Decline Thiaf Pre-Release Thread

[Unkillable Cat]

There's a recent image from the news that describes the development of this new Thief game PERFECTLY. Throw in the story behind it and the similarities become uncanny, with only the motive being different.

Can you all guess what that image is?

(Don't worry, it's SFW.)

Spoiler

What they should be doing is restoring the gameplay of the original series. The legacy of the series has lived for the past 15 years because it is NOT like every other game out there. It is different, it stands apart... and in some departments, like AI development, art and audio direction it stands above most other titles.

I'm not going to go as far as to say that Eidos Montreal are trying to restore a priceless work of art with similar results as the above image demonstrates, but they're clearly trying to restore a piece of art that is loved and adored by many. For no other reason than greed.

EDIT: If the above link doesn't work, here's an alternate link.

 

[Infinitron]

The image is a broken tag?

 

[Darth Roxor]

No, it isn't.

 

[MapMan]

It's possible the game will be an entertaining thing on the level of Dishonored. Maybe. Somehow.

Dishonored was boring as fuck. Ban DalekFlay.

 

[J_C]

Ban Renegen.

 

[Borelli]

The image is a broken tag?

It symbolizes the new thief because at it's core it is a broken game, and just like a broken tag is lesser than an unbroken one so is the new thief lesser than the old Thief.

 

[J_C]

and pre-scripted interaction points (i.e. "rope arrow hooks")

This is so typical with consolized games. You can't jump off a ledge anywhere you want, you have to stand on the correct place and press A. You can't fall down accidentaly. You can't shot the arrows to anywhere, only pre-scripted points. You can't pull yourself up anywhere, only at specific point, and only by pressing A

How amazing it was when I had to cross a huge pit in Thief, so I shot a rope arrow into the ceiling, and jumped onto it. Then I jumped to the other part of the pit, which was still far away, but Garrett just managed to grab the edge of the ground, and pulled himself up. I assume in Thiaf you just press A and Garrett automatically jumps and lands perfectly in a situations like this.

 

[Renegen]

No I haven't been following the development of the game. I'll be doing the same thing as most people in this thread, I'll demo the game when it comes out and make my mind then, except I didn't take part in a 95 page hate circlejerk to bias me otherwise. It just seems really foolish to rage so much, maybe I want to see the bright side of this new game. I remember all the hate regarding Thief 3, people raged at everything, and then it turned out the game was good.

I agree with DalekFlay, people are emotional when it comes to their favourite sequels. And sometimes, that's the problem too. When people quote and requote a fake comment never made by Eidos it shows how strong the circlejerk is, people aren't here to talk about the game, but they're here to talk about their opinions about the game. I used to be a big fan of the franchise Tribes, you know what killed the franchise? (the Hi-Rez mmo doesn't count) It wasn't the greedy executives, the popamole, it was the fans. They all boycotted Tribes 2 when it came out because it was slightly slower, then when Tribes 2 failed they finally moved to it and started playing. Then they boycotted Tribes 3, and if you ask them now today, "oh yeah Tribes 3 was great, a shame". Fuck Tribes fans, fuck them all. All I want is to sneak past guards into mansions and steal some jewels, and it seems this game allows me to do that, hell they're even giving you the option to disable everything to make it as atmospheric as they can. You can rage that the guard I sneaked past can just die with the press of a button, but I'll just enjoy the fact I can still sneak past him.

What I hate to see the most on my codex is stupidity, this 95 page thread borderlines on it and I felt I needed to provide a different opinion. When J_C goes on the attack, you know it's going to be good. In my book, if J_C disagrees with me, I must be doing something right.

 

[Carrion]

I assume in Thiaf you just press A and Garrett automatically jumps and lands perfectly in a situations like this.

No, you also need to press A when it flashes on the screen to grab the ledge.

 

[Horus]

Video

I wonder if they even played the original games.

 

[AstroZombie]

No I haven't been following the development of the game. I'll be doing the same thing as most people in this thread, I'll demo the game when it comes out and make my mind then, except I didn't take part in a 95 page hate circlejerk to bias me otherwise. It just seems really foolish to rage so much, maybe I want to see the bright side of this new game. I remember all the hate regarding Thief 3, people raged at everything, and then it turned out the game was good.

