Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Silicon Era Series Wrap

Dhruin

SasqWatch
Joined
August 30, 2006
Messages
11,842
Location
Sydney, Australia
The Deus Ex: Human Revolution interview series at Siliconera has wrapped up. Here's an important snip from the last bit:
You mentioned choices, and choices were a key element in Deus Ex 1. What kind of choices is Adam (the main character) going to face?

Ahh… that’s a really good question. Wow. A lot of things, a lot of things. Obviously, the gameplay elements of the player deciding what they want to do and how they want to play the game. Without getting into any details, there are a couple points in the game where Adam is faced with like an increasing level of importance based on his choices. Towards the end of the game the player or Adam has to make choices that might affect, you know, stuff at the humanity level and things like that. It’s entangled with the story and all of that kind of stuff so I’m not going to say anything specific.

Adam has a personal take in the story. There is something, based on choices, there is something he wants to make sure will never happen again. And also there are all of those things with the conspiracy and everything that ends up with Adam, the player, making very, very important choices.
Thanks again to Omega.
More information.
 
Joined
Aug 30, 2006
Messages
11,842
Location
Sydney, Australia
Synopsis of quoted paragraph: "Stuff..."
Summary of article: Vague responses with little bearing on the actual game.
 
Joined
Feb 12, 2007
Messages
141
1. I'm going to assume that the person involved in DE:Human Revolution who is doing these interviews is not a native English speaker.

2. I sure as hell hope the English text/dialogue in the actual game is done by someone who IS a native English speaker (or at least edited/proofread by some who are).

3. That quote in the snip was the most meaningless answer I have ever seen. It was like a politician talking and trying to say all the right things but in the end actually saying NOTHING.

I still hope this game is good but they really need to hire someone else to do their interviews (at least the English language ones) and just don't do interviews at all until there is something solid to say instead of just marketing/hot word speak.
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
461
1. I'm going to assume that the person involved in DE:Human Revolution who is doing these interviews is not a native English speaker.

I think he is a native English speaker. I think he's just babbling like a retard because he doesn't have an answer to the question. He may not even understand the question, except that he knows "Well, hell yeah there's choices! Like, you want to use the sniper rifle or go all stealthy like with a Kabar!" isn't what he's supposed to say.

Not looking forward to this game at all. I'm seriously beginning to think it would be a really great idea if some professional developers and designers revisited games from the 1980s and did exact copies of them, only modernized.
 
Joined
Apr 13, 2010
Messages
515
"Adam has to make choices that might affect, you know, stuff at the humanity level and things like that. It’s entangled with the story and all of that kind of stuff so I’m not going to say anything specific. "

isn't this the best quote ever? :) The best part of this quote is how the guy even admitted that he wasn't saying anything specific, lol!

Despite this hilarious interview I have a good feeling about the game. there are some good interviews online and I think that devs know what they're doing. This guy is just a marketing guy and obviously he can't say anything specific at this point. Then again why bother doing those interview tours if all you can do is mumble mindless pr-talk.
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
2,468
I think he is a native English speaker. I think he's just babbling like a retard because he doesn't have an answer to the question. He may not even understand the question, except that he knows "Well, hell yeah there's choices! Like, you want to use the sniper rifle or go all stealthy like with a Kabar!" isn't what he's supposed to say.

Not looking forward to this game at all. I'm seriously beginning to think it would be a really great idea if some professional developers and designers revisited games from the 1980s and did exact copies of them, only modernized.

Judging by the name it is a native french speaker. It's being develped in Montreal.

The first time I read it I thought maybe some Square-Enix japanese PR rep was doing the interview. But it is a french speaking dev.

Although generally most devs arent exactly wordsmiths. I believe alot of articles we read have been cleaned up by the news teams so sentences flow and speling and grammar are corrected.
 
Joined
Oct 22, 2006
Messages
409
Although generally most devs arent exactly wordsmiths. I believe alot of articles we read have been cleaned up by the news teams so sentences flow and speling and grammar are corrected.

Depends what you mean when you refer to "developers". Most programmers are pretty meticulous in their use of language, because programming concepts are hard enough to describe even when you articulate your ideas with precision.

Some developers are designers. Some designers are quite skilled writers.

Then there are designers like Warren Spector, who fancy themselves "imagineers" as Walt Disney put it. They tend to use trendy catchwords and technobabble and spend most of their time pitching ideas to their superiors or their investors, which means the more vague the language they use the better since that gives them the maximum amount of wiggle room to either take credit for successes of place blame for failure. This crew has great success when dealing with management and PR folks, but when trying to explain to the technical people what they actually want done the end result is usually a room full of programmers looking at each-other and rolling their eyes, and followup meetings where team leaders try to explain WTF he actually was trying to say.
 
Joined
Apr 13, 2010
Messages
515
Then there are designers like Warren Spector, who fancy themselves "imagineers" as Walt Disney put it. They tend to use trendy catchwords and technobabble and spend most of their time pitching ideas to their superiors or their investors, which means the more vague the language they use the better since that gives them the maximum amount of wiggle room to either take credit for successes of place blame for failure...
Any particular reason you singled out Spector?
Mind, I wouldn't say a word had you deigned to debase someone like... say, Emil Pagliarulo, Peter Molyneux or "CliffyB," all of whom are wildly, even grotesquely fond of using PR-speak, but Spector? Really? You have some personal experience with the man or have I somehow overlooked the "trendy catchword" laden interviews he took part in?
 
