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Underground Lighting


Gildoran

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Yes, as far as I know you are correct about whale oil being used for lamps. I think the stories about Emperor Qin's tomb are likely myths, but not altogether implausible, if a large enough reserve of oil was used. As Thief has large numbers of gas and electricity powered lights, you could still have a realistic light source that was in the same vein as thief without being a flaming torch. While putting out torches with magic arrows can be fun, it is not at all realistic - flaming torches were not commonly used, and you would need quite a bit of water to douse one, more than would be practical for an arrow - it would probalby take 4 - 6 litres of water to put out a torch, try shooting a 6 kilo arrow with a shortbow!

 

I don't like using "magic" as a way of getting around gameplay issues created by RL considerations. It is lazy, unimaginative and boring (for me). And I think TDM should try to differentiate itself a little more from Thief. Personally, I like the idea of a more pure Victorian setting, with less anachronistic mediaeval elements. Perhaps even going so far as setting it in 19th Century London...

 

But can we please stear clear of lame gameplay devices like magic torches and arrows? For me there is a difference between having magic as part of your setting, and using magic as an excuse to explain away poor game design....

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As a fan of fantasy literature and rpg games; i'm not entirely opposed to the concept surrounding 'magic'. It is still a plausible idea for a lightsource; I suppose its just a matter of opinion whether you like it or consider it realistic or not. What would be great to see would be a variety of different light sources, some scientific in nature and maybe some that are magical in nature; this way FM designers can cater to a specific audience. Its funny but light sources are such a crucial element of the game; having different 'styles' would offer FM devs a wide range of themes for their maps. Can any of you Darkmod Developers confirm that there will be multiple types of light sources (ie. lamps, magic, light bulbs etc.)?

 

Personally; I'm a bit wary of promoting an all out Victorian Era (which i assume covers 1800-1900?) style for a Thief inspired mod. Mostly this is for aesthetic and gameplay reasons. One of the coolest things i wanted to do in Thief was assault a castle (well not assault, just rob blind :P ) complete with turrets and parapets! The Cathedral and Museum missions in Thief: DS came close, in terms of architecture etc. As far as i know, there weren't many castles built in the Victorian Era. Again, its all subjective to what individual players like. A castle can make great gameplay and mission design, and have high aesthetic value.

 

As for the issue with electric lights and water arrows; well I suppose water arrows evolved with the need for Garret to be able to extinguish light sources from afar. In Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory you have the EMP transmitter thingy on the pistol. If we remove burning torches and magic from TDM; besides switching off the lights at their switch (not always possible) it would be difficult for players to extinguish the light source from afar without making noise (Though a type of EMP arrow springs to mind lol :D ).

 

I suppose the best thing about Thief is that it is a fantasy game; allowing for elements from both the Medieval/Renaissance and Victorian Eras to each play a role in the game; and there is nothing wrong with that. I would miss assaulting that castle or scaling the heights of a cathedral or hiding from undead in catacombs; just as much as I would miss breaking into a victorian chateau or freaking out in an abandoned insane asylum. I reckon having elements of the two Eras together is what makes Thief, well Thief. The challenge for TDM's developers will be allowing for people with all their individual tastes to make these kind of maps; though you TDM guys sure seem to be doing one hell of a job so far :) .

Edited by SplaTtzZ
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Edit: This is in response to obscurus, not SplaTtzZ.

 

I dunno... I think the only problem with magic, is if it feels like an excuse...

 

Person A: How is it possible that torch is still able to burn after such a long time?

Person B: It's magic.

Person A: Oh.

 

On the other hand, it probably wouldn't bother me to read about how "a long time ago a necromancer discovered a way to construct a 'torch' that relies on the presence of spirits to stay lit with a blue or green flame. Unfortunately, this requirement meant that such torches could only be used effectively in catacombs or places where many people had died."

 

Admittedly, I'm not great with plots/writing, and something like the above isn't very "thief-ish" in how it presents history, but it doesn't break my suspension of disbelief the way the former example does.