I agree with DalekFlay, people are emotional when it comes to their favourite sequels. And sometimes, that's the problem too. When people quote and requote a fake comment never made by Eidos it shows how strong the circlejerk is, people aren't here to talk about the game, but they're here to talk about their opinions about the game. I used to be a big fan of the franchise Tribes, you know what killed the franchise? (the Hi-Rez mmo doesn't count) It wasn't the greedy executives, the popamole, it was the fans. They all boycotted Tribes 2 when it came out because it was slightly slower, then when Tribes 2 failed they finally moved to it and started playing. Then they boycotted Tribes 3, and if you ask them now today, "oh yeah Tribes 3 was great, a shame". Fuck Tribes fans, fuck them all. All I want is to sneak past guards into mansions and steal some jewels, and it seems this game allows me to do that, hell they're even giving you the option to disable everything to make it as atmospheric as they can. You can rage that the guard I sneaked past can just die with the press of a button, but I'll just enjoy the fact I can still sneak past him.

What I hate to see the most on my codex is stupidity, this 95 page thread borderlines on it and I felt I needed to provide a different opinion. When J_C goes on the attack, you know it's going to be good. In my book, if J_C disagrees with me, I must be doing something right.

So you're fine with retarded popamolified Thief as long as you can sneak past some dumb AI? Not having standards for quality must be nice, I guess.

 

[Data4]

Careful there. This is HIS Codex we're posting on...

 

[Icewater]

Only the dead can know peace from this atrocity.

 

[Zewp]

What I hate to see the most on my codex is stupidity, this 95 page thread borderlines on it and I felt I needed to provide a different opinion. When J_C goes on the attack, you know it's going to be good. In my book, if J_C disagrees with me, I must be doing something right.

And if you agree with DalekFlay then you know you're doing something wrong. DalekFlay will play and enjoy diarrhea if it comes packed in a jewel case.

Most of us are bashing Thief because it isn't just a terrible Thief game, it seems to be a genuinely shit game, period.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Most of us are bashing Thief because it isn't just a terrible Thief game, it seems to be a genuinely shit Thief game, period.

Added one word to demonstrate MY perspective on the matter. If they want to make a parkour/takedown simulation starring a thief from planet Krypton, they're free to do so. But to do so using the Thief franchise can only be summed up in one word: Rape.

They're trying to fit a hexagonal peg into a octagonal hole. It's close, but not going to work.

 

[Zewp]

I dunno. Even if this game wasn't a Thief game, I would still have thought it looked pretty shit. It's basically everything I don't like in a stealth game. Granted, had it not been called Thief I might simply have ignored it entirely, but still.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

I wasn't following the development of hitman absolution. I've seen a thread in the codex bashing that game, but since I was not really following, I was giving it the benefit of doubt. Much like renegen is doing here.

I'm not a fan of hitman as much as I'm of thief, so i thought, well, they're giving options to the player, a hardcore mode, so everything is optinal anyways.

Even as I installed, on the first screen of gameplay, I liked that David Bateson was back, the suit, the graphics were so amazing, I imagine: it looks like it's not going to be so bad.

then, I realized that the levels were linear, streamlined as hell, the game was now rewarding ALL aproaches (silent or butcher), the last difficulty level has no information whatsoever to the point it's only playable if you have previous knowledge of a first playthrough on a easier mode, the level was divided into subsections and no return points, and cutscenes that do the assassination instead of you. All of this in the tutorial level. The game was shit. Terrible, and I really wanted to like it. Oh, and the bloom and lens flares indoors... looks like ENBseries standard misconfigured mess.

Well, with thief, I really love the originals, I aways thought of them as a kind of game that no other company managed to surpass it. It's the only stealth game ever, with every game with stealth ever released not even coming close to thief. Its gameplay is so close to perfection when it was released that one may think: "everybody will copy this", but no. Everyone tried to inovate perfection, so you have stealth in far cry, oblivion, and the likes of it, and it never worked.

And what they're showing for thiaf now is worse already then what they showed for hitman absolution. In hitman, they even brought back david bateson, the game was a sequel, the visuals and style seemed to be similar. And the game was crap. It was made by eidos and IO interactive, so how could they go wrong?

