New gameplay trailer for SS1 remake - medical level

[6742b6a140592Gawain]

since you are against improving it.

I'm not against improving. Adding stuff from SS2 doesn't equal improving.

There should be a few dots that connects the two games together

There is 42 years between the games. No need to connect more than is connected in SS2.

[6742b6a140a1clastonearound]

Uhh.. but you're suggesting incorporating story elements of a sequel into the chronology of the first game, as if references to the second game belong in or have no adverse effect on the first game.  Is that not nonsense?

I did say (repeatedly) "where it makes sense". If something exist in the second game, that supposedly exist even before the first game, it should logically be in the first game. I am only talking about the tidbits of information SS2 has. And I am not talking about anything big here, a passing mention here and there. Things like corporations and PSI which is in the second game but didn't exist in the first game because they hadn't thought of it yet...

As you've done no research before saying that, I'd recommend reading up on the forums here. Until then, your the only one talking nonsense. Have a long read, then post. We shall be waiting. There was dozen of threads with hundreds of posts on this.

I said you were talking nonsense and have no idea what you are talking about and you came back to prove it. Bravo.

And not "your", it is "you're".

I didn't need to do any research. I lived it. They have been on my radar since the bloody kickstarter campaign started. Some of the screenshots they released didn't look anything like what could be identified as a System Shock game. There were many articles about how they turned the game into a generic space adventure game and developers themselves stated they lost sight of what they were trying to do. Hiatus came only after that. I wasn't around here then, but I can't imagine people saying "OMIGAD THIS LOOKS LIKE IT IS SYSTEM SHOCK 2!!!!" as it looked so generic it could have been anything.

[6742b6a140dc4icemann]

I didn't need to do any research.

Then nothing you say is of relevance. Even Night Dive themselves have come out and admitted the original direction was HEAVILY influenced by SS2. Watch any of the early streams since your too lazy to go look up posts. But aye, that's too much work obviously.

[6742b6a141015lastonearound]

Then nothing you say is of relevance. Even Night Dive themselves have come out and admitted the original direction was HEAVILY influenced by SS2. Watch any of the early streams since your too lazy to go look up posts. But aye, that's too much work obviously.

You are not reading. I suppose you are incapable of it. I said I lived it. That means I SAW THE DAMN STREAMS AS WELL. WHAT DO YOU THINK!!

The end product didn't even resemble any System Shock game you could imagine. That's where people started to complain. You can't just pick a bit of information thinking it proves your point.

[6742b6a141172voodoo47]

agreed that the scrapped "look we can shatter AIs" build was just bad, and not because of the few SS2 elements.

[6742b6a141856RocketMan]

Things like corporations and PSI which is in the second game but didn't exist in the first game because they hadn't thought of it yet...

This is what I don't understand.  If it's in the second game and not the first, "because they hadn't thought of it yet", then why would you put it back in the first game?  They hadn't thought of it yet right? 

Think of what you're saying.  Let's take a similar example like the Many.  The Many weren't part of SS1 because that's chronologically out of order but you might make some passing mention of them, just like PSI or whatever.  But in the case of the Many, that'd fuck up the whole game because that's a huge reveal of something that literally is decades away from happening.  It's a more extreme case than just mentioning PSI, but do you see how incongruent it would be to backwash references from SS2 into SS1?  It would have to assume at the least that the player knows both games because then you could argue that they'd nod to the info when they came across it in SS1 remake.  But who would nod to it if they knew it was premature information?  And anybody who hadn't played SS2 would react no differently than if the extra details weren't put there. 

The best I can do to meet you half way is to assume that you are criticizing the level of backstory that SS1 had, which may have overlapped with SS2.  In that case though, you're not harmonizing SS2 and SS1.  You're just telling a more complete story about SS1.

[6742b6a141d25ZylonBane]

There should be a few dots that connects the two games together, however small they might be.

You wake up on the medical deck of a TriOptimum facility deep in outer space after several months in a healing coma from getting your R-grade implant installed. Almost everyone is dead, requiring you to piece together what happened from audio logs left behind by the crew. With your arsenal of ballistic weapons (with multiple ammo types), energy weapons (rechargeable with batteries or at the handy recharging stations), and your trusty laser rapier, you slaughter your way through cyborgs, robots, horribly deformed former crew, and the rare but deadly reavers. Collecting cybernetic upgrades, opening a door with 451, using healing beds, resurrecting when you die, destroying security cameras, looting Diego's corpse, and progressing deck by deck (occasionally returning to earlier decks to perform plot-critical tasks) you eventually confront and defeat SHODAN in cyberspace.

