Give Me Deus Ex

[Thirith]

I will be interested to know your thoughts when you get around to it.

Will do.

[Manwe]

I only got to play it for a few hours before I had to leave my PC to go spend the holidays with my family. I got up to the Mole People in the sewers (playing on medium difficulty).

So far, I like the attention to detail. The new sounds (love the binoculars), the changes to the interface, the increased interactivity with the environment, the characters without helmets in the UNATCO headquarters, the added gore, etc...

The new skills and perk system, are interesting but I feel like it might be a bit unbalanced. Like it's just a first pass but needs more fine-tuning (but that's just from taking a quick glance at them). For example, the stealth skill finally makes stealth really fun to play, but almost too easy compared to the original game. Now you can just walk up to an enemy and knock him out in one hit. No need to worry about aiming or bumping into him. It's really forgiving. However, enemies now react as you would expect when throwing an object, which is great: they go and inspect the source of the sound instead of just running in a random direction. This makes all the useless junk lying around really useful.

Here are a few other things I noted:

I like the new taser ammo type for the crossbow. However I was really surprised when an enemy's head exploded after I mistakenly fired a normal dart instead of a poison dart at it. Is that working as intended? If so, that seems to be a tad overkill. Looks like something a shotgun would do (which I haven't tried). Also I suppose the game wasn't intended for enemy body parts to be removed so there's just a hole in the model where their head should be. Is that a technical limitation or a bug on my part?

I also encountered a few graphical glitches, mainly in the Underworld bar, like some weird flashes in the environment. The same thing happened when aiming the flashlight at certain items in the environment (like the closet near Carter's shop). I also had a problem with food and drinks. After a while I couldn't consume them at all anymore (the red "you're full" message stopped appearing). Also with the medbots being limited to two uses only, choosing to unlock the medbot in the Hell's Kitchen clinic seems like a huge ripoff.

Now for the changes to the maps. I'm actually torn on this one after playing Revision. I know you're not gonna like that but I preferred some of their maps over yours (granted I haven't seen the whole game). Some of them simply offered a higher visual fidelity than yours (well the originals really). I like your version of Liberty Island better, theirs was too dark and needlessly bigger. However, I liked their version of UNATCO better. Going back to the original, it just seems really grey and boring. The same goes for the first part of Hell's Kitchen. After playing through Revision, the original feels so tiny, cramped and dull.

These are just my honest first impressions, I'm not trying to be overly critical. I know you had troubles finding beta testers so maybe that explains the glitches. Do you intend to keep working on it or are you satisfied with its current state? Anyway, I'm looking forward to spending more time with it as there's just so much to discover. I'm especially curious to try out the higher difficulties as medium seems a tad too easy.

[Dev_Anj]

The problem with trying to compare Revision's redesigns to GMDX's redesigns is that they have vastly different goals. Revision basically is a re imagining of the original game which takes heavy artistic liberties at times while GMDX just tries to make them look better with subtle details and additions most of the time. Since Revision takes these liberties, it becomes a very controversial affair over whether the changes are good or not. I personally didn't care for most of the changes in Revision from what I played, which was upto Hell's Kitchen rooftops. So I wouldn't expect GMDX's levels to be meaningfully compared to Revision, though I can understand if you prefer one more than the other.

I'm not opposed to changing the levels, but I feel the Revision team still have a lot to learn about level design and this has led to some bad design decisions creeping into their mod. Yes the original levels were minimalistic and barren, but redoing them could have been better handled.

In any case, this is akin to comparing the Thief Gold HD mod with the EP2: they both have different goals and while one can like a pack more than the other not much can be done to make either pack suit the other pack fans' standards.

[GMDX Dev]

The new skills and perk system, are interesting but I feel like it might be a bit unbalanced. Like it's just a first pass but needs more fine-tuning (but that's just from taking a quick glance at them). For example, the stealth skill finally makes stealth really fun to play, but almost too easy compared to the original game. Now you can just walk up to an enemy and knock him out in one hit. No need to worry about aiming or bumping into him. It's really forgiving

Sounds like a higher difficulty may have been for you as AI-related stealth behavior scales based on difficulty level. I'm unsure what you mean by "knock him out in one hit, no need to aim or worry about bumping into him" though. You do still need to aim, but now the back of the head counts as a sneak attack as in Thief, which is just better design and fixes problems with chairs as mentioned earlier in this thread. Bumping into them from behind does nothing as in vanilla (I guess you played Revision with Human Renovation which makes bumping into them result in a reaction).

