Gather all your questions

[El_Bel]

http://www.eidosmontreal.com/en/games.html

CONTACT THE DX3 TEAM

DX3@eidosmontreal.com

Ok here, we will gather all of our questions and we will send them there and hope we will get an answer.

We will pick the best questions and i will send them.

My questions:

1) By using an infinite solution to a finite problem (unlimited health vs limited enemies) you are creating imbalance in the game. (a)The player can just kill 3-4 enemies, hide and repeat until all of them are dead. (b) You are creating an environment that mistakes do not have consequences as long as you survive from them. For example if you dont scout ahead and you fall upon a squad of five man. You shoot and kill one and you start running until you find your save haven you discovered earlier were the AI cannot hurt you (or just behind some cover if the AI is not good enough to kill you while you are in cover) and all those hits you took because you were not careful are healed. Your mistakes have no consequences.

My question is, if you dont see the obvious mistake you made now or if you know this things but know how to combat them as well, what measures are you going to take to ensure that these things (a&b) will not happen?

2) In the year 2000, most games had health bars. Deus Ex used localized damage. This was evolution. Your aim was reduced and your speed was lowered. This ensured that you could not do stupid mistakes and live or you would be punished for your mistakes. Although it had its shortcomings like spamming medkits, not knowing how many medkits to put in each level they could be easily tweaked. The community here had some pretty awsome ideas. It shouldnt be DX1 style vs health regeneration. I dont see how a single healthbar is evolution from what Deus Ex had. What i would call evolution, it would be if even augs had separate damage. So my question is how Single bar health regeneration is better than Deus Ex's localized damage and my second question is have you taken the time to compare your solution to solutions fans have proposed? If the answer is no, than why not.

3) You told us that 3d person will be optional. You have to press a button. But what this means is that someone who doesn't want any 3d person in his game, will have to skip some augs. My question is, why not make it optional? Why not make an option in the options menu that says "no 3d person". Is it so hard to program?

4)Are EM-members instructed to no post in the official DX3-forums? If so, what is the intention behind it? I maintain it would be a good idea for them to discuss their personal favourite moments from DX, or their motivations, aspirations and vision for the DX universe from here on, have they ever played DnD/ADnD. None of this requires direct input concerning the game, and it would be a great way to get to know them better.

[K^2]

Are you sure that the person reading DX3@eidosmontreal.com is anyone other than Rene? Maybe snail mail is the way to go here. It tends to make a bigger impression, and we can even have a page with everyone's signatures. (People would e-mail pictures/scans of these to whoever will be in charge of snailing the thing.)

[-=fox=-]

Are you sure that the person reading DX3@eidosmontreal.com is anyone other than Rene?

lol Awesome.

[IH-Denton]

For my opinion, the more game is simplier and casual the more money it will brought. Sad regular occurrence of today game's production. They dont care about "evolution" or super ideas by fans - they want to sell it... as much copies as it possible. It is all around that.

[El_Bel]

Well first we gather the questions. Then we send them via email. If we dont get (good?) answers within the week, with the signature of someone higher up than Rene, we will send a snail mail, as you said.

[InGroove2]

http://www.eidosmontreal.com/en/games.html

CONTACT THE DX3 TEAM

DX3@eidosmontreal.com

Ok here, we will gather all of our questions and we will send them there and hope we will get an answer.

We will pick the best questions and i will send them.

My questions:

1) By using an infinite solution to a finite problem (unlimited health vs limited enemies) you are creating imbalance in the game. (a)The player can just kill 3-4 enemies, hide and repeat until all of them are dead. (b) You are creating an environment that mistakes do not have consequences as long as you survive from them. For example if you dont scout ahead and you fall upon a squad of five man. You shoot and kill one and you start running until you find your save haven you discovered earlier were the AI cannot hurt you (or just behind some cover if the AI is not good enough to kill you while you are in cover) and all those hits you took because you were not careful are healed. Your mistakes have no consequences.

