Phoenix87 on 29/12/2003 at 07:41

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So because DE:IW has been labeled as a completely open ended RPG and this one very little detial contradicts that it is wrong? I guess games like everquest and doac are bad because they are labeled MMORPGs!


All in all this is a retarded rant. Bitching because you have to kill someone to advance in Deus Ex. Thats like bitching because you gotta kill someone in half life to advance threw the game. Really look at it, you can prolly go threw DE without killing anyone(what about simons?) but why? Why is it so bad to kill someone?

Phoenix87 on 30/12/2003 at 03:14

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Well I have been registered for 4 months now, I think that says something.

Your arugment is just retarded IMO. Complaining because you have to kill 1 person in a game that is about death and destruction is just retarded. I mean Alex is holding a gun and pointing it at you on the box cover of the game, doesnt that say something?

paulcoz on 31/12/2003 at 07:18

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My main gripe with the game is that there are often no (or very slight) consequences for the player's actions.

Imagine how replayable the game would be if allegiances and decisions (the important ones anyhow - eg. kill Nassif, Her Holiness or Paul Denton) affected the player's relationships with factions for the duration of the game and denied or limited access to some faction-specific missions, as well as bringing about the usual 'send the death-squad' scenarios. You would have a much greater incentive to make different choices, other than just to listen to what a representative of each faction has to say about your choice before you go on to the next mission largely unaffected (grrr!).

I do agree with the point made by BlackCapedManX: If a decision is non-essential (eg. no decision that is made is going to affect the game in ten minutes time) then the player should be given the freedom to choose their own path, even if that is one of inaction. Since it makes no difference at all to the advancement of the overall plot, the developers should allow for this.

If on the other hand, there were to be some consequences to one or more decisions (which is not the case in the mag-rail scenario) then it may be alright to *force the player* to choose the lesser evil according to their values. That could be fun, but not if the player lost an undesirable amount of control over their current game. For instance, if the situation in question forced an allegiance with the Order which negatively affected relations with other factions which the player had intended to side with during what is left of the game (and thus denied access to levels the player had been trying to reach many times), then perhaps it would be useful to have an "out" as proposed by BlackCapedManX. Dilemmas are fine, but not where they take too much control away from the player or stop the game being fun. I think the consequences should only ever be hinderances. I think it would be acceptable to force the player to choose a certain path, only if the decisions were non-critical hinderances (see below) and didn't prevent the player from using their preferred gameplay style (eg. non-violence). I don't mind if the player then has to enforce their indecision/inaction with action.

Maybe different objectives could be classed as critical/non-critical? In DEIW, only the last decision in the game is required to gain a group's favour at the eleventh hour. It would be better if failure of an objective could either result in the current slap on the wrist (non-critical), or denial of association/dealings with a group (critical) depending on their importance to the group's cause. Better still, make the consequences of accomplishing the objectives play a part in the game, so that it is evident to the player WHY it was so important for them to do what they did. As it stands, none of the tasks you perform really have anything to do with the overall effectiveness or power of the groups - that is fixed as much as the story.

Example: Early in the game, you are given the choice to retrieve a super-weapon for party A, whom you are allied with. If you do so, the soldiers in party A gain that weapon and an advantage over their adversaries. As long as you are supporting the group, you gain the benefits of having completed that objective (the soldiers in the group easily eliminate members of other parties for you during other missions initiated by party A). Later in the game you change alliances (join party B). Now that weapon is a liability. You are told by your new friends in party B, that you must destroy the party A factories/storage facilities containing the weapon. If you do so, party A no longer has that weapon in the game. If you fail, party A retains their advantage. The ability of any one group to conquer (at the end of the game) depends on the sum value of the objectives (critical/non-critical) you have completed. Perhaps this isn't a great example, but it shows how objectives could be tied to the story to make different outcomes (eg. with your help, party C wins) more believable.

Whatever you decide, stop bickering! :erg:
Paulcoz.

Keeper_Andrus on 31/12/2003 at 23:42

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first off, i rarely post here anymore. i sort of left TTLG 2 or 3 years ago for the most part when the keepers' everquest guild forums moved, though i did origonally play thief. So i don't really keep tabs on stuff here anymore, but i just beat dx2, so what the heck. what the hell is DX: the conspiracy. is that like the xbox version of dx? oh, also, i've only beaten the game by merging the world with helios, what i know of the other endings is from reading this thread. Also, i beat this in about 12 hours of playing, and probably didnt do a terribly thorough job, though i did fairly well i think. i needed to beat it fairly quickly so i can work on school stuff now :(

not using the little quote button here, just pretending ;p

quote:
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quote:
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Not making a choice is not a proper choice.
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Why not?
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Because doing nothing, being inactive, is just not cool. it is really that simple. Yes, it would be more realistic if you could just sit back and the world would go on, and maybe leave your puter on for 3 days and come back to a world overrun by templars, or a world in war and then get really good batteries, freeze yourself, check your puter in 200 years and find the omar rule the world. Yah, that would be more realistic, its just a really dumb idea to. The point of the game, of all games, is to do something, not nothing. and no, doing nothing doesn't count as doing something ;p.
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Small maps- Yah, they were kinda small, but the lighting and shadows and such were VERY nice, though maybe a bit overdone. Had the maps been huge, i would have been like omghi frame rate of 1fps. maybe more zones to each complex? make missions longer that way, but still keep frame rate not too low.
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Combat- Combat totally_sucked DX crosshair was jsut so many times better its not even funny. also, what is with ammo all being of one kind for every gun and 0 second reload times. that was just not cool. Very not cool. In DX, many guns had 2 kinds of ammo, here we have 1 kind for every gun ( and the frag kind, which i never used. oops~)
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Billie and the Begining- I would have liked to start of in a chicago thing, and do 2-3 training exercises because to me, the begining seemed incredibly chaotic and and too non-linear(too non-linear, wtf! its true though). Had we started in chicago with maybe a hazard course, a easy mission or 2 with billie, then we could have grown ties to her, and had a better start for the game (though maybe some people didnt think it was too non linear;p). Also, an easy mission in seattle, or a(n) (advanced) training course there would have given us closer ties to klara, and leo.
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Biomods- what the hell was wrong with calling them augs? Also, some were FAR more powerful than others (namely walk silent3 and neural interface). this was true in DX, but DX also had more augs. I would think balancing fewer augs to be more equal in value wouldn't be so hard (though, i'm an EQ player so i know balance isnt easy to achieve ;p).
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Background on Stuff- I agree stuff needed more background, omar was a good example. more info on the Collapse please~.
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Half Life- Dont bash half life you mean people. Half life was the first game to be all 1 map (with the exception of the alien world~). Half life also made huge strides in AI. enemies ran for cover, worked as a team, blew themselves up(huge strides, not massively and awesomely big ;p). If you don't like first person shooters, fine. but at least respect halflife~

BlackCapedManX on 1/1/2004 at 08:58

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The first game had a few plot differences as to whether you KOed people or killed them, but they were few (KO someone in the bar the first time you are in Hell's kitchen and Manderley still chew you out for killing a civilian), but gameplay wise unconscious is as good as dead.

DXIW does have some very definative differences as to whether someone is dead or uncoinscious. Any assassination doesn't count unless they are no-longer breathing at all. I've yet to play a "kill-all" run through the game so I don't know if say, KOing tong earlier, would still have him show up later, or if KOing Sid would have him out of the loop for one mission, and then you could hire him up again later.

As for the remark in question he was talking about the first game (and doubting my abilities to get by everyone without KOing or killing them).