The Human revolution thread, now with 233213% more spoilers

[AEmer]

I think they probably thought about it. I don't see why they wouldn't....nomatter how pressured, you're still going to put in the 8 hours of thinking time it takes to run down everything in your head to make sure it makes sense, if you do an ending.

And I would assume that prichard has hacking augmentations, but I have no idea - the only reference I came by is that he has a biochip.

And again, I agree - we may not know if Eliza can be trusted. But if she can't, it effectively makes the endings meaningless, because the player might not be making a choice at all.

But yeah, in the end, what happens during any of the endings is open to interpretation.

Oh, and a denouement sequence might have been nice, but you do get to end most quests as resolved as they can be from Adams perspective. Denouements are always nice, but I'm not sure they're always necessary...that's imo.

[Undisputed]

I was very intrigued to read everyones responses and input on the game.

Like Jonas, I also chose the Sarif ending because I felt, if I was in the same position I would have made the same choice to compensate for my ideals. I guess I was immersing myself in the game enough to feel the significance of my choice overpower any other instinct. Unfortunately, I didn't think about the consequences of this choice, but with just about any (technological) advancement in life comes repercussions so its not something I would beat myself up over. Which of course, is if Augmentation continues a new batch of kill switches or other similar devices secretly embedded could be made that would dictate every aspect of our lives. Nevertheless, it would be a risk I would take for the potential betterment of humanity, I respect every choice and can see why people would chose a specific path however.

One thing that struck me about this game is the realism of its subject matter, throughout the game I was saying to myself "Holy shit, this could totally happen" and was even more impressed the designers of the game could already predict the repercussions and outcomes of possible exploitation to the new technology. I truly applaud them for this.

I am curious to see why you all would want, or not want a sequel to this game. And which ending do you feel should carry over to the sequel, or should there be no definitive path besides the one presented after the end credits?

[SyntaxError]

Did anyone see this:
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/09/15/star- ... tion-load/

Discussion has been boiling up again over at the Eidos Forums, but so far most people seem to not have seen something like that.
When I checked yesterday after the update and this morning I did not yet get any ads.
Wonder if it is very elaborate trolling or if it's true but so far limited to certain regions/platforms.

[Undisputed]

Did anyone see this:
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/09/15/star- ... tion-load/

Doubt its true, I've played a really long time my first play through and never witnessed any advertisement, besides Eidos Montreal which I believe I may have spotted a few times but I would have to check again.

[Grammatolatry]

I was just wondering, when you get back to your apartment from killing boss 2, why does Adam get shocked when he heads towards the elevator before going into his apartment? Is it because of carpet-friction, or a warning/reminder?

[Undisputed]

I was just wondering, when you get back to your apartment from killing boss 2, why does Adam get shocked when he heads towards the elevator before going into his apartment? Is it because of carpet-friction, or a warning/reminder?

Don't take my word for it but I believe it is the glitches in his system, what I do know for a fact is that it happens several times periodically through out the game, it may even occur at random times. (For example it happens when you enter Hengsha the second time and if you look carefully at the citizens/civilians across from you, you see they are affected by the shock wave glitch as well)

The conspiracy continues.

[nerdenstein]

J

Did anyone see this:
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/09/15/star- ... tion-load/

Doubt its true, I've played a really long time my first play through and never witnessed any advertisement, besides Eidos Montreal which I believe I may have spotted a few times but I would have to check again.

Jaedar posted a link to a Steam Screenshot of an Star Wars ad ingame in the other thread.

[AEmer]

I am curious to see why you all would want, or not want a sequel to this game. And which ending do you feel should carry over to the sequel, or should there be no definitive path besides the one presented after the end credits?

They should pick an ending and run with it. The most interesting one in my oppinion would be the illuminati one, so I hope that's what they go with.

The choice is so relatively shallow that they can continue with a specific one without pissing anybody off (that much, anyway...).

