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Games with thieves are a dime a dozen. The most common human foe in an RPG is almost certainly a bandit of some kind, and "adventurer" is a tactful way to refer to someone who kills [bad [usually]] guys and takes their stuff. Power-ups in games usually take the form of items of some kind, and you don't always come by them legally. Heck, adventure game heroes' penchant for stealing everything is their most iconic trait. Of course, this is really art imitating life: in the US, larceny is far and away the most common crime, up to 60% of all reported (and that's not counting other "property crimes" like burglary). Highwaymen are history's real-life random encounters, and for the crime of stealing on the high seas, pirates were named hostis humana generis-- "Enemies of all mankind." So in the real world or our virtual ones, thieves have been and still are significant. But games about thieves? That list is a lot shorter, and it usually starts with....  ...this. So what is Thief? thief, noun (thēf) One that steals especially stealthily or secretly; one who commits theft or larceny. Keep that in mind as this series progresses.  ...but seriously, the game: Thief is the subtitle-less revival by Eidos of the "cult classic" Thief series from the late 90s/early Oughts. They revolutionized first-person gameplay and established the oft-imitated standard for stealth mechanics that would persist for the next decade....or so we've heard, anyway. I never played any of them, just saw my roommate in college bumble through some of the first one while I focused the then-brand-new Deus Ex. My brother's seen a few videos of The  -- er, sorry, The Metal Age, the second game, but that's also it. So not only are we new to this game, we're new to this series. And if you're incredulous as to why we'd pick a game this poorly received, "You'd have to pay me to play it," something like that? Well, that's basically what happened. Ben goes into detail in the first video, but basically: we got Thief for one month free through GameFly, as a surprise literally a couple days after I joined SA; figured it was a sign and we'd make the most of it. That month ends on November 20, so... yes, this is a blind speedrun, basically. God help us. I don't think we can make this good, but we're going to try to make it entertaining.Wait, one week? How is this going to work? Yeah, that's mostly my fault. When we came up with this idea, we had a lot more time to work with; delays and technical issues definitely slowed us down. Plan is: we'll play a fair bit every day, and upload videos either every day or every two. With each update, we'll indicate the last part of the game we played, and open up discussion to all the chapters up to that point. So you guys can make fun of us for missing stuff before the video even gets posted, how cool is that? Wait, "open up" discussion? Yeah, if you guys could spoiler-text anything in the story we haven't gotten to yet, that would be appreciated.  Anything up to the chapter we played last can be unmarked, as can game mechanics and tips that don't spoil anything in the plot. For example, the hint to not focus on collectibles until chapter 6 in the Sandcastle.Wait, who's "we"? Me and my brother, Ben. He's playing, I'm co-commenting and editing. This is our first LP, and you have to make mistakes to learn from them, so feel free to point out anything and everything we do wrong. Of course, pointing out the stuff we do right is cool too. Heh. Wait Nope, it's showtime! Episode List Episode 1: Prologue Episode 2: Chapter 1, "Lockdown" No, seriously, you forgot something. Yep, sure did. Edited to add: we were working on the first video when Bobbin Threadbare's LP popped up. Go check it out! He's actually good at this series and has playthroughs of all the previous Thief games on the LP Archive too. Current Progress: Finished Chapter 2. Wayne fucked around with this message at 09:38 on Nov 13, 2014 |
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Nov 13, 2014 09:27
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| # ? Jun 4, 2024 13:53 |
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Pity reply.
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Nov 13, 2014 14:49
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*crickets chirp, tumbleweed rolls by*
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Nov 13, 2014 15:00
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Wayne posted:But games about thieves? That list is a lot shorter, and it usually starts with.... I do not think that this is true. There were quite a few Carmen Sandiego games. Imoen was just the first thief you could find in the Baldur's Gate series.
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Nov 13, 2014 18:28
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Is it just me, or is this game fantastically ugly for a 2014 release?
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Nov 13, 2014 19:42
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Good luck, guys.
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Nov 13, 2014 20:01
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Cathulhu posted:Pity reply. Ha ha, thanks, somebody has to be first, right? I know the idea had a few too many strikes against it to really catch on (mediocre game, first-time LPers, better LP of the same game running concurrently, etc.) but it's good practice if nothing else. If it absolutely doesn't work we'll pull the plug and try something more manageable, no big deal.chitoryu12 posted:Is it just me, or is this game fantastically ugly for a 2014 release? This is the PS3 version, but yes, it's pretty bad. The next video showcases Garrett's cape in all its low-poly glory and I actually think it's a slow pop-in... nope. chrisoya posted:I do not think that this is true. There were quite a few Carmen Sandiego games. ...good point, actually. My mind was kind of locked in to "thief protaganist," which there aren't a whole lot of. And unless I missed one, I don't think you ever get to play as Carmen to steal abstract and implausible valuables [awesome as that would be]. Bobbin Threadbare posted:Good luck, guys. Hey, you too. Edit: So after double-checking with GameFly, we can keep Thief as long as we send our previous game back. So if the big problem is the format, we can slow it down and give everyone a chance to digest the videos. If the problem is that we suck, that'll take longer. 