Joined
Feb 12, 2007
Messages
141
I'm curious about that as well. Warren Spector has always seemed quite modest to me, and when it comes to taking credit for success, he's always been quick to mention other members of the dev team, at least in the interviews that I've seen.
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
39,138
Location
Florida, US
Warren Spector seemed like a nice, modest guy to me too though I just read a couple of interviews/blog posts.
 
Joined
Apr 15, 2010
Messages
250
Spector is most likely as nice as ever :)

He's just another human being switching his artistic vision, with a vision of more wealth.

Not exactly a crime.
 
Spector is most likely as nice as ever :)

He's just another human being switching his artistic vision, with a vision of more wealth.

Not exactly a crime.

How exactly? Because he's not working on this prequel? Is there some new incredibly casual-y (how I hate that word anyway) project designed by him?
I'm curious.
 
Joined
Apr 15, 2010
Messages
250
1. I'm going to assume that the person involved in DE:Human Revolution who is doing these interviews is not a native English speaker.
The person being interviewed? It's natural speech, i.e. a word for word transcription of a spoken interview. In contrast, written English expression falls into one of two extremes: formal structured; or severely retarded chimpanzee. This interview text falls into neither category; it's simply an off the cuff spoken response (that tells us bugger all about the gameplay).
 
Joined
Jun 24, 2009
Messages
90
How exactly? Because he's not working on this prequel? Is there some new incredibly casual-y (how I hate that word anyway) project designed by him?
I'm curious.


You haven't heard who he works for now?

His current project…

256px-EpicMickeylogo.jpg
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
39,138
Location
Florida, US
Any particular reason you singled out Spector?

My only reason is that he was the one doing all the interviews back when he was working on Deus Ex, which is when I stopped paying attention to the PC gaming media. Mainly, because of their shameless promotion of what seemed to be stupid ideas as the "future" of the industry. I'm not a big fan of Peter Molyneux either but he's never made any secret of his preference for making "brainless but cute!" games. Warren Spector seems more guilty of selling out whilst denying that he was selling out.

I'm curious about that as well. Warren Spector has always seemed quite modest to me, and when it comes to taking credit for success, he's always been quick to mention other members of the dev team, at least in the interviews that I've seen.

Really? Because it seems to me that he somehow became credited with being the one guy behind Ultima Underworld and System Shock. The evidence - in the form of Deus Ex - suggests that's not the case. There is additional evidence in that he was credited as a producer and not as a developer on those games. That hardly seems like an example of sharing credit.

In any case, I'm biased as I blame him for being a large part of what went wrong with PC gaming in recent years. I blame others (many others, actually) for what went wrong with PC gaming before Warren Spector arrived front and center, but for the most part they were already in a downward spiral by 2000 and didn't directly influence the hose-up of the last 10 years.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised Spector has so many fans here, considering Deus Ex is leading on that Shooter/RPG poll. I don't really want to argue about it. Anyone who thinks Deus Ex is a great game is happy with the current state of affairs with RPGs on the PC, so I'm in a clear minority on this website.

EDIT:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/warrens1

If you read that interview from 2000 it seems that it was the PC gaming media that was fluffing his resume more than Spector himself. But he didn't stop them. Nor did he clarify exactly what his "associate producer" and "junior editor" (or whatever) positions entailed. How he got more credit for some classic games as an associate producer than the lead programmer did is anyone's guess, but it stinks to high heaven.

That was just the topmost interview in a Google search. There are many, many others and most of them were much worse.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Apr 13, 2010
Messages
515
You haven't heard who he works for now?

His current project…

256px-EpicMickeylogo.jpg

lol. Yes. The man who was going to re-invent the roleplaying game genre on the PC is now working for Disney, making a Mickey Mouse game (literally - no pun intended) for the Wii platform. If I hadn't tired myself so much banging my head against the wall 10 years ago, I'd be sorely tempted to do so now :)
 
Joined
Apr 13, 2010
Messages
515
You haven't heard who he works for now?

His current project…

256px-EpicMickeylogo.jpg

Oh yeah. I actually remember looking at a couple of concept arts and screenshots and it was looking pretty good.
Can't really see why it's bad to work on something with a broad appeal.
 
Joined
Apr 15, 2010
Messages
250
Can't really see why it's bad to work on something with a broad appeal.

From a business perspective, it's not. From a creative perspective? What artist sets out with the goal of creating something that has "broad appeal"? Is there one truly great artist in any field in the entire history of man who has done that? Show me somebody in a creative field who has that mentality, and I'll show you a hack.
 
Joined
Apr 13, 2010
Messages
515
From a business perspective, it's not. From a creative perspective? What artist sets out with the goal of creating something that has "broad appeal"? Is there one truly great artist in any field in the entire history of man who has done that? Show me somebody in a creative field who has that mentality, and I'll show you a hack.
Shakespeare.
 
Joined
Apr 15, 2010
Messages
250
Back
Top Bottom