Another new 30-sec commercial, I think this one is quite a bit better. Edit: Up on YouTube now from a variety of places. Doom Goon fucked around with this message at 17:42 on Aug 15, 2011 |
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 16:54 |
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# ? Jun 9, 2024 23:09 |
If I give you credit, would you mind if I posted the OP on another forum?
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 17:15 |
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Dominic White posted:No specific opinions on that guide, but Futurepress do good work. Their Bayonetta guide is a labor of love. 400+ pages, hardback, picking apart every single possible technique and including seperate walkthroughs for each difficulty, and even having reference numbers which you can enter on the FP site to view video examples of things too complex to just show on paper. Oh right, the one Bradygames kept them from releasing Stateside, causing the aftermarket price to balloon to 200+ dollars So... yeah, pre-ordered.
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 18:41 |
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404GoonNotFound posted:Oh right, the one Bradygames kept them from releasing Stateside, causing the aftermarket price to balloon to 200+ dollars Seriously? I got my copy for like $20-25 (converted from £), including postage. Edit: Holy poo poo, the price for it is nuts on Amazon UK now... But my copy had the spine slightly broken, which I repaired myself, but it wasn't the prettiest fix, so that would likely kill the value. I think I'll keep it.
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 18:44 |
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Doom Goon posted:Another new 30-sec commercial, I think this one is quite a bit better. Hey, that is actually good. I wonder if it's the kind of ad that'd make someone buy the game, but then again I never buy games based on most videos anyway.
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 18:51 |
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Well these tags are just awesome! So... Hey guys, I'm one of the level designers on DX:HR. I've literally been lurking this thread and the last one since their creation (over a year now, I guess?), reading all your comments and criticism's (particularly the comments on the leak, some of you so aptly call the "demo" haha). I was planning on posting on the day of release of the game, but I'm on vacation until it comes out, and well, these tags are just so great I feel obliged to buy one and show my support! With that said, come the 23rd, I hope you guys enjoy the game as much as I had fun making it! At the studio we are absolutely stoked about the release of the game (like you cannot imagine)... the energy is just great. I'd be willing to answer some odd-questions you guys have here and there about the development of the game (Of course staying within my NDA until the game comes out.) Although I gotta say, our Marketing team does a really good job of putting a lot of it out there, but who knows; fire away! EDIT: True Story for Tecman; a while back your OP was actually sent in a company-wide e-mail (and it wasn't me who sent it...lol), just because of how outstanding it was! I thought you might get a kick out of that. EDIT:EDIT: vvvvv Ahahaha, that's not a bad idea at all, I'm sure some players would totally go for that kind of challenge. EDIT:EDIT:EDIT: vvvvv No comment on both questions. Try to ask things I can answer, "No comment" gets old after a while! Happy Blue Cow fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Aug 15, 2011 |
# ? Aug 15, 2011 19:40 |
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Happy Blue Cow posted:Well these tags are just awesome! When are you going to make a DLC level with no weapons to use except for a refridgerator? (Seriously though, thanks for making a fantastic game, I can't wait to get my pre-ordered copy.) EDIT: Actually, now that the games almost out, have you been moved over to the Thief 4 team? Are there any talks of a sequel to DXHR? If your NDA-ed on those questions, I'll be forced to take that as complete confirmation of both. Cartoon Man fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Aug 15, 2011 |
# ? Aug 15, 2011 19:45 |
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I was gonna originally ask if anyone wanted to trade for a figurine but snowball's chance in hell. I got this Human Revolution augmentation sleeve at Comic Con this year and haven't actually opened yet, same one seen in this pic (not mine, just swiped it from an ebay auction to illustrate) So I'll go ahead and offer this up to Tecman for his augmented OP.
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 19:55 |
Apparently some kid got so excited about Deus Ex Human Revolution he asked Mercedes Benz to buy him a state-of-the-art prosphetic arm: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-14531145 Not entirely true It's a pity said kid is an utter arsewipe. Personally I hope he gets hit with a car...or snaps his dick off.
