Video Game / The Nameless Mod

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An award-winning total conversion with completely new setting 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 (which also has advanced AIs, and even if it doesn't, nanite cybernetics and plasma guns are everywhere.
• Abnormal Ammo: The PHAT Rifle normally uses special energy cells, but if you don't feel like inflating people until they explode, you can use rice bags instead, which will non-lethally take down the target.
• Ace Custom: Several characters have unique weapons that improve on generic ones:
  • Trestkon has his Dual Pistols of Injustice, a heavily engraved pair of M1911s. They're slightly stronger and more accurate than the standard pistol, but the main improvement is in rate of fire and magazine capacity, and the option to fire two shots at once. The only downside is that they use their own ammo type.
  • Digital Ronin and Slicer have their own katanas, which are stronger than the standard one, with the former being one of the strongest melee weapons in the mod.
  • NVShacker has a custom screwdriver. It's not that powerful in combat (the damage improvement mainly serving to allow it to replace the combat knife), but it's the only way to disarm tranquilizer mines.
  • Alpha Operator has a customized stealth pistol, which has a lot of mods and higher damage (as well as a few other stats), but has a lower magazine capacity.
  • Kylie Griffith owns an assault rifle that has a lot of mods and does a lot more damage. The grenade launcher has been replaced with a spiderbot launcher, which summons a friendly robot to assist the player.
  • ZeroPresence has a sniper rifle with several mods (including a silencer) and a much greater range. Unfortunately, it can't be upgraded with a Laser Sight.
• Accidental Murder: Should you KO Alpha Operator and/or Jackie on the PDX route, they will end up dying by burning to death after Sol's bar gets bombed. Trestkon will state that he didn't mean for that to happen, and you'll even get the "I never meant for this" achievement.
• Addressing the Player:
  • The Narcissus Entity will speak to the player, addressing them as the Puppeteer, if they demonstrate the use of knowledge that Trestkon shouldn't have (such as the passwords to the display cases in the Voodoo Shop), engage in Sequence Breaking, or get into areas they shouldn't have access to.
  • In the Narcissus Entity's ending, Trestkon becomes aware of the fourth wall, and ends up speaking to the player about the situation, acknowledging the fact that he's just monologuing, then thanks them for completing the ending.
• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: There's a huge one under Forum City that can be explored. Going into it will cause NPCs to comment on Trestkon's smell, which can be fixed by using Phasmatis' shower.
• 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.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot:
  • A2, which is prone to killing people for little reason (and is easily provoked into killing the player, since it's very easy to accidentally step on it), objects to being reprogrammed, and can be easily persuaded into killing its own creator.
  • ShadowCode, which blocks any attempts to access the DXI ruins, and kills anybody who enters its lair.
• Alien Abduction: As you find out later, the kidnapping of Deus Diablo was done by GameSpy (who fit a role similar to that of The Greys and have a similar appearance) for the purpose of having him teach them the art of imbuing objects with moderator powers.
• 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.
• Alternate History: Like 2004, but with extremely advanced AI and virtual reality technology.
• Anachronism Stew: An issue of the Technology Today magazine states that, in 1983, PlanetUnreal had an incident that resulted in radiation release. At that point in time, Unreal didn't even exist as a concept, so there couldn't have been a Forum City for it.
• 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:invoked 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.
• Appeal to Force: If you persuade A2 to kill NVShacker, Trestkon's argument is that he has a better arsenal than NVShacker, who only has a screwdriver. The argument works as intended, causing A2 to kill its own creator.
• As Himself: Many users of the real PDX forum ended up voicing their counterparts in the mod, though not all of them did so.
• 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.
• Awesome Moment of Crowning: Two of the endings:
  • In the PDX ending, Trestkon's victory over GameSpy and WorldCorp gets him praised as a hero and successfully elected as a moderator, with the moderators now becoming the sole rulers of PDX.
  • In an alternate WorldCorp ending, Trestkon bans Scara and takes over WorldCorp, then completes the occupation of Forum City by killing the moderators, making him the dictator of PDX. Afterwards, he takes over several forums, with his sights presumably set on the rest of the Forum Planet.
• Badass Longcoat: King Kashue, Slicer, and you, if you choose the correct appearance customisations - characters will even comment on it.
• Balance Buff:
  • The PS20 had its damage greatly increased, and you can now carry more than a single one at the same time, making it actually useful as a weapon. There's even a book giving hints on how to use it effectively, even if it's still acknowledged to be a niche weapon.
