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What Zerg Rush said, House of Locked Secrets especially is an absolute banger of a mission. Glad to see you're still kicking. The screenshots remind me of Darkwood, hopefully this isn't as scary so I can even consider playing it.

Sure, gameplay rules. I would argue the junk has some gameplay implications, as we all know how loud it is when misplaced. I can't say I've used it that often, but I think it's the kind of realism that is pretty fun when successful. Rewards thinking on your feet. As opposed to say, Thi4f, where the Distraction Objects (glass bottles) were the only throwable items. Not that I play these games for the literal garbage, but I always accepted them as one of these amusing things that exists. Thief 2 wasn't hampered by it at all in my opinion, and I don't find this new frob shader to be that big of a concession either. Especially in my case of missing paintings fairly often. If I have to turn my light off to better see which paintings are cash money, something has gone horribly wrong.

I'm not sure how extreme you're thinking with this statement, but isn't interactivity one of those fun flavors of immersive sims? You can pick food objects and eat them, you can pick up valuables and loot them, you can pick up junk and throw it around (sometimes useful, other times not). Sure you can optimize how you scatter all of it around, but in a believable environment, it tends to be all over the place. I'd rather have too many interactive objects, than too few.

I mean, I like visual novels and walking simulators as much as the next guy, but I'd imagine generally people want to do "stuff" in games like this. Probably a lot of them enjoy manual jumping more than hyper-realistic object inspection. So you would just hope for a better future? But the issue already exists and there are a lot of missions.

I think we're having two different conversations. My issue with loot paintings and the current highlighting is this: I agree that I can walk up to any painting and know that it's loot if it highlights. Except when I miss the highlight itself and walk away.

Wouldn't this whole outlining business affect loot paintings too or am I wrong? That alone would be very helpful; if the environment is anything but pitch-black, which is hard to achieve as is since the lantern exists, the current highlighting is easy to miss when it comes to loot paintings. Especially when it's a mission with a hundred of them; if I'm just walking past a hallway, unless it's a conscious effort to click each one, I've been known to miss them along the way. I'm definitely not one to vouch for making things easier, but I never considered clicking every painting to be very riveting gameplay, nor a mental challenge.

While I don't have a particular opinion on this topic at large, this is true. I think in Lord Edgar's Bathhouse, one piece of loot was a plain old green wine bottle. I recently replayed the mission, and it took me an ungodly amount of time to stumble upon it to meet the quota. And as mentioned, paintings are the worst when it comes to this, no real way of figuring out which ones are loot and which aren't. I especially like it when I forget to frob all of them from the get-go and later realize some of them are in fact loot, so now I have to hunt all of them down again.

I mean, as brief and hurriedly done as it is, it wasn't half-bad. I was expecting it to literally be "run into the first house you see and pick up an item", but there was even a little bit of true Thief-like maneuvering. I've played a fair amount of these kinds of "five-minute wonders" when it comes to Thief 2 fan missions, and I've seen a whole hell of a lot worse. I've seen worse in "real" missions that supposedly work. Big A for effort for sure; some of us just sit here and only daydream of making missions.

Effort like this is very commendable, so I'd def check it out.

Yeah, this sucks. Must not have been more than a few hours before this was posted, that I was wondering how he was doing, since he'd been inactive for a bit. I never had any interactions with him during my short tenure here, and only knew of his condition by a chance, but by all accounts his impact on the mod was significant. Condolences to his family and loved ones, and thanks for the fun times I had playing his missions.

I see. I haven't watched the full game, so I don't think I got to the zombie parts.

I thought about this for a bit, but I probably wouldn't. At least in terms of wanting to recapture any particular feeling or experience. Many of the good times of the past have been stepping stones to other good things, and I wouldn't want to erase them. That said, there are probably a few games that would've been better off had I played them with certain enhancements (Thief 3 with mods, System Shock EE). Thief 3 especially; while the game itself wouldn't have been saved, at least numerous annoyances would've been eliminated. But if I end up replaying it, I have something to look forward to at least. And System Shock remake is on the horizon too, which is fun. Not in the traditional sense, but I swear I remember watching a let's play and the guy beating dogs to death with a lead bar or something.

You know how it is, the director gets all the praise. And the hate. But yeah, kudos to everyone involved. I particularly liked the mad scientist. The voice, the delivery and the writing together reminded me of something I can't quite place. The boozed character was fine, it just became increasingly difficult to make out what he was on about.

Finished on the hardest difficulty, with 1550 loot and three secrets. Took 97 minutes. Like the previous Hidden Hands (both of them I suppose), this was another banger of a mission. And I don't usually say that when There's just a plethora of stuff to discover and do, and never feeling frustrated by anything. Maybe I'd sing a different tune had I missed a piece of loot, but that's how it goes. And considering how many objects you have to find to do all the objectives (I did all of them, I think anyway), I didn't have any trouble finding anything. Despite it being another large and ambitious environment; I pretty much expect nothing less of you at this point. The audio logs were a really fun addition, fit the setting like a glove. That and the other NPC made it a little different of an experience, as these missions tend to be so solitary. If there is one thing I'd criticize, it's tying couple of the doors to audio logs, having to listen to the whole thing and then the door opening automatically. The only reason being that the very first one at the start of the mission got stuck, since I was jumping around waiting for the log to finish. I happened to be standing on top of the entrance at that moment, so it got wedged. Tried listening to the same log two more times, to see if it would close and open again, but no dice. Thankfully it was at the very beginning, so it wasn't a big deal. Another nitpicky note, some of the went grates were difficult to tell to be frobbable. Especially Anyway, another really enjoyable mission. JackFarmer never disappoints.

