[quote name='Scrubking']1. Complexity is a good thing because it usually means more gaming options. People tend to incorreclty equate complexity with difficulty - those two things are not the same. Would you rather have a simple options menu with 3 configurable items or a complex options menu with many configurable items? Deus Ex was an intelligent game for intelligent gamers - if someone couldn't handle the easy inventory system then they probably shouldn't have been playing it in the first place. The knife issue was a design flaw that had nothing to do with the inventory system.
2. Console gamers are not idiots. They don't need special ed treatment when making a game for them. So the whole "streamlinging is good" argument is pointless. If ISA wants to make easy dumbed down games fine, but they should not have tried to turn an intelligent series into a dumb one. If you are a console gamer you should be angry at the fact that ISA thinks you are an idiot and can't handle an intelligent complex game. Even worse they didn't even bother to make the pc version of IW pc friendly - that speaks volumes about their quality ethic.
3. There is a difference between wanting gossip and wanting to hear a decent non-spun explanation for what happened with Randy. Randy Smith practically IS Thief, and to fire him only shows how little ISA cares for the games legacy and fanbase. What truly is unprofesional is taking a quality series such as Thief and turning it into baby food in hopes of getting some more money.
ISA's new philosophy has already failed with Invisible War so people can defend it all they want, but it's still a failure. And I am sure it will continue to fail as long as they keep sacrificing quality in hopes of striking it rich.[/quote]
No, complexity isn't a good thing. Simplicity and intuitiveness are what you aim for in design, game or otherwise. Lots of options are fine, but they need to be easily accessable to the user without requiring them to read a hundred page manual to understand them. It holds especially true for an action based games like the DX series.
Most console gamers aren't idiots, I'll agree with that, but the rapidly expanding market is the casual gamer and they're by definition not as obsessive about playing as gamers of the past have been. They're not going to want to dedicate a lot of time to learning all the nuances of the various systems a game can throw at them, they just want to pick up and play with as little hassle as possible. That's not a bad thing. Checkers didn't kill chess, afterall.
Ion Storm isn't explaining and Randy Smith himself isn't saying anything. I think that speaks that either a) their split was amicable and neither wants to speak ill of the other or b) Randy was in the wrong and doesn't want to get himself blacklisted from the industry. If he was totally blameless and it was just Warren Spector going on an insane firing spree wouldn't Randy want to clear the air and say "hey, look here, game industry, I'm a good designer whose ideas have been heralded in the past as being revolutionary. My old boss fired me because he's a nut, so I'm more than happy to spruce up your game stable?"
As to DX:IW being a failure, I'm not sure how you figure that. It gameranks only marginally lower, so critics liked it well enough and it's sales numbers aren't great, I'm sure, but it was released in a real loaded holiday season. There were quite a few good games that got overlooked. BG&E for example. As far as I'm concerned DX2 was a lot more fun to actually play than DX1. Maybe because it took less than half the amount of time to play, I'm not sure. I didn't like the way the story of the second one unfolded as much as the first one, but gameplay wise it was miles ahead.
