Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
RickVoid
Oct 21, 2010

Cartheon posted:

Crap. I am working on an assassin novel with Thief elements for NANOWRIMO. Now I need to throw it out and start over.

I doubt this is serious, but don't. His book has very little to do with thief. It's somewhere between a police story and a noir detective flick, set in a Steampunk fantasy China that discovered fantasy North America before Europe. Also Magic.

I'm enjoying it, and I plan to do a pair of reviews; a more picky one for Bobbin, and another general one that I'll link him to that he can do whatever he wants with. Just gotta finish the book first.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Antistar01
Oct 20, 2013
We saw a lot of the 'picking up loot' animation in this video, so here it is; I'm going to try to say something nice about this game.

I love that your body exists in first-person - it's something that I think should be standard in all first-person games (unless you're playing a literal ghost or a literal floating robotic gun platform or something) - and I like that you see your arm go out and grab the loot or what-have-you.

This is Thief 2014 though, so every silver lining has a cloud. The problem is that they did a poor job of this feature; you need to be in a fairly small area for the animation to match up, and if you're not in that exact spot, the game removes control and moves you into it. There's been times where I can see the obvious trapped pressure plate - and I stand off to the side of the desk or whatever to grab the loot on it, in a conscious effort to avoid to the trap - but the game then shifts me over onto the trap so that the 'picking stuff up' animation can play out.

The game makes you step on traps. And It's just one aspect of a greater problem in the game; one I usually associate with console games, where the attitude seems to be "things have to look good all the time and who cares if the gameplay suffers".


... Well I did try. :(

paragon1
Nov 22, 2010

FULL COMMUNISM NOW

OAquinas posted:

That's been the setting since the beginning though. A bit odd to think about, but if you're going to put the world together with that kind of sorta-steampunk arrangement as a backdrop to Garrett's exploits then it's perfectly valid. Thief 2 even had autonomous robots with cannon arms, mind-control masks, and submarines.

Yeah but Karras's poo poo was all incredibly recent inventions for which the richest people in the city paid dearly, and were the results of a guy so ingenious that he was able to become the (somewhat controversial) new prophet of his religion. You really don't find anything like that in Theif 1 that I recall (or Thief 3 for that matter).

Fabricated posted:

The lights and various mechanical things are recent additions to the city in this setting via the Baron's "improvement" plans.

Okay so the Baron is making new poo poo for random rear end jewelers to use, but still has his soldiers, the guys who enforce his orders, walking around in metal suits swinging sharp bits of metal. How does that make sense?

FoolyCharged
Oct 11, 2012

Cheating at a raffle? I sentence you to 1 year in jail! No! Two years! Three! Four! Five years! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!
Somebody call for an ant?

Because like any good villain he understands that style and flair trump practicalities. He put a lot of effort into creating his cool little dystopian world that some schmuck is gonna go turn over, stop being so mean, man.

Cartheon
Jun 1, 2014

Help me, Oppan. You're my only hope.

RickVoid posted:

I doubt this is serious, but don't. His book has very little to do with thief. It's somewhere between a police story and a noir detective flick, set in a Steampunk fantasy China that discovered fantasy North America before Europe. Also Magic.

I was partially serious. Yes, I'm writing that. No, I'm not throwing it out. The has an interesting sounding setting at least.

Watching the video, was it just my crappy computer or did the captions get waaaaay ahead of the voice acting?

Suspicious
Apr 30, 2005
You know he's the villain, because he's got shifty eyes.
One thing I really liked about this game is that it equally rewards 3 different play styles. You aren't forced into no alarms/no kills. Other than that it was an average game with no major problems other than sounds, and if it hadn't been called Thief, it wouldn't have gotten nearly as much bad press as it did.

Fabricated posted:

Also, I hate hate hate the way Garret admires all collectable loot for seconds after picking it up since you can't really do anything while he's doing that.

It's interruptible. Switch to a weapon, or maybe swing at empty air, I forgot. I agree that you shouldn't have to do this to regain control though.

CommissarMega
Nov 18, 2008

THUNDERDOME LOSER

Cartheon posted:

Watching the video, was it just my crappy computer or did the captions get waaaaay ahead of the voice acting?

