Thi4f becomes plain old Thief, reboot coming in 2014

[motsm]

If all you want it the original game, you most likely already have it. If they keep say 75% of what Thief was, and add 25% new stuff, I'd call that a success. Franchises should evolve. All they need to do is maintain the essence of what it was.

My problem is that "evolution" in the mainstream games industry right now means dumbing down without exception. Most reboots include sweeping changes for no other reason than to update something to some needless universal standard sought by publishers, and that's the biggest issue. They don't focus on the problems of the original game and find ways to improve them, they focus on homogenizing the game with whatever is popular at the time, paying no heed to whether or not it makes any sense to anyone but the sales department. I don't see this arbitrary shuffling as evolution.

...but now this is getting off topic.

 

[Craig234]

My problem is that "evolution" in the mainstream games industry right now means dumbing down without exception. Most reboots include sweeping changes for no other reason than to update something to some needless universal standard sought by publishers, and that's the biggest issue. They don't focus on the problems of the original game and find ways to improve them, they focus on homogenizing the game with whatever is popular at the time, paying no heed to whether or not it makes any sense to anyone but the sales department. I don't see this arbitrary shuffling as evolution.

...but now this is getting off topic.

You have a point, but this is tricky. I love the idea of the thief series, but more than the actual gameplay.

This is a bit related to the realism thread, but if it was just 'realistic', you'd go breaking in and stealing and it's not all that exciting.

On the other hand, they can't be too crazy in 'special thief powers' or it takes you out of the game and can not be as fun either.

Somehow they have to come up with gameplay that gives you an immersion in some sort of thief experience, that doesn't copy other stealth games. Not easy.

 

[Sulaco]

You have a point, but this is tricky. I love the idea of the thief series, but more than the actual gameplay.

This is a bit related to the realism thread, but if it was just 'realistic', you'd go breaking in and stealing and it's not all that exciting.

Somehow, I get the feeling you've spent very little time with the Thief games, if any at all.
"Breaking in and stealing" is precisely what you do in the Thief games. Sure there are other missions that mix up the objectives, but the BEST missions, by far, in the series are those that your objective is to break in somewhere, grab whatever the objective loot is and whatever other loot you can, and get out. Period. Of course it's never that straight froward, but that's the plan. And it worked beautifully. And for the record, yeah, it was plenty exciting. It's called tension, something few modern games bother to try to capture anymore.

Somehow they have to come up with gameplay that gives you an immersion in some sort of thief experience, that doesn't copy other stealth games. Not easy.

What an asinine statement. Considering that Thief: The Dark Project essentially invented the 3D stealth genre, before MGS, before anything else like it, "copying other stealth games" is moot. They've all copied the best aspects of Thief, for years and years, and not many have come close to matching what it does.

 

[PingSpike]

Somehow they have to come up with gameplay that gives you an immersion in some sort of thief experience, that doesn't copy other stealth games. Not easy.

Its not easy to directly copy the gameplay of a game that came out 15 years ago and that you own the franchise rights too?

 

[mindcycle]

If the Tomb Raider reboot is anything to go by, this will be amazing

Meh.. I played Tomb Raider at a friends house recently and it's definitely decent, but it's lost a lot of what made the older games so great IMO. Mainly, the actual tomb exploration and puzzles! Most of the tombs are now optional with the main focus being on the action elements. Which is hilarious to me since the puzzles and tomb exploration were the biggest selling point of the older games. Well maybe next to checking out Lara's ass in all it's polygonal goodness..

 

[obidamnkenobi]

Somehow they have to come up with gameplay that gives you an immersion in some sort of thief experience, that doesn't copy other stealth games. Not easy.

No. They will come up with a teenage boy power fantasy where you can murder dozens of AI-less guards, preferably without ever being at risk of failing. Might also contain a nonsense plot only a moron would care about, to convince you the stakes are really high and there is tension, when there isn't.

 

[JamesV]

No. They will come up with a teenage boy power fantasy where you can murder dozens of AI-less guards, preferably without ever being at risk of failing. Might also contain a nonsense plot only a moron would care about, to convince you the stakes are really high and there is tension, when there isn't.

