multiplayer thief 2

[slavatrumpevitch]

i don't know if there's already been a post about this, i did a brief search, and didn't find one, so i thought i might share this.

 

Tos has been working on getting thief 2 to work with a LAN connection

 

here's a link to the forum where i found out about it.

 

http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=118594

 

i don't know how i didn't find out about this earlier, it should be awesome!

[New Horizon]

i don't know if there's already been a post about this, i did a brief search, and didn't find one, so i thought i might share this.

 

Tos has been working on getting thief 2 to work with a LAN connection

 

here's a link to the forum where i found out about it.

 

http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=118594

 

i don't know how i didn't find out about this earlier, it should be awesome!

 

Yup, I think everyone on the team knew about this. Pretty cool I think.

[Crispy]

I didn't know! That's pretty neat.

[Domarius]

Yeah, obviously not everyone on the team I didn't know either. Really hope it turns out...

[Nyarlathotep]

I certainly didn't know! I have to admit, I know it's almost certainly going to wind abandoned or crap, but I can't help but feel a little excited. Multiplayer Thief!

[oDDity]

How can it ever work unless they get their hands on Dark engine source code.

[New Horizon]

How can it ever work unless they get their hands on Dark engine source code.

 

I don't know how they're doing it, but they've gotten it working better than anyone ever imagined possible. A good chunk of the code is already in the engine...I guess they're just hooking into it somehow.

[oDDity]

Ahh, I hadn't realised there was any attempt by LGS to add multiplayer.

Let's face it though, multiplayer is of very limited value in a slow sneaker game like this anyway.

[Subjective Effect]

THE ODDITY OPINION

[New Horizon]

Ahh, I hadn't realised there was any attempt by LGS to add multiplayer.

Let's face it though, multiplayer is of very limited value in a slow sneaker game like this anyway.

 

Yeah, LGS had intended to include it, but never had the time to get it fully working so it was just left in there. Basically code left over from System Shock 2 since the engine shared resources.

[oDDity]

THE ODDITY OPINION

 

Not my opinion. Fact.

In order to do multiplayer you'd have to change the essence of the game, so it would become something else, not Thief.

I can't see what point there would be doing a co-op bank job or something where you are both ghosting, or even semi-ghosting, or doing anything other than running around attacking guards.

The game just isn't suitable for multiplayer.

Multiplayer inevitably entails some sort of adversarial scenario, which is the exact opposite of what Thief is about.

Even if you have a 'see who can steal the golden goblet first' mission, you'd end up with people just sprinting around the map full tilt, zooming past guards, or attacking them in a very unthief-like fashion.

So any Thief multiplayer is going to be very different from the original game, whereas with other games that include multiplayer, it's basically the same game but against other people rather than the computer.

Have we any idea exactly what sort of multiplayer LGS were intending for Thief?

[Subjective Effect]

Co-op.

 

Your imagination is like a blind alley. Look we can go this way oh crap

[oDDity]

Doesn't matter what multiplayer gimmicks you come up with, it'll still be a completely different game from Thief which is my point, in which case you'd be better off with Thievery, because hacked Thief multiplayer will never be as solid and bugfree as that, or else just wait and someone can implement a proper multiplayer in TDM.

Considering that Thievery never had more than a few dozen REGULAR players at most, you can surmise that any of these multiplayer implementations aren't exactly going to be swamped with players anyway, it's an idea that sounds a hell of a lot cooler that it actually is.

[demagogue]

Well, of course it changes the character of the gameplay. That's the point.

Some people just enjoy being in-game with other people.

 

I don't think it will inevitably be gimmicky. Some FMs will work better for it than others. I think FMs like Art of Thievery or Lord Alan's Factory might be good for coop, where there's a lot of territory to cover. Others might be good for cooperating strategies.

 

A lot of FMs could be adversarial in that there's a race to the objective, who can get it first (or go through it the fastest, or get the most of a set, or get it while ghosting), and that could make for really interesting games. It's still primarily single-player in character, with one added element of competition. You have to watch out for the guards and the other player, but you have to concentrate on getting the objective(s) as normal, too.

 

Thievery never got big (as I understood it) primarily because it didn't nail the gameplay and didn't have the guard-AI to handle coop. So you always needed to organize a big group, 10+ people, just for one session. Whereas coop is really for 2, maybe 3 people at most, for most occassions ... just you and a friend spontaneously set it up. Also, it's the difference between 20 maps with similar objectives and 600 very different maps.

