blaydes99 on 8/6/2010 at 21:56
Quote Posted by Koki
who was publisher of this game again?
Hmm, so the publishers now work directly on the game? What are all the design/art/programming, etc. teams at Eidos doing?
chris the cynic on 9/6/2010 at 01:35
Quote Posted by Eldron
I'm betting you that there were some revisions of idea's going through deus ex.
There were. Significant revisions.
Steve Powers pointed out that, because the plot continued to change and grow after various things were dropped, many of the original ideas no longer make sense in terms of the final game.
If anyone were claiming there were no revisions I'd be one of the first to disagree. Off the top of my head I could cite a dozen things that were planned at one point and then cut entirely as the process went on.
Whether or not there were revisions isn't at issue here because the fact that there were revisions does not mean that the architecture was one of them. Even if it did, it still would not mean that the development team wanted vertically split cities.
The fact that there were revisions, some relating to technology limititations, is not a reason to assume that the reason Deus Ex didn't feature double decker cities was due to the technology not being there.
Among other things, as you yourself point out, the first cityscape they showed was "a tiny picture on the horizon" meaning that the only technology needed for them to have a double decked city would be an image editor. It wouldn't even need to be a good one, given some time you could do it in MS Paint.
It might not be the same as having it overhead but if they'd wanted cities with layers they could put it in easily. They even seemed to be fond of putting in references to things they cut.
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and no, they won't talk about every little detail of the process of making the game.
First, I don't think being unable to include what would have been an indication that Deus Ex is set in a world that has, in the last half century, undergone one of the biggest architectural revolutions in all of history in spite of wanting to because the technology wasn't there would be a "little detail."
Second, they may not talk about every little detail, but they did talk about quite a few.
They told us the details that went into creating characters who appear only in datacubes and emails (as well as why the characters disappear without closure, what the original closure was supposed to be, and how that was reworked so it could be put into the game after it was disconnected from the characters in question.)
They told us the thinking behind certain in-game emails even though that thinking had no plot relevance.
We know about Jerry Wildman, Tillson and "The Ghoul", the never used setting that was Kowloon bay, and how technology limitations prevented them from doing what they wanted with Austin as a setting so they cut it. We know that the switch from going to the moon to staying on earth happened about three quarters of the way through development. We know about the thing between the Salvagers and the Raiders, we know about the plan to put in an Eliza like text-bot.
They talked about all kinds of things they wanted in but had to leave out. Many of them much, much smaller details than something like wanting but not getting double decker cities.
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There were things that they did want which they had to give up on due to technology limitations, and they've been quite willing to share those things with us*. In spite of that haven't seen any reason to even consider the possibility they wanted to make cities like that but couldn't.
You're claiming that they did, but you haven't cited any sources and you haven't claimed any personal knowledge so it looks like you're just making things up.
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* For example, a few years ago I contacted some of the developers and asked them about things that didn't make it into the final game. One of the responses brought up what was intended to be a major portion of the game that was cut because it was "impossible to do in our technology" which is exactly the kind of thing you're talking about. The thing is, it wasn't about architecture. It was about the inability to have a full scale battle.
rhoark on 16/6/2010 at 19:25
OMG, how dare the DX3 people have a cool idea that the DX1 team didn't!
Did you see Shanghai in DX1? No? Then how can you say it did or didn't have a second story? Because New York didn't? If you were paying attention at all to the setting, you would have picked up that the US is not at the forefront of technology, commerce, culture, or anything really - and hasn't been for decades. Asia is the new hotness. It would be totally expected that Shanghai would be the type of place where building like this would happen first, and things are decaying globally such that its not surprising that no one came along to do it second.
Now, I thought DX1 was the best game of all time to date, so I'm very wary that Eidos will screw with the formula when they really need to be making a game just like DX1 that innovates only in graphics and story. However, there are valid complaints that they are not true to the vision, and then there is fanboy whining. Take for example Yoda. Complaining that CGI seems soulless and unexpressive compared to a hand-operated puppet is a thematic complaint. Complaining that his lack of knuckle hair is inconsistent with the expanded universe novels is fanboy whining. This stuff about Shanghai is more like the latter.
If you want a game that has no new ideas that deviate from DX1 in any shape or form, the game you want to be playing is DX1.
Jason Moyer on 16/6/2010 at 19:34
$5 says there's going to be a skull gun aug, and that as soon as this is revealed all the complaining is going to turn into THE CAKE IS A LIE salivation.
chris the cynic on 16/6/2010 at 23:45
Quote Posted by rhoark
OMG, how dare the DX3 people have a cool idea that the DX1 team didn't!
If you are addressing this to me, then you appear to have missed my point. I'm simply disagreeing with Eldron's unfounded claim that the reason Deus Ex didn't have a Human Revolution style split city is because of technology limitations.
If that were true it would not be a case of the HR team having a cool idea the DX team didn't. It would be a case of the HR having the exact same idea but being able to implement it when the DX team could not.
Now whatever your individual reaction to a double layered city may be, do you really believe that the Deus Ex developers wanted to have one but couldn't because the technology wasn't there? Is there anything you have seen to make you think they had the same idea but were forced to abandon it?
I'm guessing that you don't and there isn't, given you explicitly said the Deus Ex team didn't have the idea.
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and things are decaying globally such that its not surprising that no one came along to do it second.
And if you'd been paying attention you'd know that things weren't decaying globally. This probably is on the level of nitpicking since most places are in a state of decay, but given that Deus Ex visits only three actual cities and of those one has, according to in game material, experienced more than fifty years of prosperity I think it is worth remembering that the state of decay is not universal. It is an extensive, but non-global, state of decay.
What was available in the game doesn't say how far that prosperity extends (based on in game material it could be anything from just one city to everywhere outside of Europe and North America.) If you're interested in what those who made Deus Ex intended I can tell you or throw a link your way.
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If you want a game that has no new ideas that deviate from DX1 in any shape or form
What I personally would like from a Deus Ex game is that it not contradict Deus Ex. It can have all the new ideas it wants, provided they do not contradict the existing material. There are pretty much an infinite number of ideas that fit that. If someone thinks none of those ideas are worth working with, I think he or she should be operating in a different intellectual property.
What I personally would like from the discussion is for people to support their points without making stuff up and acting as if it were universally accepted truth. For example, there are any number of perfectly legitimate things that can be said in defense of the cityscape in question, I simply don't believe that claiming, without any evidence to back it up, that Deus Ex would have had the same if not for technological limitations is one of them.
Unless Eldron has information from the Deus Ex developers there is no basis for his(?) argument, an argument that requires us to believe something not about the setting we can see in the game but instead about what was going on inside of the heads of the Deus Ex team. I see no point in putting forward such an argument without supporting it in any way. I see no value in it. And I don't think it should go unchallenged.
DarkForge on 17/6/2010 at 08:34
Quote Posted by Jason Moyer
$5 says there's going to be a skull gun aug, and that as soon as this is revealed all the complaining is going to turn into THE CAKE IS A LIE salivation.
I've always thought that the Skull Gun was specifically developed as a result of Gunther's request, and didn't actually exist before then. I could be mistaken of course, but that's still the impression that I get from the way it was talked about in both games.
ZylonBane on 21/6/2010 at 18:42
I just think that a double-decker city is beyond idiotic, no matter what the context.
ARCHITECTURE DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY!
Jason Moyer on 21/6/2010 at 19:10
Does it work ok in Atlanta? Obviously not the exact same thing, but they've managed to build a city on top of a city.
