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Revision Discussion Board » General Discussion » Introduce yourself! » Who is this clown? (get popcorn, long topic (first two replies are part of OP))
Who is this clown?
DarkRealityDate: Saturday, 2009-05-02, 0:51 AM | Message # 1
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Hello everyone, Dark Reality here. I'm the newest member of DX:R, having just been recruited by Trasher yesterday or the day before. (I'm nocturnal, my days kinda all flow together.) I haven't actually done anything yet but throw some ideas around, but Trasher thinks I have what it takes and I'm eager to prove him right.

My role is this: I'll be adding "life" to DX:R. If you've played the recently released The Nameless Mod, the total conversion (new game) for Deus Ex, you've probably seen how everyone has in his or her office a music CD or two, a movie or two, a game, maybe a movie poster or something. TNM added a lot of textures like that. And it doesn't stop with pop culture references. Petri dishes for the labs, ashtrays for the restaurants - there's just a LOT of new stuff. My big idea was to find a way to get all these extra props into the original DX somehow. (TNM is released under a Creative Commons license that allows us to use their stuff, so permission isn't an issue.) Rather than strike out on my own, I remembered the fun I had with DX:Revision a few months ago or whenever when I tried their demo. Since my imagined mod would compete with DX:R, I thought, why not see if we can work together? I don't know the first thing about UnrealEd actually, but both Trasher and one of the lead devs for TNM both assure me it's easy.

As for Deus Ex, I've been playing it since it was new. I bought the game when it first came out for $50 or $60. I don't remember why I bought it. I didn't play a demo, and YouTube wasn't around then. I had a better job then than I have now, so it was most likely a blind buy. I have literally played it over 100 times start to finish, quite possibly more. My wife's watched me beat the game, and then turn around and start a new one, and go through Liberty and Clinton before saving and calling it a day. It's like that favorite movie or book or album you can listen to over and over again, but I have never listened to any CD, read any book, or seen any movie as many times as I've played Deus Ex. Then I joined GameFAQs in 2006 and realized I didn't know as much as I thought I did. I learned about all kinds of secrets (and exploits). For example the (near worthless) storeroom in the airport, across from the pool tables. You open it by playing the pinball machine, or using the console in the security room across the lobby.

I also learned about mods - I'd been playing vanilla the whole time. I learned about Shifter, and with author Y|yukichigai's permission, made a fork called ShifterPlus which basically raises the ammo capacity by about a thousand fold for most guns (less for the GEP gun, and the grenades). I believe if you don't cheat (ALLAMMO) you'll never be told you have enough of that type of ammo, and that's the goal. Skill level prices are revised a little, biocells are worth more, the speed aug does more (you can nearly fly on level 4 with the synthetic heart activated - and you can hurt yourself, too), and you can upgrade your Datalink to remotely access computers and terminals from the distance of the Sniper rifle (thanks to Smoke39 for that). I also had the DX board on GameFAQs name all the best secrets in the game, and then ran a "hurt & heal" on the suggestions to come up with the ten best. I then wrote a pretty good article about them on my site (which also hosts ShifterPlus) which you can find by clicking "WWW" below my post. I've wrote a few other articles I think are worth reading, such as an explanation of what happens between DX and IW, including which ending JC would have had to have chosen in DX. Also a lengthly opinion of how a film adaptation needs to be to best honor the game. And I started a novelization; though it's been stalled for a couple months, I post every chapter as I finish it. Liberty's done, UHQ#1 is done, and before that there's a "back story" chapter I'm kind of proud of. JC meets Gunther, and Gilbert and Sandra Renton before Liberty - and before he gets his augmentations, when he's still 100% human. One of the goals of the story is character development.

