Deus Ex III : Deus Ex Machina (Ramblings...)

[culture_mind]

Well, here goes my attempt at describing the perfect Deux Ex future game :

1) Graphics engine :
The fantastically detailed one used in IW but with a few minor modifications :
a) No need for really complex physics. I mean ok, ragdol dynamics look cool but sometimes it just makes the bad guys feel like...well...ragdolls! What about a simple drop on the floor dead animation?
b)It's also cool to drop boxes and crates etc but on the very few occasions you need a crate placed in such a way so as to use it to climb, you need to throw it and run towards it so as to restrict its movement etc. Why not a simple engine where all thrown objects are dropped as they were picked up (this way puzzles with boxes to be used as stepping blocks can be incorporated)
c) Bloom? nah...Other DirectX9 post effects can be more easily incorporated and more flashy looking (slow-mo deaths of bad guys with motion or camera blur as an example)

2) Sound : No worries there...Ion Storm keeps doing a fantastic job with the voice casting...Maybe a couple more simple atmospheric tracks during gameplay?

3) Level design : Weeeell...Dark and gloomy corridors, bases, sewers etc etc...They look fantastic. But maybe a couple of daylit levels would not hurt. (IW's Antartica would be so much better if it was lit IMHO). Also : Manholes and airvents : Good idea but overused to the point of madness. How about active defences inside the vent? (lazers etc)

4) Biomods : No real ideas there, but maybe more puzzles and situations need to be set in order to make certain biomods worth the cost and effort to upgrade. I mean, did you REALLY NEED the speed modification in IW? Or the bot which destroys missiles? Nah... (BTW the idea about legit and illegal biomods was fantastic...) Another thought on biomods is quantity : Why not allow the player to have as many as he/she wants, giving ample choices to pick from, BUT make canister distribution optimal (something like 2 or 3 per level). AND DEFINITELY re-implement that Show Enemy Health/Inventory biomod from Deux Ex 1.

5) Skill system : like the 1st game. Definitely. Absolutely...Yup.

6) Quest objects : Both games upsofar had a multitude of "background" objects (plants, pots, picture frames, chairs, tables, ashtrays even a pyramid shaped memento for crying out loud) yet none of them performed any real functions. What if certain objects could be used to perform quests? Actions? Could be combined?

7) Merchants : By the time I reached Liberty Island in IW I had 6750-something credits. Yet only the Omar at 3 key stages during the game would offer any real merchandise. Why not implement stores and shops where guns, ammor, grenades, level schematics, gun mods etc etc can be purchased? And why limit the credit exchange there? Money can be used to buy entrance into clubs, bars, buy information (maps and schematics and keycodes), buy support (drones or allies with a bare AI to follow the player and shoot what he/she shoots) etc.

8) Script : There's no way I (or anyone else) can come up with something better than what the people at Ion Storm are doing...Makes me wonder if they employ subject matter experts when it comes down to creating the political dialogs or simply they are spending all their free time reading treatises on futuristic political and governmental scenarios.

9) Player guidance and control : Total freedom sounds and (sometimes) is cool but there are occasions where the complete abscence of a "moral groundwork" was getting annoying. wouldn't be cooler to restrict the player from killing in certain levels and allow only stun or incapacitation as an option? (like Splinter Cell) This way the player knows that it's worth investing into the stealth element.

10) Humour. It might sound tacky but I found Taaaaaaaaaaaalk-Bullet hilarious and very to the point. More of that kind of sarcastic/condescending and yet humorous additions will not hurt.

11) AI : lol...I have to admit with certain comments made by various on-line game review boards about the fact that 80% of the time in IW if you stole something from a desk and the owner was next to you, no comment would be made...More strict AI's might be needed (E.g. if there is a person inside a room, the only way to steal stuff would be invisibility).

12) Enemies : More more more more more. :)

In any case, forgive the huge thread...Deus Ex was the only game I cared for to such an extent that I wrote this rambling. Any additions, comments, corrections welcome...

culture_mind

[K^2]

Can I add:

13) The physics engine that does not make Sir Isaac Newton flip in his grave. Is conservation of momentum that much to ask for a collision engine? And when one object slightly taps the other one, they don't have to fly in different directions as if someone threw a grenade in between.

Sorry, I am a Physics major, and that just hurts my eyes.


And I actualy like ragdoll physics in the game. It is a lot better, IMO, when the dead bodys actualy interact with the enviorment than when they are just an image without the substance. Same problems, though. The ragdoll-ragdoll and ragdoll-crate* collisions aren't very realistic.

* Any movable object, actualy.

[DXman]

i like the physics system in DX2, it's pretty neat. although it's kinda *too* sensitive. also the lightning and shadow effects in the game are nice. but in consequence, it produces a problematic game for the majority.

[K^2]

The lighting isn't the the main cause of the slow down, as far as I understand. I belive that the way that the level processing is organized is not very well optimized for the dynamic lighting.

And the "sensitivity" of collisions is actualy caused by the fact that IS either did not assign masses to objects, or did not take these masses into the account during collisions. They realy should open up their physics textbooks and read them again, this time without skipping chapters.

[Blacktastic]

Its not really impossible to make Deus Ex 3 since there are so many endings to choose from to continue. Personally, I think the best ending would be the one where you win it for the Illuminati.

oh yeah, good suggestions above~

[AlEx--DeNtOn]

I'm not sure what # Its on, but what about the new inventory... I hated the new inventory, since it limited to the amount of items to like 12 or something like that! What ever happened to being able to carry lams, emp, scatter, and gas grenades all at once without giving up everything else???

[Kamakazi_down]

Oh come on, watching the bad guys do backflips is so much fun!

Add these too

1) Make characters that you care about. There weren't any Jocks, Jaime Reyes, or Sam Carters. Just me, all alone.

