Eidos Montreal working on Thief 4?

[mkreku]

And climbing would be nice. I don't know why climbing is so rarely included in games these days. It must be hard to implement or something.

Yeah, it's really weird.. Gothic had climbing, and it was one of the coolest aspects of that game as it made the already open-ended world feel even more open and explorable. Then Gothic 2 came and they conitnued their great tradition of letting the player climb everywhere (even outside the map..). But then they release the bug-fest Gothic 3 and BOOM goes the climbing. Replaced by jumping! Wtf!?

 

I remember back in Daggerfall scaling massive dungeon vaults and climbing over city walls in the dead of night.

Oh yeah, I remember that too. First you couldn't climb out of your own bed, your climbing skill was so bad. Then you got better and it became useful. But as you continued to use it, the skill just kept growing and growing.. I remember running super-fast through a town, when I suddenly (and accidentally) climbed a really high building, flew over the roof and died from the fall on the other side

[Moatilliatta]

2) By the fourth iteration gameplay starts to get tired.

Am I the only one that has a problem with statements such as these? An IP doesn't get tired, the developers get tired or just plain suck, so long as you aren't fallout-fan strict about what the IP can and cannot do.

 

And yes IW wasn't bad unless you were a huge fan of DX and also had high expectations, I had fun with it.

[Slowtrain]

An IP doesn't get tired

 

 

Of course not. But if the gameplay for said IP is the exact same 4 games in a row, I personally don't see the point. You could make the argument that if a great story is attached to said repetitive gameplay then the game would still be worth playing. Computer games are not known for their riveting stories however.

 

 

I'm glad you enjoyed DX:IW. I did, too. FInished it twice. We are among the minority however. And I can't blame anyone for disliking it. It was a pretty poorly designed game.

[Hell Kitty]

it was taking the hit from Invisible War, which was streamlined to ****, not streamlined because it was multiplatform.

Actually, wasn't the reason IW felt so cramped was because the engine had to be constrained to Original Xbox specs?

 

Folks who used the Thief 3 editor discovered that the engine wasn't really capable of levels larger than what we got.

 

I totally have no interest in a butchered Tomb Raider clone, really.

 

Why would either DX3 or T4 be Tomb Raider clones, being that these series have little in common with TR? Because they use the Legend engine?

[Tigranes]

CrashGirl, which is why I'm hoping there is a significant reimagination of Thief this time round. I can think of multiple ways in which the new Thief game could signifiacntly differ and still provide an enjoyable experience.

[HYFLUX]

Calm down, I loved Thief 3. Keeper Compound is one of my favorite levels(along with Cradle) and I thought the plot was superb. Walking with Lauryl through the city remains as the single most atmospheric and sad moment in stealth games.

 

I'm only saying that I had got the idea that while Splinter Cells were selling like hotcakes, Deadly Shadows sales weren't that hot.

 

And thinking they'll not mimic other successful stealth games is kind of inane. Think it like this, this game is going to be designed from the ground up as a moneymaker for Eidos. Last fiscal showed them to be knee-deep in...well, not dough at least and so they will resurrect old franchises to cash on them. Of course they are going to implement features that were popular in recent stealth games, that's just sensible in terms of selling the game.

 

Why to revive Thief which didnt sell as hot as Splinter Cell? Thats because we already have a stleath game in modern setting.

 

Also, I personally do not think T3 bombed. Neither did DX-IW. If they were, EIDOS wont think of making sequels [and thats the reason why games like Torment or NOLF2 dont get sequels] Both games sold atleast reasonably well and there definitely was enthusiasm amongst gamers regarding both [mainly for DX-IW], but they both suffered from consolization and relative departure from familiar gameplay style of previous games. EIDOS now is taking chance to correct thier mistake [or atleast giving us hopes for the same]

 

Furthermore, I'll have you know that I don't sign "consolitism" as the reason why Deadly Shadows was flawed, but instead the egos of the design team. In a way, it was taking the hit from Invisible War, which was streamlined to ****, not streamlined because it was multiplatform. I've played complex console games, hell, I'm practically a console gamer considering how much little time I actually spend gaming on this computer and I don't like the pc-elitism that Thief community seems to love.

