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Ion Storm To Finish Thief III?
Lumpish Scholar writes: "Slashdot already reported Looking Glass Studios (creators of Thief, Thief II, and other games) declared bankruptcy. The irony was, their publisher, Eidos Interactive, was pumping all their money into Ion Storm's effort to finish Daikatana. Now, according to this story in Salon, Eidos has bought the rights to Thief III (presumably an asset when Looking Glass was dissolved) and has handed the work over to Ion Storm (under the helm of Warren Spector, not Daikatana's John Romero). Small world, innit?" Wow, that's cool. This should happen more often, I think.
Keep in mind Warren Specter a) Started Thief to begin with, b) Does not tolerate interference with his team, c) Put out a kickass title under Ion Storm, d) is rehiring many LGS members for Thief 3. Things are DEFINITELY looking up as long as they remain unshackled by the hideous Epic (excuse the pun) monstrosity that is the Unreal engine.
My favorite conspiracy theory goes something like this: Eidos could fund LGS, OR leave them go hanging and snap up the same kickass properties for pennies. Consider that 10+ execs of Eidos went home with several, several hundred Gs this year - which could have kept LGS operating for months, at least.
--Ryv
Except that Ion Storm Austin isn't a bunch of schmucks like Ion Storm Dallas. They appear to operate pretty independently. The Austin group made Deus Ex (pronounced Day-us X btw), which was a totally kick ass game. In fact it was the best game I've played in a long time, and I play a lot of games.
I think that Warren Spector (the guy in charge of Ion Storm Austin) is just leaching off of Romero & co for money. He has a long history of making good games and he had a part in making Thief 2, so he really is the perfect guy for the job.
Search first, ask questions later.
have u played Deus X ? Was wondering about that game ? someone give me a review so I can decide if I should spend my hard earned $$$'s :)
Deus Ex review index
Summary? About half the reviews contain the words "game of the year" somewhere in their text...
At least one ex-LGS'er has drawn that conclusion. In addition, some of them are rather pissed that they were forced to ship Thief II on a hard-and-fast deadline, knowing that there were bugs (thus the large patch right off), when Romero was given all the time in the world for Daikatana.
For anyone who didn't read the article, Warren Spector was one of the original Looking Glass designers, and was even involved with the first Thief early on. He's produced many fine games, and I believe he'll do a good job on Thief 3. I don't think it'll be exactly the Thief 3 we would have gotten from Looking Glass, but I do believe we'll get a game worthy of the name Thief. The rest of the LG team(s) have spread to the wind, but some of them are still together. They won't be doing Thief, but I bet we'll see something great from them too, somewhere down the road.
I don't think the problem is that Ion Storm is making the sequel, but that Eidos turned their back on Looking Glass when they needed help, only to buy the rights at a yardsale.
I don't think Ion Storm did anything wrong in this situation, Eidos did. That's what I'm upset about, and what I think the original commenter is upset about. Ion Storm was duing what it was supposed (well, maybe not Romero's team), Eidos cheated looking glass.
Perhaps Eidos thought that it was doing its job in throwing its weight behind the much-hyped game, much as record labels throw their support behind the hottest artists. Perhpas it didn't think LG's titles would sell? Well, they bought the rights to it (and we saw what happened to Daikatana). . .
THIEF is one of those games that's ALMOST great, but is ultimately a total bore due to bugs, an annoying interface and a way-less-than-anywhere-near-state-of-the-art-3d-en gine.
Why everyone waxes on about what a great game it is/was, and how tragic it is the Looking Glass is no longer at the helm is utterly beyond me. It's a cool idea better left executed by folks who can really specialize and perform in 3D immersive game-design.
I hate to sound mean-spirited about this stuff, I found the System Shock demo almost unplayable as well. (I paid good money for the full Thief II, so I earned the rights to a little bitchin' there!)
Bottom Line: Looking Glass did NOT crumble due to any sort of corporate piracy. They crumbled because their games could not compete on any level with their contemporaies or even their predecessors. Next to a Quake, Quake II or a Half-Life, Thief and System Shock look like poorly sketched demos.
It could be argued that Looking Glass games had better 'story', but what good is that if the interface gets in the way?
Hopefully, the Looking Glass folks will get jobs as game designers, where they show obvious strength, and leave the actual coding to the pros.
