Decline Thiaf Pre-Release Thread

[Echo Mirage]

You mentioned QTEs in the last Take 5. How are you planning to implement these so that they don't break immersion?
Valerie: Oh, I want to answer that one! I was hoping someone would ask. Easy, we're not implementing them. To begin with, there were very few instances of QTEs in the game; in fact there was only one in that whole hour-long E3 demo. However, given the strong reactions it evoked in the press and the community, it was an easy decision to do away with them entirely. So we're not doing it. No quick time.

If they can really sit down and write and design document, and then code a game that contains systems so superfluous that they can be wrote out at a moments notice mere months from release. Then its beyond fair at this point, if it was even in any doubt, to say that the rest of the gameplay mechanics and overall direction of the game is beyond help. And we are looking at one project lead and a team that going to be out of work with the biggest shit stain of incompetence on their CV's.

 

[Melan]

New Horizon: What about swimming? Have they answered that question yet? Will there be swimming?

Daniel Windfeld Schmidt: If Garrett went swimming, he would probably freeze to death. Pneumonia is no laughing matter in a world without antibiotics. But seriously, most of the game happens inside the City in an "autumn" setting, so water wasn't a big theme for us. It exists mostly as shallow puddles, which cause noise depending on the player's speed when they walk through them.

Oh! The 'extra sauce' on the shit sandwich!

[edit]
Also, from Polygon:

It's how you play that will determine the kind of thief you are — an Opportunist who focuses on pickpocketing, a Ghost who sneaks through the city avoiding as much conflict as possible or a Predator who kills civilians without a second thought. These three classifications, Roy noted, are how the game lets players know how they playing. At the end of each mission, a stats screen will show the loot players picked up as well as a pie chart showing how much of each classification their actions embodied.

'Reul prfeshunals kil pesky hyumins. I am de night!' - Joe 'the Hook' Runty, before he was taken down by the city's thieves who didn't fancy getting their business ruined.

 

[J_C]

New Horizon: What about swimming? Have they answered that question yet? Will there be swimming?

Daniel Windfeld Schmidt: If Garrett went swimming, he would probably freeze to death. Pneumonia is no laughing matter in a world without antibiotics. But seriously, most of the game happens inside the City in an "autumn" setting, so water wasn't a big theme for us. It exists mostly as shallow puddles, which cause noise depending on the player's speed when they walk through them.

Oh! The 'extra sauce' on the shit sandwich!

No complex maps with water filled underground caves it seems.

I love that for every limitation they can find a story/player based reason. You can't jump, because Garret would never bunnyhopp cross the map. You can't swim because Garret would freeze to death. You have to swoop instead of being stealthy, because....fuck that I know, maybe because the devs are hacks.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

New Horizon: What about swimming? Have they answered that question yet? Will there be swimming?

Daniel Windfeld Schmidt: If Garrett went swimming, he would probably freeze to death. Pneumonia is no laughing matter in a world without antibiotics. But seriously, most of the game happens inside the City in an "autumn" setting, so water wasn't a big theme for us. It exists mostly as shallow puddles, which cause noise depending on the player's speed when they walk through them.

Oh! The 'extra sauce' on the shit sandwich!

No complex maps with water filled underground caves it seems.

I love that for every limitation they can find a story/player based reason. You can't jump, because Garret would never bunnyhopp cross the map. You can't swim because Garret would freeze to death. You have to swoop instead of being stealthy, because....fuck that I know, maybe because the devs are hacks.

You can swoop because Garrett has a rocket up his butt.
The combat sucks because Garrett is a pussy, all you can do is swoop the fuck out.
The Focus is there because Garrett is a popamole character who plays HammerBox 360 in his clocktower.

 

[Western]

Yes it is

I'm having fun with the directors cut, but that's probably because of the commentary.

 

[Baron Dupek]

10$?
Even that - it's still 50$ overpriced.