And probably wrap it all up in a confined 'you can only go this way' rat-maze map; like how Deus Ex HR gave the illusion of being able to go where you want - down straight paths to an area with only one entrance.

I remember this was my biggest issue with Deadly Shadows; see a guard around a corner? Gotta try and sneak by or knock him out... no using rope arrows to get above and sneak by on a ledge, or a door you could lockpick to bypass the guard and come out past him.

I'd love to eat my words, if they put out missions like the bank job from Thief 2, but I'm highly skeptical.

 

[ThinClient]

No. They will come up with a teenage boy power fantasy where you can murder dozens of AI-less guards, preferably without ever being at risk of failing. Might also contain a nonsense plot only a moron would care about, to convince you the stakes are really high and there is tension, when there isn't.

They have specifically commented on this -and so have we, in this very thread.

It's people like you spreading uneducated "opinion" that ruin reputation of games before they're even out.

 

[Childs]

My problem is that "evolution" in the mainstream games industry right now means dumbing down without exception. Most reboots include sweeping changes for no other reason than to update something to some needless universal standard sought by publishers, and that's the biggest issue. They don't focus on the problems of the original game and find ways to improve them, they focus on homogenizing the game with whatever is popular at the time, paying no heed to whether or not it makes any sense to anyone but the sales department. I don't see this arbitrary shuffling as evolution.

...but now this is getting off topic.

For no reason? These rebooted franchises where dying for a reason. You might see it as arbitrary, but the changes they make they do for a reason. It might not always work, but its better that they try to innovate than let the franchise stagnate and die an unrecoverable death.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HpRsOQ4MS_8#!

Also, Eidos Montreal has worked on three games: Deus Ex: HR, Tomb Raider 2013 (MP), and Thief. The whole philosophy of the studio is smaller teams, working longer. They try to get it right, which is refreshing. They've been working on Thief since 2009. They spent 4 years on Deus Ex. I dunno...until I see them screw up I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. The alternative is no new game, and living in the past isnt going to make the present any better.

 

[mindcycle]

And probably wrap it all up in a confined 'you can only go this way' rat-maze map; like how Deus Ex HR gave the illusion of being able to go where you want - down straight paths to an area with only one entrance.

Yeah man I agree with you on Deus Ex HR. I wanted to get into it really badly since i'm such a fan of the older games, but it was just missing something. The corridor style design was one thing, but the gearing toward the console generation was just a bit too much for my taste. I prob played for like 3-4 hours and haven't come back since.

This is why i'm not all that excited about the Thief reboot. Edios does an ok job bringing back these older titles (Deus Ex, Tomb Raider, Hitman) but in their attempts to modernize them they seem to miss some of the key elements of what made the originals so great. This is why I keep saying that they should just start new franchises which are loosely based on these older games. Sure, that might not be as profitable, but it would be more responsible IMO. The new games can then stand on their own without having to be directly compared to the older games.

 

[ThinClient]

There were plenty of "alternate routes" in DE:HR. Are you smoking crack? lol

You could go crawling through vents or take alternate stand-up routes or charge right up the middle and stuff. The number of routes you could take was great. It's not a parkour game or something. It was a really good game.

 

[Childs]

And probably wrap it all up in a confined 'you can only go this way' rat-maze map; like how Deus Ex HR gave the illusion of being able to go where you want - down straight paths to an area with only one entrance.

I'm playing this game right now, and there are usually like 4 or more ways to get to where you need to be. It all depends on what you put your skill points into.

 

[ThinClient]

i'm playing this game right now, and there are usually like 4 or more ways to get to where you need to be. It all depends on what you put your skill points into.

but but but the game is teh sux, man

 

[Geosurface]

Deus Ex: Human Revolution was by NO means perfect. It's ending was pretty lame, for one thing.

However! There was a LOT about it that was fun and very well done. It had a cool aesthetic and atmosphere... it played well, it had quite a lot of customization of your character... dialogue was handled well... they did a good job of making a protagonist who was reminiscent of JC Denton... it wasn't overly short... etc

I'd say DX:HR got things about 80% right. A HELL of a lot better job of doing a sequel to the original than Invisible War did... even Invisible War wasn't *completely* worthless but it was quite a bit closer to completely worthless than it should've been.

