Deus Ex Deus Ex: Machine God - Continuation of the story through the eyes of nano-augmented Tiffany Savage (Demo now available)

[Marat]

Deus Ex: Machine God

Seems this project will follow the angle of JC-Helios being evil. I'm a bit skeptical of the premise since it appears to drop the mystery/conspiracy, but will nevertheless follow the project. Its Github seems to be regularly updated and there is a demo/testing/alpha release.

Some screenshots

DEMO

 

[ind33d]

that's a cool as fuck idea

 

[Eisen]

Not sure if i like the toon shader

 

[Gargaune]

The creepy duo

It doesn't inspire confidence in the writing when your introductory blurb a) issues a value judgement on something the player will presumably be invited to decide for themselves later and b) does so with trivial vocabulary. It's also a little inaccurate to call the JC/Helios union a "duo" since the merged entity literally says "we are one" in the respective outro.

First impressions matter, the mod author might wanna polish that up a little.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

In Deus Ex, Helios intends to save humanity by being its silent ruler. In Invisible War, Tracer Tong intends to put nanites in everyone to create a hive mind among humanity. I can understand why people would reject this "benevolence". The abstract seems about right. They could improve the language, but the premise is solid. It's not far removed from the original Deus Ex plot, just iterated based on its events.

 

[The Nameless One]

Evern though cel-shading can be understandably questionable as a design decision, the idea of following up on one of the more interesting endings of DE isn't terrible on paper. Bonus points if it gets to improve upon DE2's plot anyway.

 

[Gargaune]

In Deus Ex, Helios intends to save humanity by being its silent ruler. In Invisible War, Tracer Tong intends to put nanites in everyone to create a hive mind among humanity. I can understand why people would reject this "benevolence". The abstract seems about right. They could improve the language, but the premise is solid. It's not far removed from the original Deus Ex plot, just iterated based on its events.

I'm not objecting to the premise, it's coherent, it's just the verbiage that raises questions. Don't call JC-Helios a "duo", let the player decide later whether it's "creepy", and don't use the word "creepy" to express that sentiment. The introductory summary should stay neutral and quantitative, e.g. "The would-be machine god intends to [...]", nominating the presumed antagonist by what they are rather than how the author feels about that.

 

[Marat]

I'm not objecting to the premise, it's coherent, it's just the verbiage that raises questions. Don't call JC-Helios a "duo", let the player decide later whether it's "creepy", and don't use the word "creepy" to express that sentiment. The introductory summary should stay neutral and quantitative, e.g. "The would-be machine god intends to [...]", nominating the presumed antagonist by what they are rather than how the author feels about that.

Eh, perfectly valid to call them a duo. Their consciousnesses are connected (as they want to do with all mankind), not merged into one. As for "creepy" - a valid enough criticism to impose that descriptor, but it did give some people those vibes (yesss). Nevertheless it is just a ModDB description for a project early in the works, not the writing of the mod itself, which is what I'll judge it by.

 

[Gargaune]

Eh, perfectly valid to call them a duo. Their consciousnesses are connected (as they want to do with all mankind), not merged into one. As for "creepy" - a valid enough criticism to impose that descriptor, but it did give some people those vibes (yesss). Nevertheless it is just a ModDB description for a project early in the works, not the writing of the mod itself, which is what I'll judge it by.

This is splitting hairs on my part, but "duo" would imply two different agencies (like V and Silverhand initially), whereas both the Helios ending in Deus Ex and Invisible War subsequently show the merger to be complete, into one entity with a unified will and identity, even as it refers to itself as "we" still. Technically, Helios does the "we" thing after merging Daedalus and Icarus but they're not a pair of AIs sharing a hard drive, they're a single unit and the same goes for the subsequent JC expansion pack.

As for "creepy", it suggests both a lack of artistic rigor (it's a childish Twitter epithet, not the stuff of serious science fiction) and the presence of bias - it's harder to imagine you'll be crafting a thought-provoking narrative with twists and compelling arguments for the player to decide on if you've already tipped your hand that your antagonist is in the wrong.

Mind you, I'm not saying the writing itself will be poor, but rather that the author should pretty-up that mod description to avoid creating an unfavourable impression at first glance. Not crapping on it, just sharing advice.

 

[NecroLord]

that's a cool as fuck idea

Was it not in the cards that you could've remained loyal to UNATCO and eventually work for Majestic 12 and Bob Page?
I wish they would've implemented that in the final release of Deus Ex.

 

[Jaedar]

In Deus Ex, Helios intends to save humanity by being its silent ruler.

Is it really silent ruler? I remember it more as Helios/JC becoming the enlightened despot. Helios already believes itself to have the capacity to conquer the planet and impose its rule, but it wants to merge with a human so it can understand humans and rule well.

