First person, third person or both

[Hypevosa]

Originally Posted by Hypevosa

How about we do one one better, BigBoss. I'll go through all of the places and things we know exist in the first 2 games where 3rd person camera would be a hindrance to gameplay.

ASSUMPTIONS
-- Camera style is 3rd person over the shoulder, ala TDS.
-- the 3rd character model is ignored when accounting for physics in the first person, thus allowing the player to balance on beams fine, get close to walls, etc.
-- Camera does not clip through the environment, since that usually results in seeing through levels or seeing utter darkness and other fun things.
-- Dynamic hands allows for locks to be in their proper place on doors so that lockpicking doesn't take place in the middle of a door for some reason...

GOALS
-- use 3rd person the entire time, switching to first person perspective is cheating.
-- 3rd person camera is supposed to be ideal, meaning the player has control of it the entire time and it is never locked into the corner of a room or other similar tricks that avoid camera control issues.

Thief: The Dark Project Gold (has more levels)
-- Keeper Training
----- The corridor to the secret basketball court has a rather low ceiling, a minor inconvenience at best, as once you get in the basketball court the ceiling is high enough that it doesn't matter.
----- Trying to throw the basketball (or any other object) accurately in the third person would be awkward.
-- Lord Bafford's Manor
---- 3rd person camera would force the player to be slightly further from the wall if they wanted to look in through the gate and see the guards out front having the discussion about the bear pits. This might set them off and have them go alert once the conversation is over.
---- The sewers are narrow and short, meaning the camera would be stuck behind Garrett, blocking the player's view. Not a terrible problem given the lack of AI.
---- In the room with the lever that opens the gate in the same sewers there's a valuable necklace under the surface of the water. The necklace blends rather well, and is small enough to barely be perceptible. The low ceiling, combined with Garretts character model would make locating this necklace with 3rd person rather difficult.
---- trying to sneak around the drunk guard would be awkward, the camera getting stuck on the shed, or blocking the player's view of Garrett with said shed. Getting the camera inside the shed would be an unpleasant experience at best.
---- Once inside Bafford's manor there are several sections with low ceilings, I'll only note them this one time.
---- Narrow staircase in bafford's manor would be fun to try and rotate the camera in.
---- Small ring in the room with the fireplace would be hard to perceive.
---- small secret corridor to sceptre room would also be fun.

Actually, I'm going to stop there. I don't have time to work through all this on my own - that's actually what I was hoping JTR might help me with since he has more extensive knowledge about the first 2 games. However the fact remains that every single level (or nearly every single level) in the first 2 games contains objects and sections where a 3rd person camera would not be conducive to play, or would simply not function to an acceptable standard for the player.

1. Lower ceilings
2. Narrow corridors
3. Narrow corridors with places the player would normally look through (Ramirez's secret passages between rooms)
4. Narrow crawlspaces (fireplaces, ventilation shafts)
5. Small rooms (a certain broom closet with a switch that turns of a certain alarm system that's cleverly hidden in the door frame)
6. Small loot (numerous rings, lucky coins, diamonds, etc)
7. Buttons hidden under desks/behind chairs/etc.
8. Loot that's fallen behind/inbetween/under objects
etc. etc. etc.

Go ahead, play TDP and TMA, and experience all the dozens and dozens and dozens of details in the level designs that would either make using the 3rd person camera difficult, or would be entirely missed because the camera would be far away from them or cause Garrett to block the player's view of them. Heck, the camera in some sections would even ruin some surprises because it might be right next to them.

These details and this depth is part of what makes Thief level design amazing. Thief 4 would be less of a game than the first 2 if it lost this amount of depth.

This is in the poll thread along with all my other thoughts on the subject.

You cannot have an ideal, limitless first person world design, and also tack on a perfect 3rd person camera. You must choose to either sacrifice world design or sacrifice 3rd person players' enjoyment of the game since they'll either be stuck with clunky, uncontrollable or inconvenient camera controls.

[Platinumoxicity]

Originally Posted by xAcerbusx

It seems to me like it was more likely a function of multiple artists, from LGS and Ion Storm, putting their own spin on him. Then it was blown out of proportion by the more regressive elements in the Thief community after the fact, to attach more importance to it than was ever really there to begin with.

It could be that the idea of a faceless Garrett came out of that, in combination with the fans' ideas. But wouldn't that still be a great artistic feature despite the possibility of it being just made up afterwards? Couldn't it still be implemented?

