Deus Ex GMDX: Deus Ex Advancement Mod v9 Released!

[Ash]

Let's get this ball rolling again.

The installer is nearly done, after which testing shall begin. Hoping for good codex turnout again.
Localization: now supporting a sizable figure of five seperate languages: English, French, Russian, German and Hungarian.
If you missed the last update that focused on AI, there's now AI that strafe around corners, lay down suppressive fire, and a shitload more of erroneous vanilla behavior of theirs is fixed.

Small update. Save the bigger stuff for later:

Updated Perk menu stylization.

Also shown:

New, higher res and more faithful replacement skin for the HDTP Barrel Fire mesh.
Faithfully Enhanced Catacombs detail.
Minor alterations to the perks themselves.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Goddamn this is awesome you're still working on this

 

[grimace]

Let's get this ball rolling again.

The installer is nearly done, after which testing shall begin. Hoping for good codex turnout again.

Excellent!

 

[Ivan]

FINALLY RELEASED?!



fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuk

 

[Junmarko]

Got that Deus Ex itch creeping up on me again. Seems to happen every 18 months...

 

[Ash]

Little KKKodex early exclusive:

Vanilla w/New Vision & HDTP:

Spoiler

After GMDX optimizing:

Spoiler

It could maybe use some more subtle details, but it's a solid faithful improvement and feels more authentic nonetheless.

 

[Fenix]

but that's...

AWESOME!





Looks like I'll fix my PC after all in this year so... one question - I hope I don't need to start anew?

 

[Ash]

Your playthrough? All the new AI programming in particular would probably cause a crash when trying to load an old save with v9.0.

 

[Jaedar]

Looks good. Vanilla Deus ex will feel very barren after playing this.

 

[Jazz_]

Great news. The great thing about GMDX is how tasteful and conservatively designed it is, and that's a very rare thing with mods in general, it improves the game substantially in every area and in seamless way, without arbitrarily put in inconsistent and jarring new content. (cough cough..Revision..)

 

[Carrion]

Great news. The great thing about GMDX is how tasteful and conservatively designed it is, and that's a very rare thing with mods in general, it improves the game substantially in every area and in seamless way, without arbitrarily put in inconsistent and jarring new content. (cough cough..Revision..)

Yes. With these big overhaul mods (even some of the actually good ones) it's pretty common for the author to get distracted somewhere along the way, so that s/he starts to, say, add new content or restore stuff that was left out of the game for a reason. I guess you could make the argument that GMDX is fixing some things that weren't necessarily broken, but all of those changes seem justified, well-thought out and very much in line of the spirit of DX. The visual improvements are just beautiful, and I won't even bother posting a comparison pic to the clusterfuck that is Revision.

I don't remember if this has been discussed to death already, but have you thought about making the difficulty level modular at some point, Ash? For example, the revamped AI is one of the best things about the mod, but to get the best out of it you need to play on Hardcore, which makes some rather fundamental changes to the game.

 

[Fenix]

Your playthrough? All the new AI programming in particular would probably cause a crash when trying to load an old save with v9.0.

Well, that mean I'll finish old version first. )

 

[Ash]

Yes. With these big overhaul mods (even some of the actually good ones) it's pretty common for the author to get distracted somewhere along the way, so that s/he starts to, say, add new content or restore stuff that was left out of the game for a reason. I guess you could make the argument that GMDX is fixing some things that weren't necessarily broken, but all of those changes seem justified, well-thought out and very much in line of the spirit of DX. The visual improvements are just beautiful, and I won't even bother posting a comparison pic to the clusterfuck that is Revision.

I don't remember if this has been discussed to death already, but have you thought about making the difficulty level modular at some point, Ash? For example, the revamped AI is one of the best things about the mod, but to get the best out of it you need to play on Hardcore, which makes some rather fundamental changes to the game.

