Comments - Maiden_China

Some flags set and checked by ConSys persist between missions, and they were altered in Confix. Check the changelog for added flags to see if any of those apply to your case.

In general, it is best to use Confix with a new save.

It's possible that ConSys will ignore that integer, but how I understand it - it points to which event should follow the current one. By default it's the next on the list, so i+1 - but it doesn't have to be, and can instead be any event in the conversation.

I'm pretty certain I didn't use it myself and made jumps explicit events, to make the code more readable and resemble ASM. If it doesn't work in ConSys, then I simply dodged a bullet when deciding on a coding style.

> In the main file header, after the list of missions the file applies to, but before the list of actors involved, there's an integer with value I can't figure what it's for.

I haven't gone indepth into the binary.

> Straight before the list of conversations, there are two integers; one is apparently the amount of conversations in the list, but the second may or may not be equal to it. Does the second number have any importance and are there any integrity checks that it might be a part of?

There aren't. It might be a problem with ConEdit or the decompiler (DEED) that created this mismatch, but you can create conversation trees quite freely with ConEdit. Apparently, only the first integer counts.

> In the Event header, between the Event type and label fields, there are two integers; one seems to be the index of the Event in an array, and the other *usually* is the former+1, but not always. What is it needed for?

Those are jumps. You can jump to any particular point in the conversation tree (or, if I recall correctly, other conversation trees), but unless specified otherwise it will default to moving to the next line.

> (in fact, do Event indexes *ever* matter? Let's assume, hypothetically, that in a particular .con file events in a conversation were not sorted by the index: will it cause a crash in the game? Will entries appear in their physical order, or in a sorted order?)

Conversations and events are ORDERED, and I cannot stress this enough. Near an actor, the game engine will try loading the first conversation belonging to it every 50ms (if I recall correctly). If it succeeds it will try loading the first event in it. If it fails the checks, it will try loading the next conversation in the tree, etc., etc. - and afterwards will try using a bark. In the default ConSys, barks aren't checked for flags.
The same goes for indices. As far as I know, if it doesn't know where to start, it will simply softlock. Moreover, using ConEdit, I had no way of directly altering the order of conversations - and they sorted themselves alphanumerically. So conversation A will try loading before B, and it's very important to keep it tidy - if you don't you'll have to check for numerous flags that might have impact on performance that's negligible, but is impact none-the-less.

> In the Choice event, after the label and before the ClearScreen flag, there's another integer of uncertain purpose.

This is probably the "Default" fallback index. In "Give" events, it is probably the "Failure" fallback (only used inventively in Mission1_Infolink, to check if using GMDX or vanilla).

> I'm writing an utility to implement exporting and importing data from .con files; it started simply as a slightly more rich text exporter than ConEdit itself would provide, and at that point I could simply ignore all those, but now that it supports exporting to XML *and* importing data back to .con, I feel I must be aware of all possible underwater stones that this data format has.

You might wanna talk to Hawkbird or Bjorn, both of them of Caustic Creative (the Deus Ex: Revision team) and are far more knowledgeable than me on anything related to how the files are actually built. In fact, if I recall correctly, they made a fixed ConSys a long long while ago that did allow barks to check flags, but at this point I've already made a hacky workaround for ConFix (split the offending barks into two types, and mods can enable some lines that don't make sense early game through the guidelines in AIBarks).
If possible, the vanilla text files export/import and compilation should also be targeted. They contain numerous typos and some formatting/continuity inconsistencies, and could be fixed as well.

To the best of my understanding it is this: Bit.ly

It includes a lot of things but the part most pertinent to Confix is that it includes all the translations. Most of these translations do not include the Confix changes, which I hope to remedy in the future. The major strength of this release is that everything is included in one package - so if you want to play with Confix in English or in another language, you should use the Community Update.

Did you know that in the original Deus Ex script, instead of feeding the kids you gave them cigarettes? That's why they say you're "cool".

open 99_Endgame1

This whole Steam business is way overrated, and is basically a rumor right now. First of all, due to the way mods work on Deus Ex, it doesn't really matter on what platform they release it, as the mod can easily be exported to other versions, and it was probably done so people playing on the demo version of Deus Ex (e.g. everyone) won't get the entire experience for free.
Second of all, if the release on Steam or GOG was mandated so they could cooperate with Square Enix, more power to them. They made their own calculations and it was deemed worth it. For one, I'm excited to see whatever they have in store for us on top of the mod.

So chill, everyone. It's bound to be better than you think it is, and in the grand scheme of things doesn't really add any more trouble. We've come this far, don't become bitter at the last second.

Hype = real.
***** = hard.

GOGOGO

You can not like Revision and still like Deus Ex. You can't say Half Life is comparable to Deus Ex and still consider yourself a fan.

Also, you can't say something is bad and it hasn't come out yet because it isn't ready. If you played the leak and thought it was bad - good! Now you see why the devs didn't want to release it yet.

So shut up already. Either come back when you've grown up or be a malicious little child in private. Nobody here needs or wants your opinion, vocal as you want to be.

Guys, this is childish. The comments here were always mean but publishing leaks and screaming profanities at the devs? C'mon. I know some of you are better than that, but I can acknowledge that some of you aren't. That's fine, we should all enjoy being 12 year olds in our lifetime, but you should do it in private where you don't hurt anybody else and more importantly, there's no documentation of your own stupidity.
So, to the devs - please, please, please don't check the comments section anymore. It's against the community, but the community has become venomous. Release the mod whenever you feel like it's ready. We'll all still be here to play and enjoy it, and feeding the trolls doesn't help us and only hurts you.

Thank you for your time and efforts, I'm waiting eagerly to enjoy Deus Ex like new again.