 

What exactly you mean by 'ego' of T3 developers? The team had many ex-LGS'ers (though lead designer resigned shortly before game release) and I am sure they did their best within given constraints. Like someone else mentioned, the game got flank mainly coz of ultra tiny levels which took away all the fun in an otherwise good game, and that was coz of stupid xbox memory size limitation. Certainly, the decision of developing the game on XBOX alongwith the PC contributed to the 90% of the problem. One can edit ini files to remove loot glint, arrow trails and such trivialities that bothered some 'hardcore' fans, but nothing can be done about level size. Yet still, there were good levels like Cradle and Museum...so in effect, its the multiplatform problem. Indeed, a game can still be as 'complex' as they make even on XBOX, but the gameplay of DX and Thief inherently require good enough level size [with thier goal of solving problem in multiple ways, taking multiple routes n all]

[Moatilliatta]

Of course not. But if the gameplay for said IP is the exact same 4 games in a row, I personally don't see the point. You could make the argument that if a great story is attached to said repetitive gameplay then the game would still be worth playing. Computer games are not known for their riveting stories however.

Yeah, I just hate it when people draw necessities from trends and might possibly be a bit too jumpy on the issue.

I'm glad you enjoyed DX:IW. I did, too. FInished it twice. We are among the minority however. And I can't blame anyone for disliking it. It was a pretty poorly designed game.

I actually don't think we're in the minority unless you're only polling the internet. I also think that much of the less-global game design was quite good, some of the levels were very innovative and fun, not to mention some of the better quests.

[Musopticon?]

Why they are reviving Thief and Deus Ex is simple: it's all they have. Both have critical acclaim and marketing can build on that. I don't think Deadly Shadows bombed, I wasn't sarcastic when I wrote "that hot". Thief sales were probably alright, so Eidos is kicking it up again.

 

Uh, the main problem with the game was that instead of giving in and buying a new edition of Unreal Engine, the devs went on with the old one and tried to bend it to limits it never could reach. The Flesh Engine, as it was called, imposed the limits on level size, not xbox. If you'd happen to ever play Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, you'd know this. That game has absolutely massive levels, both in actual gaming field and extra space(like a cityscape) for atmosphere.

 

What I meant with the ego was that while the devs, Null, Void, Spector and folks, were the top of their field, they overestimated their vision. Instead of keeping with the old engine, simulating a free-roam cityscape(which frankly failed) and trying to implement scripting and animation to the engine it couldn't take(remember the shifting characters when you blackjacked them?), they should have just simply dumbed the project mid-2002 and begun with a system that actually supported stealth from the ground up, like the Splinter Cell/Prince of Persia engine(can't recall the name) for instance. I applaud how far they could take the old Unreal, but the game is frankly hampered by it.

 

Thief: Deadly Shadows(lol) is a great game, it has an awesome story, lovely soundscape(love you Brosius!), interesting levels and is a great ending to the best trilogy in gaming. But I really don't want to play it again. I'd have to downgrade my drivers, spent an hour in the .ini-files to tweak performance and then dread the Thief 3 version of SHOAD the whole game.

 

Also, ease up the elitism. I've played both Steel Panthers and Halo, and I don't really give a **** over the platform. They are both great games, no matter if the former is a turn-based WW2 strategy game from who knows when and the other is a phenomenoly popular console fps from 2002.

[Hell Kitty]

like the Splinter Cell/Prince of Persia engine(can't recall the name)

 

That's two different engines. Lead (modified Unreal) for SC and Jade for PoP.

