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Thread: Woah... guess what I just found

  1. #26
    Member
    Registered: Aug 1999
    Location: Bath, England.
    Originally posted by O'Shuva
    BTW, do you mind if I borrow your text for various scenarios for attacking the NTF base in Hell's Kitchen as a basis for a spoof of those 'Friend's wedding or airplane bathroom?' questionnaires? Please?
    Er... what text are we talking about specifically? Almost certainly, yes, assuming you add a credit somewhere in the ReadMe file or something...

    "I've taken Charlotte out to play in some Deus Ex levels and, yes, she is very powerful, more so than JC. I can put a DU round though the head of any nominated MJ-12 trooper in view. However, part of that, I imagine, is the ability to decide not to kill everyone you come across. Like the 'real' Superman, only with a gun instead of that Freespace-2-beam-cannon-laser-coming-out-of-eyes thing."

    There is that angle to it. While I mentioned trying to balance at the level structure rather than in the weapon structure, I *did* want her to be more powerful. You felt relatively hard in DX compared with - say - Thief, but not actually that much of a ridiculous superhuman.

    If the actual mission ever comes out, you should see how right you are regarding the moral dimension being the most important one - and most challenging. Since we don't have to worry about Publishers taking away the money, we're able to cut to make moral issues genuinely pointed. I mean, the whole "Charlotte is a God" line you get from Nick when he talks about the deathswitch is clearly somewhat facecious... but it certainly contains a nugget of truth.

    I'll avoid elaborating any more on this, clearly.

    My own view of Cassandra is the Organic, and hence individual, over the Mechanical, the exact opposite of what IW has revealed itself to be. Hence the greater empathises on skills rather than augmentations. While the augmentations are more powerful, you have less choice on how to combine them and so on, meaning that sense of self definition comes more from your skills and inventory and how you choose to use them.
    Yes, there's certainly that - IW presents a defeatist, or at least communalist, world view in many ways. That real change can only happen on a mass level - after that moment when you step on the crux of existence and change everything, it all will continue. There's no breaks on the train and the signal man only has power at the junction. This way - eternal fascism. This way - eternal consumerism. This way - eternal techno-communism. This way - a cliff, and we're hoping we can learn to fly by the time we hit it.

    But Cassandra is based on the assumption of the powers of an individual. All of the Project are people who have, one way or another, chosen to make a difference, and do it through their own abilities. The sneering reference to Atlas Shrugged by Dr Spake has a certain irony to it in many ways - if you cut away the anarchist undercurrents from the lot of them, there's many of these people who'll fit into Ayn Rand's only-geniuses-count view of humanity.

    The undertone, I hoped anyway, was that *everyone* are these people.

    And all revolutions start with one person who chooses to say No.

    Of course, hyper-competent assassins and cool cyberware probably figure highly too. Gotta love that shit.

    KG

  2. #27
    Member
    Registered: Jan 2004
    Location: Crystal House
    I'm talking about this text, as mostly lifted from the DX review:
    Question 1: Multiple choice - pick one of the following:

    A) You find yourself looking at a tower. You have to blow up a generator inside. Guards patrol outside, dogs yapping with their probably rabid mouths. You shrug, reloading the assault rifle. Noticing a ladder on the side of the building, you climb up to the roof. You hear the barking of the mutts; this tells you your cover has been blown. At this point you give up all pretence of subtlety, charging down a ramp into the building proper. Alarms go off as troopers start to locate you. Ducking between crates, you return fire. Realising you’re outnumbered, you pull out a LAM grenade, attaching it to a wall before retreating. As the pursuing pack approaches, the motion sensors activate the grenade. Taking advantage of the confusion you charge, liberally spraying bullets. Downstairs, you locate the generator, lobbing another couple of LAMs through the door to reduce hi-tech to wreck. A sprint to the roof, leaping into your escape helicopter, and out. Chaos. Death. You’re an ultra-bad-ass mo-fo raining annihilation on the second summer of love.