The other Thiaf LP also has that issue, and they said that it was exactly as the game presented it.

supermikhail
Nov 17, 2012


"It's video games, Scully."
Video games?"
"He enlists the help of strangers to make his perfect video game. When he gets bored of an idea, he murders them and moves on to the next, learning nothing in the process."
"Hmm... interesting."
So, guard personalities. If I recall correctly, like half the guards in the original two games were voiced by the same guy who did Garrett, making some rather painful noises with his throat. So by not hiring the original actor, the developers also lost part of the city's overall charisma, embodied by the guards.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

The Guards and Garret are ideally represented by the coyote and the sheepdog punching in and punching out together at the end of the day. They're both just trying to pay the rent, damnit.

Kangra
May 7, 2012

Meanwhile this game literally has a Tweety Bird mechanic.

If only neo-Garrett was voiced as Sylvester.

Antistar01
Oct 20, 2013

supermikhail posted:

So, guard personalities. If I recall correctly, like half the guards in the original two games were voiced by the same guy who did Garrett, making some rather painful noises with his throat. So by not hiring the original actor, the developers also lost part of the city's overall charisma, embodied by the guards.

Yeah, Stephen Russell. And not only that, he also voiced Karras, who has a very distinctive voice. You can hear both Karras and Garrett in the (amazing) final cutscene for Thief 2. (Ending spoilers for Thief 2 there, obviously.)

So with the exception of that Keeper at the end, all the voices there are Stephen Russell. He's a great voice actor, and I was gutted when I heard he wasn't voicing Garrett in Thief 2014.

PlaceholderPigeon
Dec 31, 2012
Thinking about the collectibles thing - the payout on finishing the collection could be easily explained by his fence having particular demands from his clients. Sure, its a tiny bit of a stretch but I'm sure a large gold prize would motivate Garret to hold onto a few things a bit longer. Actually getting rid of the items would have to be part of it though.

I agree that hoarding for show doesn't suit Garret's style, but it could work for another type of thief with a more arrogant and less cynical style, though. But that's a matter for a different game.

double nine
Aug 8, 2013

anilEhilated posted:

Devoted, too. I don't think I'll ever forget LADY VAN VERNON'S SHOUTY GUARDSMAN.

edit: For those not in the know: Scurry off, or you'll acquire some unnecessary ventilation!

I have a funny story about that, the second time I played through the Metal Age, I wanted to get a close look at this little discussion, so I got as close as I could while staying in the shadows. I don't know if I got too close or if the AI bugged out, but the guards went through all their lines, and as they drew their bows, they all turned towards me and started firing. It was as if they were putting up a play to draw me out in the open.

Wiseblood
Dec 31, 2000

Antistar01 posted:

Yeah, Stephen Russell. And not only that, he also voiced Karras, who has a very distinctive voice. You can hear both Karras and Garrett in the (amazing) final cutscene for Thief 2. (Ending spoilers for Thief 2 there, obviously.)

So with the exception of that Keeper at the end, all the voices there are Stephen Russell. He's a great voice actor, and I was gutted when I heard he wasn't voicing Garrett in Thief 2014.

Stephen Russell also voiced Raoul in the Song of the Caverns level in Thief Gold, singing and all.

Gantolandon
Aug 19, 2012

paragon1 posted:

Yeah but Karras's poo poo was all incredibly recent inventions for which the richest people in the city paid dearly, and were the results of a guy so ingenious that he was able to become the (somewhat controversial) new prophet of his religion. You really don't find anything like that in Theif 1 that I recall (or Thief 3 for that matter).

Electricity and steam power were commonplace in the first game. Electrical lighting and elevators could be encountered at least once per mission. I'm pretty sure the Hammers also used some primitive motion cameras in Cragscleft (the periscopes at the entrances to the cell blocks).

The main problem with this stuff was that it was only produced and maintained by the Order of the Hammer, who were not particularly innovative or interested in giving their stuff away. This is how the Mechanists managed to take over most of their flock just after the split - by trading Karras' inventions for money and influence. I didn't like the way how Deadly Shadows pretty much reset the game world. Even if Karras turned out to be a heretic and a madman, I can't see the nobility and the Watch willingly resigning from using things that gave them an incredible edge.


