Interview with Warren Spector @ Gamasutra

[Yegolev]

Read.  Or not.  He will tell you about Junction Point's new game at GDC.  He does say some Spectory things which he will likely repeat at GDC:

There's a philosophy that I like to apply: as a developer I want to control the overall narrative arc. Using Deus Ex as an example, JC Denton has a brother, he works for this agency, and the agency turns out to be not what you thought it was and you have to switch sides because they turn on you. The terrorists are the good guys, and so on. All that stuff provides context and meaning for all of the minute-to-minute player choices. In that sense, I own all the acts and why you do things. Now, saying that, it's possible to own why you do things and leave how you do them in the players’ hands. The key for me is creating linked sandboxes and letting players explore those little narrative chunks on their own. I'll determine why it's important that you get through a door, but how you get through it, what happens and whether you kill, talk to or ignore everyone on the other side belongs to the player.

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20070305/sheffield_01.shtml

[Strazos]

But, what has he done for us lately?

[Riggswolfe]

There's a philosophy that I like to apply: as a developer I want to control the overall narrative arc. Using Deus Ex as an example, JC Denton has a brother, he works for this agency, and the agency turns out to be not what you thought it was and you have to switch sides because they turn on you. The terrorists are the good guys, and so on. All that stuff provides context and meaning for all of the minute-to-minute player choices. In that sense, I own all the acts and why you do things. Now, saying that, it's possible to own why you do things and leave how you do them in the players’ hands. The key for me is creating linked sandboxes and letting players explore those little narrative chunks on their own. I'll determine why it's important that you get through a door, but how you get through it, what happens and whether you kill, talk to or ignore everyone on the other side belongs to the player.

This about sums up everything I liked about Deux Ex and didn't like about the sequel. It's one of the reasons I occasionally reinstall and replay that game.

[Sky]

But, what has he done for us lately?

Fuck up two franchises?

[Strazos]

My point exactly, though I honestly could never get into the Thief games.

Yes, I know my avatar has Garret in it. I didn't make it.

I like a good dev as much as the next gamer, but that's only as long as I like what they're doing.


I really hated DX2. Really, really hated it. I don't think I played more than an hour or so of it.

[Sky]

I finished DE2, actually. I don't remember why. That was a seriously crappy game.

Thief 3 I've never been able to finish, despite it being somewhat better of a #$#%* console port than DE2. The game just got so buggy and keystone-coppy in the middle sections I've never been able to finish it. I've tried three times now and each time I make it less far into the game (my saves wiped between each playthrough for various reasons).

[stray]

I think T3 is a good game. DE2 just sucks. It has nothing to do with consoles.

[HaemishM]

I bought DE2 (X-Box) used for $3 and I think I may have played through it for 2 hours and not picked it back up. I want to, but it really doesn't work very well at all.

[Xilren's Twin]

I finished DE2, actually. I don't remember why. That was a seriously crappy game.

Thief 3 I've never been able to finish, despite it being somewhat better of a #$#%* console port than DE2. The game just got so buggy and keystone-coppy in the middle sections I've never been able to finish it. I've tried three times now and each time I make it less far into the game (my saves wiped between each playthrough for various reasons).

Oddly enough, i finally installed and played through DE2 to completion like 3 weeks ago.  Yes, this was after i felt done with the LotrO beta and didn't have anything grabbing my attention to play.  Got it as a gift years ago but never played it for long cause it's just wasn't very good.  Nowhere near as fun as the original, plus they reused a ton of characters and locations from the original.  Trader Tong, JC Denton, Paul Denton, greys and Helios are all back in it, and of course the Illuminati, as well as levels for Black Gate Labs, even Liberty Island with the original layout of the UNATCO base are are still there.  Not much on originality and consolitis (one ammo for everything).  Add in bad AI, bad physics, and plot hole you can drive a truck through and it's just a shadow of it's predecessor.  Oh year, i had to grab a no cd crack b/c the idiot copy protection wouldn't work with my DVD drive.  Installs from the cd's fine but wont play?  WTF.

Well thats one game i can cross of the list as done.  

I've never grabbed thief3 b/c as much as i liked the first 2 i just knew i would be disappointed.

[stray]

Thief 3 is no Thief 1 or 2, but it isn't so bad to make it something you'd want to avoid. Hell, for the insane asylum alone it's pretty good.

It's no Deus Ex 2.