  • Fire extinguishers are now treated as full-fledged weapons that can be used for 4-5 bursts before they run out of gas, making them much more efficient in both combat and actual fire extinguishing.
• Ban on Politics: While asking Chris the Cynic to explain what the Priory is, which makes Chris talk about Jesus, one can immediately back out with "I don't like religion", implying this trope. Cynic, for his part, will respond with an irritated "Some people...".
• 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.
• Big First Choice: After buying the subway pass and going to the PDX and/or WorldCorp headquarters, your first mission involves the Silver Dragon, as WorldCorp wants you to kill him, while PDX wants you to rescue him. This determines which route you'll be going with for the rest of the game, significantly altering which levels you visit (or, if they're the same for both routes, in which order), and somewhat affecting what sidequests are available to you. It also determines which route-specific ending you'll be able to do.
• Bio-Augmentation: A few magazines mention the existence of bio-modifications, such as an interview with a man who went so hard into transhumanism that he no longer counts as a human. You never meet anybody with it, however.
• 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.
• Bling-Bling-BANG!: Trestkon's Dual Pistols of Injustice, which are a heavily engraved pair of M1911s, with one of the engravings being their name on the slides. The descriptions even calls them the coolest weapons in existence
• Body Armor as Hit Points: Enemies who wear armor will have double the usual Hit Points of standard Mooks.
• Bookends: The mod starts with Trestkon coming out of his retirement after getting emailed by Phasmatis. The ABI ending has him retire again after spending only two days in the city, while also leaving open the possibility of Phasmatis calling him out of retirement if need be.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • For stealth, especially when going pacifist, fists are indispensable for one simple reason - when you can perform a Back Stab to the torso with them, the animation will change, with Trestkon being prepared to perform a karate chop. This allows you to consistently perform a One-Hit Kill (as fists do just enough damage to KO most human enemies on the Challenging difficulty), and even if you fail, the karate chop is performed extremely quickly, possibly allowing you to rapidly KO the target anyway.
  • Out of all the unique weapons of the mod, the EMP Pistol and Trestkon's Pistols are likely to become mainstays in your arsenal:
    • The EMP Pistol, which can be obtained early on (in the WorldCorp HQ), uniquely does EMP damage despite being a gun, allowing it to kill robots and temporarily scramble cameras and turrets, making it useful for both combat and stealth. Also, like the normal pistol, it only occupies a single slot and has good accuracy, with the beam also hitting enemies instantly, unlike the other EMP/anti-robot weapons. The only issue is that you can't buy its ammo anywhere, and have to search every crook and cranny for it.
    • Trestkon's Pistols are an upgrade over the standard pistol in most aspects, doing slightly more damage (with an option to fire two shots at once, albeit at the cost of accuracy and rate of fire), having a noticeably higher capacity and rate of fire, and being able to be upgraded with a silencer by Andreus (rendering it superior to the stealth pistol). You can also get them from the very moment you get a subway pass, since they're stored in the weapon shop and you already have the password to your own locker. They also seem to be intentionally designed so that the player will constantly use them, since their ammo can be bought in the weapon shop (an exception to how ammo for other unique weapons works), and boxes of ammo are strewn in great amount throughout the levels. The only noticeable downsides are that it occupies two inventory spaces and uses proprietary ammo.
• 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.
• Bullet Time: After completing the Narcissus Entity's ending, you'll permanently obtain the bullet time ability for any subsequent playthrough, allowing you to slow down the game by 40-92%.
• But Now I Must Go: In the ABI ending, Trestkon ends up leaving the city after turning it into an anarchy amidst a mixed reception to his own actions. He does tell Ryan that Phasmatis can contact him again if need be.
• But Thou Must!: Averted. You choose which faction to support, and the game reacts very differently to different dialogue choices.
• Call-Back: At the start of the game, it's mentioned that Trestkon retired in an implied Heroic BSoD two years ago, right after getting nominated for moderator elections for successfully completing several missions while working for PDX. In the PDX ending, Trestkon is nominated again, for the same reason — completing numerous missions for PDX. This time, however, he does not retire, and is successfully elected.
• Calling Me a Logarithm: Board guests will often complain about being called a FAQ each time they ask a question.
• Celebrity Paradox: You can find a book of poetry by Off Topic Publishing, with two of the writers being Lawrence (the Player Character, who is normally addressed as Trestkon, and whose real name can be changed) and Chris the Cynic (who can be met in the fanfic shop and talked to).
• Cherry Tapping: The fist description claims that they are "also good for showing off if you're too l33t to use actual weapons."
