thiefinthedark on 16/11/2008 at 08:57

---

Gentlemen, (and ladies, of course), I will be blunt and to the point. Forgive the slight variation from the topic at hand at first, because this needs some serious explanation.

The games industry as the vast majority of us wish it to be, is dead. Dead, as in gone. Vanished. Vaporized by corporate greed.

The era of imagination, of creativity, of Experimentation and pushing the limits that we remember from the late Nineties and early Millennium is gone.

In its place, we have an industry like any other commercial industry on the face of this wretched earth. An industry out for money and nothing more. I direct you to this quote from the CEO of Activision and I assure as a member of this industry that it is the rule for 90% of the industry:

"With respect to the franchises that don't have the potential to be exploited every year across every platform, with clear sequel potential that can meet our objectives of, over time, becoming $100 million-plus franchises, that's a strategy that has worked very well for us." -Talking about the axing of multiple titles at various stages of completion that did not fit established genre trends.

You read that right, exploited. It goes deeper than that, though. Games are no longer published for the thinking man. Games are no longer made to the levels of complexity that we broke our teeth on. No, games are made to pander to the lowest possible denominator the most unthinking wretches in order to sell the largest number of units.

Not only that, but this is an industry that requires the constant generation of new ideas, new creations, in order to survive and evolve, and yet the money that drives the industry time and again does its best to kill that creativity. Ponder that. A creative industry that actively tries to stifle imagination.

Now, how does this apply to the topic of Deus Ex 3?

Simply: Do not expect it to meet Deus Ex. Do not expect it to come close. Do not expect it to even come close to the tripe that was Invisible War. The games industry is currently locked in a slump of the publishers and producers pushing out generic works that fit what they view as the established "safe zones" for games. Deus Ex and its relatives were created during the closing days of the games industries golden age, and until we kick the "producers" and "managers" out of the development houses, we aren't going to see their like coming out again any time soon, except for the rare gem of a game (Nothing is absolute).

To point out a few things (original points in italics):

"The game is FIRST person, but automatically switches to third person for some contextual actions."
This breaks immersion and a developer is not going to be flipping back and forth flippantly. Unless the game is less first-person than they are letting on, this is going to break it. Alot.

"You, as the player, do not have the ability to swap between views...it's a first person game but there are times where we want you to see Adam doing cool things."
Presumably this is relative to those "cinematic moments" we heard about. Translation: The developers/producers have a "director" complex.

"Deus Ex 3 will use auto-health regeneration. This is a departure from the original but the industry as a whole has grown up and changed quite a bit in the last eight years and the designers didn't want people exploring levels just for health packs or having to reload to an old save game because they messed up a scenario and couldn't advance. I know some people actually liked the exact scenario I just described but this is a decision the team made.
Yep there is health regenerating, and we know some people will not like this. But like another poster mentioned, we accept that and move on. Hopefully you will come to accept it and like other aspects of the game. I could try and explain things further but I would guess that it would do no good."

Hoo boy. Translation: We are dumbing down the game mechanics to make it easier for the casuals, there by ensuring a wider sale base and more money at the expense of gameplay. I am trying to trick you, the old players, into thinking this is a good thing so that you buy the game and stop calling out our mistakes in public. I'm not going to bother trying to explain this, because its really hard to try and polish crap and not look stupid. Put up or shut up.

"So it's just an option if you want to play that way. If you like the good 'ol DX1 style, you don't have to engage the cover system if you don't want to, so you'll see even less of the contextual 3rd person elements. You can just as easily walk up to that same wall in 1st person and never see the 3rd person cover. It's just an option if you want to see the way Adam looks with augmentations you've chosen throughout the game."

Translation: We are going to spend time pandering to the casuals by implementing a completely arbitrary eye-candy mechanic that is mostly optional, but make you want to use it anyways by referring to said eye-candy.

"Stealth in DX3 is based off line-of-sight and sound propagation. You can hide everywhere you see fit as long as you're hidden by an obstacle and you don't produce too much noise."

Translation: We are not going to even bother spending money on programming a half-decent AI. We're just going to use a pre-pack on this bad boy.

"The story and conspiracy elements are every bit a Deus Ex game. It's awesome."

Now, see here. If I use "awesome" to pitch a game idea at school, I get boo'd by my classmates. No marks from the teacher. You know why? "Awesome" is a weasel-word. It is an arbitrary description with no context, the only purpose of which is to convey the speakers opinion onto the listener. This does not instill confidence in the writing.

"The writing team at EM is made up of many talented and experienced people. And did you notice the Sheldon reference...?"

Yes, in fact I did. I also know, however, that as amazing as Sheldon is, his talent is going to be absolutely useless here because a team of over-zealous managers, producers, and writers are going to overrule every mildly innovative twist the man puts in until its dumbed down enough for the masses to ingest, and thus purchase. One man cannot overrule the group.

"you will actually be able to see Adam look awesome whereas JC looked pretty normal."