Anyway we need something to invalidate the ridiculous way Garrett looked in the 3rd person model of the ingame Garrett in the final release of TDS. It's the most consistent look Garrett has, for the 3rd person players, and that's why so many depictions of him have been influenced with that. And that's why I fear the Garrett in Thief 4 will also have stereotypical action-hero eye scar and splinter-cell glowy eye. The importance of how he looks ingame in 3rd person in one particular game of the series should somehow be diminished to equal importance with every other way he is depicted. Despite other scenes in TDS having less screen time than the ingame model for some players, the way Garrett looks like in them is just as important as how he looks ingame. Actually more so, because there are restrictions on how an ingame model can look, with limited technology. So the cloaked cutscene Garrett is the primary Garrett because in cutscenes his appearance isn't determined by graphics hardware.

Plus if Garrett goes around without concealing his burglary equipment with his cloak again, I'll probably let him get arrested because he's asking for it. It was stupid of him in TDS, it would be even stupider in the future. Mistakes need to be learned from.

[xAcerbusx]

Originally Posted by Platinumoxicity

Plus if Garrett goes around without concealing his burglary equipment with his cloak again, I'll probably let him get arrested because he's asking for it. It was stupid of him in TDS, it would be even stupider in the future. Mistakes need to be learned from.

Aw, come on. It was fun to get captured in TDS, anyways. I did it several times over several playthroughs, just for the benefit of being able to play that 'breaking out of prison' bonus mission.

[Meridius]

Originally Posted by Hypevosa

You cannot have an ideal, limitless first person world design, and also tack on a perfect 3rd person camera. You must choose to either sacrifice world design or sacrifice 3rd person players' enjoyment of the game since they'll either be stuck with clunky, uncontrollable or inconvenient camera controls.

True enough. And because 3rd person has no business being in a Thief game, 1st person is the obvious choice.

[booheads]

I really hope it is First person only. Being allowed to switch to third person really does make the game (especially a stealth game) considerably easier, and nearly god-mode. It will probably also lend to the lame cover-system plaguing every game -> instead of the lean system.

If worse comes to worst, we still have Dishonered, which is FP only, leaning system, and can be fully ghosted. (no kills, pure silent wins)

[xAcerbusx]

Originally Posted by booheads

If worse comes to worst, we still have Dishonered, which is FP only, leaning system, and can be fully ghosted. (no kills, pure silent wins)

I love how people who decried relatively urbane third-person contextual kills in Human Revolution are somehow completely on-board with Dishonored - which overtly wrests control from the player's hands during contextual one-button kills - for no other reason than it's in first-person. Despite the fact that said first-person perspective also makes it extremely difficult to accurately gauge what the computer just did to the enemy with zero input whatsoever from yourself.

Stay classy.

[Caranfin]

Originally Posted by booheads

I really hope it is First person only. Being allowed to switch to third person really does make the game (especially a stealth game) considerably easier, and nearly god-mode. It will probably also lend to the lame cover-system plaguing every game -> instead of the lean system.

If worse comes to worst, we still have Dishonered, which is FP only, leaning system, and can be fully ghosted. (no kills, pure silent wins)

Are you unable to avoid switching to 3rd person if the option is available?

[Platinumoxicity]

Originally Posted by Caranfin

Are you unable to avoid switching to 3rd person if the option is available?

Well, if testing is done with no restrictions on using different modes, level design could end up not supporting one mode. If the level flow test players would play predominantly in 3rd person, details important for flow, mission objectives, secrets or difficulty could be harder to notice for 1st person players beause those things were never really tested with that mode. Also there could be unfair situations that seemed fair to the test group because of the cheating vision of seeing around corners, but are not fair for 1st person players.

Again, I hope the testers know what they are doing. Group A should not have the option to play in 3rd person, and group B should have to play in 3rd. If 3rd person even exists that is.

[Caranfin]

A first-person-only game can also be made poorly. There's nothing intrinsic about a third person option that forces the designers to be dumb.

[Hypevosa]

Originally Posted by Caranfin

A first-person-only game can also be made poorly. There's nothing intrinsic about a third person option that forces the designers to be dumb.

You cannot have perfect 3rd person controls and the perfect freedom you have designing from the first person perspective. One will suffer for the existence of the other. Would you rather 3rd person perspective suffer, causing those who use it to be frustrated at certain points because the camera doesn't do what they want or makes it harder to play the game? Or would you rather the world design suffer to ensure the 3rd person camera users do not encounter situations where the camera makes them enjoy the game less? Sacrifices must be made, what would you prefer?