• Chunky Salsa Rule: Any organic enemy you sufficiently inflate with the PHAT rifle will die, regardless of their health.
• Civil War: On Day 2, Scara ends up taking advantage of Deus Diablo's disappearance, and thus declares war against the moderators in order to take over the forum and become its sole ruler, all while slaughtering any civilian who stands in the way.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Scara generally cusses a lot, but when you pick the PDX storyline and he finds out...
• Commonplace Rare: Even though nearly every boss has multiple augmentations, and augmentations are common enough that WorldCorp invented the ability to upgrade augmentations with copies of the same canister, you can only buy the Aqualung/Environmental Protection one. The rest will have to be scavenged on the levels.
• Conspiracy Kitchen Sink: Due to the nature of PlanetDeusEx Forum City being based on Deus Ex.
• Cool Shades: A LOT of characters sport these, as can you if you choose to equip them in the character set-up screen.
• Corporate Warfare: WorldCorp is engaged in a cold war with PDX, as Scara wants to use his corporation in order to take over the forum. This breaks out into a hot war on Day 2, as Scara declares war against the PDX and has his goons attack the city, while also attacking the ABI in order to steal their space shuttle.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Scara B. King, who abuses his employees, and is engaged in a cold war with the moderators as he tries to assume full control of the Forum City. On Day 2, he even ends up openly declaring war on PDX.
• Cult: Two are present, and they're at odds with each other.
  • The Llamas, with imagery based on Buddhism, is a front for a scam organization convincing its followers to surrender their belongings, though the Llamas get a Pet the Dog moment in the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue if they win.
  • The Goat Cult, with imagery based on Christianity, is involved in kidnapping, drugging, and production of Crystal Melk(tm).
• The Coup: On the PDX route, the moderators organize one against Despot, with Trestkon infiltrating the GameSpy space station and taking away his admin powers, simultaneously punishing him for his involvement in the kidnapping of Deus Diablo, and bringing true democracy to PDX.
• Cyber Space: Forum City, which is a virtual representation of a Deus Ex forum. In fact, it's part of Forum Planet, which follows a similar format of gaming forums that try to emulate the gameplay of their games.
• 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.
• De-power:
  • In all of the game's endings, Despot is left powerless due to the destruction of GameSpy.
  • In the ABI ending, the moderators have their power taken away, and no new moderators can be made, which turns the Forum City into an anarchy.
• 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.
  • If you kill Kylie Griffith in Sol's Bar on the PDX route, she'll reappear on the space station, as Scara has apparently managed to resurrect her, even if she was gibbed. If you bring her body to the King's Tower Hotel, however, and then throw her into the Project Eraser liquid, it'll scramble her account and give you an achievement, along with preventing her from reappearing, since there's nothing to revive. It's not normally something you'll think to do, as the hotel is in an entirely different hub, you have to walk for a few minutes to get there (since you move slowly while carrying bodies), and then you'll have to sneak past the robots in order to get to the liquid.
  • In Sol's Bar, you can kill Jackie with Alpha Operator's own pistol. The game will actually keep track of you using this specific weapon to kill her, and it will be mentioned later.
  • On Day 1, you can meet NVShacker in a grocery store. If you knock him out and murder the store owner, he'll later mention being questioned about the murder. Alternatively, if you keep the store owner alive and KO NVShacker instead, then NVShacker will mention the owner trying to get him to join the Communist Party.
  • An early quest in Downtown has the player rescue an unconscious Llama Cult member for Abomination. Should you bring him to Abomination without taking the quest, he'll end up wondering what the hell Trestkon brought him, with Trestkon explaining that he was rescuing the cultist. You'll still get paid for doing the quest, too.
• Disc-One Nuke:
  • Once you get the subway ticket, it's possible to head straight for the Voodoo Shop in the Slums, then obtain Digital Ronin's Katana there by either knowing the code beforehand, or using multitools to open the case. You'll then have the best melee weapon in the mod, capable of killing most human enemies in 1-2 hits without requiring any ammo.
  • Every Hub Level has firewalls patrolling around, armed with mid-tier weapons and often wandering alone. By karate-chopping them in the back of the head, it's possible to arm yourself with a pistol, the assault and pump-action shotgun, and an assault rifle, all with plenty of ammo. Even if you're on the PDX route, nobody will care about you attacking firewalls, so long as you weren't spotted doing so.
• 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.
• Drought Level of Doom: The Space Station gives you barely any ammo, all while it's swarming with aliens. If you run out of ammo, you might be forced to use melee weapons. Worse yet, you enter it from ABI, with no opportunity to go back to the weapon shop to refill your ammo and consumables.
