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Games Entertainment

Ion Storm To Finish Thief III? 77

Posted by emmett from the give-them-what-they-want dept.
Lumpish Scholar writes: "Slashdot already reported Looking Glass Studios (creators of Thief, Thief II, and other games) declared bankruptcy. The irony was, their publisher, Eidos Interactive, was pumping all their money into Ion Storm's effort to finish Daikatana. Now, according to this story in Salon, Eidos has bought the rights to Thief III (presumably an asset when Looking Glass was dissolved) and has handed the work over to Ion Storm (under the helm of Warren Spector, not Daikatana's John Romero). Small world, innit?" Wow, that's cool. This should happen more often, I think.
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Ion Storm to Finish Thief III? More

Ion Storm to Finish Thief III?

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  • My point is, that there is no solution to this problem in general for web application developers. If you're writing a traditional application where the user is running the executable locally you can always detect document changes, set a dirty flag, and check the dirty flag before exiting. There's just no way to do this in a web browser.

    Perhaps there is no way to do that in Lynx but with javascript events that should be quite easy. There is OnChange event in all form input elements that can be used to set dirty flag and then you can use OnExit (or something - is there OnClose or so?) event where you prompt() user and perhaps submit() the form for him/her if wanted. Of course some people opt to not enable javascript but IMO that's not developers fault. (I haven't checked this though and it may be that javascript cannot force window to stay open - at least if it's not signed.)

    OTOH, how to overcome the problem that textarea must be defined in characters instead of percentage of available space or even pixels I have no idea. I hate when I have to use textarea of 60x10 characters on a 1600x1200 display just because there could be someone with old portable with 640x480 or less that developer has choosed to support. How about if I have huge window my textarea is also huge (say 150x80 characters with font I have selected)?
    _________________________

  • He is most famous for Ultima Underworld and System Shock, both done while he was at Looking Glass (the people behind Theif) and now he's well known for Deus Ex too of course.
  • try Through the Looking Glass [ttlg.com] - a fan site dedicated partially to the Thief series.

    --

  • Did Deus Ex have anything in common with Daikatana? No. So stop worrying! :)

    --

  • I'd gamble on Mozilla's XUL thingamabob. No company tie-in, and you have all the widgets required for a decent app (Mozilla uses them).

    Mozilla's about as fast as Java too.

  • My favorite conspiracy theory goes something like this: Eidos could fund LGS, OR leave them go hanging and snap up the same kickass properties for pennies. Consider that 10+ execs of Eidos went home with several, several hundred Gs this year - which could have kept LGS operating for months, at least.

    A very reasonable sounding conspiracy theory, and not exactly unheard of. Eidos letting LGS go broke seems to have come up trumps for them - they now own the rights to the series.

    Not juest for them: the great void of Ion Story, with whome Eidos seem to have an odd relationship, get propped up with a new title and staff cannibalised from LGS.

    I wonder if any of Eidos' other dev houses are looking at other publishers?


    --
    My name is Sue,
    How do you do?
    Now you gonna die!
  • That's exactly right - Deus Ex (an incredibly well-storied FPS in the vein of System Shock 2 that used the shitty Unreal engine) was the work of Warren Specter and Ion Storm Austin. It was NOT touched by the hideous inbred mosaic of prima donnas that has become Ion Storm Dallas (under the loving guidance of one John Romero).

    Keep in mind Warren Specter a) Started Thief to begin with, b) Does not tolerate interference with his team, c) Put out a kickass title under Ion Storm, d) is rehiring many LGS members for Thief 3. Things are DEFINITELY looking up as long as they remain unshackled by the hideous Epic (excuse the pun) monstrosity that is the Unreal engine.

    My favorite conspiracy theory goes something like this: Eidos could fund LGS, OR leave them go hanging and snap up the same kickass properties for pennies. Consider that 10+ execs of Eidos went home with several, several hundred Gs this year - which could have kept LGS operating for months, at least.

    --Ryv

  • Re:Gah (Score:1)

    by EMN13 ( 11493 )
    I wouldn't right off Daikatana so soon.
    It'll probably flop for the wrong reasons - marketing BULL. It doesn't make much difference that it took 'em years to make, the game did get done. But I won't be buying it.

