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Author Topic: SALES Thread  (Read 1485182 times)

AzyWng

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Re: SALES Thread: GOG, Steam, Humble, your mom has games to buy
« Reply #14685 on: September 30, 2017, 06:11:33 pm »

Technically not a sale, but a freeware, fan-made alternative exists in the form of The Dark Mod, set in a different (but still somewhat similar) universe from that of the Thief series.

The gameplay seems to be true to the Thief format- don't try to fight every enemy, hide in shadow, use trick arrows - haven't played the Thief series so can't say what is or isn't different in the gameplay, though.
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Reelya

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Re: SALES Thread: GOG, Steam, Humble, your mom has games to buy
« Reply #14686 on: October 01, 2017, 12:18:15 am »

Another thing I've been meaning to check out is T2X: Shadows of the Metal Age. Basically a team spent years (2000-2014) reverse engineering Thief 2 and put out their own 13 mission "expansion pack" with a new female protagonist and full cutscenes / storyline.

Retropunch

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Re: SALES Thread: GOG, Steam, Humble, your mom has games to buy
« Reply #14687 on: October 01, 2017, 02:56:10 pm »

Whilst I played all the thief games, I never enjoyed them quite as much as everyone else seemed to. I think I never really enjoyed the fact that whilst you could buy gear and stuff between missions with the extra stuff you collected, I never really felt like I was stealing stuff for a reason. It wasn't like in an RPG where you need better stuff to advance - you could quite easily complete the missions without buying stuff.

I guess this was a time when games still did scoreboards and stuff, so a lot of it was getting a good score, but it never really gelled somehow.
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With enough work and polish, it could have been a forgettable flash game on Kongregate.

Coffeespoons

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Re: SALES Thread: GOG, Steam, Humble, your mom has games to buy
« Reply #14688 on: October 03, 2017, 04:03:06 pm »

New Stardock Humble Bundle looks good value.

https://www.humblebundle.com/stardock-bundle
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Reelya

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Re: SALES Thread: GOG, Steam, Humble, your mom has games to buy
« Reply #14689 on: October 03, 2017, 05:07:07 pm »

Whilst I played all the thief games, I never enjoyed them quite as much as everyone else seemed to. I think I never really enjoyed the fact that whilst you could buy gear and stuff between missions with the extra stuff you collected, I never really felt like I was stealing stuff for a reason. It wasn't like in an RPG where you need better stuff to advance - you could quite easily complete the missions without buying stuff.

I guess this was a time when games still did scoreboards and stuff, so a lot of it was getting a good score, but it never really gelled somehow.

I think it wasn't so much about "score" as collection / completion. The sub-goal of thief was to get 100% loot. But that was completely optional. Your main goal was mission completion. That is the very reason that they only ever did played-straight robbery missions near the start to set the tone.

Retropunch

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Re: SALES Thread: GOG, Steam, Humble, your mom has games to buy
« Reply #14690 on: October 04, 2017, 05:10:19 am »

Whilst I played all the thief games, I never enjoyed them quite as much as everyone else seemed to. I think I never really enjoyed the fact that whilst you could buy gear and stuff between missions with the extra stuff you collected, I never really felt like I was stealing stuff for a reason. It wasn't like in an RPG where you need better stuff to advance - you could quite easily complete the missions without buying stuff.

I guess this was a time when games still did scoreboards and stuff, so a lot of it was getting a good score, but it never really gelled somehow.

I think it wasn't so much about "score" as collection / completion. The sub-goal of thief was to get 100% loot. But that was completely optional. Your main goal was mission completion. That is the very reason that they only ever did played-straight robbery missions near the start to set the tone.

Yeah, that's what I meant by score I guess - it was more sort of getting loot to say you'd 100%'d it rather than it being for some sort of actual advancement. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed it, I just always  wanted it to have more of an RPG aspect I guess so I could get a bit more involved in the world itself, rather than just going mission to mission.
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With enough work and polish, it could have been a forgettable flash game on Kongregate.

Robsoie

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Re: SALES Thread: GOG, Steam, Humble, your mom has games to buy
« Reply #14691 on: October 04, 2017, 07:34:53 am »

Never cared about the stealing aspect of the game, Thief 1 and 2 were all about the stealth for me, making my own challenge when replaying with avoiding being seen or knockout-ing asbolutely everyone, actually the devs wouldn't have added anything to steal and i would have loved the game the same.

One of the big plus of Thief1/2 were the fan missions.
A lot of them were of incredible quality (some even more than the missions that came with the games) and really added to the stealth fun and provided already even more replayability (and there was already lots of it in the default games).
I remember
Rose Cottage , that was putting you in the shoes of some kind of paranormal investigator in a large haunted mansion, it was very atmospheric.
COSAS: Mission X that was basically a medieval version of an Impossible Mission episode of the tv serie, just plain amazing.
The Seven Sisters, that was a set of missions in a supernatural setting with lots of scary situations.
Eclipsed in which you found yourself in a city mysteriously devoid of citizens in which you progressively learned what the hell was going on, it was greatly setup and had you often pausing in the shadows and looking around even when you were sure there was nothing .

And there was so much more, The Black Frog, Ominous Bequest (and its sequel Broken Triad), there was a fan mission for everyone's taste and lots of creativity from the fan missions authors.
« Last Edit: October 04, 2017, 07:37:25 am by Robsoie »
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Reelya

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Re: SALES Thread: GOG, Steam, Humble, your mom has games to buy
« Reply #14692 on: October 04, 2017, 06:41:37 pm »

Yeah, that's what I meant by score I guess - it was more sort of getting loot to say you'd 100%'d it rather than it being for some sort of actual advancement. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed it, I just always  wanted it to have more of an RPG aspect I guess so I could get a bit more involved in the world itself, rather than just going mission to mission.