However I was really surprised when an enemy's head exploded after I mistakenly fired a normal dart instead of a poison dart at it. Is that working as intended?

Nope, not intended.

I also encountered a few graphical glitches, mainly in the Underworld bar, like some weird flashes in the environment. The same thing happened when aiming the flashlight at certain items in the environment (like the closet near Carter's shop).

Renderer-related. Change renderer if the problems persist.

Also with the medbots being limited to two uses only, choosing to unlock the medbot in the Hell's Kitchen clinic seems like a huge ripoff.

It can be a rip-off or it can be a blessing. Depends on your build. For example if you have investments in multitools you can get in there with one multitool, And healing is not the only reward - this is the only place you can install Aqualung/Environ resistance for quite some time, plus there's a multitool to be found in the room.

Now for the changes to the maps. I'm actually torn on this one after playing Revision. I know you're not gonna like that but I preferred some of their maps over yours (granted I haven't seen the whole game). Some of them simply offered a higher visual fidelity than yours (well the originals really).

No, that's fine. Just remember there's far more to level design than visuals.

[Manwe]

Bumping into them from behind does nothing as in vanilla (I guess you played Revision with Human Renovation which makes bumping into them result in a reaction).

Ah gotcha, I knew this was pretty weird. Haven't played the original in almost ten years now.

[Thirith]

I'm still early in the game (Liberty Island), and I've got two quick questions:
1) Is it possible there's a bug with respect to ammo? I've got the crossbow with tranq darts, and several times when searching unconscious NSF guys I was told that I picked up some additional darts, yet they don't seem to show up. I've just run out of darts, knocked out a bad guy, searched him, found some darts - yet I still can't reload the crossbow. Or are there different kinds of tranq darts?
2) In the guard room where Gunther is kept, there's a guard sitting on a chair. However, I can't seem to knock him out with my baton - until he gets up. In other words, I have to hit him once, he gets up, and then I hit him again. Is this normal behaviour?

[Pyrian]

Heheh, now you have to answer for all the issues in vanilla DX that you didn't address!

"Darts" are not tranq darts. Check your inventory for "standard"/poison darts.

Sitting guards have always been a problem.

[Thirith]

Ah, gotcha. :-) It's been ages since I last played Deus Ex. (I've always been more into the more focused approach of, say, Thief than into Deus Ex' freedom which lacks that focus by design.)

Edit: Actually, the dart thing seems to be a bug, though I don't know if it was already there in the unmodded game. When I went to my inventory and changed the crossbow ammo away from tranq darts and back again, I suddenly had several clips, where before it showed zero shots, zero clips. Not a biggie, and as I said, it may already have been there in vanilla Deus Ex.

[GMDX Dev]

I'm still early in the game (Liberty Island), and I've got two quick questions:
1) Is it possible there's a bug with respect to ammo?

Shouldn't be. If there was a bug of this order it would have been discovered already. Sounds like a player error/confusion, no offense.

2) In the guard room where Gunther is kept, there's a guard sitting on a chair. However, I can't seem to knock him out with my baton - until he gets up. In other words, I have to hit him once, he gets up, and then I hit him again. Is this normal behaviour?

Stand real close, aim for the head or back (by hitting him through the chair as mentioned earlier, if the chair type allows it).

[Thirith]

Thanks. It's possible that I did something wrong re: the darts, though in this particular case I don't think so, because this happened without me doing anything - I picked up the tranq darts but didn't change anything about my weapons or ammo. Anyway, I'll make a note if it happens again, and in the meantime changing the ammo type and then changing it back helped.

I'll try again with other sitting enemies, although I tried several times with this one (reloading afterwards), and no success. In the end I simply lured him from his chair by throwing stuff into the room.

[Thug]

Hey guys, thats my first post, i really like your forum.
So yesterday i downloaded and installed for first time in my life Deus Ex the first one from back in 2000. I only had play a demo back it time and i was very impressed but i couldn't afford to buy it.
Yesterday i played just the training, and god this is going to be amazing!