[HYFLUX]

Also, ease up the elitism. I've played both Steel Panthers and Halo, and I don't really give a **** over the platform. They are both great games, no matter if the former is a turn-based WW2 strategy game from who knows when and the other is a phenomenoly popular console fps from 2002.

 

Just to make it clear, I also dont give a damn about platforms. Its stupid to call console-players as 'kiddies' and automatically assume any game on console as 'dumbed-down'. There are some pretty amazing games out there, which requires great reflex and even mental skills. My only concern is about their impact on PC development for multiplatform games. In 99% of cases PC players have to deal console limitations even when their hardware is clearly more powerful than thier console counterpart. Atleast with XBOX 360, the difference is not so much...

 

TDS used Unreal Engine 2 with Flesh renderer, released in 2004 while Chaos Theory used Unreal Engine 2.5, came out in 2005...its easy to fault TDS programming here, but the development started some years back and they had to make use of what was best available to them..not to mention, they were developing the engine simultaneously for DX-IW, so its not practical to just dump things in the middle, when you are near the dead-line and start to code from scratch...in hindsight, it just looks like TDS was doomed oh well.

[Musopticon?]

It's sad really, had Looking Glass just stayed intact. Well, you could blame Daikatana for that and...let's not go there.

 

Bottom line, Thief 3 is flawed, but enjoyable.

 

Now, let's stay put and wait for the sequel.

 

 

like the Splinter Cell/Prince of Persia engine(can't recall the name)

 

That's two different engines. Lead (modified Unreal) for SC and Jade for PoP.

Ok, thanks. I had got the idea that the tech was same.

[Big Bottom]

I'm playing Thief 3 right now funnily enough.

[Tigranes]

 

 

What’s full performance capture?

 

Jean

-

Christophe

: Fans at home might have seen a little bit about this during our 

earlier Game Informer coverage

, actually. It’s when we capture the full performance of an actor all at once – the voice, movements and facial animations, all in one take. The actors all wear a full mocap suit, including a microphone, a helmet and a face-tracking camera, and we record the entire scene with every character, all at once.

 

What are the benefits of a full performance capture?

 

Jean

-

Christophe

: Immersion. Being able to capture the voice at the same time as the actors' movements and facial expressions, all while the actors play off each other, delivers a much more convincing experience than traditional techniques of recording each characters' dialogue separately and then animating everything by hand afterwards.

Steven

: Yes, exactly that. Immersion. We want Thief to be a really rich, story-driven experience. Being able to deliver the narrative in the most convincing and believable way is a really important part of providing that experience.

 

So, back to Stephen Russell then. Why did using a full performance capture technique affect your decision?

 

Steven

: With the new visual of Garrett we'd created, we found that there was a disconnect that we couldn't ignore between the concepted character and Stephen’s voice today.

 

Jean

-

Christophe

: Yes. And to answer your question directly, the actor playing Garrett needed to be able to perform his own stunts. Garrett’s a really athletic guy. We could have pasted Stephen’s voice on top of the actions and stunts of someone else, but this wouldn’t appear natural. It really wouldn’t make any sense to capture the full performance for our other characters, but not for our star.

 

Steven

: We’re absolutely huge fans of Stephen’s work on the classic Thief games. But when it came down to it, we ultimately realized that holding onto Steven as the voice of Garrett just for the sake of our nostalgia would be like wanting to cast Sean Connery again in the new 007 movies... It’s a nice thought, but honestly, it wouldn’t make sense for anything else other than nostalgia.

 

 

So... you change the voice actor for Garrett because you want to capture the facial animations and lips ON A FIRST PERSON GAME and because you need A VIDEO GAME CHARACTER to have the voice of a guy who can also do motion capture?

 

From this, we can conclude:

(1) Oodles of kool cinematic cut-scenes of Garrett being kool which will be even kooler because his lips will move right

(2) That apparently, people who can do stunts just have a different voice, their larynxes have evolved differently from all the jumping they do.

