+- The Lurker Lounge Forums (https://www.lurkerlounge.com/forums)
+-- Forum: The Lurker Lounge (https://www.lurkerlounge.com/forums/forum-4.html)
+--- Forum: The Lounge (https://www.lurkerlounge.com/forums/forum-12.html)
+--- Thread: The (semi-) official Thief 3 rave thread! (/thread-8525.html)
The (semi-) official Thief 3 rave thread! - SwissMercenary - 06-02-2004
Now, I was half-way across the country when the game first came out, and have only managed to get it the day before yesterday - I have also played the demo for a day prior to that. After the playing time I put in, I think I am able to answer one question: "Is it a Thief?"
Well, the answer is yes. I was very sceptical of ISA after the Ivisible War fiasco. I was also sceptical of the changes introduced (Body-camera sync, blue loot glow, etc). The game, however, plays like Thief. Actually, that is not entirely correct - it plays like Thief should have played. For the most part.
Gone are the times when you could see 3 guards charging at you, and just bring it on. The dagger is IMHO, a completely useless weapon - not that it particularly matters. Knockouts are also harder to accomplish - luring an alert enemy into a shadow, and circlestrafing them is impossible. Knocking unalert enemies, by hitting the front of their head is gone too. Flashbomb knockouts are also gone - they are only useful for escapes, or house cleaning in undead-infested areas. Overall, I think those changes benefit the game.
If you were looking for atmosphere, Thief has it. Seriously. You don't know the meaning of the term until you step into a hammerite factory - those places are more mind-boggling then even Soulforge (Which has a wonderful reference to it in the first hammer mission). And Bonehoard can't compare to the plague ship, the Abysmal Gale. Eeek. And I haven't even gotten to The Cradle yet, which I hear makes The Return To Haunted Cathederal look like Disneyland. The keeper areas are also wonderfully designed. As for the city... Each district has it's own feel. :D
Where ISA really dropped the ball, was in the game text. For instance, here's two quotes from the first, and the third games each.
"Before Death came,
The liars were made to feast upon the hands of the thieves,
And the thieves were forced to ingest the tongues of their liar brothers,
And we praised the Master Builder for his judgement." - the Hammer book of Tenets
"Builds your roofs of dead wood,
Builds your walls of dead stone,
Builds your dreams of dead thoughts,
Comes crying, laughing, singing back to life, takes what you steal,
And pulls the skins from your dead bones shrieking." - clay tablet in an abondoned Trickster temple.
"Only the virtuous can survive the Builder's trial by fire - the sinful are consumed" - Hammerite Prayer book.
"Says drinks of me, you'll never thirst; honey sweet from out him burst" - Pagan drinking song.
You can see the contrast between the former. and the latter, and I don't even want to go into the Thief 3 Keeper quotes. Three words: "Abuse of ellipses". I think that it would be safe to say that the ambient sounds added to the impact of the quotes from the earlier games, bringing me to the next point - briefing cinematics.
I think that I am most displeased by their loss. If you didn't appreciate the slow camera spirals out of level concept artwork, then I have no hope for you. Well, maybe I have some left. The voice-over text briefings can in no way substitute for those cinematics - it's a difference of night and day.
Now, I did notice one disliked change - the new hammerites. They barely look like the tall, and feared religious fanatics of the first two games (You could just imagine them standing at a street corner, leaning on their hammer). These hammerites look more like fat ninjas, erm guards, with, well hammers. While their new attack animations look great (Especially when the overhead swing), their new weapons are another story - I still can't help but think of them as inferior to the long, thin hammers they used to have. Can't compare to the good old "My hammer awaits thee, thief!", as they bring it up for the two-handed pummel, and strike you down. Getting cornered by one of them was SCARY.
The creature designs are great, except for the fishmen - their fins look as if they were... Glued on at times. The flesh golems (?) in the pagan areas are, on the other hand, a frightening sight to behold, while the invisibility spells keeper mages cast are just beautiful.
Sadly, the new eye candy is marred by the basic gameplay changes. Many stealth aspects have been seriously, and I do mean seriously dumbed down.
For instance, creeping, or moving while crouched makes no noise. No noise whatsoever. In the hammerite factories, all I would do is sneak around crouched, KOing, or avoiding guards - little effort required. Additionally, the climbing gloves, as well as wall-hugging make hiding way too easy - if you managed to turn a corner. Otherwise, the gloves are not very useful in many of the city areas (I am having fun using them in the keeper missions), due to the overwhelming number of pipes. Well, I did manage to get up to the top of the highest tower, in Old Quarter, by jumping from another building, and avoiding the pipe. From there, I could go, or actually fall off the map - who needs WoW? :P
The fence system is allright. It's not great, but it's allright. It does force me to keep laundry lists of who stocks what items... I do greatly dislike the items carrying over from mission to mission. Part of the appeal of Thief, was that you don't need to conserve your equipment for later missions - only the one you are in. Now, when I play, I use very few items - hardly ever need water arrows, little use for moss, flashbombs, and mines. I do use up my holy water, and fire arrows on zombies, but otherwise, my items stay with me. The only problem is, there is a limit to the amount of items you can carry - and the game lets you pick more up, even though you are full. :angry: Maybe I should have swallowed my thiefy pride, and read the manual before playing.
