Small idea

[demagogue]

I don't know ... I was thinking the urine-meter was pretty competitive in the "worst idea ever" category.

[Ishtvan]

@Komag: That's what I'm talkin' bout!

[Macsen]

I think our thief should have a moustache. Like a silver horseshoe. It would make it mor realistic that he's able to carry so many weapons. Where does he put them... in the moustache!

[Crispy]

That's the second-biggest sword I've ever had in my moustache.

[Macsen]

There should certainly be a mission where you steal the wig off the head of a noble and use it to sneak into his palace.

[woah]

 

 

[SneaksieDave]

Oh Mr. Garrett, you're so suave!

[Tels]

Yeah but even that's still limiting your view, even if only for a short time. Plus for me it wouldn't add anything. So for me it's no plusses, and one small minus.

 

It is quite easy, go and buy this or a similiar shirt (Warning! Comes without the grinning monster in it!):

 

http://www.laufsport.de/shop/images/1578_H...75c11897d4eb401

 

and then drap it over your monitor.

 

Hell,we could even open up a TDM shop were we sell branded hoods and action figures and so on.

[Domarius]

Woah, woah for some reason those pics were pretty funny

 

Also I like playing with your name.

"Woah! Woh-oh-oh - what is he good for, absolutely no-thing..."

Maybe you don't know that song.

[Nyarlathotep]

War, by James Brown? That's my only guess.

[demagogue]

Lol, Nyar is right, it's "war" ... not "Whoa"

"Waar ... huh, what is it good for? absolutely nothing."

 

The whole thing is anti-war, if you look at the lyrics.

Edwin Starr wrote and sang it first, then James Brown covered it later.

 

To be fair, though, I thought it was whoa the first time I heard it too, in Rush Hour. Then I stumbled into the lyrics later, on youtube or something.

 

Edit: Unless of course you already knew that and you're just playing with his name because it sounds like the song, like you say.

Edited November 8, 2007 by demagogue

[Nyarlathotep]

Edwin Starr wrote and sang it first, then James Brown covered it later.

I was not aware of this. Truth be told, I never assumed James Brown wrote it, but still.

[Vadrosaul]

"Waar ... huh, what is it good for? absolutely nothing."

 

You forgot the 'yeah' between 'huh' and 'what is it good for?'

[Crispy]

Guard 1: Builder protect us, what is that thing on his face?

Guard 2: Quick, lever it off before it destroys us all!

[Ishtvan]

That's some fine 'stache awareness there! Can't wait to see the soup-eating minigame, watch out for that 'stache!

[OrbWeaver]

I have to say...the hood idea is probably the worst idea I've ever heard.

 

I agree. It is one of the most pointlessly trite timewastes of a feature imaginable in a computer game.

 

Hey, I've got an idea. You know how sometimes you get something in your eye, and have to rub it to get it out? We should implement that in TDM for added realism! From time to time half of the screen would go black and start flickering, and you'd have to wave the mouse around randomly to "clear out" the dirt from your eye.

 

Also, sometimes I find my stomach rumbles noisily, perhaps we should have a "random stomach rumble" feature which might alert guards by mistake. You'd have to eat bits of fruit to stop your stomach from rumbling, and if it got really bad you could go behind a tree somewhere and have a dump.

[Macsen]

It'd be cool to have a mission where you have to steal a cat - but the thief has an allergy to it!!!

 

Cue lots of sneezing at inappropriate moments and alerting guards.

[SneaksieDave]

I'd like to submit an option for the soup mini-game. If it a chunky soup, I feel the system in place is fine. But really, if it's a creamy soup, how can the player expect to maintain the same level of control over the 'stache? It's asking for trouble and I can see in advance the community complaining about it. "We don't have proper liquid physics, and yet we're supposed to manipulate the 'stache to avoid undesired moisture drooping as if the soup was a proper liquid! It's IDIOTIC!"

 

Remember, it would be an option. If you don't like it, don't enable it. Everyone's happy.

[Tels]

Also, sometimes I find my stomach rumbles noisily, perhaps we should have a "random stomach rumble" feature which might alert guards by mistake. You'd have to eat bits of fruit to stop your stomach from rumbling, and if it got really bad you could go behind a tree somewhere and have a dump.

 

Didn't eat apples in Thief make a noise? Or do I mix up the games here?

[demagogue]

I'll throw my vote for a spontaneous combustion simulator, where the PC periodically bursts into flames at random intervals ... screams, runs, hopefully there's some water around ... (not too far from SHAS, though, is it?)

