Ghandaiah: OH DEAR GOD, I HAVE POCKETS!
King Kashue: Back to your office, Ghand!
King Kashue: Back to your office, Ghand!
An award-winning mod for Deus Ex, over 7 years in the making, that actually came out in March 2009.
The game is set in Forum City, a virtual representation of exactly that - a social internet forum. Forum City is a hub for myriad industries and social interaction, as the virtual forum has become the medium of choice for running society. This makes all the problems endemic to forums magnify a thousand-fold: flame wars are actual REAL wars fought between people of opposing ideologies, and crime committed in the forums is actual crime with real-life consequences. The Moderators of the forums, therefore, are powerful entities indeed, nigh-invulnerable beings with the power to stop anyone cold in the name of maintaining order.
The game starts when one of said Moderators disappears, causing an enormous vacuum in the city's established order. This happens at the worst time possible: two religious cults are engaged in all-out war inside the forums, and online crime is at an all-time high. The remaining Moderators have been spread too thin, and they can see disaster looming on the horizon. Enter Trestkon (that's you!), a former intelligence agent with old ties to the Moderators, who left Forum City years ago for reasons unknown. The Moderators ask Trestkon to investigate the disappearance of their colleague: what Trestkon does, who he allies himself with, and ultimately the fate of the entire city is in your hands.
See also Zodiac, an older mod for Deus Ex. For newer mods, check out 2027 or Deus Ex: Nihilum.
Can be downloaded from Mod DB
or on Steam as a workshop item for Deus Ex's Revision Mod
For characters to this game mod, go here.
As a mod for Deus Ex many of the tropes on that page still apply. This mod also provides examples of:
- 20 Minutes into the Past: Released in 2009, but set September of 2004, and born out of early-2000s gaming culture and websites, some of which no longer exists.
- 20 Minutes into the Future: Despite being set around 2004, it probably takes place in an advanced virtual reality, and even if it doesn't, nanite cybernetics and plasma guns are everywhere.
- After the End: The game is set after the apocalyptic destruction of Deus Ex Incarnate, done through a process known as "Planetization." Which is basically how the GameSpy aliens took over.
- Alien Geometries: The Voodoo shop.
- all lowercase letters: walton simons, one of the owners of the Fan Fiction Shop, who isn't Walton Simons from Deus Ex. Although he does use Walton's model for his avatar.
- Anarchy Is Chaos: Averted with Ryan's ending. (There's some riots, but it's the same in all endings)
- Ancient Conspiracy: The GameSpy aliens apparently controlled all of the cities in ForumPlanet since their founding.
- Annoying Video Game Helper: You can ask an NPC called Beeblequix to help you open a few doors in one area, but his primary function is to distract you with his inane comments about his favourite soaps, dead rat anecdotes and even some music while you are attempting tricky platforming sections. You are unable to quicksave during his remarks. This is deliberate and lampshaded when he points out it was SO ANNOYING when this sort of thing happened in Deus Ex. Thankfully you can turn down his help, and have the option to murder him (and his cat) if he pushes you over the edge.
- Author Avatar: Literally, every character in game is the avatar of someone on forum city, and many of them did develop the mod.
- The player character is Trestkon, the project lead.
- Narcissus Entity, pretty much the embodiment of this trope for the entire dev team.
- Badass Longcoat: King Kashue, Slicer, and you, if you choose the correct appearance customisations - characters will even comment on it.
- Berserk Button:
- Break Phas's TV when he's at the apartment.
- Harm anyone at PDX HQ when allied with them. King Kashue will frown upon it.
- Big "NO!":
- Scara and Ryan if you ban them via the space station.
- Early in the game, you must choose to save or kill Silver Dragon, which decides whether you'll fight for PDX or WC for the rest of the game. The prize for saving him is hearing Scara deliver the most wonderful Cluster F-Bomb ever. (Scara is always foulmouthed, but this is just amazing.)
