Search the Community

To me, the allure of Thief is the sense of control: Not only of the player character, but of the game world itself, and in the gameplay. Every mission, I'm given the keen sense that I own the level, the whole gameworld: If I want to, I can kill everyone, even the servants. If I want to, I can slip in and out, with every valuable treasure, and none be the wiser. If I want to, I can knock the whole lot of 'em unconcious, and none be the wiser. Every device set up in the gameworld helped the player feel like their will be done. There's voyeurism, theft, murder, embezzelment...all at the touch of a mouse button. To say that video games, specifically thief, don't somehow quench the instinctual desire of the baserman, is denying the reason behind playing in the first place. There's a reason game like GTA et al strike a chord, both with those who love the game, and those who revile it. The former are comfortable with the catharsis, the latter fear it. Just my opinion. Edit: Sorry for posting twice in a row.

I wish you were on the team voting in some of the decisions, and some of them may have went my way. As I say, this is the epicentre of the Thief Conservative Old Boys Club. I've long since given up wasting my time making any kind of suggestions at all. I wanted elite city watch guards to be called into the map any time someone was found dead. This would make the rest of the game extremely difficult, since you wouldn't be able to swordfight these highly trained men without dying, they travel in pairs, it takes 5 arrows to kill them, and you only have a limited supply, and all elite guards carry both range and melee weapons. Kill 2 or 3 people and the map would be nearly impossible to complete. It was voted down (of course) Ghosting is not a nonsense. IF the Thief took a few more tools to help him break in and rob a place instead of a varitey of lethal weapons. Also, the guards would be far less likely to kill him if he wasn't armed. Carrying a weapon ensures your death if caught, since the guards are bigger, stronger and better fighters than you. The nonsense in THief is not ghosting, but the fact that you can kill someone and leave the body lying while everyone in the building gets on wth their normal routine, or tha you can blackjack half a dozen men without anyone noticing them missing. Ghosting makes the most sense and is the most realistic playstyle. I never liked the simplistic bloodthirsty nature of the guards in Thief, who can't wait to slaughter someone any time they hear the slighest noise. One of the things I dd like about TDS was the city watch arresting you instead of just killing you. It's still mission over, but at least you're not dead. Your loot totals could be counted up and if you have enough you can use it to bribe the judge)

No, it isn't ridiculous, and it does happen in real life, more often than you might think. Real life crime statistics show that more burglaries occur while the residents are home watching TV down one end of the house while the burgler rifles through the other end, than burglaries where the thief kills the occupants, or even burglaries where the occupants are not present. Commiting a robbery and getting caught has much less serious legal consequences than Felony Murder, and most successful thieves use their wits, stealth, cunning and use of disguises rather than brute force, because they know that if they get caught robbing someone, they will usually get away with a relatively lenient sentence, wheras a murder usually entails a fairly serious punishment, and also because murder is usually a very noisy activity that attracts attention. Most good theives can take things in plain sight using slight of hand, but that might be a bit hard to implement in a computer game... But yes, the FM author has to tweak the map to favour a particular playstyle. When I get around to mapping, I will be making maps for ghosters with lockpicks and other tools, but few if any weapons. The player can pick up weapons that AI have dropped and use them, but they will almost certainly get their arse kicked if they try to engage the enemy, and it will make it extremely hard to finish the mission if an AI is found dead or unconscious. And since I plan to limit the amount the player can carry, the player will have to choose between carrying more tools and weapons, or carrying more loot. Choice is overrated. I prefer to see what I can do within fairly strict limitations by using my brain to get around difficult problems with a minimum of gadgetry and armoury, rather than resort to fantastic devices and weapons. Of course, this can be even more of a challenge in a game designed to be completed using cyber violence...

