Decline Thiaf Pre-Release Thread

[skacky]

Couldn't agree more about Song of the Caverns, Spellcaster. It's my favorite level in all the Thief games and I love every second of it because it's big, challenging, has a unique setting and has awesome sound design. I actually quite enjoy The Mage Towers too, simply because it's completely bizarre and the ambient music in this mission is great. The Hand Brotherhood is also a very cool faction but it's not exploited enough. Yeah, every level feels unique in Thief Gold, which isn't really the case in Thief 2 (the rehashed levels do not help either, though I actually like Masks a lot).

 

[Jack]

Garrett wasn't even that incapable of combat in Thief and Thief 2. Beating single guards or zombies was easy (especially zombies), only groups of enemies would give you real trouble, or those superhuman haunts.
It was only in Thief 3 where you became sucky at combat due to only having a dagger rather than a sword (which was actually a good idea).

The sword made more sense to me. It was useful to fall back on when things went south and having a blackjack made the knife pretty redundant in most situations.

 

[JarlFrank]

Should've made it a shortsword rather than longsword, though. A longsword can really get in the way when you're doing stuff like jumping and ledge-climbing.

 

[Borelli]

I think it's safe to say they'll make him more capable in combat this time. And no doubt they'll make the combat more fun to be pleasing to non stealthy players.

If people like combat more than stealth why don't they go BUY AND PLAY A FUCKING COMBAT GAME!
Does the word "niche" not exist in todays corporate culture?

 

[Infinitron]

If people like combat more than stealth why don't they go BUY AND PLAY A FUCKING COMBAT GAME!
Does the word "niche" does not exist in todays corporate culture?

No

 

[Jack]

Should've made it a shortsword rather than longsword, though. A longsword can really get in the way when you're doing stuff like jumping and ledge-climbing.

Aye, it would both be useful as a weapon and as a tool, yet Garrett would be at a major disadvantage against properly armed guards because of his limited range which is good.

 

[Roderick]

Garrett wasn't even that incapable of combat in Thief and Thief 2. Beating single guards or zombies was easy (especially zombies), only groups of enemies would give you real trouble, or those superhuman haunts.
It was only in Thief 3 where you became sucky at combat due to only having a dagger rather than a sword (which was actually a good idea).

yes, he should be theoretically capable in combat. He was trained by the keepers in swordfighting. I didn't like the dagger, though, i liked having a sword just in case. If i was making the game i would put a practical retractable sword of some sort

 

[Cowboy Moment]

As much as it pains me to say it, their idea of Thief's combat is likely more practical and realistic - as Garrett, you don't want to haul a longsword around (heavy, clunky, and not useful as anything but a weapon). Rather, you'd want a dagger, or some other close contact weapon, and aim to incapacitate or kill guards quickly instead of engaging in flamboyant duels.

Of course, they're going to go way overboard on it and make Garrett a supernatural ninja kung-fu assassin, taking down four guards in under five seconds with his sick dance moves, but the basic idea isn't unsound.

 

[skacky]

Clearing on TTLG has found something interesting, I'm not sure if this was posted before since I never saw the first video, at least:
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=126564&p=2169616&viewfull=1#post2169616

 

[Infinitron]

Clearing on TTLG has found something interesting, I'm not sure if this was posted before since I never saw the first video, at least:
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=126564&p=2169616&viewfull=1#post2169616

God, what a bunch of spergs.

 

[SCO]

What made me appreciate thief as genius was the arrows with gravity. Doing a tricky 100m+ shot by shooting at a 45 degree angle (couldn't even see the target on the screen) and hitting a zombie and making it explode...

 

[Borelli]

I hope they keep the same difficulty levels (expert= true professional leaves no bodies) because with it they can put as much combat stuff as they won't no one will be using it. In Dishonored killing was split on a good vs evil basis so someone could say "i'm doing a chaos playthrough now".
But in Thief you can't say "i finished the hardest setting now i'm doing a normal run" because a) that sounds retarded b) who the fuck plays Thief on anything lower than expert?

 

[J_C]

Another thing I'm bothered with is the lack of darkness. In previous games there were actual dark places in the game, where a) you could hide b) an enemy or monster could be hiding. You could barely see, what is there. You could rid of it of course if you turned the gamma up, but who did that? It destroyed the atmosphere. I fear that in the new game the dark places will be just less lit areas. It will be fucking ridiculous if Garrett can hide there.

 

[Gord]

I used to be a dagger supporter too if only because of the classic Thief stereotype, it just feels right. When you think about it, however, the dagger doesn't really have a place in Garrett's arsenal, he already have the blackjack for shutting down someone from behind and the bow for long range combat, what would be the role of the dagger? Direct confrontation, against guards with long swords? It doesn't work. Also the parrying was surprisingly good, considering it wasn't even a main feature of the game.

It's not as if a dagger will take up much space/weight, so you don't lose much by carrying one around.
It can still be of use if you get into a situation were a blackjack won't help you (animals, undead, etc.).
Now, of course in Thief you usually try to avoid getting into close combat with your enemies, but if it happens, it's still good to have more than your blackjack (I used the sword usually against zombies, they are a nuisance in some maps and putting them to "sleep" with the sword helps to make exploration more convenient).
A dagger still fits better than the sword though, I guess.

 

[Minttunator]

If people like combat more than stealth why don't they go BUY AND PLAY A FUCKING COMBAT GAME!
Does the word "niche" not exist in todays corporate culture?

