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Deus Ex at 20: The oral history of a pivotal PC game

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Re: Deus Ex at 20: The oral history of a pivotal PC game

#121

Post by hyperman1 »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #116
411111111111111 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure he survived if you left through the window after killing everyone. You meet him again later iirc, though only very briefly.

That's weird, I remember doing the opposite - he only survives if you fight it out with him. Is GP's save bugged or am I having Mandela effect? States as such here (Spoilers, of course): [0] [0]: https://deusex.fandom.com/wiki/Paul_Denton#2052

Its almost 20 years ago, so i might have swapped the front door and the window. I do know for sure he becomes a killing machine if you hide in the closet instead of running away as he directs you.

Re: Deus Ex at 20: The oral history of a pivotal PC game

#122

Post by sershe »

trabant00 wrote: post #6

> ‘You can make any game you want, you can take as long as you want, and money’s not an issue’. > ‘Just run the studio, we’ll pay the bills and keep you isolated from anything that’s happening up here in Dallas’. I don't think this can happen today and I also believe this is the reason we don't see anything close to the original Deus Ex.

Well, you have to remember than another game sorta like that was Duke Nukem Forever :)

Re: Deus Ex at 20: The oral history of a pivotal PC game

#123

Post by anthk »

laumars wrote: post #48
trabant00 wrote: post #6

> ‘You can make any game you want, you can take as long as you want, and money’s not an issue’. > ‘Just run the studio, we’ll pay the bills and keep you isolated from anything that’s happening up here in Dallas’. I don't think this can happen today and I also believe this is the reason we don't see anything close to the original Deus Ex.

The issue these days isn't so much time nor money but rather the difficulty in standing out from the pack when so much of game mechanics has already been discovered. Each breakthrough in technology has been followed by iconic "first of it's era" games, eg: - Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot and others with their demonstration of how to translate a platformer to a 3D world - Tomb Raider with it's "even the scenery can be exp…

>- Shenmue with it's 3D open world and concept of fully immersing the player in the role

No. Mizzurna Falls was first.

Re: Deus Ex at 20: The oral history of a pivotal PC game

#124

Post by ajsharp »

redxdev wrote: post #113
ajsharp wrote: post #89

Deux Ex felt then and still today like a gift where story was everything, right before online/multiplayer completely transformed the industry, and for a good ten years single player was more or less an afterthought. I've never been so engrossed in a storyline as I was when I played Deus Ex. I re-played it a few years ago and I was shocked how satisfying it still was. I don't work in gaming, and I haven't been an avid…

The problem with being on the outside of the industry (or not being a gamer) and looking into it is that most of the social media and news presence is around the big name multiplayer and blockbuster titles. That doesn't mean story-focused games don't come out, just that they don't garner attention outside of the gaming sphere. A short list of ones to look into, just to name a few: Disco Elysium - 2019 - A _very_ weir…

Really appreciate you taking the time to type all this out. This is awesome. Thanks.

Re: Deus Ex at 20: The oral history of a pivotal PC game

#125

Post by [deleted] »

djur wrote: post #101
kemayo wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Matrix came ~9 months before Deus Ex, so their productions definitely overlapped but they'd have had time to assimilate some stuff if they wanted to. That said, it's more that they're both drawing on similar cyberpunk traditions. There's a clear line between the aesthetic of Neuromancer and Deus Ex / The Matrix both.

There's a Matrix easter egg in Deus Ex (the cheat code 'thereisnospoon') so they were definitely aware of the similarities. They're really only superficially similar in aesthetics and broad themes, though.

[deleted]

Re: Deus Ex at 20: The oral history of a pivotal PC game

#126

Post by laumars »

anthk wrote: post #123
laumars wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue these days isn't so much time nor money but rather the difficulty in standing out from the pack when so much of game mechanics has already been discovered. Each breakthrough in technology has been followed by iconic "first of it's era" games, eg: - Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot and others with their demonstration of how to translate a platformer to a 3D world - Tomb Raider with it's "even the scenery can be exp…

>- Shenmue with it's 3D open world and concept of fully immersing the player in the role No. Mizzurna Falls was first.

If you only look at the Japanese release dates then sure. But Mizzurna Falls was a mess of a game and never released in the west. Shenmue, however, had been in development long before Mizzurna Falls had started (since Shenmue was first developed as an RPG for the Saturn) and even with the pivot to the Dreamcast, it was only released the following year after Mizzurna Falls.

Shenmue also has a much higher polygon count, all the NPCs had voice actors, it had action sequences, mini-games, etc. It was a hell of a lot more immersive than Mizzurna Falls in every imaginable way.

Re: Deus Ex at 20: The oral history of a pivotal PC game

#127

Post by anthk »

laumars wrote: post #126
anthk wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>- Shenmue with it's 3D open world and concept of fully immersing the player in the role No. Mizzurna Falls was first.

If you only look at the Japanese release dates then sure. But Mizzurna Falls was a mess of a game and never released in the west. Shenmue, however, had been in development long before Mizzurna Falls had started (since Shenmue was first developed as an RPG for the Saturn) and even with the pivot to the Dreamcast, it was only released the following year after Mizzurna Falls. Shenmue also has a much higher polygon count…

True, I forgot the Saturn protoypes, my bad.

But the concept of "open world" could date back to Ultima RPG. You could set Ultima VII under an "open world" genre.

Re: Deus Ex at 20: The oral history of a pivotal PC game

#128

Post by laumars »

anthk wrote: post #127
laumars wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you only look at the Japanese release dates then sure. But Mizzurna Falls was a mess of a game and never released in the west. Shenmue, however, had been in development long before Mizzurna Falls had started (since Shenmue was first developed as an RPG for the Saturn) and even with the pivot to the Dreamcast, it was only released the following year after Mizzurna Falls. Shenmue also has a much higher polygon count…

True, I forgot the Saturn protoypes, my bad. But the concept of "open world" could date back to Ultima RPG. You could set Ultima VII under an "open world" genre.

You could argue the concept of open world games date back to 70s with Dungeons and Dragons. The point I was making was that Shenmue introduced the world to a new way of approaching game design -- even if not all of the ideas were truly unique it did still package them in a way that hadn't been (successfully) tried before. Which is why it's such a memorable game.

Re: Deus Ex at 20: The oral history of a pivotal PC game

#129

Post by falcor84 »

elcomet wrote: post #115
falcor84 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A linear increase in team size gets you a geometric increase in coordination costs. You mean quadratic, no?

Geometric means exponential so it's not the same as quadratic (which means squared).

That is my point, coordination costs are commonly modeled quadratically - as the number of edges in a fully-connected graph being a quadratic function of the number of nodes.
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