[Tannar]

Welcome to the forum. And yes, Deus Ex is one of the best games ever made. Enjoy your first time through it!

[gkkiller]

So I'm playing Deus Ex with GMDX installed ... And for some reason the game crashes when I quickload. Not every single time, but at least once or twice per hour of play. Makes it annoying as hell. Any fixes?

[ZylonBane]

Die less?

[GMDX Dev]

Disable the "First Person Death Perspective" option. This will be fixed in the next version.

[Stargem]

I was collecting some notes while attempting a playthrough of GMDX. Never finished, but I figured that I might as well pass along my opinion on various bits.



INCONSISTENCIES


The Plague Dogs: Using non-lethal weaponry on canines will result in their death. Not only inconsistent, but also may cause pity in people who still have a heart. In my case, I was worried about failing Paul Denton's request to peacefully subdue the opposition. He has a heart, one that surely loves canines.

Impotent Muscles: Using the Microfiber Muscle augmentation to throw objects at locked doors won't cause any damage. Tossing a lazy-boy into a wooden door should do at least a bit of damage, especially with maxed muscles.

ATM of the Underworld: Withdrawing credits from one ATM via passcode and then hacking it, followed by accessing the other terminal by hacking would result in showing -18 credits in the balance.

NSF Vanished: At some point, the NSF troops that are near the clinic and Ton vanished. I am not sure what action lead to this, but I am guessing that my sniping broke the encounter. Took down four of them from the top of the Ton, then I left for the Underworld and Smuggler’s place, deciding to come back later with more tranq darts. The remaining two NSF troopers vanished into the ether. Not terribly important, but weird anyhow.

Tripping on Lasers: The laser tripwire in Smuggler’s is very inconsistent. Sometimes tripping it with objects would open the shutter, other times it wouldn’t.

Hotel Moans: At the Ton Hotel, a certain room has...noises. Strangely, it seems something in GMDX changed to make it sound like a trash compactor, instead of people.


USER-FRIENDLINESS

The biggest problem of Deus Ex has to do with human aging: My eyes are not what they used to be. A bigger font and GUI would be very nice for geezers like myself.


When my inventory gets filled up, moving bodies becomes inconvenient – the game won’t allow me to move them, since they still have items on them. That means adjusting my inventory, moving the body, then retrieving my stuff. It would be nice if holding down the interact button would activate body movement, while just tapping would do a search.


Regarding the ATMs, they are annoying for me: Using a hack to access an ATM prevents further use. This translates into me waiting until the end of the level, accessing with credentials to empty the accounts, only THEN I could hack without worry. It would be nice if ATMs were altered like this: The game checks each account in the machine, and once the balance of all accounts reach zero, the ATM is locked down.


LEVEL DESIGN

Smuggler’s Retreat - I think the alternate exit and entrance in Smuggler’s garage should be moved beyond the robot. The reasons:

1 – I think it serves as a bolt-hole for the guy. Which is strange, considering that it isn’t covered by the robot’s tripwire. If I were making a hasty retreat, I would try to make sure no one could intercept me on the way out.

2 – It costs a lockpick to get in through that entrance, unlike the “Bloodshot” entrance. I think it would be appropriate to compensate by allowing the player to avoid the robot. Someone using the Bloodshot entrance and still preferring stealth has two options to deal with the bot: Either use a multi-tool to disable the tripwire, or use objects to hop over them.


Dream Pipe – I don’t know the name for it, but there is an underground tunnel with two turrets and a bunch of lasers in Hell’s Kitchen. My problem with it is that one laser is placed in such a way, that it isn’t possible to skip the lasers by using objects. There is a pipe in the upper-right corner of the tunnel, that is nearly perfect for circumventing the lasers. To offset this solution, I think most of the movable objects could be replaced by something heavier, requiring the strength augment to obtain access.


Tatami Ninja: The hidden floor panel in Jacob’s office is a little too well hidden. Aside from the red monitor nearby, there is no “tell” to help a player spot it. Adding a hairline crack would be fine, it just has to be something that makes a player go “Whazzat?”.