• Easy Level Trick: Your first mission after getting the subway pass is to either save Silver Dragon (PDX route) or kill him (WorldCorp route). Should you want to do the latter, you can simply tell him to run for the exit, causing him to be overwhelmed by the guards and die. This is also the only way to complete the WorldCorp route without killing anybody.
• Elite Mook:
  • Enemies who wear body armor will have double the usual health, which can allow them to take more shots to the torso than the player. At Day 1, this mostly consists of firewalls (which aren't usually hostile, and can thus be killed in stealth), but on Day 2, nearly every enemy you meet will be armored.
  • The Men in Black are used by WorldCorp and the DXI version can appear in its ruins if you destroy the thread control machines. Just like vanilla Deus Ex, they have a truckload of health and explode if killed.
  • ABI Commandos are the mod's version of Majestic 12 commandos, so they have slightly more health than normal armored enemies, and attack you with mini-rockets and high-powered machine guns.
• Emergency Weapon: Your fists start out as this, doing little damage, and only being good for a Back Stab. If you improve your skill with them, however, you can get EMP and stun gloves, which allow unarmed combat to be pretty viable.
• EMP: In addition to vanilla EMP grenades and the Spy Drone, one of the unique weapons is the EMP Pistol, which allows inflicting EMP damage at long range and/or against airborne enemies.
• Enlightenment Superpowers: In the Narcissus ending, after the player crashes the Entity, Trestkon gains the ability to go through walls and slow down time, along with becoming aware of the fourth wall. After that, subsequent playthroughs will allow the player to use bullet time whenever they want.
• Epic Fail: Board guests will sometimes ask you about how to get on the boat at the end of the first mission of Deus Ex. Bear in mind that you board the boat by using it (with the game helpfully marking it as usable when you approach and look at it), and that it's extremely unlikely that somebody could've completed the mission without ever pressing the use button.
• 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.
• Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting: Enemies who run out of ammo will karate chop the player if they don't have a melee weapon.
• 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:
  • By the end of the game, there's also WorldCorp versus GameSpy, especially if you're play on the WorldCorp route.
• Extremely Short Timespan: The events of the mod take place over just two days.
• 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.
• Field Power Effect: Moderator powers only work in the city they moderate. Which is how GameSpy managed to subdue Deus Diablo without him just abusing his invulnerability, as his powers don't work on a space station.
• 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.
• Forum Speak: Due to the mod's setting, it's common to hear characters using 2000s gaming forum speak. You can also find an Internet Terminology Manual that explains some of the jargon used in the mod.
• Fourth-Wall Observer:
  • 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".
  • In the Narcissus Entity's ending, Trestkon also becomes aware of the player, and starts talking to them.
• 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).
  • PHAT-rays (PHysically Anamorphic Transmogryphing rays), used by the PHAT Rifle, which cause the target to get bloated until they explode in Ludicrous Gibs.
• 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.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • The PDX mission to infiltrate the fortress of ShadowCode has Trestkon be informed that he might go crazy if he fails to hurry up after downloading it into his brain, implying that it would affect his real self. In actual gameplay, though, downloading ShadowCode deals damage every few seconds to the head of his virtual self, meaning that he can stave off going insane in real life by using medkits to heal his avatar.
  • A few magazines and newspaper articles mention the existence of Bio-Augmentation, but you never meet anybody with it.
• Glitch Entity: In-universe, an avatar with no user information will behave erratically. You can make some in the DXI ruins to see the erratic behavior in action — they attack the player on sight, get a random weapon, use JC Denton models which are of lower quality (flickering when you approach them), move in a rather jittery way, have the pitch of their voice shift randomly, and randomly choose between firing one-handed or two-handed (even with weapons that aren't supposed to be used one-handed).
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • invoked (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.
  • invoked 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.
• The Gods Must Be Lazy: Despot is heavily implied to have godlike power, and could certainly temporarily modify the rule of "All three moderators must agree on a ban" in order to allow the forum to function without Deus Diablo. Instead, he sits in his apartment and does literally nothing while the city falls apart, with Phasmatis and King Kashue both noting that such laziness is normal for him.
• 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.|
  • A further layer of government conspiracy can then occur in the PDX route if you show DXO's evidence of Despot's collaboration with GameSpy to the moderators, as they will then end up covertly collaborating with DXO in order to end GameSpy, all while Despot remains ignorant to what his moderators are doing.