Edited by Gildoran
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Yes, not many castles were built in the Victorian era, but there were (and still are) quite a lot of mediaeval-made castles still in use, so it wouldn't affect the Victorian thematic setting to have a castle robbing mission, and castles do make for interesting missions...

As for water arrows, they are a gameplay device invented to make it possible for the player to remotely remove light sources, and while it was never explicitly explained as being magical in nature, you can make the assumption that they were magic arrows, since you would need an arrow with a water crystal the size of a large bucket to do the job in RL, not to mention the technical problems of transporting and launching such an arrow, or the AI's response to the large puddle of water underneath a torch that has mysteriously been extinguished... They are just alltogether unrealistic...

 

Personally, I rarely use water arrows in Thief to extinguish lights, I find it more enjoyable to leave them lit, and to find another way around guards. Holy water arrows are nice for Zombies though, when you have run out of flash bombs.

 

While I am not opposed to a fantasy setting that involves the presence of magic per se, I dislike it when magic is used to explain away something that would otherwise be impossible, and is merely a cheap device to make the player feel like they are getting more value by having more weapons/tools in their inventory. And I am not too keen on TDM being a carbon copy of Thief, I would rather it strikes out on it's own path, and not cling on to too many Thief-isms. While I really like the way Thief had so many anachronisms, and a world that was strangely immersive in spite of numerous plausibility problems, I think it would be a mistake for TDM to emulate it too closely. It is fine to make the inspiration for TDM fairly obvious, but it would be better IMO if it went off on it's own tangent with those elements inspired by Thief. And I can't imagine a setting as dark or gritty as 19th Century England, with smoggy, grimy industrialism in full flight, dark crowded streets, backing up against elaborate Victorian mansions, and lordly castles left over from earlier times... :)

 

Putting out lights, whether torch, electric gas or otherwise, should always alert the AI in some way - level designers should make it unnecessary to extinguish lights to complete the mission, and putting out lights should have its own risks. If you can douse torches, why not throw rocks at electric lights? Gas lamps would presumably have a valve to switch them off when not needed, so why not let the player frob them to turn them off? The player should be able to turn them off, but the AI should become suspicious of this.

 

 

Another idea - turn off a gas light, then tun the gas back on without lighting it, then after some time has past, a patrolling guard notices it, goes to light it, and Kaboom! the guard is engulfed in a big fireball. Could be a useful way for the thief to divert guards attention away to another area, allowing the player to burgle away while the guards are occupied putting a fire out...

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I think the only problem with magic, is if it feels like an excuse...

 

I dislike it when magic is used to explain away something that would otherwise be impossible, and is merely a cheap device to make the player feel like they are getting more value by having more weapons/tools in their inventory

 

Agreed. Magic can work as a way of explaining the light source; so long as it too is also fleshed-out. That danger of using Magic and other fantasy elements as an excuse should be avoided.

 

Adding that text to a book (the necromancer's notes or notebook?) goes a long way to aiding immersion and suspension of disbelief for players of that map.

 

And I too agree with your observation Obscurus; that magic shouldn't be used as an excuse or inventory filler. I had no problem with rope arrows or climbing gloves though; magical though they were, at least they had some use. I too used water arrows very little, though I wouldn't take them out because I can't speak for other players who might like them. I like the idea of Victorian cities and such; the only problem being that at this stage that guns were quite common; including revolvers and shell-based rifles. I wouldn't mind it if it was early Victorian, late 1700's and early 1800's; with flint-lock rifles and pistols, but guards with revolvers would totally own our thief player. And lets not talk about giving the player a gun! :laugh: with a victorian aged silencer or something :blink:

Edited by SplaTtzZ
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Edit: This is in response to obscurus, not SplaTtzZ.

 

I dunno... I think the only problem with magic, is if it feels like an excuse...

 

Person A: How is it possible that torch is still able to burn after such a long time?