Now, the real gripes begin...
The new body-camera connection sucks. That's an understatement. The controls are cumbersome. Your body is unresponsive. There are some odd bugs with mantling. It's too easy to get stuck in a crack. Out of the box, the game is UN-PLAY-A-BLE. Thankfully, some fan-edited .ini files, and a few changes in defaults.ini (Namely increasing sensetivity, and reducing the HORRIBLE mouse lag setting to 0). Seriously, any person who implements .75 second mouse lag into a game should be flogged. I believe that there is a reason why people prefer playing online games on cable, instead of a 28k modem... Additionally, leaning is nowhere near as effective as it once was - I rely on sound more, and if you really want to cheat, switch to third person view (Which is nearly-unplayable. Can't see what's beneath your feet.).
Overall, I'd say this - Deadly Shadows is probably the worst of the series, but still good. Very good. That is, if you apply all those tweaks. Without them, it's abysmal.
The (semi-) official Thief 3 rave thread! - Munkay - 06-02-2004
/installs thief I
The (semi-) official Thief 3 rave thread! - [wcip]Angel - 06-03-2004
When I first started playing Thief 1, I was amazed at how fun it was sneaking around stealing stuff and installing arrows solidly in a soldiers' necks. It was very terrifying lurking in the shadows, just wondering if that guard had spotted me, or whether I was just another shade to him. The game was fun.
Then came Jurassic Park. Then came Resident Evil.
The implementation of dinosaurs (!) and zombies (!) in, what appears to be a first sight, a game set in medieval times caught me completely off guard, and I was appalled. The game was completely ruined. "Where the hell did this come from?" I asked myself. I uninstalled thief 1, and waited for the sequel to see if they'd learned from the first one. They hadn't. Zombies and dinos still ever present, not to mention gigantic spiders. After thief 2 I didn't dare expect anything when I heard a third game was being made; which came as a surprise to me, because I had learned Looking glass had been shattered.
I didn't play up until the zombies. I played up until Elizabeth and her goons try to prevent me from going to the markedplace. Then I spoke to a friend, who share my feelings on the subject. He had gotten much further ahead and had encountered; you guessed it: more zombies.
Yesteday I uninstalled the damn thing, and started up "Mafia" again.
I don't see why they persist in ruining a near-perfect game with this stuff. What's wrong with a regular medieval game where you kill people and steal stuff? If you add a storyline, some music and atmosphere; you've got a great game already. Why ruin it with monsters and mysticism?!
Gah!
(P.S: I'm a big fan of Jurassic Park and Resident Evil; more so than what the thief-series would've been without the monsters, but I still think they should've kept the realistic aspect of the games, and not gone for the anachronistic and supernatural.
The (semi-) official Thief 3 rave thread! - Zarathustra - 06-03-2004
I'm kind of running out the door right now, so rather than give a point-by-point pro and con dissection of the game, I'll pretty much skip to the bottom line:
The game is fun.
I'm having a blast playing it. Anyone who enjoyed the first two games will enjoy this one. Whether or not it's "better" than its predecessors is rather subjective. I do agree that the game was a bit stifled (especially in terms of level design) by the XBox port. But lots of the problems that seem to be springing up seem easily enough patched.
The (semi-) official Thief 3 rave thread! - SwissMercenary - 06-03-2004
Re, Angel:
Because Looking Glass Studios were not looking to make a medival world. They wanted to make a world of two warring factions, of order, and chaos. They wanted to make a world, full of things that most people dare not speak of. If you were expecting a "real" medival world in the Thief series, then I'm sorry, but the game was not set out to do that. The minions of the Trickster, and the children of Karras were in the game for more then just the sake of "Hey, allright guys, let's stick some whacky idea in". While unrealistic, the world is real in that it is consistent. And, besides, there's nothing as humorous as seeing two giant
spiders appear, after pressing the button titled "Do not push this button!".
As for the third installment in the series, I'm up to the Shalebridge Cradle. As Garret said "If there's a way to cram more misery into a building, I can't think of one." I took a slow look around, entered it, and began hearing things. Conversations. Screams. I still saw nothing. I decided to head upwards - I crept up the stairs, I heard metal hitting metal - I thought I knocked something over, but there was nothing there. As I got to the next floor, the conversations intensified. I started hearing someone running over metal - I couldn't tell where it was, it seemed to have come from every direction. I crept through to a nearby room, and still saw... Nothing. At this point, I just hit "load game". I'm through. I'm going to load up on as many holy water vials as I can carry before going *There* again. And I hear that that is the longest level in the game...
