boots said:
I've never liked this kind of argument.
As an aspiring developer myself, and definitely a involved gamer, I'd like to say I could argue this from both perspectives.
The issue of it is that every detail we've heard of the game - that Garret will do more action moves, that we got rid of the old voice actor because he couldn't do full mocap scenes with other actors, most of the lore has been shuttered for the game, etc, etc - is much as you've said: a lot of stuff fans would be upset about, but we haven't seen any gameplay.
So my question to that is: why not? The entire point of this stage of marketing of the development coming from the devs is to get interest in the game built up due to bringing interesting facets of development or the game into light. But(and as you point out, they had to have known) everything they've said till now has basically been indicating it'd be nothing like a Thief game. This could be assuaged by getting some solid gameplay footage/demos out there, and show 'No, see guys? It's still a Thief game!' and that would very quickly calm the furor.
But they don't.
I'd err on the non-cynical side and think that it's because they don't feel it's ready yet, which is fine, but then why do they keep dropping all these details they almost certainly know will piss off the fans, who this game is almost entirely currently marketed towards(as non-thief fans won't likely care much about the game until more has come out about it).
They're putting themselves into their own little corner of pain because they aren't giving us any reason to NOT be upset with the changes, other than 'it's cool guys, don't be upset, it's still totally a Thief game!'
Also, you missed out the other concern with the article, namely how they're not just dropping old aspects of the prior games we liked, but also dumping huge amounts of money into the project for reasons of debatable merit.
This huge push to have full mocap performances with everyone gets very expensive very fast, and that's not the first thing I've read about them inexplicably dumping cash into for almost no benefit.
I've also read how to make sure the design for Garret's collapsible bow works, they drew the designs up, and sent them to a blacksmith to produce a working copy. Those blacksmiths had to spend hundreds of man hours working out the kinks, but eventually they made it work. Another is much the same situation, they worked with clothing makers to make a realistic take on garret's outfit to ensure it'd be a sensible sneak suit in real life.
So the question is, in paying for hundreds of additional man hours of work(thus inflating the game's development budget, making a success on return harder) how did this improve the game?
The bow never had to work in game, it just had to look plausible, and the same with his clothes. They're not going to sell them as merch, so there's never going to be a return on those investments other than it makes the developers feel neat that it'd work in real life. And they wasted development budget to do it, in a time when development budgets are becoming a huge concern.
His point was, it's been a confirmed problem in the past, and they're now getting to the point where they're so content with tossing this sort of stuff in that it's beginning to override stuff people liked from the old games. Not inherently a problem, but it doesn't exactly ooze confidence in their management skills.
