Xeogred on 4/1/2013 at 17:56
Interesting read. Would be cool to see those "Lost Levels" someday.
heywood on 5/1/2013 at 04:18
Good article and thanks for posting some scans of the design document. It was interesting reading the space station mission description. In the end, I'm glad they left the mission out because it sounded like they were borrowing too much from System Shock. Also happy that they designed the game around hub levels rather than the "travel map" concept. I'm not sure a Russo-Mexican invasion plot would have worked the best either. So most of the changes were probably for the better. But the White House level would have been cool.
Do you have other mission descriptions scanned as well?
Xeogred on 5/1/2013 at 06:32
I'd say I pretty much agree with you on all that. It all sounds interesting and it'd be great to uncover more about this stuff, but yeah the space station sounds a bit too far fetched for Deus Ex, and I'd definitely say the HUB worlds were some of the best parts in the game by far. So glad those were in. The White House level definitely sounds the most interesting.
HamburgerBoy on 6/1/2013 at 07:47
Awesome, I've always had magnificent fantasies of reading through all however-many-pages of the early documents, and this was a sweet taste. Thanks! Some of the changes actually don't seem too drastic at their fundamentals, like the original Lebedev concept. I remember reading previously (probably in the Deus Ex Bible) about the path to Tracer Tong requiring involvement in slave trafficking espionage, positioned on a freight ship, which was always one of the most interesting scrapped ideas to me. There was also something about JC having his own apartment and having an assassin come to your room depending on certain alliances made. And I've always wondered where Toby Atanwe fit in; he was one of the earliest characters to have photos released of (along with JC and Maggie Chow IIRC), his involvement would seem big besides the fact that you can actually kill him in the final game, and something about him is so cool so surely he had some outrageous backstory too.
Cardjoe on 9/1/2013 at 11:50
Quote Posted by heywood
Do you have other mission descriptions scanned as well?
I have the whole document, actually. It's about 70 something pages long. It opens with a bit of marketing information and preamble, goes into a manifesto of design principles and then continues for 50 pages outlining every single mission and story turn. My copy of the document is accompanied by Warren Spector's annotations (mainly pointing out plotholes, questioning some turns and pointing out manifesto contradictions).
The manifesto of design principles uses the following headings: 'Emphasis on Roleplaying', 'Interesting Non-Combat Interactions', 'Deep Simulation of Small Environments', 'Exploration of a Believable, Object-Rich World', 'Problems Not Puzzles', 'Clear Goals', 'Real Decisions Have Real Consequences' and 'Multiplayer Capabilities'. The Multiplayer section is basically two paragraphs which amounts to 'We have to have multiplayer because we're a AAA game, but singleplayer is the focus for both players and designers. We'll try to think up a cool, co-operative mode later.'
The levels are divided into three acts, each of which ends with a new discovery.
1: Working for the TLC, trying to help Paul (who is in a similar sort of trouble to in the finished game) and uncovering a strange drug operation (this is basically a poorly explained version of Ambrosia). At the end of Act One you've learned the truth behind TLC.
2: Pursuing the discoveries of Act One, you learn the truth about MJ12 and see the Mexican-Russo War plan begin in earnest. Much of Act Two takes place around Denver Airport as you pursue information on the conspiracy, or around a besieged (and massive, open) Austin, Texas. In Austin you try to bring together troops and rally leaders. At the end of Act Two you've gained the upper hand and confront MJ12, only to see the Adam AI betray the conspiracy, kill Bob Page and abscond by taking control of some TLC agents via their datalinks. Adam manifests mainly in Alex Jacobson.
3: Act Three is about opposing Adam. Adam splits his forces and attacks two missile bases in Colorado and Yamantau to access their supercomputers, then heads into space to take control of an orbiting defence satelite - which he plans to hold the Earth hostage with. Adam's plan is to use this military strength to forcibly impose peace on humanity and 'guide' them on what he thinks is the correct path. JC chases Adam around the world, steals a spaceship and confronts Adam in zero-gravity.
As for the level descriptions, there's a lot of detail in them - maps, puzzle descriptions and so on. Many of the ideas were carried over in one form or other to the final game, such as the missile complex. The underwater lab was originally an underwater city in a flooded Hollywood Valley where one of three surviving Illuminati members was hiding out, for example. Parts of the space base were also reused in Area 51 too, according to my contact with Harvey Smith.
Other levels and locations show up more or less as they are in the game too. Ford Schick and Smuggler are both mentioned in the first level ('The Drug Bust'), for example. Jaime Reyes is still there in UNATCO and is still a good friend to JC. New York still features The 'Ton hotel as well. Sam Carter is still the equipment officer and still a 'physical hacking nut'.
Meanwhile, some characters and locations changed dramatically as I mentioned in the article. Anne Navarre is barely mentioned at all; Manderley is a hardier character who actually pursues you in the field and must be tackled in Denver to uncover the conspiracy. There are new characters too; Katie Andrews is TLC's firearms instructor back at base, while Sean Grey runs an obstacle course involving live ammo and real hazards for the top agents.
I'd love to drop the whole file on here so you guys can take a look yourselves, but unfortunately I don't have the permissions to do that and am limited to summarising at the moment.
froghawk on 9/1/2013 at 20:05
Wow, thanks for that! It seems like they massively improved the game's story over its development cycle.
jtr7 on 13/1/2013 at 00:53
If you ever do get permission to share the whole document, or even with redacted company secrets, there are those of us here who'd be grateful if you would. Thanks to everyone involved for allowing and sharing this much! :cool:
