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    Deus Ex

    Game » consists of 8 releases. Released Jun 22, 2000

    A celebrated cyberpunk-themed first-person role-playing game, Deus Ex puts players behind the shades of JC Denton--an operative thrust into a world of byzantine global conspiracies.

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    mark2000

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    #1  Edited By mark2000

    I'm still new to the whole Deus Ex thing since I wasn't into gaming when this came out. While I find it enjoyable, I seem to get lost way too often during the first 2 levels of the game which is very uncomfortable for me. Worse is that every character I interact with seem to instantly expect that I already know my way around the city which doesn't make things any better for me. Is there a mod somewhere that can give me a map for all the levels in the game? 

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    Kovie

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    #2  Edited By Kovie

     Deus Ex tends to expect a good amount out of the player.  That means paying close attention to what other characters explain, and studying images and notes often.  If your getting lost, you should check your objectives and/or notes, you'll usually get a direction or landmark, and if you have an area's image, you can use that as a reference.  Playing methodically will often be rewarded.

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    mark2000

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    #3  Edited By mark2000
    @Kovie: Well the game's tendency to give you area images is pretty inconsistent most of the time and very rarely at worst. For example: early in the game, you're eagerly given a map of the whole liberty island but later on, you're left on your own inside a huge hell's kitchen without any guidance whatsoever besides a few vague objectives that you have no idea where to accomplish until you accidentally trip over them. The game does give compass directions but sometimes you are only given building names and you are left to find that building on your own with no clue where to start. Playing methodically is nice but that won't help you when you don't even have so much as a hint on where to start your approach.
     
    I'm not saying these things happen every time but when that rare occasion arises, gameplay gets very tedious very quickly and also very hilarious when your current objectives are meant to warn you of impending disaster even though you've already been there 15 minutes ago while trying to look for the said objectives.
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    Kovie

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    #4  Edited By Kovie

    Maybe the point isn't knowing where to start, it's just diving in?  That usually worked for me.  Talking about Hell's Kitchen - I thought it worked fairly smoothly; if I'm not mistaken, your get the vague location of the bar, which is right by the subway, and hear some talk about the clinic.  Hells Kitchen isn't really that big of an area, so it's inevitable that you stumble upon an important location early on.  But that being said, It'd be easy to get lost if you went looking elsewhere, and end up in a location generally intended for later.  Say you ignored everything in Hell's Kitchen and immediately broke into the tunnels leading to the NFC warehouse (I think it will let you do that), then you wouldn't have any idea what's going on.  That kind of deviation would leave you with little idea of what's happening.  But maybe that's not your problem, and I can't really confirm the validity or rarity of a situation like that.
     
    But I do know of maybe two or three areas constructed in a particularly unintuitive manner, where you aren't always left with an immediately obvious path, or information to tell you where things are and how to get to them.  But I managed to flow my way through those pretty well, for the most part, I kept moving, even if it wasn't always forward, I usually had an idea of what to do next.
     
    If you haven't seen Hong Kong; It's more complicated than Hell's Kitchen was.  But even still, It's pretty well designed, marking areas and USUALLY giving you places that are relatively easy to track down.  Only real place to get lost is in the canals, and that's almost asking for it.

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    mark2000

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    #5  Edited By mark2000
    @Kovie:   It's not that level designs can get unintuitive sometimes but it's just that there are rare occasions where the game suddenly falls into complete dead air and you are left on your own for a very brief period until the game suddenly decides to flow normally again.
     
    Anyway, the only reason I made this thread is because I never found anything when I did my own searching. So now I'm under the impression that I'm really supposed to go postal whenever the game stops telling me anything and if that's what the developers intended, then it's fine with me.
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    Kovie

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    #6  Edited By Kovie

    I'm really having a tough time thinking of situations that I had the same trouble with; either I have gaps in my memory involving similar experiences, or I was playing it in a very different style.
     
    Guess I can't really offer any other advice.

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    mark2000

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    #7  Edited By mark2000
    @Kovie: 
    Well, since I'm still pretty new to the game, it could be that my lesser knowledge of the levels and gameplay flow in general means that having the game blank out on me for even just a second can leave me clueless pretty easily as compared to someone who's already played and finished it for more than once or twice.
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    Kovie

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    #8  Edited By Kovie

    I could understand not being familiar with the flow of the game.  But I really can't believe that prior knowledge to level layout is an important thing - Helpful?  Yes.  But not vital by any means, I mean, that would be pretty crazy.  Anyway, I could point out that I did actually have a similar problem when I played Deus Ex a year or two ago, didn't make it more than a few hours into it, but I was hopelessly lost and inherently overwhelmed quite often.  And also that when I actually did finish it recently, I was playing stealth significantly, so things just about always progressed slowly, could that have something to do with it?  Maybe, I don't know.
     