Using a fire extinguisher's vapor won't block lasers. I thought the developers intended it to do so, since there are fire extinguishers in the Liberty Statue and Smuggler’s that are not far from the tripwires. Mind, I have no idea if that would actually work in real-life...

The Pepper Gun can’t be used as a secondary weapon, despite looking easy to wield. Ditto for the stun prod.



PERKS

Heavy Weapons Trainee – Perfect Stance, Heavy Weapons: Generic, but sufficiently useful to be a perk.

Heavy Weapons Expert – HE Rockets: Good effect, but a bit too specific since it only covers the GEP gun. Adding an special effect to the Plasma Gun, Flame Thrower, and LAW would be nice. Maybe a "sticky" flame could be left by the flame thrower and plasma bolts? LAW could also get the same effect as GEP.

Heavy Weapons Master – In Bulk: Shrinking down the size of essential gear is definitely a worthwhile perk. If the HE Rockets perk is broadened, I recommend swapping the perk tier.


Hazardous Environment Expert – Hardened: Good idea, though not that powerful. Might be sensible to merge Clarity into this.


Demolitions Trainee – Sonic-Transducer Sensor: It is unique and useful. I feel it is suitable for the tier it is at.

Demolitions Expert – Short Fuse: Not a bad idea, if it is worked. Suitable for the tier it is at.

Demolitions Master – Knockout Gas: Having master skill in Demolitions already adds non-lethal qualities to gas grenades. To say the least, this perk is redundant and useless. Even if it was valid, it is useless for anyone who has no interest in non-lethal tactics.

Electronics Trainee – Sabotage: Passes with good marks in uniqueness and application. Perfect where it is at.

Electronics Expert – Wireless Strength: Useful and unique. I think it should be swapped with the master tier, as this is rather useful for a variety of situations.

Electronics Master – Handy, if a bit boring. Suitable for the expert tier, in my opinion.


Athletics Trainee – Clarity: Way too situational, not very cool, and is of little use.

Athletics Expert – Athlete's Appetite: Handy for making consumables a lot more flexible, but it isn't very powerful. I recommend it being Trainee tier.



PERK SUGGESTIONS

Demolitions Master - Custom Munitions: This perk combines all four grenade types (EMP, LAM, Gas, Scrambler) into a generic munition, where you can select the munition's effect by swapping ammo. Aside from saving inventory space, this allows the player to tailor their thrown munitions to the situation. Due to the utility, it warrants being very expensive. Alternatively, it could just be a space-saver perk that is cheaper than Packrat.

Athletics Master – Packrat: Adds an extra column to the inventory screen. The ability to carry more stuff is very handy, and makes quite a bit of sense for Athletics. Mild cost, since it is fairly boring when compared to Custom Munitions or Wireless Strength.

RANDOM IDEAS

Merge the Baton and Prod together. The Baton could have two ammo modes, one where it is an regular melee weapon, and the other where it consumes prod charges to be electrified. This would reduce the amount of clutter in the inventory and toolbar. Plus, it seems sensible to me that law enforcement would try to make their toolkit compact.

Merging together the Combat Knife and Throwing knives. Not as realistic when compared to the baton suggestion, but useful for cutting down on clutter. Same concept: Ammo 1 is regular melee and infinite, Ammo 2 consumes knives.

Being able to stick grenades onto the floor would be nice.

In my opinion, it would be cool if increased skill level for each category increased the amount of potential supplies that could be acquired from pickups.

[voodoo47]

just a very quick comment - some stuff has already been fixed, and you can pick bodies without messing with the inventory by double clicking the body.

[A.J]

I just heard of the v9.0 update that's coming soon... and no one's even mentioned it here.

[GMDX Dev]

INCONSISTENCIES


The Plague Dogs: Using non-lethal weaponry on canines will result in their death. Not only inconsistent, but also may cause pity in people who still have a heart. In my case, I was worried about failing Paul Denton's request to peacefully subdue the opposition. He has a heart, one that surely loves canines.

Vanilla and fixed in v9.0.

Impotent Muscles: Using the Microfiber Muscle augmentation to throw objects at locked doors won't cause any damage. Tossing a lazy-boy into a wooden door should do at least a bit of damage, especially with maxed muscles.

It's capped at 30 damage vs doors for balancing purposes, unless it's an explosive barrel and the like. For reference, door damage threshold ranges from 0-90.