Person B: It's magic.

Person A: Oh.

 

On the other hand, it probably wouldn't bother me to read about how "a long time ago a necromancer discovered a way to construct a 'torch' that relies on the presence of spirits to stay lit with a blue or green flame. Unfortunately, this requirement meant that such torches could only be used effectively in catacombs or places where many people had died."

 

Admittedly, I'm not great with plots/writing, and something like the above isn't very "thief-ish" in how it presents history, but it doesn't break my suspension of disbelief the way the former example does.

 

 

Yes, having a back story to explain things is better than just having an inexplicable excuse, but you have to be careful to come up with an explanation that is not contrived, and you need to work the explanation into the story in a way that makes sense. So finding a book about magical torches (with an explanation similar to yours) before you descend into catacombs lit by said torches would be better game design than just having strange torches for no apparent reason...

 

In a way, part of the charm of Thief is the fact that little backstories are worked into the game via the many books lying around, though there are a lot of mysterious things like rope arrows (which are obviously a gameplay device developed as an alternative to the more difficult to implement well, but more realistic and plausible grappling hook) which seem, to me anyway, just a bit silly and contrived.

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But can we please stear clear of lame gameplay devices like magic torches and arrows? For me there is a difference between having magic as part of your setting, and using magic as an excuse to explain away poor game design....

 

This is purely opinion. It may be lame to you, but some people do not see them as cheap gimmicks or excuses.

 

At what point are you willing to accept magic in a setting? The moment you accept magic is the time I would be able to knock it down and say it's lame game design. It's just the nature of using magic in games; it's all a matter of personal opinion with whether you accept it or not.

 

I happened to like the water and other elemental arrows in Thief 2 and didn't see them as poor game design.

 

Regarding castles - our first priority is making a toolset. No matter what textures, etc. we do or do not provide in the toolset, there's nothing preventing an FM author from making a castle setting.

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I'd agree with the making it your own game as something unique from thief. IMO thief did well on the first impression but then failed after that, and it was mostly the little things that triped it up, like the lack of interaction, stupid limitations (like exploration restrictions), graphically poor (painted on windows and doors anyone?), or generally silly things. and to be critical of looking glass/ion storm, they never really put the polish on their games, it looked acceptable for marketing/screenshots but after that you didn't have much to apreciate in it. i guess that was eidos's doing

 

now when it comes down to magic i think it could be done REALLY well in thief. magic could be outlawed in the world, with the occasional trial for practicing magic, however only the stupid ones or the weak ones are put on trial for practicing magic because anyone who has real talent belongs to some mages guild or is too friggin dangerous to try to prosecute, but they can of course be killed.

 

thus magic would be rare obviously, but you could get away with it in places like mage towers, underground caves, dungeons, crypts etc... where no one from the general populace can see and report it. furthermore, magic would try to be subtle, doing it's best to avoid the attention of someone (though obviously some examples will break with this theme, ie faery fire).

 

so for a magical ever burning torch the flame might look exactly like a normal flame, however it never stops burning, if you try to put it out, it sputters a bit and then flares up again to the surprise of the player. when you get to situations like a tomb and the fires are still burning, they have an eerie colour to them making it all the more spooky.

 

on the matter of the crystal arrows, they are definately magical, if you have problems with other magical items then the arrows will fall into the same category. i think the key is to not avoid magic altogether as an excuse but to spend alot of time defining it in the world, in a thief world magic would be obscure, known only by a few and subject to alot of rumour, stories, lies and is viewed as criminal by some. if you went to define a system that both restricted it's use but justified it's existance then when someone sees a torch burning despite the conditions they will oh and ah at it rather than say "well thats a cop out isn't it".