    Actually, in retrospect, I think the summation of your problems is perfectly embodied into one specific scenario late into the game.  Okay, yeah, THAT PART is pretty brutally complicated at first.  To the point of me actually being relatively frustrated and overwhelmed.  But the rest was pretty smooth sailing, apparently.
     
    So I'd recommend keeping with it, and hopefully in the process gain a kind of understanding of the structure, priority and pacing.  Something like that.

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    shiftymagician

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    #9  Edited By shiftymagician

    This will be an interesting thread.  I want to hear more experiences of new players trying to play the classics, and see how much different the game experience is to them.
     
    I played some old games, but I also have not played Deus Ex.  I should get around to doing that someday.

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    Soulglove

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    #10  Edited By Soulglove

    I think the first time I played I wandered a bit, and then I came back to it. I'm still replaying it actually, and although I remember very little about the level layouts, I'm finding areas I've never been before. You must pay close attention to what characters tell you, they sometimes give precise directions like: "The warehouse is at the most West part of the city, across from the so-and-so." Notes and conversation are all recorded in the inventory, even passcodes for doors and passwords for computers. Having the right items and talking to the right random person can shorten your missions because they may offer valuable information on routes. Maps merely point out landmarks and not player locations. I think the last time I played I stopped in the middle of Hong Kong because I didn't have the time to play. There are so many different paths in some areas that you find yourself wasting lockpicks and multitools opening doors and end up making complete circle. I have done that twice the past week. For Mods, right now there is one out there for increasing the resolution on surfaces textures, and there is one being made for increasing the resolution on model textures, which I am waiting for patiently.
     

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    mark2000

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    #11  Edited By mark2000
    @Kovie said:
    " I could understand not being familiar with the flow of the game.  But I really can't believe that prior knowledge to level layout is an important thing - Helpful?  Yes.  But not vital by any means, I mean, that would be pretty crazy.  Anyway, I could point out that I did actually have a similar problem when I played Deus Ex a year or two ago, didn't make it more than a few hours into it, but I was hopelessly lost and inherently overwhelmed quite often.  And also that when I actually did finish it recently, I was playing stealth significantly, so things just about always progressed slowly, could that have something to do with it?  Maybe, I don't know.  Actually, in retrospect, I think the summation of your problems is perfectly embodied into one specific scenario late into the game.  Okay, yeah, THAT PART is pretty brutally complicated at first.  To the point of me actually being relatively frustrated and overwhelmed.  But the rest was pretty smooth sailing, apparently.   So I'd recommend keeping with it, and hopefully in the process gain a kind of understanding of the structure, priority and pacing.  Something like that. "
     I'm not saying it is significantly important but prior knowledge to locations and patterns can make people play a game a bit differently compared to their first time through if only because they can more easily put the tiny and subtle missing pieces together at an almost subconcious level even without being given any form of hint or direction simply due to past experience when a first-timer can easily be lost because of those same little things.
     
    One time, I tried playing the earlier levels of Deus Ex and Invisible War over and over again just for the heck of it and was surprised at how easier they got the more I played them. It wasn't because I became more observative or anything but because I always had a clear and general idea on where I want to go no matter how vague the objectives get. However, I only noticed these kinds of differences whenever I stop and think about it. Perhaps the free-form nature of the game masks this somehow.
     
    @ShiftyMagician said:
    " This will be an interesting thread.  I want to hear more experiences of new players trying to play the classics, and see how much different the game experience is to them. I played some old games, but I also have not played Deus Ex.  I should get around to doing that someday. "

    For an old game, the controls and interface in Deus Ex are surprisingly not as clunky as something like Rogue Spear. The worst you'll probably have to deal with are the bad graphics and wrestling with the Function keys when switching augmentations in the middle of a firefight. The best advice I can give for the later is to simply do it RE4 style, basically putting the Aug Menu key nearest to your left hand and do your micromanagement there.
     
    The voice work is also horrendously bad except for maybe 1 or 2 guys but...hehe...it's an old game right? XD The soundtrack does not disappoint though but I'll probably be one of the very few  to admit in liking Invisible War's a bit more (except for the main theme anyway).

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