ATM of the Underworld: Withdrawing credits from one ATM via passcode and then hacking it, followed by accessing the other terminal by hacking would result in showing -18 credits in the balance.

Will take a look.

NSF Vanished: At some point, the NSF troops that are near the clinic and Ton vanished. I am not sure what action lead to this, but I am guessing that my sniping broke the encounter. Took down four of them from the top of the Ton, then I left for the Underworld and Smuggler’s place, deciding to come back later with more tranq darts. The remaining two NSF troopers vanished into the ether. Not terribly important, but weird anyhow.

Vanilla. If you enter a loading screen once having alerted them they will vanish, presumed dead by the UNATCO troops.

Tripping on Lasers: The laser tripwire in Smuggler’s is very inconsistent. Sometimes tripping it with objects would open the shutter, other times it wouldn’t.

Fixed in v9.0.

Hotel Moans: At the Ton Hotel, a certain room has...noises. Strangely, it seems something in GMDX changed to make it sound like a trash compactor, instead of people.

Depends on the door and the visit. If I recall, vanilla there was heavy handed audio placement. Two doors in one visit would make sex noises, for instance, so the number has been cut down.

The biggest problem of Deus Ex has to do with human aging: My eyes are not what they used to be. A bigger font and GUI would be very nice for geezers like myself.

Disable the OTPFix.

When my inventory gets filled up, moving bodies becomes inconvenient – the game won’t allow me to move them, since they still have items on them. That means adjusting my inventory, moving the body, then retrieving my stuff. It would be nice if holding down the interact button would activate body movement, while just tapping would do a search.

As voodoo said, double click the body.

Regarding the ATMs, they are annoying for me: Using a hack to access an ATM prevents further use. This translates into me waiting until the end of the level, accessing with credentials to empty the accounts, only THEN I could hack without worry. It would be nice if ATMs were altered like this: The game checks each account in the machine, and once the balance of all accounts reach zero, the ATM is locked down.

I don't really see the problem here.

Smuggler’s Retreat - I think the alternate exit and entrance in Smuggler’s garage should be moved beyond the robot. The reasons

It would become the dominant path. That route/container door is only locked on the first visit, and the bloodshot password is also only needed on the first visit.

Dream Pipe – I don’t know the name for it, but there is an underground tunnel with two turrets and a bunch of lasers in Hell’s Kitchen. My problem with it is that one laser is placed in such a way, that it isn’t possible to skip the lasers by using objects. There is a pipe in the upper-right corner of the tunnel, that is nearly perfect for circumventing the lasers. To offset this solution, I think most of the movable objects could be replaced by something heavier, requiring the strength augment to obtain access.

Use a multitool for once? Chuck an EMP nade? Blow up the lasers? Go the other way? Fine, here's a very cheap trick for dealing with lasers: throw down an object next to the laser emitter, which will trigger the alarm but also block the laser. As soon as it's triggered hide from the turret's line of sight and explore elsewhere for ~30 secs, fiddle with your inventory if you have the real time UI option enabled or whatever, then return and you'll be free to pass the laser without consequence.

Tatami Ninja: The hidden floor panel in Jacob’s office is a little too well hidden. Aside from the red monitor nearby, there is no “tell” to help a player spot it. Adding a hairline crack would be fine, it just has to be something that makes a player go “Whazzat?”.

There is now a very subtle way to tell via texture offset.

The Pepper Gun can’t be used as a secondary weapon, despite looking easy to wield. Ditto for the stun prod.

Will take a look.

Heavy Weapons Expert – HE Rockets: Good effect, but a bit too specific since it only covers the GEP gun. Adding an special effect to the Plasma Gun, Flame Thrower, and LAW would be nice. Maybe a "sticky" flame could be left by the flame thrower and plasma bolts? LAW could also get the same effect as GEP.

Yeah, maybe.

Demolitions Expert – Short Fuse: Not a bad idea, if it is worked. Suitable for the tier it is at.

Fixed in v9.0.

Demolitions Master – Knockout Gas: Having master skill in Demolitions already adds non-lethal qualities to gas grenades. To say the least, this perk is redundant and useless. Even if it was valid, it is useless for anyone who has no interest in non-lethal tactics.

