You Gotta Be Taffing Me. Let's Play the New Thief [DF]

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > You Gotta Be Taffing Me. Let's Play the New Thief [DF]

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Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

All they had to do was have him kinda huff and call her an amateur. That was why the original Garret didn't kill; it was something sloppy amateurs did when they got caught, and he sure as hell wasn't going to get caught.

Original Garret was great because he was kind of a misanthropic loser. Extremely good at what he did, but like someone else said, lovely with money, not living in luxury, and constantly risking his life just to make rent. Didn't have many friends and only a few professional contacts and outright found himself on the wrong side of things most of the time until saving his own skin required him to get more deeply involved. Take the mission where a crime lord tries to have him killed for not joining the guy's stable of thieves; his response is to slip into the dude's mansion and steal the guy's purse off his belt to show him Garret can take whatever he wants. He's a character driven by pride, disdain, greed, and a strong desire not to be murdered, not any real sense of moral outrage or heroism. Basically, original Garret was actually a good Antihero.

# ¿ Nov 10, 2014 19:31

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 16:05

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Cooked Auto posted:

Those were always my favourite in SCCT. Like the guard calling motion sensor lights really high tech in one level for instance.

Is Chaos Theory the one with the guy who's too excited about being attacked by a 'ninja' to actually give you any information?

# ¿ Nov 13, 2014 03:21

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

If I recall properly (and I'm not as up on my Christian heresies as I should be) the Ebionites were a real thing. If I remember properly they were an early Christian heresy that rejected Paul of Tarsus and cleaved to the idea of Jesus as the Messiah rather than God. Also, the bit about the Inquisition handing people over to civil authorities after questioning is actually accurate to the actual Holy Office of the Inquisition.

# ¿ Nov 14, 2014 02:15

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

I also liked that there was nothing sinister about the church at all. You're robbing a guy of what might potentially be a real holy relic and probably ruining his life, and he was just hoping it would allow him to improve the church and his community and had helped him solve a major personal crisis of faith. Garret's got rent to pay, damnit.

# ¿ Nov 14, 2014 03:12

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

VolticSurge posted:

With all this spider talk, I wanted to direct you fine gentlegoons to this adorable fella.

I watch videos like these to help myself get over my fear of spiders. It's worked some!

# ¿ Nov 15, 2014 03:18

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.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2014 08:01

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?

# ¿ Nov 18, 2014 20:47

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Xander77 posted:

Absolutely serious - I have no idea how people are finding this interesting. It's just a bunch of waiting. The hard mode limitations in particular might challenge the player but make the video that much duller because there's really only one way to do things.

I'm sorry you have a short attention span and no patience. Perhaps stealth games aren't for you.

E: To sound a bit less flip, I think this is a matter of differing tastes, in all honesty. The older Thief games are about large maps that focus on exploration, atmosphere and slow, deliberate gameplay with a lot of waiting for opportunities and planning your movement from shadow to shadow, and the Dark Mod intends to hit the same kind of feel. It's totally fine not to enjoy that kind of gameplay, but the Dark Mod videos are much closer to the tone and gameplay of the original series and to people that liked that, they're obviously going to have a lot more appeal.

Night10194 fucked around with this message at 08:04 on Nov 28, 2014

# ¿ Nov 28, 2014 07:58

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

supermikhail posted:

I don't think this discussion is very relevant to Thief with modern gamedev technology. An achievement, and a badge, perhaps saying "Professional", on the post-mission screen, is enough incentive for those players who are interested. Or the old system could be just fine. I thought the consensus was that no-killing in Thief was a sign of professionalism, not morality and recognition of consequences.

It was, but they also did a pretty good job of humanizing the Guards as just average Joe working stiffs. It always felt kind of petty to kill the poor bastards after listening in on their conversations about their jobs, their families, etc.

# ¿ Nov 28, 2014 17:09

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Gantolandon posted:

That's how Garrett explained it, but I always suspected he was just less jaded than he appeared. He was a guy who always tried to invent an elaborate excuse to every deed that could appear selfless. And there were occasions where his wall of cynicism pretty much cracked, especially after the events of the first game.

And at the very end of the last, now that I've finally finished Bobbin's original LP of Thief III. I never would've expected such a satisfying character arc for the cynical antihero.

# ¿ Nov 28, 2014 18:03

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

"Robbing the dead? He's such an rear end in a top hat! I'd better get back to my mission of robbing the dead!"

Oh, New Garret. You dumbass.

