Slashdot Mirror
Thief 3 Website Goes Live
Sabathius writes "If you're a Thief super-freak like me, you've been looking at the 'Coming soon' message at thief3.com for years...hoping they would finally put something there. Well, our collective prayers have been answered! This spring Thief 3 (Thief: Deadly Shadows) is being released by the same guys who recently gave us Deus Ex: Invisible War." S!: We've also recently covered previews of this new Thief title at Slashdot Games.
if I steal the game, will they come after me?
thaen
I hope its not as bad as DX, "Invisible Features."
is being released
Yaaaay!
by the same guys who recently gave us Deus Ex: Invisible War.
Boooooo!
Makes it easier to forget to put in ALT tags for graphics and use tons of Flash animations.
What's that third, unclickable flag for, btw?
I have been pwned because my
I hope they don't dumb down this game like Deus Ex.
Just so they can put it on the xbox.
I'm hoping Thief 3 will be more like Thief 1 than Thief 2. Thief 2's medieval-magical-industrial-robotic setting didn't really work, not to mention the fact that being able to throw your eye around corners is a bit ... odd.
Deus Ex: Invisible War. What other proof do you need that they have experience at thievery...
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
When FPS games first came out, I wasn't nearly as stoked as my friends. Sure, I found playing Doom mildly entertaining, but it never gripped me as much as RPG/Adventure games.
Thief changed all of that. I bought the original Thief and instantly fell in love; it brought an entirely new dimension to a genre I felt was rather repetitive and boring. It also opened me up to trying other FPS games that I probably wouldn't have tried without my positive experience with Thief.
I probably haven't bought a computer game in 2 or 3 years (except for Deus Ex: Invisible War), but you can bet I'll be first in line when Thief 3 comes out.
"However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation."
This spring Thief 3 (Thief: Deadly Shadows) is being released by the same guys who recently gave us Deus Ex: Invisible War.
That's not a good thing, seeing how botched Deus Ex: Invisible War was (especially compared to the original). Hopefully Harvey Smith has nothing to do with Thief 3.
Let the whining about Invisible War commence!
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
I'm guessing it's going to be a French flag as soon as they have the French version of the site ready to go.
Now that they've put all that work into their content, it gets Slashdotted. Oh the irony....
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
This gives me hope for Doom 3... Duke Nuke 'em Forever...
and maybe, just maybe... AmigaOS 4!
..thief 3 website goes down..
Go slashdot..
There is hope for Duke Nukem Forever?
Every new games website should have a bloody good slashdotting! Thief has always warmed my heart, and I'm glad to hear that we're getting another one. Sadly, I'm unable to use their site because of the flash requirement. I long since disabled Flash due to the misuse of it via adverts. You'd think that webbies would learn that you need to provide non-flash content by now!
Anyway to summarize: Thief 3 Good : Thief 3 Website -- can't say, don't know.
I sure hope they are better at game design than at web design. Kids today just want some information about their future games in an efficient manner, they don't care if the webpage has pretty graphics. Why I'm sure if the games plot and features are as empty as the game is pretty, all of todays teenagers will switch over to playing Nethack and Go. I mean come on we're talking about the generation that put MTV out of business here. Oh... Wait...
If you were, you would have seen the webpage "went live" weeks ago. Way to go slashdot!
the site is hosted over at Times Warner. The network pipes CANT be overloaded, but the server can be overloaded..but not likely.
whois says it was created Thu, Mar 23, 2000, so they had been planning for 4 years, at least.
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FM Clan
I sure hope they are better at game design than at web design. Kids today just want some information about their future games in an efficient manner, they don't care if the webpage has pretty graphics. Why I'm sure if the games plot and features are as empty as the game is pretty, all of todays teenagers will switch over to playing Nethack and Go. I mean come on we're talking about the generation that put MTV out of business here. Oh... Wait....
If Ion have got any sense whatsoever they will not draw attention to the fact that the developers of Thief 3 have anything to do with the developers that made DX:IW. Most of us that were fans of the original Thief games are praying that Warren stayed the hell away from the Thief team and let them get on with it. That, or we're going to end up with unified arrows. Grrr.