Actually, crime-rates (at least in America) have been decreasing as videogames have gotten more violent. Of course, whether or not they're related is debatable. Surely the FM designer can choose whether or not to include a sword/bow/etc in their mission, so couldn't somebody make ODDity's non-violent dream-FM with the planned version of TDM? Actually, I rather like the idea of making it a complete pain to kill anybody, especially for city missions where it doesn't make sense for players to be able to go on killing sprees. But as long as it's up to the FM designer, there'll probably be missions for any given taste, right?

Well, when TDM is released and I start making maps, I will be doing my darndest to make some nicely balanced missions that favour ghosters. I hope to make them staggeringly hard to ironman your way through, and while I won't be expecting the player to find every damn coin and candlestick in the mission to complete it, I will be expecting the player to be very cautious and observant. I will try to integrate most of the loot objectives into the story, so that if the player wants to go hunting for more loot they can, but there is no need for them to do so... I hope I will be able to deliver on that, but, being a perfectionist who tends to overwork things to death, my releases might be few and far between. Hell, I still haven't released any of my Unreal maps

Ah well you should have read the manual. It says when you start the mission, to keep adjusting your brightness till you can just see the tree against the wall in front of you. Rather than that dodgey effort, we will have an actual gamma setup screen (some games have this) where it tells you to adjust your brightness till you can see something.

I thought you supported giving the FM authors all the options to craft their FM? If an author doesn't want a loot objective for a mission like "get the hell out of the city with people hunting for you," why stop them from doing that?

Hey guys, you conveniently ignored the fact that in a single mission, there is no point collecting loot, cause you can't spend it. So you need an arbitrary objective. This is Thief, it's about stealing for christ's sake. I hate scavenging for that last 5% more than anyone I know, but I would never support not having a loot objective all together. Not having a loot objective only makes sense in T3, where you get to spend it, so you can collect for your own needs and not some arbitrary objective.

I do exactly the same thing, the loot objective is the one I refuse to hang around to finish, I just end the mission and call it a day. Its no fun looking for a few coins when you have found the magic sword, the ancient masks and the Horn of Quintus and you are ready to cruise. I also second obscurus' notion of limiting what you can carry out. I personally think that being forced to choose would be an added dimension of realism, of course left up to the FM authors discretion.

It's very simple. If the player wants to collect loot because he enjoys it, then he'll do so regardless of objectives. If the player doesn't like collecting loot, there's no point in forcing him to do so. End of story. Like I said, having to get special loot items is fine, since it can add a lot of gameplay if said items are hard to find or hard to steal becasue of where they are placed or the security surrounding them, and yes its fine if there's some good reason in some misisonas to why you need to steal 500 loot, but to say you need it to pay your rent in every mission is stupid - I mean, did you see the grotty little shithole Garrett was renting? He could have bought the whole street for 500.

Well that was the argument presented many times in our discussion. In the end, it all boiled down to: 1. They award gold medals in the olympics for exceptional acheivement, and the difficulty settings on a game are no different. The author has every right to create a story the way he/she wants it to play out. 2. No one can stop an author from making a shit mission.

Well yes I really like the Thief and ... Ghost. Yes those two. Good AI, no lootcount. Mind you I gave up on ghost as I kept on mucking up so play on Thief with giving myself only 3 blackjacks (like Shoalsgate on Hard) and being good generally. I ghosted the latter half of the human missions on T2x as well, easy (difficulty: hard) See the thing is I hate loot hunts at the end. Yes I agree with Oddity, hence I really like the optional one of COSAS GATI. Although on Hard I met it while looking to solve the other bits and bobs. But I don't want to cut off 50% of a mission due to my fear of the "Expert" or "L33t" lootcount.

In my opionon there should be no generic loot objective at all. apart from special items. It's always been a lazy objective tacked on to the end of the real objectives, and is invariably annoying towards the end when you've done everything and just want to end the mission, but you have to carry on and look for a few more candlesticks. Tedious.

I hope I can play the whole mission with good AI without a stupidly high lootcount. Is that possible?