If Thi4f (lol) gets it 80% right... or even 70% right... I don't see how anyone can argue that is worse than getting no Thief sequel at all.

 

[TheSlamma]

And keep Stephen Russell!!

Nothing in IMDB yet

 

[mindcycle]

If Thi4f (lol) gets it 80% right... or even 70% right... I don't see how anyone can argue that is worse than getting no Thief sequel at all.

The reactionary side of me is saying "Awesome! A new Thief, I loved that game!" But the logical side of me is saying "Wait till it comes out, read reviews, avoid scores, then gauge how consolized they likely made it and base your target price based on that".

I used the above logic for Dues Ex and Hitman and grabbed both for around $10 each. I'll prob wait for the Tomb Raider reboot to hit that price too. That way while i'm playing the games i'm less disappointed by everything that was changed and/or left out, and even if they only get 50% right at least I didn't pay 60 bucks to find that out.

 

[Childs]

The reactionary side of me is saying "Awesome! A new Thief, I loved that game!" But the logical side of me is saying "Wait till it comes out, read reviews, avoid scores, then gauge how consolized they likely made it and base your target price based on that".

I used the above logic for Dues Ex and Hitman and grabbed both for around $10 each. I'll prob wait for the Tomb Raider reboot to hit that price too. That way while i'm playing the games i'm less disappointed by everything that was changed and/or left out, and even if they only get 50% right at least I didn't pay 60 bucks to find that out.

You could simply not preorder and read reviews, then determine if you want to buy it. I'm not sure how the cost of the game would make the design decisions any better. There are plenty of cheap games out that are less than 100% true to Thief.

 

[HeXen]

Blasphemer! Heretic! ... HeXeN!!!

Thief 1 has a lot of detail for it's era, there are interesting street lamps... lots of books and notes laying around, lots of carrots, bread loafs, apples etc on shelves, butcher knives... lots of medieval artwork hanging on walls... elaborate carpets, a wide variety of wall textures and textures of all kinds, environments are very distinct.

The AI are smart, especially for it's time. There are zombies but the intelligent human guards make up a much larger percentage of your foes.

It is not excessively boxy either... no more so than it's age necessitates.

I really think you need to give it another play through, use modern mods to make it high resolution, and widescreen, and give it another try.

Did you ever finish it? When did you last play it?

And to the other guy, Warren Specter is good and all but my understanding is he had nearly nothing to do with Thief 1, and it's the best in the series by far.

Of course for it's time. I just played it a few months back when Steam had the Thief series on sale. I was saying it's hard for me to play now ...not back then.
Thief 2 with mods is more passable in a modern playthrough today but when you play part 1 and see an AI get stuck in a door running towards you scared when they should be runnning away....well then that is why i said what i said
They are in fact, wide open spaces that contains no material...i'm not talking about a texture of books on a wall, visually they both have some objects...and about 100 square feet of stone floor to cross with no purpose than to reach the next door or pass a guard. Thief 3 felt more "lived in"

I still found Thief 3 to be far more fun overall.

*edit: Here we go, only 6 hours in my modern day replay, i coudln't do it anymore, it was fun back in the day though since nothing else out there was like it.

 

[motsm]

For no reason? These rebooted franchises where dying for a reason. You might see it as arbitrary, but the changes they make they do for a reason. It might not always work, but its better that they try to innovate than let the franchise stagnate and die an unrecoverable death.

They aren't innovating by taking games with innovative concepts and pushing as many fad gameplay features into them as possible. I'd rather them die off, as what is the point of having a new game that represents that previous innovation in name only?

 

[Sulaco]

For no reason? These rebooted franchises where dying for a reason.

See, this is nonsense. Complete nonsense. This idea that "rebooted franchises" were dying a slow death and no one cared anymore is rubbish and needs to be dispelled.

Thief TDP sold over 2 million units. That's not "dying". Especially around the turn of the century standards.
Thief 2 was also very successful. LG studious closed up though due to other financial reasons.
As was some Game of the Year by 50 odd publications called...um...Deus Ex.

Plenty of other franchises that were turned on their heads; Resident Evil, Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, Silent Hill just to name a few, were massive successes, critically and commercially, but were taken in "different directions" to appeal to the fads of the day and to pull in a quick buck off of the all-important lowest common denominator gamer.

