Thief 4 is trash.

[Sotha]

No wonder it was removed. It is against their financial interests to show such a post.

 

Now that you think about it, the existence of standalone TDM is against their interests. *Shivers* I hope there is nothing they can pick up and come after TDM. Aren't we glad IP neutrality was chosen from the start!

[New Horizon]

This comment was not from me but it was the top comment with over 60 likes. Now its gone.

 

Man, it would be nice if people thought before they commented. In no way would we ever want someone promoting TDM by endorsing piracy of Thief 4. That's just idiotic.

[stumpy]

they probably marked it up as spam and when it gets too much spam votes it gets deleted, looked at some of the other posts for spam that are still readable and non of them are technically spam, current spam refer to the game being a clone of either dishonored, assassins creed, or the thief guild stuff you can do in skyrim.

 

I don't like the new Garrett's voice he sounds too weedy.

[Melan]

Now that you think about it, the existence of standalone TDM is against their interests. *Shivers* I hope there is nothing they can pick up and come after TDM.

There isn't. Also, laches takes care of any legal action they might think of pursuing against TDM.

 

But realistically, it is a non-issue because as far as Square/EM are concerned, TDM is a commercial non-entity. Even if we had ten thousand regular players, it would be nothing close to their profit expectations.

[Sotha]

Melan, good to hear.

 

But, still... If the t4 is as bad as it looks, they will be SELLING a product that is inferior to the one we are giving out for FREE!

 

I'm not an economy-man, but I suppose it is fun to explain something like that to the shareholders... At least I wouldn't like to invest into a company like that.Edit, oh and there is the mechwarrior: living legends vs mwomercs example...

[stumpy]

eidos actually promoted tdm as something to play before thief 4 comes out, on their forums,

[Vae]

That was when they thought everyone was going to accept NuThief as the cat's meow.

[Sir Taffsalot]

If they put a cease and desist on TDM now they would loose a huge chunck of potential customers who would not buy Thi4f out of pure spite. That would also create some really negative publicity as it would look like Eidos, a proffessional game develpment studio, is threatened by a bunch of people making a mod in their spare time. Even if it is true.

Edited October 10, 2013 by Sir Taffsalot

[simplen00b]

In no way would we ever want someone promoting TDM by endorsing piracy of Thief 4.

Actually, he was endorsing not pirating it. He just managed to make it a real insult to EM instead of a suck-up.

[New Horizon]

Actually, he was endorsing not pirating it. He just managed to make it a real insult to EM instead of a suck-up.

 

lol OH, I mis-read it.

[jtr7]

................

Edited February 19, 2014 by jtr7

[Nacht7]

That interview surely isn't lifting my spirits.

"Missions usually focus on a single objective." Since when? If they are taking cues from Deus Ex: Human Revolution, you'd think each level would be loaded with multiple objectives. Please do not tell me all the missions will be simplistic get in, steal this, and leave, or some variation of said formula. I'd love to see the return of jailbreaking, and other such things. I'm also open to other new ideas besides Garrett's kleptomania.

[Vae]

There's a lot of scary things in there, like:

 

Within the framework of Thief, do you think it’s better to let players benefit from a full freedom of exploration that includes mistakes and frustrating moments, or is it more effective to include slight nudges in the right direction for a safer but slightly restrictive experience?

 

SR: On one side, you have the kind of player who demands to jump or go anywhere and die if he or she chooses. Others get bored if they keep dying and don’t mind that kind of stuff being blocked off. What we’re trying to do here is impart subtle messages that certain jumps will kill you—if you still tell Garrett to jump, he’ll instead crouch near the edge and look down.

 

...

[Springheel]

A number of the jobs I completed seemed to always involve finding a hidden switch behind a painting

 

Good grief. Let's take a cool idea and make it into a tired cliche.

 

We’ve seen players who don’t even bother to read anything they find. We have to make sure the game is fun for them, too.

 

No, you don't. You tell them to go play a fucking shooter.

[Vae]

Now we seem to have "contextual secret switches"...so we know when and where to look for them, of course.

[jtr7]

...................

Edited February 19, 2014 by jtr7

[Melan]

How flexible are the hub jobs? Could a player discover a job item before actually acquiring the contract and turn it in for the reward anyway?

SR: (...) Technically, job items won’t show up until you talk to Basso, because that would otherwise render Basso useless. As an example, you can explore a specific apartment relating to a job before talking to Basso, but the combination for a safe in that apartment holding the job item only appears after you pick up the contract.

Schrödinger's combination.

 

SR: We’ve seen players who don’t even bother to read anything they find. We have to make sure the game is fun for them, too. So, it’s a big challenge to add enough layers of exposition to not penalize anyone who wants to skip over that kind of stuff.

Our target audience: people who don't want to read becuz letterz are teh HARD.

