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Nothing, and quite frankly, I was pretty dumb to suggest that idea. Judith had the right idea in mind when he wrote this:

 

 

 

Oh dear... I have to assume you're very young, because it's hard for me to imagine that any adult would have a problem with comprehending that... Fiddling with somebody else's work, just because you think you know better, is a sign of huge disrespect. It's not up to you to decide, even renown developers don't do that. It's almost trolling and frankly, not a really creative task to begin with. In short, nobody does that, neither in music, nor in painting, photography etc. And, since like 2000s map files and resources became locked or put in packages. Now I understand it's more than just compression reasons...

The game as a work represents certain period of time, it's a reflection of dev's skills at the time, and the state of technology. As that it is a type of testimony, and as such it's closed, even if it has editor and the source files available. If you want to pay respect, you can carefully preserve that, making it compatible for subsequent platforms and generations of players, or you can take the theme, the story, the layout etc. and use it as a source of inspiration to make something else. To create a discussion, to answer the problems in a different way, etc. This is how you show respect and your own skill.

 

http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=144973&page=3&p=2277597&viewfull=1#post2277597

Which also sums up my feelings for Revision currently by the way.

 

I just dislike having vast stretches of a loud floor in a Thief game, I feel they are often cheap ways to pad out the level and make it difficult without designing it properly. But that's another topic.

[Deus Ex Revision The countdown has begun!]

I did make a thread about that in the Thief fan missions forum long ago, and met with some resistance. To be honest, I think remaking the original levels to "improve" them as opposed to coming up with your own levels isn't all that interesting to most authors there, because they have more creative freedom with their own levels than with the original levels, and tampering the original levels is always going to make some people dislike it no matter how good the remake is. Here's the thread by the way: http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=144973

[Deus Ex Revision The countdown has begun!]

Chakkman, I'm tired of this drama over the Steam exclusivity thing, not partly because it's overshadowing any discussion of the actual quality of the mod. Let's not blame people for not wanting to rebuy a game they already own, or getting disappointed when the mod they were waiting for ended up being Steam "exclusive" at the last moment. I would definitely not support such behaviour by modders in the future, if they want to make a mod Steam exclusive fine, but at least clear it up early so that the expectations of their fans are not dashed, ala Just Cause 2 multi player's developers. They were being very dodgy about this question and this kept people in the dark, so naturally they got upset about it. We know it was because of the SE deal and NDA, but it still could have been avoided. Also just so you know, the Steam version of Deus Ex is the least functional, it doesn't have Steam cloud, achievements or anything, it's just the original game with a DRM exe. So don't assume that is the version everyone would get.

 

As for your response to bikerdude, no Deus Ex was not considered good looking at the time. Its graphics were criticized even by some positive reviews back then. As for Revision "improving" them, that is quite subjective, personally I don't like the overdone lighting and pitch darkness I'm seeing in many screenshots, and it seems they screwed up the stealth gameplay by implementing Human Renovation for the base gameplay wrongly, as in enemies somehow become psychic and turn around even when you're crouching behind them, and in other situations they seem worse at detecting you than in the original.

[Deus Ex Revision The countdown has begun!]

Not that I want to play the part pooper, but are you sure that's legal? I mean, if the people doing the mod intended it to be distributed on Steam, I highly doubt it's meant to be used without it.

 

If using custom launchers or a legal DRM free exe to replace it is illegal, then using custom launchers or the legal DRM free exe you can get from patching the game to replace the game's exe is illegal too. So no, those methods are legal. It's really more of an oversight, or maybe even intentionally not adding more DRM beyond the exe.

 

Anyway, it's frankly obvious at this point that it was a ploy by SE to get more copies sold for some profits as well as a publicity stunt to gain some popularity. I think the developers were trapped into releasing it only on Steam after they signed the deal by SE. But it's not a big deal now as there seems to be more issues with the mod than just the Steam exclusivity.

 

Also hello everyone!