I want to see a sequel because I had a lot of fun playing this game. Doesn't get any simpler than that

[WildcatPhoenix]

I am curious to see why you all would want, or not want a sequel to this game. And which ending do you feel should carry over to the sequel, or should there be no definitive path besides the one presented after the end credits?

They should pick an ending and run with it. The most interesting one in my oppinion would be the illuminati one, so I hope that's what they go with.

The choice is so relatively shallow that they can continue with a specific one without pissing anybody off (that much, anyway...).

I want to see a sequel because I had a lot of fun playing this game. Doesn't get any simpler than that

Agree about the ending. Trying to tie in three very disparate end games (like they did in IW) just doesn't feel satisfying, in my book. Some of the endings in DX:HR would be difficult to lead in to DX1. Might as well pick one and let people establish their own "alternate universe" ideas for the others.

[Dragon]

I was very intrigued to read everyones responses and input on the game.

Like Jonas, I also chose the Sarif ending because I felt, if I was in the same position I would have made the same choice to compensate for my ideals. I guess I was immersing myself in the game enough to feel the significance of my choice overpower any other instinct. Unfortunately, I didn't think about the consequences of this choice, but with just about any (technological) advancement in life comes repercussions so its not something I would beat myself up over. Which of course, is if Augmentation continues a new batch of kill switches or other similar devices secretly embedded could be made that would dictate every aspect of our lives. Nevertheless, it would be a risk I would take for the potential betterment of humanity, I respect every choice and can see why people would chose a specific path however.

One thing that struck me about this game is the realism of its subject matter, throughout the game I was saying to myself "Holy shit, this could totally happen" and was even more impressed the designers of the game could already predict the repercussions and outcomes of possible exploitation to the new technology. I truly applaud them for this.

I am curious to see why you all would want, or not want a sequel to this game. And which ending do you feel should carry over to the sequel, or should there be no definitive path besides the one presented after the end credits?

There's actually something which doesn't make any sense and this is the biochips. As I get it anybody with mechanical enhancements has such a chip in the brain. Why exactly? Or said differently, why should somebody with a replaced arm need a biochip when it is all about feeding the nerve signals into the mechanical input sockets and vice versa? So far this is the major breaking part in the story since this entire biochip trick only works if everybody with enhancements has a biochip yet it makes no sense for all to do so.

@Grammatolatry:
Concerning the glitches that's with 99.9% probability the disruption waves send out. After all if you want to get people to replace a biochip it would look even more suspicious if the glitch happened once and then a recall happens. Makes sense to send out some weaker glitch-waves before hand to make people nervous.

@AEmer:
I don't think Pritchard is augmented with a hacking augmentation. He disses Jensen once for his hacking job by saying that a hacking augmentation doesn't make him better at computers or something like that.

[AEmer]

@Dragon:

Wait, is it actually described how you get humans to interface with the incredibly advanced prosthetics in HR?

And does this explanation somehow say something that renders the biochip unnecessary?

About prichard...well he clearly speaks of himself as though he's augmented, so he must have _some_ augmentation. Maybe it's not a hacking augmentation, but it's probably something that makes him a more profecient tech, since that's his job.

My best guess, anyhow.

[Dragon]

Wait, is it actually described how you get humans to interface with the incredibly advanced prosthetics in HR?

Somewhere at the beginning there is an ebook I think which explains the problems with neuropozyne. They talk about how strongly nerves have grown together with the prosthetics. After all our nerve system is based on electricity and so does a prosthetic. It's also mentioned how in Jensen's case this connection between nerves and prosthetics is astonishingly fast and complete not requiring neuropozyne. It's not explicitly stated if I'm not mistaken but so far I don't see an actual reason for a biochip for a prosthetic arm to function. One explanation would be that the brain sends the signals and so the biochip captures the brain signals and transforms them to whatever the prosthetic needs. In that case though why not just tap into the nerve signals ending up at the shoulder and decode it into whatever the prosthetic arm needs as input. Code translation job. Now that's the scientist in me speaking so I could miss a catch they put in the game.

And does this explanation somehow say something that renders the biochip unnecessary?

