fully repopulated with new side missions, people, and conversations every time you went through, they would've been much better. A little less repetition would've been good, too; revisiting Detroit and Hengsha each once in DX:HR was about right.

[DJ Riff]

Originally Posted by tarvis79

I don't understand people complaining about the "broken" lean function; it wasn't as useful, sure, but I found leaning in TDS much more realistic (and therefore, admittedly, more frustrating). If you stuck your head around a corner, a guard would see it.

It's not about guards seeing you, it's about not returning to the original position when the button is released, or being stuck in the terrain or falling from the ledge. With all this, just strafing left/right became faster and more reliable than leaning.

[Hypevosa]

It's also about Garrett stepping to the side, sometimes meaning you'd lose balance and fall since he apparently lost all ability to just bend at the waist and brace using a wall, maybe using a foot for balance. The side step portion of the lean was an unnecessary annoyance.

[Kyle Hyde]

The loot glow is one thing I don't want to come back too (at least it should be optional).

I even would like a "value assessment" feature. Garrett should have to look at treasures more closely to estimate if it's worth to take it with you. That takes time (like lockpicking) and therefore it is a dangerous thing to do in some situations.

Could enhance the thrill.

[xAcerbusx]

Originally Posted by Hypevosa

It's also about Garrett stepping to the side, sometimes meaning you'd lose balance and fall since he apparently lost all ability to just bend at the waist and brace using a wall, maybe using a foot for balance. The side step portion of the lean was an unnecessary annoyance.

His argument wasn't that it wasn't annoying, it was that it's more realistic. In real life, if you lean around a corner while perched on a building ledge, there's a decidedly high probability your evening will end with you splitting your head open like a ripe canteloupe.

The lean in TDS was more realistic by necessity. Because now you have a third-person player model, and so you can't defy the laws of physics by holding your torso at a perfect 45 degree angle, even as everything from the waist down is straight and rigid. If Garrett couldn't perform the same lean he did in TDP and TMA, it's probably because his spinal column had to be surgically fused together after two games' worth of snapping it in half every time he had to peek around a corner.

[DJ Riff]

The realistic lean is there in STALKER. In all Thief games it is not realistic at all, but in TDS it was made useless in addition.