Wayne fucked around with this message at 21:05 on Nov 13, 2014 |
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Nov 13, 2014 20:14
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All right, first things first: Wayne basically took the words out of my mouth (he does that, aggravatingly,) so I echo his responses. The only addition I'd make?chrisoya posted:I do not think that this is true. There were quite a few Carmen Sandiego games. Imoen was just the first thief you could find in the Baldur's Gate series. I'd argue that Carmen Sandiego, while one of my favorite video game thieves, really should be counted as one game/franchise for the purpose of discussion. Each game is essentially about catching her and her gang of thieves, and each game follows basically the same formula (Criminal X has stolen X, now you must answer questions on X topic to catch them!) So I'd argue it's actually a case in point, insofar as the list of different series/franchises of games about thieves (and I'd argue Imoen/BG doesn't really count, though Wayne's more the Baldur's Gate guy than myself, since it's not really about thieves moreso than about adventurers in general, as Wayne alluded to,) is far shorter than, say, their opposites on the law enforcement side. Or non-thieving criminals, like assassins. ...but that's just me being me. Ah hah... Progress Update! The next segment should be uploaded and ready to go tomorrow, so look forward to that! It's... well, let's just say that I experiment with some game mechanics, with mixed results. Still a great deal of fun, though. Blind Run Thoughts on Prologue: I think that the prologue did a good job of setting up the tone of the rest of the game. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if that's necessarily a tone that will be enjoyable. I get it, I really do; they're setting Garrett up as an anti-hero and Erin as the old partner/flame (?) whom he stopped working with, presumably because she doesn't really get this whole 'thief' business. The Evil Industrialists are summoning up powers that they likely can't control, and that sets a heck of a lot of tinder ready for one good spark to ignite the entire city into violence. And, of course, there's the idea of the 'gloom,' which is probably a combination of disease, pollution, and spiritual/magical contamination that's causing problems and likely will get even worse. Solid ideas, really. You could make a really decent game out of all of those elements. The fact that Garrett's an obvious outsider, not really aligned to any of these factions, gives him a perspective which would make him a solid protagonist. ...I'm now really, really curious as to how they managed to muck it up, as consensus seems to state. As for Chapter 1... that freaking front door! Gah! I could have sworn that I searched and didn't find another way in, but clearly I missed at least two avenues for entry. That, and learning (the hard way) that the guards are a lot more of a threat than one would normally expect? Yeah, that's a learning curve. But a fun one nevertheless, and hopefully seeing me grapple with learning how the game wants me to play it was interesting to you all. At the least, I learned a few lessons that I won't soon forget, which is kind of the point of the early chapters of the game. I also swear, shooting that pulley was one of the trickier shots I've had to make in any bow-related game I've played, up to and including the PS Sports challenges. At least all the effort was worth it. Say what you will about thievery, but successfully squishing a guard never gets old. Do wish that the graphics were more solid, though. They could've had a really beautiful setting, but obvious problems detract from that all. I also hope that I get some Concluding Thoughts: Currently don't see why there's such a negative impression of the game, though I'm starting to catch glimpses of it on the metaphorical horizon. I'd probably feel more like a thief if I hadn't racked up quite so much of a body count- more Wayne's 'adventurer' than a 'thief' proper- but thus far, the mechanics and feel seem solid enough. We'll see if that continues to hold as time goes on. Fingers crossed, yeah?
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Nov 14, 2014 01:54
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Wayne posted:we got Thief for one month free through GameFly, as a surprise literally a couple days after I joined SA; figured it was a sign Jumped the gun a bit on that one. You know what an actual sign is? Editing the audio for your latest video, and upon running the noise gate, having it abruptly end, all the waveforms flatline, and a notice that Audacity can't find FFMpeg. The reason for that being, naturally, that the computer can't find the hard drive all that stuff was on. So I did the usual stuff: disk manager, partition manager, check in BIOS, hook it up to another PC, etc. Verdict is in: hard drive is stone dead and the LP curse has struck again. At least, you know, it was this LP. Probably should've been ready since that drive was the one from my old computer, which had a PSU failure that killed the motherboard too. But it never showed any problems after the last CHKDSK, so....  Anyway, yeah, we definitely think that's a sign to put this thread to rest for [awhile/ever], regroup, and try something else. See you next time.
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Nov 15, 2014 19:54
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By the looks of the game from Bobbin Threadbare's LP, it looks like you might've dodged a bullet there.
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Nov 15, 2014 20:39
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TomViolence posted:By the looks of the game from Bobbin Threadbare's LP, it looks like you might've dodged a bullet there. As a standalone it's fairly playbable.
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Nov 15, 2014 20:41
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anilEhilated posted:It's not bad, just thoroughly and decidedly mediocre, riddled with bad design decisions and an insult to the Thief name. That's kind of what had me curious about it- since we'd be approaching it without opinions about it from previous Thief games, it'd be a more unbiased approach. Thus far it didn't seem terrible, just... yeah, mediocre and with some bad decisions.
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Nov 16, 2014 01:02
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Looking forward to more of these exploratory videos. I really like the idea of a decoy room with terrible and/or fake loot.
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Dec 5, 2014 09:11
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Well, there won't be any more videos for this game. But yeah, "exploratory" is definitely our style; I'm a completionist and Ben's a first-time player for most of the LPs he's considering. We both have something in the works (separate LPs but co-commenting on each other's), now that we have a replacement storage drive; but probably not until the New Year. Anyway, glad you posted, Glazius, makes it feel like an official LP thread.  Can close it now with no regrets!
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Dec 11, 2014 21:37
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