Have a Happy New Year, and I'll be seeing you all in the year 2001. Hmmm, I just had an idea. Since I'm not venturing out tonight, I'll be trying to get the first frag of the new year in DX Multiplayer this evening. Hope to see some of you on, and share the bringing in of the new year with you.

"While Warren Spector and his team at Ion Storm Austin have put in some RPG elements, like augmentation of abilities and increasing skill levels, the truth is that they are just that: elements. At its heart, Deus Ex is an action game, one that broke all the rules in 2000 to produce a title unlike any that has been released before."

They're stretching it a bit by saying, "At its heart, Deus Ex is an action game..." At its heart, Deus Ex is an Action/RPG/FPS. You simply can't classify DX as one genre or the other, and trying to do so is absolutely absurd. Sooner or later PC gaming sites are going to have to realize this, and start coming up with mixed genres.

You can check out their GOTY results right HERE.

After a long time of getting this set up, DX Editing is no longer on a sub-domain of Deus-Ex.org, but rather on their own domain (still being hosted by us) and they have a special treat that they are getting ready to reveal you guys. I don't want to spoil it, so you'll just have to wait. For now, remember that dxediting.deus-ex.org is now www.dxediting.com. I've left the sub-domain working for a bit if your DNS servers aren't updated. I'll be taking down the old domain in a month or so.

To all the men working on the former Illumanati, I'm very sad to see you go, and I'm sure the rest of the community is as well. We wish you all luck, and hope to see some of you snatched up by other Fan Sites.

So, with all this excitement of another site facing defeat, I can't help but say, "Next! Excuse me! Who's next?!?!"

Editors Note: I thought Illumanati was a DX Mod, but was corrected by a guy named Chris who emailed me. I appreciate the correction, and was wondering why I didn't have the Illumanati's website in our database of Mod's.

Counter-Strike came in first place, while DX came in second. I don't understand this because Counterstrike is such a shallow story, no single player, and no character development game. On the other hand, it is the most played internet Mod in the FPS genre. I don't feel they should have even put Counter-Strike up on the poll since it's technically been out for well over a year and available for free on the Counter-Strike website. Anyhow, they got first and our beloved DX came in second. Although I've already mourned over this ordeal, and have accepted it, I can't help but think, "What in the hell is this world coming to when a shallow game like Counter-Strike wins"?

You can find the top ten poll results right HERE, and you can see the winner and two runner's up right HERE.

BackDoor's Ramblings #1

I'd appreciate any and all feedback on this column, whether it be on this issue or future issues. You can Email me right here.

Cold Hearted: Stephen “Kookie Munster” Morris has written up an article titled ”What Constitutes a Good Team Leader” which is an excellent read if you’re ready to kick off your own Mod. Heck, it’s an excellent read, even if you’ve already started your Mod and you’re the team lead for your project.

Deus Ex: Echoes of the Past: They have picked up one new person by the name of Rigel Denton. He will be in charge of the detailed story, mission development, and construction.

Deus Ex Fortress: They’ve got up some new shots of “For Blood and Honor” and Drevlin’s map. They celebrated hitting their 20,000 hit mark on their site by releasing two new model pics.

Deus Ex: The Edge of Dark: They too have picked up one new person who goes by the name of Chlestron. He is the mapper of the MJ12 level available for download right here.

Elite Ops: They’re asking for modes of play for their Mod. If you have any suggestions, contact phalnixoec@hotmail.com or contact nuke345@hotmail.com. They also have up a couple of new screenshots that can be found here.

Modus Moriendi: They’re seeking some mappers, so if you like mapping, get over there and apply. Their CTF version 0.81 is available for download at FilePlanet.

Redsun 2020: They need two Level Designer ASAP. If you got the skizillz, then hit up their website. Here are the requirements before you make that super quick jolt over there.
1. At least six months of UnrealED experience
2. Provide samples of maps and/or snapshots
3. Good communication skills and teamwork is extremely important
4. Know that you are Good......we wont take newbees. :)
5. Currently not involved in another MOD

Team UC: They finally put the Mesh Extractor up for download.

