The thread to discuss the content. . . New Online Petition is up!

[Subjective Effect]

Update: The petition is up. Go sign!
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/ttlgt3np/

Is my opinion that the current online petition is crude at best and dangerous at worst. I quote-

We the consumer base who will be purchasing Thief III : The Dark Age sign this petition in hopes to show ION Storm the numbers of people that wish that the third installment of the Thief series not be a PC port of an Xbox game. We will not tolerate this game to be slaughtered like Deus Ex: Invisible War, all we ask that this game be properly coded for PC hardware so that it is not limited by the proprietary specifications of the Xbox system

I feel that this is too vague, too inflammatory and ill thought out. I don't know if the author consulted with other fans before creating this petition but I doubt it. I've emailed him and politely asked him to join my cause and to abandon the original.

Let us discuss the content of a new petition here and decide on a final version sensibly.

I'll start. I've already stated in other threads that my top worries are


Start petition

Dear Ion Storm,

As you will already be aware we, the existing fans of the Thief series of games by Looking Glass Studios, have some concerns about the content of the soon to be released Thief 3. This petition is intended to give you a detailed explanation as to exactly what those concerns are, for the good of the fans and for you the developers.

We understand that fan feedback is important to developers and normally a petition of this type would heve no basis. However the recent release of Deus Ex Invisible War has prompted this response as we understand that there may be design crossover, and some of the changes in the game were radical departures from related elements in the original. Our concerns are listed below with a rationale for each.

Concern __________________________ Reason

1. AI that is not suitable for stealth play (eg enemies that know where you are when alerted no mater how far away/hidden in shadows you are) - based on the behaviour of the AI in Eus Ex 1 and 2
2. Level loading zones splitting each level up - this will break the immersion that we so enjoyed in Thief 1 and 2. Seemless transitions are desireable if loading zones MUST be used.
3. Poor frame-rates/high system requirements for acceptable play - as above
4. No editor which equals no FMs - this will be death for the massive mod community and we have been waiting with baited breath for this, seriously, drooling over the prospect. Even real talent leading to industry work can develop from this
5. A non-customisable GUI that is not mouse friendly- because different people want different levels of GUI "intrusion" on the field of view and because some GUIs evolve around the console controllers
6. Automatic equiping of tools without the option to disable the feature - this removes some choice and thought on the part of the player.
7. Limited ability to reassign keys - in Thief 1 + 2 there was a great deal of key assignment flexibility - we liked that

The concerns laid out in this petition are just that - concerns. We have no idea which of these will or will not come to pass and some of our worries are based on rumours that have spread across the net without any response from Ion Storm to lay our minds to rest. What we DO know is that addressing the concerns in the final release will certainly make us happy and make Thief3 a much more well received game.

End petition


Edit history-
-Added preamble/introduction
-Changed Sledge to David "Sledge" Riegel
-Altered the order of concerns: no FM up, arrows and GUI down
-Added section on automatic tool equipting
-Added section on key assignment
-Changed typos highlighted by Blackjack
-Removed reference to Sledge and included a generic statement about editors enabling new designers to learn the skills
-Altered intro to include more about DXIW and removed all references to it in the list
-Added word 'mechanics' to concern 10
-Added a reason to concern 3
-Removed concern Changes towards more action and less stealth as it most probably cannot be changed now as level design will be integrated core gameplay.
-Removed concern No functional water as levels will be done now and if it has been removed it will be due to an engine issue.
-Removed concern Arrow ammunition changes because it is unlikely to be messed up and fears were only borne out of DX:IW issues that are not relevant; nanites.


Items left out + reason-
-Comments about shadows in relation to Deus Ex IW - this is likely to be an engine feature and probably annot be latered now
-Concerns about non-linear levels - the maps will be more or less finished now and besides, Sledge will steer them in the right direction. I also think that they will allow multiple paths anyway based on DX, DXIW and the fact that not doing it would be too much of a step back
-Enhanced specifics - the petition can't be too long and besides, what are the specifics people?
-Rope arrows - I don't know of any specific concern about them


PS. As I've not played DXIW please correct me on any errors regarding that game. All references to it are from forum posts and review I've read.

[deadman]

Originally posted by Subjective Effect
Is my opinion that the current online petition is crude at best and dangerous at worst. I quote-
I feel that this is too vague, too inflammatory and ill thought out.

Finally someone who agrees with me! Now to hear what S_Hole has to say again..

EDIT: It might be best to specify 'David "Sledge" Riegel' or have his name in paranthesis so they actually know who we're speaking of . Also, you must specify 'functional water' as well as explain in specific terms what this means. According to the rumor, there will be water; it will just be for looks and we won't be able to walk or swim around in it. It'd be best to clear that up as they could simply retort with "We already have water, silly fanboys!".

deadman.