    However, say they made a sequel the way they finished the first? They might make a technically up to date, good game - but more importantly, the public opinion would be more favourable.

    Personally, I think the Q2 engine is more than good enough to support a good game. It isn't anything special anymore, but it is probably comparable to UT's. Course, in Q2 they just didn't make cool enough textures or use the colored lighting wisely or have a bit of creative change - but Daikatana might have that, and indeed, the storyline sound extremely good - something definitely interesting to me in a single player game.

    So, I would say, don't write it off yet... esp not any sequels.
  • What's wrong with the Unreal engine? Serious question. I have been reading a bunch of UnrealScript docs and I'm tickled that most of UT is written in UScript that I can read and tinker with.
  • Since my Salon article was /.'ed (and thanks for the link, Emmett), I wanted to clarify the above a little. Warren Spector's role at LGS for games like Ultima Underworld, its sequel, and System Shock was actually as producer, not designer-- as I inaccurately stated in the article. The main design work was done by the kids at Looking Glass, with Warren offering some important design/conceptual suggestions, and helping to keep the overall aesthetics focused (and on time, and on budget). He did work on Thief some, but in its very, very early stages (as he told me once, "I don't even put it on my resume.") What's more, for the Ultima games, he was doing it at a remove, since he was still based at Origin, then. None of this is to take away anything from Spector, who I still think is one of the industry's top intellects and best designers. However, the way I stated it in the article (by necessity, hastily written) probably took away from the contributions by the Looking Glass folks, Doug Church and the rest-- who were, in fact, the prime movers for those titles. Warren's also a very modest guy, the first person to credit his collaborators, so I'm sure he'd want them recognized that way, too. He did in fact, however, come up with "the lean", so anytime you get Garrett to peek around a corner-- as opposed to idiotically stumbling out into the open, Carmack style-- whisper a word of thanks to the mad professor of Austin. And thanks that he's the guy in charge of telling us about Garrett's further adventures. -- James
  • Well at least they didn't hand it off to Jon Romer-blo. After the umm... well published disaster that was Daikatans, the Looking Glass fans wouldn't stand for him working on something so near and dear to them. Obviously Specter knows what he's doing because Deus Ex owns but Ion had better tread softly with the Thief property or the fan backlash will be legion! Just my $0.02
  • Oh, because you just use computers to work, so it's not necessary to report about games in slashdot? That's logical. And does it mean that if one plays games, he doesn't do anything else with his computer? Please.
  • Just a data point, but Warren Spector was the producer at Looking Glass responsible for System Shock and Thief I, along with many other spectacular games. He's one of the best respected designers in the industry.

    Although the Deus Ex demo left me kinda cold...I was pretty disappointed.
  • Hold on...now that Ion Storm has shipped Daikatana and Dominion, they're going to start making GOOD games? Promise? John will make me his bitch for real this time? Can't wait.

    I need to finish the Deus Ex demo, but so far it hasn't really impressed me much. Part Half Life, part System Shock II, vaguely interesting game world, no reason to play it over several other games who have done the "thinking man's POV shooter" much better.
  • Thief==The Dark Project==Warren Spector's last baby when he was at Looking Glass. Oh, the circularity...
  • I was under the impression that Daikatana was a miserable failure...
    So, in this world, some talented guys, who were writing the good game, went bankrupt 'cuz the publisher was throwing all their money at some schmucks who ended up writing a flop. The publisher, as part of the bankruptcy setlement gets the rights to the game the talented crew was working on, and sends the project to the schmucks for completion.

    Eidos wouldn't happen to be a subsidiary of Microsoft, would they?
  • 1) Here's what you can do: Hit Reply. Open notepad. Scribble down what you like. Copy'n Paste what you've written in notepad into your browser. Hit submit or preview. Save your notepad text-file for archival purposes if you like.

    2) The HTML-standard was never designed from ground-up to deliver applications, and whoever think it's suitable for such tasks is plainly wrong. It's good enough for simple forms though. The future of "thin clients" is probably Java w/Swing, but we're probably going to face the same ridiculous lock-in with Sun as we have had with Microsoft.