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 20:19 |
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Happy Blue Cow posted:
Since you're a level designer, I'd be interested in your thoughts about working on a game that emphasizes so many choices and possible routes. Did it present any unique challenges? Do you feel pretty confident that you created areas people will have fun exploring?
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 20:23 |
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Welcome to the thread, Happy Blue Cow! Thanks for offering to answer questions. I have a question, and I guess it's more or less about the general level design process. Would you mind talking us through how levels are created from start to finish? For example, does a team get together and talk out how individual sections work, or are individual people assigned to individual sections? Is there always a conscious effort to do the whole "stealth, combat, tech" path thing, or are the sections just kind of made with the idea that "lots of paths" should be available and that the player should just work it out? Finally, do you plan on having your home retrofitted with an extensive network of 2ftx2ft air vents?
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 20:27 |
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I noticed that, in addition to being places that had a lot of possible routes through them, the levels also have a lot of stuff in them. They look and feel very lived-in. How much time was spent "personalizing" a guy's office, or janitor's closet, or whatever?
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 20:30 |
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Happy Blue Cow posted:Well these tags are just awesome! With the whole New Renaissance stylings Human Revolution has, did you draw any inspiration from Renaissance architecture and in what ways? And how cool is JJB in real life? oatgan fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Aug 15, 2011 |
# ? Aug 15, 2011 20:32 |
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Happy Blue Cow posted:I'd be willing to answer some odd-questions you guys have here and there about the development of the game (Of course staying within my NDA until the game comes out.) Although I gotta say, our Marketing team does a really good job of putting a lot of it out there, but who knows; fire away! First of all, congrats on the game. You guys have made something awesome (judging by the leak) that I didn't think could be made in today's industry. My question is this: how much publisher meddling did you have to deal with? Were you pressured to change anything significant, or did Square Enix more or less stand back and let you make the game you wanted to make?
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 20:36 |
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Did the fact that a lot of people seemed to get hung up on Deus Ex's first level significantly affect Human Revolution's intro / tutorial areas design-wise?
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 20:37 |
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I got hung up on the first level of the leak because you get to that open environment with the stairs on both sides of the room and I got a strong urge to stop my stealth progress and just gun them all down because of the AI pathing :|
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 20:47 |
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Corin Tucker's Stalker posted:Since you're a level designer, I'd be interested in your thoughts about working on a game that emphasizes so many choices and possible routes. Did it present any unique challenges? Do you feel pretty confident that you created areas people will have fun exploring? Now these are questions I can answer! Level Designing for this game was actually... really really good. LD's had a particular amount of creative freedom, that I don't think would exist on another game. It was amazing, hopefully down the line more and more games adapt this sort of "Emergent Game play" rather than having a linear, cinematic and scripted-style experience that some Triple A titles offer today (Uncharted, Killzone, etc..) Personally, I don't have anything against these types of games, but I just prefer giving the players all the tools and letting them overcome obstacles a variety of ways, rather than putting the having them put square peg into the only square-hole, if you catch my drift. When I first got on the project back in 09', I was absolutely stoked, because I knew what kind of game the original Deus Ex were, and how much fun it would be to actual put together a level for something in that genre. In my opinion, the biggest challenges always occurred when it game to having to bottle-neck on the critical path such an open-ended experience, in order to meet the story writers or game designers needs. On paper it sounds simple, but I always found it difficult to do it gracefully, and you just have to plan it out accordingly well in advance, and play-test it often. A quick anecdote on some cut-content; I had designed a building that you had to infiltrate. You had to reach the 6th floor or so of the building. I had devised a variety of ways for you to infiltrate the building of course; the main entrance being the lobby elevator (gun everyone down, sneak in, or smooth-talk the receptionist to let you up, among others). One access actually involved going through the back alley and hacking your way into the back of the building, and take the fire escape up. On paper I was like, heck yea! This works out great, I got alot of options and everything seems interesting. I start building a blocky layout of the level, and then that's when you realize... oh gosh... going up 6 floors of the spiral fire-escape was really boring, uneventful, and due to the technical limitations of the location, couldn't have any form of enemy threat. So I scrapped that idea and just started over. Am I confident in the areas? Yes definitely. Just through play-tests with players, and play-tests among the developers, everyone has their own unique way of going through the level, at their own pace, with their own tactics. It's just so interesting to see them play through your level, in ways you didn't even imagine possible. Play-tests were also helpful in that, they showed ME new ways I could improve the level, by adding additional routes here and there, or different enemy placement, things of the sort. EDIT: Oh gosh so many good questions; please be patient I'll try to answer them all lol
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 20:48 |
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What did you do to create realistic, relateable characters that the players could build a rapport with? Overall as well as the little tricks you used there and then.