# ¿ Dec 1, 2014 21:32

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

It's like with the murder thing, though. He makes a big deal of it like it's a moral thing, not a 'hah, assholes are no better than me' thing.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2014 01:37

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Bobbin Threadbare posted:

That's just the thing, though. Old Garrett also stole tons of plates and goblets and jewelry and piles of gold coins--that hasn't changed--but because all the prices are much lower and over half the loot doesn't clear 10g, even when it's made out of gold, that is what gives Thi4f its sense of pettiness. The fact that it's all flatware now without a dish or a holy symbol to be found just adds to it.

They wouldn't even have to change that much considering they've already implemented a scaling price system. Just make the Master difficulty prices Normal instead and make everything except the coins worth five times as much. Bam, instant player satisfaction.

There's also the fact that he keeps finding incredible stuff and then just KEEPING it. I'd even understand 'Man, this is awesome! But there's no way in hell I can fence a steampunk AI soul, guess I've gotta just keep it for now' but no, it's for his lair collection, to go next to his Thiefmobile and his world's largest lucky copper in his trophy room.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2014 07:28

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

An actual Javert would be really interesting as an antagonist, though. Someone like Lt. Hagen from Thief 2, who from his notes is kind of a law and order fanatic who is willfully blind to any of the corruption or wider plots around him, who sees the world in simple terms: This rear end in a top hat is a thief, and society must be preserved against his thieving and the work of those like him. Someone who isn't corrupt or evil, who really does have scruples, but who is absolutely dogged in his pursuit would be a good secondary antagonist for Thief.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2014 19:49

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

insanityv2 posted:

Well speaking of bad writing/characterization, I have plenty to say about Orion and his followers, but we need to see a bit more of them before everything I have to say is relevant.

But for now think this over: what exactly is Orion's cause? What exactly is the Baron doing that he opposes? We haven't seen enough of Orion or his followers to do anything but guess at this point, but try and keep it in the back of your mind every time Orion and his followers get screen time.

E: Dishonored chat: i gotta say I am 100% with HnK416, though I'd change the proposed solution a bit. Instead of having no bad ending, I would change the setup such that there is no good ending. The existence of the good ending, I think, is a cop out.

Would you still restrain yourself if everything turns to poo poo anyways? That would be way more interesting.

Well, obviously, the Baron is being the Antagonist because of reasons and so Orion's job is to be the Vaguely Populist Resistance Guy who might later turn out to be evil to show us this is a hard hitting and cynical social commentary. Orion must be a swell guy, so many characters have told us so already!

Goddamn this poo poo is amateur hour. It doesn't actually earn anything it tries to run as a story point, does it? If you're going to make Garret guilty about Erin or whatever you might actually show some prior relationship to establish it, let her hang around a little, and show them being comfortable around one another instead of bickering and yelling and stealing from each other, goddamnit.

# ¿ Dec 16, 2014 21:39

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Rulebook Heavily posted:

I always took Garret's ability to hide so perfectly in shadow to be an extension of Keeper training. The very first time he saw a Keeper, the Keeper was invisible in the middle of a crowd.

Yeah, you have to remember Original Garret was trained by a secluded order of spy-scholar-wizards and definitely picked up some of their powers, even if he thought they were stupid and left.

# ¿ Dec 17, 2014 08:20

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

I think NuGarret being sloppy as hell and having to do Special Combo Takedowns and poo poo is surprisingly fitting to the general tone of Thi4f.

# ¿ Dec 22, 2014 21:10

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

I'm just going to go ahead and guess Orion's previous name was Constantine.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2015 21:28

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Bobbin Threadbare posted:

From what I've read, the real trouble with hydrofluoric acid isn't that it's necessarily more corrosive than hydrochloric acid, it's that it has this special property which allows it to insinuate into living tissue and therefore attack the nerves and bones beneath your skin. Exposure to HCl is more or less like getting exposed to an open flame in terms of the damage it'll cause, but HF is like if fire could somehow turn into an osteophagic neurotoxin.

As someone who was exposed to (thankfully not particularly concentrated) HCl once, it sucks a lot and the idea of something significantly worse is very unpleasant.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2015 23:46

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Shady Amish Terror posted:

Civil unrest was a persistent theme throughout the earlier chapters, but it really did just sort of blow up all of a sudden. It's possible that I've just overlooked some foreshadowing (entirely possible, the game has bored me so much I've missed things previously), but no, I don't recall there being any particular reason to expect a sudden violent revolt right there and then.

