Bluegrime on 21/6/2010 at 20:30
The last three posts before this one are the only ones worth reading on this page in their entirety.
The double decker city idea is an obvious branch from reality.. But is it a bad one? I don't really think so. If they explain it in the game and have it be a point of interest then I'm fine with it. Now if they just say "Shanghai has two stories, end of story." then it might be a little irksome.
But they have already explained the choice from an in game perspective, so I'm totally cool with it.
chris the cynic on 21/6/2010 at 20:43
"City on top of a city" isn't the most exact of all phrases*. We can certainly find examples in history where people raised the street level for one reason or another (the two that come to mind are building bridges and then later turning them into the new street level, and being sick of the streets flooding) but the examples we have are of things being raised one to two stories making the undertaking less like what we see in Human Revolution and more like building a fairly average bridge or a building with a roof you can drive on.
I haven't examined Atlanta's street level change in depth, but it looks more akin to an unplanned version of what Disney World and certain Roman cities did than anything resembling Human Revolution's cityscape.
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* Especially since both cities being functioning isn't specified. Historically most cities are on top of cities and the result is that mounds develop as city after city is built atop the one that came before. Often times ancient sites are discovered by looking for such mounds. Examining the difference between what is found in a city and what is found in the city it is on top of is one of the few ways we have to determine when certain things were invented/discovered.
thiefinthedark on 22/6/2010 at 16:59
Some interesting real-world developments to contribute to this discussion:
Inline Image:
http://www.pbase.com/pixel_eye/image/116045245/original.jpgThis is the "Skypark" in Singapore. That's kind of a poor picture, the one on the front page of the Globe and Mail today was quite a bit better. It's interesting, given the context of the discussion at hand. One could argue that it is a "First step" towards the Shanghai we are seeing in HR.
Except that HR takes place in 15 years, and this sky park took 10 years and $5.5 Billion to build.
I stand by my assertion that there is simply no way that we magically build a city suspended over another city in 15 years, and then have it vanish in a further 15 years. Nanotech was just starting to be developed by the time Deus Ex 1 rolled around, so you cannot argue that it was the instrument responsible.
This is simply a case of EM throwing out retention of the source material in favor of "Artistic License", something I despise. We've already seen this in EM's cavalier attitude towards the primary themes of Deus Ex; For example: In Deus Ex, a primary motif was that Mechanical Augmentation resulted in monstrosities that horrified people, resulting in people like Gunther who look like they have had Forklift hydraulics put in their arms. In HR, the augmentation has been deliberately designed to be as sexy as possible, completely ret-conning one of the driving narrative tools from the source material.
The leaked footage looks interesting, but if they continue to pursue personal artistic license I'll remain by my standpoint that this is simply a new IP that was shoe-horned into the Deus Ex franchise in a mis-guided attempt to sell it easier.
Ostriig on 22/6/2010 at 17:50
Quote Posted by thiefinthedark
I stand by my assertion that there is simply no way that we magically build a city suspended over another city in 15 years,
Right, because none of the original game's augmentations, for instance, are to any extent "(
http://deusex.wikia.com/wiki/Cloak) magical".
Quote:
and then have it vanish in a further 15 years.
Except no one said it vanishes by 2052, and the simple fact that you don't see this unique island off Shanghai in the original Deus Ex (
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=132232&p=1992386&viewfull=1#post1992386) does not mean seeing it now is out of place. Seriously, get off it, there's enough whining to be done about retcons but this one locale is not part of it.
chris the cynic on 22/6/2010 at 19:11
@ thiefinthedark
I certainly agree with some of what you're saying, but there are things worth getting straight.
The first is that your time periods are off. The suspended city is supposed to have been built by 17 years from now, not 15. Deus Ex takes place a further 25 years after that. From now to when Deus Ex is set is 42 years, not 30.
It is also worth noting that, while I have been told* that IW does explicitly indicate that the city from Human Revolution would have to be erased not only from existence but also from the mind of man, Deus Ex doesn't actually say such a city does not exist. Deus Ex takes the same stance on a city like that as it does on small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri in that it mentions neither.
You can make arguments about tone, or vision, or what not with regards to both, but when it comes right down to it, Deus Ex doesn't say.
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Which is not to say that it says nothing about the state of architecture and construction after Human Revolution. For example, the first building you set foot in in Paris was in the process of being being built 20 years after HR, at which point construction was halted.
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@ Ostriig
That's probably a good example, they've got something fairly out there and supplement it with an explanation that makes just enough sense to allow the suspension of disbelief. (Though it doesn't stand up to fridge logic, unless JC's clothing has a living skin which is compatible with nano-augmenation.)
The makers of Human Revolution may do the same. It is entirely possible that Human Revolution will have an explanation for how the project was finished so quickly and without bankrupting those who did it, why it made sense for a profit driven organization to do something like that, and why it (and perhaps more importantly its means of construction) will have no lasting impact on the world.
If they can do it in 21 words, I'll be impressed.
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* Someone else can double check this if they want. I can check the entire dialogue and text from Deus Ex in a matter of seconds if I have an exact word and not too much longer if I don't, IW not so much.
Koki on 23/6/2010 at 05:56
I probably wouldn't really care if it wasn't such a dumb idea. You can't just build a "second floor" on top of existing skyscrapers. It wouldn't work on any level imaginable.
Sathras on 23/6/2010 at 20:49
"The skyscrapers are augmented."
