YOUR THOUGHTS & WISHES & SUGGESTIONS for T4 - General Discussion

[Hamadriyad]

Originally Posted by the_steved

How old are you? Thief 3 better than it's predecessor are you nuts... the story was wrong the map was confusing, the keepers were idiots, the controls sucked... I hated it except for the Cradle stage that scared the hell out of me but was butchered by the loading between sections as usual... You Clock did not finish Thief 1 or 2 because those two games or masterpieces...

First 2 games are better, yes. But story wasn't wrong(maybe it has the best story.), keepers weren't idiots. And this is matter of taste, this is nothing to do with age. You can't underestimate anybody just because they don't like first games.
TDS is a great Thief game.

Originally Posted by Fatherwoodsie

basically i want thief 4 to be exactly the same as 1 and 2. i dont care if they have the same graphics, same glitches, same weapons, same everything, just new levels.

Same story maybe? Do yo want a remake?

[clock12345]

elfnik,PJMaybe,Fatherwoodsie,the_steved wtf guys? i did pass both games i didnt like em and if u want to play thief 2 multiplayer then just type it in google and play it with ur friends thief 2 multiplayer is aviable for anyone that doesnt know's. elfnik! quiet new player! at least i dont spam like u do i comment on things that should be commented!!!. omg i just hated thief 1 and 2 ok? i didnt felt any game motion in it! i know thief 3 sucked asses but i liked whats good in there i just cared playing the game! i liked the ,third person ,movement ,graphics (on that time) , levels , sound were scary and fun to play with , horrofiec feeling . but engine sucked asses if it were mixed with thief 1 and 2 and were best! stop makeing dumb questions people!

[elfnik]

Originally Posted by clock12345

elfnik,PJMaybe,Fatherwoodsie,the_steved wtf guys? i did pass both games i didnt like em and if u want to play thief 2 multiplayer then just type it in google and play it with ur friends thief 2 multiplayer is aviable for anyone that doesnt know's. elfnik! quiet new player! at least i dont spam like u do i comment on things that should be commented!!!. omg i just hated thief 1 and 2 ok? i didnt felt any game motion in it! i know thief 3 sucked asses but i liked whats good in there i just cared playing the game! i liked the ,third person ,movement ,graphics (on that time) , levels , sound were scary and fun to play with , horrofiec feeling . but engine sucked asses if it were mixed with thief 1 and 2 and were best! stop makeing dumb questions people!

No offense from my side dude...but listen, you already offended loyal fans with some of your ideas..anyway I got respect for every thought you post here but some people just want to keep the game as it was...if it wasnt perfect probably there wont be any fans of the thief serial, btw I dont hate thief 3, i love it as 1 & 2 part, with some minor exceptions

[jtr7]

I ain't even touching this one (oops).

[DarknessFalls]

That was one of the most interesting posts I think I've seen in a long time, Clock12345. Like jtr7, though, I'm not touching this one. (Or I'm at least going to try not to touch it.) It frightens me on so many gaming levels...

[Royster]

Hi my first post on here(But most important I feel).

I take myself back to the day I purchased Thief: The Dark Project. Getting to grips with things was easy (Don't forget back then we were playing (Or I was) Quake, Heretic 2, Hexen 2 and Doom) given the fact that I was now being asked to steer the protagonist with a mouse and that moved my left hand to cover WASD (Where other games had gone before I realise) Genius! That left my mind to focus and be submersed into the Thief game world!

1) The Dark Engine: Totally up to the task for which it was invented <- Read this as very important!!! or the game will fail

2) Somebody actually bothered to think up a truelly compelling story line <- Read this as very important!!! or the game will fail (For ages I tried to be Garrett in the likes of Morrowind and Oblivion - Both of which I loved but nearly missed the point of these great games)

3) Somebody thought lets not just make things orderly but give everyone choices about where to go <- Read this as very important!!! or the game will fail

4) Set the atmosphere re: Acting talent, audio talent, visual talent, story telling talent <- Yep read this as very important!!! continuity is the back bone of sequals

5) When releasing a sequal make sure you retain your original target audience. Well perhaps this isn't so important as people's tastes change as well as growing older (not growing up as I'm 35y/o and I still want to play thief 1,2,3 and (when ready) 4!) therefore you may perhaps lose some of your original audience so things need to move onwards.

