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The Downfall of the Thief Series

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the where-it-went-wrong dept.

Via Kotaku, an interview at Evil Avatar about the bad end of the Thief series. They discuss the game series with designer Randy Smith, who details the fine points of the early games and the ignoble end for the trilogy of games. From the article: "I view Thief 3's more action-inclined gameplay as being more than necessary for a mass-market acceptance. The problems with Thief 3 were the same as the problems that plagued Deus Ex: Invisible War - it was the tech. The team scaled back the freeform design, incorporated loading zones, not to mention the unstable frame rate and other misc. issues derived from the technology. The gameplay was relatively solid by comparison."

6 of 84 comments (clear)

  1. Thief had redefined the FPS by alfs+boner · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I find the Thief series redefined what a FPS could be. The game had many things that made it unique. For one, you couldn't just attack a whole army of soldier, because you were guaranteed to get killed.

    It also rewarded you for just sneaking around, stealing and not getting caught. At the time, it was the only game in the FPS category that you could complete without killing anyone. Even now, I haven't seen a game where you could do that.

    The one thing that disappointed me the most was that no one else got into the thief genre. Once the company went belly up, I haven't seen a game that created the same tense, yet immersive environment that Thief 1 and 2 (haven't played 3).

    --
    Listen p*ssy. I'm sure your the same homo that posted earlier about alf's boner and you just want to remain anonymous fo
    1. Re:Thief had redefined the FPS by g0bshiTe · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I enjoyed the different era. It seems most FPS are either modern combat, WWII oriented, or set in the future. But Thief was just so different in the time that it put you in. Though some of the missions put you in "OMG WTF were they thinking" mode, like the Spiders in Thief II for instance, wtf was that about? And the robots?

      I'm still waiting for that FPS that puts you in a trench in WWI, or charging over the top of a trench into machine gun fire. Why hasn't this been done yet?

      --
      I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
  2. Typical by Reason58 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is what you get when you compromise your vision and integrity for the dollar.

    It is funny he mentions Deus Ex, as I loved the original game and was left extremely disapointed with it's incarnation. Not only did they lose their extremely strong original fanbase that helped to build them, but they lost the mainstream appeal they were so desperately hoping to cash in on.

    1. Re:Typical by CaptainCarrot · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Game programmers deserve to get paid, and game companies deserve to make a profit. It's very easy to sit back from a distance and preach to others about integrity. It's not so easy to be the guy running a game company that's barely breaking even because artistic vision is more important than commercial success.

      I very much wish that Thief as originally conceived had sold better. We'd all be seeing more games like it now if it did. LGS managed to put two games out according to their original vision -- before going out of business because, for all their integrity, their games just didn't sell enough copies to carry them through.

      Tell me, are you glad that happened? Is it something you'd like to see happen often? Your advice here is almost certain to lead to it.

      --
      And the brethren went away edified.
  3. Article Summary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "We had to support the lowest common denominator (Xbox), therefore the PC version sucked"

    Same goes for Deus Ex : IW

  4. Consolification by Pluvius · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I view Thief 3's more action-inclined gameplay as being more than necessary for a mass-market acceptance. The problems with Thief 3 were the same as the problems that plagued Deus Ex: Invisible War - it was the tech. The team scaled back the freeform design, incorporated loading zones, not to mention the unstable frame rate and other misc. issues derived from the technology. The gameplay was relative solid by comparison.

    I believe the term they're looking for is "consolification." That's when the publisher of a game series that is traditionally for the PC (and for good reason) decides to focus on consoles due to their much larger audience, forcing the developer to dumb down the game both for the LCD of said market and to fit within the limits of the console itself (especially the controls). People complained about this a lot when Thief 3, Deus Ex: Invisible War, and other bastardizations of PC franchises were being released a couple of years ago. Now-a-days that sort of thing has slackened off a lot, but we'll probably start hearing about it again when Halo 3 comes out.

    Rob