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aniviron posted:It's also not just interfering with communications in the sense that disrupting communications makes people unable to talk to one another to coordinate things like vaccine distributions. Deus Ex is a dystopian setting after all, so everything is internet-of-things connected and the implication is that destroying the internet also takes down the power grid, road networks, and governments connected to it. The game mentions that Helios, for example, is able to override basically every electronic system and uses that to issue orders and take measures to take control of Hong Kong even before the game ends. My take on it is he's using "villages" as a reference to communities on a smaller scale, where people know each other instead of being ruled by someone far away. Deus Ex is a setting where the internet can control everything, but not where it all stops working if the internet goes down (which probably would have seemed silly at the time the game was made - ah, more innocent days). Here's the conversation where he explains it: TONG As long as technology has a global reach, someone will have the world in the palm of his hand. If not Bob Page, then Everett, Dowd... JC DENTON Another Stone Age would hardly be an improvement. TONG Not so drastic. A dark age, an age of city-states, craftsmen, government on a scale comprehensible to its citizens. No one ever talks about a collapse of technology or the billions of deaths that would cause, which seems like something they would, you know, mention. Tong's a guy that has a secret high tech development lab under a mafia compound; he not going to think technology will collapse just because everyone's living in city states. Bremen fucked around with this message at 06:16 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Aug 10, 2023 05:57
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Tong prob didn't even read what happened in the first dark age where society collapsed lots of people died and the societies which replaced the Roman Empire or the Hittites wasn't any better
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Aug 10, 2023 20:36
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Bremen posted:No one ever talks about a collapse of technology or the billions of deaths that would cause, which seems like something they would, you know, mention. Tong's a guy that has a secret high tech development lab under a mafia compound; he not going to think technology will collapse just because everyone's living in city states. Technology will collapse without global supply chains. Moreover while some places might be energy and food independent other places very much are not and disrupting supply chains will do no favors to food production.
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Aug 10, 2023 21:42
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This is making me remember how loving disappointed I was at the ending of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Well, honestly, most of that whole game was a disappointment but the ending especially so. I loved the way the ending of the original slowly gave you the ways to unlock the endings as you traversed through the final levels doing things you had to do anyway. Then you also have to go to different parts of the map and the different enemies might and challenges might make it more difficult to actually do your preferred ending, though you were quite strong by the end. It wasn't just loving buttons on console you hack fucks. As for the ending, I always chose Become God, but I won't pretend that's necessarily the moral one. I don't remember canonically if the Grey Death can continue without Page running his universal constructors but if that is an unknown then I have trouble imagining you can pick that as a moral option since as mentioned before without Ambrosia it will just pummel the population so much worse than the catastrophe already would. Maybe you could justify the Illuminati by saying if the system is maintained then there is still time to reform or destroy it, but that is likely naive, especially if they have Helios. What are the deaths of the existing population as compared to the unjust suffering of however many following generations under their rule? It's tough to unpick. So I'm just going to let God sort it out. Me. I'm God now.
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Aug 10, 2023 23:39
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Magnetic North posted:This is making me remember how loving disappointed I was at the ending of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Well, honestly, most of that whole game was a disappointment but the ending especially so. I loved the way the ending of the original slowly gave you the ways to unlock the endings as you traversed through the final levels doing things you had to do anyway. Then you also have to go to different parts of the map and the different enemies might and challenges might make it more difficult to actually do your preferred ending, though you were quite strong by the end. It wasn't just loving buttons on console you hack fucks. Yeah. I got into the final stage on Human Revolution, the various characters started trying to sell my on their visions for the future, I start to think this is going to be really awesome, and.. then it's a poorly designed boss followed by "press one of these buttons" and then a generic cutscene trying to wax philosophical that doesn't actually cover what the result actually is. I mean, for that last part I guess they were trying to keep things open for a sequel but it just made it feel extra tepid. As I recall with DX1, the grey death didn't actually spread person to person, and by the end there were alternate sources for ambrosia. But interrupting global supply chains would interfere with the distribution and kill most of the people already infected, which was probably millions. Bremen fucked around with this message at 15:48 on Aug 12, 2023 |
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Aug 11, 2023 00:19
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Soricidus posted:The Helios ending is clearly the worst. This AI has been watching JC the whole time as he smashes everything breakable in the world, deals drugs, hacks bank accounts, breaks into homes and steals everything that isn’t glued down, murders everyone he meets who doesn’t have plot armor, etc. And its reaction is to offer to merge with him and rule the world? Maybe “merge” means Helios evaluates decisions by “if JC opinion = yes, then correct answer = no”, and in the meantime it can keep JC Denton from wandering the streets randomly looting and killing people. One real question I have with the Helios ending; what the hell happens to Bob Page? Tong ending he obviously blows up, Illuminati ending I don’t recall it being specified but I certainly expect if nothing else Morgan would kill his rear end on general principle, but with the Helios ending Page just kinda gets ignored while pathetically whining to Helio “Don’t leave me!”, but what about after that? Did he just get left to starve in his little merger mechanism? Kinda dark if so.