 
DarkRealityDate: Saturday, 2009-05-02, 0:52 AM | Message # 2
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As for me personally, well, I shouldn't need to say that I love to write. Kudos to you if you're still reading. I'd like to think I'm interesting but I know it's not always the case. Anyway, I live in the middle of nowhere east of Greenville, NC, but I was born and raised in Santa Rosa, CA, about an hour north of San Francisco, up in the wine country. I've been a computer geek since my dad's Commodore-Amiga 1000, maybe before, but that's the first one I remember. I've been online since 1994 when my dad introduced me to Altavista, before Google and Yahoo. I've been on message boards since I joined the RIAA's forum in 1999 when they were still trying to shut Napster down. (I advised them to regulate it, rather than shut it down, because the successor would let people share more than just .mp3 files - look where we are now. I also, more importantly, argued in favor of fair use when downloading music one already owns (e.g. on tape or album). I was arguing with record execs up there, it was brilliant. They shut it down because of "people like me" but I don't recall ever having any help up there. So you might say I shut down the RIAA forum.)

After that I did a lot of bouncing around before finding a "home" on the forum for the band Disturbed. To make a long story short, I made a really good friend up there, and decided to go see her for my 25th birthday. I fell in love within a week (which is how long I stayed) and, after two more visits (she visited me, I visited her again) I decided to pack everything up and drive across the country. It took a good week, but I made it, and we were married the next year. This July 7 makes 3 years. (No kids yet, but we're trying.) I quit the Disturbed board a while before they shut it down in favor of a paid-access site (surprisingly, people do pay to talk about Disturbed online) and started my own board, using a piece of software called Invision Power Board. Great software, but lousy people. Not on the board - that never really took off - but at Invision. Someone asked me where to get the limited edition of Final Fantasy 8 for the PC (only a thousand or so were made) and I suggested a certain P2P network. They shut the site down because of it. Just like that. Guess it wasn't meant to be.

When I'm not at my computer, I work - a lot. I sleep a lot, too, when I can help it. I spend as much time with my wife as I can, but alas, she works and sleeps a lot too. And she's more addicted to forums than I am (if she sees this, she'll register just to post "am not!"), plus MySpace and other empty attractions online. *sigh* I love sci-fi shows, and have watched, start to finish, Star Trek: The Next Generation, ST:Deep Space Nine (twice!), ST:Voyager (twice!), ST:Enterprise, Babylon 5, Twin Peaks, Battlestar Galactica, and the Doctor Who soft reboot which started in 2005. The ones I watched twice, I watched once alone and once with my wife. She and I are working on Babylon 5 now. As I got her into sci-fi, she got me into wrestling. We watch the WWE near religiously, though when I watch it on my own, I skip through recaps and boring matches. It's only been 4 years, but I feel like I've been watching it for twice that. We don't and can't stay current, but we DVR what comes on TV and download what doesn't (most notably, SmackDown). We also play Rock Band on the Xbox 360 and buy downloadable songs weekly. The list of songs we can choose from numbers 316 currently, and we have the points to buy nine more. Honestly, I suck at it, but I try, and I have fun. My wife's the expert on all four instruments who can play anything. She is to Rock Band how I am to Deus Ex, I think, though she hasn't been playing it for as long. Outside, I love to drive - nothing fast or fancy, I just love being behind the wheel.

Which I guess all brings us to now.

As it relates to DX, I've always wanted to do something for the DX community. ShifterPlus and the whole of my DX site sort of serves that purpose. (I've also got a cell phone theme - wallpaper and ringtone - and designs for a DX shirt you can make with iron-on transfers.) But it's not really enough. I hope I can make a worthwhile contribution to DX:R. It's not even the recognition; they could take my name off the crew page and it wouldn't bother me (though it wouldn't stroke my ego as it does, either). It's more the feeling that I've given something back. For the past couple years I've wanted to do something important, and I think, TNM aside, DX:R may be the most important thing to happen to DX. Shifter was pretty big, of course, no denying that, but DX:R breathes new life into the game like nothing else.

 
DarkRealityDate: Saturday, 2009-05-02, 0:53 AM | Message # 3
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As it relates to this forum, you may see Trasher made me an admin. Feel completely free to disagree with me for any reason. I'm not going to be a moderator. I spent enough time on GameFAQs to know better than that. I'll clean up spam if I see it, or if someone posts clearly illegal content (like Windows 7 downloads, or illegal porn), but I'm not out to bust heads. As it relates to this community, I really just want to be an equal and discuss the game and other topics of interest. I'd ask to be demoted, but as a geek, I love being able to get under the hood.
 