Terrorism: They’ve added 3 new members to their team, and they’ve put out a call for coders.

Warzone: They’ve added 1 person to their team named Dibby. They are in great need of texture artists and mappers, and coders are welcome as well. They celebrated Christmas on their site by providing the community with Map pics., Model pics., and Wallpaper.

If you don't see a Mod listed here, that's because there weren't any significant changes to their project in the last 10 days.

If you have PCGamer Magazine delivered to your house, it should be there already. If not, it will be in another day or two, and you can find their write up on Cold Hearted on pages #114 & #115. If you don't get the magazine delivered to your home, you can go to any computer hardware store and pick it up.

How does this pertain to the DX Community? Well, that's simple. We all know that DX is a long, lengthy game that has great character and plot development. The argument in the 'Does Length Matter?' editorial covers the basics of how gamers think differently about this issue. Hellchick tried to debate with Grey Loki, but fell a bit short if you ask me. Grey Loki had some nice arguments, but obviously isn't a debater either. Anyhow, the article is a great read and shows both sides of the coin, but I just wish I could've been in that debate, because that's my specialty. I'd simply bring up our God, 'Deus Ex', right off the bat, and that would pretty much set the tone for the rest of the debate. DX packs quantity and quality into the same package, and any game that doesn't do this simply shouldn't be made for public consumption unless it's put out there for free distribution.

The editorial itself falls short in an ironic way. Why? Is it too long or too short? No. They're debating a nil issue. The editorial should have been titled, 'Does Length Matter When $'s Are Involved?'. Of course a good game is not entirely dependent upon length alone, and of course everyone doesn't mind a great, short game. The real issue is whether or not we all feel the same way when money is being put on the line for a product.

Anyhow, you all obviously know where I stand on the subject, now it's your turn to get on over there and make your voice heard. They have a poll up on the second page of the article, so be sure to read it in it's entirety, then make your choice in their poll.

GameSpy: Could you describe your creation process? How do you move from concept to the final skin or texture? What equipment/software do you use?

Whitney Ayres: I sketch out initial concepts in Macromedia FreeHand, pull the vectors into Flash and do gradient dumps for lighting, then export to raster format and overlay filters in Photoshop until I'm satisfied with the level of polish. It sounds kind of circuitous, but it's actually a faster process because I'm used to the tools. The concept is handed off to another artist to model in 3DSMax, then I'll take the resulting object and perform tweaks on the geometry and incorporate textures.

To read the rest, you'll simply have to head on over to the Art of Gaming: Volume 3 interview at Gamespy.

TTLG's Deus Ex Discussion Forums 39.4%
Important News Section 18.2%
Metropolitan News Source 18.2%
The Community Section 12.1%
Game Data Link 6.1%
IRC Chat Link 3.0%
Sound Link 3.0%

I did not post the results of the remaining answers because they didn't receive any votes, but I will list the other answers for your knowledge. 'Recent Articles Section', and 'Review Links' were the two answers in the previous poll that scored 0.0%.

Thank you very much for your participation in the poll. Now, since you're already here, vote on the present poll, it's sitting right to the left hand side of this post.

This poll will run until January 9th. We will post the results of the last poll shortly.

If you have any suggestions for future polls, then send them to BackDoorBandit's email account. Below are examples of the different styles that I've been talking about above.

BackDoor's Style: There's a poll up at the Shugashack for 'Shack Game of the Year'. They have some very good choices, and I agree with more than one choice, but of course I had to vote for our most precious gem. Why don't they break the games up into genres? They make it so hard to vote this way, because there's more than one game of the year in my opinion, in their own respective genre of course.

Lancer's Style: I will be adding two more Mod's to our Community section. The Mod's are Cold Hearted and Deus Ex: The Edge of Dark.

Note** I have added a third option to the poll after an email request. You can now vote neutrally by saying it doesn't matter.

Pleae be patient with them at this time. We all run into this type of problem sometime or another, and it's a real pain in the butt.