It's both conservative and progressive: push forward while following the original design principles. Respect and conserve the work already in place and don't change existing content without good reason. Otherwise adding things to the game is fine, as long as it is executed without flaw, fits in and adds something meaningful, and ultimately doesn't turn it into something Deus Ex and the Immersive Sim is not.

v9.0 will be the epitome of conservative advancement.

 

[Ash]

Some minor things from the changelog not already shown in previous announcements:

-The Tech Goggles now amplifies light, aiding you see in darkness.
-Animals can now be knocked unconscious.
-All fragments now use high resolution textures.
-Exploding fire extinguishers will send nearby objects flying, making use of the new physics system.
-The stamina system is now optional (against my better judgement) for ultra purity fags that miss the point.
-More weapons accept a wider variety of modifications than even v8.0.
-Four new perks.
-Weapon damage displayed in the inventory now changes based on the ammo type currently loaded.
-Explosions ignore geometry at a radius of 20% the explosion's blast radius.
-Right clicking while looking through a weapon's scope will stop looking through the scope as opposed to holstering weapon.
-Frobbing a weapon while your inventory is full will unload the weapon of its ammo.
-After inputting the correct passcode the Keypad window is automatically closed in half the time it was vanilla.
-Added some new config options, including the ability to decline the game's hundreds of combat knifes when looting.
-Dropping stacks via the inventory results in the dropped items spread out over a slightly wider area, to prevent immersion breaking towers.

To whomever asked about modular difficulty: no plans beyond what is already supported. You want moar difficulty you "suffer" the full package of hardcore mode, old school style.

 

[Black]

-Animals can now be knocked unconscious.

Thank you.

 

[HoboForEternity]

Yay i dont have to kill the doggies :3

 

[RoSoDude]

-Exploding fire extinguishers will send nearby objects flying, making use of the new physics system.

Are these the same physics improvements at work for other explosions (barrels, TNT)?

-Explosions ignore geometry at a radius of 20% the explosion's blast radius.

As a heavy player of FPS games where splash damage is key (Quake, Tribes), this is some good shit.

-Added some new config options, including the ability to decline the game's hundreds of combat knifes when looting.

Solid, and less clunky than something like 2027's solution (which wasn't bad, but got rather tiresome). Will you somehow be able to know there was a combat knife you could have picked up, should you at some point actually want one?

-Dropping stacks via the inventory results in the dropped items spread out over a slightly wider area, to prevent immersion breaking towers.

Might actually be my favorite change so far lol.

 

[Ash]

-Exploding fire extinguishers will send nearby objects flying, making use of the new physics system.

Are these the same physics improvements at work for other explosions (barrels, TNT)?

Yeah. The physics have also had minor refinements, but it's still simple shit, but cool nonetheless and an expansion on vanilla physics.

-Explosions ignore geometry at a radius of 20% the explosion's blast radius.

As a heavy player of FPS games where splash damage is key (Quake, Tribes), this is some good shit.

Yeah. Military bots in particular are a little more threatening with this, which was desperately needed.

-Added some new config options, including the ability to decline the game's hundreds of combat knifes when looting.

Solid, and less clunky than something like 2027's solution (which wasn't bad, but got rather tiresome). Will you somehow be able to know there was a combat knife you could have picked up, should you at some point actually want one?

Nah. It's a hacky magical unrealistic solution for convenience, and is optional for that reason. I'm not a fan of the concept but there was no sound alternative and something needed to be done about it.

 

[Ash]

Sigh...

True incline really is esoteric.

Why is BD64 more noteworthy, for instance? It took a pre-existing port, made some gameplay, graphics and polishing tweaks on a scale far lesser than even base BD let alone GMDX, and that is considered more worthy than the incline I've produced, and continue to produce. I played BD64 and it was good, but come on.
Fucking popularity contents. It necessitates a gimmick, extensive marketing and/or dumb luck. Fuck all that.

