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> Warren Spector on ninjas, Will he lead us to a bright new future?
Wounded Ronin
post Sep 25 2007, 05:04 AM
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I was reading Warren Spector's blog and I was astounded to find that he was talking about ninjas.

QUOTE

Deus Ex was completely a response to Thief. I remember sitting in meeting after meeting with the team, arguing that it was a bad idea to de-power players to force them to sneak and avoid combat. “What if I’m not good enough to sneak past a guard? Or I just want to bash a guy over the head once in a while?� I lost all those battles (and, the way Thief turned out, I was clearly in the wrong — the game rocked). However, those lost battles led me to a place where all I could think was, “I’ll show those guys. I’ll make a game where you can sneak, fight or talk your way past any problem.� The next four years were just details — the game was born out of intense frustration with Thief.

More recently, working with John Woo on the Ninja Gold movie concept, I was driven by frustration one two levels: First, the Hollywood/Game collaboration just never seemed to work right and, second, ninjas are always treated so stupidly, in such a juvenile manner. I saw an opportunity to address both of those problems. (That’s really about all I can say about this, other than to warn people not to draw too many conclusions about JPS’s activities from the published reports.)

This bringings us back to the here and now. If you recall , this all started with Paper Mario on the Wii (again, a fun enough game I’m not dissing!…) Paper Mario fed right into my perpetual frustration with games that lead players around by the nose, offering false choices, when they offer choices at all, offering players the opportunity to solve puzzles (exactly the same way every other player solves exactly the same puzzles). In other words, it’s a game that allows players to pass some time but not much more. And that drives me nuts. In fact, much as I love Mario and Zelda and platform action/adventure games and all, there’s not much that frustrates me more these days. So, of course, I’ve been playing them obsessively and (surprise!) we’re working on a concept at JPS that will help address my frustration — a concept driven, as always, by a weird combination of love and frustration for specific games.

I’m hugely motivated these days by my love of and frustration with Zelda, Mario and other games of that ilk. Clearly, part of the appeal of these games is the chance to immerse oneself in familiar worlds and familiar gameplay. And there’s something soothing about knowing there’s One Right Way to do things. But as appealing as that idea is, there’s danger in too much reverence for the past, and these games seem so mired in their history, so married to convention they kind of make me mad. Prettier pictures won’t maintain sales forever. Someone has to offer a different take on action/adventure gameplay — why not us here at JPS? The frustration is definitely building! And that means there’s a game coming… Man, I can’t wait to talk more about this, but I better stop before I get myself in trouble.



http://junctionpoint.wordpress.com/

Bolds mine, of course.

The point is that Warren Spector claims he's all disgusted with the "juvenile" way that ninjas are handled, and that he's all about getting outraged and then making games as a reaction to his outrage, i.e. Deus Ex as a reaction to Theif.

So hold on to your crusty stained briefs because maybe Warren Spector is going to turn out a game with REVISIONIST NINJAS!! I think that we are finally approaching a utopian end to history...

Incidentally, I never really felt like I was forced to sneak around in Theif 2. (I didn't play Theif.) I tended to refer to Theif 2 as "Commando" as a private joke because instead of sneaking past everybody I just sniped them out with broadhead arrows, since a single hit on an unaware person kills them. It was more like a commando sniping out sentries with a suprpessed carbine than a theif who had to sneak around and hide all the time. I used to systematically clean out all the guards and then sprint around the level once they were all dead accomplishing the mission objectives.

In fact, even when general alarms went up and big packs of guards started chasing me I still met them head on. You just had to sprint away from the guards and turn tightly around corners to put distance between yourself and them and then turn around and pelt them with broadhead arrows. Just rince and repeat till you've Ramboed them all to death with a barrage of arrows. In other words the whole entire key to massacring all the guards in Theif 2 was simply just not to use your sword.
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nezumi
post Sep 25 2007, 12:28 PM
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Thief. Please? Thief?

So what are revisionist ninjas exactly? Do they flip out and... talk their way past problems?
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Wounded Ronin
post Sep 25 2007, 09:53 PM
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QUOTE (nezumi)
Thief. Please? Thief?

So what are revisionist ninjas exactly? Do they flip out and... talk their way past problems?

They probably do both. They can flip out and then use matrix powers, OR they can talk their way past problems using updated asian pseudo-philosophy which is still trite but which doesn't sound trite yet to the public. Basically they can multiclass being a level x Sonny Chiba and a level y David Carradine.

That's what I'm guessing.
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Crusher Bob
post Sep 26 2007, 09:08 AM
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I got your Ninjas + Thief right here:

Female 'Ninjas' Rob Richland Gas Station With Sword, Dagger
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Naysayer
post Sep 26 2007, 01:32 PM
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Aww, but they didn't even really flip out, let alone kill anyone.
Then again, there's no sound on these CCTVs, so who knows, maybe they stunned bystanders by quoting mysterious asian zen-wisdom...
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