- Big Bad Ensemble: Scara B. King is a Big Bad of the PDX campaign, but you can also choose to side with him, making the PDX leaders the main antagonists... Until, that is, you uncover the Ancient Conspiracy and discover that Despot, the other ForumPlanet admins, and the aliens really hold this title. The aliens themselves and the Alien Overseer serve as the game's Greater-Scope Villain, while Despot could be seen as the true Big Bad. However, you still have to face Scara/the PDX leaders at the end.
- Bilingual Bonus: Hidden conversations with Jonas and Winquman by "summoning" them via cheats in the DXI ruins has Jonas' lines in Danish and Winquman's in Swedish. The conversations cycle through several tropes, most importantly Trestkon repeating everything the two say for the benefit of English speakers while they act as the Intelligible Unintelligible - which Jonas is quick to point out. Trestkon justifies himself by questioning how many Danish speakers will actually play the mod, while Jonas pessimistically questions how many people will play the mod.
- But Thou Must!: Averted. You choose which faction to support, and the game reacts very differently to different dialogue choices.
- Boss Battle: All of them avoidable.
- Fighting Your Friend: Arguably Slicer and Deus Diablo if you are allies with WorldCorp. And Kylie Griffin if you rekindled your former relationship and did the Ryan ending on a WorldCorp game.
- Puzzle Boss: You have to disable some machinery to kill both cult leaders in Beefman's case can be avoided by use of a vortex grenade.
- Trestkon outright says the trope by name in a conversation with Ricemanu in the WorldCorp route.
- Cherry Tapping: The fist description claims that they are "also good for showing off if you're too l33t to use actual weapons."
- Cluster F-Bomb: Scara generally cusses a lot, but when you pick the PDX storyline and he finds out...
- Conspiracy Kitchen Sink: Due to the nature of PlanetDeusEx Forum City being based on Deus Ex.
- Cool Shades: Same as above, a LOT of characters sport these, as can you if you choose to equip them in the character set-up screen.
- Dark Reprise: The WorldCorp ending theme to the PDX ending theme (even though you obviously can't get them both on the same playthrough).
- Deadpan Snarker: Trestkon and Phasmatis usually.
- Developer's Foresight: If you climb over a gate before you get the code, an NPC will ask how you did it and list a few methods. Naturally, the developers are fully aware of the ability to "grenade climb" and other oddities in the Deus Ex engine. They have been working on a 9-year-old game for over 7 years.
- Door to Before: In the Old Server Complex, you'll find a door in a room that is just out of reach. After beating the level, it is the door that takes you out of the offices.
- Emergency Weapon: Fists.
- Escort Mission: If you choose to rescue Silver Dragon. Unusually for this trope, you can knock out all the WorldCorp guards before talking to him, thus negating the need to protect him.
- Evil Laugh: Several characters do this, when Kill and Replace Doppelgänger Treskton does this it provokes the response, "What the hell!? Who are you!? And why do you look like me!? And how come you can laugh like that when I can't!" from Trestkon.
- Evil Versus Evil: The Cult Wars, though the Llamas get a Pet the Dog moment in the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue if they win.
- Fan Fiction: As a representation of an internet forum, a fan fiction shop exists in-game.
- Fell Off the Back of a Truck: The PHAT rifle.
- Flaming Sword: Deus Diablo has one. You can get it from Raving Nutter on day 2 on a second playthrough.
- Flanderisation: In his mail (viewed through hacking), easter eggs (like NRC), and cheat codes (iamjonas makes everyone a cat), Jonas's personality is "really likes cats" and nothing else.
- Friend on the Force: Phasmatis, Trestkon's former superior from his special forces days, functions as his friend in the government.
- Fun with Acronyms: Certain important systems on the space station were named so to match internet terminology such as the LEETs (Large Excess Emergency Turbines) and the ROFL (Remote Orbital Frequency Laser).
- Gadgeteer Genius: Deus Diablo, he built an inanimate object with the powers of a board admin something Gamespy couldn't do, hence why he was kidnapped.
- Good Bad Bugs:
- (The real) Jonas has mentioned that an unimportant NPC sometimes accidentally provoked a particular robot into killing her while the player was in a conversation about whether or not that robot is able to kill at random. This "bug" was found too funny to remove.
