Talk:Deus Ex (video game)/Archive 2

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As of now I am the only person who has posted anything on the Deus Ex characters discussion page and, just in case no one replies, I recommend that you read my suggestions and hopefully post some of your own. This game deserves more than this article is currently providing, there are SO many secrets and conspiracy theories, just the other day I found the details for Paul Denton's bank account - I recently started playing the game so if you have already found it yourself, good for you. Another link that might be added is http://www.visualwalkthroughs.com/. It is a quality site with the best walkthrough for Deus Ex, even if you don't approve of walkthroughs you should still visit the site!--Mohamo 10:48, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

NPOV

The game was prophetic in other ways; a gas station sign featured prices above 3.00 per gallon, and there were draconian restrictions on civil rights. Who agrees with me that that is NOT NPOV Anouymous 00:20, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

I think the last section needs to be changed, because of the political bend put on it. But, since I agree with the bend, I'll leave it up to someone else :D

Liastnir 13:30, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

I trimmed nearly all of the speculation, and left the stuff actually stated by the game's designer. Wikipedia is not for posting one's personal theories on a subject. I haven't heard any media reports about the game being controversial after the 9/11 attacks. References, please. --Poiuyt Man ^talk 16:44, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

"Conspiracy in development"

I've removed this section from the article because, again, there are no references to support it. The IGN article that User:Osmosys claims is an account of the FBI visiting Ion Storm is in simply a news post that found an amusing way to say 'the Deus Ex website has been updated.' The other link, to the Planet Deus Ex foums, talks about the White House level and other removed levels, and has nothing more about government action than statements like "I remember US Goverment made sure that map was removed" and no further references.

For this section to warrant inclusion into the wikipedia article, there needs to be actual mention of government involvement, said by someone who would actually have been there. Hearsay forum posts are not good enough. -Rjo 10:36, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

The White house level was slated for production: http://www.ccr.buffalo.edu/anstey/TEACHING/intenv_F04/postmortem_deusex.htm I'm working on finding a better source for the investigation. The event happened. I remember the official secret service (or FBI) seizure page that they put over the Deus Ex website. I remember Harvey Smith and Warren Spector both acknowledged the investigation. It happened before the games release back in 1999 or so. I'm emailing people trying to dig up something more credible. BTW that IGN post is vague, but it is in refernce to the raid on the office. The official reason for dropping the white house level was because it was too resource hungry, but this isn't true. Some of the ION developers were quoted as saying "You can kill the president in our whitehouse level". This got the feds on their backs. User:Osmosys

Once I find a source it's going in.

Ok I emailed Harvey Smith and he said that they did put up an FBI seizure page, but according to him this was a stunt staged by ION Storm as a joke. I could check this by requesting an investigation record available under the freedom of information act. If there is no record then his story checks out, and it could be put into the wiki as a hoax created by the developers. I suppose I could have Harvey Smith noterize it somehow to make it credible.-Osmosys

Please leave a comment on this.

Deadly Weapons

Because the game has such gameplay freedom it is possible to finish the game without using a single deadly weapon and almost without killing a single person (the only person who must die can be killed without the use of any weapon).

I think this is incorrect information. You have to kill Gunter Hermann and Anna Navarra, but you can use the killword designed for them. True. But, as far as I know, you also have to kill the FEMA boss (in the undersea laboratory) and I don't think you can do this without offensively attacking him.

--Wintermute

You do not have to kill Agent Hermann or Walton Simons. It is difficult, but you can slip past both (Simons will then show up again later on). (With careful use of gas grenades you needn't kill Navarre either, but that's more like a bug.) Frencheigh 15:03, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

And here I was thinking I'd seen pretty much everything in the game. Thanks for correcting me. Must play the game again and try that out myself.

--Wintermute

By the way, here's the thorough explanation of the gas grenade thing, which might even warrant some sort of inclusion (but probably not). Frencheigh 16:28, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I played a non-lethal game, and found out it's possible to tranq augmented agents too. They are highly resistant, but once you have the eye augmentation you can see the exact health of the enemies, I engaged Gunther and Simons with conventional weapons till they were at 1% health, then used tranqs, they collapse as normal, but don't explode. When Navarre gives you the option of either killing her or killing the resistance guy at the airport I killed her (it was before the eye upgrade, and I incorrectly thought that agents were immune to tranqs), but I'm fairly certain she can be stunned too, it'd just be very difficult since she appears before the eye upgrade, so they'd need to be lots of quickload/save.

Also, when I played through my goal was absolutely zero deaths, even AI vs AI, the NSF / UNATCO skirmish in Hells Kitchen took lots of quickloads, but throwing gas grenades helps. It was a couple of years ago, but I'm 90% sure there wasn't a single death (except Navarra, which I now think can be tranq'd). No special scripting occurred though, if Simons is tranq'd at the underwater base he reappears at Area 51, a tranq'd / killed Herman is treated exactly the same in the storyline, and after the first few maps there are no comments about the lack of deaths. The game was completed with only Navarre being killed (animals tranq darts / baton, but the game treats them as deaths).

Pronunciation

Cite for pronunciation as it is? OED and dictionary.com give emphasis on first syllable of each. Frencheigh 21:38, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Pronunciation is Day-err-s Ex, as in 'deus ex machina'.