• Grand Theft Me: As you may find out, the ZeroPresence you meet first is actually a WorldCorp agent using a stolen account. You can meet the real one on the PDX route, who made a new account with a similar appearance, and he'll ask you to find evidence of his account being stolen, so that the account's hijacker can be banned and his good name can be restored.
• The Greys: GameSpy members appear exactly like vanilla greys, except colored green. They also fit a similar role to classic conspiracy-theory greys, being that they abduct people, wish to take over the planet, and rule from the shadows by having the leaders of Forum Cities work with them.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • NVShacker's Screwdriver can be obtained by incapacitating him when you first meet him. However, the game gives you no indication of him owning a unique screwdriver, he never turns hostile on his own (and doesn't give you a reason to attack him), and no quests require you to fight him. The only way you could find his screwdriver without using a guide is by either engaging in unprovoked murder, or by persuading A2 into killing him.
  • Kylie Griffith's assault rifle is in a similar pickle as NVShacker, although you at least have some reason to attack her (as she's part of WorldCorp and can easily turn unfriendly to Trestkon). When you find spider canisters, you might be left wondering as to what gun they're meant for. Though, on a PDX route, you'll get attacked by her in the endgame, which potentially allows you to realize that she owns a unique assault rifle.
  • How to unlock the Narcissus ending — you have to trigger fourth-wall breaking messages from the Narcissus Entity by breaking it yourself via abusing bugs for the purpose of Sequence Breaking or getting into places you're not meant to go, or enter certain passwords that Trestkon shouldn't know at this point. Once you do this three times, directly speaking to the Narcissus Entity on the GameSpy space station will make it silently open a white door aboard another point of the station, and you can finish the game there.
  • Although the game doesn't tell you this, you can change Trestkon's clothes by using a computer with an in-game browser, clicking on an ad for Aunt Betty Industries, then browsing the list of accessories. This way, you can choose to wear the trenchcoat or take it off, and switch between sunglasses, visor, or no eyewear.
• 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.
• Hub Level: The Forum City is divided into the West Residence District (the Slums), Central District (the Downtown), and the Corporate District, which serve as entry points for quest-related locations, allow you to access shopkeepers, and also serve as fully explorable locations in themselves.
• I Call It "Vera": Trestkon's "Dual Pistols of Injustice", with the name being engraved on the guns.
• I Can Rule Alone: An option in the WorldCorp endgame - Trestkon bans Scara and takes over the Forum City, turning it into his personal dictatorship.
• Iconic Item: Trestkon's custom Dual Pistols of Injustice, which are featured in promotional art of the mod, and are one of the first unique weapons you can get, with plenty of ammo being strewn throughout the game. One of the news articles also mentions that the last thing Trestkon did before leaving the forums was to lock up his pistols (and nothing else) in the gun store.
• 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.
• Infinity -1 Sword: The Dragon's Tooth Sword has been nerfed to this status in the mod, only doing 60 damage per hit. However, it only costs 1500 credits, and can also be obtained from some NPCs, unlike Digital Ronin's Katana and the Fireblade.
• Infinity +1 Sword:
  • Digital Ronin's Katana serves as one for builds focused on Low-Tech, as it does 90 damage per hit, with most human enemies instantly dying in a single strike to the torso. It also demands either paying 3500 credits or pissing off the Voodoo Shop's owner by cracking the high-strength keypad on its case. It can also only be bought on Day 1.
  • On a second playthrough and after reaching Day 2, it's possible to buy the Fireblade in the Weapon Shop for 1000 credits, which has a high reach, does 100 damage per hit, and sets enemies on fire.
• 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.
• Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!: Treskton was born of the countless misspellings of the protagonist's name.
• 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).
• Internal Reformist: In the PDX route, Phasmatis and King Kashue eventually find out that Despot is actually in cahoots with GameSpy, and has arranged for Deus Diablo to be kidnapped. Both of them end up working under Despot's nose, using PDX's resources in order to have Trestkon infiltrate the GameSpy space station, destroy GameSpy, and take away Despot's admin status, allowing the Forum City to have true democracy for the first time.
• 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.
  • A few of the books found in the book explain the mod's features or serve as guides on the vanilla game's weapons.
    • An issue of the Technology Today magazine, which can be found in the apartment building you start in, explains the use of the mod's IRC function.
    • A book written by Chris the Cynic gives suggestions on the effective use of the PS20, which is helped by the fact that the mod gave it a Balance Buff.
    • "Self-Defense Tactics" explains how to use the pepper spray effectively.
    • A training manual gives opinions on some vanilla weapons, highlighting the better ones.
