Crystal Arrows

[Domarius]

The problem with both is - the view model for firing them will have to change depending on what one you're using.

 

I won't implement that, it will be far too much work for such a little reason.

[Subjective Effect]

As much as I hate the idea of having to use the Thief crystal arrows I think we will have to just so you can find arrows "in the field". Would it be possible to set it up so that when you use a crystal arrow the number of broadheads drops by one to indicate the use of that broadhead's shaft and flight?

[Springheel]

Although it might be a little easier to make a case for finding crystals in outdoor environments, I've thought of some reasons why arrows might be found in inhabited areas:

 

Rope Arrow: The rope arrow design is based on much larger versions built by the Inventor's Guild for use in naval combat. The original design was launched by ballistae on the shore at enemy ships, which then used winches to pull the ships into range of archers or onto traps. The smaller designs became popular for boarding parties, allowing one ship to pull the other close enough to board.

 

A number of variations of this arrow now exist, used by hunters, construction workers, and even loggers.

 

Fire Arrow: One of the first successful inventions of the Inventor's Guild was greek fire. A fire that burns even on water and cannot be extinguised by normal means. While the recipe for greek fire is kept a close secret, a less-effective version has been created for hand to hand combat. The fire arrow has a small amount of liquid in the tip that explodes on impact. These arrows are highly prized by soldiers and are considered status symbols because of their cost. Some nobility purchase them simply so they can impress their neighbours by lighting the fireplace in the great hall with one once the guests have arrived.

 

Water Arrow: With the number of furnaces and steam engines in the city, fire is always a serious danger. Combined with the fear that an enemy nation might one day steal the recipe to greek fire, the Inventor's Guild was charged with developing something that could extinguish the fire. The result is a highly potent form of water. A small amount is enough to extinguish a sizable flame. Attached to arrows for easy delivery, fire brigades now use these water arrows to put out fires on roofs and other hard-to-access locations. Most nobles keep a few handy in case fire were ever to get out of control in their homes.

 

 

 

Not very polished, but how's that? Now there are valid reasons why you might find these things scattered around in people's homes.

[New Horizon]

Ok, name me another game with water, fire, gas, moss and vine arrows, used by the main character, a thief, who sneaks around medieval and steampunk environments using a lghtgem. That's only the tip of what we're copying.

We are sooo going to get busted by the owners of the Thief rights, and blatantly copying things like all the crystal arrows verbatim, is just handing them our dicks.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Were you stomping your feet while you typed that? I never said there were games 'exactly' like thief that used fire, water, gas, moss and vine arrows. I said...elemental crystals and elemental arrows. You're twisting it for effect.

 

 

Elemental crystals:

 

Final Fantasy

Crystal Warriors

 

Elemental Arrows: I'll name two as well.

Beyond Divinity

The Legend of Zelda, Ocarina of Time

 

Like I said, there are other games that have elemental crystals and elemental arrows. I suppose Nintendo is going to sue us too? The argument that elemental crystals would get us shut down is absolutely ridiculous. We have respectfully walked all over the boundries and with luck haven't been shut down so far. If we weren't shut down with the publicity shots of the Builders and the Revenants...then I think it's a safe bet someone isn't going to freak out when they see a crystal. Thievery copies most of the weapons verbatim...and they even showed their work to the guys who made thief. We're not infringing on anything with crystal arrows...especially since we haven't ripped the models and textures out of the Thief games to make them. Regardless of the fact that we're making a stealth toolset, I don't see anything to fear from using crystal arrows...especially after they were decided upon ages ago in the first place. If we're just going to keep unmaking decisions, I really don't see the point in trying to decide anything. We might as well just throw whatever we all want into the toolset, with reckless abandon, and see how well it goes over.

 

I'm really not against having mechanical arrows but for heavens sake...we need to put more thought into them than...'it doesn't matter'. If mechanical arrows feel contrived, then players just aren't going to appreciate your creations. You fail to see that.

 

At any rate. I'm neutral on the subject as of...now.

[New Horizon]

@ Spring

 

Thanks for adding the details Spring. It certainly does help validate the existance of such weapons.

[Darkness_Falls]

Yep, it does --for our campaign. But are we making the toolset for Thief fans who will likely want to make and play Thief levels, or are we hoping people will fall in love with our campaign so much that they will all the sudden want to make FMs based on our storyline and world? I'm just being realistic. Any normal Thief fan will likely want crystals for their FM levels. We're talking about Thief fans here. Changing the HUD in T3 or adding blue light trails behind arrows was enough to set them off. I'm not saying we need to be exactly like Thief in every respect. But crystals are integral to the Thief experience, sorry to say.

