Pyrian on 21/8/2009 at 22:54

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Wait, what are you talking about? The only remotely comparable thing I can think of is the one you can rescue, and she certainly didn't turn on me. Are you sure you didn't get her confused with the WTO woman who takes her hostage?

Papy on 22/8/2009 at 02:56

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Of course we are. That's why I asked : "what do you mean with the word narrative". It seems to me that you and Chade view the character you are playing as more or less disconnected from you. For example, you stole from the widow in Thief 3 because you felt that's what "Garrett" would do. I understand what you are doing, but that's really not how I think when I play a video game. On my part, I was Garrett. There was no Garrett beyond me. What Garrett would do is what I would do. I do not follow a model. I don't view myself as an actor who participate in a play. I am the subject. If someone else reenact my actions or my personality, then that would be a narrative. But my original actions are not a narrative. So for me, the narrative of the game doesn't include what I choose to do.



Really? There are very few deep moral choices impacting the story in Deus Ex. Most of the time, your actions were only reactions to what happened to you. Sending the signal was probably one of the most controversial and, let's be honest, there are very few people who would naturally stay that faithful to an organization that decided to kill their brother and most probably done things a lot worse than that. So when you say "by accident", I tend to think that you are forgetting what was the story of Deus Ex and are simply arguing for the sake of arguing.

Also, I don't give older games more leeway when it come to the story, it's just that I judge the story only for the story and not for some unrelated technical characteristic. Good graphics won't make me appreciate more a bad story and I won't give credit for being "experimental" or, as ZylonBane said, "for effort". The truth is IW story was bad. Plain and simple.



You are assuming a lot of things here. But before, I'd like to remind you that the "turned the place into a graveyard" was a lot sooner than the part where I had to send the signal. There was still a lot of things unknown.

Ok... First, I never thought there was nothing wrong with retrieving the vaccine. But sometimes, doing a small wrong can be justified if a greater good (in a broad sense) can come out of it. For example, we all know that the high cost of drugs (because of patent) is indirectly killing a lot of people who cannot afford those drugs. And yet, I am not taking arms against big pharmaceutical company, killing their CEO (Are you?). And before you tell me it's different because I do not work for those companies, the fact is I live in a democracy and I have the right to vote. And you know what? the fact that a lot of people in Africa will die won't sway my vote by itself. So, back to Deus Ex, yes, I knew retrieving the vaccine was probably a wrong thing to do, but giving the circumstances I found it acceptable. Maybe I didn't play enough video games or watch enough Hollywood movies, but I rarely see things in black and white.

Second, I did not know that vaccine could be used to find a cure.

Third, I didn't see the return the vaccine to the bad guy as something major for those bad guys. I was aware of the blackmailing the world thing, mainly because of Simons (the one I saw in the Intro) who was discussing with Manderley just before Navarre made her comment, but that shipment didn't strike me as really significant.

Oh, and fourth, which is also the most important reason why going on the mission didn't cause me more moral dilemmas : it happened too fast! I didn't have the leisure to think two hours about all this. I realized something was wrong and before I could really think about it, I was already on my way. At first, the only real change was that I didn't kill NSF anymore but used non-lethal weapons. (I became trigger happy again only with MJ12 soldiers in the sewer).



Yes, but the question is why did IW writes choose to keep those lines? To me, that was a voluntary choice to make sure the player can do whatever he wants without being trapped into consequences imposed by the game. To me, this experimental idea is just a bad idea.



I guess someone could say this was good level design because searching a room with 50 lockers to find the one that is yours wouldn't be "fun". I'm on your side, but different people have different ideas of what is "stupid".

rachel on 22/8/2009 at 10:15

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Yeah that must be that part.
Sorry I let the venting take over, I shouldn't have made it sound like it was a common bug. When I looked it up it was actually only on my game apparently. The problem though is that it repeated every damn time I went in.

I'm sure on a second playthrough I'd see if it happens again (and it probably shouldn't) but I never got far enough to get to that level again.

ZylonBane on 22/8/2009 at 13:49

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Ummm... anything in a level is by defiinition level design. WTF are you trying to say? :erg:

Papy on 22/8/2009 at 15:32

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Ooops! The word missing was "bad". hahahaha

Edit : and to make things clear, "bad" because that would be one too many.