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 21:12 |
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ufarn posted:What did you do to create realistic, relateable characters that the players could build a rapport with? Level designer, not character designer.
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 21:23 |
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Speedball posted:Level designer, not character designer. What did you do to create realistic, relateable subway stations that the players could bust a rap within?
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 21:31 |
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I have a few questions, at least some of which you should be able to answer. 1) Do you have a favorite level in the new game? 2) Do you have a favorite level in the original Deus Ex? 3) What other kinds of work have you done? 4) Any ideas of yours that you are really sorry to see cut? 5) I would also like to know, on a scale of 1 to JC Denton, how cool JJB is.
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 21:57 |
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GreatGreen posted:Welcome to the thread, Happy Blue Cow! Thanks for offering to answer questions. It starts off with a Blueprint phase. This basically is established really early in production, to the point where it was well-established before I even got on the project. This is decided and discussed with all the seniors and leads, like JF/JJB/Mary/Rene/David/etc.. and it's basically a guideline to abide by in order to establish all the essential game and narrative beats. (Ex: Adam must go to Location C at this point, his goal is to perform P, there he encounters X, is introduced to element Y, etc.. etc..) It's just a very high-level guideline. After that when we start pre-production/production, the blueprint is divided and dispatched accordingly to small strike teams. A team would usually consist of 1 Level Artist, 1 Level Designer, 1 Modeler, and 1 Texturer, and these guys usually become your family of sorts, so it's really important to voice your concerns if you aren't getting along with one of your team members. In the case of a City-Hub, you'll have more Artists since City Hubs can be really large and time consuming for one artist to handle. the animators, sound, narrative, and game design teams, are all more or less on the exterior of the strike team, and they basically will answer to the demands of the team on a per level basis. This is because strike teams are usually focused entirely on their specific level(s), whereas the other teams work globally on all levels. As a level designer, yes there is always a very conscious effort in making minimum one combat path, and one stealth path. I always always always tried to avoid these kinds of situations where it was totally binary (stealth or combat); and just try to make as many solutions to a situation as possible. (I'm sure most other LD's thought the same way as well). J-F Dugas in particular when doing early playtests of our levels, would scout out areas like a hawk; "How do I beat this section through stealth??" (only in french) Apart from that, we just have standard procedures of playtesting the level through various stages, and discussing it among all the leads, elaborating on its problems, etc... etc.. Just a long-winded iterative process until the game is shipped out the door. GreatGreen posted:Finally, do you plan on having your home retrofitted with an extensive network of 2ftx2ft air vents? ... lol. After this game, most Level Designers simply loathe Airvents now. Speedball posted:I noticed that, in addition to being places that had a lot of possible routes through them, the levels also have a lot of stuff in them. They look and feel very lived-in. How much time was spent "personalizing" a guy's office, or janitor's closet, or whatever? Haha I'm so glad you mention this. Brings a smile to my face honestly. The amount of "show-dont-tell" details, depends entirely on the team and individuals who were working on the level. Personally, I tried to shove in a ton of little minor details, as much as I could really. I would beg my Level Artist to totally bust his CPU/GPU memory limitations in order to stuff the most hilariously tiny things possible in levels, that no one would notice except for the die-hard fans, or those who care to look. One example which comes to mind was that "FINAL FANTASY XXXVIII Poster" that someone noticed from a trailer; that was definitely something that someone on the team shoved in just because they could, and it fit the context. Keep your eyes peeled all game, there are literally tons of these types of things. The tricky part though is sneaking it in, and trying to get it by the QA team or the Leads! Oatgan posted:With the whole New Renaissance stylings Human Revolution has, did