"I would like to extend a warm welcome to two new members, Ashley Graham, who joins us as a writer, and Alastair Douglas, who will be mapping for us. We also opened new forums, which you can get to by the forums link. If you have any suggestions or questions about the mod, now you can ask them!"

"You are Dari Kenton, a badass jack-of-all-trades for the Illuminati, and your job is to make sure that the Illuminati's secrets are never revealed. To enhance your abilities, you have been nano-augmented. These aren't your mothers nano-augs either. They've been upgraded with the latest modules, straight from Morgan Everett Industries, and you will always have the ability to pick up more. It is the year 2072, and the world is in chaos yet again. Riots are breaking out, and thousands are dying. Worse, conspiracy theories are starting to circulate, and suspicion of the government is beginning to build. The Illuminati leadership has drafted you to find the source of these rumors and stamp them out. Your primary responsibilities are as follows: 1) To neutralize any threat to the Illuminati's security posed by the new rumors, and 2) To put out the riots and restore order to the streets. The Illuminati will provide you with any weapons you may need, and may assign new goals periodically. Good luck soldier!"

Computer Games Magazine announced its Best of 2000 list. Deux Ex was nominated for Best Action and Best RPG, while Thief II was nominated for Best Action. Both lost (Action when to No One Lives Forever, while RPG went to Baldur's Gate II).

However, many editors mentioned Deux Ex as a top 5 game of the year.

The issue is the April 2001 issue.

Thanks Jonah for the heads up.

The have lost Lone-Fox, their only coder; OmegaI, who in the words of Phonix is "...an extremely talented modeller"; and Pnonix himself, the teams webmaster. All is not lost though, for they have gained a mapper/texure artist by the name of Messiah, and Nice-But-Dim has rejoined the team as a story writer.

Well, it seems they fought off the terrorist who tried terrorizing them, and even provided a little counter-terrorism.

I ventured over to the Counterfeit site and gabbed a little bit of the story for you. Below is a piece from their story section.

Sometime in the not-so-distant future, tension between the nations of the world began to grow stronger and stronger due to the planet's supply of natural resources becoming weaker and weaker. It began a good deal of corruption, and among the scandals and conflict that began to pop up, unexpected chaos.

So appeared such organizations as the United Nations' Reformation Coalition (or the UNRC); basically, a fancy name for a solid group of mercenaries that could be paid to snoop around. Missions of intelligence gathering and stealth were not uncommon.

Get on over there and checkout the rest of the story for yourself, as well as their whole site for that matter.

A chance to win Fame and Fortune.

Well fame anyway, all you have to do is design a Deus Ex or Modus Moriendi Desktop wallpaper for the Modus Moriendi Desktop. I will post entries below. The first two are wallpapers designed by Das Amigo. The previous web designer.

Images must be 1024x768 and use only 256 colors.The best entries will be included with the Modus Moriendi Mod. and maybe we'll find you a prize from somwhere (If your lucky).

email all entries in .jpg or .gif format to Gartog@planetdeusex.com

You know what to do. If you've got the skills, then get to work on your entry and show them what you've got.

Wow! One of our forum-goers, Halliwell (eek, a Spice Girl?), pointed out this site. My favorite things there are a huge spoilers section and secrets section. For those of you that played Unreal online, you probably remember the "waiting room" that you were in while the game loaded and connected. Apparently, the Deus Ex team created such a room for Deus Ex. It can be reached by typing "disconnect" into the console. I haven't tried it yet, so please report to me if this has been covered up by a patch.

Another neat thing I found was mention of an actual USE for cigarettes! Apparently, you can temporarily disable laser trips with cigarettes and fire extinguishers! Whacky stuff, guys. Be sure to go over there and check out all the rest.

Update: Busted! I just checked out the team page, and Halliwell is on staff! Halliwell, you've been busted for self-pimpage. Aw hell, it's okay. We here at Deus Ex Machina aren't in a competition (we know we're #1 ;).

