Thief - Interview @ OXM

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OXM interviews Producer Joe Khoury for a few questions about Thief.

Do you think you've overcome fan resistance to the reboot now? To certain of the changes that you've made?

Good one! I think hopefully, our greatest sense of satisfaction will be when the game's released and that's where we'll overcome fan resistance. I think there are a lot of optimistically curious people just as there are some fans who don't know the full extent of what we're doing, so for sure they're basing their impressions on the little information that they have, and that's concerning for them.

We haven't shown everything we have in our pockets yet. And I think when the game hits the street is when there concerns will be met. We're looking forward to that day. Right now the team's working so hard to bring the game to where it is, taking into consideration everything that everybody's saying.

When I read a lot of the comments I do know where they're coming from, and I can guarantee that the team knows where they're coming from, and part of that is just 'wait and see, judge for yourself'. Hopefully it'll be good.

We're fairly confident, but then art is very delicate to judge - it's an opinion. There's a lot of people that remember things differently for the first Thief, and what they like about the first Thief games. And hopefully 15 years from now people will be talking about what they remember about this Thief, in comparison to the first Thief! We're reading what they're saying with a lot of care, the team is very aware of what's being said.

As a studio, you seem to have a very defined style now - first person, action-adventure, lots of choice. Are there any other genres you're interested in?

Yeah, sure. So far we've released those kinds of games, which I guess would lead to that impression, but there are a lot of experienced people on this team at Montreal, there's a bunch of other studios that we have back-and-forths with. We have people that we recruit from other studios, we lose people to other studios, so we have such a wealth of experience that if we wanted to venture off in another direction, we would have the means to do it.

More information.
 
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Do they still have set hotspots for where you can jump and shoot rope arrows and whatnot? If so, these guys don't understand a single thing about what made Thief and Thief 2 great games.
 
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Do they still have set hotspots for where you can jump and shoot rope arrows and whatnot? If so, these guys don't understand a single thing about what made Thief and Thief 2 great games.

You mean like all the Batman Arkham games that many people, including here in the watch, think they are great nevertheless?

I think that there are always tradeoffs between the game design, available technology, and of course development funds, and so changes are inevitable (not always bad).
 
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You mean like all the Batman Arkham games that many people, including here in the watch, think they are great nevertheless?

Yeah, that's exactly what I mean -- the polar opposite of what the Thief games were about. And, no, I don't call the Batman games great. Boring and constrictive, yes.
 
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well to each his own. I think the Batman games are great. I think Thief was great too. I have a wait and see attitude with the hotspots and stuff but I think Batman did it well, making the player feel like he's really controlling Batman, which wouldn't do if he fell or bumped into something often because of the player's relative clumsiness. While playing Thief, I get the occasional reminder that I'm no Garrett when I jump for a ledge and miss or even just fall to my doom while creeping along, mistakes the Garret character probably won't make. What made Thief enjoyable for me wasn't the jumping or arrow shooting, it was the planning and sneaking. They give me that, I could be happy
 
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I think that there are always tradeoffs between the game design, available technology, and of course development funds, and so changes are inevitable (not always bad).
That's a bit of BS SpoonFool. 1- Hotspots in a Thief game are BAD pure and simple and 2 - if earlier games allowed free movement there is no excuse why this one doesn't!

What made Thief enjoyable for me wasn't the jumping or arrow shooting, it was the planning and sneaking. They give me that, I could be happy
So you enjoy planning your sneaking from one hotspot to another. Well, to each his own…
 
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what I've heard, and take emphasis to heard as I have no idea really, is that the game will have a feature, call it hardcore or old-school feature, that will allow you to play the game pretty much as the old..including no hot spots.
 
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That's a bit of BS SpoonFool. 1- Hotspots in a Thief game are BAD pure and simple and 2 - if earlier games allowed free movement there is no excuse why this one doesn't!

I was referring to changes in general (that some are not bad), not the hotspot issue alone. Having said that, it depends on the level design and setting; maybe it would be useless and not logical to attach arrows and climb everywhere, or maybe they have provided better or more interesting alternatives. We don't know, we just have to wait and see.

I just find it a bit annoying that people accept the Batman games hotspot thing and complain about it (if it persists) in Thief.

Edios have a very strong hill to climb with this release: they have the old thief games, the Deus EX games (including HR), and more recently Dishonored (which ofcourse had the advantage of Harvey Smith, the original Deus Ex and theif level designer).
 
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Edios have a very strong hill to climb with this release: they have the old thief games, the Deus EX games (including HR), and more recently Dishonored (which ofcourse had the advantage of Harvey Smith, the original Deus Ex and theif level designer).

Exactly! And if Edios will not listen to the voices of the fans of the Thief franchise they are likely to have DA2 like debacle on their hands.
 
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I agree that hotspots done in the way they are done in most console games would be bad in the thief games. But in a way the old thief games had hotspots as well. You could only shoot rope arrows into wood so in that way it was kind of an old school "hotspot", the level designs were just really good but the wood was often clearly placed with rope arrows in mind. So it can be done right. Can a big studio do it right in today's market old school thief style?

I am a huge old school thief fan, and to be honest I am not expecting a whole lot from this new game. I hope they can prove me wrong.
 
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I'm keeping my expectations very, very low for this game. 99% of what I'm hearing smacks of suit-controlled development and arrogant developers.

If I'm wrong, that's great - because then this game might just be worth playing.
 
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