Would make it an entirely different game. A pure stealing RPG would probably be better as an open-world thing rather than a discrete story/mission-based thing, e.g. if you look at some of the early Thief levels where you have to traverse a city, do it like that except larger, and with a day/night cycle.

The lack of rpg-elements was actually a deliberate thing with Thief, it allowed the game to be entirely focused on the story and game mechanics. The people behind it had in fact made intricate RPGs before. "Less is more" as they say. Everyone has ideas of what they'd like added to a game, however it's generally bad design to just keep adding things because you can, or because they sound cool.

(editing this because it ended up too long and rambly)

e.g. say you add just a "small change" for "realism and tension" which means health/damage carries over from level to level. One problem is that people are now permanently rewarded for save-scumming minor damage instead of soldiering on. And you're also going to want food/health-packs to carry over to the next level so that people aren't penalized if they didn't use it before the final level cutscene. But if food carries over, people will start hoarding food and still save-scum damage any time they can. However, so that non-scummer / non-hoarder people aren't penalized, you're going to want periodic "free health" areas to even the playing field. But "free health" areas also encourage hoarding - you wouldn't waste food if there's a free health area coming up. This all means health-packs are effectively worthless now but people will hoard them anyway, as a player goal, and the regular "free health" areas defeats the entire purpose of carrying over damage anyway. The goals of "tension" and "realism" were in fact harmed, not helped by this set of changes.

Or, say that you introduce "meaningful gear selection for each level" and the goal is "increase player sense of agency". The issue now becomes that "you chose well" is only meaningful if there's a state "you chose badly". People who choose badly will need to restart the mission, causing frustration. To avoid this, you'd want hints about what gear to get without outright telling them what to get. But that's also frustrating, since decoding vague hints is now vital to whether you can complete the level. Hence it'll feel like the game is demanding of the right choice, but refuses to tell you exactly what the right choice is. The game mechanic had the opposite effect of "increase player sense of agency". This is the reason starting gear isn't too important in Thief. The choices are about play-style not about ability to complete the level.

Or, how about "money accumulates for the entire game", with the goal of "player sense of achievement". Sounds like fun. However, how does this affect gear purchases? If "gear choice doesn't matter" then nobody would ever buy optional gear since your final score is being penalized for every purchase, so you have accumulating money, but at the expense of feeling free to try out the optional gear. However, if "gear choice matters" then it's twice as bad. You're final score is determined by buying as little as possible, however the game blocks you from finishing certain levels if you don't buy exactly the right gear. Which just gives you a sense that the game hates you for choosing anything, and that it's fickle: you didn't buy a toothpick and piece of cheese in level #13 - and only buy those items, so as to maximize your final score - which means you need to the restart level and make sure to get these items. Additionally, if there's accumulating money in concrete terms, then you're permanently penalized for missing some bit of loot in any level, which discourages spontaneous play, since you need to scour every level to maximize your bank balance. All of this harms "player sense of achievement" not helps.

See? These things were clearly things that the Thief designs could easily have added in, but they didn't, because of the forseeable problems for game balance and basic fun that they cause. It's certainly not the case that they never thought of this stuff.
« Last Edit: October 04, 2017, 09:08:26 pm by Reelya »
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Reelya

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Re: SALES Thread: GOG, Steam, Humble, your mom has games to buy
« Reply #14693 on: October 13, 2017, 09:57:45 pm »

Hey the news is that IGN bought up the Humble Bundle company. Not known what effect this might have at this stage
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/307546/Humble_Bundle_has_been_acquired_by_media_giant_IGN.php

There's also an RPG bundle on HB right now. The main things are Borderlands 1 and 2, and Wurm Unlimited.
https://www.humblebundle.com/endless-rpg-lands-bundle
« Last Edit: October 13, 2017, 10:01:26 pm by Reelya »
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n9103

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Re: SALES Thread: GOG, Steam, Humble, your mom has games to buy
« Reply #14694 on: October 13, 2017, 11:26:06 pm »

Ehh... Never been a fan of IGN, so probably not a good thing, particularly considering HB's been just fine in my book up to now. Pretty rare that an acquisition ends up taking a completely hands-off approach.
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Reelya

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Re: SALES Thread: GOG, Steam, Humble, your mom has games to buy
« Reply #14695 on: October 14, 2017, 01:22:57 am »

Hey anyone thinking of getting the Humble Bundle Endless RPGs lowest tier ...

I have a spare gift-key for Borderlands 1 now, for the first person who wants it.

marples

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Re: SALES Thread: GOG, Steam, Humble, your mom has games to buy
« Reply #14696 on: October 14, 2017, 07:06:35 am »

I see GalCiv 3 is on the other HB bundle. Seems a bit soon to be sold in a bundle. Is there something wrong with it?
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umiman

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Re: SALES Thread: GOG, Steam, Humble, your mom has games to buy
« Reply #14697 on: October 14, 2017, 07:39:36 am »

I see GalCiv 3 is on the other HB bundle. Seems a bit soon to be sold in a bundle. Is there something wrong with it?
It's been out quite awhile now I think. I've played it. Nothing wrong with it.

It's basically galciv 2. But prettier.

AzyWng

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Re: SALES Thread: GOG, Steam, Humble, your mom has games to buy
« Reply #14698 on: October 14, 2017, 11:08:09 am »

I have a spare gift-key for Borderlands 1 now, for the first person who wants it.

I guess I want it. May as well see the first game, yeah?
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Arx

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