Still, the screenshots look great and I'm really hoping that they pull this one out of the bag.
People that believe in their opinions don't post AC.
all those screenshots seem to take place at night, in a shadow, with sunglasses on. dark games hurt my eyes.
I predict An onslought of Duke Nukem: Forever jokes.
http://www.beyourowneviloverlord.tk
http://www.frozenchickenthrowing.tk
http://www.killercamel.tk
I first played Thief 2 after Hitman 2 and wasn't at all impressed. The graphics and feel reminded me of old Quake-era games, and the AI seemed horrible (enemies repeatedly going 'what's that!?' but just standing there outside the doorway). Admittedly I didn't play for long - was I too quick to judge?
I suppose this would be as good a time as any to start begging for another system shock sequel.
Next game.... SYSTEM SHOCK 3?!?!?!?
;-)
Here's hoping its that and not Diakatana2
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Bioware did alright with the dual PC/XBOX release of KOTOR (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic). Not only did it have the distinction of being one of the best Star Wars games around (not that they had a lot of competition), but they managed to strike a good balance. There was a push-button "do it for me" system with the console gamer in mind, and plenty of tweaking with the d20 system to satisfy to PC gamer.
;)
Cross your fingers?
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
www.thief3.org has some thoughts on the matter!
As other posters have mentioned, there were a number of people who were disgruntled with Deus Ex 2. Due to the following reasons:
1) Bad Framerate
2) Oversimplified controls (depth of wepons etc missing)
3) Bad AI
4) Simplified story
Now, I have not played Deus Ex 2 because of the above reasons, however, I have played every other game that Warren Spector was involved in with the exception of Terra Nova. In fact, of my top ten favorite games of all time, only one (Half Life) did not involve Warren Spector in one way or another. (Although, IMO, it was influenced by his work on other things...)
Thief 1 was revolutionary - it was the first sneaker ever. Out of it sprung things like Splinter Cell, which has been very popular.
However, I am very concerned that with the push that Spector currently has towards console games that Thief 3 will be runied by this direction.
As you can see here (not slashdotted like the real site) Thief 3 already has a third person mode, like Splinter Cell.
It will probably be sucessful on consoles, and probably be considered (ironically) a knock off of Splinter Cell.
But, will it please the hard core fans? I don't know about that. If they can keep one thing, I as a hard core fan will be pleased:
A really good story, like the first two.
I will buy it, I have to. I have to finish the trilogy and find out what happens to Garrett. I just hope I am not dissapointed on the journey.
Those of you who have played the first two will know what I mean.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
This, to me is the game anticipation of the year, years in fact.
:)
Fellow Slashdotters, if ye have not ever played a Sneak 'em Up game before, any Thief game is the one to buy.
The best part of Thief is the difference in the game to a shoot 'em up - in Thief, the character Garret is actually a weak character, he gets killed very easily.
This means that instead of the normal emotions that a shoot 'em up game gives, Thief gives all those emotions plus two extra, suspence and fear.
Yeah, fear. There was one time playing Thief 2 when I sneaked Garret around a corner just to come face to face with a Hammer Haunt. My brain went into shock, and my reflex action was to jump away.
The net result was me lying flat on my ass about 6 feet away from the keyboard, tangled around my PC chair
Not a game to play after a phat joint, I can tell ya.
You had me till you said "same guys who recently gave us Deus Ex: Invisible War". Deus Ex (and could people please stop pronouncing it like "deuce"? It's Latin, people. DAY-us) is one of a number of games that have suffered a less-stylish sequel, IMHO. (To Be Continued. I hear that Nihilistic isn't doing the new Vamp Masq, and that the new company is making it more like a first-person shooter. Great. We need more of those.)
/rant
What is the deal when sequel-makers get their hands on loads of cash and graphics capabilities, as a result of the popularity of the original, only to fuck the original squarely up the ass? I haven't picked up Max Payne 2, yet, and I sincerely hope this is not the case. Sure, DE2 looks... well, even to say "better" is to suggest that cartoonish bright colours and soft lines automtically mean better. The original DE looked grainy and that seemed appropros. Also, as a side note, the protag and his brother both looked and sounded like Stephen Baldwin, and that was a friggin cool edge. This new guy I want to smack.