You're kidding, it's one of the more powerful perks. Well, I guess you never made it further in the game.
Also, why is it redundant for lethal players, exactly? It knocks an enemy out of commission with ease, and that is what is important. If a lethal player really cares for actual death status of enemies, they can gib their corpse, toss them in water, whatever after the area is cleared out if they really must. That's the joy with lethal builds, they get access to everything and it all has use, including non-lethal equipment. Meanwhile the non-lethal player is restricted to baton, prod and anything that won't cause death, which isn't a lot. The game has far more lethal equipment as it is. So non-lethal is more challenging, but also generally a lot less fun without a wide array of tools to play with and nothing can really be done about it. Lethal will always have more options.
...Not that options are the be-all-end-all of fun, increased challenge through the restrictions of the playstyle can certainly hold it's own, along with the NPC reactions to non-lethal efforts, but I just think the game is considerably more enjoyable lethal combat or lethal stealth and that it's a shame there's such a huge discrepancy.

Electronics Expert – Wireless Strength: Useful and unique. I think it should be swapped with the master tier, as this is rather useful for a variety of situations.

Swapping with master tier wouldn't make sense at all. Think it over :P

Athletics Trainee – Clarity: Way too situational, not very cool, and is of little use.

It has its uses, especially for a low-level swimmer. But hey, it's better to have trash options than overpowered ones.

Athletics Expert – Athlete's Appetite: Handy for making consumables a lot more flexible, but it isn't very powerful. I recommend it being Trainee tier.

Changed in v9.0.

Demolitions Master - Custom Munitions: This perk combines all four grenade types (EMP, LAM, Gas, Scrambler) into a generic munition, where you can select the munition's effect by swapping ammo. Aside from saving inventory space, this allows the player to tailor their thrown munitions to the situation. Due to the utility, it warrants being very expensive. Alternatively, it could just be a space-saver perk that is cheaper than Packrat.

Demo master is thoroughly covered by the perk that makes Gas grenades instant knockout on augmented/unprotected organic enemy types. The usefulness of said perk is highlighted late game where enemies ramp up in difficulty (which never happened vanilla despite it being basic game design and one of "Warren Spector's Ten Commandments of Game Design").

Athletics Master – Packrat: Adds an extra column to the inventory screen

Would become must-have to the point it's not even a choice at all.

Being able to stick grenades onto the floor would be nice.

Hmm, yeah I should probably do that.

In my opinion, it would be cool if increased skill level for each category increased the amount of potential supplies that could be acquired from pickups.

Nah. A bit too gamey (despite the perk and skills systems being gamey concepts, but they are both very loosely based in realism/what is possible for a skilled agent), difficult to balance, and there are already a bunch of support skills that are additional ammo providers or savers: lockpicking, hacking etc.

[GMDX Dev]

GMDX v9.0 Enters Public Beta.

www.givemedeusex.com

* GMDX needs Veteran players and it needs newcomers.
* It needs a large pool of people with various hardware types, from toasters to high-end machines, as well as differing software.
* Easy difficulty players, hardcore players, and everything in between.
* English speaking players, French, and German. (Russian and Hungarian need further support for now, which shall be handled ASAP).
* Combat, Stealth, non-lethal, hybrid...players of varying playstyles are needed.
* Most of all, I in particular want passionate players that expect the absolute best from their games, have a critical eye, and also a good understanding of the design principles Deus Ex was built upon.

GMDX is nearing half a decade into development now and its goals are mostly fulfilled: the greatest thinking man's shooter/sneaker/RPG hybrid on another level without losing sight of what made it so special to begin with. Invite yourself to beta testing and aid what fans have been calling the "definitive Deus Ex experience" achieve a state of perfection.

[Vae]

Nice...Can't wait to check it out...

[GMDX Dev]

New news posting: http://www.moddb.com/mods/gmdx/news/...rection-update

[TheDarkOne93]

Will there be HD characters in 9.0 or will they be implemented in a later version?

[GMDX Dev]

In all likelihood no. Huge undertaking and the results would probably not be good. Takes some exceptional artists to model, skin and animate tons of human models with consistent high quality.

[GMDX Dev]

We've got physics though! Everyone likes physics.