TrasherDate: Sunday, 2009-05-03, 10:21 PM | Message # 4
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Wow, that's some big post you got there, nice introduction aswell.

As DarkReality said, he has just joined the Revision team. Welcome aboard! DarkReality will be in charge of adding in-game texts,support,beta-testing and as a minor mapper.

Oh by the way Dark, I got our server back online.. our small "database" will be up in a few days.

 
DarkRealityDate: Monday, 2009-05-04, 0:38 AM | Message # 5
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Ooh. This is gonna hurt. I can't make the SDK work with Vista. I'm not unwilling to go back to XP at all, though I'd like to stick with and learn Vista, even though it's got its faults.

Yeah, looks like I pissed off the post parser. Not sure what the limit's set at, but I broke it. Twice. I do that. Once on a board with no limit, some years ago, for the hell of it, I posted the entire text of Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire. The admin was not amused. (Yeah, anyone remember when vampires were still cool?)

I (may have) forgot to mention, another pet project of mine is tentatively called "DX on a stick". Already, you can install DX, the latest patch (not necessary if you install GOTY edition), Shifter (optional), TNM (optional) and probably others, and copy the whole folder to a flash drive. The game is portable as long as you redirect the CDPath (just take out the drive letter). DX+TNM=2.21GB though and not all flash drives are created equal. You want the smallest (capacity) Corsair Flash Voyager or Readout. Smaller capacity inherently means faster in flash drives, and virtually nothing beats a Corsair in the 0 to 60, as it were. Then your next big hurdle is the save folder. Loads and saves (including map transitions) will take 3-5 minutes PER on the flash drive, so the save folder needs to be copied and the INI file redirected to the C drive so the saves and loads don't make the game annoying. The finishing touch will be full integration with the PortableApps.com menu so you can choose "Deus Ex", "The Nameless Mod", "Deus Ex with Shifter", and others from a simple menu. Maybe we can even get/make a Deus Ex skin for the menu and that would be the flash drive's only purpose. Then you could take DX anywhere. But that's a ways off.

 
bjorn98009_91Date: Monday, 2009-05-04, 7:07 PM | Message # 6
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Really great introduction there! Welcome to the team!

You love sci-fi too? biggrin As a Trekkie/Trekker I'm going to watch the new Star Trek movie on the premiere on Friday biggrin

 
DarkRealityDate: Tuesday, 2009-05-05, 3:00 AM | Message # 7
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Thanks bjorn and thanks for the rep boost. I was looking for a way to reply, I guess you can only reply to messages, not notifications. Anyway, ShifterPlus isn't that big of a deal, it's just a Shifter hack - though I'll always defend the raising of the ammo caps. I always thought it was a fault in DX that it was throwing ammo at you - some of which you had to go through Hell for - and then turns around and says "you can't carry anymore". To find out you wasted a lockpick on a clip of 10mm ammo might bother some (not me - pistol's my main weapon) but it's just insulting to be told you can't carry it after all.

My wife and I are both excited about the new Star Trek movie - so's my mother, actually - she's called to tell me about it no less than three times. "Did you hear about the new Star Trek movie?" she'll ask. We'll watch it when we can, hopefully sometime this weekend, but I don't much like crowds. I like to go to the movies and sit in the very back row, dead center, right under the projector. And I don't like anybody next to me except my wife. Come into the theater and somebody's in my spot, or I get my spot and some stranger wants to sit by me - not cool. My TV's only 32" and 720p but it looks good and the sound system's really boss, it's almost worth it to just wait for video.

As far as sci-fi, I didn't mention, I'm watching Torchwood now. Set in the Doctor Who universe, it's kind of like X-Files and Men in Black. Torchwood's a top-secret organization recognized but not part of the British government, and they monitor alien activity and keep it in check. Their leader is virtually immortal and takes a shot to the head in the pilot, gets back up. He actually dies in Doctor Who at an age "in the hundreds of millions" in the future, on another world, and in a different physical form, but that's entirely beside the point. It's a more mature show than Doctor Who by far, with depictions of sex (no nudity) and coarse language. Not nearly as dark as Battlestar Galactica though.