    - Steeltoe
  • And it's on Old Man Murray. Seriously.

    OMM [oldmanmurray.com]

    Scroll down the page till you get to the bit titled "Who really killed Looking Glass Studios."

    It discusses the circumstances that led to Eidos losing lotsa cashola, and the truth is, the 30 Million they dumped into Ion Storm was chump change.

    Whoever wrote "The irony was, their publisher, Eidos Interactive, was pumping all their money into Ion Storm's effort to finish Daikatana." should really have done a bit more research.

  • Except that Ion Storm Austin isn't a bunch of schmucks like Ion Storm Dallas. They appear to operate pretty independently. The Austin group made Deus Ex (pronounced Day-us X btw), which was a totally kick ass game. In fact it was the best game I've played in a long time, and I play a lot of games.
    I think that Warren Spector (the guy in charge of Ion Storm Austin) is just leaching off of Romero & co for money. He has a long history of making good games and he had a part in making Thief 2, so he really is the perfect guy for the job.
  • have u played Deus X ? Was wondering about that game ? someone give me a review so I can decide if I should spend my hard earned $$$'s :)

    Deus Ex review index [gamers.com]

    Summary? About half the reviews contain the words "game of the year" somewhere in their text...
  • Eidos had all but promised LG that they would be bought out. When the moment came, Eidos didn't have the money (or so they claimed.) Sinking $20 mil into Daikatana might be one reason that they didn't have the money.

    At least one ex-LGS'er has drawn that conclusion. In addition, some of them are rather pissed that they were forced to ship Thief II on a hard-and-fast deadline, knowing that there were bugs (thus the large patch right off), when Romero was given all the time in the world for Daikatana.

  • The limitation lies not in the architecture of the browser-server architecture. The limitations are in the browser. There is nothing in HTML which precludes the ability to maintain state. Unfotunately, there's little to support it, either. But what we do have is the luscious and potent DHTML creeping forward. The fabulous cocktail of javascript, CSS, the DOM, and data modeling via XML will truly allow web apps to catch up to, and pass, alternative modes of deployment.

    As the DOM rolls on, a common browser event model is being birthed. As events get common support, more events emerge. Javascript, when supported well, is object oriented with dynamic binding. You can create whatever magic state-saver object you want, dynamically, to the extent and capacity required by your particular app and provided by your particular browser (OS be damned).

    So, then, original commentor, you either need more clues, or more friends, because your observation is extremely shortsighted (and possible corrupted by the notion that scripting is bad and linux browsers are passable when it comes to reflecting the true intentions and expectations of the web.)

    Word.
  • My point is, that there is no solution to this problem in general for web application developers. If you're writing a traditional application where the user is running the executable locally you can always detect document changes, set a dirty flag, and check the dirty flag before exiting. There's just no way to do this in a web browser.

    What would totally alleviate the situation is the ability to make HTTP connections from Javascript. Right now you can fake it with a Java applet (not the best solution, IMO), but for example, with this sort of micro-request you can set Javascript to save all the entered forms to a "dirty" buffer periodically... then restore the user's temporary state when they return or prompt them to save it if it's been changed.
    --
  • Wow, that's cool. This should happen more often, I think.

    Yes. I love it also when substantial design studios close up shop and their titles are signed over to people who have visions of the titles. That should happen all the time. I mean, just think how great The Sims would have been if Maxis went bankrupt and the title was bought out by id!!

  • Damned slashdot dropped my ID again. I _hate_ anonymous posting...

  • Warren Spector (Score:3)

    by Joe Rumsey ( 2194 ) on Saturday August 12, 2000 @08:14AM (#861048)
    For anyone who didn't read the article, Warren Spector was one of the original Looking Glass designers, and was even involved with the first Thief early on. He's produced many fine games, and I believe he'll do a good job on Thief 3. I don't think it'll be exactly the Thief 3 we would have gotten from Looking Glass, but I do believe we'll get a game worthy of the name Thief. The rest of the LG team(s) have spread to the wind, but some of them are still together. They won't be doing Thief, but I bet we'll see something great from them too, somewhere down the road.
  • I'm almost wondering if some bug in slash isn't adding to moderator totals when something get's off-topiced. It's getting to the point where >50% of the mods (+ and _) are "off-topic" I've seen comments at score 5 with two off-topics on them. I've seen comments banged twice with off-topic, from to -1 (I can see this, maybe, for a horrendous anti-semitic rant or something, but for something that's responding to a halfway offtopic comment???)
  • I've seen that done with IE and hidden IFrames (the page in the iframe is the dirty buffer).