• 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.
• Katana Superiority: 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.
  • However, the superiority of katanas is subverted in one case: [[spoiler:the Daikatana. It does negligible damage to the victim and drains life from the wielder.
• 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.
• Killed Off for Real: WorldCorp has Project Eraser, which is a liquid that can permanently scramble a user's account if their avatar is thrown in. Unlike normal death, they won't have the option to start over. As such, you can prevent Kylie Griffith from attacking you aboard the space station in the PDX route if you kill her early and throw her into the liquid
• Kill Sat: The ROFL laser. It's powerful enough to kill the invincible moderators.
• Last-Second Ending Choice: If you talk to Ryan (and leave him alive) and/or find enough Narcissus events, you'll get extra endings to choose from in addition to the route-specific one.
• 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 bleak setting of Deus Ex, Forum City isn't plague-ridden, and apart from crime and eccentric individuals vying for power, it's far from Crapsack World, the overall plot is humorous and optimistic, and Trestkon has complete possibility of making things better for everyone.
• Little Green Men: GameSpy members all have such an appearance, being recolored vanilla greys.
• Logging onto the Fourth Wall: Inverted with the game's IRC function, which allows you to use the official IRC chat of the mod, whether via in-game computers or by using the console. Modern versions, made by the real ZeroPresence, are connected to the official Discord server instead.
• 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.
• Magikarp Power: Fists start out as kinda bad, doing little damage and generally being vastly inferior to all melee weapons. However, if you raise your skill to the Master level, you'll gain access to the stun gloves, which paralyze human enemies for a few seconds, all while not consuming any ammo and being easier to use than the stun prod. You can easily keep any appropriate enemy locked in a Cycle of Hurting until you inevitably knock them out.
• 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.
• Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game: In-Universe, Forum City can be considered a MMORPG, as besides talking about Deus Ex, the users are allowed to do pretty much anything they can think of (so long as they don't break the rules, not that the moderators can always notice the rule-breaking), from simply killing each other to running virtual megacorporations (as Scara does).
• Metagame: In the roleplaying meaning of "Using knowledge that your character shouldn't know", the Narcissus Entity will call you out for Sequence Breaking and using bugs to get into inaccessible areas, as well as entering passwords that Trestkon shouldn't know yet. Doing so is necessary to get the secret ending, as you need to make it talk to you three times before going to the space station.
• Mind Screwdriver: Chris the Cynic and walton simons will share lore on Deus Ex, possibly clearing up some matters you may have been confused about while playing the game. You can also find a few books explaining the real-world origins of the conspiracies used in the original game.
• 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.
• Mistaken for Related: A2 (Abomination the Second) somehow comes to think that Abomination is its own father. Depending on how things turn out on Day 1, you can spot it pestering Abomination on Day 2, refusing to leave its own "father", with NVShacker or That Guy asking you to disable it before it gets itself killed.
• Molotov Cocktail: Can be made with some household chemicals and a bottle of wine.
• Money for Nothing: Notably averted, unlike vanilla Deus Ex, as there is a weapon shop that sells non-unique weapons, ammo for them (as well as some unique weapons), and most consumable items. Though, depending on the item quantity settings and how much ammo and consumables you expend, you may find out that the trope is played straight again, since you may find yourself doing fine with On-Site Procurement.
• Mooks: In the mod's lore, "Mook" refers to characters who are generated by the system and are always AI-controlled (as opposed to avatars, who are sometimes controlled by a real person). As such, they can be blown up with impunity, and nobody will care much about them, since you're not destroying a real person's avatar.
• 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.
• The Most Dangerous Video Game: Although the Forum Planet is pretty safe (at worst you'll get your account scrambled), one of the PDX quests has Trestkon asked to infiltrate the fortress of ShadowCode and download it into his brain. It's acknowledged that it may make him go insane (presumably in real life), yet he does it anyway.
• 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.
  • Potentially Trestkon on the PDX route, if he gets informed about Alpha Operator and Jackie dying during the bombing of Sol's Bar because he knocked them out, which causes them to burn to death.
• Neural Implanting: On the PDX route, Trestkon is told to deal with ShadowCode by isolating it on an airgapped computer. Since storage devices aren't all that advanced in 2004, the only way to do it is to download the AI into one's brain, so that it can then be moved to the computer.
• New Game Plus:
  • After doing the Narcissus Entity's ending, you'll obtain permanent access to the Bullet Time ability for subsequent playthrough.