My question is, if you dont see the obvious mistake you made now or if you know this things but know how to combat them as well, what measures are you going to take to ensure that these things (a&b) will not happen?

2) In the year 2000, most games had health bars. Deus Ex used localized damage. This was evolution. Your aim was reduced and your speed was lowered. This ensured that you could not do stupid mistakes and live or you would be punished for your mistakes. Although it had its shortcomings like spamming medkits, not knowing how many medkits to put in each level they could be easily tweaked. The community here had some pretty awsome ideas. It shouldnt be DX1 style vs health regeneration. I dont see how a single healthbar is evolution from what Deus Ex had. What i would call evolution, it would be if even augs had separate damage. So my question is how Single bar health regeneration is better than Deus Ex's localized damage and my second question is have you taken the time to compare your solution to solutions fans have proposed? If the answer is no, than why not.

3) You told us that 3d person will be optional. You have to press a button. But what this means is that someone who doesn't want any 3d person in his game, will have to skip some augs. My question is, why not make it optional? Why not make an option in the options menu that says "no 3d person". Is it so hard to program?

4)Are EM-members instructed to no post in the official DX3-forums? If so, what is the intention behind it? I maintain it would be a good idea for them to discuss their personal favourite moments from DX, or their motivations, aspirations and vision for the DX universe from here on, have they ever played DnD/ADnD. None of this requires direct input concerning the game, and it would be a great way to get to know them better.

my 2-cents is that... IMO, questions like this are better stated without the obvious stance behind it. I mean, they know exactly where you are coming form with these qiestions... especially ones that are writted as "have you considerd X, if not, why?". It gives me the impression that you're trying to lead them to an obvious discussion as to how your idea is better, or to how the forum idea is better. not that tehy're not, but i kind feel like htey wont respond well to questions which are blatantly championing, in this case, our own ideas.

totally my opinion here, i would go with more diplomatic tone that an obvious,"we think your idea is bogus" tone.
again. totally my opinion.

[Nathan2000]

if you dont see the obvious mistake you made now
Do you even care what they would say or just want to drop a very transparent hint?

The current situation is as follows: the forum members want to force the developers into their vision of DX3 or make them include a "switch" enabling it in the game. Eidos Montreal replies: "Trust us. It will be awesome". The fans, unsatisfied with the answer, shout that they've been betrayed, the game's gonna suck, be dumbed down or whatever. Arguments ad personam. Several weeks later the dialog repeats itself. In the meantime, everybody waits for the dev blog which was promised but not delivered.

Your letter would be just another iteration.

[Viktoria]

Kind of have to agree with the last two posters... and I'm not bothering to submit any questions.

[-=fox=-]

The current situation is as follows:

I am not satisfied because of the general lack of communication not because of game design decisions I may or may not like. I believe this is what many people here feel like at the moment. That whining may come back with new information but right now it's not really happening.

[Viktoria]

No whining or pleading will bring us answers yet.
Rene did apologise for the lack of information, but that's the way it is at the moment. His hands are tied and his lips are sealed. :D

[-=fox=-]

No whining or pleading will bring us answers yet.
Rene did apologise for the lack of information, but that's the way it is at the moment. His hands are tied and his lips are sealed. :D

MyImmortal, I have heared this answer multiple times (from you and Rene) and no matter how often it gets repeated, it just remains implausible to me and makes EM look like it is totally disresprecting it's own community by constantly ignoring it. We have been through this already, there are countless ways to interact with us without revealing their oh-so-secret details about the game itself. No, I don't want them to waste their lives with socialising here all the time but almost no sign of live apart from Rene's increasingly rare announcements and Mr K's visit in over 18 months (or so) is the other extreme - just that is the situation here. No matter how you look at it, it feels wrong to me and that is why I think El Bel's little project is worth a shot.

