So -- Deus Ex.

[cardtrick]

Out of deference to Jasede, this is in General Gaming, not RPG Discussion.

Anyway, I think I want to play Deus Ex. I'm fairly sure that I *sort of* played it when it was released, but I have only the vaguest memories of the game and I feel like I didn't get very far. I think I played at least the tutorial, and I'm looking at the box, so I know I own it, but for some reason I can't recall the game. Nevertheless, I'm pretty convinced by things I've read/heard that I will like it, and it seems like a nice game to play when I don't feel like playing Wizardry 6 (vastly different gameplay unless my impression of Deus Ex is completely mistaken).

So -- can you guys give me recommendations on mods, patches, tweaks, and such to get the best gameplay experience? It's unlikely I'll play the game more than once, and I have absolutely no qualms at all about not getting the original experience (for reference, I suggest playing VTMB with Wesp's basic patch your first time through and TOEE with Co8). If there's any mods to improve gameplay balance, fix bugs, or sexify the graphics, I'm all for it.

Any suggestions on what would be the most fun character build to play with would be appreciated as well.

 

[NiM82]

HDTP is the only real mod I'd recommend, it's primarily a graphics update. You wouldn't really want anything that tweaks the gameplay (it's fine).

Buildwise, it's pretty open. Depends really on whether you prefer stealth or shooting. I found sneaking about to be quite enjoyable, but preferred hard kills. I ended up going for an assassin-esque build with good stealth skills and a nicely tricked out sniper rifle. It's up to you I guess. Probably is a bit easier turning yourself into a terminator, but it's not quite as interesting.

Just be careful what weapons you apply the mods too, depending on how you play chances are you will focus on one or two, so be sure use mods wisely. My only other comment would be persevere, the first level or two is a bit boring, but once it gets up to heat it's awesome.

 

[Zomg]

Enjoyment-maximization advice: For a first playthrough, never go back to an earlier save to see what would happen if you made different choices. Just make them and keep going.

 

[Fez]

Hacking is worth while for the interesting reading it can give you.

 

[afewhours]

I envy you playing this game for the first time. Along with the original Half Life, it's my favourite FPS.

Most builds are viable. There's a pretty steep learning curve, but once you're in the zone, you won't have any trouble. Besides, if you're ever in an impossible situation... well, that's what you have the GEP gun for: clear out the room; continue.

While you won't need it at the start of the game, you want skill points in rifles for the mid-end game. The 30.06 is probably the most useful and reliable weapon you can pick up. By the time you pick up that and the nanotech sword, you're laughing.

Don't underestimate the cattle-prod. You whack someone in the legs with that, they go down straight away. *always* aim for the legs with the cattle prod.

I'll let others fill you in on the mods. I'm not too hot on them.

 

[DraQ]

Being a somewhat purist type of player I won't be of much help when it comes to mods. I can, however give you some advice regarding starting out, as well as a character build that worked for me:

First, realistic difficulty setting. This game is not a shooter unless you want it to and increasing difficulty level only decreases JC's resistance to punishment (at realistic you're simply no more resistant than NPCs), so realistic difficulty level simply enchances the experience by making the game less forgiving and makes you think.

Second, you'll probably want computers, lockpicking and electronics at advanced ASAP, so put at least one point in each at the beginning. You should probably put a point in one of the combat skills as well, but if you don't want to egage in typical FPS shootouts, weapon skills are secondary. I never saw a point in raising demolitions, also, you might not want to waste xp-s on heavy weapons, unless you really want that flamethrower/plasma gun - GEP is a tactical weapon used to kill a target or group of targets with a single shot from concealed position, so you won't be running with it once the combat actually starts anyway.

Third, it's good to take GEP at the beginning of the game, the ones I found later seemed to lack guidance system (might be corrected).

Fourth, death and uncouciousness might not differ much mechanics-wise, but some NPCs do care.

Fifth, Run Silent implant is mostly worthless.

 

[ghostdog]

Some days ago I decided to replay it again (3rd time), so I can give you some good advice.

• 1st of all you should patch the game to 1112fm ( careful, not just 112f )
  
• Then you should definitely install the OpenGL renderer , it will give you a major graphics improvement. Check out this thread for what you should do with the ini file. See the settings to learn what each command does.
  
• Then there is the HDTP mod. A mod that brings the game textures into a higher resolution. About half of the work is done , but it's still a very good mod, you should try it.
  
• Lastly we have the Shifter mod. It a mod you'd best try after you've played through the game once, since it's a mod that makes tweaks and not any essential ones.
  