[New Horizon]

I'm not saying we need to be exactly like Thief in every respect.  But crystals are integral to the Thief experience, sorry to say.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Exactly. Just because we could use crystals doesn't mean they had to look exactly like the Thief crystals. Yes, a crystal is a crystal but we have creative freedom to fancy them up and make them look more like they could actually exist in the real world...much like oDD's mechanical arrows have a feeling of authenticity to them...I was hoping to see this type of detail paid to the crystal arrows. If we could have put that kind of attention into making our elemental arrows unique then I don't think that would be a problem...but...we can't keep hashing is over.

[Domarius]

I think as soon as you make a crystal look like a believable arrow - it looks like an arrow and then can't be found in the wild beleivably.

 

I like SE's idea of losing a broadhead arrow for firing an elemental one; we assume the Thief takes the crystal and fixes it onto the end of an arrowhead. But the existing ammo system doesn't support that kind of thing, so that's going to be more work for me, stuffing around just to make something beleivable, with not much in return gameplay-wise, except now you have a reason to keep hunting for broadheads... it could be good.

 

Anyway, I'm thinking to just stay with the T2 system for now - not because its from T2, but because its the path of least complications, and its not really a huge thing to be wasting time on. There are bigger things, like AI.

[Springheel]

Ok, so I'm not sensing a general consensus here. If anyone wants to put forward a new idea, do it now, otherwise I'll post a poll tonight.

[Ishtvan]

I like those plausability ideas a lot, Springheel. The only thing I'd add would be maybe the water arrow is a compressible foam instead of water, like those foam fire extinguishers. It still looks like water when it expands out though. To me that would be a good way of explaining how it's necessary to use those arrows to counteract the Greek fire that burns on water, because you'd have to smother it with something that's not water.

[oDDity]

Yes, those explaination are fine (not that we need any), and are less contrived than valuble crystals which just happen to be lying around unnoticed by everyone until you come along, and then they suddenly become an arrow in your quiver.

At least with mechanical arrows, you are finding a whole arrow.

THere are reasons for why some of these mechanical arrows might be lying around caves etc - maybe bandits have used it has a hideout before now. It's really not important.

I don't even buy the argument that the player has to have his equipment replenised during the level anyway, and what about his other non magic stuff like flashbombs and mines and nosiemakers, how come you don't worry about whether FM makers can leave those lying around pagan levels.

THe vine and moss arrows are pagan magic anyway, so those can be found on pagan levels quite easily. There's no argument that says every single piece of equipment has to be consistent with a pagan level.

[Fingernail]

Get ahold of yourselves, have you all lost the plot?

 

Do you really think that, given the immense achievement that the Dark Mod will be on release, people will

 

a ) complain

b ) care about

c ) take issue with

d ) even notice

 

the heads of the arrows?

 

As long as it plays well and the arrows aren't world-shatteringly out of place, which NONE of these designs or any other crystal designs would be, then THERE IS NO BIG DEAL about this. Certainly not multiple pages.

[New Horizon]

The FINGER has pointed.

[oDDity]

Ha, we've had at least this many pages of argument over just one arrow before - the noisemaker.

[Subjective Effect]

People will DEFINITELy notice. Cripes! That's why I think it is important. If we have some really cool looking heads you just know we will get props for it.

 

If they are direct copies, or not different enough, we'll get "Oh, lame. At least you could have made them different."

 

You know it.

[Fingernail]

Good. Whatever. Some people will always complain.

[oDDity]

Here's two more. These are based on old concepts by GIMG. Noise and gas.

[Darkness_Falls]

If the gas arrow seeps out a trail of gas the whole time it's in flight, wouldn't that kill or disorient everything in it's path?

 

Crystal arrows more believably unleash toxic gas upon impact. It makes sense: glass shatters, all the gas is unleashed and only in that area.

 

On the other hand, we have to assume the modeled gas arrow is spring loaded or something and immediately sprays out its entire dose of gas upon impact. Otherwise, if nothing mechanically tells all the gas to escape on impact, then the gas will just flow out wherever the arrow goes until all gas is released since all the gas is contained in a solid object that does not break. If we're going with this modeled one, maybe it can be tweaked to give a hint of some sort of spring-loaded mechanism or something.

 

PS: If one argument against crystal arrows is that they all look the same except for their color, I'd have to say: look at the modeled rope arrow, gas arrow and noisemaker arrow. They all look relatively the same. Quite similar anyways. For the crystals, they could be tweaked just as much in shape, design or texture to differentiate them. (They don't have to be the same size and everything just because Thief did.) So the argument of crystals all look the same is no longer a good argument against them if we accept thes 3 mechanical arrows.

 

But PPS: Do what you will. I'm sure they will be fun to use no matter what route we take. I can compromise rather than keep arguing and wasting everyone's time. I'm sure there are more important fish to fry

[Domarius]

As I'm programming the weapons, I'm happy with whatever solution doesn't complicate the existing system any more than it already is (eg. bow raise/lower anim issue). Leave any fancy ideas for after the first official release.