**>>BELCH
Slashdot already reported...
Yep, they did. About 0 minutes ago.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
I believe the legally correct phrase is "John Romero's Daikatana's John Romero" and not simply "Daikatana's John Romero" /. authors suck it down...sorry.
On August 12th, Shoeboy will make
--Shoeboy
(posting anonymously to preserve my precious karma)
One of the commandments of the Web has been violated:
Thou shalt not double-click on submit buttons.
Although in the new testament thy server-side code can trap and resolve this quite easily.
P
Hemos, when questioned by Congressman Nitwiddle, explained that through a previous deal, the editors of Slashdot agreed to double post any story by Eidos Interactive, particularly when containing ANY information about "Ion Storm".
Cowboy Neil went on to state that the deal was that Slashdot was to be given 1 case of lager beer every time this happened, and that by double posting, the editors not only hoped to split up negative comments on flops such as "Daikatana", but also manage to fulfill their lifelong dream of sitting in a jacuzzi filled with ale.
Eidos took the stand next, explaining that "no such deal existed in written, or oral form" and that by double posting stories of Eidos and Ion Storm, the potential for negative comments increased two fold.
Ken Williamson, a lawyer for the slashdot team, claimed that it simply was not a possibility, as there aren't that many "nerds" who honestly care about how badly Eidos is going to screw up an otherwise great game. He also went on to state that Eidos was in violation of the First Amendment.
Eidos countered, by stating that the First Amendment didn't count in areas that were specifically "free speech", and referred to the Supreme Court ruling of Metallica vs. the Offspring; a ruling that mandated that by selling T-Shirts that violated Metallica's money making endeavors, the Offspring gave up their First Amendment Rights, and should look towards their Fourth Amendment rights to rectify the situation. Judge Morely stated simply, "Just shoot em, it'll cost less."
Cowboy Neil and Hemos counterpointed that the negative comments were intermingled with good ones, and that if they were going to be sued for the negative ones, then they should be paid for the good ones.
Eidos stated firmly that it had not, nor would it ever deal with traitorous bastards who took their beer and drank it, too.
krystal_blade
It will be easy to motivate our fellow man; there is hardly anything people treasure more than not being annihilated.
Wow, that's cool. This should happen more often, I think.
Looking Glass Studios was tricked, raped, pillaged, and salvaged by Eidos. Eidos made an initial proposal to fund LGS through it's projects, but there were a few projects it was not interested in. So instead of 'wasting' their money on side projects, when all they wanted was the money-maker Thief, they devised a plan.
LGS knew they needed to be bought out, and went off and started hitting up all the major publishers who would be interested. They hit up Eidos, and Eidos made them a deal, and in such a way that LGS gave up on searching for more money, confident that Eidos would pull through for them. At that point, Eidos just sat back and waited, not sending any checks. Shortly after, LGS went bankrupt, that much we know, because of Eidos not funding them as they should.
Now what do you see happening? Looking Glass Studios was auctioned off by it's creditors to pay the bills. The vulture Eidos then came in and bought up projects that they wanted, at cut-rate prices. Much less than they would have paid in the first place.
This is a highly unethical, unsuitable business practice, but it occurs many times, and makes me sick to my teeth.
Yes, I'm happy that Thief 3 is being finished. But, I didn't want to lose my favorite company in the process, because Eidos was money-hungry.
Before everyone who doesn't bother reading the article (like a few people who have already posted ;p) makes the "oh no, Daikatana's creators are in charge of Thief" comments, note that Ion Storm Austin has the Thief licence. Austin is responsible for such quality games like Deus Ex and..um...well now Thief. Ion Storm Dallas(or some other place in Texas - I'm tired ;p) is the team responsible for John Romero's Daikatana (now in bargain bins across the world ;p).
Come to think of it, that might have been kinda interesting...
Reminds me of a blurb my friend submitted to PC Magazine many years ago that they printed on their back page: "Did you hear that id Software and Brøderbund are merging? They're working on a new game called 'Where In Hell is Carmen Sandiego?'."
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
BTW - I have left Javascript turned off in my browser for most of a year now, ever since the CERT Coordination Center recommended everyone do so because some online discussion sites allow HTML posts but don't filter <SCRIPT> tags out of their users' posts so someone who knows how to crack javascript can eat your machine with a forum post (Slashdot filters out script tags), and I leave Java off ever since that web server thingy appeared a couple days ago - and I urgently emailed everyone I knew and told them to turn off Java too.