One of the frist things, we did when we launched this project, was to define a mission goal. This goal was to recreate a thief style experienced, based on thief gameplay. We did not agree to create a new stealth game or something else. It's as simple as that. One other thing is. The features that Thief offers are easy to implement, proven to work very well in a game, and versatile enough to keep the gameplay interesting. Adding features does not neccessarily make a game better and the same goes for realism. A real Thief wouldn't stand a single sword blow - reloading. A real Thief wouldn't spend 17 hours or more inside the house that he wants to rob. He would not be able to carry hundreds of items with him. He would not be able to heal himself in time. A rope or water arrow would also not be realistic. Considering that, we have to do some choices. Knowing feature creep I tend to stay on the safe side and keep the gameplay in a the area where it is managable and known to be working well. Some things are on our list, which are not in Thief and some things can be done by ambitious modders, but our game is to provide a solid gamplay base. Nothing more and nothing less.

They'll be part of the toolset, but that doesn't mean they have to be part of every FM. Lots of thief missions don't use gas arrows. I think there can be some enjoyment to having a limited, powerful weapon in the game though. You are constantly wondering whether you should use it now, or save it for a potentially worse situation later. Many times I've ended a mission without using my gas arrows or mines because I kept thinking I might need them later. Of course, once you get three or four this no longer works. We could certainly consider giving elite guards an advantage against gas arrows though.

Who said elite guards should be immune to gas arrows? So, in your opinon, it's ok to include uberweapons to kill every AI in the game with, as long as you don't get 100 of them in every mission. I disagree, I see no place for uberweapions in a steath game at all, and it was a mistake by LGS to include them in the first place. I guess LGS weren't entierly immune to popularism. WHy do you need an uberweapon to take out an elite guard?

I'd be inclined to avoid ladders in the mission altogether except for places where the guards aren't likely to chase you to. The "chasable areas" should be a finely tuned and heavily playtested area, where the FM author has spent ages getting the guards to chase him/her all over the place to make sure the guards can work as effectively as possible.

That should really fail the mission anyway - all the loot would be destroyed, along with the building... It would take a vast amount of computing power to treat fire realistically, so I prefer if open flames are used sparingly... have guards carry a lantern instead of a torch if they are in a mainly wooden building - after all, a sensible guard would take the precaution of not doing things that would put his masters property at risk of fire damage, so it isn't really realistic to have open flames in certain areas anyway. If you are going to do flammable objects, they should be restricted to a few types so as to avoid large conflagrations. But I would hope that TDM does not become a simulator for pyromaniacs, so don't go overboard with fire if you can avoid it...

You know, we probably could do the mansion-engulfed in flame thing if someone drops a torch, but really, what's the use? Except it ruins a mission completely. And I can imagine AIs accidentally setting light to stuff if they were carrying torches.

It would to some extent, but if it's a flashlight type concept it's not too hard to turn off quickly, whereas i like the idea of having to cast it away somewhere like Ihad to in many T2 FMs where you were given a lantern to carry around. We definietly need this. The part in the T2 manual didn't cut it - "start the first mission, you should only just be able to see the trees against the wall". We need a specific screen.

That's where wall flattening would actually help you realistically [ Edit: Also, hiding in alcoves on the side of a hallway, behind load bearing columns on the sides of the hallway, inside curtains on hallway windows, etc. Again, it's up to the FM author not to screw up the gameplay in their mission. If the author puts in a long, absolutely straight hallway with flat walls (nowhere to hide on the sides) and a brightly lit wall at the end, then yes, it would be hard to go down that hallway and remain unseen, just as it would be in RL. I think the original Thief's deliberately put darker areas at the edges of hallways also to kind've simulate the fact that you're less visible when you stick to the edges of the walls, even tho their engine wasn't up to calculating silhouettes. ]

