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Thief 4 is trash.


Mystry

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They're too busy pissing on buildings corpses

 

To me, a thug saying, "Now I'm gonna piss on ya," to his dying opponent sounds way more believable than "Every building, chances are I've robbed it, slept in it, or pissed up against it."

 

No one crass enough to talk about "pissing" is going to say "pissed up against it". They'd just say, "pissed on it." (and have these writers never heard of parallel structure?)

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Video still shows the pissing image while saying 'now i've got others to do the hard work'..of what? pissing 'up against buildings'? Sure sounds hard..

Even if the message is that the hard work is robbing..that makes Basso doing what? Bumming around the city..That makes me eager to steal back the life to it..I am with the city guards at this point.. :D

 

I think the problem that plagues productions these days, is that they do things by prescribed recipes and just throw in all the cheap ingredients that substitute the real flavour..

Edited by _Atti_
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Video still shows the pissing image while saying 'now i've got others to do the hard work'..of what? pissing 'up against buildings'? Sure sounds hard..

Even if the message is that the hard work is robbing..that makes Basso doing what? Bumming around the city..That makes me eager to steal back the life to it..I am with the city guards at this point.. :D

 

I think the problem that plagues productions these days, is that they do things by prescribed recipes and just throw in all the cheap ingredients that substitute the real flavour..

 

That's not the case with Eidos Montreal. Did you play Deus Ex: Human Revolutions? That game is pretty amazingly written and the stealth gameplay is solid. I'm hoping they had to do this trailer on a deadline and that's the reason why it's so underwhelming because this is a little confusing. Still reserving judgement until I play the actual game itself.

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Amazingly written? I found it utterly forgettable. Paper thin characters and plots in uninspired locations.

 

It was nice enough as a thinking mans cover based shooter mind - a sort of Splinter Cell with Deus Ex style rpg elements on the side that worked surprisingly well. But give it a few years I doubt it'll be remembered as one of the greats.

 

And aside from some inoffensive muzak, the audio work was pretty much non existent. That bothers me with Thief around the corner.

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And aside from some inoffensive muzak...

 

I'm sorry, but you might be quite alone on this one. The music in DX:HR is one of the best soundtracks I've ever listened to. But of course, your mileage may vary....

My Eigenvalue is bigger than your Eigenvalue.

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Amazingly written? I found it utterly forgettable. Paper thin characters and plots in uninspired locations.

 

You could make a case for the bosses being paper thin, I found them quite forgettable as well, but to say that every character is paper thin? I found most of them to be very well developed, especially with the augment that lets you analyze people and influence conversations. The plot, with the exception of the very ending which I found to be weak, was very good in my opinion. I don't really know what to say, you apparently did not like it. And I found the locations to be very memorable. The level design is great.

 

Come on now, I like HR but stealth was absolutely abysmal in that game, and the plot was rubbish.

 

How was the stealth rubbish? And the plot, for that matter.

Edited by Bridge
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i think one of the problems with that video is that it was probably originally written in french, then badly translated to english, now that would make sense if they were in France, but they're not.

 

rotascoped = they take live action, shoot it with a movie camera, easiest with a cell phone, then draw over the frames in say a paint program adding extra bits that are not in the original film, then they stick the frames together to get a movie.

 

Why piss on a building when there would be an open sewer running down the middle of the street if it was built on a medieval city design, even if it has an underground system there would still be access points in the ground for liquid out in the streets to piss into. Probably better to keep the piss as it can be used to make saltpeter, in that case he's just pissing away money.

Edited by stumpy
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i think one of the problems with that video is that it was probably originally written in french, then badly translated to english, now that would make sense if they were in France, but they're not.

 

They're based in Montreal, Quebec so I think it makes perfect sense.

 

rotascoped = they take live action, shoot it with a movie camera, easiest with a cell phone, then draw over the frames in say a paint program adding extra bits that are not in the original film, then they stick the frames together to get a movie.

 

I was asking what rotoscoping he was referring to. Why would there be rotoscoped animation in Thief? He asked the question expectantly, like the trailer was supposed to be rotoscoped.

Edited by Bridge
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How was the stealth rubbish? And the plot, for that matter.

 

Like every cover-based stealth games, you can abuse cover so much it's not even fun. The maps are very artificial with the same stealth paths every time, without fail. Every time you see some entrance you can use, you can be sure that if you see another one in another map you can use it too, and these are made very obvious since they all use the same kind of models every time. The enemies have really poor vision too, even on Give Me Deus Ex, and let's not talk about the radar augment that spoils all the fun. But hey the stealth was also pretty terrible in DX too so I guess that's that.