There is no 'r' sound in Deus. --70.143.33.216 06:59, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

mini infobox icons

are we sure that's not allowed? StarCraft and also GTA san andreas (a featured article and a "Good article") have those and so do a lot of computer game articles. --UVnet 12:43, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Strong similarity to SS2

Of course the gameplay is "strongly similar" to SS2. The key people behind SS2, and the key people behind Deus Ex are Looking Glass Studios alumni. On top of that, an introductory document on Deus Ex, written by Chad Warren for Quality Assurance people, says:

"Will this game change the world? Not all at once. Deus Ex is, though, the next logical step in a trend established by games like Underworld, Underworld 2, System Shock, Thief, and System Shock 2. The unspoken focus of this movement: to satisfy the goal of storytelling since it began: to totally immerse an individual in an intimately personal quest; not to hear or see a hero’s deeds, but to be the hero oneself."

You can get the file from here.--Drat (Talk) 16:03, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

2005 IGN top 100

I don't believe it is our place to essentially say "Look! It beat out Half-Life!". And IGN is one publication. It's not even like this is 1st place vs 2nd place. It's 21st vs 22nd. Big whoop. Each one from 20 down beat Deus Ex, and Deus Ex beat every game above it. Why single out Half-Life? I agree that Deus Ex is a better game, but they are somewhat different games.--Drat (Talk) 10:43, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I tend to agree -- Hongshi 10:49, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Genre

Saying only that DX is a "role-playing game" in the opening sentence is misleading. This game is MUCH more of a FPS than an RPG. The whole intro section goes on an on about the game as an RPG, but the bottom line is that the game contains RPG elements. It should never be classified as an RPG, simply because it isn't one. Its an FPS with some RPG elements. Static3d 03:37, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

What precise, singular element makes an RPG an RPG? Experience? Character customisation? Skill systems? The genre is pretty diverse in its definitions. Unlike say, an FPS. If it's first-person, and you can shoot things, it's an FPS.--Drat (Talk) 04:33, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I'd say any of the above. And Deus Ex has them all, its definently an RPG.Itake 06:19, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

The thing is: you could classify just about any FPS as an RPG if you were so inclined (given your definition that any character development constitutes an RPG.) In that sense, getting a new weapon, or customizing your player's name or clothing makes the game an RPG. For me, to classify a game as a computer role-playing game, these RPG elements must be at the forefront of the gameplay. This game emphasizes sneaking around, solving puzzles, and shooting stuff, therefore its an action/adventure FPS with RPG elements. Anywho, while the lines are often blurred between game genres these days, this game is clearly not primarily influenced by pen-and-paper RPGS... its in a genre of it's own. Static3d 15:10, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

As of February 2006

In the introduction, it says...

The game sold quite well during its initial run and remains among the top selling RPG's.
As of February 2006 it is #34 in Amazon.com's top selling PC RPGs [1], #12 in top selling
Mac RPGs [2] , and also appears in CNET's list of most popular PC role playing games [3].

...with some formerly-current stats. For example, on Amazon, it seems to be #84 at the moment, a bit of a drop from #34 which it apparently was ranked at some point last month. Rather than updating it over and over (or just leaving it without changing it), I would suggest for someone who knows such things to instead list peak rankings, how many (and which) weeks it stayed at the peak rank, and things like that. Updating each month might be appropriate for a game that was released in the past year, but for something released in 2000 it's probably better to just list records and keep the general statement that it 'remains among the top'. --Atari2600tim (talk • contribs) 23:26, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

There is also this bit: "It won much acclaim upon its release and still recieves acclaim as a pioneering title, receiving praise for its depth and variety." That is a slightly de-weaseled version of what was there before, but it needs more work, and some relevant review quotations, with links.--Drat (Talk) 03:55, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

World Trade Center Texture

The World Trade Center texture is indeed still in the game. It's not in the skyline that can be viewed from Liberty Island (as is noted elsewhere, it was removed to save memory space) but one of the remaining textures can be seen here. --Chrismith 21:52, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

NPOV

"The game sold quite well during its initial run" This needs to be changed. This is very subjective writing. We can say something like "During its initial run the game was xx position on the PC charts selling xxx units". Readers can draw their own conclusions on how well that was. We don't make the decision for them.--Crossmr 21:40, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

"Spam" vs. Linking to something mentioned in the article

This is mostly directed at Crossmr, but I've seen a number of such reverts on plenty of other articles by plenty of other people, so this is also directed at users in general: there is a difference between Spam and providing an external link to something that has been mentioned elsewhere in an article. While in this case I am, in fact, the creator of the link target in question, (Shifter) I am not the person who added refferences to it in the article. (Who did, I don't know. Check the history) Spam would only apply if I'd added links and information on something I held a vested interest in where there had been none previously. This is not the case.

If you still have problems with the link feel free to involve a Moderator, (or whatever the term is) but I have little doubt that adding the link is justified.

Yukichigai 16:36, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the mod names, which were not really necessary in the first place, from the overview section. Now there's no reason for the link to your mod.--Drat (Talk) 15:20, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I think this topic has (or is about to) become a little too hot to be resolved via talk. I have asked for a Mediator (found the term, finally) to weigh in on the situation. In the meantime I would request that the page be reverted to the version prior to my initial edit until the Mediator makes a decision.

Yukichigai 18:00, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Just spotted your request. I've played the game and some mods I know about, so I hope I can help in the informal mediation. Note that the mediation cabal is always informal, with no enforcement powers, but this case clearly is not serious enough for the official MedCom. Reverting edits is not the common practice, and changes are made only when the case is resolved.

I've looked at the links. As the purpose of Wikipedia is to provide as much information as possible, I suggest the mod links are left in the article, unless they are incomplete or irrelevant. Mod names for all complete mods also should be retained. What to do with work in progress depends on its importance, so retextures aren't notable, but plot conversions are. CP/M 19:17, 22 May 2006 (UTC)