 

Also, don't forget the good old fashion trojan ... installing the game simply wipes out your entire hard-drive, then contacts the FBI and CIA sending them incriminating evidence that you are a terrorist.

 

Now we're getting into worst idea ever territory.

 

edit: eating food was a VO. It made a noise, but like ambients, drinking a potion, or talking to himself, etc, only G could hear it.

 

Also, you (OW) realize if the PC could take a dump, you'd have to wire the guards to have poop-recognition and get suspicious when they see it lying on the ground.

Edited November 8, 2007 by demagogue

[Komag]

... poop-recognition...

 

That just made my day!

[Noisycricket]

Wow, at least i stimulated some humor for you guys working on this project Mustache recognition, i love it, lol on those photos! Honestly, i'd like to see what the upper part of a nose with 1% opacity and blurred would look like at the bottom 5% of the screen. How about squinting when running through dense bushes and tripping checks for certain areas 1:2,000 or 1: 500 when there is a foot collision

 

Don't get me wrong, i could imagine spending years on this alone and not being satisfied. I didn't mean for this to delay TDM 1.0.

 

Ok, so for anyone inclined.... read below.

 

Well, to be honest the more i think about this, the more i realise the problem of taking up valuable screen real estate, and yes, the only way this mod should exist, is in a form that adds to the game, not takes away from or acts as an annoying distraction. My personal perspective is a little different, as i play on a 30" monitor and set my FOV at 120 - 130 if I can and have my eyes roughly 6 - 8 inches from the screen. So as i had previously been thinking about it, the hood, when it showed, would be fully in my peripheral.

 

Yet i still think the idea could add to imerssiveness of the game no matter the monitor. The problem of course is implementing it and how much time would it take. Since most users have a 19" 4:3 monitor (i'm guessing) less would be more.

 

IN DETAIL

So heres how i still think it could add to the game.

 

Without body recognition, theres only two spots. The top of the hood, when landing from a jump, and the sides of the hood only when making a super quick side to side movement. So for the top of the hood, assuming the player accelerates downward as hes falling, as the player lands, the hood model would fold down onto the screen a few centimeters at a certain rate, then flexes back out of view resuming its normal position. For the sides, one side of the hood would flex into view only on a very jerky pan.

 

1. The animation would have to be high quality and recording at a high fps.

2. The motion of the hood should directly correspond and compliment the screen's motion.

3. Would probably need a high framerate to look good. A low framerate could make this look especially horrible. I don't think this could even be done nicely in a jerky engine like Thief :DS.

4. Having it show gradients of light, instead of being all black.

5. Screens are square, hoods are round, so the sides of the hood might come into view in the aforementioned scenarios.

 

notes: After 31 years, i just ( coincidental? ) bought my first hooded sweatshirt the other day, not even thinking about TDM. It was just sitting there right next to me. So as i was typing this i look over at, laughed, and I tried it on to see what it was like and i noticed a few things. I wore it like low over my head, like i was trying to be inconspicuous, not tight against my head.

1. After jumping up and landing ( yeah, i know), i noticed the way the hood was made, the top didn't come down evenly, parts of it drooped down, then went back up.

2. The sides were pretty steady and completely the opposite side would show from what i thought originally. In a knee-jerk head snap to the right for example, only the left side of the hood would come into play as its momentum brought it into view. This particular sweatshirt is finely woven and slightly stiffer then i imagine average cotton sports sweatshirt.

Edited November 9, 2007 by Noisycricket

[Crispy]

When everyone has a 180-degree wrap-around monitor, then maybe we'll consider it.

 

...Actually, no, scratch that. It'd still be bloody annoying.

[Komag]

Sitting so close to a wide monitor makes it so that the distance from your eyes to the monitor varies drastically from the center of the monitor to the far sides. You say you are 6-8 inches from the monitor, but then that would make your eyes actually around 12-15 inches from either side. That's bad for eye-strain, having such a huge difference in focal length.

 

Wrap-around monitors of the future will eventually solve this issue, and we can then reasonably expect to play games with 120 POV and have it work, but that way you're describing it I hope you have good optomological insurance

[Gildoran]

poop-recognition

I believe the technical term is a Fecal Recognition System. It's a new branch of AI that is finding applications in airport restroom security. If Osama ever takes a dump in any of our restrooms, we'll be prepared!