    Pretty nasty and not portable, but it works. Except for the fact that users have been conditioned by the whole form submit thing and expect to see a Save or Submit button on the page.
  • Moderation Totals:Flamebait=1, Redundant=1, Funny=3, Overrated=1, Total=6.

    Good God, let's cut down on the moderators. There's too many of them when they fight back and forth with the scores of posts. This seems to be happening a _lot_ in the last couple days. (and how is post #1 possibly redundant? Moderators need to pass a skill-testing question I think.)
  • Mozilla's about as fast as Java

    Isn't that kinda like those annoying news announcers saying "so and so is 90 years young today!

  • Re:This should happen more often???? (Score:4)

    by JasonChu ( 207887 ) on Saturday August 12, 2000 @08:39AM (#861053)

    The irony was,
    their publisher, Eidos Interactive, was pumping all their money into Ion Storm's effort to finish Daikatana. Now, according to this story in Salon, Eidos has bought the rights to Thief III . . . and has handed the work over to Ion Storm
    (from submitter, em added)

    I don't think the problem is that Ion Storm is making the sequel, but that Eidos turned their back on Looking Glass when they needed help, only to buy the rights at a yardsale.

    I don't think Ion Storm did anything wrong in this situation, Eidos did. That's what I'm upset about, and what I think the original commenter is upset about. Ion Storm was duing what it was supposed (well, maybe not Romero's team), Eidos cheated looking glass.

    Perhaps Eidos thought that it was doing its job in throwing its weight behind the much-hyped game, much as record labels throw their support behind the hottest artists. Perhpas it didn't think LG's titles would sell? Well, they bought the rights to it (and we saw what happened to Daikatana). . .

  • >I don't think the problem is that Ion Storm is making the sequel, but that Eidos turned their back on Looking Glass when they needed help, only to buy the rights at a yardsale.

    Well ... according to what I know Eidos couldn't finish the deal because they got into financial problems themselves. Lara X (at which number are we?) is not selling as well as the predecessors and some strange game developed by Ion Storm keeps sucking up money like a black hole.

    >I don't think Ion Storm did anything wrong in this situation, Eidos did. That's what I'm upset about, and what I think the original commenter is upset about. Ion Storm was duing what it was supposed (well, maybe not Romero's team), Eidos cheated looking glass.

    Well, if what I said before then Ion Storm partly is the cause of why Eidos couldn't buy LG. Daikatana just wasted so much money that Eidos didn't have the resources to help LG.

    Of course, it's sad to see Looking Glass go, especially as I'm a fan of the System Shock series, the future of which is now hanging in the dark even more than that of the Thief series. The rights for Thief belonged to LG and could be bought but the rights for Shock are held by EA. (You know the giant publisher that ruins just about every game company they hold by making them publish one dumb sequel after the other. An example of this is Origin Inc which used to produce some of the greatest games ever and now starts to slowly vanish)

    Anyway, I guess there's not much we can do except for buying the games we like and thus supporting the company who developed it. (Yes, I actually bought both System Shocks ;)

    Greetings
  • THIEF is one of those games that's ALMOST great, but is ultimately a total bore due to bugs, an annoying interface and a way-less-than-anywhere-near-state-of-the-art-3d-en gine.

    Why everyone waxes on about what a great game it is/was, and how tragic it is the Looking Glass is no longer at the helm is utterly beyond me. It's a cool idea better left executed by folks who can really specialize and perform in 3D immersive game-design.

    I hate to sound mean-spirited about this stuff, I found the System Shock demo almost unplayable as well. (I paid good money for the full Thief II, so I earned the rights to a little bitchin' there!)

