PICUS NEWSDESK:News,Articles,Tweets /UPDATE: WiiU - Director's Cut

[Vallux]

Originally Posted by olle_bsson

From JJB's twitter: "ZOMG!! My eyes have seen some incredible #DXHR material this morning!! Man I'm so exited about this! You guys will see it soon I promise! "

Damn teaser!

Just hoping that "soon" is not in Valve time. I will be dead by then.

[Irate Iguana]

Originally Posted by Vallux

Just hoping that "soon" is not in Valve time. I will be dead by then.

EM has the exact same definition of "soon" as Valve.

[Viktoria]

Originally Posted by olle_bsson

From JJB's twitter: "ZOMG!! My eyes have seen some incredible #DXHR material this morning!! Man I'm so exited about this! You guys will see it soon I promise! "

Damn teaser!

A lot of us are just as excited as JJB. Bring it on!!!!

[Red]

Originally Posted by Irate Iguana

EM has the exact same definition of "soon" as Valve.

More like Valve + 3D Realms soon.

[Neuromancer07]

Yes, I would also like to hear the definition of soon.

{I can't wait.}

[Viktoria]

Mini update: the cover art for issue 5 of the DXHR comic has been revealed.
Thanks to Muta Ro.

See first post/first page of comic thread:
http://forums.eidosgames.com/showthread.php?t=114143

[MaxxQ1]

Originally Posted by Vallux

Just hoping that "soon" is not in Valve time. I will be dead by then.

Originally Posted by Irate Iguana

EM has the exact same definition of "soon" as Valve.

Originally Posted by Neuromancer07

Yes, I would also like to hear the definition of soon.

{I can't wait.}

GEEZE! C'mon people! Get with the program.

It's Soon.

[Irate Iguana]

Originally Posted by MaxxQ1

GEEZE! C'mon people! Get with the program.

It's Soon.

Look, I'm not going to highlight my words. I don't do hand-holding. I'm going to use an "indicator box". Some of use can't get used to this new "grown-up industry" and cling desperately to such outdated notions as letting the player discover things for himself.

[Viktoria]

Latest EM Tweets:

# SquareEnixSonia One more Deus Ex tw for today! @DavidAnfossi & Jean-Francois on what I think is their very 1st podcast on @1UP http://bit.ly/dGv0uf #DEHR
about 11 hours ago via web Retweeted by eidosmontreal

# SquareEnixSonia Heads up in case you missed it! @jonatchoo talks DeusEx on InsideXbox this week (on XBL of course) @EidosMontreal http://twitpic.com/49u19z
about 11 hours ago via Twitpic Retweeted by eidosmontreal and 2 others

# "Here comes the ethical-transhumanism hero." http://bit.ly/eyT2t8 Italian Vogue write-up on Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
about 14 hours ago via TweetDeck

[MaxxQ1]

Originally Posted by Irate Iguana

Look, I'm not going to highlight my words. I don't do hand-holding. I'm going to use an "indicator box". Some of use can't get used to this new "grown-up industry" and cling desperately to such outdated notions as letting the player discover things for himself.

icwutudidthere

[Red]

No you don't. You're not standing close enough

[IOOI]

Originally Posted by Srosa

Here!

First-Person:
Outlining:

[Wunderbar_007]

Hahahaha, I had a good time watching this. no new info, but made me laugh

PAX East: Wrap-Up with Battlefeild 3, Mortal Kombat, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and Others!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtZIaI4zCTs

[TrickyVein]

Oh dear gawd, why?

The outlining is waaaaaaaay over the top. Even for people who want that kind of hand-holding (there really isn't a better descriptive term for it - it sounds harsh, but it's true!). I am so confused. Why would anyone ever want to implement that kind of feature? Who would want to use it? This is making zero sense to me right now. I'm not attacking the feature so much as just becoming completely perplexed by it.

If the idea is to show exactly which objects the player can interact with because of the way environments are constructed to make use of both static and movable objects and the like then you only need a suggestion, a cue, as to which is which. The best way I can think of to do this is to provide a different texture for those objects, like boxes, that AJ can pick up and throw, like making them red, as opposed to brown which would be the color of immovable boxes. You don't want to emphasize the fact that your game is inconsistent with regards to which elements the player can interact with in the environment. Wouldn't the idea be to draw as much attention as possible away from this?????

If you absolutely need to highlight something, then do it at a distance, or make it less obvious. I could see this mechanic working as an active augmentation, like some kind of vision enhancement. Otherwise, if it's passive, I just can't even articulate a good reason why anyone would want to have this in a game.