Yes, solutions are on the horizon but they're not here yet. Yes, there are workarounds like typing posts into a notepad and copying them in from the clipboard - so my problem can be taken care of, but not the novice users.
So I'll take my applications as locally executing programs, thank you, and I'll be happy when a solution does appear which survives extensive security auditing
My friend's opinion wasn't about doing stuff with Java or Javascript at his company - they specifically didn't use it because they said they couldn't count on it being implemented in the browser - but with plain old HTML, generated by perl scripts on the server backed by a Sybase database, and forms.
He thought this was the best thing since sliced bread, and as a long-time Mac GUI programmer, I thought he was completely clueless.
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
Hmmm,
Good developer makes great game and goes out of business because bad developer with big ego gets all publishers money and makes crap.
Yea, I can see why this should happen more often....NOT!
-g
How about working off emmett's comment?
This should happen more often, I think
But not twice within one minute, emmett.
Intolerant people should be shot.
No... no...
you got it wrong...
the first story was the "news for nerds"...
this is the "stuff that matters"
-I just work here... how am I supposed to know?
If you see how slashdot works[source code], you'll realize that it's not possible to post any 2 things before a minute has elapsed between them. That is, if you post something. and then another thing in 2.003 seconds after that, It wont be accepted. So how did this happen? how did the author post 2 messages so fast? Either Rob wrote this part of slash (that's what the code is called) in his sleep, or we're missing something.
Mr. CmDrTaco, Please reply. If there's any error in the code, please tell me, coz I'm developing a site using the code.
Hmmm.. Eidos is going to make "Thief III, and hand it off to Ion Storm.."
Lets see... Mentioned Eidos 6 times in post.
Ion Storm? Mentioned them 3 times.
So, exactly how off topic is it? Well, you're average "Prist Fost" article mentions Eidos and Ion Storm exactly "0" times.
You're usual 2 paragraph blurb (that gets an "Interesting" comment, and is, of course, about as interesting as watching two moderators shave each others backs.) Mentions Eidos Twice, and Ion Storm once.
Where did the latest string of Moderators come from? Ex-Nazi war criminals?
Freedom of Expression comes in Many forms, so I'd like to take this opportunity to Express myself, in my own way, over the current state of moderation.
KISS MY ASS, YOU SUCK. How low can it go? -3? Come on... you can do better than that...
It will be easy to motivate our fellow man; there is hardly anything people treasure more than not being annihilated.
by emmett (emmett@slashdot.org) on Saturday August 12, @03:51AM EST (#9)
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
When considering how Thief III might turn out, think about Deus Ex (Spector's game for Ion Storm), not Daikatana.
Anyway, now that Daikatana is done with (let's hope we never hear rumors of a sequel), Ion Storm seems to be actually delivering what it promised originally. Deus Ex is one hell of a game, and Anachronox looks pretty decent too. Personally, I'm pretty stoked to be seeing Spector doing Thief III -- after playing Deus Ex, I'm convinced he's the right guy to do the job. IMO, DX was essentially everything the Thief series should have been all along (i.e. multiple solutions to problems, emphasis on stealth but not total reliance, no wandering around searching for keys, etc)...
As much as we all want to believe that Eidos sinking money into Ion instead of LGlass caused the latter's death, it simply isn't so.
Salon has an earlier article where Geoff Keighley points out the basic truth: "Looking Glass folded because it wasn't making money".
We all want brilliant games like Tthief and System Shock to make millions, but they don't. Games like Soldier of Fortune and Who Wants to be a Millionare do.
While Eidos didn't help Looking Glass as much as they probably could have, it didn't make economic sense for them to keep a studio whose games were low to negative profit ventures. (I'm not saying sinking $30 million into Daikatana was, but Eidos bad decisions are the reason they themselves are in financial difficulty now.)
Basically, it comes down to this: We can't blame Ion Storm for Looking Glass' demise. (although they may contribute to the possible death of Eidos) We can only blame a market where Barbie Fashion Designer and Bland Genre Clone® are the only things to make large profits.
Intolerant people should be shot.