you draw any inspiration from Renaissance architecture and in what ways? I'll be totally blunt, but that was something that more concerned the Artists and Concept Artists. It also depends on the theme of your level, or the story elements you need to portray. I definitely used a lot of old renaissance pictures just as a basic inspiration, but in all honesty Renaissance Architecture, while beautiful, isn't exactly the elegant when it comes to navigation for a video game! Oatgan posted:And how cool is JJB in real life? He's a character all right. If I had to describe him in one word... I guess I would say "charismatic" Old Thrashbarg posted:First of all, congrats on the game. You guys have made something awesome (judging by the leak) that I didn't think could be made in today's industry. Thanks! To answer your question, they let us do what we wanted. If anything, because they picked us up and gave us more funding and allowed us to stretch out deadlines, the game is that much better cause of it. So it was definitely a good thing to have been bought out by them. Everdraed posted:Did the fact that a lot of people seemed to get hung up on Deus Ex's first level significantly affect Human Revolution's intro / tutorial areas design-wise? Hmm.. possibly... not that I am aware of though. I can't say exactly what discussion and decisions were a part of the tutorial levels, since I didn't actually touch that level. ufarn posted:What did you do to create realistic, relateable characters that the players could build a rapport with? As Speedball mentions, I'm a level designer, not a character/narrative designer. So unfortunately I cannot answer that question. But what I can tell you is that there are a lot of situations and areas that I, as well as other LD's, did have input in when it comes to developing secondary characters or building up the world. Most (if not all) of the overheard conversations you hear are usually ideas pitched by the Level Designers, and the Narrative Designer will pick up on that and deliver the actual script for us to place. Since Narrative Designers don't really know the in's and the out's of each level, its the LD's job to pick and choose locations for over-heards. Although I'll even admit, sometimes I just had no idea and would just tell the Narrative Designers that "I need an overheard that gives X hint to the player about Y, could you whip something up for me?" StickySweater posted:1) Do you have a favorite level in the new game? 1) I do, and it's ask again when the game comes out! (not a spoiler, don't worry) 2) Hell's Kitchen (am I weird?) 3) DX:HR is actually the 2nd title I ever worked on (I was a junior on the project)... the 1st title being not worth mentioning 4) Ugh.. Yes. Actually one of the things that was cut that I still bring up to this day with J-F Dugas, wasn't my idea, but it was something that was planned that I was really heart-broken to have seen gone. Ask me again once the game has come out, since it's a definite spoiler. 5) Adam. EDIT: Apologies if I am overly wordy... I could talk about these kinds of things for hours so I find it hard to stop sometimes... Happy Blue Cow fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Aug 15, 2011 |
# ? Aug 15, 2011 22:37 |
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I break my media blackout to find PC Gamer gave it the same score as Dragon Age 2
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 22:39 |
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So how useful is that smash through walls thing, from an LDs perspective? I mean should we upgrade it early or...?
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 22:47 |
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Are there going to be any characters from Deus Ex 1 besides Tracer Tong in Human Revolution? Very excited for this game! 8 days left and hopefully the pre-load for the Steam version happens tomorrow.
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 22:53 |
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Happy Blue Cow posted:EDIT: Apologies if I am overly wordy... I could talk about these kinds of things for hours so I find it hard to stop sometimes... Seriously though, I am fascinated by this stuff and I hope you (and pretty much anyone from the team, really) can go much more into detail once the game is out. I'd love to see a bunch of post-mortem-ish posts or just stories from development. I know there are tons of stories to tell. edit: Alan Smithee posted:... the Human Revolution augmentation sleeve... Tecman fucked around with this message at 22:57 on Aug 15, 2011 |
# ? Aug 15, 2011 22:54 |
Rocketeer Korolev posted:Are there going to be any characters from Deus Ex 1 besides Tracer Tong in Human Revolution? Bob Page is in the intro to HR, and Joseph Manderley is at least mentioned in emails quite a bit.