I suspect the trigger is Orion got his KillMacGuffin so he can turn evil now.

# ¿ Jan 9, 2015 22:06

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

HnK416 posted:

Well the first one..I..eeh..you'll see.
From what I read, there were three separate shutdowns of the "old religions", which isn't really a great explanation and makes very little sense but hey that's the one that's there. The implication, though, is that they just aren't worshiped openly.

The thing that's funny is, in the real world, 'Let's kill the established religion next!' is often a hill revolutions and major political changes die on. As in, it's really loving hard to do, especially if it has as much penetration as the Hammers and Pagans did. I mean, look at the Hammers. They definitely wanted to destroy the Pagans and they could never pull it off, despite being another major, established, and much more above-board religious order in the City. Just handwaving away 'Yeah, we uprooted the religion so much you won't even find old churches outside of secret buried temples' is ridiculous.

# ¿ Jan 9, 2015 22:42

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

anilEhilated posted:

And that's a pretty drat sad statement when you realize that Corvo is a silent protagonist.

I wish NuGarret would be.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2015 16:12

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

resurgam40 posted:

God, "It's who I am" is such a goddamn lazy way to get out of actually developing a character. A way that seems to be used a bit more than it should in AAA games nowadays, so you can't just lay it at this games door.

"It's who I am." works if it's said a long ways into the story after having a lot about establishing WHY it is who you are. A character coming to terms with their abilities, inclinations, etc is actually a pretty good narrative arc. It's just never used this way.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2015 06:19

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

You know what prevents this from being unsettling in the least? The total lack of contrast. Everything in the game has been dreary and gloomy. In the originals, you'd often be put in places that were lived in; opulent homes, actual city streets, factories and work-places, which made the contrast with the barrows and terrible places you sometimes went much more apparent. Here, this place just looks like the rest of the city.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2015 20:42

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

LoonShia posted:

The environment design isn't noticeably different from other levels, so it doesn't stand out that much.

I'm also wondering about the sharp flashes of light (both when Gary's having a vision and just looking through a peephole) in a stealth game with such a focus on dark corners. What's up with that.

This is what I was trying to point out. This is the problem with using Grimdark for anything but parody; if everything's grim and dark all the time, you lose the ability to portray nuance or to sort of change up the tone to let the player know it's serious or spooky.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2015 22:42

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Cartheon posted:

Maybe a Erin (the little girl at the end of Thief 3) would have been the protagonist; though, with an actual three-dimensional characterization. Have we had any stealth games with a female protagonist?

Velvet Assassin. So much stabbing...

# ¿ Jan 23, 2015 06:23

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Cartheon posted:

I've not heard of that one. I'm adding it to my list of games to scope out.

It's basically All The Nazis Get Stabbed. A tough, janky game about stabbing Nazis.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2015 08:47

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

double nine posted:

wait, tutorial girl is a purity figure now? Come on game, is there not a byte of creativity in there?

This game is the artistic equivalent of gluing gears to a top hat.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2015 19:25

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Why is he trying to find Erin again? I mean, he pretty much killed her himself in the first place by stealing her crucial tool while she wasn't looking, she was pretty evil too, and God knows what any of this is supposed to do about the rebellion and all.

I mean, I know it's because she's some kind of super-zombie chaos spirit because she fell on the MacGuffin or whatever and Garret Is Sad/In Love/Mentor, but it still doesn't really make much sense.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2015 04:43

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Kai Tave posted:

This may just be me, but Garrett the original always struck me as the sort of guy who was never going to try and sire a family line or anything. Like, I think one of the mission intros had him talking about how he liked the idea of Basso's sister being appreciative for him helping Basso out but I always saw Garrett as too much of a loner (or too much of a goon depending on your point of view) to bother having any kids of his own as opposed to handing down his knowledge and skills to a worthy successor (i.e. who Erin was originally supposed to be at the end of Thief 3).

Garret was a deeply antisocial person, yes. Not in the sense of being a huge rear end in a top hat so much as being a genuine loner who mostly preferred his own company.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2015 01:15

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Cartheon posted:

I will agree with that. My issue is that great gameplay can save a game with poor graphics. Great graphics will not save a game with poor gameplay. Too often I have arguments with chowderheads who praise games with great graphics but no real substance. If you want great graphics and no substance, watch a Michael Bay film.