[Viktoria]

I don't think it is EM disrespecting the community here.
Yes, I agree its worth a shot. I never said it wasn't. You know me, I'm always positive in my thoughts. Just wouldn't want you guys to feel disappointed if nothing comes of it.
I was just letting everyone know that Rene did recently say there was no further news yet - just in case someone missed it in the other thread. :)

[Absentia]

Wasn't this merged before?

[Viktoria]

Yes, it was. I merged it.
OP posted it again, and I'm trying to be understanding about it. :)

However, the reason for merging still stands - I don't think this thread is going to achieve its intended objectives.

[serrath]

Those questions will not get answered. You're not looking to unveil new information about the game that will increase it's appeal, you're putting its gameplay and management on trial. The EM staff is making the game their way because that's how they've learned to make games, and that's what the market is looking for. That logic is what they find important, not pleas for realism or DX1-esque gameplay.

They probably find your argument logical and simply acknowledge that it's not what the market is looking for and that it would not increase the "fun" factor in DX3. If you want your input to be taken seriously:
A) Demonstrate that your suggestion would make the game more marketable.
B) Demonstrate that your suggestion does not conflict with their game design philosophy.
If you cannot do this, then do not make suggestions, complain, or argue; you will not win at all.

[El_Bel]

Do you even care what they would say or just want to drop a very transparent hint?

The current situation is as follows: the forum members want to force the developers into their vision of DX3 or make them include a "switch" enabling it in the game. Eidos Montreal replies: "Trust us. It will be awesome". The fans, unsatisfied with the answer, shout that they've been betrayed, the game's gonna suck, be dumbed down or whatever. Arguments ad personam. Several weeks later the dialog repeats itself. In the meantime, everybody waits for the dev blog which was promised but not delivered.

Your letter would be just another iteration.

or if you know this things but know how to combat them as well...

So you see i dont attack anything. I am just saying that there are obvious mistakes with that aproach and they are mistakes UNLESS they have a plan about them. The question is "do you have a plan?" and this worries me and i do care about their answer.

I guess i could make the questions more diplomatic, but these are my questions. You can let me know what you dont like about them and i will change them to be more forums questions than my questions.

[Tracer Tong]

Aha! So this entire post of "gathering of questions" was all a cover! and for ranting, no less!

Shame on you. :)

[El_Bel]

Aaaaaaaaaah, i dont rant about anything people!!!! :p

[spyhopping]

Stealth rant! :P

Anyway, I don't see any of this as EM 'disrespecting' the community. You make a personal and amicable move for feedback, and I'm confident you'll get it. It just will be infuriatingly cryptic :P

[serrath]

Your questions are no more than thinly-veiled critique, as I posted earlier. Other games have had these same so-called obvious mistakes and fared very well (e.g. sold many copies). Re-read my post and think about how the company works. You're missing something.

[VicMackey]

It's pointless to ask them questions. They've already slapped the Deus Ex name onto their shoddy Bioshock clone, and they knew ahead of time that people would correctly identify what an impending disaster their game would be. You aren't going to change their minds by pointing out the many, many problems we already know about. They know about them too. We've made them aware of them, for months and months and months. They do not care. They are not trying to make a Deus Ex game. They are trying to create a Bioshock derivative, and they feel that by applying a name like Deus Ex to what would otherwise have been a new IP, they will get an inordinate amount of coverage and thus have an easier time selling their game. Deus Ex 3 will get more magazine covers and website features than a new IP will. Pointing out that the game "isn't really Deus Ex" is a waste of effort, because that isn't something totally disagreeable to them.

