"Removing the suck from Deus Ex." It's an odd slogan, but that's what Shifter does, what little of it there is. In my opinion anyway. A little mod that started off as an effort to get the damn laser sight to turn on automatically now includes additional augmentations, unique weapons, new game mechanics, bugfixes, restored game content, and even a complete and working alt-fire option for almost every weapon. All of this, seamlessly integrated into the existing game, capable of running simultaneously with almost any other Deus Ex mod. Play your favorite mod, then play it again, "Shifter-ized".

For those of you who are sticklers for actual, quantifiable advantages, here are a few features which Shifter brings to Deus Ex:

  • "Replacable" Augmentations: Find a new aug you just have to have? Now you can replace an existing augmentation with one found in an augmentation canister. Just use a medical bot to install it, like you would with any other augmentation.

  • New/Better Augmentations: In unmodified Deus Ex, many of the augmentations were of limited to no value, or only useful in very specific situations. Shifter attempts to rectify this by modifying how some of these augs work (like Microfibral Muscle) or by replacing them completely with new, superior augs. (like Electrostatic Discharge)

  • Alt-Fire: Long since overdue, most weapons in Deus Ex now have alt-fire modes, accessed through a separate alt-fire key. Now you can unleash a napalm bomb from your Flamethrower, or throw those ever-so-common Combat Knives at unsuspecting NPCs. For weapons without alt-fire, the button doubles as a scope toggle key.

  • Unique Weapons: Scattered throughout the game in key locations are new and ever-so-deadly weapons. These weapons are unique, and only appear in that one location, nowhere else, to balance their power.

  • Random NPC Inventory: In a realistic setting one would never be able to say for certain what a random passerby on the street might have on them. Shifter incorporates this into Deus Ex, giving NPCs hostile, neutral and friendly alike randomly determined items. Perhaps nothing more than some extra credits, perhaps some food or cigarettes, but maybe even a contraband substance or weapon.

  • Additional Skill System: It seems somewhat unfair that a player is not rewarded with skill points for some acts of true skill, feats like defeating a room full of MiBs, or perhaps walking within just a few feet of them without being detected. Either way, combat or stealth, players are now rewarded for their feats of skill.

  • Deadlier NPCs: Many of the additions made to Shifter would seem to shift the balance of power almost exclusively to the player. To counteract this, NPC AI and skill has been upgraded. Enemies shoot better, aim quicker, and dodge faster. Never underestimate a Shifter NPC. (Well, when I finish all the AI tweaks, anyway. :P)

I've spent far more time on this mod than any other project I've ever undertaken, and I don't see myself stopping anytime soon. I may get distracted from time to time, or be mostly happy with a release only to find a few flaws in it several months down the road, but I will never abandon the mod. The day I stop maintaining Shifter is the day after the Deus Ex modding community officially dies.

For those of you who are brave, check out my Savefile Project Folder from time to time. It's where I store various "snapshot" builds of Shifter as I add features between releases. You'll get to play with new goodies between the official releases, at the slight cost of having to deal with possible bugs, crash-tacular errors, and other beta-esque things.

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Yep, I'm back. Short version is, HDTP issued a beta release and I needed to update Shifter to take advantage of it. Of course it took me damn near half a year to do it, but still, it got done in the end. There's a v1.9 Release Candidate going up in the download section. If nobody finds any major bugs in it, it'll become the official v1.9 release.

Oh, and as for what I've been doing? Long, long story involving herniated discs. But coding, as always, and a little bit of fragging. I do play Borderlands 2 now for those of you who have my Steam ID, but I also make sure to keep up on the classics like Deus Ex.

And a slightly funny story to share: part of the reason why this update took me so long was that I ran into some technical difficulties that necessitated me reinstalling Deus Ex. Why is that funny? Because that's the first time I've had to do that since I originally installed the game. Deus Ex is such an uncomplicated install that it relies on no registry settings or other such nonsense, a point in its favor if you ask me. That means I've been able to just copy the game install from hard drive to hard drive as I switch computers. Not only that, I've had the game since just a few months after its initial release, before the v1112fm patch even. For those of you who don't want to do the math there, that means I've been using the same install of Deus Ex for thirteen years. Thirteen! I know people say the game holds up well, but I don't think they meant in that way.

So yes, little bit of humor there for you. I've finally had to resort to using the Steam version as my primary testing/gameplay install of the game. That's probably not a bad thing since I would guess it's what version the majority of Deus Ex players use these days.

Where's Yuki?

Where's Yuki?

News 10 comments

So why haven't I been updating Shifter, eh? Where am I and what am I doing?

