Game Club 199X - Deus Ex Ultra-team Challenge

[Snarboo]

The Deus Ex Ultra-Team Challenge has begun!

Now that everyone has picked a team, it's time to get this show on the road! I will be sending PMs out to the team leaders shortly, so be on the lookout. The save file can either be found in the game folder, or the My Documents folder in Windows.

A few tips for Team Newbie: Do not pick swimming. This goes without saying, but swimming is next to useless. There are not enough bodies of water to justify this skill, and for the few you do need to cross, you are usually given a rebreather. Stealth is your biggest ally, but if want to go in guns blazing, there are a number combat skills to choose from, rifles being one of the better ones. I recommend putting a few skill points into hacking, since a level 2 hacking skill will give you access to just about anything in the game.

Here are the ground rules:

• Team order has been chosen at random, with the first person on the list becoming team leader. Team leaders are responsible for choosing Denton's stats and creating the save file, but are otherwise normal team members.
  
• Team order determines who gets the save after one player is up. For example: If the team order is Dick, Sally and Tom, Dick will pass the save file to Sally when his turn is over, who will then pass it Tom when her turn is over. Please PM the next person in line with a link to your team's save file when your turn is over.
  
• When it's your turn, you have 24 hours to play the game any way you see fit. Death is not an option, however, so be sure to leave a living Denton behind for your teammates.
  
• Keep in mind that you have until 12 PM EST the following day to turn over the save file. Adjust to your timezone as necessary. If you live in an odd timezone and this is inconvenient for you, let us know!
  
• If you are busy for any reason, you may turn the save file over to the next person on the list. Be sure to contact them first and let them know!
  
• If for some reason all teammates are busy at the same time, the save will go to the first person who is available, then the turn order will resume from there.
  
• Each turn lasts up to 60 minutes, 90 minutes once the team reaches Hong Kong. Don't worry if you go over a little, just make sure it does not exceed 5 minutes. Turn time may be adjusted if this is not sufficient.
  
• Time only counts down when you are in control of JC Denton. This includes all dialogue screens, but not cutscenes where you do not have control of the character! The game keeps track of your total play, so go by the time stamp on the save file! However, feel free to pause the game as necessary.
  
• You are not obligated to post anything when your turn is up, but we'd appreciate it if you did! A simple trip report is more than adequate, but feel free to post tips, tricks, screenshots, movies, or anything else you can think.
  
• Most of all, have fun!

Here are the teams as they stand:

Team Newbie:

• susanismyalias
  
• xerxes
  
• Joseph Joestar
  
• muteKi

Team Police Brutality:

• TheGunheart
  
• Zogbog
  
• NamelessFragger
  
• TheChosen
  
• Discoalucard

Team Stupid:

• EksFaktr
  
• Sotenga
  
• NeoRasa
  
• Snarboo
  
• Feynman

[Weasel]

And don't forget, there are in-game note-taking functions, both in the Goals/Notes screen, and in the Images screen (where you can leave notes on the photos you're given).

[Snarboo]

An update on turn time: the game keeps track of how long you've played, so go by the time stamp on the save for your turn!

Edit:
I recommend keeping two save files: a personal one and the team save. That way you won't get yourself into an unwinnable situation. Be sure you sent off the team save, however!

[susanismyalias]

Alright, I'm uploading the first hour for Team Newbie now! Pants "JC" Denton has saved some dumb hostages, cleared out liberty island, and is now biding his time in Paul Denton's hotel room. Near by are some... MORE TERRORISTS!

I've geared this character a bit towards stealth thusfar, just because I've found it easier to play and combat is weird. Playing with stealth in mind has also really let me see how brilliantly the level design is. Truly remarkable.

Alright xerxes you're up! Get dem terrorists!

edit: also xerxes I haven't put any points into skills since the beginning of the game, so there might be enough skill points if you want to upgrade something, take a look.

bonus edit: in the settings make sure you set the color to 32 bit instead of 16 bit, which was the default for me, and 16 bit looks like assholes

[Deleted]

K guys, my playthrough is hosted up on youtube, will be uploaded within the hour. If you really want to know what Team Stupid is going to be up to, check out the link here. youtu.be/VoqLJ9Axzb4

[TheGunheart]

Nice going, susan. I'm really rusty, and after an hour I'm only in Battery Park. Decided to save the hostages first and go through the front door for a change.

[zogbog]

Pinkie Pie log:
We got an AR, put all the upgrades into it.
Then we went in via the roof and shot everyone, the generator was quickly exploded and we left.

