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It's not a question of standing up to Oddity, it's a question of which side of the fence you come down on: more player freedom / less player freedom in the name of insured fun. On this issue, apparently Spar, Odd and I are on the player freedom side.

 

@Demagogue: If the mapper forces you to keep the blackjack, that might as well be a bright neon sign saying "This mission isn't ghostable, you will absolutely have to KO someone to succeed!" Which kind've ruins the fun. I agree it takes a little more effort to make sure you put in some blunt objects with which you can KO someone, but considering how many more physically modeled objects we will have lying around than T2 FMs, it's not that much of a stretch. Assuming we code the use of items like we want to, you could use a chair, rock, candlestick, thick tree branch, whatever. As long as the map isn't a void with no items, the mapper shouldn't really have to worry that the player won't be able to KO someone if they choose to drop their blackjack.

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Why not just mimic thief and just keep the sword and blackjack?

 

@Ishtvan: There are very, very few maps on Thief I have played that didn't have a blackjack, and you could still ghost them.

 

It makes sense, to me anyway, IANAE, to have the base gameplay code mapped out before worrying about features in the future.

Edited by Skol
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Only you are, in so many ways. I don't care if you can throw away your blackjack and use a chair instead, but you don't flag the mission for ghosting because your blackjack can be dropped.

 

(edit: and next time, I won't make a typo!)

Edited by Skol
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Oddity's fanatic fetish for "thieving naked", is there any actual reason for this feature?

I also have that fetish. I'm sure many more people do too.

 

apparently Spar, Odd and I are on the player freedom side.

me too!

It's always better to leave more options open and later close some than to leave more closed.

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THey never have given into any of my demands, and they certaintly aren't going to now since I don't offically work on the mod any more, I'm just a contibutor who will make the odd charcater, so you can quit resorting to that pathetic line of argument when poeple don't agree with you.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

character models site

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I dunno how I feel about the allowing drop all vs keeping sword and blackjack. It would be odd to me to start with a sword and blackjack (as in I brought them with me from my apartment/hideout to the starting area) and then decide to drop them on the street!

 

Maybe there could be an option in the inventory loadout screen to "unselect" the basic starting inventory items if you want. Sort of like Garrett saying "I'll leave these behind in my apartment for this one, I feel like a challenge!"

 

I think there would need to be some basic objects in the world that can be blackjacks/clubs in disguise. Things like candlesticks, crate flinders, etc. Maybe the basics of those items could have the properties of the blackjack.

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Maybe there could be an option in the inventory loadout screen to "unselect" the basic starting inventory items if you want. Sort of like Garrett saying "I'll leave these behind in my apartment for this one, I feel like a challenge!"

But then that begs the question as to whether Garrett would be practical or cocky. We've seen both types of behaviour from his actions. He seemed more arrogant of his abilities in Thief 1, more practical and survivalistic in Thief 2.

Loose BOWELS are the first sign of THE CHOLERA MORBUS!
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But then again we won't be dealing with Garrett her in Dark Mod.

 

So if it's a setting that authors can set or something, then that might be a good comprimise.

 

Then again, going out with NO tools is only what a very few players want to do. That minority should probably just avoid using tools if they don't want to, like people already do with T2

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That's way too reasonable a proposal.

 

Yet another problem with allowing core equipment to be discarded before the mission even starts is that it means the game is making a tacit assertion that ALL MISSIONS CAN BE GHOSTED. This is clearly false.

 

The purpose behind Thief's loadout screen is that each mission starts you out with what you'll reasonably need to finish the mission, then allows you to buy more stuff to support your personal play style. This is a damn good compromise between allowing freedom of loadout and ensuring that the player doesn't screw himself before the mission even starts.

 

Suggesting that essential equipment be placed in the maps themselves is quite lame, because that reduces Our Hero to the level of incompetent unprepared scrounger.

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I like that point, and along those lines I have the exact opposite intuition from this:

 

@Demagogue: If the mapper forces you to keep the blackjack, that might as well be a bright neon sign saying "This mission isn't ghostable, you will absolutely have to KO someone to succeed!" Which kind've ruins the fun.