  • After completing the game once, you can buy the Fireblade on Day 2, which serves as an Infinity +1 Sword for Low-Tech builds.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!:
  • Despite being warned about Trestkon being unreliable (as Scara might be able to corrupt him), Phasmatis decides to take the risk and invite him back to Forum City to investigate the disappearance of Deus Diablo. If you go down the WorldCorp route, all of the fears come true as Trestkon becomes one of the villains. Worse, when Scara orders Trestkon to kill Phasmatis (an impossible mission), he refuses to kill Trestkon, as they previously used to be on good terms. This leads into either the moderators being stripped of their post and the city becoming an anarchy (not that bad of an outcome, all things considered), or all the moderators being killed with a Kill Sat, with WorldCorp taking over the city and setting its sights on the rest of the planet.
  • At the very start of the game, PDX refuses to pay 1000 credits for Trestkon's subway ticket and doesn't give him any equipment, as the moderators want to test Trestkon's ability to be self-reliant. This will likely result in Trestkon burglarizing several apartments and businesses, murdering a few innocent firewalls and users (unless you're going for a Pacifist Run), and potentially attacking Alpha Operator, an old friend of his, in order to steal a disc for WorldCorp and avoid paying the ticket price.
• No Fair Cheating: At certain points of the game, entering passwords that Trestkon shouldn't know (such as the one to Despot's apartment on the PDX route), or exploiting bugs for the purpose of Sequence Breaking or getting into inaccessible areas, will cause the Narcissus Entity to call out the player for metagaming.
• 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 invincible 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 So Invincible After All: Although moderators are invulnerable while they stay in their city, it turns out that the ROFL Kill Sat is capable of killing them anyway. It's for this reason that Scara tries to capture the GameSpy space station, and the WorldCorp route thus ends in you killing all the moderators of PDX.
• 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 Killable at Home: Inverted for moderators, who can only be killed if taken out of the city they're moderating, which allows you to kill Deus Diablo aboard the space station, and is what allows the GameSpy to hold him captive. The ROFL laser, however, can bypass moderator invincibility.
• 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.
• Only Shop in Town: The only weapon shop is Raving's. It probably explains something about the overpriced weapons.
• 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.
• Palette Swap: GameSpy members all appear exactly like vanilla greys, except colored green.
• 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 — anyone killed is forced to make a new account, which translates to a new character that must start over. The game itself just uses a standard save/reload feature, but you can turn on permadeath if you're using the Revision version.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: A2 has the appearance of a tiny spiderbot, to the point that you can accidentally injure it if you don't watch where you're going. It's also much stronger than normal spiderbots due to its attack being able to set the target on fire.
• 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.
• Plot Coupon That Does Something: The Firestaff is acquired during the main quest in order to locate Deus Diablo. It's also usable as a lightweight alternative to the flamethrower (with reduced size, no speed penalty, and using the Rifle skill), though it uses a different ammo type that you can't buy in the weapon shop.
• 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.
• "Pop!" Goes the Human: The PHAT Rifle, when loaded with PHAT-ray canisters, will inflate whoever they hit. Once they're sufficiently inflated, they will suddenly explode in Ludicrous Gibs, regardless of their health.
• Post-Cyberpunk: Compared to the gritty cyberpunk of the source material where human lives were toys of megacorporations and secret conspiracies, the game takes place in a virtual reality forum, where the conflict isn't that serious — the real world isn't discussed much, and when it is, it's usually to talk about the value of a virtual community, especially fandom.
• Position of Literal Power: Moderators are invulnerable, allowing them to operate without the fear of being assassinated. They can also ban other users (although, on PDX, all three moderators must agree on a ban), putting them into banspace until the ban expires.
• 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 of its own, besides frequently referencing 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.
  • One of the emails sent to King Kashue mentions the Deus Ex subreddit, even though Reddit was only created in 2005 and went under a different name then (Whatsnoo).
  • An email you can find on Ded's computer in Downtown's apartment building is a review of the Video Game/{{2027}} mod, and mentions Deus Ex: Human Revolution, both of which only came out in 2011.
  • In the 2.0 update, the in-game web browser has two ModDB pages for mods that came out 2020 and 2021, with the release date being displayed on the page to make it more obvious.
• Ray Gun: The EMP Pistol fires red laser beams, although they only inflict EMP damage.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: The moderators of PDX are portrayed as good people who try to barely keep the democracy afloat due to being unable to issue bans without Deus Diablo. They also treat their employees fairly and try to account for their concern. After finding out that Despot was secretly a puppet working for GameSpy, they even end up going behind his back in order to create a counter-conspiracy against GameSpy, as they're not going to allow a dictatorship to rule the Forum Planet.