    Or

    B) You find yourself looking at a tower. You have to blow up a generator inside. Guards patrol outside, dogs yapping with their probably rabid mouths. You shrug. You’ve broken into more dangerous places than this before. Waiting for a gap in the patrol routes, you crawl silently to the ladder, ascending to the roof. Looking through the skylight you notice two guards chatting, spouting conspiracy theories about the government. You listen for a while, then lob a gas grenade which, of course, reduces them to choking heaps, clawing at their eyes. You leap down, applying knock-out blows to the backs of their heads. All’s silent. You head down, noticing a couple more guards walking long patrol routes. When one turns his back an electric prod to the back of the neck brings him crashing to the floor. His yelp attracts the attention of his partner, who turns the corner only to get a face full of pepper spray. A truncheon blow and he collapses. From then on, it’s easy. You go down to the floor below and crawl into the computer room. By hacking the computer system you’re able to program an auto-destruct of your target. You retreat back to the roof and escape. No-one will know you were ever there. Death count? Zero. That’s it, you’ve done, no more tears to be shed by the mother of the world, thanks to you.

    Or

    C) You find yourself looking at a tower. You have to blow up a generator inside. Guards patrol outside, dogs yapping with their probably rabid mouths. You shrug, shoulder your sniper rifle and put high-calibre rounds through each of the guards’ (and the dogs’) heads. You hate patrolmen and you’ve never been too fond of dogs either.

    Or

    D) You find yourself looking at a tower. You have to blow up a generator inside. But by doing a few favours to your street-friends and throwing around a little cash, you’ve managed to gain every single security code, key and password for the facility. The second you find a security console, those gun-turrets on the first floor are going to be turned against their makers. The rest will be a mop-up.

    Or

    E) You find yourself looking at a tower. You have to blow up a generator inside. For you, that’s not enough. You shoulder your LAW missile launcher and fire a blast at the main doors, demolishing them in seconds. This blast in turn sets off the fuel-drums you dragged there earlier, wiping out anyone who had the misfortune of being on the ground floor.

    Or

    F) You find yourself looking at a tower. You have to blow up a generator inside. You head back to the alleyways and entertain yourself by playing with a basketball you found lying around. You throw it at some stray cats. Perhaps you’ll go play pool in a bar later and have a few drinks. The mission can wait. Governmental Agents just wanna have fun, right?

    End of Questions
    Even though I like the IW review better (it's all a matter of Sex vs Divine as the big word. I like the latter. It's a top-button done up thing. And it reminds me of the Halo review that had the same big word).

    Thanks for (yet) more insight to TCP, though I'm more inclinded towards the equal and opposite. The running only-geniuses-count theme is probably why so many people get on well with that ball (3D, rather than a 2D circle) of hate that is Anna, she's radically individual in a bunker full of radical individualists just by being so distainful, cold and controlled.
    Last edited by O'Shuva; 23rd Mar 2004 at 15:22.

  3. #28
    Member
    Registered: Jul 2003
    Location: Dublin
    I love this little forum.
    Incidently, that reminds me, I was asked by a good friend of mine about PC Gaming, and I mentioned Deus Ex.
    He said "huh?", well, naturally I exploded, and shouted things like "you have missed history" "what the fuck" and "you must play this right now!" (peppered with many good irish expletitives)
    He wasn't convinced, and wanted to know what it was like.
    I was a little annoyed at this, I've played through DX countless times, how can I say what its like?
    I didn't want to get into heavy game theory, as I knew he wasn't ready to care about it, and also because I was in the pub.
    So I thought back and remeber how KG sold the game to me, and the piece of text that O'Shuva quoted there, led him through the core ideas of the game as the original review did (I could remeber it idea by idea, if not word by word)
    His reaction? "I'll have to borrow that from you sometime"
    Bah.
    I'm working on it, okay?

