ICEBreaker on 23/5/2002 at 16:43
Quote:
Originally posted by Benny the Guard Sounds like a cop-out to me. One of the best things about Deus Ex was the missions. I mean are we going to have "Save the World in 30 minutes or Less" gameplay? Replay value is great, but the first time through any game is always the best, so lets add some length to it. Just a thought. While I share your concern, DX1 had a bit of a repetitive feel at times. I hope DX2 will make all areas of the game as interesting as Hong Kong or Paris. If this means fewer maps, than so be it. People who just want to breeze through the game can head straight to the objectives, while others like us, can check out every object and NPC in the more detailed maps. In the end, those who want to spend 50 hours on the game can still do so.
Nethawk on 23/5/2002 at 20:08
Billie Adams is the rock lead guitarist that follows JC around in the levels. He's hard to see cuz he stays out of sight most of the time. In Honk Kong he briefly appears in the market and zips over to the compound to switch to oriental instruments. On the docks he dons a Unatco outfit and follows JC from a distance and everytime JC scores a hit Billie unloads a shitload of tunes on the guitar. You could say that he's JC's deadly avenging musical guardian angel.:ebil:
Forsythe on 24/5/2002 at 19:08
Verrry interesting, alright; that guard's shadow on the wall got me thinking of all the new tricks tha can be pulled to make gameplay more interesting. For example, will the "black-market" cloak aug cast a guard-detectable shadow? How about enemies that can only be detected by a targetting aug or intense scrutiny of the shadows? (ie: if the tech's improved so when enemies (eg: Anna, Simons, etc.) cloak up, there's no shimmery effect)
And that's not counting the cool effects that can be done if they implement bio-engineered critters who can only be detected by their glowing red eyes (a la Cheshire Cat)
<small>Okay, okay, this probably belongs in the DX2 ideas & concepts forum, but it relates to the cited article, kinda</small>
frozenman on 25/5/2002 at 20:01
Hmm...
So, you can be Alex Denton as a male, or Bille Adams as a female?
That sounds like it could be interesting, so you could have slightly different story lines depending on who you are.
Or maybe Billie Adams is just like Alex Jacobson or something.
Either way, i'm getting <i>very</i> excited about this game now that more and more information is coming out.
Agent Monkeysee on 25/5/2002 at 22:05
I got the impression that you could be Alex Denton as a male or Alex Denton as a female. That Billie Adams was just an NPC they were showing off.
ICEBreaker on 26/5/2002 at 07:36
Alex Denton is both the male and the female. Billie Adams is just a character in the game with an awful name.
gbayles on 28/5/2002 at 14:47
Quote:
Originally posted by vesuvius ...I guess JC was a moron, got power hungry, and condemned us all. the bastard. Not necessarily a moron or power hungry. I think JC's dialog shows that he's
generally a moral person (though he can be played quite evilly;) - all it takes
is a believe that he can help people more from a position of power. The
corrupting effect of power is enough to change him into the bastard.
Pipe Smoke on 29/5/2002 at 02:21
I chose the merge with Helios ending...
It was in line with my actual worldview, I believe that a super computer governing us all would be a good idea, and more than that... is a certainty.
manifest destiny
faetal on 29/5/2002 at 22:49
Trpouble is, as sentient beings, would we all accept a supercomputer as a ruler? Hacking would become a more interesting concept. I would also assume that Helios/JC would have to make backups of itself as a contingency when JC's body died physically. Could this backup be tampered with? Stolen? A sentient system would need to use some kind of protocol to regulate 'thought process'. Depending on how susceptible the specific algorythms employed in Helios/JC's identity/bias/standpoint to trickery, all manner of subversive behaviour could be used to warp the progression of such protocol towards wicked ends :ebil:
Lots of interesting thoughts I am having about the different possibility of what could be right and wrong about the Helios ending. Another one being, what if Helios decided that humans were a deeply flawed species and decided to either eliminate or tamper genetically with them. Then there is the possibility of humans being viewed as resources (like we're not already - taxes, armies, labour etc...) and then you have the Matrix-esque scenario which would allow us to reproduce and perpetuate ourselves but in a more controlled, effecient environment. I sense ICEbreaker is going to pounce on this mail and tear it to shreds but hey! I don't mind as long as I've said my piece and pondered for a bit.
fætal
there is no right and wrong, just different levels of agreement...
nimbus on 30/5/2002 at 05:56
I think maybe the single biggest interpretive question people don't ask about the helios ending is this: What does it mean to be perfectly logical?
There are all sorts of logic in the world; the mathematic logic by which computer AI's are designed mimic the type of problem solving logic our specific culture employs, i.e. conventional Western thought. Our logic, just like any other, has both benefits and holes. There are simply "holes" written into the very code of how we think about things, and I see no reason why a supercomputer would be able to solve these internal inconsistencies any better.
What I mean is, most of the world's political problems involve conflicts of interest between two groups of people, and sure, we could have a supercomputer to be an impartial judge of which interests should win out over others, but the essential problem of politics is not how to apply a rule, given a consistent set of rules, but how we apply value itself, how we make the rules to begin with.
For instance, the question of whether bombing Hiroshima was worth it, is grey, because we simply don't know well enough what amount of destruction or human life would have been lost if the other path had been taken. But even if a supercomputer could tell us exactly what would have happened in each circumstance, it's not only grey because we don't agree on the outcome of the rules, or simply because of our egoistic bias depending on which side we're on--it's grey because the very question of survival as a species is unknown, or what qualifies as advancement of the human race. Helios can solve the first two questions, but it's not really up to Western logic to tell us the answer of the last question, no matter how perfectly executed.
