Thief vs. AAA Gaming (how do these old dogs stack up against the AAA gaming industry of today) - General

[QUOTE=Seibitsu;49536386]Quest markers are not always dumb you know. In Skyrim I appreciated them because the world was really big, I can see why in Thief they shouldn't be needed but yeah most of his points are fair. I'm now playing (and almost finishing) Jedi Academy and I have found so much satisfaction playing this that many other AAA games, it also has a map that it's just that, a map, not an interactive one so you have to figure out the halls and where the objetive is. PD: In Infamous I didn't feel that much overpowered, in fact the enemies killed me sometimes without sweating. Specially the special ones.[/QUOTE] Quest markers ruins any kind of mission where you have to find something. You'll always be told "We don't know exactly where it is, but we think it is in these ruins" and then you get a quest marker that tells you [I]exactly[/I] where it is. I mean, where is the player interaction then? You're pretty much reduced to "swing your sword at these enemies standing in your way" and exploring is suddenly a conscious act, not an organic part of the mission. I'm not saying quest markers are [I]always[/I] bad, but they should be used only when it really makes sense.

[QUOTE=SGTNAPALM;49536299]I've only played Assassin's Creed 2 but every time I attempted something remotely stealthy or clever it broke the game. Once I had to climb a tower to reach a character, but the "proper" way was heavily guarded. I found a secondary way to climb the tower, one that I probably wasn't supposed to be able to find, and haflway up it teleported me to a cutscene in a middle of a fight. Another time, I was supposed to chase a guy through a complex and complicated chase segment but instead decided to kill him with a projectile immediately. I teleported to the end of the maze. So yeah, Assassin's Creed probably doesn't count as a stealth game. It's an action platformer pretending to be a stealth game. Shadow of Mordor pulls stealth off better than Assassin's Creed.[/QUOTE] The newer ones have actually been trying to emphasize the stralth aspect.

[QUOTE=Mezzokoko;49536037]Stealth as a secondary feature is not nearly the same as having an entire game built around that aspect. It's very basic and rarely satisfying, since essential stealth tools and mechanics are often missing and you are expected to engage in combat at SOME point.[/QUOTE] i agree entirely i'm just saying when you cut out all the mixed-genre games there's only been like three pure stealth ones released in the last five years or so

[QUOTE=GoDong-DK;49536706]Quest markers ruins any kind of mission where you have to find something. You'll always be told "We don't know exactly where it is, but we think it is in these ruins" and then you get a quest marker that tells you [I]exactly[/I] where it is. I mean, where is the player interaction then? You're pretty much reduced to "swing your sword at these enemies standing in your way" and exploring is suddenly a conscious act, not an organic part of the mission. I'm not saying quest markers are [I]always[/I] bad, but they should be used only when it really makes sense.[/QUOTE] In those case yes, it's stupid, it's like you adding a giant neon sign saying "HERE IS THE OBJECT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR". But for the rest it's okay.

I wish there could just be a button to pull out a hand drawn map, and the character says something like "looks like its over east a ways" or something. Diagetic interfaces are almost always better than nondiagetic

As much as Thief does right by not holding your hand, I think it's set back by its primitive execution. The AI is pretty bad by today's standards, and the combat just feels broken, which really frustrated me in the later parts with monsters. I actually enjoyed Thief 2014. It has the typical AAA treatment, but the stealth really worked well for me, and I commend the developers for encouraging you to play as a complete ghost without even knocking out anyone. That writing and change of lore is really a slap to the face of the original series, though.