 

[Baron Dupek]

I agree that CoCh is great but should not get 1st place, it's just only backbone for other mods (not that much of them) and it's made upon 4ch /sg/ project Doom's Mod Merge (there was one for CoP but dropped at v0.1).
But that happen when you deal with modders community who act impulsively and don't take a breath or two (or count to 10-inhale-exhale) before act or comment.

Reason why CoCh won is because there bazillion mods for all three (and now - four) Stalkers but rarely any get translated. There is like one guy (TKGT or whatever his name is) who is making only translations for some mods but not provide links to actual mods. Things are better if you live in eastern europe or even better - know rusian gibberish.

Seeing popularity of Brutal projects make clear picture of the community...

 

[Ash]

I agree that CoCh is great but should not get 1st place, it's just only backbone for other mods (not that much of them) and it's made upon 4ch /sg/ project Doom's Mod Merge (there was one for CoP but dropped at v0.1).
But that happen when you deal with modders community who act impulsively and don't take a breath or two (or count to 10-inhale-exhale) before act or comment.

Reason why CoCh won is because there bazillion mods for all three (and now - four) Stalkers but rarely any get translated. There is like one guy (TKGT or whatever his name is) who is making only translations for some mods but not provide links to actual mods. Things are better if you live in eastern europe or even better - know rusian gibberish.

Seeing popularity of Brutal projects make clear picture of the community...

Nothing against CoCh. I didn't mean to link to the comments. I was sighing because my work is not on there at all. But hey, Deus Ex, particularly the original, has a small inactive community compared to the likes of Doom and Stalker, and that's a shame. Still, Revision showed there was still sizable interest. I just need to hire a marketing specialist and sign up with the publisher if I want this to reach the wider fanbase it seems. Again, fuck all that, but I wish quality and quality alone could prevail. It does happen but it's so rare...

 

[Arthandas]

Do people still care about ModDB? It's stagnant and outdated compared to the Nexus. If not for GMDX I would forget the site even existed and I use mods for like anything I play.

 

[Baron Dupek]

Do people still care about ModDB? It's stagnant and outdated compared to the Nexus. If not for GMDX I would forget the site even existed and I use mods for like anything I play.

of course Moddb is a thing
Nexus hold bunch of games with large chunk of mods
Moddb hold enormous amount of games with less mods to choose
Is there even Unreal/UT or Gothic 1-3 section for Nexus? No offence for Nexus because that's where I get maps for Legends of Grimrock 1 and 2.

Speaking about Revision - it's overrated and Steam exclusivity dumb with dumb defenders ("it's only a dollar man" "but I already have 2 retail versions and DRMfree on GOG" "so it shouldn't be a problem to get one more. BTW. Steam is not DRM"). I would not be surprised if creators got some connection with Square to put this thing on Steam exclusively.
Something similair happened with Stalker: Lost Alpha where it was planned to be another part of the Stalker saga (it even got entry in MobyGames) but deal burned after leak (on the contrary - leak of CoCh make only good things).

 

[Latelistener]

I would not be surprised if creators got some connection with Square to put this thing on Steam exclusively.

Well, it's true.

Spoiler

 

[Ash]

Monocled game design in action:

[On the graveyard level and its lack of music/creepy music] Yeah I know it's a bit horrific, but we're in a GRAVEYARD at NIGHT. It should be creepy

Says who? That's a trope.

On some level I slightly agree, but Ion Storm never went out of their way to emphasize any creepiness and I don't really see why I should. Especially since it's a concept associated with the supernatural.
Just let the Graveyard stand as it is (+ further subtle realism-based beatification in v9.0, of course), any potential creepiness should come naturally rather than being emphasized by music.
Of course there is one map arguably counter to this: Vandenberg tunnels where the music is kinda creepy, but I don't make major thematic changes. Deus Ex went against the grain by NOT making the graveyard unnaturally creepy, and that's something to be respected and preserved I think.

I am a big fan of horror media (games primarily) and the use of music to emphasize horror/creepiness, but it has no place in this specific context.