RANDOM VIDEO GAME NEWS

[anubite]

“Today’s gamers are a lot less patient. They expect a lot more from the developers in terms of features and so on. Even for menus that are easy to use. For a lot of things that weren’t as extensively developed back in the day. For example: control inputs.

 

“It took a while to learn the complex controls. Numbers 1,2,3,4 – There were different types of peeking: peeking forward, peeking sideways, peeking upside down. They had all these things that were very complex and it worked for the hardcore gamers, but a lot of people backed off early on because it was very difficult."

 

It makes me wonder who approves this kind of **** PR. Why do developers go out and give these kinds of interviews? I have absolutely no interest in buying this game after reading comments like this. They're just shooting themselves in the foot; openly admitting to dumbing down and trampling all over what made old games great - just for what - for some perceived concept of "hardcoreism"? Instead of attacking "hardcore" and making it actually accessible, game developers take all "hardcore" functionality out until all you're left with is a skeletal stale experience.

 

So people are afraid of challenging-looking things - big ****ing deal. That's human nature, to fear the unknown. Convince them to try it. Show them why it's fun. If you can't do that, why do you have a job?

 

Is this developer doing this out of regret? Is he asking for forgiveness? If I were Square, I'd pretty much forbid any interview that isn't simply fluff. Don't give us any cold hard facts, we'll just make anti-hype for this game. It's not as though "casuals" read "hardcore" gaming journalism and actively look forward to a game where there is less feature and functionality -- because they think they are stupid? In a best case scenario, a casual will read this article and feel almost offended.

Edited August 17, 2013 by anubite

[Malcador]

Direct quote from one of the devs:

 

 

“Today’s gamers are a lot less patient. They expect a lot more from the developers in terms of features and so on. Even for menus that are easy to use. For a lot of things that weren’t as extensively developed back in the day. For example: control inputs.

 

“It took a while to learn the complex controls. Numbers 1,2,3,4 – There were different types of peeking: peeking forward, peeking sideways, peeking upside down. They had all these things that were very complex and it worked for the hardcore gamers, but a lot of people backed off early on because it was very difficult.

 

 

Source: http://www.vg247.com/2013/04/04/thief-dev-wants-the-challenge-to-be-in-game-not-in-the-controls/

 

Pretty clear indication that the game is from casual players to casual players. While I'm not very intersted on the game myself, I still hope it sells nicely, because I sure wouldn't mind another Deus Ex game.

 

Amazing what the definition of hardcore is now, at least from that quote.

[Zoraptor]

Thief certainly seems to have been one of the worse managed games recently, and one where they probably would have been better doing what they wanted to do without the baggage of calling it Thief. Long dev cycle, multiple different visions and conflict over its direction, the whole Thi4f debacle. The only comparable title I can think of is the XCOM fps which has been relaunched three times and been in development since before Bioshock (1!) was released, let alone the XCOM strategy remake. And at times their PR has been downright bizarre.

[Keyrock]

 

“Today’s gamers are a lot less patient. They expect a lot more from the developers in terms of features and so on. Even for menus that are easy to use. For a lot of things that weren’t as extensively developed back in the day. For example: control inputs.

 

“It took a while to learn the complex controls. Numbers 1,2,3,4 – There were different types of peeking: peeking forward, peeking sideways, peeking upside down. They had all these things that were very complex and it worked for the hardcore gamers, but a lot of people backed off early on because it was very difficult.

 

 

[Nonek]

At Eidos they have a simple philosophy on player inclusivity, that it is speciesist to design only for those with opposable thumbs and higher levels of reasoning. From what I remember the original Thieves weren't all that complicated, there was a little nuance, but nothing that a quarter of an hour spent learning the games peculiarities in the tutorial couldn't remedy.

[alanschu]

That a game isn't designed for you doesn't make the target audience primates.

 

Time to move on people.

[Tale]

To be literal here, any game for humans has primates for an audience.

 

I don't think tutorial length is why they'd be getting rid of jumping. That sounds like a control restriction, they ran out of buttons on the controller.

 

And they're not precisely wrong about turning players off with complexity. A game has to catch your attention pretty quickly. I won't say why, I don't know precisely why, but if you have a choice between multiple games, you check them out and see which ones catches your interest quickest. I imagine there's some complication in getting a tutorial that's interesting off the bat for lots of game types, especially those that focus on mechanics over narratives or cinematic experiences.

[Fighter]

Even though the sentiment of that interview isn't without reason. You just don't say crap like that out loud.

[Nonek]

That a game isn't designed for you doesn't make the target audience primates.

 

Time to move on people.

 

No that's not what I said, I was joking about inclusivity going too far, and harming the Thief games which were originally designed for careful planning through familiarisation with the setting, routines, flaws and mechanics. When the developers are insulting their potential players grasp of the simple mechanics of previous games, simple mechanics that a few games (even modern regressed titles) share, then that is worthy of note. It speaks of how little these developers think of their audiences learning ability and patience, and is fairly damning however you choose to dress it up.

 

Edit: Sorry forgot to add, in my opinion.

Edited August 17, 2013 by Nonek

[Tale]

Even though the sentiment of that interview isn't without reason. You just don't say crap like that out loud.

That I can agree with.