I have a Vega 56, running a 20.35.10.02 driver, and I don't get this issue.

I do appreciate it being optional. Thinking about it meta-game -wise, it sometimes gets silly when the goal is really difficult to meet, and your thief character insists on spending like all week in the mansion to find one more coin. I don't mind having no traditional entry-points; finding your way is fun. It just depends on how the mission layout is designed, whether running back-and-forth becomes tedious or not. In this case, the area is small enough that it was fine.

After running around for three hours to meet the expert loot quota, I'm finally finished. Quite enjoyable. As mentioned, the end cinematic was a really nice touch. Don't see that almost ever, but it wraps especially these narrative-driven missions very nicely. The design is somewhat peculiar, since you can't enter any of the buildings the normal way, so you end up running this U-shaped gauntlet back and forth. Does Twistleton's place really not have a key to the front door? That's just cruel. The loot goal is one gripe I had. It is an optional objective, but it's also not very fun to try and achieve. I tend not to be a huge fan of having to find 99,9% of the loot, expert or not. You miss one pixel-sized object and you'll drive yourself insane. My final time was 2,5 hours; I reckon half of it was trying to find loot, which is usually a bad thing. I also have something to say about the secrets. The story Forgetting the loot-hunt, I did have fun. Looking forward to seeing more.

I love that bell ringing. Feels like it's used so often that it's one of these iconic TDM sounds.

I'd like to think any mechanic can last for more than two hours, but it's always a possibility. I have just under five hours on clock now, since I played through the challenge mode as well. Haven't checked the commentary, have to do that at some point.

My only issue with Superliminal is how short it is. Really fun, though. I think I first heard about it like 10 years ago through a podcast that was discussing an early tech demo of it. Obv it didn't have a name at the time, and it took quite a while before it became an actual game.

I don't necessarily disagree, you're probably digging your own grave when you announce a game so far away from release and the hypetrain builds up like this. It didn't help its cause that Witcher 3 was a runaway success and Cyberpunk was supposed to not only live up to it, but presumably surpass it. That said, Valve somehow released a new Half-Life game after all this time, and it appears to be very well received. Really wish I had VR gear so I could try it.

Some outrage is warranted. In the case of Cyberpunk, it was insanely hyped, the devs were heavily crunched, but it was broken and essentially unfinished upon release. In this case, the outrage seemed more geared towards the management, rather than the devs. Some outrage is just stupid, like what you're describing with the hypothetical next gen release timeline. The developer has no power over that; they do have power over the state their game releases in. Cyberpunk was already delayed more than once from what I recall; may as well have kept at it for a while longer. I was one of the people who was hyped ever since the initial reveal trailer in 2014 or whenever it came out, but I didn't buy the game, after reading about its sorry initial state. Probably gonna wait a year or two.

If it's at all confusing, when I wrote post-Morrowind Bethesda RPGs, I literally meant that. Not post-Morrowind Elder Scrolls. It lacks any and all impact for one thing. Slashing anything in Oblivion feels like swatting at them with a foam toy. I played Nier Automata a year ago, a game with combat that I generally described as "mash left click as fast as possible". Now that's oversimplified, as you can dodge like a madman, but even then, it just feels good when you hit things. Other than that, there's hardly any skill involved in Oblivion; you pretty much just hope they die before you do. I tend to agree with the retrospective I linked; since you can't dodge, not with any reliability anyway, you just take damage constantly, and the game appears to be balanced around that. From the little I've seen of Skyrim, the feedback seems to be better, but the mechanics not so much. While you can't dodge in TDM either, at least blocking is much more involved, as you have to react to the opponent's swing direction. Of course, whether Elder Scrolls needs high skill-expression combat is debatable (one friend told me he wouldn't mind if these games had no combat at all), but it certainly could make it more fun. Die-hard Morrowind fans, as far as my experiences go, seem to lament the dumbing down of the writing, both quests and the world itself. Perhaps characters too. As far the Oblivion retrospective goes, and how he compares the two games, Oblivion is much more like an idyllic utopia, whereas Morrowind is a more somber and gritty, and if you will, realistic representation of the world, and its good and bad sides. Well, you say not to take them as an example, but big games for big franchises from big studios are ripe for this kind of treatment from the press. I wouldn't take the "everybody seems to like it, can't be that bad" as an argument, if the thing just happens to appeal to the lowest common denominator (not trying to offend or suggest anything, you probably get what I mean). To use music as an example, just because everyone seems to like some popular artist, they can, in fact, make truly awful music, even if it's produced and presented with top-dollar. It depends entirely what you're after. I'm sure nostalgia plays into it. I do find it interesting how you appear to dislike Morrowind for the reasons its fans love it, that is to say, story and the world. The archaic mechanics I can definitely see as a turn-off, such as limited fast travel ability or the combat. Indeed. Just thought it would be interesting to hear from someone who enjoys the newer Bethesda games, as they tend to get a lot of flak, despite their popularity.

Uhh, yes, thank you. That was my point exactly.