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Deus Ex Revision The countdown has begun!


Eyeshine

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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

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Well, good luck with that (and especially finding people who'd be willing to invest so much time and work). It will take a lof of time for something many people probably wouldn't want, because the Thief community is very finicky about every small change you make to the game (see also the mixed reception of TDM), be it visual wise, gameplay wise, or else. Sorry to sound negative, but such a project for me would be a still birth. Even purely visual upgrades like the Thief Gold HD mod are being viewed very critical, let alone changes to the actual original levels. It's your decision, but i wouldn't put any time or effort in it. As voodoo47 already wrote in the thread, there's already modifications which improve the game in regards of running on modern machines, being able to use HD resolutions, and better textures. That's about as good as it gets IMO.

 

Did i say that i love the original levels? :P IMO, you could just disimprove. Well, except for the few occasions of excessively confusing architecture.

Edited by chakkman
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Well, good luck with that (and especially finding people who'd be willing to invest so much time and work). It will take a lof of time for something many people probably wouldn't want, because the Thief community is very finicky about every small change you make to the game (see also the mixed reception of TDM), be it visual wise, gameplay wise, or else. Sorry to sound negative, but such a project for me would be a still birth. Even purely visual upgrades like the Thief Gold HD mod are being viewed very critical, let alone changes to the actual original levels. It's your decision, but i wouldn't put any time or effort in it. As voodoo47 already wrote in the thread, there's already modifications which improve the game in regards of running on modern machines, being able to use HD resolutions, and better textures. That's about as good as it gets IMO.

 

Did i say that i love the original levels? :P IMO, you could just disimprove. Well, except for the few occasions of excessively confusing architecture.

It would be nice of the publisher to allow such mods on Steam. More credit to the modders.

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

- 2 July 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell from Edgar Allan Poe.

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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... erm.gif 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.

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This quote is actually quite good and shows a very mature attitude towards a different person's work. But in the current time, I believe many people want to play older games, either because they have fond memories or because other (in many cases older) people have told them how great they are. The problem is: we are currently spoiled with having great graphics and I know two or three people from the top of my head who would not touch a game like DeusEx or Thief, because the graphics are too old. The gameplay can be as good as it wants. They still wouldn't touch it. So a lot of people want the old games just with modern graphics. And I belive, many people who want to improve a game's graphics will also find other small things that they could (in their opinion) improve. And then it will become difficult to draw the line...

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So a lot of people want the old games just with modern graphics. And I belive, many people who want to improve a game's graphics will also find other small things that they could (in their opinion) improve. And then it will become difficult to draw the line...

 

I'm pretty sure you'll never get exactly modern graphics on an old engine, and as such there are quite a few people who won't appreciate these games not just because of their graphics, but also because it doesn't offer the gameplay that modern titles have. You can try to make it look cleaner with high resolution textures and removing some geometrical issues, but even then there are going to be issues like old shaders, limited object properties, clunky physics etc. In any case, it's obvious that Revision isn't just an attempt to make the original game look good but rather a bunch of people taking huge liberties with the artstyle and some levels because they think they can make it better. This is definitely crossing a line between "graphical upgrade" and "redoing things to make them better".

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A Revision Project is not like changing a Picasso Piece, more like adding color to a black and white picture so is more digestible and more contemporary with what we see today. You don't have to Redefine the original map either, simply adding better lighting, fog effects more intricate architecture would make Thief Gold much more beautiful.

 

Even something as simple as smoothing the blocky arches could make a big difference:

r90v3c.png

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A Revision Project is not like changing a Picasso Piece, more like adding color to a black and white picture so is more digestible and more contemporary with what we see today.

 

But from what I'm seeing, Revision is like redrawing a Picasso piece according to someone else's style and standards, hence some places have changed layouts and there's a lot of liberties taken with the artstyle. If they really only wanted to make the original smoother and technically better looking they should have made something like SCP: https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=7116.0 .

 

As for changing the blocky arches to actual ones, it would be welcome but I'm sure it would require redoing the geometry allowed by the engine. There are ways to get complex looking architecture in the Dark engine but from what I've seen no fan mission so far has had perfectly curved arches, only approximations of those.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I've given up with Revision, the game keeps crashing, using GOG game with original version of Revision with clean leaked .exe file, it has been working fine but I need to talk to Gordon Quick near the luminous path compound and when I try and move from the market to the next area of the game the auto save flashes on screen but the next area doesn't load and crashes to desktop with a critical error message box full of text, I can go anywhere else in game no problem.

 

Reinstalled the game and and tried the new patch but still crashes at the same place, anyone else had a similar problem?

Edited by Eyeshine
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Report it to the Revision Devs. They might be able to find the problem.

I considered reporting the problem but I've read that the devs are not interested unless you are using steam, Honestly, I'm not that bothered, Revision is good and looks pretty but for me it's not a massive game changer, the DE mods I've used before worked well enough and I'm far more interested in the GMDX mod which is released on the 7th December and promises to be a far more game changing mod than Revision.

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