Development of Deus Ex
The
In preproduction, six people from Looking Glass's
Preproduction
After Warren Spector released Ultima Underworld II with Origin Systems in January 1993, he began to plan Troubleshooter, the game that would become Deus Ex.[1] Noting his wife's fascination with The X-Files, he connected the "real world, millennial weirdness, [and] conspiracy stuff" topics on his mind and decided to make a game about it that would appeal to a wider audience.[2] He also considered cyberpunk influences that came from around 1978 when he was participating in a themed Dungeons & Dragons campaign created and led by Bruce Sterling, who had adapted that campaign based on the choice Spector and the other players made.[3] Troubleshooter, in contrast to the other games he had been making at Origin, would have been a "real-world role-playing game", relying more on player choices and assuring that every player could reach the end of the game but in the manner they choose.[3]
In his 1994 proposal to Origin, he described the concept as "Underworld-style first-person action" in a real-world setting with "big-budget, nonstop action" starring an ex-cop "security specialist".
Preproduction began around August 1997
The Shooter design document set the player as an augmented agent working against an elite cabal in the "dangerous and chaotic" 2050s.[4] Its subtitle was "roleplaying in a world of secrets, lies, and conspiracies".[4] It was written to be similar in concept to Half-Life, Fallout, Thief: The Dark Project, and GoldenEye 007, and to mix elements of the films Colossus: The Forbin Project, The Manchurian Candidate, and RoboCop in a world inspired by The X-Files and Men in Black—examples of "the millennial madness that's gripping the world ... and a general fascination with conspiracy theories and the desire to play with high-tech espionage toys".[4]
The preproduction team also tweaked the game systems. They chose a skill system that used nanotechnology augmentation, unique to the player character, as "special powers" instead of "die-rolls" or skills that required granular management.[9] They also built a conversation structure based on console role-playing game setups, and drafted the augmentation upgrade, inventory, and skill screens. They also designed an in-game text editor for taking notes, and "reward systems" for skill points, reduced weapon and tool cooldowns, and augmentation upgrades. Preproduction had generated 300 pages of documentation by March 1998. The document grew to 500 pages with "radically different" content by their April 1999 Alpha 1 deadline.[10] Of Spector's original design document, the marketing section was the only part left unedited.[8]
Production
In early 1998, after six months of preproduction, the Deus Ex project grew to a 20-person team and entered a 28-month production phase.[6] Spector hired new staff in their Austin studio and was also assigned a Dallas-based art team.[10] The development team consisted of three programmers, six designers, seven artists, a writer, an associate producer, a tech,[clarification needed] plus two writers and four testers as contractors.[6] Chris Norden was the lead programmer and assistant director, Harvey Smith the lead designer, Jay Lee the lead artist, Sheldon Pacotti the lead writer, and Spector producer and director.
The team had many disagreements,[5] and Spector's original staff setup crumbled. When two experienced designers vied for the lead designer position, Spector chose both and made two design teams: the "Looking Glass design team" or "immersive simulation group" led by Harvey Smith (System Shock, Ultima VIII: Pagan) and the "Ultima roleplaying team" or "traditional roleplaying group" led by Robert White (Ultima Online, Ultima IX: Ascension as "Bob White").[11] He initially thought their competition would be easily managed and fruitful, but neither team felt second to the other[b] and Spector had to merge the teams and choose a single designer, Smith, to lead it. He felt that the matrix management structure under which the Dallas art team worked for the project but were not the project's staff hurt the game's progress. Some of the artists were not interested in Deus Ex, and Spector wrote that "the art department drifted a bit".[7] He said that the matrix management structure created tension and problems, and was generally against the idea due to how it worked at his previous studios Origin and Looking Glass. Though his stance won out and the project received dedicated artists, Spector lamented that the game could have been improved for not having matrix management in the first place. He wrote that he learned about the importance of team member personal investment in the game, the preemptive benefits of addressing personnel concerns as they arise, and the usefulness of a chain of command even when consensus works.[7]
Spector described the team as interested in multiple genres of gaming, consisting of both maximalists who wanted to "do everything" and minimalists who wanted to do few things well.
Spector felt that the development process's highlights were the "high-level vision" and length of preproduction, flexibility within the project, testable "proto-missions", and
World and character design
The original 1997 design document for the game privileges character development over all other parts, including experimental sequences and technology demos.
The game changed greatly over the course of production, but parts that remained consistent include the augmented counterterrorist protagonist JC Denton. The anti-terrorism organization UNATCO was originally TLC, the Terrorist Limitation Coalition. Ally Tracer Tong was more of a "mercenary" than a "kindly anarchist", while enemies like UNATCO's Joseph Manderley went from "ruthless bastard" to "stuffy bureaucrat" and Majestic 12's Bob Page and assassin Anna Navarre played more of a background role.