 

I liked DX:HR but just about everything they've been saying is so silly. I'm usually a firm believer in wait till gameplay videos before judging, but these guys are really going all the way with the dumb ****.

[entrerix]

wow, i liked Deus Ex HR, but full mocap for a first person video game sounds like a HUUUUUGE waste of money :/

 

edit: also, slowtrain jesus haven't seen posts from him in what feels like ages, lol

Edited April 3, 2013 by entrerix

[Malcador]

Jean-Christophe: Yes. And to answer your question directly, the actor playing Garrett needed to be able to perform his own stunts. Garrett’s a really athletic guy. We could have pasted Stephen’s voice on top of the actions and stunts of someone else, but this wouldn’t appear natural. It really wouldn’t make any sense to capture the full performance for our other characters, but not for our star.

 

 

 

Steven: We’re absolutely huge fans of Stephen’s work on the classic Thief games. But when it came down to it, we ultimately realized that holding onto Steven as the voice of Garrett just for the sake of our nostalgia would be like wanting to cast Sean Connery again in the new 007 movies... It’s a nice thought, but honestly, it wouldn’t make sense for anything else other than nostalgia.

Well, that was a good laugh. I guess this why Ironside isn't Sam Fisher any more. Hopefully there's another reason they didn't hire him, rather than that idiocy

[Gorgon]

That's one hell of a necro. Thread started in 2008

[Zoraptor]

So... you change the voice actor for Garrett because you want to capture the facial animations and lips ON A FIRST PERSON GAME and because you need A VIDEO GAME CHARACTER to have the voice of a guy who can also do motion capture?

Is there even a single bit of concept art/ render for thiaf that actually shows Garrett's lips anyway, apart from about 1/4s in the trailer? Everything else I've seen has him wearing that ludicrous faux goth black gauze over his lower face.

 

No wonder Squenidos is losing money hand over fist if they're squandering money on that sort of thing, and it doesn't even make a lick of sense. They're not Peter asterisking Jackson, Garrett ain't Gollum, and if they applied those standards in general then Bart Simpson would be a middle aged woman, Mark Hamill could not voice The Joker and a bunch of other similar stuff.

[Wombat]

AAA games are beyond control of old game fans, who are now just minor portion in the market and the designers have their professional loyalty to those who can assign resources to them.  Rather, I'm yet to learn how to adjust my expectations for smaller, self/crowd-funded projects.  Of course, I'd like to see the honeymoon stay as long as possible but...

[TSBasilisk]

Two First Looks:

 

RPS is hopeful

 

Polygon is worried

[Tigranes]

RPS is hopeful about just about every single game these days, the only thing they bash is DRM.

 

I do find positives in that they're toning down the supernatural stuff again, the City looks pretty nice, and many staples seem to be there. What's always worried me is the things they change or add, like Focus, apparently a time limit and scripted sequence (though those may not stay), the 'murder sequences', etc. 

 

 

an enemy's body parts become individual targets, letting the player direct his strikes.

Crap like this.

 

 

Garrett can also look through peepholes, watching and listening to secret conversations.

This is nice, though. Will be great.

 

 

It was a struggle to imagine that during the demo, which began with a linear introduction followed by a series of sprints down city streets

Again, it's the question - will this kind of rubbish be in the actual levels?

 

 

As if the voice acting weren't on-the-nose already, the game also includes text prompts. On a number of occasions, Garrett would say something like, "We should find an alternate entrance," and the words "Find an alternate entrance" would print across the screen.

From Garrett who mutters in-character, realistic mutterings about his current predicament, i.e. stuff people would actually mutter to themselves, we have Garrett who talks quest compass to himself. Dumb.

 

The point is that every time I read the new Thief preview, there's a scattered set of information where most of it is ambiguously worrisome or downright dumb. You can suspend your criticism and say those are small, in-progress details that won't break the game, but at some point, you develop a general idea that they're doing a lot of dumb things.