With all this in mind:

I want to play thief 4! If I want to play thief 1 or 2 (or Shalebridge Cradle - only) I'll play them. So Developers move onwards But (and this is a very big BUT...) Make it Thief.... not "geoff down the pub" version of thief, not XBOX Thief or PS3 Thief or Cutsie Wii Thief, I'm able to plug my PC into my 42" Plasma (mounted to the wall with AmbiLight bells and whistles!) so I don't need to dust off any ageing XBOX!

My only frustration should be getting my wife to Sky+ Coronation Street for a change! So that I may be chased by West Country Guards or ghosts through infinite real estate

Sorry for long post and I'm sure the developers aren't just interested if we want spiders in the sewers or not!

Thanks for reading and let me finish with a clever piece of dialogue from Thief 1 Mission 1 outside the "Bafford Mansion" and really picture in your mind what it means to you. For me it encapsulates all that THI4F could be..

"I'm going to the bear pits tomorrow, wanna come with?"

[jtr7]

\o/

Welcome!

[Royster]

Thanks!

petition signed...

[esme]

nice first post there Royster, welcome to the board

[Quad]

I'd like to see a "Special Edition" of Thief V with an extra cd which contains all the original Thief 1 and 2 missions in the upgraded T4 engine.

Even if it costs me 3 times the normal price, I WILL buy it and I'm pretty convinced that most of the old-school taffers will do just the same. It's the christmas-present we've been waiting for for such a long time. I would love it for an eternity (and that's a mighty long time). Anyone remembers "The Secret of Monkey Island" by LucasArts? They've made a special edition now and it's beyond words ! But with Thief, it would kick some serious ass ! Which implies that the new engine will have to be capable of doing what the Dark-engine was capable of .... 11 years ago.

Right ?

"Thief 3 is dead! Long live Thief 4!"

[esme]

reverse engineering the levels into a new engine wouldn't be a trivial task

but I'd buy it in a heartbeat

[jtr7]

It would not be profitable, but yes, we'd eat it up if it remained faithful.

[elfnik]

As long as Looking Glass Studios team works / gives ideas / got at least small part in development of Thief 4, there cant be mistakes.

[jtr7]

TDS was mistake-free, you say?

[Quad]

There's another thread about all the things TDS did wrong from a hardcore taffers pov, so besides all those things we'd like to see different (aka T1 and T2 with a slice of The Cradle), I'd like to put the emphasis on just one thing :

Rag-doll physics and appearance of humans. When I watch T1 & 2, they were laughable, but I couldn't care less because it just wasn't important. The atmosphere/tension and the overall gameplay were far more important.

But in TDS, the game wanted to look more realistic. It did, but it was the same in about every level, became boring and because of that, I automatically became focused on the characters. They were not realistic at all and they became 3D-models with some textures on, but that was it.

I would like realistic humans. It's all about detail and slight differences. Behaviour with more than 5 scripts. It's important because as a taffer, you react on other people's actions. That's immersion.

I'd like to compare it with a simple thing. If you're making a room in 3D, then there's 4 walls, 1 floor and 1 roof. At its minimum, each wall consists of 4 points. To make that default wall realistic, we put a texture on it. But to make it photorealistic, we add tons of small details so it no longer is that dull face, but something alive. That's what I would like to see in character-behaviour. Not a single person is the same, not even the guards' faces. There might be a problem with resources, but this might make a difference.

... but I still like the bigger continous levels more

[jtr7]

Good points!


I don't get the last line though.

[Quad]

I must have missed it, but ....

A free to use Mission Builder !!!!

[Humphery Kynaston]

Originally Posted by mister_riz

Not so much a problem with the benign apparitions but the zombie's and haunt levels.

OK 'no' undead is going too far but Thief 2 had them for atmospheric/story purposes only and was better for it by a mile.

