No mods for thief 4 (and TDM gets mentioned at explosion.com)

[Diego]

http://www.explosion.com/30090/no-mod-allowed-for-thief/

 

Talks about the unlikelihood of mods and user content on the new Thief and mentions TDM as an example of how insan- I mean, strong- thief community is. Pretty cool

[AluminumHaste]

Thanks for the link

[Springheel]

When asked about the possible implementation of a mod editor in the upcoming Thief the team denied an official feature. The big and wealthy mod community is using “The Dark Mod”, a total conversion mod for the engine of Doom 3, by Broken Glass Studios. An entire collection of levels, created by the fans, are available; entirely gravitating around the world of Thief.

 

Wow, that is chock-full of wrongness.

 

Is this translated from some foreign language site or something?

[Melan]

No editor is currently scheduled, under any form. Apparently the team is taking total control on the final product; considering this last game as a reboot they want to set a new benchmark for the revived franchise. And this might mean to retain a certain creative monopoly on the level and character design to establish a controlled new look of the series.

The reasoning is suspect, but let's be realistic: the chances of an editor were very slim to begin with.

[Psychomorph]

Thief 4 will be a nice "story mode", modding is for Dark Mod.

[demagogue]

It's interesting to note how often discussion of Thief4 brings us into the discussion, almost all of it AFAIK positive. It's doing a lot of work for us.

 

Wow, that is chock-full of wrongness.

 

Is this translated from some foreign language site or something?

 

He said some inaccurate things, but you can see what he was trying to say that's accurate enough, with a little tweaking of words here and there. We're not big or wealthy, but we have a dedicated and hard working following. And it doesn't revolve around the whole world of Thief as much as (largely) around the classic gameplay it had.

[fllood]

An entire collection of levels, created by the fans, are available; entirely gravitating around the world of Thief.

 

Wow, that is chock-full of wrongness.

 

Thief 4 won't gravite much around the world of Thief either, the classic Thiefs, ....

So there is some unwitting sense in the incorrectness

[Springheel]

It's interesting to note how often discussion of Thief4 brings us into the discussion, almost all of it AFAIK positive. It's doing a lot of work for us.

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Definitely agree. That's why I'm pushing hard to go standalone ASAP.

[Bikerdude]

Definitely agree. That's why I'm pushing hard to go standalone ASAP.

I will have to make a start on fixing my maps for stand alone soon then.

[Reman]

Definitely agree. That's why I'm pushing hard to go standalone ASAP.

 

I hope that you guys are still thinking about bringing TDM on Steam Greenlight.

[lost_soul]

Yeah, this is actually a good thing. There *will* be interest in stealth games when T4 comes around, and if people can't make missions for that.......Where will they come?

[Arcady]

I have to say I've heard quite about T4 lately, but to be quite frank, I'm not the slightest bit interested in it. Of course, learning that custom content won't be a 'feature' I'm more certain than ever that I just don't want anything to do with it. TDM captures the heart and soul of Thief in every detail, and it's all I want or need.

[Diego]

I'm curious, because if we ignore what it's meant to be it has the potential to be a decent game. Pretty much like Deadly Shadows. All in all it was a decent game, its only problem was having to be compared with metal age and dark project, the poor thing.

[Melan]

Something like that. Although I am still annoyed by how they seem to have genericised the setting.

[Obsttorte]

We'll see. If it does not come with some sort of online accout activation/steam thingy, then I'll buy it. If not, then I wont.

I'm curious, because if we ignore what it's meant to be it has the potential to be a decent game. Pretty much like Deadly Shadows. All in all it was a decent game, its only problem was having to be compared with metal age and dark project, the poor thing.

Beneath that it was a terrible console port, with levels split up, although not needed. Sometimes I think that the publishers want to annoy the old fans.

[lost_soul]

Yeah on that subject, I always wondered... How hard would it have been for them to take two levels and merge them together? It seems like all you would have to do is remove the exit and stitch them together, provided you don't exceed poly/object limits in the engine.

[AluminumHaste]

Well that answer is simple; more work than they were willing to spend on a port that wasn't going to get them a lot of sales anyways.

[New Horizon]

Yeah, their entire work flow was a streamlined universal build for both PC and Xbox. Had they taken the PC build to completion first, frozen it, and then branched off and split the levels for Xbox, it would have been a better experience for PC players.

[MacD11]

The fact that there is no mods for Thief 4 might have to do more with Engine Incapabilities or simply the devs not wanting to "see their work ruined" than "consolization", although "consolization" is still a possibility.

[MacD11]

We'll see. If it does not come with some sort of online accout activation/steam thingy, then I'll buy it. If not, then I wont.

 

Im almost certain Thief 4 PC will require Steam judging by the fact that most PC games out today require it.

 

I, personally, dont have a problem at all with it being on steam. But I dont think my opinion really matters much in this case lol.

 

EDIT:

 

Sorry for the double post, thought there would be a post merging thing on this forum.

Edited June 13, 2013 by MacD11

[demagogue]

I think the reasons a contemporary game would not have modding available are (1) they have a lot of third party code that's expensive & complicated to license for release, and you possibly can't edit without it and (2) fan maps reduce demand for future DLC.

[AluminumHaste]

That's only true when official DLC is crap. There's plenty of room in the market for quality free third party content and quality paid content.

Let's be honest if Thief 2 DLC came out tomorrow, which of you would not buy it because there's thousands of fan made content?

[STiFU]

This is indeed amazing publicity. Bright times lie ahead...

[demagogue]

That's only true when official DLC is crap. There's plenty of room in the market for quality free third party content and quality paid content.

 

Hmm, you're not thinking like a marketing person though. The way they see it, there's X many hours a demographic is playing games, say 15 hours/week on average, and what % of that playing time is on content we generate? The more fan generated content there is, the more it eats into those 15 hrs/wk, the less is left over for DLC demand across the demographic. It's all brute math with them.

[Obsttorte]

If the sum of fan generated and industrial generated content lies below that border, it doesn't play a role. The opposite is the case, as the steady supply of fan generated content keeps the interest in the whole franchise and therefore in the industrial generated ones.

 

If the opposite is the case, and the amount of time needed to be played lies above the time people can effort, the question stays whether the consument chooses the product depending on costs (fan-made) or on quality (where the industrial contents should win, if not, it would be a big shame for the devs).

 

So the only case where fan-made content is bad for the sales is if the amount of content is above a certain limit and if either the people are not willing to pay for qualitiy (meaning the devs or pubs have a bad image of their consuments) or the quality of the fan-made stuff exceeds the industrial one (meaning the devs or pubs have a bad image of themselves).

 

Hmm, you're not thinking like a marketing person though.

Most people don't. And this is one of the few things remaining in our society that I woulod call a good thing.