 

[mindcycle]

You could simply not preorder and read reviews, then determine if you want to buy it. I'm not sure how the cost of the game would make the design decisions any better. There are plenty of cheap games out that are less than 100% true to Thief.

Well I definitely won't be preordering it, and yes, the cost won't change anything. Basically i'll be waiting to hear how consolized they made it and then probably buy it in the $10-$20 range (unless it gets horrible reviews, then i'll just skip it). That way i'm not all that disappointed if it's just another generic 3rd person shooter. If for some reason everyone raves about how innovative it is, or how close they followed the originally gam play, I may even pick it up near launch for full price. However, i'm not holding my breath for that..

As mentioned above, I used this logic for both Dues Ex HD and Hitman and determined my price point was right about $10 or $15. Even though both were mere shadows of the previous games I didn't feel like I blew my money since I didn't line up to pay $60 for either. I gave both a chance, played for a few hours, got some entertainment out of them, then moved on.

I understand this line of thought won't work for everyone but I just thought i'd throw it out there.

 

[Childs]

See, this is nonsense. Complete nonsense. This idea that "rebooted franchises" were dying a slow death and no one cared anymore is rubbish and needs to be dispelled.

Thief TDP sold over 2 million units. That's not "dying". Especially around the turn of the century standards.
Thief 2 was also very successful. LG studious closed up though due to other financial reasons.
As was some Game of the Year by 50 odd publications called...um...Deus Ex.

Plenty of other franchises that were turned on their heads; Resident Evil, Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, Silent Hill just to name a few, were massive successes, critically and commercially, but were taken in "different directions" to appeal to the fads of the day and to pull in a quick buck off of the all-important lowest common denominator gamer.

You realize there were three 3 game right? Would you happened to have the numbers for 2 and 3? I think all those series except for maybe RE were in decline from game to game.

 

[Childs]

They aren't innovating by taking games with innovative concepts and pushing as many fad gameplay features into them as possible. I'd rather them die off, as what is the point of having a new game that represents that previous innovation in name only?

I see, its not exactly what you want so the hell with everyone else. You know you can simply not buy it right? There should be some middle ground there somewhere, because you probably cant even get Thief fans to agree 100% on what was great about it and what didnt work.

 

[Childs]

Well I definitely won't be preordering it, and yes, the cost won't change anything. Basically i'll be waiting to hear how consolized they made it and then probably buy it in the $10-$20 range (unless it gets horrible reviews, then i'll just skip it). That way i'm not all that disappointed if it's just another generic 3rd person shooter. If for some reason everyone raves about how innovative it is, or how close they followed the originally gam play, I may even pick it up near launch for full price. However, i'm not holding my breath for that..

As mentioned above, I used this logic for both Dues Ex HD and Hitman and determined my price point was right about $10 or $15. Even though both were mere shadows of the previous games I didn't feel like I blew my money since I didn't line up to pay $60 for either. I gave both a chance, played for a few hours, got some entertainment out of them, then moved on.

I understand this line of thought won't work for everyone but I just thought i'd throw it out there.

I guess what I'm getting at is I dont think the experience would change all the much if the price was lower. When you buy a bad game, even a dollar feels like its too much.

 

[Sulaco]

I see, its not exactly what you want so the hell with everyone else. You know you can simply not buy it right? There should be some middle ground there somewhere, because you probably cant even get Thief fans to agree 100% on what was great about it and what didnt work.

See, here's the problem with that:

When you use the name of the series in the title of the game, shockingly, people and fans of said series have certain expectations for it. Period. End of debate.

This isn't hard. Using the name Deus Ex or Thief or whatever isn't just because they can't come up with a new title. With carrying on a series, with consciously and deliberately choosing to tie in your NEW game with an established franchise, certain expectations are not unreasonable from the fans of that series. Otherwise, make a new IP. Simple.

And can we all agree to drop the pedantic and condescending "if you don't like it you don't have to buy it" line? Yeah. We got that. What a ridiculous sentiment to trumpet on a forum devoted to proffering opinions, positive or negative, on video games. Taken to its logical end, no one should ever complain about a game they think sucks or point out its flaws because, hey, if you don't like it, don't buy it! Please.