I like the undead and I second this there were only a couple of undead in TMA but they were well placed I think their could have a "scary" level somewhere while not a huge fan of TDS the Cradle was amazing one the best levels in the thief series probably shooting myself in the foot here but I grew up in psychiatric facilities long story but man it was so similar and absolutely terrifying for me but I loved it I swear whoever made that level has been in a ward before at sometime in their life the undead in that level were well placed and I had no problem with them I would also like to note the sub stories are important as well and Karras was an awesome bad guy

[Humphery Kynaston]

Originally Posted by Quad

I'd like to see a "Special Edition" of Thief V with an extra cd which contains all the original Thief 1 and 2 missions in the upgraded T4 engine.

Even if it costs me 3 times the normal price, I WILL buy it and I'm pretty convinced that most of the old-school taffers will do just the same. It's the christmas-present we've been waiting for for such a long time. I would love it for an eternity (and that's a mighty long time). Anyone remembers "The Secret of Monkey Island" by LucasArts? They've made a special edition now and it's beyond words ! But with Thief, it would kick some serious ass ! Which implies that the new engine will have to be capable of doing what the Dark-engine was capable of .... 11 years ago.

Right ?

"Thief 3 is dead! Long live Thief 4!"

HERE, HERE The heads shall roll and their shall be a new king now where did I put my torch and pitch fork man you would think you wouldn't lose something you use so much

[Reyn]

I cannot really remember DS all too well in detail (most of my playing it was just to get to the Cradle anyway), and please correct me if I'm wrong, but a good element of HUMOR was lost in the 3rd installment. There was a real charm to the first two, not just because of the gameplay, but just to listen to the guards say stupid things or to catch the darkly humorous irony in an otherwise pointless letter, the madman under the opera house!

To lose this would be to lose the subtle heart of our original beloved Thief experiences.

[kabatta]

Thief 3 had good voice acting and humour. I can't get enough of torturing people in the market district with the gas bomb, oil flask. Good times. Not to mention the legacy of the bath jokes continued by Benny's ailment.

[jtr7]

The Saga of the Festering Wound (one conversation in several parts) is the closest to the old humor as it got. The quarantine zombie discussion does too but hardly anyone remembers it. The rest is either Keystone Cop slapstick animation or humorous conversations told seriously--not including the things the AIs have always said muttering or reacting. Missing was plain old camp and Monty Python style humor.

[elfnik]

Well what makes game good or bad?
TDS (as you asked me) was GREAT game, I love it, what make it that way? Well, MOSTLY the 90% of the elements of T1&2, everything which was new (lack of rope arrow, 3rd person, gloves for climbin walls duhh etc, etc...) made the game a bit dull...thats scares me most in thief 4.....

I can say, the graphic was good, the voice acting was great (mostly same as t1&2 and i love it) great movies before every mission..

As the time come...as far as the new game is at least like TDS will be good....scares me that no one will rebuild old engine...or does he ?

[jtr7]

As has been said many times these last five years: It's not about whether it's a good game or not, but a good Thief experience. For many of us--and if you can't understand this, you likely never will--the older titles blew our minds and TDS was just okay or pretty good, but not even close to paradigm-shifting. For many of us, the older titles became the high-mark no other game experience has come close to. The older titles are to us what Star Trek is to a lot of astronauts, we wouldn't be where we are without it, our futures became entwined, we are having experiences and relationships we never would've imagined. It inspired in ways TDS has never has. Look around. Where are all the TDS fan-fictions, fan-made projects compared to the the older titles? Even the huge fans of TDS don't know half the plot. The older titles spoiled us from fully enjoying other games. We mod other games to be more like Thief. The older titles feel more like a home away from home when we want to escape than TDS. TDS feels to us like a knock-off or counterfeit game that tries hard and almost gets things right. I never respected TDS until I rummaged through the gamefiles and found the rest of the heart & soul I was looking for in-game. The pieces are in their, buried half-the-time under everything that's different or clumsy. As I've said before, the older titles were love at first play, TDS was an acquired taste.

[fayfuya]

It should have side missions that we would have to discover by our own, many secrets and castles we can break to without any preticular target, just break into a castle.