    Bottom Line: Looking Glass did NOT crumble due to any sort of corporate piracy. They crumbled because their games could not compete on any level with their contemporaies or even their predecessors. Next to a Quake, Quake II or a Half-Life, Thief and System Shock look like poorly sketched demos.

    It could be argued that Looking Glass games had better 'story', but what good is that if the interface gets in the way?

    Hopefully, the Looking Glass folks will get jobs as game designers, where they show obvious strength, and leave the actual coding to the pros.

  • Anytime a company that generates quality software closes shop only to have their former products bought out by another firm with a less-than quality reputation it is newsworthy. First, it notifies those who buy the firm's software that they need to look past the name to see who's producing. I USED to think Visio was a solid product... Second, had anyone pointed out along the way each time a good firm was assimilated by MS we might not be armpit deep in Wintel now. Keeping the public informed to the doings of big business is important. Third, for those of us who have enjoyed the lglass games it gives us a moment to mourn their passing. The only reason I bought Thief in the first place was I knew lglass from System Shock. I am sorry to see a quality design firm get screwed by a company like Eidos who cares more about dollars than quality. Yes, it is easy to pass this off as "Who cares? It's just a game company." I'm sure people said the same kind of thing when Hudson got crushed by the Big 3 automakers. But doesn't it worry you that it's more common for big money to win than substance? Think about that when you hit the polls in November.
  • Slashdot already reported...

    Yep, they did. About 0 minutes ago.

  • Twice? (Score:1)

    by MS ( 18681 )
    This news twice?!?

    Are games so importnat "news" for us "nerds".
    I think I'm the only one not playing games, but actually using computers for work...

    :-)
    ms

  • Way to go Emmett! =)

  • Technical Correction (Score:3)

    by Shoeboy ( 16224 ) on Friday August 11, 2000 @11:57PM (#861060) Homepage
    I believe the legally correct phrase is "John Romero's Daikatana's John Romero" and not simply "Daikatana's John Romero"
    On August 12th, Shoeboy will make /. authors suck it down...sorry.
    --Shoeboy
    (posting anonymously to preserve my precious karma)
  • Having an otherwise (at least superficially) sucessful game company bite it suddenly takes me back to the day in the mid '80's. In that case, while the 'tech' partner was banging code with the crew, the 'biz' partner was banging the Social Security Administration and pocketing the FICA witholding. It doesn't take an MBA to guess which one was left holding the bag.
  • I know its extremely off topic, but why are two copies of this story appearing for me every time I log in?

    Now, for the on-topic: there had better be a Thief III, and it had better NOT have anything remotely in common with that black void of crap called Diakatana!!!

    I'm sorry to see looking glass go. . .didn't they also do Flight Unlimited? Pretty impressive engine when it first came out!

    http://students.washington.edu/steve0/ [washington.edu]
  • One of the commandments of the Web has been violated:

    Thou shalt not double-click on submit buttons.

    Although in the new testament thy server-side code can trap and resolve this quite easily.

  • Not only that... (Score:3)

    by FeralChicken ( 105499 ) on Saturday August 12, 2000 @12:01AM (#861064)
    According to this article [zdnet.com] they also seem to be trying to hire several of the designers who worked on the first 2 installments at Looking Glass. This is very good news :)

    P

  • (Score:1)

    by Fredbo ( 118960 )
    Score: -1 Redundant
  • Being a newbie to computers in gerneral and not an avid gamer im at a loss. What type of game is it? Can i see screen shots or what is the web site? If someone can help please reply to this message it will be greatly appreciated.

  • /. and Eidos Conspiracy (Score:3)

    by krystal_blade ( 188089 ) on Saturday August 12, 2000 @02:19AM (#861067)
    In a Congressional hearing today, Hemos, along with Cowboy Neil, and several representatives from Eidos explained exactly why the news site slashdot.org needed to be taken offline.

    Hemos, when questioned by Congressman Nitwiddle, explained that through a previous deal, the editors of Slashdot agreed to double post any story by Eidos Interactive, particularly when containing ANY information about "Ion Storm".

    Cowboy Neil went on to state that the deal was that Slashdot was to be given 1 case of lager beer every time this happened, and that by double posting, the editors not only hoped to split up negative comments on flops such as "Daikatana", but also manage to fulfill their lifelong dream of sitting in a jacuzzi filled with ale.