It's also a waste of effort to point out the flaws from a gameplay perspective. They'll never admit that regenerating health has a pervasive negative impact on gameplay, and they'll never admit what an immersion breaker 3rd person is, they'll never admit to any of it. What do you expect to happen? "Yeah, you guys are right, we sank millions into a game that features a boat load of amateur hour mistakes, we are implementing features for contradictaory purposes left and right, we need to change all that"? Of course that won't happen. The dev team has demonstrated a certain level of hubris just by virtue of the fact that they thought they could "do it better our way", and that fact alone would prevent any radical changes being made to the game, because they won't admit the need for those changes until their game is a critical and commercial failure. Even disregarding that, the game has been in development for a considerable amount of time by now, and will have taken several million dollars out of Eidos' pocket during that time. It would be nigh impossible to convince the check writers to finance a "do over", however badly needed.

If your goal isn't to try and fix the game, but to simply find out more about it, you're also wasting your time. Eidos knows that the more information they release about the game, the more negatively it will be perceived. It's unlikely they'll release any info until the last possible moment, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them withholding review copies. Whatever info they do release is planned and approved for mass consumption, and so they aren't going to give you anything in a letter that they weren't also giving you in published features on the game, or blog posts, or website updates, etc. Your questions will yield an impressive collection of "Stay tuned, wink wink" jerk off posts, but no real information will be revealed until it was ready to have been revealed anyways. Rene's job is to do two things, shield the development team from dealing with people they don't want to deal with (you) and to give non-responses whenever possible. Why on Earth would you think it would be different now as opposed to any of the other million and one times they have been asked questions, only to give a non-answer? It won't be.

So, whether you want to fix the game or just find out about it, the whole thing is pointless either way. Don't waste your time. The game is going where it's going, and we'll find out more about that impending train wreck when we will. Nobody is going to convince anybody to fix anything, or to spill the beans on the latest comedically bad decision. The only thing for anybody to do is to sit back and watch the game fail, which I'm certain will be measurably more enjoyable than the game itself.

[DenisFC]

That was a nice block of text, VicMackey, but toooo pessimist.

[VicMackey]

*realistic

[Ashpolt]

I agree with your post 100%, Vic. I don't like it, but I agree with it.

[lumpi]

That was a nice block of text, VicMackey, but toooo pessimist.

I wish I could agree with the "toooo".

[Daedalus Ciarán]

I've got to wonder if it wasn't the intense negativity from the majority of forum users that has turned René and Mr.K away from coming on here. Perhaps if most of the people had been less taken aback by news of regeneration and third person we might have gotten more.

I'm not saying we should all go the MyImmortal route and stay positive and trusting and not entertain the idea that the game may be bad, but rather if people had been less venomous in their responses the forums might be a less frightening place for the Devs to come on board. Would you want to come on here if everything you said was in danger of inciting a virtual riot?

I think the collecting of questions would be an interesting idea. If the OP picked out the best three, and most unbiased or tainted, and the Moderators placed them in another locked thread saying "René, answer me these questions three before anything else." A sort of "FAQ From Fans". At least then anyone coming on to see fans thoughts could have an easy access point to the major matters of concern regarding the game's development. Of course it's all just an interesting idea, I can't honestly say it would make a great working plan since, like I said, I wouldn't want to come to a place as hostile as this if I was trying to give information.

[-=fox=-]

First of all: there wasn't so much negativity in the beginning and yet there was not one of the devs around. Mr K is a voluntary, unpaid moderator (blue coloured handles) - he is still around here on a regular basis. He once took a studio tour in Montreal which gave him a little advantage in knowledge about the game but unfortunately he is not allowed to talk about everything he saw there, because of an NDA. Rene is an Eidos employee who takes care of community- and probably some other PR-related stuff. He was much more present here in the early days, when there where no DX3-moderators and he provided us with some information coming from the devs. It's been quite while since he had much to report to us and he also seems to have shifted his attention to the Thi4f-forum nowadays.

There was a time when this forum was becoming overly hostile but some people got banned and others were warned so the situation relaxed again. As it is, right now, the community is not nearly as hostile or onesided that it would be understandable if people didn't dare to come here.

[Ashpolt]

Mr. K still comes on here - he doesn't work for or represent Eidos Montreal, so there's no reason for him to be driven away.

