Deus Ex 3 Announced 138
Gamasutra has the news that Eidos is already hard at work on a Deus Ex 3 . The company announced this project along with a brand-new studio in Montreal, which will be developing the title. "According to [General Manager Stéphane D'Astous], Eidos Montreal currently has two groups -- a Q&A group that is responsible for testing all of the developer's games from anywhere in the world, and an in-house development team that D'Astous says has just passed proof of concept for Deus Ex 3. 'This game was very highly rated at its release in 2000, and we have this great huge mandate to do the third one, and everybody is very excited,' added D'Astous"
To the developers... (Score:5, Insightful)
See that 3 in the title? That's just a number. Ignore it. Look only to Deus Ex for inspiration. There never was a Deus Ex 2 - that was all just a figment of the darkest parts of your imagination.
(fwiw, for those who haven't played, Deus Ex 2 wasn't a horrible game, so much as it didn't nearly live up to the first game of the series. It suffered from a massive case of being dumbed down for simultaneous console/PC release, from the original's PC-only origin.)
DX2 crappy by comparison to the original. (Score:4, Insightful)
The most often cited reasons for the sequels 'suck factor' seem to be the (relative) brevity of the game, small areas with constant loading, as well as the simplification of the interface, inventory management, ammunition/weapon system, and character development. Many of these issues can be seen as the problems inherent with developing for the console market. The original Deus Ex was PC/Mac only, whereas DX2 had to get by without a mouse and keyboard. Those issues are the ones that everyone seems to cite when talking about 'what went wrong', and why DX2 is widely seen as inferior to the original. I believe that this is the case, but it's not the big problem.
The big issue I see is that people know what they are getting in to. The original Deus Ex was long and involved, with a plot that was interesting and unique. When I started the second Deus Ex game, I knew what I was in for. Not the specifics obviously, but the general outline of the game was pretty much known to me within the first hour. While there were some interesting changes made in structure between the first and second games, they were not enough. This is still the story of an augmented special agent, unraveling massive conspiracies, lies, and backstabbing, and ultimately deciding the fate of the world.
Long post short, what I thought was great about Deus Ex was the plot and how it was revealed to the player over the course of some fairly long gameplay, combined with very ambitious (for the day) interactivity. The second game had much the same overarching plot, but the surprise was gone and it didn't pull it off as well. Repetitive plots are the bread and butter of gaming, but the direct comparison between the two makes DX2 suffer.
I could be a great artist, and if I paint a nice half portrait of a young woman seated, dressed in dark colors, and appearing to look back at the viewer, it could be very good on it's own merits. Hang it next to The Mona Lisa, and tell people that there is some connection between the two, and it will garner nothing but scorn.
How to fix these issues for DX3? Good luck.
Remake Deus Ex 1 (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's All in the Design. (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you've missed out on #0 though:
DE was an RPG. A REAL RPG, not some wannabe with two and a half RPG elements a-la NOLF or Bioshock. Not only did it have XP and a level-up system, it had an extremely developed weapon customization system. AND, it was PERFECTLY balanced and tuned.
DE:IW was a DISASTER in this respect. The leveling system had you reach the peak of your profficiency on the second level of the game and was as balanced as a scale with me on one side and a cathedral on the other.
Weapon customization was bastardized and crippled into oblivion. And one of the MOST IMPORTANT aspects of RPG's - resource management (in shooter RPG's, that's mostly ammo), was simply removed and replaced with a "universal ammo" (which never runs out, hence "neverending universal ammo") under the assumption that the player couldn't be bothered with the challenging game, and is nothing but a potato-brain redneck that wants guns to be shooting.
It wasn't an RPG. It wasn't even a shooter with RPG elements. For what it claimed to be, it was dumbed-down. For what it actually was - a vanilla shooter a-la quake and doom - it was not a very good one.
Advice to DE3 devs:
GO BACK AND HAVE A VERY HARD THINK ABOUT WHAT MADE THE ORIGINAL SO GOOD.
The Short:
REWARD THE PLAYER FOR BEING SMART,
(rather than bringing down the level of the game to the lowest common denominator of gamers who couldn't be bothered by anything except running an outlined path so as to complete the main plot in as little time as possible, shooting stuff while doing so.)
The Long: DE1 It was BALANCED WELL. What people like is not getting the ubercustomizedweapon as soon as possible (level 2) in the game. They like going through the process of upgrading it (through lots of things that are hard to find and require combinations of skill-use, creativity, hard-to-get money, role-playing and NPC interaction and player perception to attain) and gradually specializing in it using XP that is, you guessed it, hard to obtain as well.
Most importantly, make hard-to-find stashes have LUCRATIVE stuff, not trivial "health packs" or upgrades for a weapon nobody needs anyway cuz a weapon can only accept two altogether, and they're already being used). Reward the player not for having bought your game (putting everything worthwhile to be found in the game in his path, without even the possibility of side-stepping it), but reward the player for TRYING HARD.
DE1 was built so well, I replayed it 4 times, and I kept finding new secret niches and caches I haven't found on previous times I've played.
Alternatively, assume the general casual-gaming console public is who you are building the game for, that the public can't have any not-completely in-your-face-easy challenges imposed on it lest it be scared away, turn your game into Yet Another Typical Shooter, and try to squeeze six more sales from the piece of art you bastardized by greed (like was done last time).
But from us people who actually facilitated the rise of the first game into the top games ever and allowed you to make it into a franchise, PLEASE, PRETTY PRETTY PLEASE,
DON'T.
Re:I'm in the minority here -- did not like Deus E (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I think I speak for everyone ... (Score:3, Insightful)
You might want to try The Witcher. FWIW I had no problem with DX2 but I played it before DX1 so I wasn't influenced by nostalgia. DX1 was epic mind you, while DX2 was just decent.