- Before patch 1.0.1 Kashue will call Trestkon a "sick bastard" and attempt to kill Trestkon himself (as a moderator, he is immortal) if you kill anything in PDX... including fish or rats. This gets joked about in the patch notes.
- Good Old Fisticuffs: Fists are a weapon that doesn't take up an inventory slot, but (at least according to the manual) they are quite useless.
- Government Conspiracy: Despot and the other ForumPlanet administrators are actually working with an alien organization known as GameSpy to dominate the world. Yes, that GameSpy.
- Guns Akimbo: Trestkon's custom pistols.
- Hand Wave: Averted. Abomination doesn't even bother explaining how he has the fake plans on himself.Abomination: "You think too much, Trestkon."
- He Who Fights Monsters: If Trestkon joins WorldCorp and gives his reason as "It is no worse than PDX", Kashue will use the quote at Trestkon.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: You will be asked to kill Phasmatis in the WorldCorp story line, as a mod this would be impossible to win even if he didn't teleport your weapons to the bottom of building.
- Improvised Weapon: Hammers, screwdrivers and wrenches serve as this.
- Infinite Flashlight: Using one aug upgrade on the flashlight will make it drain no electricity. The description claims it powers it by the motion of your eyeballs.
- Insecurity Camera: A new manned system is used in addition to the original Deus Ex system. The new system lets you sneak into the camera room and eliminate the guard. The rest of the trope still applies.
- Interface Screw: At one point in the PDX story Trestkon downloads an insane AI into his brain, causing the screen to randomly spin, zoom and wobble. Latter, you may optionally allow one character to serve as Mission Control for a level. During this talks incessantly across the infolink at some points, which prevents you from saving the game. This while jumping precariously over an instant-death magma pit. No way it wasn't intentional (at least it is quite funny).
- Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!: Treskton was born of the countless misspellings of the protagonist's name.
- Justified Tutorial: The in-game tutorial is designed to be an Upgrade Familiarization process, that shows users that haven't logged into the game's simulation all the new features.
- Joke Weapon: Screw driver, the Llamas' and Goats' sporks/foons, your fists and the original game's pepper spray.
- Lethal Joke Weapon: While still not incredibly effective, you can pick up gloves for your fists that give them the ability to kill people with enough damage. You can also pick up stun gloves and EMP gloves that respectively stun human enemies and disable robot enemies, which are a bit more useful.
- Katanas Are Just Better: There are three Katanas obtainable in the game: Digital Ronin's katana, Slicer's katana, and the Daikatana, with a generic katana being available through cheating. Barring cheating, each katana in the game is unique.
- Kleptomaniac Hero: Notably averted in the bars. Swiping drinks and snacks will get you a stern warning from the bartender. Continue, and then he will sound the alarm. A small glitch allows you to steal when the bartenders are talking to another NPC.
- Not just in the bars, snatching items will make their owners react in some way to you. There's even one instance where you get bounty hunters after you.
- Kill and Replace: Treskton aims to do this to Trestkon.
- Kill Sat: The ROFL laser. It's powerful enough to kill the invincible moderators.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: NPCs will sometimes comment on how everyone looks alike (see One Steve Limit below), and some guards outright wish for someone to kill them in their idle voice lines. Another moment is when you sneak up on two mooks near a very dangerous looking jumping puzzle. One mook will comment on the point of it being there, saying that it is like "those stupid jumping puzzles in old video games put in instead of giving you more enemies to shoot."
- Les Collaborateurs: Despot, and presumably the other Forum Planet admins as well.
- Lighter and Softer: Compared to the original Deus Ex's World Half Empty, Forumcity at its rarely seen worst is a humorous Crapsack World and at its best, every non-villan lives Happily Ever After.
- Ludicrous Gibs: Vortex Grenade + Victim(s) = This. Justified since the grenade does create a black hole that rips the victim apart.
- MacGyvering: The new use for the Demolition skill is to make explosives out of household chemicals.
- Malevolent Architecture: Despot's Apartment.