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Aug 11, 2023 22:15
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He's a big rear end in a top hat though.
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Aug 11, 2023 22:17
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MadDogMike posted:Maybe “merge” means Helios evaluates decisions by “if JC opinion = yes, then correct answer = no”, and in the meantime it can keep JC Denton from wandering the streets randomly looting and killing people. The Illuminati ending is literally called "Kill Bob Page" so that the rest of the facility, Helios and Universal Constructor included, can be preserved for the Illuminati. I guess in Helio, yeah, he just gets to wither in his self-imposed oubliette, heh.
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Aug 11, 2023 22:42
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Magnetic North posted:This is making me remember how loving disappointed I was at the ending of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Well, honestly, most of that whole game was a disappointment but the ending especially so. I loved the way the ending of the original slowly gave you the ways to unlock the endings as you traversed through the final levels doing things you had to do anyway. Then you also have to go to different parts of the map and the different enemies might and challenges might make it more difficult to actually do your preferred ending, though you were quite strong by the end. It wasn't just loving buttons on console you hack fucks. The DX:HR was actually a pretty good game mechnically but the ending was garbage both in terms of plot and it's gameplay implementation In original Deus ex you get to decide the fate of humanity as a species in HR you decide how a single news cycle about AUGMENTATIONS is gonna play out Typo fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Aug 11, 2023 |
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Aug 11, 2023 23:43
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It's the "Dark Age" ending (named so because the game was made by a bunch of libertarian freaks in Texas). Original Poster. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCzitO446ZY e: Deus, it has such unflattering representation in the game compared to the other two. matti fucked around with this message at 12:02 on Aug 12, 2023 |
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Aug 12, 2023 11:54
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Typo posted:The DX:HR was actually a pretty good game mechnically but the ending was garbage both in terms of plot and it's gameplay implementation Yeah, honestly, the 'day to day' physical shooting was good, and I liked it for the first several hours. The fundamental issues were the plot sucked, the non-lethal options were poorly supported at launch (I preordered this game because I'm a loving moron, so if they fixed it I don't know), and you were swimming in enough praxis points to have all the augs. That itself was mostly an issue since many augs were just "remove X challenge" like "Always know the answer to the tiresome mass effect convo" or "basically instakill the boss" or whatever. The original made you pick between augs: fast running or silent running, breath water or breath toxins, invisible to humans or invisible to robots, regeneration or some garbo I ever picked. You had to find a way to make your skills and augs work. I remember having an issue sending the signal from the top of the building about 1/3 of the way through the original since it alerts all the guards I was stealthing past. I had taken the fast running aug early because getting around the large maps in non-combat was taking a while, and it was fun, even though I was doing a stealth run. Well, turns out that aug also gives you increased fall resistance, so I just turned it on and jumped off the 4th floor, severely hurt myself but didn't die and hobbled my way back to the subway station. If that was in HR, it would have been "If you would like to skip this challenge, press X now." DE:HR is similar to Fallout 4 in that way. Technically impressive and mechanically fun to play, but just a series of doldrums laid overtop of it like Miracle Whip. fake edit: I keep forgetting this isn't a games thread. Oh well.
