Decline Thiaf Pre-Release Thread

[Volrath]

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.

And Dishonored was already a piece of shit to begin with.

 

[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.

And Dishonored was already a piece of shit to begin with.

There were good things about Dishonored though, which could make it a fun game if those were the things you care about. It wasn't a particularly good stealth game, but the setting and lore were quite cool and surprisingly deep, and the movement was really well done. Most fun thing about Dishonored was just running around roofs and ledges, it controlled very smoothly and the levels were fairly open in a vertical sense (console memory limits forcing them to be split into pieces aside). You could see that the designers wanted to give the player as much freedom as possible, which is what invited the comparison to Thief I suppose.

Contrast this with Thief 4, where you're glued to the roof of a building, and the setting was transformed from something original and interesting into a reenactment of early XIXth century politics.

 

[SCO]

Amazing thief speedruns channel

For instance:

 

[Infinitron]

Interesting ending on that one.

 

[SCO]

Death triggered intentionally to offset the 'wait' time at the end of successful mission. Return to the catedral ends with a brush jump to get out of the catedral, strange bedfellows has a AI brush jump to jump out of a pit, the lost city has a bizarre jump i don't understand off the ledge to get the talisman.

Dishonoured wasn't the first! (and thief didn't need no stinking XP to do it either)

 

[Unkillable Cat]

To learn more about those exact bugs SCO mentioned, a familiar flame: http://www.it-he.org/

 

[skacky]

I've made a single-segment speedrun of Thief Gold (patched to 1.21) in 1:01:17. It's possible to improve this time by at least 1 minute without doing all the stupid mistakes I make. Alas most of the incredible glitches were fixed with NewDark, but I'm still using some engine exploits nonetheless and making good use of the new mantle (especially in The Mage Towers and Return to the Cathedral). Since it's single-segment, most very hazardous bugs aren't used.



I'm also trying to single-segment speedrun TDP (1.33). So far I've managed to get a time of 38:56 but this was with at least one level restart (I died in Escape!). Since this one isn't patched with NewDark, all the engine exploits are there but speedrunning it in one go is SO FUCKING HARD compared to a NewDark TG. The Lost City in particular demands very tight and precise movements, otherwise you're completely screwed.

 

[WalmartJesus]

It doesn't have Looking Glass Studios, it has frog hacks instead.

fixed.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

WATCH AT YOUR OWN RISK

What's interesting is how open the guy displays his disgust when asked the question as to whether game offers anything special for fans of the old games. Look at his face and listen carefully to what he says, the very idea that there should be any kind of continuity between the old games and this installment seems appalling to him and he doesn't even hide it.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

WTF is this gay shit.

 

[skacky]

So, I've finally completed a single-segment speedrun of TDP in 37:26. This was done in an OldDark version of the game (1.33) using DDFix 1.5.11 so I could record the menus and Autohotkey so I could bind my sword and my blackjack to the mousewheel. This was extremely important because I make good use of the 'swordcopter' as I like to call it, which Xmodule999 discovered and is a master at. This allows the player to negate a fall and even boost the player when coupled with a jump, but it's very random and very difficult to do and it can often kill you. Overall this run went pretty smoothly but I was extremely lucky on many instances. I made ~25 runs and I've only completed 3 from start to finish and this one was the best. I died so many times on The Lost City or Escape, or I screwed-up and was forced to restart from scratch, etc. I've got hours and hours of footage with some very interesting bloopers I might upload someday. This run can be improved quite a bit, especially on the Maw which was pretty sloppy overall (I missed the blue thing). DDFix coupled with Fraps made the menus lag like hell for some reason.



My next project will probably be a single-segment speedrun of Thief 2, but that one will most probably be extremely tough and perhaps much longer than TG. The best time on Soulforge is 10 mins and even then the runner has lots of equipment I probably won't have in a single-segment run. That and I don't know Thief 2 as well as Thief 1/G.

 

[Infinitron]

skacky Feel free to make a new thread for your Thief exploits.

 

[skacky]

Oh boy, it keeps getting better and better every day with these losers.

We won't be able to make everybody happy," says Daniel Windfeld Schmidt. He's the lead level designer on Eidos Montreal's Thief relaunch, and he's right. I recently played the first-person stealth game, and some people aren't going to be happy.

This Thief game has third-person climbing sections. It makes minor use of quick time events. It has "Focus Mode'," which gifts master thief Garrett with limited time-slowing combat abilities. It has context-sensitive controls that mean you can only jump when the game says you can jump.

http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=141375&page=13&p=2201285&viewfull=1#post2201285

It's funny how the last few apologists on TTLG are making a complete turn over now that this has been revealed.

It's about time.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Gord]

Man, if this would be a franchise I don't care about, it would be source of the most exquisite Internet Drama, but alas...

 

[Lancehead]

We already knew that, more or less:

http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=141814

Leaning is limited to specified spots, but this is one case where they've also added quite a bit of functionality (they're calling it "Peeking"); this has been covered in the AMA thread. In this case I would take the tradeoff.

Falling by accident from a high surface was impossible, but dropping to the ground (or next level down) can be done at just about any edge if memory serves (go to the edge, hit a button, drop down). Accidentally leaping to one's doom is not supported at this time.

 

[Darth Roxor]

r0000000fles!

 

[Jarpie]

Since this gonna be popamole shit, at least it's going out the whole nine yards.

 

[Multidirectional]

Man, if this would be a franchise I don't care about, it would be source of the most exquisite Internet Drama, but alas...

But it isn't the franchise you care about, it's the new one. So, no problem.

 

[Rahdulan]

Well, the industry has done it at last. What franchises are there left that can be turned from "here's a level, do your thing" to "here's a level, follow the corridors"? Hitman and Thief got the memo, Splinter Cell is long past gone. Is Death to Spies next?

 

[Infinitron]

Well, the industry has done it at last. What franchises are there left that can be turned from "here's a level, do your thing" to "here's a level, follow the corridors"? Hitman and Thief got the memo, Splinter Cell is long past gone. Is Death to Spies next?

Death to Spies is dead: http://worthplaying.com/article/2013/7/15/news/89918/

 

[SCO]

It's funny how the last few apologists on TTLG are making a complete turn over now that this has been revealed.

It's about time.

Consider my vote officially changed from "Day One purchase" to "Maybe on a Steam sale."

 

[Name]

I just finished Tomb Raider: A Survivor is Born 2013 Edition, and realized how many game elements that it can share with Thief: What's Yours Is Mine 2014 Edition. Like the whole bow thing with fire arrows and rope arrows. And Croft can use optional semi-stealth approach to dispatch guards. And its contextual cover system. Collecting and looting stuff. And lots of QTEs.

Then I saw the credits and they got some developers from Eidos Montreal and United Front Games on board too!

Is this the future of AAA action games? A linear story set in a semi-open-world with lots of meaningless collectibles? When will they get rid of all these percentages and Amounts/Totals collectibles? Why can't items be like real items like in a RPG game?

 

[Morgoth]

http://kotaku.com/were-just-not-sure-about-the-new-thief-heres-why-837598751

Not even Kotaku believes Thi4f is gonna turn out good.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Bros don't let bros click on kotaku links, bro