As for René - well, he's the community guy. It's his job to be (amongst other things) on here, dealing with us, and if the general attitude on the board is overly negative, then it's all the more reason for him to make his presence more known, not disappear. I'm not criticising René for not releasing more information - I'm sure the decision came from above him - but I am definitely criticising Eidos Montreal for not allowing him to release more info. Going back to my original point though, it's not up to us to "play nice" to make sure this is a happy place for the team to hang out, it's for them to convince us that the game is worth being positive about, and if they haven't done that it's their failing, not ours.

[VicMackey]

I'd like to think that Eidos Montreal would sooner ask themselves "why are my forums so hostile towards my game and it's features" than "how can I best ignore all of this", but I'm not sure how realistic that is.

I'm sure the negativity does have something to do with it, though as fox said, they weren't around during the period of ignorance when people thought they were getting a legitimate Deus Ex game either, so it's probably less of a motivating factor than you might think.

All the same, nobody likes being told they've screwed up, even when it's so obvious that actually saying it is just a formality. It is probably demoralizing to have your failures detailed over and over and over on a website that is essentially meant to be your 'fan club'. And if the whole forum took the "MyImmortal route" (thats being "I'm giving you diabetes" positive, not putting enough smilies into your posts to make a 13 year old AIM user blush, though both definitions certainly apply), I'm sure they would have a more constant presence here. But it wouldn't really matter, because the only reason we want them here is to

A) Get New Info
or
B) Further discuss Deus Ex 3's many failures

They wouldn't do A anyways, because like I said these info releases and heavily planned and they're not going to give out stuff just because they "like us", not until it was already available in a magazine or on a website at least, and if you did B, they'd just leave again. You can't be MyImmortal and do B. MyImmortal and B don't mix.

[Viktoria]

And if the whole forum took the "MyImmortal route" (thats being "I'm giving you diabetes" positive, not putting enough smilies into your posts to make a 13 year old AIM user blush, though both definitions certainly apply), I'm sure they would have a more constant presence here. But it wouldn't really matter, because the only reason we want them here is to

A) Get New Info
or
B) Further discuss Deus Ex 3's many failures

They wouldn't do A anyways, because like I said these info releases and heavily planned and they're not going to give out stuff just because they "like us", not until it was already available in a magazine or on a website at least, and if you did B, they'd just leave again. You can't be MyImmortal and do B. MyImmortal and B don't mix.

LOL, thank you for dedicating this thread to me. :p
Seriously though, don't make dumb comments, particularly about smiley use. I'm not the only one who uses them and I'm perfectly free to use them as I choose. There is no need for your rude comments... this is what is silly and immature, not using smileys.

Also, MyImmortal and B don't mix SIMPLY BECAUSE of the fact that there are no failures to discuss - none of us have played the game yet. Now AFTER we have played the game and it is proved to be a failure, with a capital F, then MyImmortal and B will mix, because I shall offer up my honest critique. Just because I don't wish to join your little group and discuss "negative speculation" (that is what it is, after all) doesn't give you the right to comment on my mindset in the way you have. You don't know me.

So, back on topic, huh? Which was "ask your questions" to EM. If you can't stick on topic, I will close this thread. Play the game now. ;)

[VicMackey]

Well :) you see :o it was kind :D of ;) on topic already :rasp: so I'm not sure what :nut: you're :eek: on about :p

Posts you :flowers: don't like :rolleyes: ≠ off topic :lol: posts. :scratch:

Posts that :nut: mention you ≠ :rolleyes: posts that are :thumb: about you. And you should :mad2: note that I :cool: wasn't the one :( who brought you up :nut:.

Threads that :lmao: propose asking :p Eidos questions invite :flowers: discussion of that ;) idea.


Understand?



:)!

[Viktoria]

Due to VicMackey being unable to present a mature discussion, this thread is now locked.
You can blame him. ;)