 

I dislike plots where you are the "super chosen one" and the endings are really really bad. You can see the "twists" in the plot come from miles away (the part in Singapore for example is pretty bad). Nah seriously it's not good. The game has lots of pros but the stealth and the plot are not.

Edited by skacky
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Like every cover-based stealth games, you can abuse cover so much it's not even fun. The maps are very artificial with the same stealth paths every time, without fail. Every time you see some entrance you can use, you can be sure that if you see another one in another map you can use it too, and these are made very obvious since they all use the same kind of models every time. The enemies have really poor vision too, even on Give Me Deus Ex, and let's not talk about the radar augment that spoils all the fun. But hey the stealth was also pretty terrible in DX too so I guess that's that.

 

What are you even talking about? I personally did not find the levels to be artificial or "the same stealth paths every time, without fail." Also, if you dislike the radar augment so much then don't use it. On my first playthrough of Dishonored for example I used no magic except for blink and very infrequently dark vision - on my second I used no magic at all. The game is a complete joke if you use all of the powers but it actually provides quite a decent challenge if you don't use them. I could say the same thing about cover - but I don't have anything against cover mechanics. I don't agree that the in order to play the game you have to abuse them or that using them detracts from the experience in any way. I prefer a more nontransparent approach to cover like in the Splinter Cell games pre-Conviction, but it is hardly as much of a problem as you describe. IMO, the stealth in Deus Ex is not terrible either. Perfect? No, but I don't see how you can possibly call it terrible.

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They're based in Montreal, Quebec so I think it makes perfect sense.

 

Not really. The game is primarily rooted in English, it would make little sense to hire a non English speaker to write it, translate it poorly into English and then not even have a native English speaker say "this is pretty bad". That would be ridiculous if true.

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I think the issue is that the game was designed with paths in mind, actual paths. Most older games used paths to connect areas, but did not really try too hard to provide paths within the areas.

 

I got DXHR with one of my cards, I haven't really played much as Steam kept annoying me to update it, so I removed it :/ Anyway, the paths were a bit too 'hey, there's the obvious stealth route', 'there's the obvious cover-an-lame route', 'there's the <insert gimmick> route. Next area? Pretty good chance you run into the same sort of thing. It's what happens when you design everything to follow the classic mage/warrior/rogue options. You never really have to be think about stuff, you can mix up your approach, but it's just too easy to take the easy cop-out.

 

Old games were more like 'We made a cool map', it wasnt all 'We need to make a map which ticks all these boxes, looks great, makes you feel like X, has the same style as all the others and the whole production team can bike-shed about the details'. You got a game and some levels sucked, others were amazing. But all the time you have that contrast of possibly brilliant or just mediocre (unless the game was rushed out the door). Now you just have mediocre, because there is no real contrast.

 

Some poppies are tall, some are short. You don't have to cut them all down for a good crop.

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Serpentine explains it better than me. Every room in DXHR is exactly the same as the previous room. You have very obvious setpieces in every room, but pretty much all modern games suffer from this (even Dishonored). Older games were a lot more vague in these setpieces, and the imagination went wild.

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Most older games used paths to connect areas, but did not really try too hard to provide paths within the areas.

 

And that's a good thing?

 

Anyway, the paths were a bit too 'hey, there's the obvious stealth route', 'there's the obvious cover-an-lame route', 'there's the <insert gimmick> route. Next area? Pretty good chance you run into the same sort of thing.

 

It's a gross oversimplification to say that the game is an unbroken sequence of rooms with x immediately recognizable and distinct paths every single time. Some of the areas may be designed like that, and I don't deny that it's problematic when games try to be too general with their level design to cater to a lot of different playstyles, but that does not mean it is automatically a problem. I found the majority of the levels in Deux Ex: HR to be very well designed. They have a very nice aesthetic feel to them IMO and the stealth gameplay was appealing. Just because you guys for some reason hated it doesn't mean it is factually bad.

 

Now you just have mediocre, because there is no real contrast.

 

Again, very debatable. You act as if all of the levels were distilled into this amorphous and stagnant three-way fork when that is simply not the experience I or a pretty large amount of people had. At times it was very obvious I was being railroaded into going a certain path because I was playing stealthily but far from all of the time.

 

Every room in DXHR is exactly the same as the previous room.

 

It is not.

 

(even Dishonored).

 

Disagree.

 

Older games were a lot more vague in these setpieces, and the imagination went wild.

 

Sometimes, that is completely offset by the countless "older games" that had horrible level design that complemented the gameplay in no way whatsoever.