Oh and we saved some hostages in the hotel. Oh and that dealer? Yea shot him with a shotgun. Team shoot stuff!

Have fun wondering around unatco...

[Snarboo]

Glad to see the first day has gone off without a hitch! I can't wait to see where this challenge leads us.

I've left a note in the dropbox folder describing how you should organize your team's saves, but I'm going to mention this here too just in case: please create a subfolder under your team's folder for each save! This will prevent confusion and potential file overwrites in case something goes wrong.

[NamelessFragger]

I should have mentioned this earlier, but you guys might want to visit kentie.net for the Direct3D10 renderer and a useful Deus Ex configuration tool.

[TheChosen]

Im almost done with my turn, there's still about five minutes to spend, but I had to take a break because I've ran into a glitch: Paul has disappeared from his hotel room! This is the first time the glitch has ever happened to me.

Fortunately, I have found a way which requires me to enter some cheats. I'll make an extra save just in case this somehow ruins our game.

But here's a quick rundown: Cleared the airport, got scolded by Paul because I shot NSF troopers who were ordered to stand down (I almost got one of the security bots to shoot Paul and turn him against it), shot Lebedev with a GEP gun before I even gave him change to talk, stole a trophy from the entrance lounge in UNATCO, gave Jojo a bad case of lead poisoning, had several beers and clobbered some journalist while having the effect, turned on the satellite and sented the signal, killed tons of guys with the assault rifle and now hopefully I can respawn Paul back and escape from all this madness.

EDIT: Done. On my way escaping, I ran into Ms. Navarre and shoved a GEP rocket right up her arse.

[TheGunheart]

Well, after someone decided to leave the GEP, I got a new one.

Got through quite a bit of Hong Kong. Got the both the Dragon Tooth and the ROM code. Sadly didn't do too much dude shooting, though. Have three dots in Regeneration as well.

[Discoalucard]

Haha yeah that was me. I'm a pack rat and didn't have room for it in my inventory. Figured someone else would grab it later.

[Deleted]

Not much happened for Team Newbie thanks to my ineptitude. I spent about an hour trying to get used to the game system while attempting to get into Paul's place, since some UNATCO soldier mentioned it and said that terrorists took hostages there. It is not going well. At the last point I was on this roof where there was a covered roof with an overlook to a warehouse/area below, and a bunch of assholes that would come out and kill me. I can't stand the assholes with the poison/drug crossbows. I fucking hate them.

At this point, I'm not sure what our augmentations are (partially cause I didn't look, haha...didn't look at the mission logs either), but JC is a fucking pussy that couldn't hit the broad side of a barn without "painting" it with the crosshairs for about 15 seconds. I'm thinking that I should have grabbed an assault rifle instead of the shotgun, because he can't seem to hit/kill anyone with the shotgun even at point blank range.

I really hate the "stealth" stuff in this game. I've never been all that good at stealth games, but having to sneak in first person is a fucking bitch. Snarboo mentioned that it's mostly related to line of sight and noise, but I'm having problems with making noise, even when crouching (i.e., I'll drop down onto a catwalk and some asshole will hear), and I suppose figuring out when the breakoff point is to switch to crawl/walk to avoid them noticing. It feels really awkward to me, and at any rate my usual play style is to just shoot the shit out of everything.

Here's hoping things go better for Muteki.

[Snarboo]

Weapon accuracy is the biggest beef I have with this game and the one thing I'd change. You'd think a trained agent could hit the broad side of a barn, but not JC! Of course, if you slap a laser sight on a weapon, aim becomes completely irrelevant (as long as you have the laser pointed in the right direction). This is why the Dragon Tooth Sword is the best weapon in the game: you don't have to worry about it hitting things. If this game had iron sights, that would help alleviate a lot of the problems I have with shooting dudes.

I'm going to be streaming my turn later this evening, about 10 PM EST, so here's an early link to my stream.

[Deleted]

Aug 15, 2012 12:36:40 GMT -5 Snarboo said:

Accuracy the biggest beef I have with this game and the one thing I'd change. You'd think a trained agent could hit the broad side of a barn, but not JC! Of course, if you slap a laser sight on a weapon aim becomes completely irrelevant (as long as you have the laser pointed at any enemy in any case). If this game had iron sights, that would alleviate a lot of the problems I have with shooting dudes.

I'm going to be streaming my turn later this evening, about 10 PM EST, so here's an early link to my stream.

I'm kind of hoping to get a dedicated melee weapon (Dragon's Tooth?) because I had a lot more luck running in and crowbarring terrorists to death . I was having issues with the stun rod...