The developers think that original fans are worried about the game being too easy and hand holding, as if that's the only concern we have, and they think that deactivating the focus help, it will be a genuine thief game. No way, it still be a lot of hand holding and forced action sequences. Can I deactivate 3rd person, invisible barriers, and QTEs to? Can I really sneak pass every guard?

I bet they will have an shadow upgrade: be fully invisible in full shadows. you will only get this at the 8th level. Thief, the originals, stands out because garret is the ultimate thief, he needs no upgrades, he is level capped already from the start. That means he is a crappy fighter as well and can't better at swordfighting. That's what makes it so fun to play it.

Other than that, we don't need a thief game since we still have FM and the dark mod.

TL;DR: forgive me if now I learned my lesson and I don't trust eidos montreal. DNA my ass. It's a bastard child.

 

[villain of the story]

"We actively chose to prevent Garrett from being perfectly concealed in the darkness - and therefore invisible to enemy patrols - as we felt this robbed the player of an exciting confrontation element as they watched the guards walk up to where they're waiting, notice something is amiss, and before they could react, the player has the option of executing them. We feel this is a great method to convey just how powerful Garrett is, and concealing him in the shadows would have limited this excitement."

You made up this quote just to annoy us, right?

At this point, even fake quotes seem accurate.

The thing is, going by the E3 gameplay video, that's bullshit because Garrett jumps and hops through light in guard's sight several times and they are completely oblivious to it. I think they might have added a mechanic that sends guards your way if you linger too much at any given spot, just to make it feel more edgy.

 

[Gord]

I dunno. Even if this game wasn't a Thief game, I would still have thought it looked pretty shit. It's basically everything I don't like in a stealth game. Granted, had it not been called Thief I might simply have ignored it entirely, but still.

I might be able to give them the benefit of doubt at least. No D1P, but if reviews and let's play look good I might consider getting it.
Well done stealth/action hybrids can be good and since we are still a good way from release, who knows.

But calling it a Thief game, only to then change just about everything that made those game so unique and what they are, if the term "franchise rape" ever fitted a game, it's Thiaf.

 

[tuluse]

They all boycotted Tribes 2 when it came out because it was slightly slower, then when Tribes 2 failed they finally moved to it and started playing. Then they boycotted Tribes 3, and if you ask them now today, "oh yeah Tribes 3 was great, a shame".

Make each game worse than the last one so they look good by comparison.

 

[potatojohn]

Well it works for Bethesda and Bioware.

 

[villain of the story]

Maybe I am sympathizing with Eidos Montreal here, but think of it this way. Many of the people that joined Eidos Montreal did so expressly because they wanted to work with Deus Ex and Thief. The studio was formed with the intention of rebooting these 2 franchises. They were all fans of the original. Additionally, Montreal is a big place for game developers, the senior people on this project all had to leave their jobs at other studios to work here, they want to produce something of quality.

Your motivations are irrelevant in practice when you are rotten at the core.

So what this leaves us is a desire to create a game that is similar to the original Thief, but they also know their overlords want the game to sell 10 millon copies!

Arkane Studios operated on a similar motivation and made a game that is inspired by and pays homage to Thief with a lot of the same gameplay elements. And it was called Dishonored. In fact, they also made Arx Fatalis which shares far more in common with Thief than Dishonored or this new shit. So much so that I had originally thought that they have used The Dark Engine for Arx Fatalis. Fantastic sound design, very similar to the original Thief games. Almost identical feel of weight to movement, controls and even stealth.

See; a game that Arkane made not particularly to be similar to Thief series ended up becoming more like Thief series than anything else. Wonder how would that happen?

So what do they change to please "modern sensibilities"? They change all the superficial shit, the feel of the combat, the main character, the story.

The main character and story are as much fundamental characteristics of Thief series as anything else. Just like how you cannot take Lestat, turn him into a whiny faggot who only puts a sad face and cries a lot and call it a reboot of Interview with the Vampire, you cannot change the fundamental characteristics of anything and then keep calling it the same. Oxygen is not the same thing as Carbon monoxide just because both still contain at least one oxygen atom. You can't just take one oxygen atom out of an oxygen molecule, add one carbon atom to it and call it "a reboot of oxygen, the same shit really, totally safe to breathe".