- Mana: A Planet Diablo merchant brought some mana potions to PlanetDeusEx by mistake, and you can find a lot of them lying around. They are ammunition for the Fire Staff weapon.
- Mini-Game: Pong, Tetris, and Breakout can be accessed in-game, fully functional. You can also access the mod's IRC channel in-game if it counts. Certain missions also require that the player solve a recontextualized mini-game such as Rush Hour. Raddish Adventure is a platformer unlocked by obtaining all the Easter Eggs.
- Mission Control: Various characters depending on the faction you support, most prominently Evil Invasion and That Guy. in the last mission, you also have Ryan and The Narcissus Entity.
- Molotov Cocktail: Can be made with some household chemicals and a bottle of wine.
- Moose and Maple Syrup: King Kashue will regularly poke fun at the fact that Trestkon is Canadian, for example in the first conversation the two have, he asks if Trestkon has been "cooking moose kebabs over a polar bear dung fire" while he's been gone.
- Multiple Endings
- To help the Reasonable Authority Figure and keep Forumplanet as a benevolent dictatorship.
- To help the Reasonable Authority Figure and keep Forumplanet as a democracy.
- To help the Corrupt Corporate Executive Take Over the World.
- Same as above, but betray the Corrupt Corporate Executive and rule over Forumplanet.
- To help the Übermensch stablish Forumplanet as an anarchy.
- The super secret ending with No Fourth Wall.
- Multiverse, the: It is mentioned that Gamespy's other Planet sites have Forum Cities similar to the one where the game takes place. The most information given for any of them is PlanetHalfLife has a thriving mod industry. Design notes mention a Planet Halo arms merchant who never made it into the game. The description of the "Mana potion" item mentions they were brought over by a planet Diablo merchant.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Despot, when he tells Trestkon he left Ghand in charge.
- No Fourth Wall: The Narcissus Entity only actually addresses Trestkon in a single line, where he asks Trestkon his thoughts on the player's actions, and a single endgame conversation; every other time, he addresses the player. He exists as a tool to lampshade sequence breaking, replacing messages that depend on the support of a faction when neither can be used. For example, entering one area (Despot's Apartment), the password to which (Despot / GS_Rulez) has not been given yet, will result in Narcissus asking Trestkon what he thinks of the fact that he was "able to recall information that was never inserted into this branch of reality". In its own words, "Your puppeteer makes its presence apparent".
- Non-Standard Game Over: Killing Scara. B. King during your first meeting will result in such, as an avatar of the game's development team tells Trestkon that his actions are not supported (as in, they didn't program the quests to accommodate that action, as it would require an infinite amount of time to program reactions for everything), tells him he wasn't expected to survive, and after a conversation kills him via script functions, meaning that even God mode will not help you.
- Killing or knocking out any person (except Jonas, who can be knocked out) in the PDX HQ when you're allied with them will result in the game sealing the exits, and invisible NPCs coming down to mop the floor with you.
- Not That There's Anything Wrong with That: Pops up in one of the out takes.
- Not Quite Starring: Lawrence "Trestkon" Laxdal does the voices of a few NPCs, but not the protagonist who bears his name. Jonas Waever DOES voice himself, however.
- One-Steve Limit: A conversation in the apartment building at the start reveals that all the guards (who all look exactly alike) are called variations of Jim or James in an extremely meta moment.
- One member of DXO mentions DeusEx.org and Deus Ex Online were both created with the same purpose and merged because there wasn't room for 2 "DXO"s.
- Only Sane Man: Trestkon, possibly Jonas, and the moderator staff.
- That Guy also can come off as this on the WorldCorp route to a lesser extent.
- Pacifist Run: Of course, it is a Deus Ex mod, after all. You can finish the game without killing anyone if you're allied with a certain faction, and if you work for the other faction you only have to kill one person, and he can be killed by the guards in the area he is in.
- Pamphlet Shelf: A new system for multipage books exists in an attempt to avert this, but many places still use the original game's system of multiple books for each chapter, such as the fan fiction shop.
- Path of Inspiration: A hidden book reveals that every religion in Forum City was formed as part of a pact between the founders to secretly gain power.