Zoig posted:

Also everyone know the best secret lairs are the ones that are big obvious landmarks that people leave alone because "whoooo haunted!". It's not like people try to get other people to go to haunted places on dumb bets or something.

Man this is awful.

Yes, that's pretty idiotic. Seriously, no one even got an idea that the "haunted" building may be, in fact, inhabited by someone? Have no one ever seen a suspicious guy, wearing a medieval version of a gimp suit, climbing over the walls into the clock tower? Actual workers are trying to repair the mechanism and no one managed to find an obviously occupied room? How did Garrett even get an idea that one of the best-known buildings in the entire city, visible to pretty much everyone and famous enough to regularly appear in newspapers, is a viable hideout?

aerion111
Nov 29, 2011

Prodigy of Curiosity.
Master of Jacks.
Apprentice of Masks.
And, when fighting the forces of darkness, always remember: "Armor of Darkness, Weapon of Light"

Gantolandon posted:

How did Garrett even get an idea that one of the best-known buildings in the entire city, visible to pretty much everyone and famous enough to regularly appear in newspapers, is a viable hideout?

Presumably the same way he got the idea that combs are worth stealing but candlesticks are not.
As in: Because he is an idiot.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Also, that combat system. It's just kinda a simon-says QTE? What happens if two guards attack you at once?

bman in 2288
Apr 21, 2010

Night10194 posted:

Also, that combat system. It's just kinda a simon-says QTE? What happens if two guards attack you at once?

Sucks to be you, then.

You run like crazy or load a previous save.

insanityv2
May 15, 2011

I'm gay
The QTE part doesn't happen until their health is low and you have to deliver the knockout blow. It's pretty much just normal videogame combat until then, an attack button and a dodge button.

Mikl
Nov 8, 2009

Vote shit sandwich or the shit sandwich gets it!
Regarding that safe, it would have been a clever puzzle had the combination been hidden in plain sight in the letter. Like, for example, the number of letters in the first word of each paragraph are the combination number. Having it written out like that is just lazy.

chiasaur11
Oct 22, 2012



Gantolandon posted:

Yes, that's pretty idiotic. Seriously, no one even got an idea that the "haunted" building may be, in fact, inhabited by someone? Have no one ever seen a suspicious guy, wearing a medieval version of a gimp suit, climbing over the walls into the clock tower? Actual workers are trying to repair the mechanism and no one managed to find an obviously occupied room? How did Garrett even get an idea that one of the best-known buildings in the entire city, visible to pretty much everyone and famous enough to regularly appear in newspapers, is a viable hideout?

Well, he's counting on everyone being too scared of ghosts.

And he would have got away with it too, if it wasn't for those meddling kids and that dog.

Ghostwoods
May 9, 2013

Say "Cheese!"
How many damned letter openers does one couple need?

Atomikus
Jun 4, 2010

Muncie? Muncie! MUNCIE!

Mikl posted:

Regarding that safe, it would have been a clever puzzle had the combination been hidden in plain sight in the letter. Like, for example, the number of letters in the first word of each paragraph are the combination number. Having it written out like that is just lazy.

Or it's not meant to be a puzzle but a comment on people having their passwords written down on pieces of paper by their computers.

Ghostwoods
May 9, 2013

Say "Cheese!"

Atomikus posted:

Or it's not meant to be a puzzle but a comment on people having their passwords written down on pieces of paper by their computers.

The depressing thing is that it's probably the 20th iteration of the puzzle, having been watered down 19 previous times by the sales guy on the oversight committee.

Tafferling
Oct 22, 2008

DOOT DOOT
ALL ABOARD THE ISS POLOKONZERVA
Watched the second Thi4f video and... eh, I think that 20% is gameplay and 80% is just picking up stuff with the guards all bonked out. It's beyond boring. Couldn't even finish watching it, I know you've done your best but... eeeeeh...