Which game did I just describe?

[6742b6a141e6cGawain]

PSI stuff doesn't exist yet in SS1. As doesn't cybernetic modules or nanites or thousand other things. Let's just imagine they are invented twenty years after SS1 happens.

[6742b6a142841lastonearound]

This is what I don't understand.  If it's in the second game and not the first, "because they hadn't thought of it yet", then why would you put it back in the first game?  They hadn't thought of it yet right? 

Think of what you're saying.  Let's take a similar example like the Many.  The Many weren't part of SS1 because that's chronologically out of order but you might make some passing mention of them, just like PSI or whatever.  But in the case of the Many, that'd fuck up the whole game because that's a huge reveal of something that literally is decades away from happening.  It's a more extreme case than just mentioning PSI, but do you see how incongruent it would be to backwash references from SS2 into SS1?  It would have to assume at the least that the player knows both games because then you could argue that they'd nod to the info when they came across it in SS1 remake.  But who would nod to it if they knew it was premature information?  And anybody who hadn't played SS2 would react no differently than if the extra details weren't put there. 

The best I can do to meet you half way is to assume that you are criticizing the level of backstory that SS1 had, which may have overlapped with SS2.  In that case though, you're not harmonizing SS2 and SS1.  You're just telling a more complete story about SS1.

You are comparing apples and oranges here. I will repeat, I said "where it makes sense". It is not a question of extremes. Your example doesn't make any sense no matter what. It even compare because as of the events of SS1 Many didn't even exactly exist yet. It's origins began to take shape after Hackers actions near the end game, therefore there cannot be a passing mention of it. What I was talking about isn't something that would spoil anything. SS2 expanded the world lore and backstory in a way, it still isn't a whole a lot, but SS1 lacks it direly.

I played all three Mass Effect games, I knew Binary Helix existed all three games, it is a nice bit of backstory. Something you might miss. But knowing it exists since the first game didn't make the second game boring. It only served to make the first game more entertaining. My suggestion was like that. Your example is like "Well, if we add a mention of Binary Helix in the first game, a similar example would be the entire backstory of the reapers and citadel. Which is a more extreme example but they are basically the same thing."

TIL - adding tidbits of the slightly expanded lore back into the first game is basically the same as spoiling one of the main plots of the second game.

You wake up on the medical deck of a TriOptimum facility deep in outer space after several months in a healing coma from getting your R-grade implant installed. Almost everyone is dead, requiring you to piece together what happened from audio logs left behind by the crew. With your arsenal of ballistic weapons (with multiple ammo types), energy weapons (rechargeable with batteries or at the handy recharging stations), and your trusty laser rapier, you slaughter your way through cyborgs, robots, horribly deformed former crew, and the rare but deadly reavers. Collecting cybernetic upgrades, opening a door with 451, using healing beds, resurrecting when you die, destroying security cameras, looting Diego's corpse, and progressing deck by deck (occasionally returning to earlier decks to perform plot-critical tasks) you eventually confront and defeat SHODAN in cyberspace.

Which game did I just describe?

Did you know that you can do the same trick on a number of games and movies and make them sound exactly the same? It still doesn't make it relevant.

Also, we are talking about the backstory of the world and you point out laser rapiers.. Great. It is confirmed that any other games or movies that has laser rapiers and cyborgs is System Shock. Awesome.

[6742b6a142966Gawain]

There actually is quite a lot of world lore in the manual and official hint book...

[6742b6a142a85Gawain]

On that note. I wouldn't mind if some of those could be found as notes ingame. Especially the hint book has some very cool memos.

[6742b6a142cd5Kolya]

Considering the mutant model has no genitalia or breasts (assuming some were women) the modeler at least did a great job on that mutant arse. 

That being said, I would consider giving them a bit more humanoid utterances than their current pig squeals. Maybe not fully talking like SS2's hybrics, but sounds that could belong to a human in distress or terror or anger. Like crying, coughing, humming, yikes, weird laughing and muttering, etc.
This is one lesson of SS2 that this SS1 remake could actually pick up on, as many other games have done since because it's a universal concept: Humanizing your enemies enhances the immersion of your game tremendously.