Thief: To The Next Level----Conclusion

They also have a small update to their site that's worth checking out. Go here for their update.

When you have filled your brain with the Thief knowledge, rest easy, for you will have plenty more to learn tomorrow.

Well i have Uploaded Beasts two latest Maps:

DXMP_Arena
DXMP_Hells_Kitchen

I'll have his other one up soon its 95% complete there available for Download in the Maps Section but don't have Descriptions or pictures yet which i will be adding to all the maps that do't have them. I have three more maps to put up as well!

Files:
WoTgreal Version 2.100 (.u Browser)
S Clan Skin
New MP Class Skins

If you find any new files we don't have email me

I really don't care..................................................... 1.2% (1 vote)
No. There are enough.............................................. 2.3% (2 votes)
No. Just better ones...................................................15.1% (13 votes)
I don't play DX MP, so I don't care............................ 24.4% (21 votes)
Sure.....What's a couple more servers goig to hurt... 24.4% (21 votes)
Yes! Definitely!.......................................................... 32.6% (28 votes)

As usual, I have put up another poll that awaits your vote.

"I'd love to see a Deus Ex strategy game where the player is a VersaLife lab technician controlling a small eco-tank full of genetically manipulated creatures. Each 'level' would involve solving some problem (simple at first, complex and multipart later). The VL tech's goal would be to rapidly breed and train some Frankensteinian genetic freak creature to solve the problem for each level. For instance, the player would start with stock animal genome materials from the Deus Ex universe (pigeons, greasels, dogs, karkians, fish, et al). In the simplest level, the player would need to breed and train a creature capable of navigating a maze and flipping a switch. Later, using the stock creatures, plus the genetics for any creatures of his own design, the player would need to breed a creature capable of navigating an underwater maze in the dark, defeating a sentry creature (or bot), retrieving an object from a hazardous environment, etc."

If you'd like to read the whole article, then simply click here

When designing a game, how much do you REALLY have to think about any issues that could create negative publicity or restrict sales - like violence, nudity or sexism?

I have little respect for the objectivity or intelligence behind much of the "thinking" people have done vis-à-vis video games and violence. People have always been violent. People often react negatively to new media. People usually look for a 'silver bullet' simple answer to explain away things that disturb them. Most of the studies I've seen tend to confuse "aggressive play" with "the desire to hurt." After watching Sinbad movies as kids, my brother and I would wrestle on the carpet or have mock sword-fights with sticks. We never confused this with the intent to harm one another. Concurrent with the last round of violent-event sparked video game censorship talks in the US, the news agencies were saying that the violent crime level was lower than it had been in years; the murder rate was lower than it had been in decades. That said, violence in and of itself is not interesting to me. It's not at the heart of my goals as a game designer, nor do I think it's necessary for good, commercially viable games. (Last year, Pokemon Snap was one of my favorite games.) Whenever I feel like the game (or simulator) we're working on needs tension, I will use violence if it feels appropriate. Just like the creators of a novel or movie would.

This isn't going to be the only interview on Daves' site of top men and women in the computer gaming industry, so be sure to check his site on a regular basis.

Thief: To The Next Level----Part 2

It certainly is a shame when websites jump the gun because they feel they have to be first at everything. In the long run it hurts the relationships built up between gaming industry PR people and the gaming news sites people. Lets all hope this isn't the case.

I have emailed Mike, and will let you know what he says about the patches.

Update: Mike has responded, and the patches are indeed final versions. You can get them from Gamespot UK or The Adrenaline Vault. Sadly, Fileplanet still does not have a mirror.

As you all know, we launched Thief: To The Next Level, a 3 part interview looking at two of the most anticipated Mod's ever in the Thief community. Part 2 of this interview will be up tomorrow night or Saturday afternoon.

On another note, Eberon got into a car accident and hasn't been able to help out on the site much because of his recovery, and I've been sick the last two days with the flu, so I too haven't been able to work on the site much.

Please stay with us in our trying times here, we have alot of great things instore for you all, including another fantastic interview following the Thief: To The Next Level series.