[Platinumoxicity]

Originally Posted by Hypevosa

Would you rather 3rd person perspective suffer, causing those who use it to be frustrated at certain points because the camera doesn't do what they want or makes it harder to play the game? Or would you rather the world design suffer to ensure the 3rd person camera users do not encounter situations where the camera makes them enjoy the game less? Sacrifices must be made, what would you prefer?

Those are not the only two alternatives. The world design compromises caused by the extra camera movement space is just a cosmetic issue. If you prioritize 3rd person mode beyond reason, you could end up with pseudo-1st person, where it's just a camera stuck in the 3rd person model's head, and it's the animations and 3rd person model movements that determine the 1st person mode movement, not the other way around. But I don't think any game developers would be lazy enough to try something like that again. Two entirely separate modes are easy to support, because one of those modes is is very easy to make. In fact, it's included by default in most commercial game engines. Only if you have a heavily modified hacked engine with programming dead ends, you might run into problems that compromise one or both modes.

Oh, and by the way... Max Payne 3 actually went a very peculiar route. They chose immersive environments over comfortable 3rd person camera movement. The spaces are cramped and every time you walk through a doorway or into a small alley, your camera gets stuck and obscured by surrounding architecture. Still, even though they refused to compromise the realism of the environments, it's not a perfect solution for a 3rd person exclusive game.

[Hypevosa]

well, yeah, we could also have the 3rd option of botching both things, but what's the point of having 2 sets of people pissed off?

[Jace_Auditore]

Originally Posted by xAcerbusx

I love how people who decried relatively urbane third-person contextual kills in Human Revolution are somehow completely on-board with Dishonored - which overtly wrests control from the player's hands during contextual one-button kills - for no other reason than it's in first-person. Despite the fact that said first-person perspective also makes it extremely difficult to accurately gauge what the computer just did to the enemy with zero input whatsoever from yourself.

Stay classy.

Well,in the gameplay demo from E3 you had to hold down a button,not just press and watch the animation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmOogPD2ROI

[booheads]

Originally Posted by xAcerbusx

I love how people who decried relatively urbane third-person contextual kills in Human Revolution are somehow completely on-board with Dishonored - which overtly wrests control from the player's hands during contextual one-button kills - for no other reason than it's in first-person. Despite the fact that said first-person perspective also makes it extremely difficult to accurately gauge what the computer just did to the enemy with zero input whatsoever from yourself.

Stay classy.

That game currently looks to be alot more like Theif1/2 than Theif4. Especially if the third person and "not just about stealth" rumors are true.

Stay wrong.

[xAcerbusx]

Originally Posted by booheads

That game currently looks to be alot more like Theif1/2 than Theif4.

You're basing your entire opinion... on an absence of information and abject rumor! For all you know, at this point, Thief 4 is a byte-for-byte recreation of Thief: The Dark Project!

Originally Posted by booheads

Especially if the third person and "not just about stealth" rumors are true.

Stay wrong.

Actually, considering Thief: Deadly Shadows exists, third person is part of the Thief formula. You can like or dislike it, but you have to accept it as part of the Thief formula just as I - someone who prefers to have an option to switch between either perspective - have had to accept that first-person-only titles in Thief 1 and 2 are Thief games. In fact, my favorite Thief game is first-person-only.

You don't get to pick and choose, carving off whichever you find undesirable. Divorce Deadly Shadows from the equation, and you simultaneously shear some of the best moments and levels from the series entirely, including what's nigh-universally regarded as one of the best single levels in the history of video games! That's a highly irrational (and highly marginal) position to postulate!

Stay marginal.

[Platinumoxicity]

Originally Posted by xAcerbusx

Actually, considering Thief: Deadly Shadows exists, third person is part of the Thief formula. You can like or dislike it, but you have to accept it as part of the Thief formula

I'm not arguing against your 3rd person mode. Although one could say in the same way that the numeral in the title is part of the formula too, and TDS broke the pattern...

Anyway, there are things in Thief that are not part of the formula but are the result of compromises and technical constraints.