Edited by Bridge
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  • And that's a good thing?
  • It's a gross oversimplification.
  • Just because you guys for some reason hated it doesn't mean it is factually bad.
  • Again, very debatable.

me·di·o·cre [mee-dee-oh-ker]

adjective

  1. of only ordinary or moderate quality; neither good nor bad; barely adequate: The car gets only mediocre mileage, but it's fun to drive.
    Synonyms: undistinguished, commonplace, pedestrian, everyday; run-of-the-mill.
    Antonyms: extraordinary, superior, uncommon, incomparable.

 

I found the game uncompelling. I have nothing against it, but neither do I feel that it was a good game.

 

Not everything needs to be black or white, contrast also means you can have gray. You don't need to love or hate a game, you can play it and feel nothing for it, you might enjoy it but not endorse it. You can feel it is not as good as you would have liked, but feel that on its other merits it's not qualified as a bad game.

 

While you might not deconstruct game scenes into logical elements and design choices, it's part of how I have played games since I was a kid, I appreciate games that take a few risks, that are not hugely polished and which allow me to be surprised by them. Why? Because they make me unable to dictate the gameplay and allow me to relax and play more naturally. When I play an FM that I have enjoyed, I often rush to DR to pull it all apart and look inside, learn how it all fits together, how the author thought -- and most of all appreciate the effort even more.

 

Am I a bad person for it? Does it in some way offend you? Do you think all games are art? Is art not able to be critiqued? Do commercial games not count as art? Should commercial games be treated differently?

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Dude, seriously. I'm not talking about visually identical rooms (if that is what you thought I was saying), I'm talking about rooms using the exact same gameplay patterns over and over again. And believe me it is exactly the same with Dishonored. In every room you have pipes/lamps/stuff up high you can get to, stuff you can crawl under or rat holes. I have finished that game several times with the DLCs too, and it is always the same thing. Actually I think the best example of this is Bioshock Infinite, it's a great example of how to not design your level. Also, I cannot name many older games that had horrible level design, but I'd be curious to know which ones you think had bad level design.

Edited by skacky
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DXHR was fine. But I didn't like the ending.

 

The worst part was the encapsulated gameplay:

each room is an encapsulated gameplay element. AI run on their rails of few waypoints never deviating from it. AI,

on patrol, never travel out from their area. You kill everyone in an area and an AI from other area never bumps into that area to discover the bodies.

 

IMHO good stealth design requires to have local AI (the encapsulated dudes that stick to their local area) and roaming AI that wander in a wider area, possibly through the whole map. DXHR lacked completely the roaming kind.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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The relevant term is 'over-engineered'. You have to design your map for it to work well, and that requires a fair deal of looking at the individual elements that make it up. For example, if you want non-linearity, you should add loops, vertical movement options and alternate paths. But formalising design too much creates a feeling of artificiality, because you are not designing a cohesive 3D space, you are designing a sequence of (individually closed) puzzles. For example, in DX:HR, gameplay almost exclusively takes place in discrete rooms which offer pre-made pathways - in the original DX, the approach is dictated by a more continuous and organic environment environment (even if it still dictates your progression to a certain extent through gateways and choke points).

 

Modern level design is too functionalist for some of our tastes;

  • partly because of development costs (designing an additional room can become prohibitively expensive, which is also why you no longer see too many secret sections in maps - or only very small ones),
  • partly because of trying too hard to tell a story (which, in the hands of mediocre storytellers, invites excessive linearity),
  • and partly because of the ideology of 'fun' (which tends to propose only focused and guided action is valuable, and elements which disrupt the flow of action, or may confuse some players in your focus groups should be cut).

This sort of design is very popular, because it fits into how huge teams managing huge budgets and huge costs do their thing, and also because it is an easy sell in PPT presentations and design manuals. But it also ends up dissolving gameplay into a series of compartmental set-pieces.

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Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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The ideology of fun. I think that just summed up contemporary gaming culture in a term.

 

We need a term for our particular culture... I think authenticity is an important part of it.

The world is alive, and we're mere guests sneaking through it.

When something happens, it feels real.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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For example, in DX:HR, gameplay almost exclusively takes place in discrete rooms which offer pre-made pathways

 

I never imagined, for example, that the factory early in Deus Ex was an actual factory. Their were factory themed areas: store rooms, some offices, Some, err, 'labs'. But there wasn't a narrative being told in the level design that connected them in any way. No products were seen being produced and found in varying states of completion for example. Just corridor / arena / corridor / arena over and over.

 

Considering Eidos Montreal were bigging up the systems simulation side of DX:HR in their PR, it's a shame they didn't try harder to simulate cohesive places rather than rooms.

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Their artistic design would have really shined if they had done that too.

So many individual rooms by themselves looked great.

They just suffered from what you guys are talking about, which even the best looking artistic design can't paper over.

 

Dishonored I thought did a much better job of holistic level design.

You could tell that former Thief FM mappers had worked on it. B)

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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