[Rindill the Red]

Originally Posted by IOOI

First-Person:
Outlining:

Shralla defended the Outlining quite eloquently... see his thoughts in the PAX thread.

[VectorM]

The best way I can think of to do this is to provide a different texture for those objects, like boxes, that AJ can pick up and throw, like making them red, as opposed to brown which would be the color of immovable boxes

How is your "fix" anything different than handholding?

Otherwise, if it's passive, I just can't even articulate a good reason why anyone would want to have this in a game.

Then I guess you won't find a reason why people have different opinions on anything, since you have a total lack of perspective.

[TrickyVein]

What I proposed wasn't meant to be a fix for the hand-holding - to get rid of it.

I'm trying to figure out why the highlighting is there in the first place.

What I recognize - right now - is a poorly implemented system to compensate for what is apparently a gross inconsistency in the game environment: that there is such a mix of usable and non-usable variants of the same world objects to such a degree that it really might be confusing and frustrating to the player; that rather than redesign the game at this late stage to account for this, it might be better to implement some kind of marker/handholding system in order to work around this problem.

If this is true, then perhaps you can see now what I am really confused about, and that is why the game developers would want to make it so obvious, at the cost of breaking immersion, to point out this inconsistency between objects AJ can interact with and those he can't.

[wowlace]

You might be onto something. I'm playing dead space 2 atm and there are so many physics objects in the game. You know where your ammo and items are because they flash very discreetly. Even though I see a table with loads of stuff I know is not for my inventory I still go over and have a look because they have worked so much detail into the environment it's cool to see the little notes etc that are left around.

[Red Crayon Aristocrat]

Interview with Dugas at PAX East 2011:
http://www.gamespot.com/events/paxea...e;3&pid=944088

[Tecman]

Writing Deus Ex: Human Revolution (SPOILER ALERT)
http://www.next-gen.biz/features/wri...man-revolution

Interview: Augmenting Deus Ex: Human Revolution With Game Director Jean-Francois Dugas
http://www.warpzoned.com/?p=4311

[reticulate]

Here's my thoughts on the highlighting:

It works if it's more subtle than this. I understand that a gameplay mechanic has been disguised as an aug, but it doesn't really explain the overabundance of orange-highlighted whatsits everywhere. Mass Effect 2 had a tiny box highlighting stuff, and that was frankly irritating enough despite only being a minor visual cue - especially through walls and such. I really think with the time given EM should spend some effort looking at how this particular mechanic plays out in a visual sense, if nothing else.

I like my RPGs to at least express, in some manner, the things that I can interact with (from glinty-lights to crosshairs to outlines). I'm not playing a pixel-hunt adventure game, but still enjoy looking around for loot and whatnot. I think the orange effect with a fade-in based on a short-range proximity will not only look a whole bunch less busy but also make it look less like you're being so obviously led. Stealth routes should not be indicated by a giant orange box hard-up against a wall, establishing there's a vent behind or whatever, for instance. In fact, make an extended proximity on the orange a part of upgrading visual augs, if you like.

Right now it feels like every tactical choice is clearly delineated by a big orange marker with a massive proximity cutoff. The folks at EM can easily tweak this without losing the storytelling aspect, and I really hope they do. A lot of what made exploring levels in DE fun was discovering a totally unexpected new passage or interactive item.

[ArcR]

I read the Mary DeMarle interview and can say there are damn near no spoilers and that the interviewer doesn't doesn't seem to know what he is talking about.

Have you tried to make the factions relatively symmetrical, as they were in Deus Ex, with an equal weight in the narrative?

They weren't symmetrical at all. You had MJ-12 which was at the top of the food chain running VersaLife Unatco and Paris. The illuminati is almost powerless and in hiding. Silhouette is a joke and the NSF are guerrillas that are outmatched.

You must be thinking Invisible Wars in which all faction are introduced almost immediately and you spend the rest of the game listening to their recruitment ad and picking missions from them.

In Deus Ex, the protagonist, JC Denton, was seemingly disliked by all of his colleagues, and now Adam Jensen appears to get stick from everyone as well.

Again Interviewer... People either like you or they don't based on how you handle the objectives. Did you leave a trail of bodies? Did you rescue gunther and give him a weapon? Did you capture Leo Goldman or put a slug in his head? Did you go into the womens restroom? Did you back up your fellow Unatco troopers in Hells Kitchen?