[Subjective Effect]

I agreed with you in the first place

What do you think of the list? An opening statement is needed too though. . .

[deadman]

Read edit

[Blackjack]

Yeah, I really don't like the current, ill-considered petition.

Most of the points you raise are our key concerns.

[plebeian]

Do they care? surely they know we won't like any of this stuff already. They've made a financial decision to do it anyway though. I don't think a petition will have any effect at this stage.

[Benny the Guard]

I definitly agree the current petition is crap. It states no actual complaints, is completely ambiguous, and is insulting (to both x-box users and the developers). How far does this guy think his petition will get doing this.... I say about the same distance it takes Warren's finger to hit delete.

I agree we need to spell out our concerns, but we must also temper this with some good judgement. We could ask for the 300 things we want or narrow it down to the important ones. I this this new one is a good start. I agree with the concept on all of them but I must say #1 and #6 do not worry me at all. Thief = Stealth, wheras DX = Action/FPS/RPG. Two different games, stealth was only a part of DX 1, so its change/removal is not completely altering the entire game for everyone. Thief is about stealth, those who do not like stealth (and I am not talking only ghosting) need not apply, its simply not a game they would enjoy. Even if you kill all, it takes some stealth to do.

One final thing, I would put the editor up higer in the list then the high syste, requirements. Optimization of the engine needs to happen, but i am more worried about the level editor.

[S_Hole]

i'll just directly quote myself from the other thread

-properly nonlinear levels
none of that "multiple path" bullshit
it doesn't matter what route you're taking, it's still a linear corridor walking (i wanted to dig out the eyes of the splinter cell leveldesigners for their insulting level'design')
-all previous button assignments should be there.. unassigned
streamline the button functionality all you want
just leave us the option to use the 'crude old methods'
-in addition to a customizable gui, allow the option to disable such misfeatures as automatically getting lockpicks for a locked door
this is a matter of oppinion, but i thought it brought a lot immersion into it
afterall the keys to your home door do not magically appear in your hand when you try to open it
same thing with all objects, really
if not as an ingame menu item, atleast in the .ini for those who want it
shouldn't be too hard to do (i'd say 10 minutes if you have the editor and know where to look)
-actual proper shadows
many 'shadows' in dx2 are just areas that are somewhat dimmer than the general surroundings - yet this is concidered by the AI as completely dark
this is ridiculous

just edit to fit
putting most under a general note of "if it's not broken, do not fix it" would be good
that's what broke dx2

i mean.. i like when people experiment.. but reinventing the wheel and ending up with a square is just stupid :-(

[Subjective Effect]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I'll put changes in the original post.

And plebeian - we don't know but as you can see the concerns I've included (with all your blessings I hope ) do not include aspects that cannot be altered at this stage IMHO. There are at least 7 months before the PC release (EB has it for Jun1 but hey also had DXIW for 30 March this year!

[KuBiLaY17]

I know one thing, i f ion storm messes up THief 3. Well go charge their office building, whos with me

[Z]

Very good. I think I might sign this one.

The one thing I might reconsider is Point No. 10. Personally, I would phrase this as "unnecessary alterations to inventory options" or something of the kind. Specifically, I would remove references to unifying different arrows, since I feel there isn't really any basis for the concern beyond the fact that they did in DXIW, which uses weapons in a completely different way.

Nice work.

Z

[Subjective Effect]

While is it true that we have no real basis for concern 10 there is this - a. it's been done in Deus Ex and b. you can rationalise it for arrows much more easily by having headless arrows (generic) and then getting heads for them. Actually that sounds cool!

The danger I see is a set of generic arrows and then magic "pools" to use on them. The priciple is the same as doing the arrowhead thing but the principle is wrong for Garret and we'll end up hunting magic sources. Ordinarily I'd not mind but to rationalise it in the game, when in reality it is an XBox adaptation, would leave a very very bad taste in ones mouth.

Please spread the word abou this thread as we need as many people as possible to give input. I've PMed GBM about putting calls/links in all forums so don't go posting links in other forums just yet

[Hakar]

Originally posted by KuBiLaY17
I know one thing, i f ion storm messes up THief 3. Well go charge their office building, whos with me

Nu-uh, we'd ghost it.

[Sypha Nadon]

I won't be happy unless Karras comes back.

'Nuff said.