• 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.
• La Résistance: DXO, who fight against GameSpy's domination of the Forum Planet, and end up targeting PDX due to Despot's collaboration with them, while also falsely assuming that the moderators are also complicit. The moderators can then end up joining their resistance against GameSpy, working against their own boss, if you handle the negotiations properly on the PDX route.
• 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. Even with the Revision remaster, the game still keeps the blocky designs of the original Deus Ex.
• 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.
• Robot Police: The Firewalls, who act as the police of Forum City, thematically fill this role, as they're AI constructs that don't pretend to be people (unlike normal mooks), and speak in a lot of computer jargon.
• Robo-Speak: Invoked with the Firewalls, who speak like stereotypical robots, along with using lots of computer jargon, when they could just pretend to be humans (like other Mooks do). The trope is also deconstructed by the fact that it comes off as Uncanny Valley to users.
• Self-Insert Fic: The protagonist is Trestkon, who was the producer of the mod (among other things) and the one who started the whole project.
• 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.
• Serious Business: Even though the mod is taking place in a virtual reality internet forum/MMORPG, all of the characters treat the whole thing like it's real life, complete with virtual megacorporations, secret spy agencies, and being afraid of death (even if, granted, Permadeath applies). Then again, it all fits into the game's parody of internet communities, where things sometimes do get taken way too seriously.
• Shadow Dictator: Despot, who doesn't appear in public and barely communicates with the moderators, leaving them to run everything by themselves. This ends up biting him in the ass on the PDX route, as his ignorance of the City makes it trivial for the moderators to work against him.
• 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
• Signpost Tutorial: There is a book containing the list of some of the better weapons to use, along with brief notes on their nuances and how to best use them. There are also two books explaining the use of the PS 20 (which received a Balance Buff in the mod) and the Pepper Spray, both being frequently ignored by players.
• 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.
• Speed Echoes: Enemies with Speed Enhancement will leave afterimages (which are hard to distinguish from their real self) while they move, making it harder to tell where they are.
• Stealth-Based Mission: On the WorldCorp route, one of the first missions requires you to infiltrate the PDX headquarters in order to enter Despot's apartment. While you can go loud on the first floor, the second floor requires you to be stealthy, as King Kashue patrols the level, has multiple combat augmentations, can't be killed due to being a moderator, and also can't be stunned with gas grenades, pepper spray, and fire extinguishers.
• Story-Driven Invulnerability: Averted, you can kill anyone who is not a moderator (whose invulnerability is actually justified, and you do find a way to kill these in some of the Multiple Endings), and 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.
• Thanking the Viewer: After doing the Narcissus Entity's ending, the player will be thanked by Trestkon himself, who is now aware that he's in a game.
• "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.
• Tradesnark™: 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.
  • Firewalls have a grey texture for their skin, engage in lots of Robo-Speak, and make no attempts at pretending to be human. Numerous forumites can be seen complaining about being creeped out by them.
• 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.
  • When you find NVShacker on Day 1, trying to work on A2, you can persuade the latter to kill the former.
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment: Try killing or knocking out anyone (except Jonas, but you still can't kill him) in the PDX Building if you're allied with them. King Kashue will call you a sick bastard, come down to fight you (as a moderator, he's invincible), and inevitably kill you.
• Warp Zone: One between the different districts is made available upon the completion of a sidequest.
• We Sell Everything: Because Raving's shop is the only weapon shop in Forum City, it sells nearly every non-unique item that could be useful for you.
• 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.
• Wide-Open Sandbox: Though later in the game it gets more linear.
• With This Herring: Trestkon's journey starts with literally nothing except for the key to his locker in the gun store (whereas JC Denton at least started with a pistol and a prod), forcing you to scrounge for the most basic weapons, and even though PDX could buy him a subway ticket (which costs 1000 credits), he's instead told to scrounge the money for it, as PDX wants to test if he's good enough for the job or not.
• 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 All Look Familiar: Parodied with the in-game site for Aunt Betty Industries, which offers multiple skins for security guards, which all have the same appearance, with only the names differing.
• You Bastard!: You will get this a lot from the PDX gang during the World Corp storyline.
• You Can't Thwart Stage One: Trestkon could've avoided a lot of trouble on the PDX route if he just blasted Scara in the face before aligning himself with the PDX. However, while you can go ahead and do that, the Narcissus Entity won't let you get away with it, as it'll kill you for breaking the mod's plot.