 

BTW i ran a DnD campaign based on the thief world, i kinda stuffed it up by not planning it properly. But basically i used the DnD rules and said that the highest level character around is about level 10 (the trickster or victoria probably) and everyone averages a level of 2. The world doesn't have many magical items due to the distinct lack of high level mages or clerics (i made clerics and paladins hammerites, the druids and rangers were the pagans). The system worked for the most part, but yeah being the first time I DM'ed a game I didn't prepare properly and it fell apart :S

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Regarding castles - our first priority is making a toolset. No matter what textures, etc. we do or do not provide in the toolset, there's nothing preventing an FM author from making a castle setting.

 

This is good to hear. The more variety and options that you can grant to FM Designers (even though they may have to do a little work ^_^ ) the better and more diverse their missions will be. I look forward to seeing some of Obscurus' forays into making a Victorian Era Fan-Made experience as much as I look forward to trying to create my own medieval/fantasy ones! If the D3 Engine is as flexible as I hear; it would be great to see some entirely new stuff! Imagine playing a misson where you rob the palace of a pharaoh or the Foro Romano or the Hanging Gardens of Babylon :D

 

The beauty of a toolset is that it allows anyone to share their own opinion of how they think the game should be made. For me personally it wouldn't matter if certain TDM FM's had no magic or water arrows; so long as I enjoyed them. Think of the Shaleford Cradle, IMO a great map; it was full of Victorian Era elements like electric lighting, hell the idea of an insane asylum is Victorian. The Cradle was great even without fantasy elements. On the other hand in other levels I loved being able to shoot rope arrows into a beam of a high ceiling and drop down on unsuspecting guards below. So long as the map is enjoyable and well-made, magic or not-magic will become a moot point.

Edited by SplaTtzZ
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IMO this discussion is kind fo pointless, because wether an environment is pitch dark or not, only depends on what a map designer builds. We as the Darkmod team have no influence on this. Same for equipment. We can provide the tools but that doesn't mean that a map author will use it in his particular map.

Gerhard

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There were some interesting suggestions proposed in this thread. I somewhat agree with obscurus on the victorian setting, I think when you look at thief, it's clear that although it has a certain medieval flair to it, the actual situation (proto-industry, mixed with more traditional elements, like religion, magic, itd..) isn't that far removed from, say, early 19th century. However, it wouldn't be good to go al the way IMO - I'm all for anachronisms, as long as they are not silly...

My (MY) idea of a nice setting would be something along these lines:

 

The city could be based (very vaguely) on 18/19th century London, with other elements mixed in for flavour - that means, a lot of gritty industrial complexes, but the majority of architecture would still be older in origin. Also, if you look at some of the old european cities, many of them have an "old" district of some sort, which is still standing strong after centuries - plenty of medieval and renaissance architecture. I guess it could be located so that it's basically the town "core" and from there the city expands outwards, with progressively newer architecture, and you could have those big industrial districts on the fringes of the city, and then the suburbs with massive victorian mansions as well as older sections which used to be separate towns/villages in yet another architectural style but are now engulfed by the ever expanding city. That way it wouldn't even be anachronistic to have different architectural styles IMO.

 

The bigger problem here is the life, the "pulse" of the city, which was very different in middle ages than it was in 19th century. In thief, folks are usually wearing those colourful baroque clothes, which (to me) suggest 15/16 century style.

The strong religious (builders) presence would be out of place in a victorian setting, but that could be explained by the fact that they (the builders) and their teachings are quite different than, say, catholicism. They promote industry and stuff, so it's understandable that they are still going strong.

Pagans are another issue - but one could explain their presence by making TDM world different from ours in a sense that there's more of a gap between "civilized" and "uncivilized" world - massive cities, surrounded by smaller towns and detached farms (or something), but further away from such habitats there's the untamed wilderness where pagans still prosper.

 

Then you could also make some guards carry musketes instead of crossbows and they would be more powerful - more dangerous and another incentive for sneaking. Most guards would still carry swords though, because they're better for close combat. Medieval type of armor would make sense I guess, because firearms would be rare (unlike real 19th century) and most people and especially thieves and such would still be using daggers and bows (and bow is silent, too).

 

uh.... that was just a quick brainstorm. A couple of undeveloped ideas, feel free to rebuke...

 

EDIT: now that I took another look, I think this post would make more sense in "The Thief/dark Mod Universe" thread, so do move it, if you feel it should be moved.

Edited by kwc
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Hell. I went to delete my own message and accidently deleted the one above it instead. Obviously I'm not used to the new placement of the forum buttons. Sorry about that.

 

:angry:

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I've been having trouble with the buttons too, I couldnt figure out why I kept quoting the message above the one I wanted. Are the new buttons the reverse of the old?

 

Ill summarize my post:

 

Springheel, u asked what the point was if AIs and player could both see, I had two responses. Myself personally I would rather have a really dark map and the ability to see in the dark( or light my own way) and have AIs that could see in the dark as opposed to an abnormal amount or even presence of torches, at least in some settings. Two, those powers, more importantly the players, should have limitations, liabilities. Say an amulet of all-seeing is provided, it should only maybe be usable for short periods of time, or perhaps it drains your lifeforce slowly as you use it, a classic balance mechanism for magical tools/weapons. Strong advantages need to be balanced with a strong liability. Make it rare to find, expensive, dangerous, something.

 

As to the discussion of the use of magic, it can be overdone and noone wants that, I would certainly enjoy an FM that was strictly tools and wits, no magic at all, but I enjoy the fantasy element that magic opens up just as much. Less is more, make magic expensive, dangerous, and hard to find for the player and use it as a rationale only when absolutely necessary to achieve a certain aim.

 

P.S. I think the Emporer's lamp story is a myth, unless those vats were airtight and sterile, the fat molecules in the oil would have chemically degraded, no? Oxidation would have slowly "burnt" the oil away into other stuff. I think.

Edited by Maximius
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And I too agree with your observation Obscurus; that magic shouldn't be used as an excuse or inventory filler. I had no problem with rope arrows or climbing gloves though; magical though they were, at least they had some use. I too used water arrows very little, though I wouldn't take them out because I can't speak for other players who might like them. I like the idea of Victorian cities and such; the only problem being that at this stage that guns were quite common; including revolvers and shell-based rifles. I wouldn't mind it if it was early Victorian, late 1700's and early 1800's; with flint-lock rifles and pistols, but guards with revolvers would totally own our thief player. And lets not talk about giving the player a gun!  :laugh: with a victorian aged silencer or something :blink:

 

There is nothing magical about climbing gloves per se, in fact Ninjas used them in mediaeval Japan as a means of scaling walls - they were a simple leather glove having a band of iron with short curved iron spikes, and they doubled as an effective close quarters weapon. They made it relatively easy to scale rough stone walls, trees and wooden pillars (I've seen these in action in a documentary about Ninjas - they work). The idea of rope arrows is just so preposterous, that I just can't really ever like them at all. And nowhere in the Thief series is it ever even implied that they were magical, that is a supposition people have made to explain away something that would be physically impossible. If not a grappling hook, then climbing gloves, but please, no rope arrows :)

 

In almost all of London's history, police have never carried guns - they have a cudgel/club/nightstick/blackjack type apparatus, and even today most British police do not carry firearms. And guns, while quite common in western USA, were a rarity in 19th century London, something only wealthy aristocrats and soldiers would possess, even today England has one of the lowest levels of gun ownership in the world... I would prefer to see flintlocks over revolvers, but it wouldn't bother me if there were a few guns here and there. But most guards should be armed with a bobby's cudgel, not a sword, not a gun, although in a victorian setting a gun would make more sense than a bow and arrow. If you distribute gun-toting AI sparingly, they would not be a problem.

 

And if you think about it, why weren't there any guns in Thief? After all there were robots that launched explosive cannonballs, and mages that fired of fireballs - surely a Mechanist with the smarts to build explosives and robots would come up with a gun pretty quickly...