[S_Hole]

Comments about shadows in relation to Deus Ex IW - this is likely to be an engine feature and probably annot be latered now

if you mean the darkness level of shadows, this is easy to fix
just dropping the ambient level in levels
this is a valid gripe as the blue 'shadows' are visible in many screenshots

soft shadows however cannot be used without completely rewriting the shadow drawing code (polygon splitting versus shadowmapped)

A non-customisable GUI that is not mouse friendly

there was no mouse action in thief gui at all
only mouse action was to move your head and to browse pages of books and letters
only way they could mess this up is by reinventing it or making it graphically bulky (like the e3 demo - cute and very pretty, but bulky and intrusive)


maybe we should also give a point to write everything that is possible to, into the .ini file
i don't really care if i have to go into the .ini file to disable some feature that annoys me
i had to edit thief2 .ini also to get the buttons bind where i wanted them to


and that the concerns are in no particular order
just a checklist for them to go through if they wish to please the community


or am i assuming too much? :-)

[Subjective Effect]

No, the order is on purpose. It may not be defintive but it has some meaning. I'm sure we can all agree that good stealth play outweighs worries about water.

[S_Hole]

then i suggest you move editor to third
this is the only thing that can save the game if all else fails

[Subjective Effect]

But if the top 4 fail then there is no point in an editor anyway.

[S_Hole]

3 only applies to the initial singleplayer campaign (unless engine has been screwed up completely)
would get me crying, but not the death of the game

the engine will be optimized now anyway as dx2 is done already
but ok

[Subjective Effect]

(unless engine has been screwed up completely)

Exactly.

[evaprototype00]

I know that my current petition really is vauge at pointing the flaws of what happens when you port a xbox to PC but ION storm already has heard millions of times that they messed the game up why do I have to point it out again? Oh well I'm not a writer by any means if anyone with tallent would like to help along with a re-write I'd be more then willing to help.

[evaprototype00]

The petition as is I like but #4, since the game was optimized for the Xbox GPU the Nvidia Geforce 3.5 as it has been called a few times the game will run best only of that of nvidia, both the PC and the Xbox alike are based on directX but the xbox is a proprietary system and that graphics code wasn't ment to be compatable with everything on the market therefore wouldn't run well on the PC not to mention no coding for hardware sound such as EAX and multi-channel left out from a poor porting job. DX:IW bears the nvidia logo because the chip instructions of the xbox can be eaisily traslated over to that of any of the Geforce 3/4(non MX)and FX series. Anyone with an ATI chipset can expect nothing but problems until the ATI rendering codes are added to the engine. If you wanted to take a example of a good Xbox to PC port look at Halo PC. When they did that MS had gearbox software the people responsible for half-life rewrite the engine to be compatable with all GPU's and all hardware. People complain about this game running poorly but this game has higher texture detail then most games out now and that will tax most lower end sytems. So in short a Xbox to PC port would again poorly run expecially ones that further don't match that of the xbox system unless they do it right this time.

[Subjective Effect]

Yes, I see your point. However it is a legit concern and anything they can do about it would be appreciated. Besides, we don't really know what is and isn't possible with the engine.

I suppose we could add something like "We understand that some of these issues may be difficult or impossible to address at this stage and with the current technology".

[Blackjack]

Originally posted by Subjective Effect
But if the top 4 fail then there is no point in an editor anyway.

Actually, if we can persuade them to release a full SDK (unlikely, but worth a try) then all other points could be compensated for by the community, arguably including the top four. Maybe we could run a brief poll to see which are the single greatest concerns for T3. I'd dare venture that the editor / SDK would come top.

A few picky typos (sorry):
- 'th3' in first line.
- 'with a rational for each' should be 'rationale'.
- 'make Thief3 a much more well recieved game' should be 'a much better received game'.

Not sure if it's possible to edit / append petitions after they've been started, but since one already has it might be worth adding this to the current one by way of correction, acknowledging that the first was a heartfelt, if unsophisticated, attempt to get across our worries. I'm not sure if two competing petitions would look worse than one bad one.

[Subjective Effect]

My thanks for your feedback Blackjack. Especailly the typos, don't be sorry it's not picky at all IMO.

As to your other point about the editor - I'll tackle each concern seperately-

1. Moving towards action and away from stealth may be inherent properties of the new engine and tools in that they are set up to allow for action creation. For example, the original HL editor/tools is not set up for the creation of stealth levels.

2. Although members of the mod community obviously have the ability to edit AI not everyone can. Ion Storm would make it much easier for us to create great levels if we have something good to work with from the get go. And the single player game would be much better.

3. Level loading zones, if enforced on all level design, will exist even in FMs.

4. This is the only thing we can easily change by using lower complexity textures etc.

And no, petitions cannot be edited. That'w why I've contacted the author. He is happy with this and has in fact posted above us as evaprototype00. We're also in email contact.