kyyrma
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Posts posted by kyyrma
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So how much did you pay them, Kyyrma?
Let's just say I won't be eating out for a while...
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Well, I just finished the game a bit ago. Here are some of my impressions, mainly negatives. It's really just easier to blurb out the bad stuff. While I can't deny I've had a lot of fun with the game, in the end the it was a big let down for me.
- The story and voice acting are simply put terrible. There isn't a single likeable character, and all the motion capture stuff that was the reason for Stephen Russell getting the boot is awful. That didn't stop the devs from flaunting it though - the game is completely littered with cutscenes. The villains are the worst of the bunch. For whatever reason every single person who has ever enlisted in the City Watch is now a homicidical maniac that likes rape, killing babies and cackling maniacly. They also say fuck a lot in a jarring american accent. Whatever little they have to say, they say again and again. Its like whiskey and cigars part 2. Best comparison for the story would be Thief fanfiction written by a terribly edgy 13-year old.
- There is very little character interaction. Although its not a staple of the Thief-series, I was actually expecting something more akin to Human Revolution in this respect. You can accept odd jobs from a few NPCs and buy items from merchants however, and the side quests are actually some of the best levels in the game.There are no decisions or dialogue choices to make, the story is strictly on rails.
- The city hub itself is initially very impressive. It's huge in size, and you can travel freely and break into peoples homes at your leisure. However as soon as you realize its cut up into tiny little segments separeted by loading times, it starts becoming more of a chore than fun sandbox to play around with. For example, want to buy new equipment? You have to go through a loading screen. Want to buy focus upgrades? Three loading screens from the clock tower. The mini-games they use to cover up the loading screens require you to tap a button. QTEs like this feel out of place on a keyboard, but worst of all no matter how fast you tap the button, it doesn't speed up the process. It's appears to be completely pointless and only affects the animation. You'll get through once the loading is done.
- Moving Garret around and all the body awareness stuff is amazing. It's probably the best implementation of that in a first persong game since Mirror's Edge. I was also happily surprised to find three movement speeds instead of the current stealth staple of a simple walk / run toggle. The swoop action is pretty fun to use, but its both immersion breaking (it instantly propels Garret 5 meters forward compeltely silently) anda bit overpowered. Its clearly something they added after they saw blink in Dishonored, no matter what the devs say. Its too similar for it to be a coincidence. You aren't forced to use it though, and it makes traversing air ducts much more pleasant.
- The swoop button (space) is also the context sensitive navigation key. Basically you press space in front of a crate and Garret jumps on it. Press it in front of a wall and Garret climbs on top. Unfortunately it doesn't actually work in any reliable way. Sometimes you can't walk on top of trash or stones on the ground, sometimes Garret can make massive leaps upwards when the level design calls for it. That is why most mantling points are marked with a white splash of paint, much like in the new Tomb Raider. After the amazing mantling system of Dishonored, this feels like a huge step back.
- While the city hub is almost like a sandbox (despite the loading times) the main missions are increasingly linear towards the end of the game. They would best be compared to levels in Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Large chambers where you have a few alternative routes, which then funnel into a cutscene and the next room. Its all very disappointing, and even more so when you get to the few levels where you actually get freedom to roam around much like in old Thief games. It's terrible to see all the wasted potential.There is for example an excellent haunted house level, although a bit too much inspired by Shalebridge Cradle. Some of the Mansion-type levels are fantastic as well, and getting around the city while dodging patrols can be a lot of fun.
- The AI on master difficulty is certainly challenging enough. Unlike previous Thief games, these guys also have a pretty good peripheral vision, so you can't approach them recklessly from the side either. They don't seem to relight torches however, and the stuff about the noticing missing patrols appears to be scripted and only occurs on a few levels. I do like that they don't all head to check out disturbances, instead you can hear them saying things like "You go check it out!" while the other guy stays put.
- Graphically the game is truly impressive. It's possibly some of the most detailed level design I have seen. There is small items, clutter and trash everywhere, and the textures are amazing. Although the game can be visually a bit samey, its not quite as bad as screenshots would let you think. There area lot of visually very different locations in the game, all as impressive.
- There are tons of immersion breaking HUD elements and hints shoved at the player if you don't turn those functions off. Unfortunately, if you do, you run into exactly the same problem as in Hitman: Absolution with Professional-mode. There are actions you simply can't know how to perform without the hints enabled. For example, sometimes loading screens between areas are hidden in a mini-game where you slide between stacks of large crates. The only way to spot an entry like this is the hovering interaction marker by the boxes. If you have that disabled, you will have no idea to hold the action key down near the crates to get to a new area. What is worse, those stacks of crates are all around the city, and not all are portals to different areas.