Game makers pay attention: voice acting is important! Hell, even if Soul 2: Mythblighter wasn't a 10 out of 10, game-wise (though I'd rate it middling-high), the voice acting had me riveted. The diary entries with the first encounter with the undead, etc. were superb. Contrast with, say, Warcraft 3, esp Frozen Throne. Ok, that's a game that has me wanting to skip the crap and get to the game, but this just exacerbates that reaction. Whiny female non-acting "Our kingdom is in danger!" Whatever. End result: lowered respect for the game, generally.
If they do to theif what they did to deus ex I will be royally pissed. Deus Ex was my all time favorite shooter. The game introduced a very intuitive micro management system to the FPS genre and became one of the first and best FPS/RPG's of all time. Deus Ex 2 was a real dissapointment. Many of the problems were due to the dual xbox/pc development (many of the defaults for the game were optimised for console play, etc ..), but the game didn't live upto the original.
Keep an eye out on where they go with this, thief fans.
Steal This Sig
Boy raised by secret society who is severely intergrated in their prophecies. Ehhck, where are the original games I was promised when I was a wee lad?
I was a huge fan of the original Deux Ex, so I was looking forward to Invisible Wars. As far as I could tell Inivisible Wars was panned in reviews.
Given the reviews I've read for Invisible Wars (and please someone correct me if this is in fact a good follow-up to Deux Ex - I just don't buy that many games, and won't pay good money if for inferior product) what gives anyone hope that Thief 3 will be any good?
You admit you haven't played the game based on a bullet-point list of reasons. How do you know those reasons are true?
I loved Deus Ex enough to buy it a couple of times (PC and PS2 versions). I played through it several times. Even though I'd heard it was bad, I went and got the Deus Ex OXM demo disc and played it.
You know what? It's still Deus Ex. Yea, there are a few tweaks I don't agree with (the item management is simplified a lot, there is no positional damage to speak of, and the AI is a bit silly on the easier levels), but it's still a solid game. I didn't notice any frame rate issues, but then I was playing the Xbox version. People can whine about PC version all they want, but if they really want to play some Deus Ex, they should sit down and play it on the Xbox. It's good, more so than people are willing to admit on Slashdot because they're too busy talking about PC gaming (I expect PC gamers spend more time complaining about the half-baked shit that most companies put out than console gamers do, because console games are higher in quality and usually complete upon release).
I expect Doom 3 on the Xbox to rock hardcore, since the fine fellows at Vicarious Visions have been able to tune Doom 3 specifically for the GPU in it (in fact, they use some shader intstructions specific to the Xbox GPU and saved about 3 passes per scene render, meaning your Xbox will look as good as the version running on a 3,000$ USD computer!). Give it a chance.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Thief I and II were probably the best FPS games ever made. They were the anti-Quake: replacing twitchy running, spinning and machine gun fire with slow careful movements, hiding in shadows and methodically placed single shots.
From what I can see, the developers of Thief III have gone and made this great FPS into a 'Thief-flavored' Tomb Raider TPS. The game is 3rd person and playable on a console controller.
For the record: No console controller is even close to as precise as a mouse. And Thief is *all* about precision. Console controllers are clumsy and better suited to action games.
If I was going to play a console based TPS not only would I rather look at Lara's behind running around, but I'd also put my chips on StarCraft Ghost.
... Looking Glass Studio's were the folks who gave life to Thief, as well as the equally amazing System Shock series. I can't help but wonder what this game will be like without the ingenious developers who brought the FPS genre to new heights?
Hope for the storyline, the fact that they say they've improved the engine based on their experience with Invisible Wars, and the fact that a lot of the things people whine about in IW really wouldn't apply to a Thief title anyway. You mean I don't have three gazillion different weapons to choose from and the simplified ammo system where the same ammo works with different weapons? Okay -- Thief I and II has two usable weapons (a blackjack and a bow) and one utterly useless one (a sword), and we already know they're supporting a variety of arrow types, like the previous games did (although apparently rope arrows are gone in favor of "gloves and boots of climbing", which works just fine for a fantasy title).