 

I think that, as ZB says, when a mission is not ghostable, which you can guarantee *will* happen ... *then* if the default is the ability to "not chooose any on loadout" or "in-game drop" essential tools, the mapper will have the real problem of leaving essentail equipment around (which I can see being unnatural in some cases, although it's been done in plenty of FMs and worked; it depends) or tag it undroppable and put it in loadout, and THAT will be the bright neon sign. But if the default is T2 style, can't drop core equipment in loadout or in game (just like you can't drop the ability to jump or mantle, or choose not to have it before the game starts), then the player doesn't know whether he needs it or not. It's just part of the background functionality of the game, again like jumping and mantling. Having the situation like T2 style is the way to AVOID the neon-sign phenomenon in non-ghostable cases (which seem to me will be the majority), it seems to me.

 

But I'm not so invested in it ... because I think players will quickly learn how TDM gameplay is distinctive and there will be a learning curve whichever way is chosen, so practically it may not be as big a problem after time as it may be at first.

Edited by demagogue

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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Yeah but if there is usuable candlesticks for knockout then the mapper will leave them about anyhow and so the non-ghostable map can still be done.

 

And then you can play "Scrounger" where you enter a building using only the tools in the building. Which I would like to try for fun, if the objects were only believable ones, e.g. the iron candlestick.

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You guys seem to be very afraid of making the game difficult, whis I find saddening. The only thing in the whole Thief series I found challenging was the Mechanist bettle-bots, I hated those huge bastads ;)

 

The AI was way too dumb, you could even stand in the shadow, lean forward as the guard was approaching, looking for you, and easily blackjack him in the face (I did that in T2).

More challenge I say! More realism! This is a thief-simulator! How about encumbrance? It would be hella difficult to swim and run fast carrying a sword, blackjack, bow, tens of arrows and tons of loot! I propose an option (for expert difficulty maybe) to allow encumbrance affect the speed and agility of the PC, so that he has to carefully plan which stuff to take with him. This would make him carefully choose the most valuable loot OR carry a loot bag, that he would leave in some dark corner when he needs to do more acrobatic stuff, and then drop the small part of the loot in after clearing a part of the map. AND if he finds himself in need od a sword while having his own left at the beginning of the map, he should grab a candlestick, knock out a guard and grab his sword!

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We'll be trying to fix most of exploits that existed in Thief (eg, making a noise, then leaning forward and blackjacking investigating guards). And I get the impression that most teammates intend to make TDM harder than T1/T2 were. (for example, AI will tend to randomly look around more) However, at the same time our goal for the initial release is to make something comparable to Thief that most of its fans would enjoy, so many elements of a strict Thieving simulator aren't going to be used.

 

However, TDM will be open-source, so it'll be possible to use its assets and change the code so that it's the Thieving simulator of your dreams. I know that once TDM is released, I would like to experiment with things like encumbrance and silhouetting. PS, you may want to consider teaming up with oDDity - you and him seem to have similar views.

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You guys seem to be very afraid of making the game difficult, whis I find saddening.

 

Who? We? We will see how challenging it is when it is released. And nobody stops you to make it better. In fact you are welcome to join and improve it. We are always looking for good contributors.

 

The only thing in the whole Thief series I found challenging was the Mechanist bettle-bots, I hated those huge bastads ;)

 

Which were still pretty easy to circumvent, because they were so big.

 

The AI was way too dumb, you could even stand in the shadow, lean forward as the guard was approaching, looking for you, and easily blackjack him in the face (I did that in T2).

 

This will not work here. *HEHE*

 

More challenge I say! More realism!

 

You are living under the illusion that more realism makes a game better. It doesn't.

 

This is a thief-simulator!

 

Who said that? You must have been confusing the forums.

Gerhard

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If you can create your own textures, you would be very welcome to help us. Texturing is one area that we have a lot of work and lack people a lot.

 

As for realism. It depends on the kind of realism. But blindly making a game more realistic doesn't make it better, because every feature has to be balanced in the context of the overall game, so that it makes sense.

 

Just look at TDS. They made the AI more realistic by giving them breath and what did they gained with it? They made it much easier to escape this way. You can even run in circles around a fountain, until they run out of breath and then get away easily. Now how realistic is that?

Gerhard

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I think running should not have a "limit", just check out D3 the game and see how annoying it is when you "run out of breath". It's a giant pain in the ass and does not add to gameplay. Remember those chases in T1/2 where you'd be running for about 3 minutes and look around only to find the guard has not lost you? Very tense.

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