People who like a certain type of game seem to want all other games to be like "their" game. For instance, I'm currently playing Path of Exile, which is pretty complex and hardcore as far as action RPGs go - and of course there are countless retards on the forums clamoring for the developers to dumb down the game and make it more like Diablo 3. MMOs are another example - no matter what MMO you play, there are always loads of idiots who want the game to be more like WoW. Not content to play the game that suits their tastes, they want all other games to be exactly the same. Yet another example are the Biodrone subhumans who want every RPG to be a romance simulator because just playing the ones that Bioware makes apparently isn't enough.

This is one of the many reasons why we can't have nice things in mainstream gaming and why I'm pretty sure the new Thief game is going to suck more than an altar boy in Vatican - much like all the other recent remakes/reboots/sequels.

 

[Data4]

Clearing on TTLG has found something interesting, I'm not sure if this was posted before since I never saw the first video, at least:
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=126564&p=2169616&viewfull=1#post2169616

The only thing I took away from that Motion Capture video was...

That chick... dat ass.

 

[Flanged]

The combat in Thief was top-notch, especially since it was meant to be avoided. Any Altairisation of Garrett should be resisted with the utmost futile bitching and moaning.

Found a real Hammerite temple while out and about in Edinburgh:

Spoiler

Dunno why those images are so big.

 

[skacky]

These photos look great, now I'm tempted to make a similar building entrance for my next fan mission, heheh.

 

[Hellraiser]

Before death came, the liars were made to feast upon the hands of the thieves, and the thieves were made to ingest the tongues of their liar brothers, and we praised the Master Builder for his judgements.

 

[JarlFrank]

These photos look great, now I'm tempted to make a similar building entrance for my next fan mission, heheh.

Looking forward to it!

 

[Tzaero]

skacky How hard is learning Dromed at first?

 

[skacky]

skacky How hard is learning Dromed at first?

It's an old program so it has its quirks (no mouselook at all, for instance, everything is done through the keyboard in the different views) but it's also pretty easy to use. You have some pretty good tutorials around, like Komag's for T2. I already had a lot of experience with other editors before trying my hand on Dromed though (Worldcraft/Hammer, UnrealED, Radiant and other stuff), so it was easy for me to learn. If you know how the old UnrealEd works, Dromed isn't very different (the world is solid and you have to substract shit, then you can add additive stuff in these carved areas).

 

[Tzaero]

I've had some experience with unrealED, just need to get around to properly sitting down and learning dromed.

 

[skacky]

The first thing that's weird with Dromed when you launch it is that the main window is really small and is in windowed mode. You can increase the size past 1024*768 thanks to NewDark now, which is a relief. I had to use Dromed on my 1680*1050 monitor in 1024*768 before NewDark was released, and I must say it was quite hard on the eyes.

 

[Mother Russia]

Stealth in a thief game is essential. There is no way they won't focus on that.

Thief had a steampunk setting, so the retractable bow makes sense. However, it would be cool if it made a noise while extending into bow mode, which could alert guards.

Sword fighting was always a staple of thief one and two. As was backstabbing/neck slashing if you snuck up on someone (aka early version of modern popamole stealth kills) Against one guard Garett was always the dominant one, it was when fighting more than one guards at the same time he got fucked and had to run.

IMO they should give multiple fighting styles that you can upgrade in rpg fashion by pumping in skill points or whatnot: Single sword, Sword + Dagger, and Dual Daggers. Since the game should be first person, not much in the way of expense in animations. However, don't go overboard by allowing him to slaughter hordes of guards. More than one guard simultaneous should always present a problem including instan death if one of them starts flanking you. Also, combat should be fluid if you are facing more than one guard. That is, fighting while moving to disallow opponents to flank you and also allow you to escape should you need it.

Garett should have more steampunk gadgets. Smokebombs, mechanized grappling hools, poison needles with blowgun, etc. I would also like if his cape had the option to allow him to slowfall down from a larger height; kinda like batman's cape. I think that's fitting and not really overpowered or popamole. If steampunk has advanced so much in that world they can make functioning eyes with it, which even we cannot do today with modern tech, all sorts of shit should be possible

The mechanized eyes should grant some benefit. Thief fans claim it allowed you to zoom in in bow vision in Thief 2, but you could do it in thief 1 as well with normal eye.

No zombies. No mutants. No supernatural bullshit. PLEASE. Secret Societies are cool and quite fitting, and steampunk guards with steampunk armors/weapons are fine as well. But no undead plz and no dragons and shit.

Please stop brinigng up Thief 3. It was pure and utter shit, completely unlike Thief 1 + 2 (the real Thief games). It was solely due to Xbox version; they had to make the game for xbawx as well so it was really really dumbed down. Area's were extremely small, AI was utterly shit to the point of non existent, and there were constant area loading times. Guards would forget about you in seconds. Dead bodies would be ignored. No wonder the series went into hiatus with that shit sequel. This game will have a long long way to go before it can be surpassed with Thief 3. Yes this is for consoles too, but next next gen consoles with more processing power. Hopefully it will mean a proper Thief Game, with retarded elements of Thief 1 and 2 removed (zombies, mutants, etc)

Infinitron Jaesun JarlFrank Please unmoderate this post quickly so it can be read before this thread gets more pages and it is buried unread.