Robert,

Deus Ex was a very excellent game in that it was open-ended in the confines
of completing missions. Sounds like an oxymoron but other than having a
linear story path built on a mission structure once in a mission you had
free reign how to accomplish your mission.

If there was a well guarded entrance to a base you had to infiltrate:

1. you could run in guns blazing and hope for the best.

2. you could use a stealth suit and some sneaking ability to hide in the
shadows and evade the guards.

3. You could hack into a terminal and turn automated sentry guns to fire
upon the guards instead of firing at you. (one of my personal favorites).

4. You might just be able to find a locked secret entrance that you would
have to crack or find the keycode to enter.

At any rate you could customize your character to be skilled at any of
these methods and as the game progressed you could improve your skills with
particular weapons and even get augmentations that give you advantages that
drain a rechargeable power meter when they are in use.

The game had a hell of a story too. Almost as many twists as a season or
two of the X-files.

Anyhow I bring all of this up because you mention Q&A sessions about the
sequel. As it turns out I spoke with Warren Spector, the lead designer of
DX1 & DX2 at E3 last year (a year ago April).

I asked him specifically how often he hears about people completing the
missions in a way he had not thought of during the development of DX1. He
told me that he was surprised to find out that some players had actually
finished the entire game without firing a single shot (!!!!). He said that
he had envisioned allowing an alternative to violence where possible but
even he had not intentionally made it possible to win the game without ever
firing a gun or detonating an explosive.

I also told him that my first time playing through DX1 I maximized my
pistol ability early on knowing that ammunition for pistols would be
plentiful. I then proceeded to augment my main pistol with a silencer,
zoom scope, and expanded magazine (more bullets per clip). What happened
was I became a pistol sniper with scads of available ammunition able to
take out enemies at great distances with headshots and the ability to
defend myself at close range without switching weapons. Amazingly this was
the first time Warren had heard of using such a strategy. Apparently
another result of building a game so open ended even the designer didn't
know all of the possibilities.

Finally I asked him if he had ever heard of Alternate Reality. Though I
had suspected that at least some of his inspiration for DX1 had come from
AR he told me he had not heard of the game. I gave him some background on
the game and he told me it sounded "quite interesting" and that maybe he
would check it out sometime.

This was over a year ago and DX2 was still pretty early at the time. One
can hope that Warren Spector actually remembered something about our
conversation and actually checked out AR for inspiration and ideas. Here's
another one for the optimists out there.

BTW. Warren Spector is quite the gentleman. I was as impressed meeting him
as I thought I would be. Quite the scholarly man and very nice to boot.

Thanks for putting up with this earful,

-Darryl Giors

At 11:09 PM 9/19/03 +0200, you wrote:
>I'd like to recommend you to read a few Q&A session on the game Deus Ex 2. I
>read one which dealt exactly with what you talked about here, and though I
>never played the first game, it got me really interested in this sequel.
>
>/Robert
>