  4. #29
    Member
    Registered: Jan 2004
    Location: Crystal House
    I've got a smiliar problem myself.
    I want to attempt to ween someone who owns several Sims expansion packs onto games that have " this Looking Glass thing" (quoting Warren Spector makes me feel as if I know something, even when I don't, OK?). Now there's nothing inherently wrong with these games, it's just she's bright and I think they could get a lot out of the emergent element (Contextless buzzword! Contextless buzzword!) of such masterpieces.
    Any suggestions on how to do this? Anybody?
    Redeeming features to this hopeless quest? They played Halo two years before me *Not so much sob as fall over sideways on end of bed silently at end of episode, just after the rising music*.

  5. #30
    Well, The Sims is already an emergent masterpiece, so just lie and say "it's like The Sims".

    People who like Deus Ex seem to be divided into those who hated the first level but got past it and found the good bits, and people who loved the first level and went on to even greater things. Be aware that they may well hate the first level.

  6. #31
    Member
    Registered: Jan 2004
    Location: Crystal House
    I didn't say anything about The Sims, which is filthy/clean (delete as appropriate) fun. I said about The Sims Expansion Packs, which are abominations level with... well, some really bad linear games (go buy wonderful, magical ingredients, use wonderful, magical ingredients try to pretend what you're doing isn't drowning the wonderful social interactions that make the game so playable in a tsunami of solitary magic makin' (Gs, along with Es, are for those who do not understand the full power of PR!)).

    Hmm, I liked the first level of DX, but really didn't like most of Hell's Kitchen (Smuggler must be the most popular guy on the block, there seem to be more people that know his password than Grey Death victims). With the exception of the 'ton hostage rescue and the assault on the NTF base. I was actually thinking of leading them by the hand though the first mission using the Co-op mod.

    What about "It's like The Sims, but with Cyberpunk and FPS (both varieties: Shooter and Sneaker) and long, leather coats, but, unlike The Sims, you don't need to kill people for kicks (By bricking them up in their own houses or making them cook tons of food on an oven with no cooking skill, no fire alarm and no phone)." Maybe one day we'll see a pacifist Sims in the same vein as DX where you can just smack them up a little with a baton. Oh well, a man can dream... a man can dream...

    EDIT: OK, scratch the part about DX coop. I was young, I was a fool, I can't find the file, bla, bla, bla...
    Last edited by O'Shuva; 27th Mar 2004 at 17:27.

  7. #32
    Member
    Registered: Feb 2001
    Location: Cumbria, England
    Duh.

    Just say it's like the X-files and the Matrix.

  8. #33
    Member
    Registered: Jul 2003
    Location: Dublin
    I tried that. Guy just assumed it was a cheap pop culture cash in.

  9. #34
    Member
    Registered: Feb 2001
    Location: Cumbria, England
    There's no pleasing some people.

  10. #35
    Member
    Registered: Jul 2003
    Location: Dublin
    I think I'll get him to play System Shock 2 in the dark.
    I'll tell him its just like Medal Of Honour or something....

  11. #36
    Member
    Registered: Jan 2004
    Location: Crystal House
    Medal of Hono(u)r, but with less claustrophobia! You can strafe for more than 2 ft without hitting a hedge/wall/nazi!

    They don't even own that, either. But they do self-expression quite well, and I'm absolutely sure they're either psychotic, pasifist or somewhere inbetween.

    Oh, what is the definition of 'Emergent'? I think I know what it means, but I don't have a rock solid definition. Yeah, go on, laugh, but I need words to explain it.
    Last edited by O'Shuva; 29th Mar 2004 at 15:25.

  12. #37
    Member
    Registered: Jan 2001
    Location: Lost in transit.
    A high level behaviour of a system that isn't apparent by looking at the rules that govern the system. So basically, things that happen due to interaction between rules, instead of being explicitly defined. The classic Deus Ex example being: player can place LAMs + player can disarm LAMs + player can stand on physical objects + LAMs are physical objects = LAM climbing.

    This powerpoint presentation by Harvey and Randy Smith (*twitch*) from GDC 2004 might be of some help.

  13. #38
    Member
    Registered: Jan 2004
    Location: Crystal House
    Thank you! Now I can use 'emergent' at people that know what it means.

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