In short, I really don't see what the reviews of Invisible War are supposed to tell me about Thief III. Beyond the fact that there were framerate problems (which has apparently been improved for Thief III), most of what is complained about in IW just doesn't apply...
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
As far as I could tell Inivisible Wars was panned in reviews.
What reviews did you read? I could hardly find any negative reviews for the game.
Now fans were mighty pissed. There is quite a bit of speculation that a number of review sites were bought off, as the game is a major letdown, especially in light of the greatness that was Deus Ex. Many of the good features were removed or heavily dumbed down, the AI is terrible -- possibly worse than in the first game -- the weapons are stupid, the unified ammo system is illogical and balance-breaking, the environments are incredibly small, and the textures are ugly (low res). What's more infuriating is that a lot of the promised features didn't make it. Warren Spector and co stated in interviews that the PC version would have larger maps than the XBox version (where the XBox version would have a load point, the PC version would merge the areas) and higher resolution textures. This never happened. The PC version ended up looking like a shoddy port of the XBox game, a copy so obvious that even the default INI file was tweaked for the XBox rather than an average gaming rig. Also, the engine is bloated with dynamic lighting features that give realtime shadows for all objects for any given light source, even mobile ones. This is a new feature for any game, and it admittedly does look cool -- the problem is that it heavily bogs down the game engine, and it's utterly pointless beyond looking cool, because the abysmal AI doesn't react to differing light levels. Apparently the AI was going to notice brightly lit areas more than dark ones, and you were going to be able to shoot out lights (you can't do that in the game, though), but those features were dropped while the FPS-crippling engine was left intact, so you have a pretty lighting engine that does little but drop the framerate and show off how ugly the models and textures really are.
Did I mention the ugly models? The multitool (which combines the multitools and lockpicks from the previous game into a single, "streamlined" item) looks like a magic wand. Character models are universally ugly and low-poly. Weapon models aren't hideous, but they're nothing special and the textures tend to suck outright.
The physics engine seems like a neat idea -- after all, "realistic" physics is a new fad, as seen (and done well) in Max Payne 2 and in the upcoming Half Life 2. Unfortunately, they couldn't work out all of the bugs in the engine, and they didn't make logical choices. As such, your character is able to pick up and hurl steel drums from the get-go, tossing them accross the entire level (though admittedly, the levels are tiny). However, if they smack into someone...the person hit doesn't even notice unless you have a "strength aug". Another problem, the physics are BUGGY. People have ended up leaping up and out of the map because they hit a quirky spot and were able to jump far higher than should be allowed.
Oh, one last piece of the rant. The Invisible War engine (bastardized from the Unreal Tournament 2003 engine), which is the basis of Thief 3's engine, is sometimes nicknamed "The Dry Engine". Apparently it can't support water physics. As such, there are no swimmable areas in Invisible War, and don't expect any in Thief 3.
Urgh. There's a lot more wrong with the game than that, but I've typed up enough crap already. People will probably think that this is Offtopic, but before modding this AC post down, consider that all of the criticisms I've just thrown at Deus Ex: IW are criticisms of a game made by the same company and with the same engine as the game being discussed here. Don't be surprised if Thief 3 suffers from many of the same problems.
Tell some investors and the masses I'm creating a game console and call it the Phantom?
or perhaps get to the top of a telecommunications company like Worldcom and swindle the employee-stockholders for millions?
Like my ass wouldn't be locked up for years in either case !
Deadly shadows? That's going to drastically change the style of gameplay, BUT I LIKE IT!
And recently, Warren Spector said Deus Ex 3 would be as different from Deus Ex 2, as 2 was from 1.
What's going on over at Ion Storm? They keep defending their awful design decisions as their "vision" instead of just realizing that they don't make the game more fun, they make it less fun. Why are they trying to ruin what made Deus Ex great? It's like they don't even know why people liked the first one.
Sadly, it reminds me of the Matrix sequels.
I hated that limitation in thief 2 (never played thief 1) If I want to get away with a crime, I should be able to kill one or two average people. Right? I may be very twisted, but Postal was one of my favorite games. /reminising about cocktailing a marching band/ aaaaaahhhh
And it rendered on, until the end of its days.