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 22:55 |
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Woozy posted:So how useful is that smash through walls thing, from an LDs perspective? I mean should we upgrade it early or...? Punch-through-wall had way more uses about 3 years ago. But it had to be iterated and cut-down due to technical or time constraints. One iteration of it allowed you to punch into the wall below Suspended Cameras, and rip out the wiring to deactivate it without triggering an alarm. Think of it as a brute-way of deactivating it, without the need to hack. It's definitely not as useful as I would have liked it to be, but there are still some really insane short-cuts you can gain access to with it. I'd even wager some of the best short-cuts are P-T-W based. Personally as a player, I get it fairly early on. Rocketeer Korolev posted:Are there going to be any characters from Deus Ex 1 besides Tracer Tong in Human Revolution? No comment. But that reminds me, speaking of the Gamestop DLC level, some comments I do recall reading on these boards and on others that I'd like to rectify. The Gamestop DLC level is not cut-content that we refurbished. I know that in this day and age of DLC, it's easy to jump to the conclusion, that it's just a incomplete level that was cut, and then brought back to life for the purpose of Gamestop DLC. But really what actually happened was Gamestop came to us with the offer, and we made the level for them, from scratch. I would know, cause I helped make it! It made me so to hear that people immediately assumed some stuff I worked on was cut-content. Happy Blue Cow fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Aug 15, 2011 |
# ? Aug 15, 2011 22:56 |
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Happy Blue Cow posted:stuff What augs do you go for? Obviously I've only played the leaked version but I'd just like to congratulate you and your team on the game. It really summons up those same feelings I had when I played the original on my G4, a great combination of intrigue and suspense and generally just nosing around. It really captures that atmosphere, while amping the production values way up. Can't wait to play the whole thing.
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 22:59 |
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Happy Blue Cow posted:Punch-through-wall had way more uses about 3 years ago. But it had to be iterated and cut-down due to technical or time constraints. One iteration of it allowed you to punch into the wall below Suspended Cameras, and rip out the wiring to deactivate it without triggering an alarm. Think of it as a brute-way of deactivating it, without the need to hack. Aw, too bad to see it got scaled back, esp. wrt to the camera function because that sounds totally rad. I was personally a bit disappointed that you couldn't upgrade it to work on doors since the DTS was my lockpick for most of DX1. I'm still getting it every playthrough though. Edit: Who decides what sort of items to drop in the alternate pathways? Is that something an LD has input in? I'm curious if there's any logic to what sorts of items you might drop for the player in a given secret path (say, for a super jumper vs. a wall smasher vs. a crate stacker vs. a hacker). Woozy fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Aug 15, 2011 |
# ? Aug 15, 2011 22:59 |
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Happy Blue Cow posted:... it's really important to voice your concerns if you aren't getting along with one of your team members. It sounds like there's a story here.
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 23:03 |
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Were the developers pissed that the game had been leaked, or was it really intentional all along? How much did your team take suggestions and ideas from these forums? Were there any big decisions that got nixed because of overwhelming forum criticism?
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 23:15 |
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Happy Blue Cow posted:
Words are good, I love hearing Q&A straight from the developers, thanks for answering all of these questions. Did you get to place item pickups in your levels, or did you just design the geography of the level? One of the things that still impresses me about the original Deus Ex is that it continually surprised me about how it hid items, keypads, and stuff like that. In a lot of games, I feel like I can quickly identify things like limitations of the game engine (This game will never hide items under beds or other objects), or developer tendencies (Too much copy and pasting, oh hey I've seen this room before, oh hey there is an item here just like in the 10 previous identical rooms), stuff like that. Walk into a room, immediately check spots A, B, and C, and be drat near 100% confident there won't be any sneaky hidden stuff I missed, because the game just doesn't do that. I never felt that way in Deus Ex, I never ruled out checking anything for secrets. In the design process was there any active consideration for this type of concept, like giving extra thought to hiding things without becoming too predictable? I know it is a bit of a vague question but it's something I routinely find myself thinking about in a lot of games.