[6742b6a142e2aKolya]

Please remind me: Is this woman talking about her and her colleagues imminent slaughtering in a nightmare scenario?
Or is she done shopping for today?

Cut corners on the graphics if you must, but don't do it on the voice actors. It's that important.

[6742b6a143400ZylonBane]

Humanizing your enemies enhances the immersion of your game tremendously.

Half-Life 2 did this to great effect with the zombie vocalizations.

Please remind me: Is this woman talking about her and her colleagues imminent slaughtering in a nightmare scenario?
Or is she done shopping for today?

The voice acting in that isn't great, but the overall approach is valid:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduced_affect_display

Reduced affect display, sometimes referred to as emotional blunting, is a condition of reduced emotional reactivity in an individual. It manifests as a failure to express feelings (affect display) either verbally or non-verbally, especially when talking about issues that would normally be expected to engage the emotions. [...] Reduced affect can be symptomatic of [...] depression, posttraumatic stress disorder...

[6742b6a143561Kolya]

That is a realistic explanation, but we're talking about a game, where the voice acting has the function to immerse the player in the story. And better gameplay beats realism anytime in a game.

If it is even that and not just an unmotivated speaker.

[6742b6a1436a6ZylonBane]

I don't think emotional freakouts are the only way to immerse players. Getting emotionally burned out is something that humans do, so the presumably human players should be able to recognize when it's happened to an in-game character.

[6742b6a143830Kolya]

And do you recognize it in that log? And this one? And halve the others? Sorry, that's just shitty voice actors.
The AI has more emotional speech than dying people here. Because Terri is a good actor.

"I think I saw Beth yesterday...."

You know what would have been fun here? If you could shove that mutant down the chasm.

[6742b6a143afaZylonBane]

And this one?

Actually, yes. That guy sounds like he's about ready to eat a shotgun and not even care.

[6742b6a143c30Kolya]

Yeah that kind of devil may care attitude is a lot more rare in the face of danger than action movies might make you believe.
But more importantly the only people who can relate to it are kids who wish they would be so cool.

[6742b6a144252unn_atropos]

Please remind me: Is this woman talking about her and her colleagues imminent slaughtering in a nightmare scenario?
Or is she done shopping for today?

Cut corners on the graphics if you must, but don't do it on the voice actors. It's that important.

And do you recognize it in that log? And this one? And halve the others? Sorry, that's just shitty voice actors.
The AI has more emotional speech than dying people here. Because Terri is a good actor.

"I think I saw Beth yesterday...."

You know what would have been fun here? If you could shove that mutant down the chasm.

Both audiologs from the original game. Honig and Ozark:
https://www.systemshock.org/shocklogs/ss1/index.html

[6742b6a14441bKolya]

And they already sounded terrible in the original game. They used LG staffers to voice those logs, ie non-professional voice actors.
But then SS2 and hundreds of other games came along, picked up the idea of voice logs and more generally voice guidance in games and used pro actors.

[6742b6a144737ZylonBane]

...devil may care attitude...

Now I'm suspecting you don't understand at all. Put simply, a devil-may-care attitude means you have no fucks to give. But being emotionally drained means you had many fucks, but they've all been burnt out of you. For example, by living through everyone you know being horribly slaughtered one by one and knowing that you're probably going to die next and there's not a damn thing you can do to stop it and you haven't slept properly in weeks and rescue is literally millions of miles away and you flat-out barely have the energy to care about anything anymore.

[6742b6a144857Kolya]

I read the wiki article, I understand. I just didn't realize you suspect that this guy is also supposed to have reduced affect display. Seems really common on Citadel.

[6742b6a144b72lastonearound]

Now I'm suspecting you don't understand at all. Put simply, a devil-may-care attitude means you have no fucks to give. But being emotionally drained means you had many fucks, but they've all been burnt out of you. For example, by living through everyone you know being horribly slaughtered one by one and knowing that you're probably going to die next and there's not a damn thing you can do to stop it and you haven't slept properly in weeks and rescue is literally millions of miles away and you flat-out barely have the energy to care about anything anymore.

I could agree with the emotional distress/trauma argument if it was just one or two people.

You see, not everyone gives out the same reaction to situations like this. But yeah, lets say horror of the situation turns these people into Data from Star Trek TNG.