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sparhawk

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About sparhawk

  • Birthday 11/23/1968

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  1. Personally I always thought of TDM as a game. However, technically, when you absolutelty have to classify it, I guess it is what we always said it is. A toolkit. But this is from a developer perspective. From a player perspective it is a game, because you can download a map and start playing it. For the majority of poeple it may be usefull to think of it as a game, because they wont delve into the details of it anyway. It mostly depends on what you define to be TDM. Is TDM the whole package? Or is it the original mod we started many years ago? Is "Thief" the whole package of each and every map included, that anybody ever released? If somebody never plays Thief and just enjoys to build missions using Dromed, would the lable suddenly change and Thief would no longer be a game (for this person)? Why is this "distinction" even important? It should be clear for players that they can play TDM without even having to any editing or development on their own, and this makes it a game to them. And for all the mappers, it is both. A toolkit and a game. When Quake 3 was released, I never considered it to be a "real" game either, because there was no singleplayer. It was just about online gaming.
  2. There seems to be a free version of Shroud as well, so we could add it to TDM. http://www.ogre3d.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=65004
  3. I find it a bit funny if somebody says that game developers should listen to their fans, while at the same time complaining that games tend to become more and more money oriented, because in my opiniont these two are interconnected. You can either develop a game because you have a vision, or because you want to make money. If you have a vision, then you should try to implement it the way you intend it to be. Of course there are certain aspects that you may have to get frmo the outside if you want your game to be enjoyed by lots of poeple. But this is mostly in regard to technical aspects (like accessability). Making a game is similar to making art, and if you want to express your vision, you can't really let thousands of people tell you how you should implement YOUR vision. If you are in for the money, then of course you should listen to the audience, which is what ultimaltely leads us to, what was earler named, the pop culture. Dumbing down television series, music, and of course also game, to appeal to a broad audience, thus hopefully maximzing the income. Personally I think that a professional game developer has to find a mix between the two. They have to make money, but also should try to share their vision. If they succeed, we have something we call a good game, just like there is good art and bad art. In this regard I can easily understand that they have to implement T4 the way which is currently considered "state of the art" in game making. And frankly, I think that WE thief fans are only a very small niche where a game studion can't really make a living off, if they try to appeal only to us and neglect the broad audience where the money is. And the people funding these studios are propably mostly on the money, so there is not much leeway for creativity, unless you manage to create a AAA title which raises enough money to allow for more creative directions. That's why I think it is really a very good thing that now games are funded by kickstarter, because I really hope that this allows the creative freedom to make good and interesting games without the pressure of a publisher who is keen on maximzing the profit. It's certainly not surprising that many really new creative ideas are released by Indies and not by major brands.
  4. If you already know C++, Java is not a big deal to learn. And the C++ skills can benefit using Java because it is really object oriented.
  5. Right! I don't really understand why devs want to control every aspect of our gaming experience. I consider it a well designed game, if a game can handle those type of things that the devs did NOT anticpate and still as a player getting fun out of it. So why block this like a holy grail? That's one thing I really love with Painkiller. You have really nice architecture and if you see some spot you can try to attack it. If you manage it, you get rewarded with a feeling that you managed something that not everbody can do and the game doesn't stop you. This way you can spend a lot of time even after you played through every anticipated nook and cranny that was intended to be seen and still get something out of the game.
  6. That's SO right. When I played "Alan Wake" there was a scene rather early on, where you had a fantastic view over a mountain lake. I enjoyed it so much, that I didn't even get past the savepoint for quite some time, because you can not go back anymore after that, unless you start a new game of course (did I mention that I ABSOLUTELY hate this kind of savepoints?). Didn't like the game when I continued playing, because I ran into the "deadly savepoint" trap later on and this was a killer for me.
  7. In the january issue of Gamestar (German PC game magazine) TDM is on the DVD. There is a short article on the very first page as well praising it. They have articles on their website as well (all in german of course): Screenshots http://www.gamestar.de/spiele/thief/bilder/themengalerie/the_dark_mod,44861,97323.html Video: http://www.gamestar.de/videos/specials,20/the-dark-mod,72463.html Article: http://www.gamestar.de/spiele/thief/artikel/the_dark_mod,44861,3029213.html
  8. If you want to play a really tough game, then give "Dark Souls" a try. It's the first game I EVER played, where I don't even manage to get out of the "Introl" level, which is customarily an easy walkthrough to make learn the basics.
  9. That's a community project though, right?
  10. USB 3.0 is fast only if you use a whole USB 3.0 interface chain. If you have an USB 2.0 interface with an USB 3.0 HDD attached, then .... it is USB 2.0 speed.
  11. Can't say that I agree. Personally I like T4 better than TDS, which doesn't mean that I really like T4 in the context of Thief. I guess if I would have never seen T1/T2 I might like T4. Not compleltly, but still could enjoy it on it's own (provided the bugs are removed).
  12. Do I need this? Because I'm runing the 32Bit exe anyway, as I only have a 32bit system. I check it out anyway and see what this is.
  13. Looking at the game on it's own, I can see to what audience it appeals to. Unfortuantely that is probably not the audience we are having here mostly. I played now through the first level and reached the Clocktower. Well, the graphics looks nice. That "1920" looks seems to be mostly on the loading screens, which is not reall good, but well... Unfortunately my gaming experience is rather bad, because my machine seems to be lacking enough memory (4GB), so I have constantly lockups and have to wait until the machine can continue. Not sure if this is really a fault of the program, because on GTA IV I also already noticed that my machine comes to age. So I will not hold that up against T4. Even though I find the graphics nice, it doesn't really feel Thief for me. Looks to modern IMO and there is not that atmosphere, I can see in the original Thief (means before TDS). From the articles I expected something like Assassins Creed style gameplay, and it's pretty close. Only that AC runs really smooth and the animations don't interfere with the gaming experience (quite on the contrary it feels really fun to run through the cities). When I'm standing still and watching guards, there is almost something like Thief feeling coming up, but unfortunately those moments are rather limited. All in all, the maps feel cramped, and there is zero incentive or possibility to explore, which I find the biggest problem. It's totally annoying that you have all this nice architecture surrounding you, and you know that you can't do anything with it. The bugs with the audio can be fixed. Yes, it is annoying, but this can be remedied, but the mission design is built in, and will not change, even if some patches will remove some problems. What I really feel horrible is the HUD elements, that look like being made for a SciFi game. You are supposed to be a Thief in some medevieal looking country, and you have all these computer elements flashing over the screen. Well, at least Erin is gone really soon.
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