• If you have a dual core CPU you'll probably experience an annoying stuttering or the game will run at very high speeds. What you should do is to set FrameRateLimit=60 in the ini file (see the instructions above in the opengl section) and then make the game run with one core. To do that hid ctrl+alt+del while the game is running and then go to the processes , right click , choose "set affinity" and unmark CPU1.

The C&C in this game are more meaningful than those of many "pure" RPG's, and the atmosphere is just incredible. The amazing soundtrack does a lot to set the mood and I would suggest everyone to get a hold of it. Since it hasn't ever been commercially published (it was only shipped with the GOTY version) you can get it safely from the net. Just goggle "deus ex soundtrack".

Deus Ex is easily in my top5 best pc games ever, but unfortunately the sequel , Invisible war , wasn't nearly as good (still it wasn't a bad game) I hear that a 3rd game is in development, let's hope that it has some of the old magic.

 

[Azrael the cat]

computer skill

Yeah, the game isn't just about straight-out combat, so you don't need to buff all the combat skills. Rifle skill will give you options for almost every situation (you don't need points in heavy for the rocket launcher to be useful, only if you want to run and gun with it - you can have zero in heavy and still use the rocket launcher to pick off mechs from a distance just fine). Some people say the same about pistol. Melee is fun, but maybe not for a first playthrough - it requires more of a dedicated build - I'd put some points in that late game when you start hearing about the nanotech sword.

The non-combat skills are MUCH more important. Raise hacking and security ASAP - there is nothing more annoying than not being able to turn off security camera / turrets, and password-hunting sucks. Security and hacking make password-hunting obsolete without imbalancing the game, and there is nothing more fun than resetting an entire section of the enemy base's defense turrets via hacking so that they now support you and any allies whilst massacring the poor enemy as they rrun towards their own alarm signal. Lockpicking is also handy, slightly less priority for me than security, as one can often (but not always) use a LAM / rocket / (late-game) uber-sword to smash open the lock instead - of course, that's one less LAM or rocket to blow your enemies into chunks with. Put ONE point into swimming at the start. You'll never need more than that (there is one part late-game that does, but there is very little to be gained by taking that path, certainly not worth the skill points), but there are some GREAT little hidden bonuses as early as the first mission (and some in later missions, especially Hong Kong), where you'll need at least one point in swimming to get them without taking dangerous amounts of drowning damage. I'll try not to SPOIL you, but just remember to look underwater at times, and that you can often use explosives / TNT crates to open sealed hatches, even underwater.

 

[DraQ]

Don't underestimate the cattle-prod. You whack someone in the legs with that, they go down straight away. *always* aim for the legs with the cattle prod.

Minor correction - aim for torso with stun weapons. Aiming for the head or limbs with stun weapons is very ineffective.

Another thing, don't get misled by the fact that some weapons are accessible early - for example, startng 10mm pistol with high skill and some upgrades is deadly (I didn't pick minicrossbow as an example, because it's awesome in an all to obvious way).

Try to read everything you can, some interesting information is well hidden.

Last thing, mostly cosmetic - try paying attention to behaviour of various objects. It will allow you to appreciate the amount of love put into the game, when you, for example, notice that weapon's laser sight is reflected by mirrors.

 

[cardtrick]

Thanks guys. Lots of great stuff in this thread! I'm pumped to play it now.

 

[DraQ]

The amazing soundtrack does a lot to set the mood and I would suggest everyone to get a hold of it. Since it hasn't ever been commercially published (it was only shipped with the GOTY version) you can get it safely from the net. Just goggle "deus ex soundtrack".

Why bother? The soundtrack (made by the awesome guys who made Unreal soundtrack) is already there, you just need a way to read and play it.

(My music player of choice, very small, yet functional and versatile, program that can accomodate winamp plugins.)

 

[Jasede]

I don't like mods.

Heed the advice already given.

I only played this game once and love it. But I played it like Thief and never killed anyone (except for two people I seemingly had to kill), but that's because I enjoy that sort of gameplay. You might want to se the difficulty on highest, realistic; it's more fun that way and the "healing" skill becomes more useful.

Actually I am pretty sure this game was designed to be played on "realistic".

 

[NiM82]

Some filthy pirates have put the soundtrack up on rapidshare, how disgusting.

 

[DraQ]

Actually I am pretty sure this game was designed to be played on "realistic".

Well, lower levels seem suited for pussies, people who never played an FPS and retards who fail to grasp that it isn't Quake.