 

[Athelas]

Daniel Windfeld Schmidt: If Garrett went swimming, he would probably freeze to death. Pneumonia is no laughing matter in a world without antibiotics. But seriously, most of the game happens inside the City in an "autumn" setting, so water wasn't a big theme for us. It exists mostly as shallow puddles, which cause noise depending on the player's speed when they walk through them.

Yes, it's a good thing Garrett isn't some kind of superhuman who can slow down time and take down groups of trained guards with ease. Oh wait...

In other news: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/11/15/thats-a-bit-more-like-it-qtes-removed-from-thief/

They're getting really desperate.

 

[skacky]

I love how they went full damage control a few weeks back and continue on that way.

 

[set]

Thi4f's problems can be summarized as the following:

1. Assassin's Creed has nothing to do with Thief at all. Not even remotely the same genre. Stop it.
2. Dishonored came after Thief. You wouldn't know it by looking at this game.
3. You can't fix the problems shown in the E3 Demo in <12 months. Anything Eidos says at this point is damage control. There simply aren't enough man hours or leadership.
4. Thief is the last game you want to try making with AAA dollars. It should be a mid tier or budget title. Trying to make it have mass appeal in the current market is destined to failure. You'll never get it right. Stop raping franchises that should just stay dead. If you want to copy AC, go make your own new IP.
5. You can't make a stealth game worth talking about without building an extensive AI system (unfortunately, this is a marketing issue - it's rather hard to sell a game based on its AI systems. It's comparatively trivial to put wubwub to a gritty sword guy backstabbing people on youtube).

 

[Excommunicator]

You can't swim

You can't even fucking swim

 

[Kitako]

You can't swim

You can't even fucking swim

SWIMMING IS JUST LIKE JUMPING. BUT LIKE. IN THE WATER. DUDE.

 

[AlexOfSpades]

The removal of swimming isnt something that bothers me. Actually i avoided swimming in the original games because a wet thief leaves a water trail and makes more noise. Oh but who am i kidding? We all know swimming is a minor thing compared to all the shit they did to this franchise. Its just the cherry on top of the shitcake.

Edit: I love how they are trying to fix their mistakes now that the journalists have played the game. When the fans spent years explaining what they wanted and what they didnt, nobody gave a shit. We talked about QTE's and how they were a bad idea. Nobody gave a shit. Now that THE PRESS says its a bad idea, suddenly they remove it. Fags.

Edit 2: And after removing it they pretend they did it for the fans. "Ooh the fans, so important, we are listening to the comuunity! Dont say we dont read the forums now!" My fucking ass! It was the journalists, goddamn

 

[Oesophagus]

Well now, let's see

They've alienated the old audience because they scrapped everything that made the old games good.

Now they're removing features that consolefag scrubs enjoy.

So who is their target audience, exactly? People who like their games bland and generic?

 

[Bilgefar]

To play devil's advocate, you couldn't swim in Deadly Shadows either, but it was still a pretty good Thief game (though certainly decline over the originals). Just goes to show it's not any single issue that's going to make Thiaf awful, but a large number of stupid decisions in total.

 

[Rahdulan]

Thi4f's problems can be summarized as the following:

1. Assassin's Creed has nothing to do with Thief at all. Not even remotely the same genre. Stop it.
2. Dishonored came after Thief. You wouldn't know it by looking at this game.
3. You can't fix the problems shown in the E3 Demo in <12 months. Anything Eidos says at this point is damage control. There simply aren't enough man hours or leadership.
4. Thief is the last game you want to try making with AAA dollars. It should be a mid tier or budget title. Trying to make it have mass appeal in the current market is destined to failure. You'll never get it right. Stop raping franchises that should just stay dead. If you want to copy AC, go make your own new IP.
5. You can't make a stealth game worth talking about without building an extensive AI system (unfortunately, this is a marketing issue - it's rather hard to sell a game based on its AI systems. It's comparatively trivial to put wubwub to a gritty sword guy backstabbing people on youtube).

But what about all the potential dollarydoos we could earn if we market it to people who don't even know what stealth is? Oh, that dog just ain't gonna hunt!