I feel it is a bit against the spirit of things to have the merged entity turn evil, but not egregiously so. Every DX ending has good and bad things to be said about it.

 

[ind33d]

that's a cool as fuck idea

Was it not in the cards that you could've remained loyal to UNATCO and eventually work for Majestic 12 and Bob Page?
I wish they would've implemented that in the final release of Deus Ex.

imagine if the game became a Civilization-style management sim where you play as Helios running planet Earth from the shadows

 

[NecroLord]

In Deus Ex, Helios intends to save humanity by being its silent ruler.

Is it really silent ruler? I remember it more as Helios/JC becoming the enlightened despot. Helios already believes itself to have the capacity to conquer the planet and impose its rule, but it wants to merge with a human so it can understand humans and rule well.

I feel it is a bit against the spirit of things to have the merged entity turn evil, but not egregiously so. Every DX ending has good and bad things to be said about it.

Helios wanted to govern human affairs, not rule over humans, essentially serving as a "realtime" automated form of government.
Deus Ex: Invisible War went even further with that.

 

[Marat]

This is splitting hairs on my part, but "duo" would imply two different agencies (like V and Silverhand initially), whereas both the Helios ending in Deus Ex and Invisible War subsequently show the merger to be complete, into one entity with a unified will and identity, even as it refers to itself as "we" still. Technically, Helios does the "we" thing after merging Daedalus and Icarus but they're not a pair of AIs sharing a hard drive, they're a single unit and the same goes for the subsequent JC expansion pack.

As for "creepy", it suggests both a lack of artistic rigor (it's a childish Twitter epithet, not the stuff of serious science fiction) and the presence of bias - it's harder to imagine you'll be crafting a thought-provoking narrative with twists and compelling arguments for the player to decide on if you've already tipped your hand that your antagonist is in the wrong.

Mind you, I'm not saying the writing itself will be poor, but rather that the author should pretty-up that mod description to avoid creating an unfavourable impression at first glance. Not crapping on it, just sharing advice.

I think you're reading into it just a little too much. They probably told the team's programmer to put it on ModDB and write a quick description. Not like this mod is anywhere close to release for publicity and such to be primary concerns.

 

[Jaedar]

In Deus Ex, Helios intends to save humanity by being its silent ruler.

Is it really silent ruler? I remember it more as Helios/JC becoming the enlightened despot. Helios already believes itself to have the capacity to conquer the planet and impose its rule, but it wants to merge with a human so it can understand humans and rule well.

I feel it is a bit against the spirit of things to have the merged entity turn evil, but not egregiously so. Every DX ending has good and bad things to be said about it.

Helios wanted to govern human affairs, not rule over humans, essentially serving as a "realtime" automated form of government.
Deus Ex: Invisible War went even further with that.

What's the actual difference between governing and ruling in your opinion?

 

[NecroLord]

I may not have been entirely clear.
What I meant to say is that Helios does not see itself as some despot or ruler, but a "governor" perhaps a veritable collective consciousness of humanity.
JC also says something like that in Invisible War - basically the only true and honest form of democracy, in his view, is one that responds to the needs of the people every second of the day.

 

[Darkwind]

Not sure if i like the toon shader

Strong disagree. Cel shading is the only way to make those horribly low poly counts from the early 00s workable IMHO. I think its the right way to go helps smooth out the ugly basically...

 

[Morgoth]

For a mod, this has some really good voice acting.

 

[NecroLord]

In Deus Ex, Helios intends to save humanity by being its silent ruler.

Is it really silent ruler? I remember it more as Helios/JC becoming the enlightened despot. Helios already believes itself to have the capacity to conquer the planet and impose its rule, but it wants to merge with a human so it can understand humans and rule well.

I feel it is a bit against the spirit of things to have the merged entity turn evil, but not egregiously so. Every DX ending has good and bad things to be said about it.

Helios wanted to govern human affairs, not rule over humans, essentially serving as a "realtime" automated form of government.
Deus Ex: Invisible War went even further with that.

What's the actual difference between governing and ruling in your opinion?

The idea of "instantaneous democracy".
Helios will, in realtime, listen to all the grievances and wants of all people anywhere on the globe.
Furthermore, JC wanted to distribute nanites globally to all people, so as to eliminate inequality and allow each individual to be nanotechnologically enhanced.

 

[kangaxx]

They've gone all Borderlands with the visuals. But why?

 

[Marat]

Various outfits of the MC:

Devs say they're getting close to releasing a demo.

 

[NecroLord]

Various outfits of the MC:

Devs say they're getting close to releasing a demo.

Disgusting...

 

[Marat]

Deus Ex Machine God Demo Now Available

 

[Jaedar]

Various outfits of the MC:

Devs say they're getting close to releasing a demo.

Looks cel shaded. Not cool.

 

[Marat]

Spoiler

A surprise return...