RyanFialcowitz: I've pretty much decided I'm not going to try thievery without a dedicated thief type character. The fact that you rob one chest and have to murder an entire town to proceed is just horribly bad design.
TwoHandedSword: I understand your frustration, but I'm not sure I agree with your conclusion. For one thing, the above indicates that your actions have repercussions, which is usually considered an element of good game design. For another, you don't
have to kill everyone in town; you can simply get past the bridge thieves (by hook or by crook) and then leave the place behind; the main quest never brings you back there.
The only thing you really need to know is where to head next; you could meta your way through that with just about any walkthrough, or you could see whether the junk dealer (or his reanimated corpse) will still cooperate with you, despite your being public enemy number one right now.
Part of the beauty of this game is its flexibility: you could have a pure thief, a mage-thief, a tech thief, a warrior thief, or even a diplomat-thief con artist. Or some combination of the above. Talk about replay value!
Last but not least, while I'm well aware that not everyone is a fan of using the quicksave and/or creating restore points (some even call this "save scumming") with this game it gives you the chance to try out different options, without having to go all the way back to the crash site if things head south.
Good luck.
I'm all for actions having consequences. As you say that is a mark of good game design. But as I said when an entire town goes psycho killer on you because you insulted the sheriff as happened with me- that's bad design. The fact that this same element has carried over from the Fallout series is, in my opinion, one of the endemic problems that ultimately destroyed Troika Games.
As I said had this happened in an Elder Scrolls game I would be given far more options in dealing with the situation. In The Elder Scrolls II - Daggerfall there were actual trials, of a sort. In The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion I could chose to pay a fine, be arrested or resist arrest. The lack of options in this game is simply poor design. If I insult someone and they attack me- fine, but the whole town? Seriously? I would actually be fine with the town trying to kill me if there was an alternative to killing them or bypassing them.
Lastly, I had the same problem with Arcanum Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura that I had with Fallout 2. You kill someone in town and no guards go hostile. You come back later having saved, thinking everything is fine, and everyone is hostile.
I do appreciate your input- you seem to be a good contributer to the forum!
- Ryan Paul Fialcowitz