 

[Rivmusique]

Actually i avoided swimming in the original games because a wet thief leaves a water trail and makes more noise.

You mean you just LARPed that, right? Because I know the trail wasn't a thing and a doubt there was an increase in noise, unless it was extremely small.

 

[AlexOfSpades]

Actually i avoided swimming in the original games because a wet thief leaves a water trail and makes more noise.

You mean you just LARPed that, right? Because I know the trail wasn't a thing and a doubt there was an increase in noise, unless it was extremely small.

That's not what LARP is, as far as i know, but yes i was just roleplaying for the immersion. There was no actual gameplay change, it was in my head.

 

[octavius]

Thi4f's problems can be summarized as the following:

1. Assassin's Creed has nothing to do with Thief at all. Not even remotely the same genre. Stop it.
2. Dishonored came after Thief. You wouldn't know it by looking at this game.
3. You can't fix the problems shown in the E3 Demo in <12 months. Anything Eidos says at this point is damage control. There simply aren't enough man hours or leadership.
4. Thief is the last game you want to try making with AAA dollars. It should be a mid tier or budget title. Trying to make it have mass appeal in the current market is destined to failure. You'll never get it right. Stop raping franchises that should just stay dead. If you want to copy AC, go make your own new IP.
5. You can't make a stealth game worth talking about without building an extensive AI system (unfortunately, this is a marketing issue - it's rather hard to sell a game based on its AI systems. It's comparatively trivial to put wubwub to a gritty sword guy backstabbing people on youtube).

What they should have done is to make a new IP with the stealth mechanics of Thief and set in the world of Dishonoured/Thiaf, but make the player character an assassin instead of a thief.
It would be much more interesting to play an assassin in first person view than playing the martial arts expert "assassin" of Assassin's Creed in third person view. There should be more of a market for such a game than a poor reboot of Thief. I think the closest we have got was Dark Messiah.

 

[Oesophagus]

What they should have done is fuck off

there ya go

 

[set]

It is certainly annoying that 'Assassin's Creed' has no real actual assassinating (please, those QTE fest scripted kill sequences are not 'assassinations'). I've never understood its popularity, because for a game that's supposed to be about assassinating, it seems they do everything they can to avoid improving the mechanics that involve killing political figures- and love to shove in lots of irrelevent story to bog you down.

 

[crakkie]

Actually i avoided swimming in the original games because a wet thief leaves a water trail and makes more noise.

You mean you just LARPed that, right? Because I know the trail wasn't a thing and a doubt there was an increase in noise, unless it was extremely small.

That's not what LARP is, as far as i know, but yes i was just roleplaying for the immersion. There was no actual gameplay change, it was in my head.

A sequel would have been a great opportunity to make being wet affect the gameplay. If you take the water route in, you might have to avoid crossing lit paths since the guards would notice wet footprints after you walked by and become more alert. Or the guards would start following your water trail and slowly lead them to your position. Or they can smell the filthy water you swam through even when you're in total darkness. That's the kind of detail that I thought sequels would eventually bring, once upon a time. So damn naive.

 

[AlexOfSpades]

One of my favorite suggestions from the Thiaf forums was that you could have the ability to... drop a coin. One of the coins you looted. You drop it, ding. Guards, however, may see the coin later and stop their patrol to grab it... allowing for an easy blackjack.

Aw man, so much cool stuff they could have done. Seeing what the game is like right now almost makes me cry.

 

[Echo Mirage]

No one lives forever allowed you to do something very much like that. As soon as guards heard the distinct chime of coin on pavement they would leave their post to find it. Leaving you to either get a silent KO or sneak by. And that was almost 14 years ago. EM took QTE's and headshot XP over such a simple to implement idea ?.

 

[Stainless Veteran]

Meanwhile, at Siliconera

[src]

 

[Borelli]

Villainous Inc. you say? Or maybe it is ... "removes his mask" ... Eidos Montreal! Aha, just as i thought!