- Another example would be the interaction highlight. Initially I though the interaction highlight worked just like in old Thief games. You look at an item, and it gets a bright white glow to indicate you can interact with it. However toggling that on also activates environmental highlighting, which is the most immersion breaking crap I've ever seen. What it does is highlight all ladders and mantling points in a neon blue at all times, completely ruining the artstyle. I can't fathom what they were thinking when they made the decision to make these two go behind the same toggle.
- If you decide to disable it for immersions sake, you will have a hard time collecting all the loot. That is because the level design is so busy with all sorts of tiny items and clutter around, and there is absolutely TONS of loot on every level: Garret is no longer bothered with only stealing valuable items either. in fact he now has a strange fondness for office supplies. During the game you will mostly be picking up scissors, pens, inkwells and trinkets of the like. Making them out from non-loot items without the highlight is almost impossible, so you will end up just slamming the interact key to loot everything if you haven't the highlighting on.
- When you start a new game, there are also difficulty modifiers. You can remove functions like Focus and takedowns completely, and add tweaks like halving the movement speed of Garret. HOWEVER DON'T DO THAT. I cut down Garrets movement speed in half, and later in the game in one of those cinematic escape sequences what would have been a 3 minute run took me almost three hours to complete
I finally managed it by glitching one of the AIs that shoot arrows at Garret as he escapes through the rooftops. Every time I had to restart this sequence, I had to watch an unskippable cutscene. You can't disable modifiers from the menu. you have to start a new game, and I actually already started a new game at one point thinking the escape was impossible. The game obviously hasn't been tested with all the different settings you can create.
- There are unfortunately tons of bugs in the game: Audio often de-syncs during cutscenes, subtitles seem to always be timed incorrectly, going to stores and watching cutscenes sometimes leaves the letterbox bars on the screen and the only way to remove them is shut down the game and restart. The save system is all over the place. It appears to be timed, so you can only quicksave once and then it has to cool down. However there is no instructions about it in the game, it just sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. The game also crashed frequently, at least on my PC.
I'm expecting that a lot of the technical issues and those related to lack of testing will be quickly patched after release, which will make the experience much more enjoyable. It's understandable that when they give you so many customization options, something is going to break.
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- The story and voice acting are simply put terrible. There isn't a single likeable character, and all the motion capture stuff that was the reason for Stephen Russell getting the boot is awful. That didn't stop the devs from flaunting it though - the game is completely littered with cutscenes. The villains are the worst of the bunch. For whatever reason every single person who has ever enlisted in the City Watch is now a homicidical maniac that likes rape, killing babies and cackling maniacly. They also say fuck a lot in a jarring american accent. Whatever little they have to say, they say again and again. Its like whiskey and cigars part 2. Best comparison for the story would be Thief fanfiction written by a terribly edgy 13-year old.
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Fantastic work. I assume the lighting has been added manually?
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I seem to recall that frob_button is shootable by default?
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Glad to hear you guys liked it!
I'm still at work on my second map. It's going to be a sequel of sorts, so keep tuned. I was hoping to release in January, but having to do my thesis and working for two gaming publications at the same time has but a bit of cramp on my mapping. It's coming however, hopefully soon! :-)
If you don't mind slight spoilers, there are some early screenshots here and here.
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Which is usually referred to as Thief 1, TDP, or Thief Gold in its gold version. Thiaf sounds as if you would want to ridicule it, sorry if that's not the case. At least it sounds very stupid, which is most probably also the reason why Eidos dropped the name. Why not just call it by its real name, which is Thief. *shrugs* Noone is taking anything away from the classic games.
I think its really obnoxious how remakes like to pick the name of the original and not differentiate from it somehow. I mean would you be OK with me writing a re-imagination of Lord of the Rings, called Lord of the Rings, which would soon be available in bookstores everywhere while the original would be slowly taken out of circulation? The problem is, if younger generations go looking for information about Thief these days, they might actually think there are no more games than the one coming out now.
Don't believe it? I've talked to lot of kids who think Deus Ex: Human Revolution is the only game in its series.
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Schrödinger's Sequel is good/bad until it's released!
If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck... ;-)
But yeah, release is so close that I wouldn't worry myself with speculation. In roughly two weeks we will all know exactly how this new Thief turned out.
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Wow... that is seriously... wha?!?!! Ok...maybe not going to buy it.
To be fair he did mention a lot of good things as well, just not enough to outweigh the bad.