After seeing DX:IW do you people honestly think Thief 3 will be any different?
It's originally being made for consoles for God's sake and then ported to PC, just like DX:IW was. Watered down controls, simplified story and lousy performance that's what's in store.
Oh did I forget to mention, Thief 3 will use the same engine as DX:IW and basically be just like DX:IW but with a different plot.
Dont believe me? Go look at the DX:IW files and you'll see tons of Thief 3 references. What they've done is simply replace the art and the scripts in DX:IW and there's your Thief 3...
It's called console-ification. Just look at who the publisher was.
Thank god for id, 3d Realms (even if DNF is taking...forever), and other PC-centric companies who aren't abandoning us for dumbed-down crap.
But Harvey Smith and team were insistent on it. They keep repeating the "streamlining" mantra about "removing what didn't work from Deus Ex 1." Clearly, they have no idea what they're doing, but Warren was opposed to it. He said different ammo types ground the game world in reality. He was right.
In the words of Ion Storm head Warren Spector, "you can't make games for MIT grads".
:/
Wonderful
"Deadly Shadows"? Are you kidding me? That's so lame... I bet their first subtitle was "The Phantom Meance," but that was already taken by another company who likes to butcher sequels (err, prequels). Here's hoping it's not another DX-2. - sm
Unless a person is running Lynx, your sig is probably wasting something around:
8 avg char width * 20 char height * 42 chars * 4 Bpp = 26.880 KB of RAM. Then figure in double buffering and the additional 42 bytes of actual transfer data and you are wasting 53.802 KB. Go you!
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
I've been using Adblock, a Firefox Extension, for some time now. It lets you set custom filters for a variety of page elements. The ability to automatically block all Flash(or images) from a given server means that I never have to see the same annoying ad animation twice. Give it a try... it's very nice to have all of the benefits of Flash with none of the problems.
"I would give my right hand to be ambidextrous."
Where'd you get that impression? Deus Ex 2 for PC... average review : 80%. Looks like the critics liked it but the public stayed away. Too bad, I'm about halfway through and I'm liking the game.
No thanks, these game companies on thier last legs have been using the Cube as thier dumping ground, and making excuses and dropping support. So if they decide to be "PC" and "Xbox" only they aren't getting my money.
I'll be playing ut2k4 and Savage thanks.
Ubuntu- Linux for human beings.
I honestly don't know what reviews I read, as it was a few months ago now. May have been from players - but I was definately left with a do not buy impression.
I didn't notice any frame rate issues
People who complained about frame rate were the ones wanting to play at 1024x768 with 8x aniso. They were morons who'd rather disable shadows than play at 640x480 with bloom and no AA.
The real problem with DE:IW was that it was made for a system with only 64 megs, no keyboard and no mouse. The interface sucked big time for a PC game and the constant loading was annoying as hell. What is pissing most of us is that we have to play an inferior game because of a toy like the X-Box.
As for doom3, don't be so sure... It will run ok, but I suspect the image quality will be lower. Sometimes, I suspect the real reason for all those delays is because Id is waiting for the next gens video card (some early reports were talking about twice as fast as today video card).
anything about the engine used? Did they write it from scratch? The visuals look good, but not that great.
I say, give us something that captures the ambience of Doom III, with the gore and screams toned down.
Rapid Nirvana
[ ] The CEO of Ion Storm is known to keep a bag of jewels in his office. While you're there, steal them [Expert]
[ ] The beta of Thief III is on the Ion Storm file server. Put an eDonkey client on their firewall and p1mp that bad boy out. [Hard]
[ ] Remember, you're a thief, not a murderer: don't kill anyone. If you bought Daikatana, you can whack Romero with your blackjack though. [Expert]
...Ex Male Gigalo?
No offense, but doesn't it remind you of those shitty movies ppl used to make in highschool as english projects? Its like they got two guys to dress up and smack each other. So amatuer...
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Perhaps he played the demo. It was sure enough to convince me not to spend money on this thing, and I loved the original Deus Ex.
Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
Fix up your monitor gamma (non-linear brightness control). It's very important for games like Thief that dark tones don't become black.