Soricidus
Oct 21, 2010
freedom-hating statist shill

Ghostwoods posted:

The depressing thing is that it's probably the 20th iteration of the puzzle, having been watered down 19 previous times because the playtesters had been carefully selected for their single-digit IQs.
Gotta tailor it to the CoD audience if you're going to get CoD sales figures

Cartheon
Jun 1, 2014

Help me, Oppan. You're my only hope.
If that was what they were going for, they failed by making a game without guns or a bad guy that isn't a 'fereigner.'

insanityv2
May 15, 2011

I'm gay
To be fair the Thief franchise isn't really about puzzles. It's about exploratin, which Thi4f is also bad at. But really, the game has plenty of flaws lets not invent any more.

Also loving lol at the CoD comment.


E: Upon further reflection, I think the real change in design philosophy isn't so much that a dumber audience is being targeted, as much as we'd all like to jerk ourselves off for being smart. I bet half of you, on your first playthrough of Thief 2 missed a whole bunch of poo poo.

THe difference is that in the past, missing stuff used to be ok. My personal theory is taht this is a consequence of how much more expensive games are to make these days, or maybe its just designer hubris, but generally these days, the idea is that all players should easy be able to experience all the content that the dev team devoted any resources to. (For example, what was the last FPS you played that had a secret level?)

So yeah, in the end, I agree that this puzzle would have been harder if it were in a Looking Glass designed level. But it's not because gamers back then were smarter. It's because Looking Glass would have been OK with a majority of players missing that peice of loot. Am I making any sense?

insanityv2 fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Nov 19, 2014

Antistar01
Oct 20, 2013
Thief 2014 does have some definite 'this is a puzzle' puzzles in it, which manage to feel as out of place as puzzles always do in a game not about puzzles.

There's one I had a particularly bad time with, because - without going into detail - it was a puzzle of the type where it's easy to see what the solution is at a glance, but working through it to 'solve' it is a tedious slog. That wasn't the (whole) problem though; did anyone else encounter that bug where you couldn't progress in the game on April Fool's Day? You'd finish whatever level you were on and the game would just send you back to the start of the level again in Groundhog Day fashion. (Cue lots of paranoia that it was a prank.)

Guess which level I was stuck on. :argh:

Bobbin Threadbare
Jan 2, 2009

I'm looking for a flock of urbanmechs.



Objectives
The Smuggler's Diary
Builder's Note
Unfinished Note
Haunted!
Elsie's TURF!

Maybe next time I'll grab a screenshot you can actually see on a bright background like this.

HenryEx
Mar 25, 2009

...your cybernetic implants, the only beauty in that meat you call "a body"...
Grimey Drawer
What, these are screenshots and not just black banners? :raise:

TomViolence
Feb 19, 2013

PLEASE ASK ABOUT MY 80,000 WORD WALLACE AND GROMIT SLASH FICTION. PLEASE.

Have to agree that the sound design in the Dark Mod is brilliant. While the voice acting is understandably a little rough around the edges, the ambient sounds and music are strongly reminiscent of the old thief games and are far, far above the level of quality you'd expect for a fan-made effort. Overall, the level design is really very impressive too, from what I've played myself and seen from this LP, though there are undoubtedly some stinkers in the mix that I just haven't got to yet.

Prenton
Feb 17, 2011

Ner nerr-nerrr ner
What was the stuff written on the crates at the end?

Incidentally, something that gave me grief in the Dark Mod when I first played it: guards will, understandably, become upset it they spot your rope arrows.

PlaceholderPigeon
Dec 31, 2012
Thanks for upping the brightness, it was better this time!

Oppressive would be the word that I would describe The Dark Mod's audio - especially the sounds in the tunnel. It's especially ironic because T4 tries so hard to make The City seem like an autocratic nightmare but TDM can make you feel some of that that without saying a word.

Lark Butternose is a great name for a shady character, I have to say, despite the meh script. At least they were trying something different though with the backstory.

What was written on the crates in the tunnel?

Gantolandon
Aug 19, 2012

Prenton posted:

What was the stuff written on the crates at the end?

Incidentally, something that gave me grief in the Dark Mod when I first played it: guards will, understandably, become upset it they spot your rope arrows.