Star Trek was so cool when it was all I knew. Doctor Who is kind of silly, but I enjoyed it a lot more than most of Trek (at least Enterprise and a lot of Voyager). Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica are both immensely better. I still think ST:Deep Space Nine's "In the Pale Moonlight" owns all. It's great until the last sentence, where it becomes truly epic. Star Trek is kind of like the gateway drug of sci-fi. Star Wars, yeah, sure, but that's more fantasy, and not nearly all Star Wars fans get into any other sci-fi. Star Wars is a fun ride, but it doesn't get into the science enough. Doesn't make you think. Doctor Who is much the same way, but Star Wars is much more approachable (at least for Americans, I think?). Yet I can't help wondering if R2-D2 isn't based on the Daleks. I know the phone booth in Bill & Ted was zoinked from DW.

 
bjorn98009_91Date: Tuesday, 2009-05-05, 8:17 PM | Message # 8
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I know about Torchwood smile I hope it's back on the air soon. :/ I also LOVE Doctor Who. The cleverness of it all, running around, hitting things with a plastic hammer and being totally crazy. I love that.

In the sci-fi club that I'm a member of (actually I'm a board member :D) we sometimes watch Battlestar Galactica and we are in the beginning of the forth season now, sad that it eventually comes to an end. But don't spoil anything because I haven't watched it all.

 
DarkRealityDate: Tuesday, 2009-05-05, 8:28 PM | Message # 9
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Oh, the ending's awesome. A bit bloated, they could have cut a bit of it, there was a lot of filler, but the last minute or so was pure epic win.

Funny thing about Doctor Who, this show's overall pretty silly, right... The main villains are the Master, the Cybermen, and the Daleks. The Daleks are cute at best, the Cybermen are completely non-threatening, and of course the Master owns all, but he only shows up once in the new series (season 3). Anyway, most of it's just cute and silly but overall cool, and then they throw the Ood at you - much like the Pak'ma'rah on Babylon 5, ugly aliens with tentacles coming out their mouth area. The Ood are downright scary at first, especially with the red eyes. As if that's not bad enough, they've got that scene in Season 1 ("The Empty Child") where the doctor... a gas mask comes out his mouth and takes over his face. It was just uncharacteristically creepy. And the little girl, I believe towards the end of Season 2 ("Fear Her"). But what really takes the cake is the episode "Blink" in Season 3 or 4. I can't remember if it was Donna Noble or Martha Jones with him, but those angels which could only move if nobody was looking (including the audience, lol). The face on that one when the guy looks over his shoulder for just a second. Like our guitarist says when we suggest Yngwie Malmsteen on Rock Band, "Not no... but HELL NO!" I'd like to see more horrific stuff on the show like that, but I guess with Doctor Who being more of a family show, I should be expecting that out of Torchwood.

 
bjorn98009_91Date: Tuesday, 2009-05-05, 9:48 PM | Message # 10
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Haha, Blink is great! biggrin That is Martha with him in that episode, Season 3.

This is the main reason why I like Doctor Who: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK3tTGB72jE
Just look at it, the dialogue is totally random, and that makes it so damned funny.

 
DarkRealityDate: Wednesday, 2009-05-06, 2:39 PM | Message # 11
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Yeah, it's like this unlikely hero is so unlikely to actually solve any of the problems laid out before him, so when he does, it's satisfying somehow.
 
Kee715Date: Friday, 2009-06-26, 4:39 AM | Message # 12
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Hello DarkReality, I have been absent from the DX:R forums for some time and missed some stuff. I wish you and the rest of the DX:R team the best of luck on the mod and hope that none of you lose your sanity. biggrin

Sorry for the absence by the way, I spent most of my time over at OTP, FPSBanana, GameFAQs, and Mod DB.


Good, Bad, I'm the guy with a Minigun, Chainsaw, and a big a** Cannon.
I'm a gamer at heart, but I'm limited by my surroundings...
 
TrasherDate: Saturday, 2009-09-19, 2:50 AM | Message # 13
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Hey Kee715, No problem. Nice to see you stopping by every now and then. smile
 
Revision Discussion Board » General Discussion » Introduce yourself! » Who is this clown? (get popcorn, long topic (first two replies are part of OP))
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