[Rostere]

 

 

 

What’s full performance capture?

 

Jean

-

Christophe

: Fans at home might have seen a little bit about this during our 

earlier Game Informer coverage

, actually. It’s when we capture the full performance of an actor all at once – the voice, movements and facial animations, all in one take. The actors all wear a full mocap suit, including a microphone, a helmet and a face-tracking camera, and we record the entire scene with every character, all at once.

 

What are the benefits of a full performance capture?

 

Jean

-

Christophe

: Immersion. Being able to capture the voice at the same time as the actors' movements and facial expressions, all while the actors play off each other, delivers a much more convincing experience than traditional techniques of recording each characters' dialogue separately and then animating everything by hand afterwards.

Steven

: Yes, exactly that. Immersion. We want Thief to be a really rich, story-driven experience. Being able to deliver the narrative in the most convincing and believable way is a really important part of providing that experience.

 

So, back to Stephen Russell then. Why did using a full performance capture technique affect your decision?

 

Steven

: With the new visual of Garrett we'd created, we found that there was a disconnect that we couldn't ignore between the concepted character and Stephen’s voice today.

 

Jean

-

Christophe

: Yes. And to answer your question directly, the actor playing Garrett needed to be able to perform his own stunts. Garrett’s a really athletic guy. We could have pasted Stephen’s voice on top of the actions and stunts of someone else, but this wouldn’t appear natural. It really wouldn’t make any sense to capture the full performance for our other characters, but not for our star.

 

Steven

: We’re absolutely huge fans of Stephen’s work on the classic Thief games. But when it came down to it, we ultimately realized that holding onto Steven as the voice of Garrett just for the sake of our nostalgia would be like wanting to cast Sean Connery again in the new 007 movies... It’s a nice thought, but honestly, it wouldn’t make sense for anything else other than nostalgia.

 

 

So... you change the voice actor for Garrett because you want to capture the facial animations and lips ON A FIRST PERSON GAME and because you need A VIDEO GAME CHARACTER to have the voice of a guy who can also do motion capture?

 

From this, we can conclude:

(1) Oodles of kool cinematic cut-scenes of Garrett being kool which will be even kooler because his lips will move right

(2) That apparently, people who can do stunts just have a different voice, their larynxes have evolved differently from all the jumping they do.

 

I liked DX:HR but just about everything they've been saying is so silly. I'm usually a firm believer in wait till gameplay videos before judging, but these guys are really going all the way with the dumb ****.

 

DX:HR was made by a different team. The new Thief game has a completely different team who have been working on this game in pre-production in several years with many scrapped ideas. Apparently they settled for this horribly, horribly awful approach. I'm currently expecting Thief 4 to be to the Thief franchise what Star Wars Episode I was to the Star Wars franchise.

 

That Sean Connery comment also fatally reveals their lack of class...

[Nonek]

This is possibly the stupidest thing i've ever heard, reminds me of Dustin Hoffman in the Marathon Man telling Laurence Olivier that he hadn't slept for three days to prepare for the "Is it Safe" scene, Olivier simply replied. "Why not try acting?"

 

I'll avoid this like the plague.

[alanschu]

 

RPS is hopeful about just about every single game these days, the only thing they bash is DRM.

 

I'm hopeful about every game too.  Because I want more good games.  Why shouldn't one be hopeful?

 

By the time the game gets released, it'll probably not be on my RADAR at all (like most games are I find).  But it's easy to be hopeful for games in development because one's imagination can fill in the blanks on what potential may lay there.

Once a game is released, potential is no longer relevant.

[entrerix]

im not bothered by the protagonist muttering "hmm, i guess i should find another way in"

 

i AM bothered by writing appearing on the screen flashing "Find Another Entrance"

[Nordicus]

Yeah, Garrett did do that a few times in The Dark Project as far as I remember.

 

He mostly did that to notify when you've completed a sub-objective