Their poll can be found right here. Also, take note, the poll ends on December 28th, so get on over there.

They have up a 3 day feature on all three endings to our beloved game, and in-depth augmentation guide, and their own forums. They even have a massive walkthrough up. So, if you can't finish the game using our walkthrough that was provided courtesy of Absynthe, then head on over to their site.

We wish Deus Ex Central good luck, and are glad to have another fan site to spread the great word.

I'm not sure about the rest of you, but this info. has set the tone for the rest of my weekend. ISA easily deserves this award, and we congratulate them on this special occasion. Thanks Harvey for the heads up, and again, congratulations.

On that same note, I was reminded of the ignorance of so many careless people last night. On my way back from my company party, I was stopped at the Fort McHenry tunnel here in Baltimore for a sobriety check. Of course I was o.k., because I never mix drinking and driving, and besides I was the designated driver last night for another guy who's with the same company as me, and wished to attend as well. I want to urge all of you to please think before you drink, and don't do anything to put others in danger. If you wish to put yourself in danger, well, that's your choice, but don't bring your carelessness onto the roads and endanger the lives of many others.

On a totally different note, I will be starting up an article that will be known as 'BackDoor's Ramblings'. This will be a very opinionated, yet common sense, journalistic article I will be writing on a weekly to biweekly basis. I will cover things in the DX world along with plenty of things not in the DX world, but will somehow be related because it will cover issues in the computer gaming industry. The article will be a reflection of my opinions on certain aspects concerning DX and computer gaming in general, and will be up for discussion by the public if anyone so chooses. I'm not sure when I'll kick off 'BackDoor's Ramblings', so please stay tuned, and check our news on a daily basis, because that's where I'll post links to it.

Again, have a very Merry Christmas, but be safe while doing so. For all of you traveling, like me, watch out for that OTHER guy as well, because you never know what he/she has had to drink or what their mindset is. Have fun, remember what Christmas is all about, and don't drink too much eggnog.

Finally, after a long time repairing the issues with our server we are back online! Thank you for your patience while we worked on this problem, and thanks to the boys at UGO, we got back in a flash. However, if you find any errors on the server, please e-mail jonp@fpscenter.com (me) with a URL to where the error is occuring. Thanks!

It's good to know that we didn't lose such a well known, respectful site such as Deus-Ex.org. It's good to have you guys back.....now stay!

I will change their information in our Community section later on tonight to reflect the proper renaming of their site along with the proper URL.

Although Staggs Inc. isn’t the official name of the network that we are now managing, we have acquired several sites that used to be a part of the 3DG Network (www.3dgnet.com www.3dgnet.com). These sites include, but are not limited to:

www.nolfworld.com
www.tf2online.com
www.hlgaming.com

There are others, but they are not ready for release at this time. We at the FPS Network are also proud to announce that along with the acquisition of those sites, we are also proud to welcome both John Staggs (johns@fpscenter.com) and ‘Silent’ (silent@fpscenter.com), which will both be working with us as we work to expand this network.

If you are a hosted site with 3DG Net, we are willing to bring you on to our server if you are willing. Direct all questions pertaining to hosted sites in this merger to merger@fpscenter.com, and I will do my best to answer them as quickly as possible.

If you are an affiliate of 3DG Net, and you wish to inquire about this merger, please e-mail staff@3dgnet.com and they will be able to answer any questions you may have.

If you are an affiliate of the FPS Network (a.k.a. Game Center Inc.), and you wish to inquire about this merger, please e-mail us at merger@fpscenter.com.

The merger will not take place for a little time as we are setting up our server for a DNS switch. Once the switch is made, we will announce official acquisition of these sites.

Thank you for your interest in the FPS Network.

DX.org obviously still exists, but probably in cohesion with the fpscenter.com network, and probably no longer a separate entity by itself....at least temporarily. I will keep you up to date with information as I receive it.

Harvey Smith Interview

Stomped: What was the year 2000 like for your particular gaming projects? Were you happy with the response to your most recent games? if you did not release a game this year, were you happy with the progress made during your current game's development?