From the player's perspective, figuring out if you're going to be silhouetted is a pretty visual thing; just take a quick look around and think "am I putting myself between something bright and the AI?" So I don't think it would be much harder for the player to keep track of ingame than it is in RL. I've played some games that (I think) used silhouette detection, such as America's Army: the Escape & Evasion training mission. There was no visibility indicator, but the learning curve was pretty fast. I just started naturally factoring in silhouetting when planning where to move next. I don't personally see the need for the lightgem to tell me how visible I am from several directions all the time. If you're at all aware of your surroundings, you should have a good idea where the bright areas are, and where AI are likely to be facing. From a programming perspective, it would be expensive to keep track of the silhouette visibility from 8 different angles all the time (remember each of these angles is going to need to cast more than one ray, to your head, your feet, left shoulder, right shoulder, etc, and check the brightness at the point it hits behind you). If it's not necessary to display them all the time, you could just calculate the silhouette in the case when you are definitely in an AI's FOV, and calculate it for that AI. (Or, if there are many AI surrounding you and looking in your direction, you can get their sight angles to you and assign an average angle to more than one of them for optimization purposes)

(have read most but not all) One thing I'd like to see in the way of lighting, as well as portable torches, would be some kind of tinderbox. I know a lighter has been mentioned, but a tinderbox is a nicer idea, or something suitably anachronistic - just not something plastic or shiny metal. I was most dissatisfied with the method of lighting torches with a fire arrow - it's just too noisy for such little gain. If a tinderbox is too normal, then how about something similar to the "firemetal" sold on thinkgeek? It's a rod of what looks like carbon, but when you move a metal blade, key or something down it, 3,000° sparks fly off it, so it's somewhat more high-tech. Setting people on fire would be useful, too. I hated in TDS where you could set the oil on fire, but when people walked into it they tended to go "uhhh" and fall over - they didn't scream, or dance around or anything similar, and it was altogether crappy. Fires as distractions... That's very tricky. Obviously a fire arrow let off inside an old building would ignite at the very least the carpet, any curtains and if given half a chance, the entire structure. This would not be good for gameplay AT ALL, except in the freedoms sense. The only way I can envisage this being successful is if some sort of fire service were available wherever it were possible, whereby anyone doing this carelessly would find the mission overrun with servicemen and extra guards to catch you.... Probably wouldn't work. Vine arrows... DON'T TAKE MAH VINE ARROWS! People complained so bitterly when they were removed from thief, and with good reason. Nothing was like being able to espy a route up a wall because there was a wooden ledge - freedom abound, and it wasn't as stilted as the "secrets" in Thief 3. Which didn't feel like freedom - they felt like easter eggs. I don't support the one-shot job, either... They felt like tools more then expendables. Like a grappling hook. As for climbing gloves... I'm not sure about slowing them down. What I do favour is ceasing this ludicrous four-directional movement. The obvious (to me) and cool (to me) way of handling it would be for the camera to rotate to look upwards. You should then be able to look in the direction you wish to go, and move similarly to on the ground, except you'd have to do the slow-turning movements, because insta-rotate wouldn't work whilst on the wall. Might need to constrain turning to pointing mostly up, but I think the lack of control you had in TDS was ridiculous. EDIT: (after back from work!) Hmms, other things on lighting... (This has sort of turned into another requests thread... you poor guys) I'd like to see candles more easily put out. Just for kicks, for example, shooting them with enough force to make them move quickly should snuff 'em. This would be especially useful with those big chandeliers - the discerning thief need only knock the frame with enough force, and there we have it. One fewer water arrow wasted Eh, I was sure I was going to say something else. Can't have been important, though.

Just thought I would let you guys know (although you probably already do) GarrettLoader versin 1.01 was released on the 11th at http://www.potterdevelopments.org.uk/fm However the Dark Mod and Doom 3 stuff is disabled at the moment but should be in version 1.51 ....Thief 3 is enabled though and the small mission contest entries are released around the 16th.