All of these things affect specific people/groups opinion of you. It isn't simply "Hi, we hate you." It what you do and what you say on a case by case basis.

Honestly if you haven't played the game then simply don't use it as a reference.

Between this interview and the Fake Demo *** I'm starting to really hate Video Game journalists.

[reticulate]

Originally Posted by ArcR

Again Interviewer... People either like you or they don't based on how you handle the objectives. Did you leave a trail of bodies? Did you rescue gunther and give him a weapon? Did you capture Leo Goldman or put a slug in his head? Did you go into the womens restroom? Did you back up your fellow Unatco troopers in Hells Kitchen?

All of these things affect specific people/groups opinion of you. It isn't simply "Hi, we hate you." It what you do and what you say on a case by case basis.

Honestly if you haven't played the game then simply don't use it as a reference.

Between this interview and the Fake Demo *** I'm starting to really hate Video Game journalists.

I think the interviewer and Marie were talking in context of how JC is initially received. It's absolutely true that JC was disliked by the mechs within UNATCO (to the point of a "Hi, we hate you" on the part of Navarre or Hermann), because he represented the next step in rendering them obsolete. Amongst the rank-and-file, I think JC was well liked expressly because he wasn't his brother - something suggested in Hell's Kitchen. No matter the choices you made, JC was a far more proactive individual compared to Paul.

In fact, it's very obvious the only person who really cares about JC and how he turns out is Paul. Manderlay did the whole 'father figure' thing because that was his shtick for keeping UNATCO in line. Simons, et al, didn't consider him at all outside of being a weapon and a testbed for Page. Jacobsen saw JC as a technical marvel, to be sure, but you wouldn't call him a friend. Same goes for Tracer Tong. And Jock was really only helping because you were continuing Paul's work.

On the basis of the evidence, I'd say JC wasn't at all a popular individual, at least not as a person. He represented a new world very few could easily explain or cope with. A lot of people acted with hostility, while others just figured he was a better 'model' than his brother. And the people in charge of it all thought of him exactly as he was designed to be - an arrow aimed at the heart of the Illuminati, and a good way to study nano-augmentation before Page did his whole ascent-to-artificial-godhood deal.

[ArcR]

Originally Posted by reticulate

I think the interviewer and Marie were talking in context of how JC is initially received. It's absolutely true that JC was disliked by the mechs within UNATCO (to the point of a "Hi, we hate you" on the part of Navarre or Hermann), because he represented the next step in rendering them obsolete. Amongst the rank-and-file, I think JC was well liked expressly because he wasn't his brother - something suggested in Hell's Kitchen. No matter the choices you made, JC was a far more proactive individual compared to Paul.

You can start by Paul calling you a jackass and telling you to get out of his face with Gunther Hermann defending you infront of Anna. A little bit later you can have Anna recommending you for a promotion. My point is that while the plot of this game doesn't change the story is extremely flexible. It's something that has to be taken into account when interviewing the lead writer of DX:HR, no?

Bottom line is I believe this "professional" is found wanting.

Come to think of it a good reason DX had this flexibility is that there weren't any relationships with anyone other than Paul before the story begins. Now that they've established that we learn about Adam's past and his relationships through dialogue I wonder if we'll get the same richness available to us in the first game. Heh.

[reticulate]

Originally Posted by ArcR

You can start by Paul calling you a jackass and telling you to get out of his face with Gunther Hermann defending you infront of Anna. A little bit later you can have Anna recommending you for a promotion. My point is that while the plot of this game doesn't change the story is extremely flexible. It's something that has to be taken into account when interviewing the lead writer of DX:HR, no?

Bottom line is I believe this "professional" is found wanting.

Come to think of it a good reason DX had this flexibility is that there weren't any relationships with anyone other than Paul before the story begins. Now that they've established that we learn about Adam's past and his relationships through dialogue I wonder if we'll get the same richness available to us in the first game. Heh.

That's an entirely fair point. I wonder, though, if the interviewer played through DE much like I did, by mostly pissing off everyone that wasn't Paul or a couple of others. I have a thing about being a nice guy when given the choice, and I think I'm not the only one. Perhaps that gives some perspective on the question?

As to HR, the story as far as we know is almost completely unknown. All we really have is that Jensen gets messed up by a group of antagonists and the girl he used to like dies(?) Followed by being asked to do some work for your boss, but we haven't seen much of that, and neither do we know what implications are present in the choices you make. I'd call any judgement too early to call.