BlackCapedManX on 15/12/2003 at 03:27
I'm just going to point this out for the arguements sake, because I doubt you'll bother to own up to a counter arguement here: You've still failed to address the fact that
the reason that I am at MAKO is to find where DR. Nassif is.
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I wouldn't be surprised if Ion did this intentionally. You must make a choice. You must decide which of the things you oppose is more important. You must make a choice that determines which of those high-end goals you want to sacrifice.
So Ion is purposefully insulting the ability of the gamer to make their own decisions outside of a strictly regimented few choices? They're purposefully said "fuck the gamer, the person paying money to us, they have to do it this way because what we think is so much better and more reasonable than their ability to play the game as they choose"?
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Therein lies the error in your thinking. You consider it more important. However, the game will not progress without you choosing one of the two proper choices.
HOW MANY FUCKING TIMES ARE YOU GOING TO MAKE THE SAME ARGUEMENT? Instead of repeating yourself over and over, could you possibly think of something new to counteract what I've been bringing up? This is obvious when you consider that the game has already been made, but what I am arguing (and you fail to notice or address) is the fact that it didn't have to be set up that way. I realize that now it is set up that way and that can't be changed, I'm arguing what it could have been, and it could have lived up to it's FUCKING GAME SLOGAN!
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I doubt it. Most likely you're saying that so that you don't notice any obvious 'Forced Failures' in DX itself.
I have a feeling this is going to break down into a stupid "yes I did" "no you didn't" "yes I did" "no you didn't" arguements. It's fucking immature. Tell me who, aside from Anna Navarre, you have to kill in order to beat the game, and I will tell you how I avoided doing that.
ESpark on 15/12/2003 at 06:20
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You've still failed to address the fact that the reason that I am at MAKO is to find where DR. Nassif is.
Completion of the Mag Rail assignment is a prerequisite to finding where Nassif is. You might not discover this until you are at Mako, but the assignments remain. Do you mean to tell me that you've
never experienced a game wherein multiple mandatory 'mini-quests' appear during the completion of the major 'quest'?
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So Ion is purposefully insulting the ability of the gamer to make their own decisions outside of a strictly regimented few choices?
Ion is giving you a situation wherein both of your major ideals are being tested. You don't want to work for the WTO at all. However, the only other
valid option is to put a bullet in an innocent man's head. It is not a pleasant choice, one I commend better than the "diplomatic answer/aggressive answer" of, say, Fallout.
As the Bad Guy in Indiana Jones says - "Now is the time to ask yourself, what you believe."
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they have to do it this way because what we think is so much better and more reasonable than their ability to play the game as they choose
They're not forcing you to kill the scientist. They're not forcing you to work witht the WTO. They're forcing you to make a choice. Fancy, that.
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it could have lived up to it's FUCKING GAME SLOGAN!
If you could play the game the way you wanted to, the game would be "wage war without having to actually make a judgement call."
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Tell me who, aside from Anna Navarre, you have to kill in order to beat the game, and I will tell you how I avoided doing that.
I distinctly remember a character on life support in Area 51. All options lead to his death. I trust, also, you're not counting unconcious victims, as the game makes no difference between unconcious and dead, no?
BlackCapedManX on 15/12/2003 at 07:03
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Completion of the Mag Rail assignment is a prerequisite to finding where Nassif is. You might not discover this until you are at Mako, but the assignments remain. Do you mean to tell me that you've never experienced a game wherein multiple mandatory 'mini-quests' appear during the completion of the major 'quest'?
A game where mini-quests appear? Yes. A non-linear game supposedly based on playing how I choose to play, where the mini-quests are
mandatory? No.
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If you could play the game the way you wanted to, the game would be "wage war without having to actually make a judgement call."
If the judgement isn't bound to the story of the game, then it's non-essential, and thus I should not have to make a call here. There is an over all story in the game, and the portion of the story that I am supposed to be able to create based on what actions I take and who I choose to ally with. Except that they neglected to account for the possibility that one might not want to ally. They flaunted all of this great emmergent gameplay, and all over I read from early reviews that I get to write the story as I want, and all this good stuff that's supposed to make this game unique and different every time I play, except instead I'm given a situation where I make an "a or b" choice, which in no way is an innovation when it comes to gaming. I'm expecting a plethora of choice, not two of them. That's what's fuckin' silly. What's worse still though is the fact that they have no outcome on the rest of the game. None, it still leads to the same place, and that exactly why I think such a choice there is unnecessary.
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I distinctly remember a character on life support in Area 51. All options lead to his death. I trust, also, you're not counting unconcious victims, as the game makes no difference between unconcious and dead, no?