Edited by obscurus
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P.S. I think the Emporer's lamp story is a myth, unless those vats were airtight and sterile, the fat molecules in the oil would have chemically degraded, no?  Oxidation would have slowly "burnt" the oil away into other stuff.  I think.

 

That seems fairly likely to be the case, although it isn't inconceivable that there was insufficient oxygen in the vat to completely degrade the oil - it also depends on the purity of the oil. Bacteria would devour oil if there is suficent water available to grow, but when the bacteria died, the oil would be released again, so it actually might be possible. After all, the worlds oil deposits are thought to be the decomposed remains of plants and animals that died millions of years ago, so who knows. Any Chinese history buffs out there? I'll have a look at www.snopes.com to see if they have the answer...

Edited by obscurus
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Im convinced that a large part of the immersion of T 1/2 was the anachronistic jumble of medieval, Victorian, and "Pagan" or tribal societies/artifacts. Mixing them together served two ends, for one it set the theater of action in a place most players would quickly recognize as being far removed from their own in time and space but at the same time it didnt set the game in one easily identifiable era. It worked to create a totally new environment, one no one had every played around in before. For me, the jumble MADE t 1/2 all the more believable. The few things with corollaries in RL, like the cameras and the robots and such, were for me so successfully embedded in this new world that they seemed right at home.

 

The climbing gloves in TDS neednt have been magical, but they could have fooled me given that Garrett could climb a wall like Spider-Man. I used to climb walls holding down the slow key to try and make it more realistic. Any power ups/special abilities, especially magical ones, should be designed and used with the lightest of touches. The rope arrows Im torn over, on one hand i love the way they open up a map, but they are also probably the hardest part of the Thief's kit to explain, even with magic.

Edited by Maximius
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That seems fairly likely to be the case, although it isn't inconceivable that there was insufficient oxygen in the vat to completely degrade the oil - it also depends on the purity of the oil.  Bacteria would devour oil if there is suficent water available to grow, but when the bacteria died, the oil would be released again, so it actually might be possible.  After all, the worlds oil deposits are thought to be the decomposed remains of plants and animals that died millions of years ago, so who knows.  Any Chinese history buffs out there?  I'll have a look at www.snopes.com to see if they have the answer...

 

I tried to find some stuff but there are more UFO sites that discuss the Emperors magical eternal lamps which still light the way to the secret Templar base in antarctica than factual ones that I can find. If baceteria ate the oil, would it not be altered by the process of removing nutrients/energy? The oil underground exists in an oxygen free environment, as I understand, sort of naturally occuring high pressure "vats."

 

I think.

 

 

Edit:Obscurus I didnt mean to imply YOU were nuts or off the wall for thinking it might be possible, I really did get a couple of UFO sites and no real info with a quick Google search.

Edited by Maximius
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If baceteria ate the oil, would it not be altered by the process of removing nutrients/energy?  The oil underground exists in an oxygen free environment, as I understand, sort of naturally occuring high pressure "vats."

 

I think.

 

 

Not really, the bacterial cell wall is made of a fat membrane, and when the bacteria die, you will be left with an oily residue. and bacteria can only grow so much without water, so I would imagine that the oil in the vats is largely unchanged, provided the vats are still intact, and the oil hasn't seeped out or been used up, so I guess it is plausible, although unlikely, that the oil lamps might still have been burning...

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The idea of rope arrows is just so preposterous, that I just can't really ever like them at all. And nowhere in the Thief series is it ever even implied that they were magical, that is a supposition people have made to explain away something that would be physically impossible. If not a grappling hook, then climbing gloves, but please, no rope arrows

Damn, that would mean most of my recent work would have to go to waste. :)

 

You know what - I totally understand where you're coming from, and a part of me could side with you. But the fact is, I had more fun with rope arrows than climbing gloves, and climbing gloves felt too much like cheating. Being chased, find the nearest brick wall, and up you go, safe and sound.