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Aug 12, 2023 12:05
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Typo posted:I don't' think it's libertarianism so much as it is edgy and naive "we gotta blow it all up and start all over man" feeling that's present on every side of the political spectrum. Nerds tend to lean libertarian; it's not surprising that developers spend more time on content that is politically more interesting to them (often reactionary power fantasies like in the case DX's two bad endings). But in any case, it's not the fault of the writers or designers. They do not have STEM brain. matti fucked around with this message at 12:21 on Aug 12, 2023 |
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Aug 12, 2023 12:18
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DX1: Helios DX2: Helios FNV: Yes Man ME3: Synthesis AC: Transcendence P.S. Dolores Dei did nothing wrong.
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Aug 12, 2023 22:13
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When I was 11 the Tong ending where we knock out all the technology and set the world back 75ish years seemed the least evil. Now that I'm an adult, that ending also probably kills everyone whose life was dependent on said technology in order to survive (sorry, entire intensive care unit of every hospital!), so if I played it again I'd probably go with Helios.
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Aug 12, 2023 22:46
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if I have to spend billions of lives to kill the internet, then that's what i'll do. goodbye somethingawful.
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Aug 13, 2023 01:34
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How would Shannon feel if the guy she reported to their boss for creeping on the ladies' room is God now?
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Aug 13, 2023 08:27
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matti posted:It's the "Dark Age" ending (named so because the game was made by a bunch of libertarian freaks in Texas). Original Poster. I’ve never watched dark age before despite playing this game since 2001. Ends with a Khalil Gibran quote though. The Prophet used to be one of those books all the hippies had. The most famous quote from the book / Khalil is this: “And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, "Speak to us of Children." And he said: Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness; For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.” the implications of quoting Khalil Gibran are going to fly n over most folks heads :v
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Aug 29, 2023 00:17
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To be clear Helios all the way.
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Aug 29, 2023 00:17
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I sided with Tong when I was an edgy teenager, I'm siding with Tong as a bitter adult. SOCIETAL COLLAPSE WHEN?!?!
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Aug 29, 2023 20:03
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If I was JC I would simply say "hold on fellas I need to think this over" and head to the women's restroom for a good brainstorming
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Sep 1, 2023 01:05
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Typo posted:Tong prob didn't even read what happened in the first dark age where society collapsed maybe he was just reading modern historians who see all the mass death and economic collapse and write things like "actually the dark ages didn't exist, the roman empire didn't collapse, it was just a period of institutional transformation and new cultural development"
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Sep 1, 2023 01:36
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Mantis42 posted:maybe he was just reading modern historians who see all the mass death and economic collapse and write things like "actually the dark ages didn't exist, the roman empire didn't collapse, it was just a period of institutional transformation and new cultural development" Yeah that’s not what modern historiographical consensus claims. The point of pushing back on the dark ages label is that the dark ages narrative suggests that basically no progress or innovations of consequence happened during the early or middle medieval era and that’s simply not true.
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Sep 1, 2023 07:35
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Mantis42 posted:maybe he was just reading modern historians who see all the mass death and economic collapse and write things like "actually the dark ages didn't exist, the roman empire didn't collapse, it was just a period of institutional transformation and new cultural development" from what I understand it kinda depended on which area of the western Roman Empire you were in, different regions faired very differently from others like northern Europe it was very much a collapse in places like Britannia and Northern Gaul, but in coastal southern Gaul the trade networks with the east stayed intact and at least the elites kept up a Roman lifestyle for a long time after Odacer deposed Romulus Augustus. It's possible that the average person in that area did not see a big change in their lives for a long time. in North Africa the area was absolutely devasated by the Vandal invaders, but in Italy the Ostrogoths more or less took over the functionalities of the old Roman state and kept the old Roman civil institutions around, and that lasted until the Eastern Roman Emipre's attempted reconquest devasated the region.
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Sep 1, 2023 16:16
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Captain Oblivious posted:Yeah that’s not what modern historiographical consensus claims.
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Sep 1, 2023 16:19
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Xander77 posted:A *lot* of pop historians go with "was the collapse of the Roman empire a bad thing? Maybe if you like living in cities or being alive, period, buuuuuuuuuuuut" it actually did depend on who/where you were farmers in the late Roman Empire was overtaxed for instance, and what's more, the tax wouldn't even nesessarily go towards defending them since emperors had a tendency of using the tax resource to fight wars -elsewhere-, or civil wars. While leaving the frontiers near your home underdefended. so when the empire "fell" so went the imperial tax collectors. Sure, it's being replaced by tribute to the local warlord running your province, but the local dude at least has more of an incentive to protect "his" peasants than the emperor in Ravenna did Typo fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Sep 1, 2023 |
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Sep 1, 2023 16:46
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I feel like the alternative take would also necessarily be "the roman empire should have conquered everywhere and ruled forever" which at the very least is ahistorical. If you want to avoid the collapse of the roman empire, the solution would seem to be not starting the roman empire.