Designer Harvey Smith suggested a streamlined plot that removed the Mexican invasion to make development easier and the narrative more personal. While finished assets were repurposed, entire parts of the game were abandoned, including Texas and the Denver airport. Environments such as a flooded city became a Majestic 12 research site and the endgame Helios space station became Area 51. He also made the call to remove a playable mid-game White House level due to its complexity and production needs in other areas. Pete Davison of USgamer referred to the White House and presidential bunker as "the truly deleted scenes of Deus Ex's lost levels".[8] Spector referred to his "dream" level[17]—the White House—as their "toughest map challenge".[19] The team has speculated that the assets may exist on a "DVDs in someone's attic", though Pacotti, Smith, Spector, and the final release have no trace of them.[8] Pacotti felt that the experience of rescuing Paul was worth cutting the White House from the game.[8]
Testing revealed that their idea of a role-playing game based in the real world was more interesting in theory than actuality.[19] They chose two real-world inspirations for levels: "highly interconnected, multi-level" spaces and places one cannot normally visit (such as the White House).[4] In practice, they felt that some functions of the real world, such as hotels and office buildings, were not compelling in a game,[19] and that "reality" always lost when up against "fun".[4] Their recreations of notable locations and items such as the Statue of Liberty and payphones were questioned when they did not emulate the actual site or function. Internally, the team began to doubt their investment in a non-player character-driven game as sufficiently interesting. Spector was swayed by this widespread sentiment to have "monsters and bad guys", and the team increased the prominence of several robots and added genetically-altered animals that still fit the story.[19]
Design
The game was designed to be "genre-busting"—partly
Once implemented, the team's game systems did not work as intended. They built prototypes of the systems and some missions towards the beginning of development, which uncovered some of their blind spots.
Their milestones served as wake-up calls for the game's direction. A May 1998 "proto-mission" milestone was to have a basic but functional demo of the crucial game systems and two
Smith had "an intimacy" with the level design tools such that he could sense when the design met the game's technical restrictions, like the maximum possible size or number of characters for a room. He suggested the narrower skill tree with palpable effects, such as exchanging skills about weapon damage for more accessible weapons.[8] The team adopted the cuts, having been encouraged by the recent milestone. Spector has said that had they waited for the beta to have made the same reductions (as per common practice), "it would have been a disaster."[21] Spector's post-proto-mission strategy was to bring the rest of the missions to proto-mission functionality rather than perfecting the two existing proto-missions. He felt that this would be a more efficient use of staff time, even if it meant that the final product would be more "bare-bones" than brilliant.[16] Almost all of their game systems besides the inventory and conversation schemes were rethought up through the end of the project.[22]
They also made choices about the minutiae of game mechanics. The team chose to pause the action while the player was viewing interfaces as to keep the strategy tactical, and to make the affinity of strangers and purpose of items "instantly recognizable".
Spector wrote that the team did not figure out how to handle NPC AI until late in development.[12] This led to wasted time as the team discarded their early AI. They were also building atop their game engine's shooter-based AI instead of building a customized version anew to handle the spectrum of convincing emotions they wanted from their characters. As a result, NPC behavior was variable until the very end of development. Spector felt that their "sin" was their inconsistent display of a trustable "human AI".[12]
Technology
They waited to license a game engine until after preproduction,
Post-release
Though their quality assurance did not see major Direct3D issues, players noted "dramatic slowdowns" immediately following launch, and the team did not understand the "black box" of the Unreal engine well enough to make it do exactly what they needed.[21] Spector characterized Deus Ex reviews into two categories based on how they begin with either how "Warren Spector makes games all by himself" or that "Deus Ex couldn't possibly have been made by Ion Storm".[16] He has said that the game won over 30 "best of" awards in 2001,[5] and concluded that their final game was not perfect, but that they were much closer for having tried to "do things right or not at all".[16]
References
Notes
- ^ Spector said elsewhere that Origin did not have the interest and Looking Glass did not have the funding.[2]
- ^ The team names were "Design Team 1" and "Design Team A" since both refused to be "2" or "B".[7]
- ^ GameSlice later reported that the reception between Daikatana and Deus Ex was "so disparate" as to put the games on separate planets.[2]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h Spector 2000, p. 52.
- ^ a b c Au, Wagner James (August 15, 2000). "A Spector Haunts Gaming: Inside the Mind of Deus Ex Designer Warren Spector". GameSlice. UGO Networks. Archived from the original on October 18, 2007. Retrieved July 5, 2014.
- ^ Gamasutra. Retrieved March 3, 2017.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Spector 2000, p. 2
- ^ a b c d "PC Zone votes Deus Ex the best PC game ever!". PC Zone. Future. April 26, 2007. Archived from the original on December 1, 2014. Retrieved July 5, 2014.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Spector 2000, p. 50.
- ^ a b c d e Spector 2000, p. 56.
- ^ USgamer. Gamer Network. Archivedfrom the original on July 15, 2014. Retrieved July 3, 2014.
- ^ Spector 2000, pp. 52–3.
- ^ a b c d e f g Spector 2000, p. 53.
- ^ Lane, Rick (16 February 2018). "The History of Ion Storm". PC Gamer. p. 2. Retrieved 8 May 2018.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Spector 2000, p. 57.
- ^ a b Webber (June 16, 1998). "Deus Ex Interview!". RPGFan. Archived from the original on July 3, 2014. Retrieved July 5, 2014.
- ^ Spector 2000, pp. 52–55.
- ^ Spector 2000, pp. 56–58.
- ^ a b c d e f g Spector 2000, p. 58.
- ^ a b c d e f Spector 2000, p. 3
- ^ Ishaan (November 10, 2012). "How Suikoden Influenced Deus Ex And Epic Mickey". Siliconera. Retrieved July 4, 2015.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Spector 2000, p. 54.
- ^ Spector 2000, pp. 54–55.
- ^ a b c d e f Spector 2000, p. 55.
- ^ a b c d Spector 2000, p. 5
Sources
- UBM TechWeb: 50–58. Archived(PDF) from the original on September 28, 2013. Retrieved July 4, 2014.