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Well, I guess if you have already put the hard yakka into making rope arrows, I can hardly begrudge you that :) I would like to see vine arrows if you are going to have rope arrows, they are marginally more realistic if you suppose they are magic vines that grow really fast... The climbing gloves in TDS allowed you to climb much too quickly, and you should run out of strength if you hang onto the wall too long, and fall off. That would balance it a bit more, so you didn't feel like you were cheating by using them. But I still liked the climbing gloves, perhaps it was the nostalgic reminder of my rockclimbing days, or maybe just because I could climb without rope arrows. It is a shame that the climbing gloves never really opened up a lot of areas - I tried climbing all over the place in TDS, only to encounter invisible barriers everywhere... shame they were implemented so poorly in TDS.

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In almost all of London's history, police have never carried guns - they have a cudgel/club/nightstick/blackjack type apparatus, and even today most British police do not carry firearms. And guns, while quite common in western USA, were a rarity in 19th century London, something only wealthy aristocrats and soldiers would possess, even today England has one of the lowest levels of gun ownership in the world... I would prefer to see flintlocks over revolvers, but it wouldn't bother me if there were a few guns here and there. But most guards should be armed with a bobby's cudgel, not a sword, not a gun, although in a victorian setting a gun would make more sense than a bow and arrow. If you distribute gun-toting AI sparingly, they would not be a problem.

 

And if you think about it, why weren't there any guns in Thief? After all there were robots that launched explosive cannonballs, and mages that fired of fireballs - surely a Mechanist with the smarts to build explosives and robots would come up with a gun pretty quickly...

 

Ditto... that was exactly what I had in mind. But then, I think this is work for the community, once the mod comes out :) You people are doing wonderful work "converting" Thief into D3 engine, and eventually folks are going to expand it further... And I would prefer flintstone rifles and pistols, because it would mean they would be of little use to Garrett (slow reload time, cumbersome). As for the guards with guns owning Garrett... Well, the point is NOT being seen... Garrett is a thief, not a warrior, remember? :D

 

As for rope arrows... I agree climbing gloves are more realistic, but rope arrows are INFINITELY more fun, IMO. the perfect compromise would be a grappling hook, but I guess it would be a pain to code. SO my suggestion is, replace rope arrow with a vine arrrow and you're set. Vines are a really novel idea, and they're not altogether unrealistic - apart from the fast growth, but then, fast growth explained by magic isn't all that contrived if you ask me...

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Domarius: Being chased, find the nearest brick wall, and up you go, safe and sound.

 

 

Amen to that. I thought the gloves were a good idea but in TDS they let Garrett climb like spider man. If the gloves are retained at some point, I would really like to see them slowed down considerably. In the Kurshok lair, I could run from almost any enemy and escape simply by hopping like a gecko onto the nearest wall. It was a good idea consolized to death.

 

 

Vine arrows seem like a happy medium to respond to the rope arrow controversy. They are clearly magical, and with the proper context ( maybe an old Pagan witch who makes such arrows and sells them to the Thief) they could be made more acceptable. I would also make them REALLY expensive, and if the climbing gloves were available, I would also make them a one shot deal, you "plant" the vine arrow and thats where it grows. You would be able to pluck it out to avoid leaving a trail, but it would simply turn to dust like the rope arrows used to and be consumed.

 

I like the idea of musketry and cannon, but lets remember too that such things were WILDLY expensive, dangerous, and rare, actually until quite recently with the rise of industrialized production methods. They too should be rare, and there would still be plenty of swords and such that would be used.

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There are going to be rope arrows because the vast majority of Thief players love them. Of course they aren't realistic. This isn't a realistic game. It's a game about a thief who sneaks around in the dark while carrying a dozen plates, goblets, rolled up canvases, coins, bottles, and thirty or forty arrows, all without making a noise.

 

Arguing whether or not there's enough water in a crystal to put out a torch or how much strength it takes to climb a wall is pretty pointless when the basic game mechanics are inherently unrealistic. In the end, it's about making a game that's fun, not a reality simulator.

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