I really hope that this sequel doesn't go the way of Deus Ex 2 - that game was a waste of 50 bucks :( .. The quality of the game kind of sucked comparing to the first one. The graphics were choppy and unattractive (on a mid-range GeForce, P4 2.4 Ghz), character faces looked poorly bitmapped, gameplay was underdeveloped, and the "new" interface left something better to be desired. The patch fixed some interface issues, but it seemed like it was oriented towards console gaming, not PC's (where this game should belong!). honestly, I didn't even finish the game, and if I could get my money back, I certainly would. Comparing to the first Deus Ex, it has been a disappointment.
Thief 2 is an awesome game. I really hope that this sequel will be that and then some. The screenshots look nice, but I'd like to see some hi-res screenshots from the PC.
--- sig moved for great justice.
Many of the people complaining about DE:IW are complaining because they feel the game isn't as good as it would have been had they not taken a wad of cash to do it for the XBox.
Not that it isn't good. It's a fairly enjoyable game, but it's a step backwards from the first one in a lot of ways, and an incremental step forwards in others. It's a shadow of what it should've been, in other words.
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
People can whine about PC version all they want, but if they really want to play some Deus Ex, they should sit down and play it on the Xbox.
A first person shooter? On a console? Do you have any idea how painful that is? Some games work better on consols with controlers - fighting games for example - but it should be a capitol offense to release a first person shooter on any system that doens't come with a keyboard and mouse.
meaning your Xbox will look as good as the version running on a 3,000$ USD computer!
Who spends 3,000$ US on a computer and then runs it out to a television? You have obviously never done a side by side comparison between a game running on a television & a game running on a computer monitor. Even if use the same source driving them both, the television is severly limited in resolution. But if you think 480x240 is sharp as 1600x1200 I suggest you go and talk to your optometrist.
...you're a thief, not a murderer.
AFAIK, Its a fairly extensively modified version of the UT2003 engine.
The website is not accessible to anyone without the flash plugin. The flash is used for a totally unnecessary things like navigation. This sucks.
This has been up for at least a fortnight.
This is a geek site, isn't it?
Where is the Linux version? What you say?
XBOX Version but no Linux version?
OK. Bye.
I'm not buying any new windows games anymore. Yet I am thinking about how diffcult it would be to build an free/open sneak person shooter like Metal Gear Solid/Thief/Splinter Cell. Especially with engines like this one.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Please. This is another juvenile brought to you by the same kind of people who whine about games they haven't played. Have you ever played an FPS on a console? The Xbox controller is fantastic for it, since the sticks feel right (resistance and thumb sensitivity wise) for FPS. Halo's a great example of a game with a well-written control scheme, since not the kind folks an Bungie didn't just throw up their hands and go, "can't be done" like a baby.
I can see you saying that a PS2 controller isn't alright for it, since the PS2 analog sticks are poorly positioned for using both at the same time, and have no increasing resistance as you move them more off axis, but pretty much every FPS for that console worth your time (Deus Ex, Half-Life, etc) supports USB keyboard and mouse should you feel the need.
There's only one type of game that hasn't yet received a good treatment on a control pad, and that's real time strategy. And it's entirely possible to have that done up well; after all, most people just use the mouse when starting to learn an RTS -- an analog joystick and a button is the same sa that. Add some chording, and you could have most of those combinations.
So suck it up, Princess! If you want to play games, you have to stop whinning and play them. Then you can argue about things on their own merits instead of repeating little strawmen arguments you read about on slashdot.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
As to why people started pronouncing it as "deuce", it could be because half the people I mentioned the game's name to when I first got it heard it as "Day of Sex." *sigh* I'd ask them to get their minds out of the gutters, but that positioning's an improvement over how they used to be...
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
thief4.com is registered, but .... wait for it .... thief5.com is still up for grabs.
Slashdot? Oh, I just read it for the articles.
I follow the official Ion Storm, so here's some facts straight from the devs:
THE GOOD
* Eric Brosius is back doing the audio work, and Stephen Russel is back as the voice of Garrett.
* The game can be played from first-person or third-person. It's entirely up to the player.
* Loot aquired is now persistent.
* In between missions, you can wander around the City and engage in a little a la cart thievery.
