okay i cant get onto facebook without it taking an unresonably long time, soo im going to ask a few questions and if *you* dedicated deux ex fan have an answer and a mind to reply, please do, id really appreciate some advice and ideas:
Locations: real, imaginary, inbetween?
Mapping: i consider myself a mapper, one thing i found really annoying about dx was the mapping, the story was so totally awesome, the maps, much less so. the underworld tavern for example, you could walk around 3 sides of the building, there was a finite amount of space in which to build the bar, then the zone portal transitions the player into the bar map, and whad'a'know? its fucking massive! seriously since starting oed i've finally enabled cheats and ghosted around the maps and its really bugs me that in the nyc streets map the underground tavern is really just an alley, it made a right angles S bend from the front of the street, to the rear alley, no room to even put a few barstools!, so my maps use a believably realistic size and shape that matches the inside to the outside. another couple examples of what bugs me about the maps: ton' hotel, foyer is such a waste of space, theres rooms only on 2 sides. another, duclare chatteau: beth duclares 'secret' illuminati communications monitoring stations its real physical location is above ground, in front of the front gate! i laughed so hard when i saw that in unrealed, seriously what happens when people drive to visit? why not put it under the maze? above the sewer, make it a real wine cellar, why not drop it down 256unreal units, so it wasnt above ground!. enough whinging trying to convince you of how important mapping is as it is to me, what happens when an interior and exterior map align perfectly? say maggie chows appartment, or phasmatis' appartment, do you just expect it to be that way? cringe if its obviously not practical? (mj12 armoury under unatcohq -WHY THE HELL is it as big as the cathedral), or do you just play the game?
Trade: how do we all feel about buying *AND* Selling? i personally feel that this alone is where dh-hr trumps dx, dx and nihilum both had sell zyme vial options, so im guessing that with a bit of con-edit manipulation i should be able to implement a few 'trader' class characters, but the question is; should i? do you find it more immersive to leave your assault rifle/shotgun behind on the prcs wallcloud in order to take dowd an ambrosia vial? would u rather have sold your flamethrower to a gang affiliate in wan chai market before leaving it behind in place of the dragonstoothsword u stole. i think yes, sell your unwanted weapons, buy some extra mods and ammo. any ideas?
MegaCorps. deus ex really lacked a good megacorp component to its story, yes it had page industries, versalife. but i really prefered the way dx-iw and dx-hr used this. does anyone suggest any inspirations i should check out for megacorp inclusion in oed? so far id say it is somewhat of a hybred of ideas, inspired by weyland-yutani, liandri, monsanto, japanese industry in general, im not sure whether to go for 1 all encompassing company, 1 shadow shrouded puppeteer, or many each concentrated in their own fields (En.wikipedia.org has an awesome definition)
Tech: im not big into technology, but i have to say that 'gray goo' scenarios are quite damn scary. im not planning to include any universal constructors or any refrences to it, does anyone object?
Weapons: okay this is a big one, as i've said before im australian, this offically makes it impossible for me to have any real knowledge about weapons. why? unless your in law enforment, or the military, you quite practically cannot own weapons, even armour is outlawed in this country, ever since the time of our infamous folk hero ned kelly. Therefore, i need the advice of americans, or russians, or swiss! yep the swiss, read up about it, they all keep an armoury under the bed :) is project 2027 a realistic portrayal of weapons? (ie is the 7.54mm rifle or the 30.06 the more realistic portrayal of a sniper rifle? ie the way it is in dx, without a tripod mount, used to shoot people in the head. i read all the books on the topic of weapons and ammo in project 2027, was this all legit? it was really nicely implemented, very immersive, hated the guys with aka101's, BANG BANG BANG, no more torso :(
Invincibility: i never intentionally tried to break dx, but since beginning oed i've been looking at the game in different ways, such as who can be killed, who cant. what is a nice way to implement godmode on an npc without it losing believability? take toby atanwe for example, rig 10 lams to explode at the metro, shoot 20 rockets at him, no worries. he cloroforms me and i take him down one shot at everetts, as far as the story was concerned, his job was done, he brought jc to everetts, speaks a few nice lines. so should he have dissapeared straight away, gone behind bullet proof glass, moved into the line of sight of some form of deterence? even if just the maid. i guess how the question really is how much should the story be determined by individual non-player characters?
Story Branching: OED has a branching story line, im not expecting anyone to repeatedly play my mod untill they find all the possible paths. i just want to give options so you get a game that adjusts itself to your playstyle: lawenforment players will 1>infiltrate a terrorist cell, 2>raid an illigal arms shipment, 3>assassinate or capture a terrorist leader, 4>clean-up a city of the remaining terrorist threat, and the game will respond accordingly (1> datacubes, books, intel appear at station, 2>trucks in station carpark, armoury full of weapons and crates, 3>terrorists dissapear from streets and go underground or different part of town, or turn allie and leader is imprisoned, 4> law enforment and civilians spawn at terrorist previous location. ALTERNATLY if the pc decided to join the terrorists after infiltrating, then at 2> the raid might fail miserable (misinformation option), law enforment get slaughtered (ambush option) or the red herring option might have consequences u dont need spoiled. essentially every branch will have hopefully 3 options, subject to previous actions, some branches will be mutually exclusive, others complementary (private mililtary contractor and law enforcement complement and enhance each other), terrorist and anarchist seemingly go in similar directions until a watershed moment when big decisions need to be made.
Augmentations: ones i like: cloak + radar transperancy (to be combined), microfibre muscle + combat strength (combined), damn those medium steel crates!, speed enhancement never chose the run-silent aug, icarus landing from dx-hr was awesome, dermal armour made sense. going to leave the augs untill later, loved the augged xva guys from nihilum, daniel from 2027 too, loved the f7 sound! and the revolutionist bar, dancing aug guy, haha hell yes!
Skills: Same as DX? replace swimming with stealth? implement perks system similar to 2027, but each with its own progress bar, with purchasable bio-enhancment elixers (essentially blue versions of the ambrosia/nanovirus vials) drink for boost to pistol accuracy, scope zoom distance, jump height, run speed, footfall sound radius, auto healing (much much much slower than dx-hr)
Advertising: since oed is a crapsack world, theres going to be a nice contrast between the stained, worn brick, rusty metal and trash filled alleys and the adertising banners and neon shopfronts. if you love propaganda, please feel free to contribute any photoshop or paint original works you feel would be complementary to the deus ex world
Newspapers: one of the few areas that is mainly sorted: osamabinllama is a profesional journalist, so has somewhat demanded that he write all newspaper and tv news articles, hes hoping to sneak some kind of subversive message into the story. if you happen to also like writing deus ex-esque style news, please think about sharing, its looking very much like picus at the moment, if you happened to include your own newspaper tex would be awesome too. you could be the alternative publication
Literature: deus ex and most of the mods made totally awesome use of books, 'theres nothing interesting to read' was basically one of my pet hates when i frobbed a book, one of my levels is a whole library, if you'd love to see a book you consider worthy of a mention in a library of a deus ex world, please let me know, i probably wont have read it, so if you included a paragraph of significance, the page number etc that'd be much easier, non-fiction preferred, unless its fucking awesome like tolkien or virgil
TV: i dont watch tv, actually i dont own a tv, i download all my tv shows, movies, documentaries, anime etc. all torrents, all entertainment, no tv ads. some tvs will be showing a few screens from my fav shows: dark angel, the outer limits, predator, blade runner, david attenborough, steven hawking, oh my god so many anime, theres gonna be an anime shop. any suggestions for great media that fits the deus ex feel would be appreciated, like the x-files!