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Sep 1, 2023 18:58
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*Titus Pullo voice* Without Rome the gyppos would've just taken over everything, and we can't have that now can we? RIP Ray Stevenson 
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Sep 1, 2023 19:03
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OwlFancier posted:I feel like the alternative take would also necessarily be "the roman empire should have conquered everywhere and ruled forever" which at the very least is ahistorical. Yeah, this seemed like a very conspicuous omission given how obvious of an implication it is
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Sep 1, 2023 19:18
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Sep 1, 2023 19:29
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OwlFancier posted:I feel like the alternative take would also necessarily be "the roman empire should have conquered everywhere and ruled forever" which at the very least is ahistorical. The Eastern empire regaining control of at least the core portions of the West was not an untenable proposition. Or any of the self-titled 3d, 4th, 21st Romes actually controlling the approximate same territory.
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Sep 1, 2023 19:29
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Typo posted:in North Africa the area was absolutely devasated by the Vandal invaders, but in Italy the Ostrogoths more or less took over the functionalities of the old Roman state and kept the old Roman civil institutions around, and that lasted until the Eastern Roman Emipre's attempted reconquest devasated the region. I also think there is a strong argument to be made that the social / economic organization of the “dark ages” was also clearly just a continuation. It’s still very much a society organized around the choices made by Diocletian and Constantine (and Aurelian on the military side).
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Sep 1, 2023 21:34
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Jon posted:Yeah, this seemed like a very conspicuous omission given how obvious of an implication it is It is another part of the push back on the Dark Ages label, yes. It is implicitly suggesting that nothing of consequence can happen without a giant imperial state conquering everything (badly, and then imploding). The facts just don't support it. Life went on after the Roman state collapsed, albeit with significant de-urbanization because it was no long practical.
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Sep 2, 2023 23:08
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OwlFancier posted:I feel like the alternative take would also necessarily be "the roman empire should have conquered everywhere and ruled forever" which at the very least is ahistorical.
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Sep 3, 2023 02:48
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OwlFancier posted:If you want to avoid the collapse of the roman empire, the solution would seem to be not starting the roman empire. Might as well argue that if people don't want to suffer they shouldn't be born. All human endeavor will be destroyed by entropy sooner or later so I guess it doesn't matter.
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Sep 3, 2023 06:52
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I can and have argued exactly that, but I would also suggest that "being born" and "invading and conquering everyone you see until your empire collapses under its own weight" are not equally objectionable actions.
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Sep 3, 2023 12:59
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I thought Deus Ex was one of those games people re-installed then played the first hour of before modding the gently caress out of it, lol
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Sep 3, 2023 20:14
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I remember dragging the corpse of the first major enemy all the way from the statue to the start and presenting it to my brother like a proud puppy only for him to get mad at me the jerk.
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Sep 4, 2023 07:47
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Trent posted:I thought Deus Ex was one of those games people re-installed then played the first hour of quote:before modding the gently caress out of it, lol
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Sep 4, 2023 13:32
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C. Everett Koop posted:I remember dragging the corpse of the first major enemy all the way from the statue to the start and presenting it to my brother like a proud puppy only for him to get mad at me the jerk. I like getting the GEP from Paul and almost before he's finished talking to you about taking him alive firing a rocket into the statue where the NSF boss is. Gunther is salty as gently caress you didn't come rescue him after his 5 seconds of incarceration that you immediately ended lol.
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Sep 4, 2023 22:18
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StarkingBarfish posted:I like getting the GEP from Paul and almost before he's finished talking to you about taking him alive firing a rocket into the statue where the NSF boss is. Gunther is salty as gently caress you didn't come rescue him after his 5 seconds of incarceration that you immediately ended lol. I always liked the fact that Paul was happy you took the rocket launcher, since blowing up bots doesn't bother him like sniping humans does. The idea that you'd use a rocket launcher on people doesn't seem to occur to him.
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Sep 5, 2023 02:52
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