    Eidos took the stand next, explaining that "no such deal existed in written, or oral form" and that by double posting stories of Eidos and Ion Storm, the potential for negative comments increased two fold.

    Ken Williamson, a lawyer for the slashdot team, claimed that it simply was not a possibility, as there aren't that many "nerds" who honestly care about how badly Eidos is going to screw up an otherwise great game. He also went on to state that Eidos was in violation of the First Amendment.

    Eidos countered, by stating that the First Amendment didn't count in areas that were specifically "free speech", and referred to the Supreme Court ruling of Metallica vs. the Offspring; a ruling that mandated that by selling T-Shirts that violated Metallica's money making endeavors, the Offspring gave up their First Amendment Rights, and should look towards their Fourth Amendment rights to rectify the situation. Judge Morely stated simply, "Just shoot em, it'll cost less."

    Cowboy Neil and Hemos counterpointed that the negative comments were intermingled with good ones, and that if they were going to be sued for the negative ones, then they should be paid for the good ones.

    Eidos stated firmly that it had not, nor would it ever deal with traitorous bastards who took their beer and drank it, too.

    krystal_blade

  • Excuse me.. If you knew a little more about the situation you would understand that Ion Storm is not just "John Romero" but a few development teams under one roof.

    Secondly, the team that did DEUS EX is going to handle THIEF 3, and not John Romero, or his "teams".

    Deus Ex is a well regarded game, which was released shortly after Diakatana.
  • You're confusing bad design on the part of the web app's authors with the web as a whole being a bad platform. All the things you bring up can be solved by the people developing said application. I'm not saying that browsers are the perfect development platform. Your arguments against the so-called web platform just aren't dealing with the actual subject. Just like my badly formed paragraphs aren't an example of why paragraphs are a bad method of communicating ideas in a textual form.

    Except for that wierd thing where you don't know what the heck you're clicking on. You sure you need to be using a mouse?
  • They probably did not implement the 60 second wait in the admin's part of the code (although that may be shortly rectified), so the wait only applies to us readers' posts. And if you were honestly making a code inquiry regarding Slash rather than just taking a lame shot at Slashdot, you should check out Slashcode [slashcode.com] for information and discussion regarding Slash.

    Deo

  • Are you crazy? (Score:4)

    by Rurik ( 113882 ) on Saturday August 12, 2000 @02:47AM (#861071)
    Wow, that's cool. This should happen more often, I think.

    Looking Glass Studios was tricked, raped, pillaged, and salvaged by Eidos. Eidos made an initial proposal to fund LGS through it's projects, but there were a few projects it was not interested in. So instead of 'wasting' their money on side projects, when all they wanted was the money-maker Thief, they devised a plan.

    LGS knew they needed to be bought out, and went off and started hitting up all the major publishers who would be interested. They hit up Eidos, and Eidos made them a deal, and in such a way that LGS gave up on searching for more money, confident that Eidos would pull through for them. At that point, Eidos just sat back and waited, not sending any checks. Shortly after, LGS went bankrupt, that much we know, because of Eidos not funding them as they should.

    Now what do you see happening? Looking Glass Studios was auctioned off by it's creditors to pay the bills. The vulture Eidos then came in and bought up projects that they wanted, at cut-rate prices. Much less than they would have paid in the first place.

    This is a highly unethical, unsuitable business practice, but it occurs many times, and makes me sick to my teeth.

    Yes, I'm happy that Thief 3 is being finished. But, I didn't want to lose my favorite company in the process, because Eidos was money-hungry.
  • I was thinking about that. What seems to be the truly evil aspect of all of this is that Eidos essentially allowed Looking Glass' creditors to eat them alive, them got to buy large chunks or their intellectual property at firesale prices. That's not something I'd personally like to see happen more often.

