Deus Ex - The Making Of @ Edge Online

Warren Spector teams up with Edge Online for The Making of Deus Ex, which outlines everything from plot problems to technology issues to government conspiracies (you couldn't have Deus Ex without a government conspiracy, could you?):

Along with Washington, further locations were purged. A visit to Russia, an abandoned space station, a moon base – all, according to Spector, jettisoned as the design tightened. “We redid much of the plot mid-way through development, when the designers realised our original story, in its totality, was inexpressible given our technology.” Other late changes would follow. “After blindtesting by some other studios, we redesigned the skill and augmentation systems fairly dramatically. And I think we were early in beta when we realised that we hadn’t planned things so players encountered NPCs several times – players weren’t establishing relationships with the characters so the story lacked resonance. We made a major pass at the plot so folks from early missions showed up again and again. That was a critical moment in the game’s development and it came very late.”