Not that I know. It's though also not stated to my knowledge why the biochip is needed for even a simple arm prosthetic. Leaves the question is Malik or Pritchard would be affected too, especially Malik as she has only a few neurons tampered with in here head. I don't think she has a biochip, doesn't she?

About prichard...well he clearly speaks of himself as though he's augmented, so he must have _some_ augmentation. Maybe it's not a hacking augmentation, but it's probably something that makes him a more profecient tech, since that's his job.

The talk about the biochip. He definitely has one that's for sure. Maybe he had some neurons flipped too? So this would mean Malik has a biochip too? The story doesn't really satisfy me. There are too many parts not fitting logically together. Maybe a DLC can shed some light on this but that would happen without me.

[AEmer]

This is from memory, but the neuropozine one goes something like this:

Copper electrodes allow a connection between nerves and augmentations, but these tend to be overgrown with glian tissue fairly rapidly.

Adam is unique in that instead of glial tissue, he overgrows the electrodes with nerve-tissue.

Why would a biochip in the brain make sense? Well, if you need a translation from the nerves to the prostetics, the brain might be the best place to put it. There's a lot of nerves inthere. For instance, the optical nerves in humans have much higher "bandwidth" than any other nerves; it's possible to make people read with their fingers, sure, but they'll never be able to get the "data transfer speed" up to the same level. That dude which they've given an artificial "eye", for example, needed brain implants as I recall.

Such a chip could probably use the human bodys natural conductivity to communicate with the various prosthetics in binary code without any trouble. It would translate brainwaves to digital signals.

[DDL]

Finished it! Also damn: ninja'd by AEmer. Fuck it.

Will probably produce a giant tome of ranting at some point, but for now a quick answer to dragon's point:

The reason they all needed brain implants as well as giant hulking mech arms and shit is probably due to plasticity: to bolt on a mech arm and have it follow impulses directly at the level of "nerve transmission into the arm" would require the arm to have more or less the exact same number and level of nervous coupling so they could do a 1:1 matching of incoming nerve:outgoing mech diodewhatevers. Needless to say this would some pretty extreme microsurgery. Given that we have a fucking TON of nerves, governing positioning, force, proprioception, pressure, painful pressure, heat, damage, cold, and so on, and that they hilariously all look absolutely identical at the gross morphological level (and that finding out which is which at a more detailed level is generally destructive to the tissue concerned), this would be difficult at best.

And importantly, nerves in your arms do not, for the most part, reorganise. This is important.

By bolting on an arm and just linking it straight to a chip that you just stick on the brain, you exploit the brain's natural plasticity: the brain CAN remap, and does so on a regular basis. You stick the chip in the area that is closest to governing 'arm movement' (can be highlighted by tomography, probaby) then just get the arm owner to try moving the arm by vaguely thinking at it, and give them sufficient feedback on progress, and you can let the brain figure out what bit of the chip does what. It builds all those tricky nerve connections for you. They have actually DONE this with a monkey, already (and I think they note that in one of the ebooks). It was..iffy, but impressive. Or massively morally reprehensible, if you're that way inclined.

(journal article)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v4 ... 06996.html
(yootoob)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnWSah4RD2E

In essence, the biochip interface would be the core of pretty much all augmentation tech, translating squishy brain thinking into machine-interpretable implementations, and translating machine-based machiney stuff back into squishy brain feedback.

It kinda makes sense, so +5 science points to EM. The clearly consulted at least a few books/scientists.


I'll go into why conversely, neuropozyne was all kinds of stupid in a bigger rant, though.

[Undisputed]

A spoiler/interesting fact is that after you deal with Zeke in the very beginning, you can backtrack the entire building and speak or observe the soldiers who came in as the clean up crew. One is even humorously capturing footage (or taking pictures) of the hacker who blew his brains out on his phone. They spawned a ton of soldiers throughout the building complex and really put alot of detail into this.

I just thought I'd mention it since its something players may miss, maybe not dedicated Deus Ex players like ourselves but a large majority of newcomers definitely would.