Shifter v1.8.3

Shifter v1.8.3

News 1 comment

Okay, not much a version, but necessary after the screwup with v1.8.2 (sorry sorry sorry).

DEMO VERSION!?! (or "oops, I screwed up")

DEMO VERSION!?! (or "oops, I screwed up")

News 2 comments

Oops, I messed up. Looks like some people's computers don't like my fix for the demo version. My bad. I'm fixing it.

Swine flu, you, and Shifter v1.8.2

Swine flu, you, and Shifter v1.8.2

News 3 comments

I'm releasing something I'm willing to call v1.8.2 because I'm sick of life delaying its release. I think it works. Maybe.

RSS Files
Shifter v1.9 RC1

Shifter v1.9 RC1

Full Version 26 comments

Another release candidate for v1.9. This version removes some demo-detection code which was causing issues for some users when trying to start a new game...

Texture Pack BETA

Texture Pack BETA

Patch 11 comments

Quick and dirty readme... To "install" this pack, just drop it into your DeusEx\System folder. That's it. Gives textures for the RoF mod, light rocket...

Shifter v1.8.4

Shifter v1.8.4

Full Version 15 comments

This is just a quick and dirty release of Shifter v1.8.4. At least, it's probably Shifter v1.8.4. It's stable, it has a number of changes (mostly bugfixes...

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LiquidusWolf
LiquidusWolf

Hey Guys, I'm playing with the Lay D Mod and I was wondering if you going to do something to tune up the 2 mods together !

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Temde
Temde

Hope you continue to work on Shifter. Add more unique weapons and unique weapon mods and unique augmentations and such. Thank you for your work!

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xXx_DkBreeki_xXx
xXx_DkBreeki_xXx

I have a bug. I cannot use anything(including weapons) after throwing LAM

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CarpetMonster
CarpetMonster

Hello!

Shifter has been the reason I've got back into the original DE, after seeing that Human Evolution was... Well, it is what it is.

I have sent a bug report to a Hotmail e-mail, but I have got no response. So: apologies for duplicating all of this...

This error may be just my setup, I don't know, but it is based on 32-bit Vista (so I wouldn't be surprised).

I'm running the game natively via Kentie's launcher (see Kentie.net) but only version 5.3, along with OTP's Scaling Mod', Deus Ex Enhanced's "fixed" SP Maps, and of course Shifter (1.9 RC1).

(I'm going to run a few updates to see if this fixes things. The error is below...)

[Tiny SPOILER ALERT, in case there is someone out there somewhere who has not played this before...]

During the Brooklyn levels, I'm trying to enter the large building that contains the dock, housing the PCS Wall Cloud. The one that is separated by four / five Delta-4 'bots (the big ED-209 style ones).

No matter which route I choose (sewers, top-side, or through the roof-vents) the trigger which engages the change to the next map continually crashes the game.

As said above, I have some updates to install, so I'm assuming this issue will be fixed by doing those.

Thought I would ask if anyone's had similar issues *anyway*, so I can start the relevant thread now...

This may not be a Shifter-related issue; but Kentie's latest launcher no longer requires OTP's fixes, and DE:E appears dead. So...

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CarpetMonster
CarpetMonster

It transpires that the SP map-fixes *have* to be from the 1.110 of the application, otherwise you're not actually introducing new content. I tried this, so far no luck. In case New Vision does fix things (it now includes Kentie's launcher and a decent set-up guide) I think I will relent and try that next. Unless the GMDX people can tempt me...

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Deadlock02
Deadlock02

I really like the features of this mod but sadly it's unplayable for me. Every time someone fires a gun the game seems to be running under 10 fps.

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Guest
Guest

Is Shifter (currently v1.9 RC1) working with The Nameless Mod?
Please, report if this or any future version doesn't work with TNM.

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Umulamahri
Umulamahri

Also Yuki, there's that for some reason you can no longer gib enemies right off the bat in Shifter. I would never have noticed this before someone pointed it out to me, but it's true. You can even shoot a grunt with a Master-level GEP round, and he won't gib anyway.

It also makes perfect sense now in hindsight, as I remember some instances of this from the Nameless Mod: The Gibinator is supposed to convert the target into a shower of gory chunklets right away, and all it does is kill them. Likewise with the PHAT Rifle - it's supposed to blow people up when they get fat enough, and they just die while converting to their thin selves.

If this was done out of concern for item drop loss when the target gets gibbed, you could simply make the items spawn on the floor after the target's gibbed like it was done in TNM.

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TheUnbeholden
TheUnbeholden

Shifter has that feature, where gibbed enemies drop all their items. GMDX has borrowed it to.

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