Spector: I was, and continue to be, pleased beyond belief at the response to Deus Ex. We knew what we wanted to do when we were making the game -- give players control over their interactions in the world and have the world respond to individual playstyle choices -- but we had NO idea how players would respond to that core idea. I remember walking around the office the last few weeks before we shipped, chewing my fingernails, wondering if people would get the fact that they could approach problems in a bunch of ways or whether they'd just run around feeling like they were on rails that weren't actually there. Would players compare our stealth model to Thief's? Would they compare our combat model to Half Life or Quake or Unreal? Would they compare our character interaction with a Baldur's Gate? We were trying to be this swiss-army-knife of a game and, to mangle the blade metaphor a bit more, comparisons with razor-sharp-focus games like Thief and Half Life and Baldur's Gate would be dangerous for us. Luckily, people really seem to be enjoying the DX approach. We're selling really well and winning awards and everything. What's not to like? But then, on top of all that, to get the chance to work on future games in the Thief series?... Yeah, you could say I'm pleased...

Deus Ex: Echoes of the Past

Terrorism

The Cassandra Project

Tsunami

Cold Hearted

Deus Ex: The Edge of Dark

Also, while over there, check out the interview they have with Odaiba of Redsun 2020.

Today at RPGPlanet, we take look at the Deus Ex multiplayer patch that was released just last week. Is it fun? Check out our article at: http://www.rpgplanet.com/features/articles/deusexmp/

Today turned out to be somewhat of a Deus Ex day at RPGPlanet, as we have also written up a Deus Ex trivia test, which is part of our weekly Role-Playing Gaming Tests (RGT) feature. How well do you know Deus Ex? Take our test and find out! http://www.rpgplanet.com/features/rgt/rgt7/

Well, what are you waiting for? Get over there and check out the goodies they've supplied us.

Harvey Smith (aka Witchboy), Lead Designer of Deus Ex, and also Lead for Deus Ex 2, has agreed to give DeusEx-Machina an interview.

I had asked him some time back for an IRC chat and he agreed, but we were waiting on our server to be moved and more stable. With ISA's recent move and their resettling in the new offices, I changed my mind and asked Harvey for an Interview instead, which would be easier on him.

Please stay tuned for the posting of the interview. I will post it within the next 4-7 days.

Elite Ops: They have up a new screenshot of their FN-P90 weapon which was modeled by Swatguy. They have picked up two new mappers, and therefore DO NOT need any more applications for such positions. However, they DO need 2D artists and Coders. On a side note, they seemed really stoked about the mappers they've picked up. Their excitement's rubbing off on me. Simma down now guys, sim....muh....dow....nah.

Essedarius: Their Taxi model is finished, their new texture for that model is in Alpha, and in the words of Ghost "We have been posting this for ages but here we go anyway; we really need some more Mappers and Coders and now we need some Skin artists and more modelers (modelers DON'T have to have Lightwave but 3DS Max would be nice)."

Modus Moriendi: They've added a new maps page to their site. You can go here to check it out. They seem to be looking for a modeler as well....one that can do Large Animals. They have also announced, and already delayed their CTF mod which was supposed to be released on December 10th at 9:00pm GMT. They have said they will keep us up to date on the news of the mod, but they haven't posted anything since December 12th.

Redsun 2020: First off, they have a much improved home page which is very well done, especially when compared to their old one, they have two new screenshots up, Snapshot #8 and Snapshot #9, and they have had some team turnover as well, basically 3 guys left, and 2 guys joined.

Team UC: They're Beta testing Steve Tack's Mesh Extractor which should be released in the next couple of weeks, and they have picked up JP9000, the one who "...invented the first and only mod loader for Deus Ex."

And there you have it, another complete update that was long overdue. Again, I apologize, but life and duty calls at times, and the beckoning only gets worse if you don't answer immediately.

As for this week, well, I've been busy with several things. My TFC clan, Christmas shopping, pulling a muscle in my back (which you really don't want to know how I did it, or you'd laugh uncontrollably), and of course the almighty women (Twins: Tracy & Stacy) have all taken up my time.