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 23:15 |
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Happy Blue Cow posted:But that reminds me, speaking of the Gamestop DLC level, some comments I do recall reading on these boards and on others that I'd like to rectify. The Gamestop DLC level is not cut-content that we refurbished. I know that in this day and age of DLC, it's easy to jump to the conclusion, that it's just a incomplete level that was cut, and then brought back to life for the purpose of Gamestop DLC.
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 23:20 |
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Happy Blue Cow posted:I would beg my Level Artist to totally bust his CPU/GPU memory limitations in order to stuff the most hilariously tiny things possible in levels, that no one would notice except for the die-hard fans, or those who care to look. I love in the leak that you can find a guy's computer password on a sticky note by the computer. Nothing intractable, not registered like picking up a memo, just a little incentive to look everywhere. Having an email on the system about not being stupid with security was just icing on the cake. I just had to explore everywhere after that. So many people died thanks to you.
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 23:30 |
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I know this is a bit odd, but I just want to gush over the thread. There are no NMA-Fallout esque folks in here, and everything is all genuine excited fandom and I love it. It's rare to get this vibe from a new game from such a beloved classic franchise, so I hope we never stop this. Happy Blue Cow, thanks much for your input! I don't really have any questions, but the only thing that has me curious about the game is just the depth. I'm one of the two unfortunate suckers that never got to play the leak, so I'm still wondering (mostly from trailers and the like) just how "on rails" this game will seem. Everyone seems very confident from what they've played and seen, so I really can't wait to explore the game over and over again. But really. thanks much for what you've done! Gush gush gush gush.
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 23:34 |
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Thanks for coming by, Happy Blue Cow, I love hearing about the technical behind-the-scenes development stuff. I started off really skeptical about this project (who can blame me nowadays?) but you guys really managed to change my mind. I avoided the "demo" and spoilers about it pretty rigorously because I was excited enough I didn't want to spoil the real game. I know you can't talk about Thief 4, but I'm curious what your favorite Thief 1/2 levels are. I'm hoping you mention the Bank or Shipping and Receiving, because I love that totally open, non-linear stuff. Also... because the only real way to play Thief is as a total ghost, please go tell your marketing guys that if they use the phrase 'EXTREME STEALTH KILLS' in conjunction with marketing Thief 4 they will be total monsters/worse then Hitler.
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 23:35 |
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Happy Blue Cow posted:But that reminds me, speaking of the Gamestop DLC level, some comments I do recall reading on these boards and on others that I'd like to rectify. The Gamestop DLC level is not cut-content that we refurbished. I know that in this day and age of DLC, it's easy to jump to the conclusion, that it's just a incomplete level that was cut, and then brought back to life for the purpose of Gamestop DLC. But really what actually happened was Gamestop came to us with the offer, and we made the level for them, from scratch. I doubt you know since it's really not your thing, but do you have any idea if the preorder DLC will eventually make its way to being purchaseable DLC down the line? Sort of like how other Squenix DLC has worked (JustCause 2 on Steam, for example). I'd really like to play more of your stuff, just... not by paying GameStop money. Also, thank you for stepping in! Really excited to play your game!
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 23:37 |
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I agree it is always cool when developers come by to answer questions and the like. I would love to know what your opinion was on the leak. Did it shock everyone on the team when it came out? What was your reaction to it and did that reaction change after you heard tons of positive comments on it?
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 23:45 |
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# ? Jun 9, 2024 23:09 |
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Blue Cow, I just love how everyone from your studio has dedicated so much time recently to giving interviews and discussing the game with various media outlets. For a massive fan of DX1, that makes the home stretch until august 23 that much more bearable. I do have a small technical question though. When I ran the "ahem" demo on the minimum graphics settings, my computer handled it pretty well but still had some slowdown and choppy frame-rate in places. Will it be possible to turn down the settings even further on the retail version of the game?
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 23:50 |