JC's Old Look

[Fulgrymm]

And the note received sound was the backlit panel button sound. The icons were just hilarious.

[AgentSmithereens]

The comments in that video suggest there's a DX beta floating around. Also a while back on PDX someone said they had a copy of the beta. Anyone know anything about this?

[Placebo]

"Initiate ICE BREAKER?" Y/N? =D

[SlySpy]

Heh. I guess DOS becomes more common in 2052.

As for getting the beta, I wouldn't try it. Doesn't seem to be worth all the trouble to dig it out.

[AgentSmithereens]

I disagree; have you seen the screenshots from the beta? Areas like Hell's Kitchen look completely different and the interface is too. I'm just curious as to how it used to look, and how different it is to the real thing.

[SlySpy]

Well, people have different opinions but I guess if someone found it I'd want to try it out a bit.

[Mr_Cyberpunk]

Just a bit of info there, that was the "Beta" version they showed which I recall Warren stated a lot of it got thrown out in the post-mortem. This was prior to JC's Blade Vest and they were going to implement custom JC's (including a female version). The Beta has some really awesome features that just kills me to see them never make it to the end game but when you see how the game ended up you know why they were missing. Why Deus Ex never had some kind of expansion instead of a sequel I shall never know (since really I think most people would have preferred an engine upgrade like what Reborn is trying to do + new features and extended non-linearity over an entirely new game. Possibly some upgraded models and textures too (they were working on these on the PS2 version remember).)

I really like that video.

[chris the cynic]

Deus Ex taught me that I would be interested in expansions that extended non-linearity. I would love being able to play the same game in new and different ways. From staying with UNATCO to joining the other side sooner I'd love to explore all the possible permutations. I'd also love to see the plot that was removed worked back into the game.

Everything I have heard about the video game industry tells me I am part of a very small demographic. Many gamers won't even explore the paths that already exist in a game. They're not likely to pay for a version of what they already have with extended nonlinearity (even if you give them a better engine and new features.) The obvious exception is that if you wait long enough you can sell it as a remake, but 3 years probably isn't long enough.

Of course I've not looked into gamer trends nearly as much as some here, so someone more knowledgeable can say whether or not that was completely wrong.

[Mr_Cyberpunk]

Fortunately for you that I desperately want to fill that Niche (and I suspect Jonas wants to as well).. Hell its a big industry everyone can join.

[Jonas]

That's actually a pretty cool point, and it annoys me a little that I didn't think of it myself: You know how some games use expansions to tell the same story from a different angle? Like how Half-Life 2's expansion sets took place in the same general location in the same timeline, but pitched you as a soldier and a security guard, respectively? Well in a game like DX, as you say, that could've been taken further, and they could've made an expansion pack showing an alternative timeline where JC stays with UNATCO. I don't see why that would be a niche.

They could re-use a bunch of locations and even parts of maps, changing them to give you the impression of visiting new parts of the old areas (there could be entirely different missions in Paris, for example, where you have to locate Everett's mansion and assassinate him). You might even still be offered to turn on Page and Simons in Area 51.

I'm not saying I have a fully formed concept of how that'd be cool, but I'm pretty sure Warren and the team could've pulled it off.

[chris the cynic]

There are three games in my mind that have been built around, or at least inspired by, Deus Ex. One I will not describe because it's strange enough that I think getting it out of my mind and into writing wouldn't work quite right.

The other two are like this:
One I've already mentioned, an expanding game. You start with your game, in this case Deus Ex, and then add more options later making new versions increasingly nonlinear. Stay with UNATCO is the obvious one, but changing the pacing might be able to open up things just as well. There are a lot of closed doors in Deus Ex, if some of those became open doors not only could you have more stuff to do in the existing levels you could also implement the idea that the player took more time than in the original and as a result things are different. The same is true if the player were to join the other side earlier, since you'd take less time.

It might give the opportunity to put some of the originally planned stuff back into the game (the White House and the Moon mission are both still sort of referenced in the game) and create new stuff. For example, if you didn't have to rush to scuttle the virus boat maybe you could have done something about the attempted Coup mentioned when you meet Everett's man in Paris (and maybe there's enough time to find someone else to sink the damn boat, JC shouldn't have to do everything.) If you're significantly behind the original game maybe you missed the boat entirely, there's plague everywhere, and you're left with completely different objectives as a result.

-

The second was inspired by the way the legend menu allows me to play the game entirely out of order. I got to thinking, what if instead of a cheat that was a feature. Time traveling JC.

Obviously it wouldn't really work for Deus Ex because there's no reason for JC to be a time traveler, but the basic thought was that if JC appears out of no-when and no-where at Area 51 the place would not have been nuked, Tong, Everett, Dowd, Alex, and anyone else who contacts JC would never have met him. Things would be completely different. That thought got me to thinking about what it would be like if skipping most of the game took into account the fact that you skipped most of the game. So into my head popped a game where you can go through it in a way that completely defies linear time and causality.

In Deus Ex I'm not sure there would be a lot of point in going through the game nonlinearly. You could see what would happen if you didn't act. You could tell various people that you know who they are really working for (Paul, Filben, Greene, Simons, so on) but I'm not sure how helpful that would be, the most likely outcome would be a denial. But in a game designed with time travel in mind it could be much more useful.

It is clear to me that unless the base game were outrageously simple the resulting game would probably be outrageously complex.

[bjorn98009_91]

That first idea sounds very tempting