And yet, everyone here seems to agree that this game - the Thief game with the best graphics - is complete poo poo when compared to Thief 1 and 2 - games with graphics that we all agree are leaving a lot to be desired. Thus they are not critical. Otherwise we would all be praising this game despite its gameplay flaws. Great graphics are nice to have, like a sun-roof on your BMW, but not a necessity. As long as you have the minimum graphics to support the great gameplay, you will have a great game.

Well, part of that is also that Thief 1 and 2's environmental design and art direction made up for technical shortcomings in character models. The actual environments got a sense of place across well enough that despite graphical shortcomings, the visual and art elements of the early Thief games still added to them.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2015 22:00

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Even the level that decides to rip off Thief (for once) is a letdown so far. So few guards and they're so easy to deal with.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2015 08:30

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

I gotta say, from a historical and religious point of view, the idea that the Baron could actually wipe out all religious sentiment in the setting is insane. If things were portrayed at all logically, there would be underground religious meetings all over the place, considering this is a setting where the Gods demonstrably exist and Original Garret killed one of them with a switcheroo once. Hell, a good writer would even have made that a hook for the Graven. "Oh, I saw you at that meeting last night, you know, the one at the Lawrence house. If that's your sort of thing, I know some other people who think it's just tragic what the Baron's trying to do to our culture. He needs to be stopped before the Trickster himself comes back to stop him for us." sort of thing. In polytheistic societies, neglecting the Gods is often considered to be inviting disaster to the entire society. The Pagans managed to be a religious underground and they were mostly only persecuted by another religious order, in the original series.

Also, the Baron's sort of sneering, ridiculous atheism is an insult to atheists, too. If I was going to take his character and rewrite that aspect, I'd have him feel he'd been wronged by the Gods. Or maybe stumble on the story of how Garret tricked and killed the Trickster and start thinking 'Hey, wait a second, these things aren't unassailable at all. Maybe I can attain their power/get revenge for what I feel was a slight against me/help mankind move beyond their thrall' or whatever other reasonable anti-religious motivation you want to give him. Making him so insanely touchy about it that he wants his wife dead for using poetic license in the commonly accepted lexicon about souls and gods just feels shallow and boring.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2015 19:06

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Tzarnal posted:

So remember early in the game when we saw that animatronic robot thing ? And then a whole bunch of them in the tower, in what looked like some sort of assembly line ? There was the parts of one on the Barons table. Which leads me to think that at some point the "industrial revolution" he wanted to kick off was in fact a magical robot powered one. And the game writers just sort of dropped that whole plot and now there is just a bunch of assets sticking around nobody cared to remove.

The entire plot is Thief 1 (Deceived by a prior employer with dark magical designs to retrieve the macguffins, one of which is Garret's eye), Thief 2 (ROBOLUTION!) and Bioshock Infinite's worst bits thrown into a blender.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2015 23:26

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

The other thing is, the original Garret was fooled by a guy who was literally the father of all lies and the uncle of all tricks. It was in his name. Yes, Garret probably should've seen some kind of betrayal coming, but his own pride at being called an artist of a thief (Old Garret didn't like to admit it, but I bet he was genuinely flattered to have someone take him seriously) and the enormous payout blinded him. He probably assumed Constantine was going to do something ridiculous and/or evil, but just assumed it would've really matter to him and he could just retire and get out of town.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2015 02:10

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Well, also, the Pagans you encounter in Thief 2 aren't attacking anyone anymore. They're just trying to live in the woods outside the city, which seems to be their normal state.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2015 00:03

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Internet Janitor posted:

wet thwy fuwnace be fywooled...

Garret's official model never fails to make everything funnier.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2015 08:15

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Brainamp posted:

Among other things.

So basically Stephen Russel was all of Looking Glass's male characters. Every last one.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2015 21:15

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

double nine posted:

I found a lot of the voice work in skyrim to be sloppy. Also, I think that Russell works better when given specific direction (your character is so and so, with trait x and y and z. No, can you be a little less x and a little more y?) than bethesda is used to. And Bethesda characters don't have more than one characteristic.

I've never seen a Bethesda game with good voicework, or writing. I think the former is a consequence of the latter.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2015 00:56

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 16:05

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

"To be alone, you must have something to be alone from." is basically the stupidest justification for 'cool anti-social guy turns around to save everyone' I've ever seen. The point of character development should be showing that the character has something to give a drat about, not that 'Errgh, I guess I have to have people to be aloof from, because I'm SO COOL.'

# ¿ Feb 16, 2015 20:41

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > You Gotta Be Taffing Me. Let's Play the New Thief [DF]

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