[sparhawk]

People will DEFINITELy notice. Cripes! That's why I think it is important. If we have some really cool looking heads you just know we will get props for it.

 

If they are direct copies, or not different enough, we'll get "Oh, lame. At least you could have made them different."

 

You know it.

 

Yes. And on another track. If they notice and complain they are free to create their own. It's not as if they absolutely HAVE to use our stuff. And even when they are bitching about it, which they certainly will, you can bet on this, then who cares. THIS IS NOT THIEF! It's TDM. And whatever we decide to include is part of the TDM universe and noone except us can argue about it. Do argue with Terry Pratchet why he included Wincerind in teh Discworld? If you don't like him that's your problem and not Terry Pratchet's problem. So if we come to a consensus here then this is it. We don't have to worry about player opinions on everything.

 

The major reason why I'm opposed to the original crystal arrows is still the same reason I posted long ago. They look boring and unimaginative and are just a verbatim copy of Thief. If we can make better looking crystal arrows that's fine for me. Oddity's mechanical arrows look much more creative and I like them better because of this. The explanation given for them is just a tag on and I don't really care for it, even though it is fun to think about it. We are making extraordinary models for everything else, so why stop at the arrows? I think it would be more consistent fi we pay as much attention here as well, but wether the explanation is this or that doesn't matter in the end. I think a poll is not really a good idea here. What would be the poll about? Mechanical vs. Crystal? Why do we need to decide this? Let's come up with cool arrows for each of them, because IMO that's what this discussion is really about. Let a water arrow be crystal and a rope arrow mechanical because this fits for the given type.

[Subjective Effect]

One of the things that we haven't seen yet in a Thief mission, in either of the 3 official games, is a proper outdoors mission. I'm talking country sneaking, a forest, a camp, perhaps a hamlet, perhaps a solitary ruin on the top of a hill. But with the sneaking really all going on outside. I always thought a mission where you have to sneak into some nomadic warlord's camp would be nice. Or the edges of a the camp of some large army.

 

You cannot do this in T3Ed. My FM was originally set outside. Obviously I wanted to simulate the outside since T3Ed cannot handle huge open spaces. But even then in order to make it look like the outside you have to use some relatively large open spaces that make T3 choke.

 

Original screen:

 

http://www.thiefpetition.com/images/thief/towerbase.jpg

 

See that draw distance behind the tower? It's a choker. So it's been completely redesigned and the entire structure altered to fit the constraints of the editor.

 

My point?

 

TDM has the potential to provide this untapped area for FM settings. Or so I understand from the way the editor works. And in such a setting arrows of a mechanical nature cannot be just found. Hence we would need crytstals. It's not just for pagan missions. I think this is pretty important but then it could just be my ideas about FMs.

 

PS. Talking of arrows, check out the animation on this. Not bad, not amazing. - http://home.comcast.net/~ascottk/files/mov/T3RopeArrow.wmv

[oDDity]

Ok, so the only reason for putting in crystal arrows, is that someome might want to make some bizzare misison in the middle of nowhere, where mechanical arrows couldn't possibly have reached, and the only solution would be to have crystals scattered all over the place if they wanted to replenish the players supply, which isn't even necessary in the first place.

I don't see that as much of an argument for including crystal arrows.

 

We'll say we didn't inlcude crystal arrows for copyright reasons, and everyone will accept that.

They'll put them in themselves anyway. I don't see any need for furthur argument.

[sparhawk]

PS. Talking of arrows, check out the animation on this. Not bad, not amazing.  - http://home.comcast.net/~ascottk/files/mov/T3RopeArrow.wmv

 

Is this a TDS rope arrow???

[sparhawk]

We'll say we didn't inlcude crystal arrows for copyright reasons, and everyone will accept that.

They'll put them in themselves anyway. I don't see any need for furthur argument.

 

If everybody agrees, will yet have to be proven. Last time I checked, it was not YOU who speaks for the enitre mode alone, and this hasn't really changed as far as I'm aware of.

[Subjective Effect]

No oDDity, I wasn't just saying that they would be useful in outside missions but that they would be useful there as well. If you are on any level that has a sewer or underground water sources or even just pools of water you can leave water crystals there. Same with any plantlife and moss crystals, or fires and fire crystals. It just means you have much more flexibility regarding in-mission finding of arrows.

 

The reason to put them in now is that they can then be used for the campaign. And that is the only reason. Other people will put them in for FM creation afterwards anyway.

 

Believe me, if it weren't for this flexibility I'd say mechanical 100%. I thought the explanation of why the mechanical versions exist by Springheel were perfect and should be slipped into some random guard speech or notes lying around in the campaign.

 

Yes sparhawk, that is a TDS rope arrow. All the components are there in T3Ed for it, the animation, the object, everything. They seem to be having trouble getting it to work though.