  • Before everyone makes Daikatana comments... (Score:3)

    by sprayNwipe ( 95435 ) on Saturday August 12, 2000 @02:53AM (#861073) Homepage
    Before everyone who doesn't bother reading the article (like a few people who have already posted ;p) makes the "oh no, Daikatana's creators are in charge of Thief" comments, note that Ion Storm Austin has the Thief licence. Austin is responsible for such quality games like Deus Ex and..um...well now Thief. Ion Storm Dallas(or some other place in Texas - I'm tired ;p) is the team responsible for John Romero's Daikatana (now in bargain bins across the world ;p).

  • This is a critical point; can someone moderate it up (even more)?

  • Re:Reality check (Score:3)

    by Phroggy ( 441 ) <slashdot3NO@SPAMphroggy.com> on Saturday August 12, 2000 @09:39AM (#861075) Homepage
    I mean, just think how great The Sims would have been if Maxis went bankrupt and the title was bought out by id!!

    Come to think of it, that might have been kinda interesting...

    Reminds me of a blurb my friend submitted to PC Magazine many years ago that they printed on their back page: "Did you hear that id Software and Brøderbund are merging? They're working on a new game called 'Where In Hell is Carmen Sandiego?'."

    --

  • the answer is to not purchase thief3 and thereby punish eidos for its business tactics.

    eudas
  • i thought of that game years ago. :P

    eudas
  • Why on earth would I want a sequel to a bad game with a pretty lame engine? All the "improvements" to the Q2 engine were for naught, with things like the sidekicks absolutely not functioning anywhere near the way they should've. As for the storyline, eh, it was okay. Travel through time, find a sword, etc. I'm not necessarily going to write off John Romero in the future (I think he probably realized the BALANCE between technology and design with the whole Daikatana fiasco) but Ion would do best to just forget about Daikatana entirely, aside from patching it to getting it into a somewhat workable state for all the people who got stuck buying it. Otherwise, give me a new title...
  • After seeing the dismal reviews of Daikatana, I had all but lost faith in the overhyped company known as Ion Storm, but Deus Ex changed my view. Warren Spector, the maker of the two System Shock games, has made an awesome example of what could be done with the Unreal Engine.

    Now, hopefully, he will lend his "slide and stealth" expertise to Thief. This should be awesome.

  • ...is a tennis shoe with a CCD mounted in the toe.

    Sorry. :)


  • I should have said that my friend asserted this years ago, quite possibly before Javascript was invented, certainly before it was widely available in most browsers or you could count on any consistency in Javascript implementation.

    BTW - I have left Javascript turned off in my browser for most of a year now, ever since the CERT Coordination Center [cert.org] recommended everyone do so because some online discussion sites allow HTML posts but don't filter <SCRIPT> tags out of their users' posts so someone who knows how to crack javascript can eat your machine with a forum post (Slashdot filters out script tags), and I leave Java off ever since that web server thingy appeared a couple days ago - and I urgently emailed everyone I knew and told them to turn off Java too.

    Yes, solutions are on the horizon but they're not here yet. Yes, there are workarounds like typing posts into a notepad and copying them in from the clipboard - so my problem can be taken care of, but not the novice users.

    So I'll take my applications as locally executing programs, thank you, and I'll be happy when a solution does appear which survives extensive security auditing

    My friend's opinion wasn't about doing stuff with Java or Javascript at his company - they specifically didn't use it because they said they couldn't count on it being implemented in the browser - but with plain old HTML, generated by perl scripts on the server backed by a Sybase database, and forms.

    He thought this was the best thing since sliced bread, and as a long-time Mac GUI programmer, I thought he was completely clueless.

  • Comment removed (Score:4)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday August 12, 2000 @12:49AM (#861082)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Emmett proberbly his the submit button twice.

    What I am curious about is how they are going to fix this without loosing comments.

  • Should both discussions be merged or not?
  • How about working off emmett's comment?

    This should happen more often, I think

    But not twice within one minute, emmett.
  • shouldn't be neccessary. Most people will read/post to the copy with more comments, and the other will die off quickly.