Edited April 14, 2008 by demagogue

[oDDity]

Well, TDM has nailed the gameplay, so I think a multiplayer version will be inevitable at some point, and easier than hacking it into Thief. I doubt that guy is ever going to get any serious stable working multiplayer game by means of a few hacks.

Personally, I see Thief as perhaps the ultimate example of a single player game.

[Subjective Effect]

I don't think that MP effort will ever produce anything reasonable either.

 

But I do think that 2 player Co-Op in Thief could work. Not with the old engine, but in something like TDM or whatever Thief 4 will use. If you have to work together it would be great fun. One distracting a guard whilst the other steals something, one turning off an alarm at one side of a building so the other can get into a vault and so on.

[slavatrumpevitch]

yes, it will be different from thief, but it could still be very fun! (and it's that the whole point anyway?) I've always found that a shared experience is much more enjoyable than an experience by myself. So, I don't understand how you can say that it is a fact that multiplayer thief will be garbage. Maybe you won't like it, but if someone else does like it, that disagreement by definition changes in from fact to opinion.

 

and about thievery, I did enjoy Thievery, but the maps weren't big enough, and it didn't quite feel thief-like enough for me. so, I would much rather play multi-player thief 2

[oDDity]

I don't think that MP effort will ever produce anything reasonable either.

 

But I do think that 2 player Co-Op in Thief could work. Not with the old engine, but in something like TDM or whatever Thief 4 will use. If you have to work together it would be great fun. One distracting a guard whilst the other steals something, one turning off an alarm at one side of a building so the other can get into a vault and so on.

I think you'd struggle to come up with many more duo-type examples that those two, and neither of those really work, since it would be as much, if not more, fun to switch off the alarm yourself, or distract the guard yourself. Mappers would have to start thinking up very convoluted objectives and map layouts just so it would have to take two people to do it instead of one, and I think it would become very obvious and cheesy. It would be forced duality.

The only real reasons for going a-thieving with accomplices is so you can carry more loot away (not an issue in Thief) and for protection in numbers (again...not what Thief is about)

[slavatrumpevitch]

think oceans 11

[STiFU]

Yeah, for a (non-shooter-)game to be coop it needs real coop features, which worked perfectly in the coop maps for Splinter Cell. There are no coop features in thief 2, but that doesn't mean it woun't be fun at all to play it all the way through together. It really depends on the players. If you do a little teamplay, it will be interesting, but if you end up following your partner most of the time it will become boring. There is enough room for teamplay on thief maps, because they are so unlinear.

 

Anyway, I don't think it will be finished either, but it's still interesting and astonishing that someone made an attempt in finishing Thief 2's netcode.

Edited April 15, 2008 by STiFU

[Domarius]

Blah blah blah... me and my bros have played Thievery against the AI in the very same way we individually play Thief 2, and it's awesome. The only thing it's missing is the scripted events and stories, cause Thievery maps are all just objectives for guards and thieves, no plot progression or anything. That's all it would need to complete the experience.

[Springheel]

In order for co-op play to work in any real sense you'd need to have some kind of artificial way to communicate. Unless you had some kind of "magic radio", you couldn't hear each other unless you were both standing in the same place, which would be pretty pointless.

 

Planning everything in advance and then heading out on the mission would also be pretty useless--you might as well play by yourself and have the other events scripted.

 

I think it's an idea that sounds a lot cooler than it would actually be.

[slavatrumpevitch]

or...... you could say to hell with realism, and just play with a friend on two laptops in the same room, and just talk like normal people, b/c it would be very fun

 

I know, that's a pretty cutting edge concept, playing only for fun, and not trying to emulate realism as much as possible

Edited April 15, 2008 by slavatrumpevitch

[Springheel]

Arguing about whether it is "fun" is pointless and totally subjective. I'm sure some people would find it "fun" to give Garrett a racecar and zoom around the city running over guards.

 

If your only criteria for what is a good idea is whether someone, somewhere, finds it fun, then just about anything goes.

[slavatrumpevitch]

well, yes, that's true, it is subjective, but you're making it seem like I'm some bizzare outlier. I would imagine that almost everyone except the most extreme 'purists' would have a considerable amount of fun going through their old favorite thief 2 levels with their friend, (or older brother in my case) even if only to fool around.

 

i often wonder what would be the best way handle one thief dying, Halo style, where you simply respawn next to you're partner? certainly not, b/c it would make the suicide run far to effective.

 

but, there should be some respawn mechanism, otherwise it would be really boring once you died.