Life support? That's a nano-infussion chamber. And for all intents and purposes, only one ending disticntly kills him. Destroying A51 has unknowable circumstances (besides which it apparently happened and left Alex alive as we all know from having played DXIW), and mergining with Helios doesn't explicitly say that he's going to die, just that he won't get to merge.
GayleSaver on 15/12/2003 at 07:35
BCMX, I think ESpark is right. Artistic worth is not in decisions themselves but in the dilemmas that arise out of the consequences of decisions.
BlackCapedManX on 15/12/2003 at 07:49
Again I say, "what consequences?" I could clearly understand the value of this decision if it had any greater effect on the way the game is played other than the order in which I receive data-transmisions once in Cairo and whether I have the magrail that early on. Aside from that there are no moral or philosphical dilemmas which arise. Therefore I see it to be an unnecessary choice to make, and one hindering possible gameplay styles and thus replayability of the game, thus lowering the worth of the game.
ESpark on 15/12/2003 at 19:24
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where the mini-quests are mandatory? No.
Then you've not played a great many games. Many games require you to do mini-quests before you can complete the main quest.
Take Morrowind, for example. Being spoiler-proof, you cannot complete the game unless you have a certain item. The item is located on an NPC. You can talk to him, and he'll give it to you. Or, you can kill him.
What if I roleplay him as someone who cannot
stand the person who has the item, but also doesnt want to kill anyone? I have to make a
choice. I have to decide which is more important.
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If the judgement isn't bound to the story of the game, then it's non-essential, and thus I should not have to make a call here.
In a good game, even irrelevent choices matter.
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Therefore I see it to be an unnecessary choice to make, and one hindering possible gameplay styles and thus replayability of the game, thus lowering the worth of the game.
Well, because the sales will inevitably outnumber the amount of people with your opinion... guess which one is correct?
BlackCapedManX on 15/12/2003 at 19:48
I have a tendancy not to play online RPGs and have missed out on a lot of the newer ones, and in other RPGs (such as the final fantasy series) I've never had "non-linear" and "play as I choose" thrown into my face as I have here.
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In a good game, even irrelevent choices matter.
You realize that saying irrelevancy matters is an oxymoron yes?
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Well, because the sales will inevitably outnumber the amount of people with your opinion... guess which one is correct?
It's an opinion man, there is no "correct" to do with it.
Ayearepee on 18/12/2003 at 20:34
>>>>
...by rights I should be able to head out to Cairo now. Not so, it seems. I don't want to do work for the WTO, and I don't want to kill anyone in the game, but I can't get my friend Sid to land on the roof and take me to cairo until I do one or the other.
<<<<
I believe the argument, boiled down to its essentials, is this:
1. I do not want to kill anybody;
2. I do not want to work for the WTO;
3. I know where I need to go next;
4. If DE:IW was the real world, I would be able to go there - without killing anybody or working for the WTO;
5. But DE:IW does not let me do this.
This is an example of clumsy design, albeit not to the extent of destroying the game's worth, merely denting it. The most obvious precursor in the original game is the insistence that you start working for, or at the least stop killing, the NSF. I personally enjoyed killing them - nothing personal or ideological, I just thought that their uniforms were ridiculous, and I detest people who do not take the effort to dress well - and I was greatly annoyed when this pleasure was taken away from me, or at least frowned upon by my brother.
On a tanget, what's it like to have a brother? I'm an only child and therefore 90% of the mythic thrust Anime and much of the original Deus Ex is meaningless to me, because it's all about good and evil twins and so forth. I cannot understand the bonds that exist between blood relatives and I feel that I'm missing out on a large part of the human condition.
Gallium, I think, is my favourite metal.
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Neca eos omnes/
Deus suos agnoscet
Liliel on 19/12/2003 at 21:48
Personally I don't see JC's newly acquired powers as realism shattering. nanotechnology is indeed that powerful. Supposedly if we have nanotechnology we can release nanobots into the atmsphere and let them fix the ozone layer, or we can let them "consume" raw materials and use them to build whatever we want. JC, being merged to Helios, obviously has remote control over the nanobots around him, thus building a ice palace or whatever is not really that hard to believe. nanobots can manipulate materials at sub-molecular level, that measn they can do many many things...
BlackCapedManX on 20/12/2003 at 00:03
I actually find it ironic that JC is so easy to defeat. I mean, one would think he'd have ballistic protection and regen (as well as cloak and the like) augs running non-stop, and better than anything Alex xould dream of, yet 2 shots to the head with the sniper rifle (mine had the damage upgrade but still) and he's out like a light. Poor man, poor.