2) Skill system where "the more you use it, the better you get at it." Like in Final Fantasy 7 with the magic.

3) Finish off the character's story, at least give us some type of ending to all the important characters.

4) Give some type of bonus for not taking someone out non-lethaly.

[WolfLV426]

All for most of those changes, but I'd like to add the following:

-Longer story. Thats the major dissapointment for me, that the game wasn't as long as the first. It only took me 7 or so hours to beat DX:IW, whereas it takes about 15-20 to beat the original when you go through everything.

And to those *****ing about disk space..

-DVD-ROM game. Longer, deeper games can be created if they are put on these. Ubi-soft REALLY needs to learn this (3 discs for Splinter Cell, 4 for XIII). ALmost every computer purchased nowadays has a DVD-ROM, including laptops. They cost about $40-$50 and are better than standard CD-ROM's.

And what was the full install on MGS2:S for the PC? About 1.2gigs? Oh yes, and it ran on just one DVD-ROM :)

[Ammo]

Originally posted by culture_mind
1) Graphics engine :
The fantastically detailed one used in IW but with a few minor modifications :
a) No need for really complex physics. I mean ok, ragdol dynamics look cool but sometimes it just makes the bad guys feel like...well...ragdolls! What about a simple drop on the floor dead animation?
b)It's also cool to drop boxes and crates etc but on the very few occasions you need a crate placed in such a way so as to use it to climb, you need to throw it and run towards it so as to restrict its movement etc. Why not a simple engine where all thrown objects are dropped as they were picked up (this way puzzles with boxes to be used as stepping blocks can be incorporated)




That is the dumbest idea Ive ever heared. No affense intended. I cant get enough of the physics engine they put into this game. Are you saying you want all the charecters to die the same way? What about a simple drop on the floor dead animation? Whats up with that? How boring. Thats one thing I absalutly HATE in Halo. you die the same EVERY TIME. Are we going back in time here? I did notice that when you pick up a box you have 2 choices as to what you can do with it. You can ehtier drop it where it is (Action Key, or for xbox: "A") or you can hit the "shoot/fire" button and throw the box across the room. Both are nice, but as for droping it they should just DROP it. Alex gives it a little spin wich throws it off your intented spot. Once you get used to it its not so bad. I would love to play Deus Ex 1 again. But I dont think I could stand it now with out the Awsome Physics. All the bodies in DX 1 fall face down, You throw/drop the objects and they land perfectly. Boring. Anyway....Im all for the Physics Engine.

[Kerghan]

I agree with most of the things listed on this thread if not all of it. As for the physics, ragdoll physics are GREAT to have in games now and since they are being incorporated into all the latest large titles, I think most FPS and third person shooter games that do not have them will feel kind of cheap. Rag-doll physics are especially good for single player only games because I don't know about you guys, but for me they add SOO much replayability value to a game. I still play the demos of games that have them (I.E. Max Payne 2, UT2003, Call of Duty, Armed and Dangerous, and of course DX:IW) just to see the different ways my enemies get killed. As for lighting, if they make DX3 have better stealth gameplay the lighting is great and it would certainly be extremely immersive in a game like Thief 3 if it's done right, but otherwise I don't really care about the fancy shadows.
Now for the skills that level as you use them, that is a great idea but some skills should be omitted with a system like that. For example, to upgrade swimming you'd have to swim underwater a lot. Well, if I'm a DX freak and I want to upgrade swimming why don't I just swim around for an hour? For most other aspects of the skills system it'd be great though, and easily implimented I think because you do not have to make up situations to provide skill bonuses. It'd be great to use a sniper rifle, and get a certain amount of points towards a "skill upgrade" (how about more if you shoot your target in the head, less if you hit him anywhere else? You could factor distance into that too.) The system would have to be complex so it might be hard to design at first, but once you're done with it that's all you need to do as far as skills except for tweeking numbers here and there. Wouldn't even need a menu for the skills, which makes things simpler for the console version of the game.
For the biomods, I think IS has always done a good job on that aspect but yea, some of them were kind of useless.

-What could be done to further improve the series past the first game's gameplay, but isn't really necessary-
Character Design - One of the things people love to do is design their character from a wide variety of models. I.E. different faces, hair, tatoos or the option to have no tatoo (hey, JC DID have nano-tatoo things on his face in the first one although he probably didn't want them in the first place lol) clothing, size, skin and eye color. This is more of an RPG aspect and I think people would really like it, though it is defelitely NOT a necessary aspect of a Deus Ex game but the more cool yet unnessecary features a game has, the more fun it is likely to be.
Better AI - A game like Deus Ex could really benefit from good AI. If I had to pick from between fancy graphics and good AI, I'd want to see good AI instead. In my opinion the soldiers in Half Life had better AI then anything I've seen in Deus Ex games and that game is what, 4 or 5 years old? AI is hard to design, but they can do better on this aspect!
Larger Environments - The environments in the first game felt nice and large, the ones in DX:IW are just way too small. Perhaps try making the environments feel even larger then in the first one, more like thief, GTA, or dungeon siege style. Once again, I'd gladly sacfrifice uber-fancy graphics for larger areas.
Merchants - This has already been mentioned at the top of the thread. Once again, its more of an RPG aspect but it'd be GREAT to have merchants in a DX game. You could sell off those extra weapons or ammo to get money, and then put that money to good use by buying a new weapon or some ammo for your favorite gun. Make them have better items at the end of the game. Maybe make them generate random items (lams, emp grenades, certain kinds of ammo) to keep the non-linear feel of the game and increase replayability.

Well, that's all I can think of, the first game is VERY hard to improve on. Bottom line is, we'd rather have better/new gameplay features then fancy graphics (but both are just fine if it could be done).