- Period Piece: Based on early-2000s fandom of a game that came out in 2000, and featuring a cast of characters drawn from gaming websites and forums that had been active in 2004, but were long gone even when The Nameless Mod was first released. References to old gaming culture, then-current works, and old forum grudges abound. This really comes to a head with Gamespy, which used to be a massive game service and website with multiple sites dedicated to then-modern games, like Half-Life or, say, Deus Ex, but became defunct in 2013. Much of the plot is based on posters and controversies from Gamespy.
- Permadeath: This is how getting killed works in-universe, required killed people to start over. Though the game uses a standard save/reload system.
- Playing with Fire: Deus Diablo, whose weaponry includes the above mentioned flame blade, a flamethrower, and as a moderator, the ability to make people spontaneously ignite.
- Point of No Return: Three. The first is about halfway through, the second is just before the penultimate level, the third is just before the Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
- The game will even go out of its way to warn you about the first one, with your corresponding Mission Control adviser warning you before you pass it.
- Postmodernism: Much of the game and its characters are aware that it's a mod based on the fandom of Deus Ex, and as such, discuss the merits of if a fan-made mod can really warrant a kind of reality or frequently reference Deus Ex fandom. You can find reviews from real-world publications on Deus Ex itself, sold as highbrow novels in bookstores.
- Power-Up Letdown: Skills have gained new uses (Demolitions can be used to make Molotov Cocktails) resources for lockpicking/electronics are fewer (and now you have doors/pads of decent lock strength you can't just blow up) and make the respective skills decent investments, some computers need higher skill levels to hack while Swimming has been removed entirely (and replaced with Fists) in an attempt to fix this from the original game.
- Present-Day Past: A few minor examples exist in the game (set in September of 2004, released in 2009).
- Articles about Half-Life 2 and Hitman: Blood Money despite the game taking place before either was released.
- A notepad late in the game has a list of some Deus Ex tropes, despite TV Tropes barely existing back then.
- Many characters have Xbox 360s in their rooms, however, that wouldn't be released until November of 2005. The developers probably realized this, and changed the name of the object to "DVD Player", although it still uses the 360 textures.
- If you allow ZeroPresence to aid you when you first raid the PDX HQ on a WorldCorp playthrough, he will call out "Boom Headshot!" when killing a guard, although the episode of Pure Pwnage where it was from wouldn't be released until December of that year.
- Recurring Boss: ZeroPresence and Slicer, if you don't kill them when you first meet them, of course.
- Relationship Values: Kylie Griffin, your Psycho Ex-Girlfriend, might like you more or less depending on what dialogue options you choose when talking to her.
- Retraux: The game's graphical ability mirrors the original Deus Ex's 2000 era graphics despite being finished in 2009 and set in 2004, even with the new assets.
- Rhymes on a Dime: Grub, Partyzone DJ (voiced by Grub, sound effects creator) speaks like this.
- Robotic Psychopath: Alpha 2 Abomination the Second, son of the great protector of Lamar.
- Sequence Breaking: Most of the doors in the game have infinite strength. A good way to breeze through Deus Ex was to breach doors with explosives and rockets, which could usually be found almost everywhere. The Nameless Mod makes them much harder to find, forcing you to rely more on lockpicks, multitools, passwords, and alternate paths opposed to sheer force.
- Shout-Out: Many. To Deus Ex, Snow Crash, etc... Also to the The X-Files, with a few "The Truth is Out There" references, but mainly in that the game's conspiracy is between the governments of Forum Planet and an alien race to gain power.
- Side Quest: Many more than in the original game.
- Simultaneous Warning and Action: Goats have a REALLY long line for this
- Skippable Boss: Pretty much all of them.
- Slouch of Villainy / Clasp Your Hands If You Deceive as seen in this◊ fanart of Scara that the developers used for his character portrait in the manual from version 1.0.2 and is "absolutely spot on".
- Sore Loser: The game references players accusing others of cheating in the health description for legs. In the original game, the description stated that an agent should self-terminate if they were to lose the use of their legs in the field. TNM changes this to telling the agent to accuse their attacker of hacking.