Nevertheless, I'm still going to give NuThief a chance. Wouldn't be first time marketing has made an okayish game seem worse than it really was, although I'm not all that optimistic.
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My favorite blatant lie is @1:35 ..."In the world of Thiaf, nothing is out of bounds and nothing is out of reach"
I talked to someone who has played the game, and he said his breaking point was when he realized he couldn't jump down from a ceiling beam if there was no enemy below him. Context sensitive!
Also, this annoyed me to no end. It's like they are ripping on over the top summer blockbusters, except they do it with a straight face:
But of course all this material is made by the marketing division, and even the devs must be cringing when watching this.
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Here it is
Thief 101 Trailer / Launch Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A0bYLJlGbo
This thing plays like a parody of itself. I couldn't help but burst out laughing at 2:46 onwards
Use your blackjack for...
THUMP
... silent ...
CRACK
... stealthy...
SPLAT
... non-lethal takedowns ...
SMASH
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What the hell is with the prices in those shots? A single broadhead arrow costs 15G??? That's the same cost as a "choke" (gas) arrow, and three times as much as a water arrow!
This seems to be the trend in every stealth game these days. Look at Hitman, Splinter Cell etc. In Blackilist a single gun could cost up to a million dollars!
It's ridiculous and terribly immersion breaking, but I think it again boils down to catering to the masses. Money is most often a measure of score, and people want to feel amazing so you have to hand out thousands and millions even for the average player. On the other hand stealth games have to be balanced so that you can't have unlimited resources, so what to do? Hike up the item prices.
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Tons of previews today, apparently Square Enix had some closed event for selected members of press.
http://au.ign.com/ar...of-infiltration
http://www.eurogamer...r-and-for-worse
http://www.polygon.c...ast-improvement
http://www.destructo...ef-269451.phtml
http://www.videogame...eview-3562.html
http://www.computera...steal-the-show/
http://www.usgamer.n...ts-name-implies
http://blog.us.plays...-thief-for-ps4/
http://www.digitalsp...ing-reboot.html
http://www.pcgamesn....f/hands-thief-0
Didn't find much new info though, mainly marketing hype. Apparently there are three categories players are scored on upon completing a chapter, just like Splinter Cell: Blacklist (Ghost, Opportunist, Predator vs. Blacklist's Ghost, Panther, Assault).
Also, this quote from Polygon:
The game's music built excitement and added an edge and various spots. Only for a split second was the modern industrial styling a little jarring with the Victorian environment. But, it slotted right in with Garrett's leather-clad character, his situation and the decaying city.So the soundtrack might at least be informed by Brosius' stuff - or could they even have decided to use some of his tracks after all? At least it won't be full-on Hans Zimmerman like the trailers have had us think.
Oh, and this jewel from IGN:
Garrett is a terrible thief. Invariably, each of his big jobs ends with the “Master Thief” getting caught red-handed. He is, however, a phantom during infiltrations and formidable during escapes. At least, he has the potential to be, if your skills are up to the task. -
Sounds great kyyrma. We could definately do with some more weather themed FMs. The problem is that snow and rain particle effects are such a drag on performance. I tried to put some rain particle effects in a few of my FMs and it absolutely killed the performance. I should be OK with my current FM though. All the Ai are confined to the inside of the manor and there's nothing outside except snow patches, some trees and a few wooden huts.
Tell me about it, working with rain in my current level has turned out to be terribly frustrating. Performance drops, particles coming through roofs, particles simply disappering, particles showing through walls, rain flying upwards...
I wonder if the rain effects are a thing that should possibly be given a revamp at some point? I haven't yet tried Sotha's custom particle, which apparently solved a bunch of those problems. Maybe that could be integrated into TDM.
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Well, I'm really glad you have come this far. A remake of the original System Shock is something the fans have been talking about for ages, and the very dedicated modding community around SS2 would probably rally to work with you if you were to go serious with it.
I'm actually a bit suprised by how little comments your thread has garnered on Strange Bedfellows. The reason is most likely that people just couldn't bear another disappointment, as there have been numerous attempts before that have left a very sour taste for the community. Most often people get terribly hyped up, then the dev loses interest and cuts all communication, and in the end all the progress he has made is forever lost. It's a really frustrating cycle.
Anyway, you've done a great job from the beginning by documenting your progress and also I gather your plan from the start was to make (at least) a modders resource.
On the TDM side of things, I'm personally interested in carving out a part of the first UW floor and reshaping it into a mission that pays homage to the roots of Looking Glass. Once I'm finished with my current map, hopefully.
