Fan-made modifications are one of the principal parts of the Deus
Ex community, and Deus Ex Ed with it's innovative,
automated design is one of the largest resources on the subject. The
site's creater, Musician, was gracious enough to answer our inquiries
about the site and it's history, as well as other sundry topics.
[PlanetDeusEx] Superpowers. Got any?
[Musician] Well not per say but I do consider an ability to
consume large amounts of alcohol quite impressive. But if drinking
is a superpower then I live in Krypton, i.e. Ireland, where most of
us have this superpower anyway.
[PDX] What gave you the idea of creating Deus Ex Ed?
[M] I've been doing editing sites for a long time. I had
a Quake/Quake2 editing site on the home of Irish gaming, www.quake.ie,
for quite some time but it has passed on. When Unreal Tournament came
out I loved it immediately and started an editing site for it which
sadly has also passed on (my host very nicely dissapeared along with
all of my tutorials which I don't have on my machine anymore either
:( ). Deus Ex was for me the best single player experience, bar Half-Life,
to date and as it used the Unreal Engine it seemed natural to start
a site. I had visited the Ion Storm forum since the beginning and
knew there was an audience and so Deus Ex Ed began.
[PDX] How long has it been in existance?
[M] Not sure really. Not too long after the SDK was released.
A month perhaps. I don't think it was the first but it was one of
them.
[PDX] What maintenance, if any, does the site require, considering
that it's largely automated?
[M] Well not much really. I designed it so that it could
have a life of it's own because my job and my Unreal Tournament Clan
(Darkforces, under orders to mention my clan :) take up a lot of my
time. I always have things I want to add namely more tutorials, upload
script, password retrieval, Mod/Maps reviews etc. but in it's current
form it ticks along nicely without me feeling much pressure to get
things done, my inherent laziness. Then again this does tend to mean
that it's surpassed on tutorials by Tack's site for example, news
by dxediting.com, downloads by someone else and so on but in adding
the Guild to the site I think I've given it something different. I
just hope it's of use to someone. The few thank you mails I get really
make it worth while, automated or manually deserved :)
[PDX] Why is the name of your site directory named deusxd
instead of deusexed?
[M] God knows. The original site name was DXEd and I started by
putting the site on brinkster, for the asp facility, under the site
name of deusxed. No thought went into that but when I made the move
to rpgplanet, now PDX, I stuck with it. I had also talked to AsylumX
of dxediting and agreed not to use certain names he was considering.
The official name remains DeusExEd as the title on the site says.
[PDX] Any recommended books, tutorials or other resources for
doing ASP and database stuff?
[M] Well I've never read a book on asp or databases. All I know
I learnt from the web. The best being Webmonkey, http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/,
and 4guysfromrolla, http://www.4guysfromrolla.com/.
ASP is a very easy technology to learn and I would encourage anyone
who has the use of it, e.g. hosted by PDX, to read up on it.
[PDX] Have you actually released any of your mapping efforts to
the community?
[M] Nothing for DX unfortunately. Later this year I might do something.
I only ever released 2 maps and they were MP maps for the original
Quake. Not very good really and I've been tutorial writing or shock
comboing ever since.
[PDX] Have you worked with any other game editing tools besides
UnrealEd? If so, what did you think of them?
[M] Wordcraft (VERY early version of the Quake days) - not bad
but I think less of it these days having used others.
BSP - One of my all time favorites. I mapped my two Quake releases
with this and I grew to love the interface.
Radiant - another great editor based on the proprietary editor used
for Q2. It used a one window format and you switched between top,
side 3d etc. views with a button. I still think that was the best
way to do it.
I've messed around with quite a few editors but UEd remains my favorite
due to it's powerful features. It remains unique in that it uses the
unreal engine for the 3d view so you can see real lighting effects
etc.
[PDX] What does the Deus Ex Editing Community really, really need
right now?
[M] Well I haven't played Multiplayer Online at all as there don't
seem to be many servers near me :( but I would think a good MP mod
is essential. Something to really attract more players and one that
suits the style of Deus Ex. i.e. not CTF per say but a 'Steal the
Top Secret Plans' in a ctf kind of way type mod with proper infiltration
used. Lockpicking etc. should play an important part. If all you do
online with DX is play DM it will never rival the big name games for
online fun in my opinion.
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