[Malcador]

That a game isn't designed for you doesn't make the target audience primates.

 

Time to move on people.

It's done with the assumption they are though, for some reason. I guess they don't believe an audience will rise to a challenge. Then again I've read people saying X3 is dumb as you need to read the manual beforehand, so who knows

[Orogun01]

That a game isn't designed for you doesn't make the target audience primates.

 

Time to move on people.

People who aren't willing to work on something do not deserve the rewards.

 

Also, I stuck a monolith next to the target audience and they threw a bone into the air that turned into a spaceship. They're primates.

[WorstUsernameEver]

Is there a target audience that actually doesn't want the option to jump to better enjoy the story of "Garrett the master thief"? My question is more or less genuine, because to be honest my guess would be no, but you never know..

[greylord]

That a game isn't designed for you doesn't make the target audience primates.

 

Time to move on people.

 

Ummm, you may be right...but at least 50% of the time it's targeted towards primates...as Tale pointed out.

 

Afterall...I'm a primate and most of my buds are too...and if the games are targeted towards us and them...well......

 

I suppose we all can't be technologically advanced aliens from unknown evolutionary backgrounds with tentacles and nodules for appendages from the far reaches of space who possess super highly intelligent brains.  I know that may be the majority that wander these boards... but for those of us who are from Planet earth...the majority who play video games are human...aka...a type of primate native to the Planet Earth (though there are some other animals...sometimes even those kept as pets...who also play these games).

 

Edited August 18, 2013 by greylord

[Guest Slinky]

Is there a target audience that actually doesn't want the option to jump to better enjoy the story of "Garrett the master thief"? My question is more or less genuine, because to be honest my guess would be no, but you never know..

It's a case of awesome button syndrome, the same button makes you "swoop" a short lenght forward and makes you jump in places where the devs don't think "it breaks the immersion".

 

Here is the eidos community managers reply on the matter, it's the second last post in the page. I love how he starts it with a LOL!, clearly a professional

Edited August 18, 2013 by Slinky

[pmp10]

Is there a target audience that actually doesn't want the option to jump to better enjoy the story of "Garrett the master thief"? My question is more or less genuine, because to be honest my guess would be no, but you never know..

The problem is not the option to jump but that gamer may be messing up when it's use is required.

You can't trust your audience to do any trial and error or logical thinking.

It would break down that cinematic feeling and could even produce frustration.

[Spider]

 

It's a case of awesome button syndrome, the same button makes you "swoop" a short lenght forward and makes you jump in places where the devs don't think "it breaks the immersion".

 

 

I'm pretty sure it's rather a console controller limitation. Like was suggested, they probably ran out of buttons.

[WorstUsernameEver]

I haven't asked for how the dev justified their design choices, I already know what they said about it*, I asked if there's someone out there who's actually happy about jump being cut from the game.

 

* "Jumping, bouncing up and down, kind of broke the immersion … We didn’t want you to be the master thief and you just tend to fall off stuff all the time."

[Orogun01]

I haven't asked for how the dev justified their design choices, I already know what they said about it*, I asked if there's someone out there who's actually happy about jump being cut from the game.

 

* "Jumping, bouncing up and down, kind of broke the immersion … We didn’t want you to be the master thief and you just tend to fall off stuff all the time."

I think I will use that quote when trying to explain idiot-proofing.

[Guest Slinky]

 

It's a case of awesome button syndrome, the same button makes you "swoop" a short lenght forward and makes you jump in places where the devs don't think "it breaks the immersion".

 

I'm pretty sure it's rather a console controller limitation. Like was suggested, they probably ran out of buttons.

 

After reading that quote about "difficult" controls, I seriously doubt that. But we shall see.

[Fighter]

I haven't asked for how the dev justified their design choices, I already know what they said about it*, I asked if there's someone out there who's actually happy about jump being cut from the game.

 

Have to see how the game actually plays first.

[Keyrock]

I always said that being able to actually control your character and decide when to do things and how to do them is completely immersion breaking.  The best way to immerse the player is to just have them press the win button and have them watch a pre-scripted sequence.

[Nonek]

It is rather strange to hear how many developers trot out this idea that the player should be restricted for the sake of cinematics, I on the other hand thought that cinematics should be used to serve, enforce and reward the player, not handcuff him. After all the benefits of games is interactivity, and if one wishes for a cinematic experience one can attend a cinema.

[Zoraptor]

Yeah, I've never understood the urge to take an interactive media and put everything about it on rails. I guess they look at CoD and the like and decide that the on rails sells, and it makes designing easier as you don't have to try and anticipate players going away from what you wanted. For certain games it is a valid approach but for Thief- even Deadly Shadows, though the small level sizes hurt it a lot in that regard- they always gave you a bunch of tools that you could use any time and goals that you were free to tackle as you saw fit, with certain qualifiers usually at higher difficulty levels. Sometimes you'd fail at it, but that was part of the fun and made actually succeeding all the sweeter. 

 

The cutscene in which Garrett loses his eye didn't need full mocap and QTEs to make it memorable, all it needed was the investment in the character made over the previous levels, a modicum of imagination, and the ability to recognise a holy asterisks! moment when you see one.

[Fighter]

It's probably focus tested and made so that anyone can play it without frustration.