Ideas

[bob_arctor]

What are the mechanist types going to be called?

 

Presumably machinists or somethig.

 

I had an idea reading William Gibson's The Difference Engine you could call them something french, them with their "ordinateurs". You could call them machinateurs (mashinatuurs) or something.

Then you could have the Benny equivalent eat suspicious horse sausages....

[oDDity]

We've had endless discusson about what to call them, without any solid conclusion.

This is one of the drawbacks of a mod, no one really has the final say like in a commercial project, so we have to use democracy.

Ordinateurs reminds me too much of Morrowind though, the guards in Vivec were called Ordinators.

[Springheel]

Not every group needs an official name. That's not very realistic. TDM 'mechanists' are just a guild of inventors, engineers, and scientists. They're probably most often called "inventors".

[obscurus]

So they aren't a religious order that broke away from the Builders? I prefer if they aren't a bunch of religious fanatics, it would make them more interesting if they are as you say a loose guild made up of various people. One lot of religious loonies in a gmae is enough.

[FishFace]

Agreed. Although close ties with the builders would be fun for the backing, since I assume the builders will be into the inventors' gadgets and whatnot? Builder inventors would presumably exist too, adding more spice to the game.

[Springheel]

Builders and the Inventor's Guild have no relation at all. The Builders used to think very favourably about them, but they disapprove of their recent practice of giving life to machines, and they're--quite frankly--jealous of the wealth the guild is amassing.

[Ombrenuit]

Well considering that this is Thief, and the thieves of old always used slang, I don't think on the "streets" of the City, the vulgar tongue crowd would be using a name as official as "The Mechanists". I would think one would try to find something a little more slanderous, raggidy, slangish for this particular faction (that oppressed the poor classes so much to begin with...).

 

For my "Thief World" I was planning, I was going to call a faction quite like it "The Watchmakers", something that I wouldn't necessarily call "nice", and refers to the fact that they were the first to introduce clockworks into my version of the City.

Edited August 5, 2005 by Ombrenuit

[Springheel]

Well considering that this is Thief

 

Er...no it's not.

 

I don't think on the "streets" of the City, the vulgar tongue crowd would be using a name as official as "The Mechanists"

 

Yeah, that term doesn't exist in TDM universe. There are lots of different names for the Inventor's Guild members. "Gearhead" "Engineer" "Mad Scientist" "Bot-Builders" "Hey You"

[bob_arctor]

I like Watchmakers. Sounds cools. Bot-Builders I hate, too modern sounding. Mad Scientist also, as they don't really have Science.

[Springheel]

Of course they have science. They ARE the scientists. Other than both building robots, there is little similarity between TDM inventors and Thief Mechanists.

[Maximius]

Are their scientific beliefs a source of tension between them and the Builders? Do the Inventors have a competing account of the World and Beyond? I envision book burnings, heresy trials, purges, all the fun stuff.

[Springheel]

Well, the Builders aren't anti-science. But they don't really trust the Inventor's Guild any more. Partially because they are suspicious about how the inventors create their bots--rumours talk about strange rituals. Partly it's just jealousy. The Guild has become quite wealthy in the few decades since its creation, and has amassed a lot of political power as well.

[bob_arctor]

I mean "scientists" somehow in my mind don't fit in the Thief world. That implies a more advanced non-magical world. I don't really know how to explain it best, but I just feel "Mad Scientist" is out of place. Too modern perhaps? Or too rooted in the present day reality.

[oDDity]

Nonsense, 'modern' science has been around for 500 years and the al the word means is knowledge -Latin scientia

All it means is that they use logic and experimentation to discover and invent. I'm not interested in people's percived notions of words as being too modern, even though they are not.

[SneaksieDave]

 

Steam engines, eyeglasses, robots(!), electric lights, arches and other structural concepts (without mentioning the machines used to do the building in the first place), canals and aqueducts, metallurgy for creation of weapons and armor - if those things didn't come from applied scientific knowledge and methods, where did they come from?

[bob_arctor]

Maybe what I want is Alchelmy not chemistry then. Or references to craftsmen and inventors quite a bit.

[oDDity]

Given that 'mechanist' from T2 was simply 'mechanic' with an 'st' randomly stuck on the end - as if a megalomaniac like Karras would call his breakaway religious movement 'the mechanics'

I think we're getting into the realms of 'LGS could do no wrong, and anything you bunch of amateurs come up with can't be as good and needs to be argued with'

I take issue with quite a lot of what LGS did and decisions they made, as other members of the team know, I'm probably the most 'let's make our own game as much as possible' person here.

[obscurus]

I totally agree with you on that oDDity - I think there is a great deal of room for improvement on the original Thief concept, and I hope that TDM team doesn't stick too rigidly to just copying Thief by just changing the names of factions and characters slightly. I think I have made this point several times before, but if you want Thief, play Thief (there are a lot of FMs out there for it if you are bored of the originals), but a few of us would like to see a game inspired by Thief, but brave enough to sort the wheat from the chaff and create something distinctive and possibly even better than Thief. And for legal reasons, the more you deviate from Thief, the less risk you have of running into a bunch of cranky lawyers sent by Eidos to smite you for copyright infringment.

 

Can people please stop seeing the Dark Mod as a carbon copy of Thief, and start looking at it as an opportunity to make a novel, distinctive, original first-person stealth based game? Please? Just because Thief had X or Y does not mean TDM has to also have X or Y.

[Renzatic]

I wonder why we haven't posted any of our more up-to-date Mechanist/Inventor concepts yet. Just by looking at what Spring and KFM have done would give anyone a good idea of their styling and characteristics.

 

Needless to say they don't have much in common with Thief's Mechanists other than their obvious slant towards machinery.

[Ombrenuit]

Well I do agree with the idea that Thief was designed to inspire, and if all we do is copy it, we can not add our creativity to it. If there were to be a dark mod based upon thief, then this is what it should be, taking one concept and expanding on it, using it to inspire more unique ideas. After all, this is what fan missions are about arn't they? Expanding ideas?

Edited August 12, 2005 by Ombrenuit

[Nomad]

a few of us would like to see a game inspired by Thief, but brave enough to sort the wheat from the chaff and create something distinctive and possibly even better than Thief.

 

Well said! If I wanted carbon copy Thief, I would stick to FMs. I've really enjoyed the Thief series more than any other game style I've played, but frankly, being stuck in the same environments for so many years gets old. I look forward to playing the same style game, but in a totally new environment with different people, different organizations and different rules. And I'm very excited about the direction the Dark Mod seems to be going with this!

Edited August 12, 2005 by Nomad

[New Horizon]

Well said! If I wanted carbon copy Thief, I would stick to FMs. I've really enjoyed the Thief series more than any other game style I've played, but frankly, being stuck in the same environments for so many years gets old. I look forward to playing the same style game, but in a totally new environment with different people, different organizations and different rules. And I'm very excited about the direction the Dark Mod seems to be going with this! 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

The Dark Mod campaign will be very different from what we are used to. The toolset on the other hand, is meant to give FM authors something more familiar to work with....without the limitations imposed by the current editor.

[Domarius]

The other thing it should let you do is create the traditional Thief 2 style, but it looks a bazillion times better

[bob_arctor]

Or a Billion Times WORSE!!!!!!

 

GENIUS!!!!!

[Domarius]

Well yes, no doubt there will be those so inclined. "No one can stop an author from making a shit FM."

 

(Well you could threaten them with nasty letters if you catch them in the early stages I suppose.)