Preproduction began around August 1997 and lasted about six months. The six-person team came from Looking Glass's Austin studios. Spector, the team's director and producer, saw their work as improving upon the foundation provided by Origin, Looking Glass, and Valve by doing what those companies did not. The game's working title was "Shooter: Majestic Revelations", with a scheduled release of Christmas 1998. The working title was meant to be ironic because they did not want the game to be solely a first-person shooter. They worked on the setting ahead of the game mechanics, and decided on a conspiracy-style story that referenced existing conspiracy theories such as Area 51, CIA drug trafficking, the John F. Kennedy assassination, the Majestic 12, and a Masonic underground bunker beneath Denver International Airport. Spector said their research helped them understand how conspiracy theorists think. The team was also able to look to the real world in 1997 to find the rise of stories about terrorists and mechanically-augmented soldiers that they were able to build upon. They also used this time to work out the backstory for constancy. The team designed over 200 characters without associated in-game roles, which was both helpful when designing missions and unhelpful as they attempted to reduce their scope. In the third quarter of 1997, Spector wrote a "manifesto" on his ideal game and the "rules of role-playing" that was later published in the February 1999 "Game Developer" magazine. His principles included "problems, not puzzles", "no forced failure", "players do; NPCs watch", and "areas with multiple entrance and exit points". Reflecting, Spector felt that "Deus Ex" accomplished the intent of his manifesto.