Now that I have a full loadout, I only need to do one thing before returning - wait for nightfall. :D :o
As for more impressions - I am saddened by the loss of speed, invisibility, and slowfall potions. The oil flasks aren't worth it. :( And if the editor won't be released, I will be steamed. :angry:
Oh, and the new sound system is simply stupid... For the magical bullet, just press crouch - bam! Instantly, you move completely silently.
The (semi-) official Thief 3 rave thread! - Rhydderch Hael - 07-06-2004
You can only haul 5 flasks of Holy Water at a time (at Normal Difficulty, that is). 5 of most bomb-type devices.
To be fair, the zombies do fit into the motif. I've only played up to the early part of the Cradle, but I did get through the Abominable Gale and did make a foray into Fort Ironwood, and the zombies there weren't quite out of place.
Making my way through Robert Moira's mansion was loads of fun. It's the home of a closet pirate, after all. Being there with the widow was hauntingly creepy. Out of sympathy, I left the 500 gp of coin sitting there in the chest for the widow, even though that wasn't being very thief-like.
Zombie-bashing at Normal wasn't all that of a fright. Fire Arrows will do the trick, of course, but for economy's sake I resorted to plinking them with a broadhead arrow, then flash-bombing them to hurt and blind them, then another arrow (which snaps them out of the blinded condition) and followed up with another flashbomb to drop the creep for the final count. Sure, the end cost is more than just blasting them with a Fire Arrow, but broadheads are lain everywhere for you to snag up, and flash bombs are cheap.
Statue-bashing, on the other hand, demanded art: lay down a mine, then draw a Fire Arrow just as ol' Rocky is about to tread on the mine. He takes the first blast, and before he can react, let loose with the Fire Arrow and scatter him to the winds.
I have yet to make any use of Moss Arrows. Anything they can silence, I can creep over. I could use them to choke up an opponent, but a flash bomb does the same job (and has a larger area of effect and doesn't need to be drawn upon a bow and aimed). Only thing I can reasonably make use of Moss is to plant them into the Pagan cornerstones in order to improve my relationship with them...
...problem is, I've yet to actually find one such cornerstone. Nor and Elemental Cocoon. So, I'm still Hostile with the Pagans, while I'm all chummy with the Hammers (since Rust Mites and the Undead areeasy to find).
Only time I've made actual use of an Oil Flask is on the dockside. Bystanders and City Watch guards running perilously close to the water's edge have a great chance of slipping up and ending in the drink.
Has anyone else deliberately had themselves taken down by City Watch, just so you can get a chance to break out of Pavelock? Who'd have thought a prison escape could be so mind-numbingly easy?
The (semi-) official Thief 3 rave thread! - Rhydderch Hael - 07-06-2004
[wcip Wrote:Angel,Jun 3 2004, 07:04 AM] ... What's wrong with a regular medieval game where you kill people and steal stuff? If you add a storyline, some music and atmosphere; you've got a great game already. Why ruin it with monsters and mysticism?! ...Holy crap, kid. Here I am quaking in my chair at the memory of dodging telepathic Keeper assassins with alien-like faces, whom I can hear their thoughts (and the screams of their minds when they are killed offscreen by City Watch or Hammer allies), and praying for a reprieve from the fear and festering horror of the Shalebridge Cradle by thinking just one thought, "If they were only human, I wouldn't be so scared right now."
If the game had nothing but mortal guards and soldiers as adversaries, it would lose about 80% of its atmosphere right then and there.
Yeah, the Kurshok look like B-Movie monsters, and the giant rat-men were laughably lacking in creepiness, but the Keeper Enforcers and the Cradle more than take up the slack. And I'm not even done through the game yet.
But you want a great break-in and heist, you really should play up to the Moira Mansion mission. Of course, the only way to get to that point is to first board the plague ship containing the zombies.
The (semi-) official Thief 3 rave thread! - SwissMercenary - 07-07-2004
As for the Kursok, and the ratmen (Who are far inferior to the Thief 1 counterparts), thankfully, they are only found in that one mission (If you do not count the one in the cell).
There's a pagan cornerstone in Stonemarket Plaza, near the (perma-locked) gate in it's north.
There's another somewhere near the entrance to South Quarter in Old Quarter. That's all I can think of off the top of my head.
I tend to just sneak into the Pagan sanctuary in the docks, and fire my 20 moss arrows into the /\ Shaped "portal". Loosing 20 of them, and a few water arrows gets your status up to Allied.