[Yegolev]

Thief 3 is a great game, but the run-around-the-city parts can really get out of hand due to time freezing when you leave.  It's no Thief or Thief 2, but it is pretty close and those are high bars to set.  I found it less consoly than Oblivion, but I pretended there was no third-person toggle.  Also: sticky gloves are no replacement for rope arrows.  I think my failure to finish it was largely due to one section of town turning into a scene from Benny Hill, but with swords.

Anyway, about Warren, he's got some great ideas but there's sometimes a problem with the execution.

[Sky]

I think T3 is a good game. DE2 just sucks. It has nothing to do with consoles.

It had everything to do with consoles.

[stray]

No.

I'm saying that the core game itself was fine. I had the XBox version, and I could play the game fine without distractions.

Talking about gameplay, not technical stuff. Don't pull me into this other shit. I don't have time for it.

[Sky]

Stop being such a cock.

[stray]

Me? I did nothing. I'm not trying to do anything except tell you it was a decent game, and trying to avoid any fight you're trying to start here.

Think of it this way --- I could tell you that the Re-Animator is a great fucking movie regardless if you saw it in a theater, at a drive-in, on VHS, on HBO, on Fox, on DVD, in HD, on an iPod, etc., etc., etc..

There would be differences between all of those (for better or worse), but but there are other criteria for judging that film besides it's transfer, PQ, or whether or not it was in Full Dolby. There's the storytelling, acting, cinematography, pacing, whatever. All of those things are what usually goes into a judging a film.

The same goes with Thief 3. Regardless if it was a console port or not, it was still a pretty good game. I'm talking about the game itself. Not the fucking box it comes in.

[Strazos]

The game was fundamentally different because it had to be playable on a console at launch. Stop avoiding the issue.

[stray]

I'm not avoiding anything. I just don't give a fuck about it. I'm talking about the merits of the game (GAME), and both of you are trying to get me to talk about something else.

I know the PC version was a bad port. I never said it wasn't. In that respect, it was just like DE2.

But unlike DE2, it had merits as a game. While DE2 sucked on both levels.

Learn the difference between saying something is a bad game and something is a bad port/build/etc..


[EDIT] Also, you should ask yourself: WHY would I even care to avoid an issue in the first place? Since when do I avoid issues? Am I supposed to be scared of Sky or something? You've been here too long to throw something like that at me.

[Strazos]

You have to ask yourself; would DX2 have been nearly as bad if the design had not been constrained by having to be instantly-playable on an Xbox?

I don't think DX2 was bad because it was a bad port. I think it was bad because, for one, it was designed as a console game first.

[stray]

I played it on the XBox as well. It ran OK, but I just wasn't digging the game itself.  Maybe it just wasn't a good time for me to play it though.

Thief 3 was basically the Thief formula, but it had some nice level designs to stand on it's own. But maybe I was just in the right frame of mind to appreciate it.

[HaemishM]

You have to ask yourself; would DX2 have been nearly as bad if the design had not been constrained by having to be instantly-playable on an Xbox?

No, it wouldn't have been, had the designer actually had experience with designing for an X-Box. They didn't, and thus the game was what it was. I think that's a HUGE point. Ion Storm did not have experience designing for consoles, but they did for PC's. In theory, it wouldn't have mattered because an X-Box was just a cut-down PC that played on a TV. In practice, it was like any other console in that you have to trick it into doing what you want, and you have to know where those tricks are.

They didn't. So they tried to design a PC game, with PC-level graphics, on a slightly gimped but still useable PC with standardized hardware. Thus, it wasn't just a bad port, it was a bad design all around. Thief 3 was better because at least they'd had the benefit of DX2's development with the platform. I think it wasn't the X-Box that was the problem, but the developers' unfamiliarity with the X-Box and unwillingness to sacrifice some things for development on the console.

[Strazos]

Has anyone actually played DX1 on the Xbox?

[stray]

I played it on the PS2. Still the same good game. I don't think it even made it on the first XBox though.

[EDIT] Basically, my points last week could all be summed up by saying that even if Deus Ex 2 was the most flawless build/port ever, on the most ideal system to run it on, then it still wouldn't have been that great.

OTOH, Thief 3 could have been just as crappy of a port, and I still would have found things to appreciate about it. It lived up to the previous Thief titles more than Deus Ex 2 did with DE1.

[Strazos]

I think what you said proves both our points. You think the game sucked because it was designed like shit, porting aside. I think a big reason the game sucked is that they designed it for a console first, and imposed totally artificial restrictions on the design - as you say, porting from the PC to console didn't cause a problem with the first game.


Lets just agree that DX2 was shitty shitty shit shit shit.