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Thanks Sotha, I'll look into them!
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I'm having a bit of trouble setting up rain with emitters in my map.
I changed from rain patches to emitters like suggested, and got a major improvement in FPS. Now I have emitters spaced about 64 units from each other or so, covering the whole street area. My problem is that the raindrops vanish if looked at from a certain angle.
If I stand directly under an emitter, and look straight forward (level to the ground) I can see the rain falling from it. If I look a bit down however, the particles vanish. This has got me stumped.
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I have light switches on a wall that's 8 thick.
The player can frob them from the other side of the wall.
I tried putting a frob blocker func_static on the opposite side of the wall, but ...
-- giving it a frob_distance large enough to block the frob from the wrong side also grabs the frob from the correct side, so the switches don't trigger
-- giving it a frob_distance small enough to not catch the frob from the front also doesn't catch the frob from the back
Does anyone have a proven method to solve this problem?
Well, I tried your original method and got something... barely workable.
The key seemed to be in giving the blocking func_static a higher frob_bias combined with a longer frob_distance.
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After quickly dispatching the guards Garrett has
After quickly dispatching the guards Garrett has
After quickly dispatching the guards Garrett has
Why. Just why?
If NuThief really is designed so that it accommodates classic Thief gameplay and ghosting, why can't they even once show a playthrough like that? It's just making me damn skeptical.
The stuff about the NPCs reacting to shadows sounds great, but my inner pessimist is saying that it might work like that only in specific areas. They would have talked about it more otherwise, because tech where AI reacts to dynamic shadows would be a huge selling point.
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Presenting Coldheart Manor:
Love to see some snow.
Makes me think it would be great to see a map with some inspiration from a Scandinavian medieval setting. Would give the level a bit of exotic, alien flavor. Lots of creepy-ass mythology, snow and drunken peasants.
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Yes. I started with 12 and worked it down. It has the same problems: too large and it grabs the frob from both sides, too small, and you can frob the switches from the back.
Do you remember where in your map you had this problem? I could look and see what you did.
I think it was the button inside the dressing cabinet upstairs, I had trouble with it being frobable through the doors. It could be that I fixed it with a block of target_setfrobable though, can't go check right now as this computer doesn't have DR installed.
Could you make it into a sort of fake button?
Have your current button on the wall, but set its frob_distance to 0 (or maybe 1 is the minimum?). Then make another button that is nodraw and non-solid, and make the visible button it's frob_peer. Then you can position the invisible button so that it gives the illusion of pressing the actual visible button, but so that it can't be reached from the other side.
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So, you know with so much flirting around the possibility of going for a full remake of Undeworld in the Doom 3 engine. Have you given it any thought?
Get a small team together. Write a system for handling dialogue and inventory, get some mappers to clean out the levels and add some extra eye-candy...
It would of course be a ton of work, but still much more feasible than many remake projects out there due to the work you have already done in converting the levels into TDM and the fact that the Doom 3 engine happens to be a pretty good fit for something like UW.
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Have you tried tweaking frobbox_size?
IIRC I fixed a similar problem from In a Time of Need by adjusting that.
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Here is a little update on the main street area.
I had to tone down the rain for time being, because it eventually started to take a huge toll on FPS. Now I'm back to solid 60FPS at all times, but I hate how bland everything looks. The yellow brick building on the left belongs to the League of Seafaring Merchants, and is to be the main attraction of the level. Still very WIP, missing the roof and using placeholders for the upstairs windows.
I'm planning on adding a market stall or two to the open area, but placing them and also keeping FPS solid is turning out to be a bit of a issue. I'll see if I can squeeze out even better performance by switching the rain patches to emitters, like someone suggested before.
Here is the Tavern as it is now, almost finished so spoilerish I guess:
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I thought so. Glad that someone still has the common courtesy of not blabbering over their videos. I enjoy good commentary now and then, but most of the time I'd rather just see the gameplay. Especially since not everyone was born a comedian, despite most YouTubers seeming to think so
Anyway, not to steer further off-topic, welcome again and thanks for the videos. Was great to see a blind playthrough of my own map also.
alt tabbing?
in TDM Tech Support
Posted
Funny there should be a thread about this right now. I actually just got back to mapping after getting a new computer, and I had to come search the forums for Simple Minimizer.
It's a simple stand-alone AutoHotKey script made by forum use eqagunn. I love it for other programs as well, not TDM.
You can download it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?3yob4vt91y8ehdb
All you need to do is to have that running, and Alt + M will minimize anything, period.