Anyhow, those are my stories, and I'm sticking to them. So, without further adue, here's the updates.

Darkstalker's Mini-Mods: Darkstalker has a new MP patch of his own that allows players to view pings while in a server. The file is a new DeusEx.u file, so you'll definitely have to download his newly created file.

Deicide: They have recruited two new mappers, Brian Troke and Milos Klient. They have up some new concept art, and a new Technology Datbase which gives information about such items in the Deicide world. They are also still looking for a 3D Modeller. If you've got the skills that pays the bills, then they want you.

Deus Ex Fortress : They have a new poll up, or at least they say they do. It really isn't a poll, It's a questionnaire, but we won't be too harsh on the guy, because you can clearly see his english needs some improvement just by looking at his spelling. Go here for their questionnaire. They are having a banner art contest. If you make them the coolest banner, then, well, of course you win. They have up some new pics of their nanoaxe models along with an interview with EternalSpark from DXF, conducted by spyro of Mods OutPost.

so the XQ--who once ran a cool dx web site--just icq'ed me and said: "the dj's from this NY radio show just mentioned deus ex. they are super critical of most games, but they love dx."

so i called them up immediately and talked on the air for a while. it's "The Opie and Anthony Show" on WNEW 102.7 FM.

they were fun to talk to and apparently are real gamers.

afterward someone mentioned that they are very popular and have, like, over a million listeners.

Thanks Harvey for the news flash. It's good to see that there are gamers in all fields and walks of life.

Power Recirculator (4.5%)
Ballistic Protection (4.8%)
Vision Enahncement (4.8%)
Spy Drone (7.2%)
Combat Strength (0.0%)
Speed Enhancement (7.2%)
Radar Cloak (1.0%)
Cloak (8.6%)
Self Healing (44.0%)
Silent Running (3.8%)
Aggressive Defense (1.7%)
Microfibular Muscles (1.0%)
EMP protection (0.0%)
Environment Defense (0.3%)
Targeting (2.7%)
AquaLung (1.4%)
Energy Shield (1.0%)
Radar Transparency (1.0%)
Synthetic Heart (0.3%)
Vision Enhancement (4.5%)
Total Votes: 291

Look.......don't argue with me........just get your booty on over there and vote! In case you're having problems finding the link, I'll be sure to post it right here for you.

I hope you all got the point. If not, then just click here.

Althought I wasn't the one moderating the chat, and didn't have a personal hand in it, I must "Thank" Warren for his time to the community.

Thank you Mr. Spector for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights with the rest of the DX community.

The game plays more tactically than most mp fpp games. many people have commented on this so far. (for the team, this was paramount.) in response to specific comments about the movement rate of the player character, dx designer ricardo bare says this, "The player speed is the way it is for two major reasons. We wanted to encourage gameplay that was more about strategic decisions rather than twitch skills. Also, the player speed is tuned to our various tools, skills, weapons, and augmentations."

ION Storm Austin has moved to its new location! we made it. i'm sitting in a shambled office right now, but the network is up!

Hopefully the new office will bring them some much needed space. They have grown tremedously over the past 6-7 months due to acquisitions from LGS and from other locations throughout the industry. The acquisitions have taken place in order to be able to work on both Deus Ex 2, and Thief 3 at the same time.

Blue's News has info on a Linux version of Deus Ex under development by Loki Entertainment:

http://www.lokigames.com/products/deusex/ product info page

http://odin.lokigames.com/ signup for beta test of the Linux version.

We appreciate this information, and I'm sure the rest of the community will to. Thank you.

Anyhow, I'd like to thank Lancer for holding down the fort all by his lonesome self while I was out drinking, gambling, and partay-ing all week long. I wasn't really, but I have to at least make him think that, so that he feels a wee bit jealous of my venturing.

I love you man. Oh, is that not appropriate for the web? Well, I love you anyways, and thanks a million for picking up the slack.