* Lockpicking is no longer automatic. It's now some kind of mini-game.
THE BAD
* Yes, the title really is "Thief: Deadly Shadows". No, they're not kidding.
* Rope arrows are GONE. They've been replaced with "climbing gloves".
* Swimmable water is GONE.
* The sword is GONE. It's been replaced by a wimpy dagger.
* Missions are no longer single map loads. They're now divided into loading zones.
* Keys have been abstracted out of the inventory. Now, if you have the key for a door, Garrett will just automatically unlock it.
* Warren Spector is a lunatic who's on record stating that there's no difference between console and PC gamers.
One of the things the fans have requested from the development team is some sort of level editor or SDK. Thief 1 and 2 already have a mass of fan missions available, and it would be tragic to see the community that's built up around the game be dissipated. As of right now it seems that Eidos don't have any plans to release an editor, so we have to do what we can to persuade them otherwise. There's a very modest campaign homepage at http://www.thiefpetition.com/ (we're working on it!), and an online petition at PetitionOnline. If you've ever created or played and enjoyed a Thief fan mission, please show your support.
I'm not getting ANY hopes up after Ion Storm's miserable Deus Ex 2: Invisible War fiasco. I don't think there is a need to list DX:IW's shortcomings because everybody who's wallet has been irreparably "touched" by DX:IW already knows, or have already warned their friends how badly it sucked.
All signs point to Thief: Deadly Shadows being not much more than a DX:IW "mod", despite the pretense that it's "new and improved". Warren Storm tanked a microsecond after they sold out compatibility for console compatibility.
Meanwhile, for everybody else, enjoy the Unified Arrows for ammo.
Anger management? Me? ANGRY? WTF!! STFU!!
Ah, the wanton ravings of a clueless peckerhead. While I can't do anything about the fact that your head is shaped like a dick, I can give you a clue on consoles: yes I have played first person shooters on consoles, several of them, and there is no way a game pad is going to give you a percentage of a fraction of the control and precision that you get with a keyboard and mouse.
Why? Because you have a little stub of a stick that you can move, at most, a half an inch in any direction. Compare that to a mouse, which you might typically move three inches in any direction. That's six times the precision that you can get with a control stick, not even counting how much easier it is to control your speed. As the other poster pointed out, pulling a 180, aiming up 30 degrees, and shooting someone 100 yards away in an 8th of a second is pretty standard fair for talented players on pc's. Good frikkin luck doing that on a console.
The Xbox controller is fantastic for it, since the sticks feel right (resistance and thumb sensitivity wise) for FPS. Halo's a great example of a game with a well-written control scheme
Well written, huh? Then how do you aim, punch, and move at the same time, beyach?
So suck it up, Princess! If you want to play games, you have to stop whinning and play them.
Uh-huh. The reason you can't play PC Halo with X-Box Halo is because the company knows that the X-Box guys would be slaughtered. If they ever make multiplayer cross platform without crippling the PC side, lets go play a game and I'll watch you take it up the ass like a squirrel being gang raped by a herd of elephants.
"As the other poster pointed out, pulling a 180, aiming up 30 degrees, and shooting someone 100 yards away in an 8th of a second is pretty standard fair for talented players on pc's."
;)
Hard, not impossible. Skilled console FPS people can do it too. The thing is, everything's practice. You probably sucked at FPS on PC the first time you did it, but you did get better.
"Well written, huh? Then how do you aim, punch, and move at the same time, beyach?"
I would press the left thumbstick foward, use the right thumbstick to aim, and hit the black button with the nub of my thumb like I always do in Halo. Alternatively, though, there are a couple of triggers, and other controllers (Wavebird, DS2) offer many shoulder buttons as well for easy use. There are even controllers designed so your thumbs never have to leave the sticks when you're playing.
If you can beat Halo on Legendary, that's something. Plenty of people can beat the Xbox one on Legendary, and it's because they spent more time practicing the game than whinning about it on the internet.
But, you obviously don't share my opinion that a good game is a good game, and that learning the interface is part of the fun. You probably don't like DDR, either
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Is that text macros like, "enemy taking our flag" are totally obsolete with standardized voice chat. You free up the buttons you have for gaming, not for macros.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.