Some filthy pirates have put the soundtrack up on rapidshare, how disgusting.

Why bother downloading files that are already on your computer?

 

[Wyrmlord]

Actually I am pretty sure this game was designed to be played on "realistic".

I didn't really notice any difference between Easy and Realistic, in my two playthroughs of the game.

Though I suppose it is because I like to avoid combat anyway, and only kill using sniper shots from far away. I am guessing that the difficulty manifests itself only in direct gunfights with enemies, and how tough they are before they go down.

and the "healing" skill becomes more useful.

Eh, there is no need for a healing skill once you find the regeneration augmentation, which is quite early, and if you are meticulous in searching, you'll find tons of upgrades, so you can quickly bring it up to the highest level.

That aside, the great thing about Deus Ex is that it scales to ANY resolution, so it does not look distorted even on my 19 inch widescreen monitor. I played it on the 1440 * 900 resolution and everything became so much larger that while sniping, I didn't even had to zoom on enemies as they looked so large.

 

[DraQ]

Actually I am pretty sure this game was designed to be played on "realistic".

I didn't really notice any difference between Easy and Realistic, in my two playthroughs of the game.

Though I suppose it is because I like to avoid combat anyway, and only kill using sniper shots from far away. I am guessing that the difficulty manifests itself only in direct gunfights with enemies, and how tough they are before they go down.

Even better. It changes how tough *you* are. At easy you can probably bite a 30.06 round or two and keep going. On realistic almost any gunshot wound to the head puts you down, and 30.06 to a limb seems always crippling.

 

[NiM82]

Though I suppose it is because I like to avoid combat anyway, and only kill using sniper shots from far away. I am guessing that the difficulty manifests itself only in direct gunfights with enemies, and how tough they are before they go down.

Yeah, if your sneaking it's not as apparent. But the consequences if you get caught, or set off an alarm/trap are a lot more likely to be terminal, realistic certainly adds to the atmosphere immensely. I might be wrong on this, but I could swear hacking and lock picking took a bit longer too, though that may just be down to me being on edge a bit more.

Why bother downloading files that are already on your computer?

Their rips from the soundtrack CD that got a limited release, it's app higher quality than the in game stuff which was more heavily compressed (due to the whole game having to fit on one CD). Plus, not everyone has it installed (or cba messing with plugins).

 

[User was nabbed fit]

Great game, but it's Hell for a powergamer. There's just too much to do/pick up.

 

[Gragt]

Some filthy pirates have put the soundtrack up on rapidshare, how disgusting.

I had the umx files from the game on my hard disk for quite some time but I gave your link a try.

I have to say I like it. Some arrangements are a bit different but that does not mean it's a bad thing and the quality is higher.

Trouble is that it's hosted on rs so you need to wait around 90 minutes before getting the second part.

 

[OSK]

The cattle prod is the single greatest weapon in the game!
• It's non-lethal!
• It's silent!
• With only one charge, you can take out pretty much any organic enemy with a sneak attack!
• Even if you miss your sneak attack, it'll still temporarily paralyze your enemy allowing you to stun him into submission or kill with another weapon!
• You can loot the bodies of enemies who have a nasty habit of exploding on death!
• It's blue!

MAKE BENJAMIN FRANKLIN PROUD!

STRIKE WITH THE FURY OF THOR!

 

[User was nabbed fit]

Dat's right. Make Rodney Kings out of your enemies.

 

[NiM82]

Don't prod me bro!

 

[cardtrick]

WHY THE HELL DIDN'T PEOPLE TELL ME THIS GAME WAS SO DAMN AWESOME?!

 

[fastpunk]

Speaking of DE mods: is The Cassandra Project alive? I know the team behind it released one episode but there were more scheduled.

 

[Greatatlantic]

My advice:

1) Pistol and Rifle are the most worthwhile combat skills, and its worth your time to maximize them. Or rather, maximize one of them. They are expensive and maximizing both would be overkill. Rifle is useful in the more obvious ways (sniper rifle ftw), but pistol can be pretty awesome as well. You can upgrade your base pistol with a scope, silencer, and other mods. With maximum skill, you can basically kill opponents with headshots from the shadows. Great fun.

2) The Best biomod to have is the one that regenerates health. Don't argue with me about this one, just get it and fully upgrade it.

3) Hacking... it can be sort of fun to explore levels fully finding where developers hid the passcodes, or you can just learn hacking and be done with it. Much easier to the latter for a first playthrough.

4) Lockpicking and multitools are both good skills to have, even in moderation.