Not only that.

Things that will upset the guards that didn't bother them in Thief/Thief 2:
  • Missing important loot (frequently used to make card players freak out if their bets get stolen)
  • Important door being left open.
  • Weapons and arrows lying in suspicious places.
  • Being pickpocketed (though it raises their alarm only a bit).
  • Tampering with the door while they're opening or closing them.

They will also relight torches and switch on electric lights. This, however, depends of the mapper, as is not turned on by default.

BenS
Nov 11, 2014

Cartheon posted:

Watching the video, was it just my crappy computer or did the captions get waaaaay ahead of the voice acting?

CommissarMega posted:

The other Thiaf LP also has that issue, and they said that it was exactly as the game presented it.

Yep, exactly. The subtitles were terribly out of sync, and that seems to be a problem with the game. Can't explain why for the life of me, but it is a bit of a relief to know that it's a shared problem.


Cartheon posted:

I was partially serious. Yes, I'm writing that. No, I'm not throwing it out. The has an interesting sounding setting at least.

Thief definitely has an interesting setting (though I get the sinking feeling that this game isn't really making or will ever make full use of it,) so there's nothing wrong with using the inspiration therefrom, methinks. I admit that I'm curious now. I'm a writer myself (though I was way too busy to get into NaNo this year,) so let me know how it turns out? And good luck with getting across the finish line!

Antistar01
Oct 20, 2013
Those difficulty levels definitely had different names - from the previous Dark Mod mission and from Thief 1 and 2. It was Normal, Hard, Expert there (I always liked how there was no 'Easy' difficulty level; it started at Normal and only got harder).

Anyway, it's so good to see rope arrows back to their full glory. We haven't seen them yet in Thief 2014, but... what they did with them there is possibly worse than not including them at all (in my opinion).

Also; oof, it sounded like Lady Ludmilla took a tumble down the stairs after she was dropped. :ohdear:

Bobbin Threadbare
Jan 2, 2009

I'm looking for a flock of urbanmechs.

Prenton posted:

What was the stuff written on the crates at the end?

PlaceholderPigeon posted:

What was written on the crates in the tunnel?

I knew I should have stopped to read those. The first crate says, "Nectar Goddess, I have given the oath of silence." The second says, "Nectar Goddess, grant your servant STRENGTH!" and the third is, "To hunt them To slay them! Like they Hunt US Like they Kill us!"

I'm not sure about the implications here. Is the Nectar Goddess some sort of undead Trickster? Did the ghoul (pretty sure it's a ghoul) scrawl the graffiti or were they already on the crates, meaning the smugglers stole them from something they really should have avoided? I still haven't played far into the Thomas Porter series, so this may very well be answered later. And if it is, please don't tell me what it's about, because I'd rather like to find out for myself.

Cartheon
Jun 1, 2014

Help me, Oppan. You're my only hope.
Bobbin, I think you need to turn up the brightness some more or maybe the gamma. You mention it at the end of the video, and I agree. It is still hard to see things.

I'll also agree about The Dark Mod sounding like a Thief game. Thi4f has that soundtrack that just completely kills the mood. It would be like playing death metal during a tabletop game of Call of Cthulhu. Thief I and II and The Dark Mod has that subtle ambient sound that just adds to the tension in all the right ways.

BenS posted:

Thief definitely has an interesting setting (though I get the sinking feeling that this game isn't really making or will ever make full use of it,) so there's nothing wrong with using the inspiration therefrom, methinks. I admit that I'm curious now. I'm a writer myself (though I was way too busy to get into NaNo this year,) so let me know how it turns out? And good luck with getting across the finish line!

Thanks! I actually write for a living too, so I'm not making much progress. After a day filled with writing, going home to write some more is a bit of a chore.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Spudd
Nov 27, 2007

Protect children from "Safe Schools" social engineering. Shame!

Maybe you could turn your light on when you know you're safe in an area, I know it would seem like extra work to know when is a good time to turn it on but it would help our viewing pleasure.

But seriously you're doing a bang up job and I don't want you to think I'm taking a dump over what you've done so far.

  • Locked thread