- Climbing gloves as a result of a compromise because of rope mechanics not working
- Forgotten swimming caused by not enough time to animate swimming animations
- Architecture restrictions and view blockers caused by polycount limits
- Big rocks surrounding the docks because designers didn't know how to seamlessly blend the playable level with a horizon skybox.
- Tiny size of The City caused by lack of processing resources on the Xbox.
- Ingame Garrett missing his cloak caused by lack of dynamic fabric graphics technology
- Noisy and/or glowing or shining objects caused by the dumb xbox player stereotype
- Famous superstar Garrett caused by a childish and stupid idea of a master criminal

Those things have been in the games, but they have not been established as rigid concepts of the game's lore or core mechanics. They can be changed as easily as... in fact changes would be easier than getting rid of the format of numbered sequels once it had started, or replacing swordfighting with an entirely useless tool, or changing sorcerers to require magic wands all of a sudden, or suddenly introducing invisibility potions.

[Temnus]

In single player :
1st person because it's real and better than 3rd and a lot of fans want the first person
In multiplayer : If there will be 1st person mode and 3rd person mode, the fans will be satisfied

For example in video :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMCfgO6ti30

[joseywales1027]

I find it funny that after 3+ years we're still debating weather Thief4 will be in 3rd person or not. I know there has never been any official yea or nay, but imo it will have both. I just hope that if it does it is something that you can turn off and that 1st person doesn't get sacrificed for it.

[dsung]

There is a mod for GTA 4 which changes the camera to first person. I wouldn't want to jump out of a helicopter anymore. If that doesn't prove how the POV alters the whole experience...

[Meridius]

Originally Posted by xAcerbusx

Actually, considering Thief: Deadly Shadows exists, third person is part of the Thief formula.

Sorry. Third person is not part of the Thief formula. Because the Thief formula is an 'immersive sim', and an immersive sim doesn't include immersion-breaking third person perspective. They blew it in Deadly Shadows when they tried to make it a casual couch game.

You can like or dislike it, but you have to accept it as part of the Thief formula just as I - someone who prefers to have an option to switch between either perspective - have had to accept that first-person-only titles in Thief 1 and 2 are Thief games. In fact, my favorite Thief game is first-person-only.

You don't get to pick and choose, carving off whichever you find undesirable. Divorce Deadly Shadows from the equation, and you simultaneously shear some of the best moments and levels from the series entirely, including what's nigh-universally regarded as one of the best single levels in the history of video games! That's a highly irrational (and highly marginal) position to postulate!

It sounds like you're having trouble differentiating between core design elements and tertiary elements. It's not about preference, it's about objective differences. But if you don't understand the differences, it's easy to see how you might get confused.

[Vhailor]

I play on 1st person perspective, but, in few levels I rellied upon 3rd person perspective (ghost ship and the craddle) because 1st person in those levels are like playing horror game (too scary for me) , so It would be nice if thief 4 had 2 perspectives (like in TDS) so player could choose how he wants to play.
And Garrett in 3rd person is bad? no I dont think so. Its like watching a movie (and movement is truly beutifuly done).
And isn't prowling with cloack is actually Harder then without one? or Garrett is just that good?
Cheers!

[xAcerbusx]

Originally Posted by Meridius

Sorry. Third person is not part of the Thief formula. Because the Thief formula is an 'immersive sim', and an immersive sim doesn't include immersion-breaking third person perspective. They blew it in Deadly Shadows when they tried to make it a casual couch game.

Thief: Deadly Shadows is a 'casual couch game'?

I'm sorry... espousing elitist claptrap of this variety just... immediately abrogates any point you're attempting to divulge, here. Ms. Pac Man is a 'casual couch game'. Call of Duty (which, you'll be happy to know, is exclusively rendered in glorious 'hardcore immersive sim' first-person perspective!) is a 'casual couch game'. The Shalebridge Cradle is nigh-universally extolled as one of the most engrossing horror levels in the history of the medium... it is most certainly not a 'casual couch game'.

Originally Posted by Meridius

It sounds like you're having trouble differentiating between core design elements and tertiary elements. It's not about preference, it's about objective differences. But if you don't understand the differences, it's easy to see how you might get confused.

Actually, seeing as what you regard as 'core' and 'tertiary' are entirely arbitrary, opinionated distinctions that you, yourself, have chosen to interpret as unimpeachable fact... it really is all about preference.

[Hungry Hungry Lilac]

Originally Posted by Vhailor

And isn't prowling with cloack is actually Harder then without one? or Garrett is just that good?
Cheers!

Doing pretty much anything with a cloak on is harder than without it, except hiding stuff into your clothes and protecting yourself from the weather. But I think you know the answer to your second question already. Of course he is that good!

[qkiller]

1st person is best,also both

[Sevket]

Never been fan of FPS so I'd say 3rd person