- Story-Driven Invulnerability: Averted, you can kill anyone who is not a moderator (and you do find a way to kill these in some of the Multiple Endings), you can kill boss characters like Kylie, ZeroPresence, and Slicer early in the game. It also is seemingly subverted with Scara B. King - while it is very hard to do (he has a very large health pool, a cadre of guards stationed close by and mounted turrets guarding him), you can waltz right into his office and kill him at any time before The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, but it turns out to be double subverted as attempting to leave the level triggers a fourth wall breaking Non-Standard Game Over.
- Talking Animal: It's apparently possible to choose an animal model for the Forum City avatar. Examples include a cat in PDX, a dog in the Llama temple and a wolf, with whom Trestkon worked in the past and who can give you a subquest.
- Talking the Monster to Death:
- Because Cloud Cuckoo Lander Ghandaiah's... ahem, "reality" is based entirely on his vivid and colourful delusions, it is possible to convince him to spontaneously burst into flame.
- It is a possible solution for a minor sidequest early in the game where you talk a gang member into stopping their activities.
- It is possible to kill Silver Dragon by convincing him to flee the WorldCorp parking lot... and be gunned down by WorldCorp guards.
- Talking Your Way Out: If ZP or Slicer survives his first confrontation with the player and the player loses the second confrontation this is required to continue the game.
- Take That!:
- The "DaiKatana" weapon in its entirety (it takes up a huge chunk of the inventory, does pitiful damage and worst of all, hurts you when you use it) is one massive Take That at... Daikatana.
- Trestkon notes after being given one in a series of fetch quests that he has been transported to World of Warcraft.
- "Untitled" Title: "The Nameless Mod" is the name of the mod.
- Unwinnable: There are a few instances in the game where either a bug or a player action can result in you getting "stuck" forcing you to go to another save state, cheat to get past, or start over in a worse-case scenario. Using the vortex grenade can fling necessary items into unreachable spots, and in one level, a robot that blows open a door for you may prematurely stop if interrupted, runs out of enemies, or runs into a corner, preventing you from passing it without "nocliping" your way through.
- The Gods Must Be Lazy: Despot could very easily stop the trouble with World Corp, or at the very least give banning powers to the remaining two moderators, but is more than content to sit on his ass in his apartment and watch TV. Some of his actions, or lack thereof in the Deus Diablo case is because he is secretly working with Game Spy, and because he has been mutated since the collapse of DXI.
- Trade Snark: Every term associated with the Goat Cult always has a ™ added, even in subtitles.
- Uncanny Valley: Shadowcode has a pretty realistic face, which is creepy in a game where the graphics are designed to look like they are from 2000.
Word of God, via IRC, is that this is deliberate. - The Unfought: Phasmatis.
- Video Game Caring Potential: King Kashue rewards Trestkon with extra credits or items for leaving human enemies alive.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: You can hurt and kill anyone who's not a moderator or one of the two reanimated heads in the voodoo shop.
- In contrast to King Kashue rewarding you for keeping enemies alive, Phas and Scara will reward you for doing the exact opposite
- And then there is the new weapons. Blow up your enemies (or innocent victims) like a balloon with the PHAT-Rifle, create a mini-black hole with the vortex grenade and have it redecorate the room with their guts, or just set them ablaze with the firestaff.
- Video Game Cruelty Punishment: Try killing or knocking out anyone in the PDX Building if you're allied with them.
- Warp Zone: One between the different districts is made available upon the completion of a sidequest.
- Wide-Open Sandbox: Though later in the game it gets more linear.
- What the Hell, Player?: Many instances, for example, killing Kylie while you're allied with WorldCorp, or going on a killing spree in PDX HQ when you are allied with them.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: Affected by your actions during the game.
- Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: Llama high priest Beefman speaks like this. Jonas claims it's meant to make him sound like an idiot. Lampshaded by the party zone owner, who says that he speaks Elizabethan english for no reason.
- You Bastard!: You will get this a lot from the PDX gang during the World Corp storyline.