  • Much too late as comments have already been "loosed".
  • No... no...
    you got it wrong...

    the first story was the "news for nerds"...
    this is the "stuff that matters"
  • If you see how slashdot works[source code] [slashdot.org], you'll realize that it's not possible to post any 2 things before a minute has elapsed between them. That is, if you post something. and then another thing in 2.003 seconds after that, It wont be accepted. So how did this happen? how did the author post 2 messages so fast? Either Rob wrote this part of slash (that's what the code is called) in his sleep, or we're missing something.
    Mr. CmDrTaco, Please reply. If there's any error in the code, please tell me, coz I'm developing a site using the code.
  • I've been playing Deus Ex (surely it should be Deus Ex Machina?) recently, and it really is a superb game. One of the best games ever. So... who is Spector? How did I not hear about him all these years? What else did he do?

  • Usually they just kill one. You can still read the comments (http://slashdot.org /article.pl?sid=00/08/12/0451257&mode=nested [slashdot.org]) it's just not on the splash page.
  • slow news day? 8-)
  • Heres a pop quiz for you guys...

    Hmmm.. Eidos is going to make "Thief III, and hand it off to Ion Storm.."

    Lets see... Mentioned Eidos 6 times in post.

    Ion Storm? Mentioned them 3 times.

    So, exactly how off topic is it? Well, you're average "Prist Fost" article mentions Eidos and Ion Storm exactly "0" times.

    You're usual 2 paragraph blurb (that gets an "Interesting" comment, and is, of course, about as interesting as watching two moderators shave each others backs.) Mentions Eidos Twice, and Ion Storm once.

    Where did the latest string of Moderators come from? Ex-Nazi war criminals?

    Freedom of Expression comes in Many forms, so I'd like to take this opportunity to Express myself, in my own way, over the current state of moderation.

    KISS MY ASS, YOU SUCK. How low can it go? -3? Come on... you can do better than that...

  • Ion Storm To Finish Thief III? (Score 0, Redundant)
    by emmett [mentaltempt.org] (emmett@slashdot.org) on Saturday August 12, @03:51AM EST (#9 [slashdot.org])

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • This is great news. Its all well and good to make fun of Ion Storm because of John Romero and the Daikatana fiasco, but at least he did manage to have brains enough to hire Spector, one of the true greats of PC game design.

    When considering how Thief III might turn out, think about Deus Ex (Spector's game for Ion Storm), not Daikatana.

  • Gah (Score:2)

    by skeller ( 145333 )
    Okay, for the last time: EIDOS HAS LOTS OF MONEY. As absolutely weird as it seems (given their wonderful track record of producing utter crap), Looking Glass didn't go out of business because of Ion Storm or Daikatana.

    Anyway, now that Daikatana is done with (let's hope we never hear rumors of a sequel), Ion Storm seems to be actually delivering what it promised originally. Deus Ex is one hell of a game, and Anachronox looks pretty decent too. Personally, I'm pretty stoked to be seeing Spector doing Thief III -- after playing Deus Ex, I'm convinced he's the right guy to do the job. IMO, DX was essentially everything the Thief series should have been all along (i.e. multiple solutions to problems, emphasis on stealth but not total reliance, no wandering around searching for keys, etc)...

  • I did not mean to imply that LGlass was producing crap -- rather Eidos does it. My mistake, it's 3 in the morning... :P
  • No, he meant it should be posted more often. :)

    -David T. C.

  • Don't blame Ion Storm (Score:4)

    by Zan Thrax ( 53693 ) on Saturday August 12, 2000 @01:14AM (#861099) Homepage
    As much as we all want to believe that Eidos sinking money into Ion instead of LGlass caused the latter's death, it simply isn't so.
    Salon [salon.com] has an earlier article where Geoff Keighley points out the basic truth: "Looking Glass folded because it wasn't making money".
    We all want brilliant games like Tthief and System Shock to make millions, but they don't. Games like Soldier of Fortune and Who Wants to be a Millionare do.

    While Eidos didn't help Looking Glass as much as they probably could have, it didn't make economic sense for them to keep a studio whose games were low to negative profit ventures. (I'm not saying sinking $30 million into Daikatana was, but Eidos bad decisions are the reason they themselves are in financial difficulty now.)

    Basically, it comes down to this: We can't blame Ion Storm for Looking Glass' demise. (although they may contribute to the possible death of Eidos) We can only blame a market where Barbie Fashion Designer and Bland Genre Clone® are the only things to make large profits.

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