Actually, I think that having half my body become this mutated mass that merged flesh and steel was a horrifying prospect, and that was one of the underlying points in Deus Ex. Gunther and Anna were not made to look "awesome", Walton simons face was horrific (though he was first-gen Nano), and did you completely miss the conversation JC had with the bar lady in Hells Kitchen? Translation: Oooooo, shiny cool awesome!

"I don't think it's a character in the game. I think it has hidden meaning..."
Just like having your character in Invisible War be the guy in the tank at Area 51 at the end of Deus Ex, this fetus's "hidden meaning" is that the fetus is in fact JC Denton. How can I say this? All evidence points to the designers being graphical hacks and not having a subtle bone in their body.

"Our hacking is well beyond a "mini game" and is really freaking cool."

I enjoyed the multitools and command line hack. Short, sweet, to the point and did not get in the way, well explained in the games setting. Translation: Made another thing flashy. Also: Weasel words again.

"Deus Ex 1 had boss fights. Walton Simons, Gunther Hermann, etc. They just weren't the Zelda "hit the boss in the eye three times to kill it" kind of boss fight, and neither is Deus Ex 3's."

Well, thank heavens for that! I mean, god forbid you completely follow the industry trends, when you are in almost every other aspect of the game design. What does this point tell us about the game? Nothing, really, except that it isn't Zelda, but is also not quite Deus Ex.

"In DX1, if your database stats weren't high enough with the weapon you had equipped, it could be extremely difficult to hit a target right in front of you."

It was an RPG. In RPG's, your to hit chance is determined by your experiance in various skills, in part. Deus Ex made this visual by actually making your gun wave around Drunkenly if you were pretty untrained, and rock solid if you poured points in there. Translation: I have a poor grasp of game mechanics.

and finally this

"The social element is huge. There are tonnes of characters to interact with and the story is massive with a global conspiracy."

This is a prequel. In Deus Ex, you came up against the Illuminati, a world-spanning secret society that had been controlling the world from behind the scenes for centuries, and was essentially the most powerful and all-knowing group of people on the entire planet. Unless your plot involves that group of people, you are going to ret-con Deus Ex. If it DOES involve the Illuminati, you are going to Highly Risk ret-conning Deus Ex. Catch-22. Translation: Weasel words weasel words cool cool awesome.

In short, my friends, don't get your hopes up. Sorry if I am more than a little pessimistic, but quite frankly this is not the games industry we remember, and knowing how it all works behind the scenes makes watching this games birth all the more painful. Played Banjo and Kazooie 3 yet? Yeah. That's what Deus Ex 3 is going to be. For all intents and purposes a completely different game, throwing away everything that made the original, with the series and setting slapped on it to sell it (Except its not even the same setting, is it?:sly: ).

In short, if you read to this line, have a cookie. you're awesome. Eidos, is not.:tsktsk:

heywood on 16/11/2008 at 14:59

---

To a large extent, we're responsible for the direction of the game industry.

The game industry became risk averse and formulaic because of production costs, which are being driven steadily up by the need to produce the best graphics, art, and animation possible. You can't blame the industry for the fact that most gamers still judge games more by how they look than how they play. People who demand latest generation graphics and movie-like production values from their games are the reason why games keep getting shorter and dumber. Gameplay is becoming an afterthought because it doesn't sell.

Suppose some publisher released a FPS/RPG hybrid that had the depth and length and gameplay of Deus Ex, but whose production values (graphics, animations, etc.) were a generation old. Would you buy it?

d'Spair on 16/11/2008 at 15:46

---

That was my first thought.

But I have read it anyway.

And I mostly agree with the post, van HellSing is already crafting another ignore-list button, I presume.

thiefinthedark on 16/11/2008 at 18:54

---

@ Ostriig:

I should probably stop writing these at 1 in the morning. might help a bit.

BEAR on 17/11/2008 at 05:18

---

Lets just agree that you don't know what the fuck the game is going to be (at OP not previous post).

You very well might be right, but the fact is, we don't know yet. "Don't be optimistic" is not exactly ground breaking insight, I think its fair to say very few of us are.

That does not mean I'm going to become a fucking doom sayer who rants on the street corner that all games from this point on will be shit. I've played several really good games in the last while, half life 2 (and epi 1 and 2), portal, stalker. Fallout 3 looks good and my friend is playing Deadspace now and it is also looking pretty good.

The problem is the advances have been more in technology and less in design and story. All I could think while watching deadspace was "God, what could LGS do with this engine".

Also, finally, I think you should show a little more respect to someone who is good enough to come to our forums and try to answer questions and give us insight. I'm not going to fall into the Levine trap of being tricked into being optimistic (never again), but until the game comes out and we actually know more about it, it would be nice if you would shut up (or at least quit being so self-rightous about it).

If we abandon the games industry totally, we will assure ourselves we'll never get anything we want. I'm willing to have an open mind about it, without getting hyped up, so I wont be dissapointed terribly but I might be peasantly surprised now and again.