 

Within the framework of Thief, do you think it’s better to let players benefit from a full freedom of exploration that includes mistakes and frustrating moments, or is it more effective to include slight nudges in the right direction for a safer but slightly restrictive experience?

SR: There’s definitely not a black or white answer to this. On one side, you have the kind of player who demands to jump or go anywhere and die if he or she chooses. Others get bored if they keep dying and don’t mind that kind of stuff being blocked off.

Implication: it is the first group of players who are entitled whiners.

 

In Thief, your skillset is demonstrated in different ways. Garrett is a master thief, so he’s really flexible in terms of how he handles situations. You can be fast and aggressive, wiping out an entire room before anyone knew you were there.

Garrett is a master thief, wiping out rooms of people quickly and aggressively.

 

Even though a different team at Eidos Montreal worked on Deus Ex: Human Revolution, what potential lessons did Thief’s team learn from that game’s development and apply towards their own?

SR: Trust your instincts. Human Revolution’s team encountered the same challenges of taking a long established franchise in a new direction while under considerable pressure from core fans going, “No, no, you can’t do that to my Deus Ex.” It’s simply impossible to listen to everybody out there, so the guys working on Thief have really learned to trust their feelings behind their decisions. Nothing would get done otherwise. If we decided to backpedal and add in “taffer” because a bunch of people wanted it, we’d get another complaint the next day from someone else saying, “Why stay stuck in the past?”

One day, someone somewhere would really write that complaint. True story.

 

***

 

Once upon a time, back in 2006 and later in 2008, I wrote a series of posts on a phenomenon I called "the tyranny of fun" - a tendency of reductionist thinking in game design and discourse. I have deleted them due to the sheer amount of harrasment and hate I got for them (I mean, honest-to-goodness hate mail), and because the posts themselves were written in a way that could be construed as more confrontational than really intended, but I think the main points still stand:

1. Equating 'fun' with 'positive reinforcement' to the neglect of other ways to have it - some of which involve adversity, effort, minor inconvenience or, yes, short/long-term failure.
   
2. Redesigning games to codify this understanding of customer satisfaction and cutting elements construed as 'unfun', which makes the game more focused - but also feature-poor and less satisfying for people who have their fun in a different way.
   
3. Often wrapped up in rhetorics of 'progress' as inevitable and basically beneficial, traditional gaming practices as an impediment before having fun and appeals to the authority of 'professional game designers'.
   

If you want it in one sentence:

Fun is a loaded term, and it should not be assumed to mean the same thing to all people.

 

I am reminded of this concept every time I read something new about the way Thief is designed.

[Sotha]

Once upon a time, back in 2006 and later in 2008, I wrote a series of posts on a phenomenon I called "the tyranny of fun" - a tendency of reductionist thinking in game design and discourse. I have deleted them due to the sheer amount of harrasment and hate I got for them (I mean, honest-to-goodness hate mail), and because the posts themselves were written in a way that could be construed as more confrontational than really intended, but I think the main points still stand:

 

[points]

 

If you want it in one sentence:

 

 

I'm probably thick today as I can't understand the points you describe.

 

Do you still have the whole texts? Could you PM them to me, I'd love to read them, because 'fun in gaming' is an interesting topic for me. I promise not to harrass you.

 

I think there exists a comic that is the embodiment of your once-sentence description of fun in gaming:

http://dwarffortress...40/FunComic.png

[jaxa]

I have deleted them due to the sheer amount of harrasment and hate I got for them (I mean, honest-to-goodness hate mail)

 

I know I shouldn't be surprised... but, damn.

 

...

 

I think if there was any lingering doubt over whether Thief fans should buy Thief 4, that's been settled by "reading is hard" and "wiping out an entire room before anyone knew". THI4F: Reading is hard, that's my ninja way!

 

Game over. Thread locked.

[Obsttorte]

Our target audience: people who don't want to read becuz letterz are teh HARD.

"Prez sez: School is for loosers" (Simpsons)

[stumpy]

its so obvious this is the new 'Daikatana' the final nail in LGS coffin, edios cut LGS to fund the making of Daikatana the worse game of all time.

[Serpentine]

A new gem to me (soz if it's been posted before)

Crunchyroll -- Interview with "Thief" Senior Producer and Narrative Director

 

They actually manage to stay 'not completely daft' for quite a bit of it. However some of the little things they say are... oh wow.

[Albert]

_

Edited March 31, 2020 by Albert

[Mr. Tibbs]

www.polygon.com/2013/10/10/4823786/thief-dev-says-theyre-past-development-woes

 

An early build prone to crashes is understandable, but this doesn't bode well for a AAA title that's shipping in a few months.

[thrumb]

I simply have to thank TDM, and all of the mission creators, for existing in light of how this is developing. It seems they have strayed farther away from the IP than TDM has.

 

I don't wish it to fail, but also hope it won't be eaten up as readily as the Tomb Raider reboot has been by many gamers.

Edited October 12, 2013 by thrumb