The actual gameplay is the same, the light gem is there, the focus is on stealth, there is no health regeneration, all the arrows and tools are there

Actual gameplay is the same. Light gem substitute is there. The focus can be on stealth. There is no health generation. Substitutes for all the arrows and tools are there. You can even drag, hide, search and loot bodies. NOLF 2 IS A THIEF SEQUEL????

the blue focus shit is optional and can be turned off, and they mentioned the interface has many things that can be turned off/on, like the map.

They probably learned their lesson from DX:HR.

The stealth gameplay is all there

Stealth Bastard Deluxe & Mark of the Ninja also are Thief games because stealth gameplay is all there.

, it's the level design that will determine if it's going to be fun and challenging, and given these guys worked on DX:HR, you have to assume as far as AAAAAA developers go, they are better placed than almost all of them to succeed in that department.

LOLWUT you can't be fucking serious. Referencing level design in DX:HR is ridiculous. I liked their art direction and a lot of details in their environments but actual level design was pretty blunt and dull. A corridor stealth-shooter, basically. At any rate, yes, level and encounter design will be the primary factors to determine whether there will be any fun and challenge to be had but those aren't solitary Thief elements that you can single out.

 

[villain of the story]

No I haven't been following the development of the game. I'll be doing the same thing as most people in this thread, I'll demo the game when it comes out and make my mind then, except I didn't take part in a 95 page hate circlejerk to bias me otherwise. It just seems really foolish to rage so much, maybe I want to see the bright side of this new game. I remember all the hate regarding Thief 3, people raged at everything, and then it turned out the game was good.

I agree with DalekFlay, people are emotional when it comes to their favourite sequels. And sometimes, that's the problem too. When people quote and requote a fake comment never made by Eidos it shows how strong the circlejerk is, people aren't here to talk about the game, but they're here to talk about their opinions about the game. I used to be a big fan of the franchise Tribes, you know what killed the franchise? (the Hi-Rez mmo doesn't count) It wasn't the greedy executives, the popamole, it was the fans. They all boycotted Tribes 2 when it came out because it was slightly slower, then when Tribes 2 failed they finally moved to it and started playing. Then they boycotted Tribes 3, and if you ask them now today, "oh yeah Tribes 3 was great, a shame". Fuck Tribes fans, fuck them all. All I want is to sneak past guards into mansions and steal some jewels, and it seems this game allows me to do that, hell they're even giving you the option to disable everything to make it as atmospheric as they can. You can rage that the guard I sneaked past can just die with the press of a button, but I'll just enjoy the fact I can still sneak past him.

What I hate to see the most on my codex is stupidity, this 95 page thread borderlines on it and I felt I needed to provide a different opinion. When J_C goes on the attack, you know it's going to be good. In my book, if J_C disagrees with me, I must be doing something right.

The problem with this kind of apologetic "argument" is in its complete lack of any discernment and analytical deconstruction. I get the impression that if that new stealth themed vampire game "Dark" bore the title Thief or Vampire The Masquerade, you would be perfectly okay with that too, ignoring all problems with the implications of such an arrangement while comfortably shitting on your fellow Codexer for being critical of the obvious.

And then you go onto talk about stupidity in the Codex.

Dude, get the fuck out already. This is the kind of shit we've been doing ever since Codex came into being. This is what the Codex lives on.

Go to Watchwitz; you sound like you would be a better fit in there.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Hey Renegen, did you know that leaning is context-sensitive in Thief 4? As in, you can only lean around a corner if the level designer decided to put a trigger there. Even more amusingly, vertical movement is context-sensitive as well. What I mean by that, is if you want to, say, climb to the roof of a building, not only can you only do it where there's a trigger for it, but you can't even jump off without another trigger. You're literally stuck to the roof until you go to a special spot, where you can press X and Geralt will jump down.

Expecting good level design from the idiots who cooked this up seems like wishful thinking at best. Especially since level design is a function of game mechanics, and if the mechanics are shit, the resulting design will be as well, no matter how many stupid features you disable. See Hitman: Absolution, or even Skyrim with the quest compass disabled. Thus far, Thief 4 seems like Dishonored Lite, with all the good things about Dishonored removed.

 

[villain of the story]

Garrett, Cowboy Moment.