20 Years of System Shock

[68296451a8603vorob]

http://www.twitch.tv/algorithmancy/b/570895311

Anyway to download it with one gigantic 7-hour file?

[68296451a87f8Briareos H]

Originally, the game was going to have terminals to be used with a text interface in addition to the cyberspace. The idea ended up being deemed "ludicrous" :p

The teleporting code used to take care of level transitions used an original way to locate the elevators in the map, by checking whether a tile was playing the elevator muzak or not.

Austin Grossman's new book will probably come out next year. He described it as "the darkness of cold war refactored through H.P. Lovecraft, as told by Richard Nixon".

Two enemies in cyberspace, the cyberdog (or 'cyber pig') and cyberguard use heightmap-based voxel rendering.

[68296451a910cunn_atropos]

- Strategic maps by toxicfrog: http://funkyhorror.ancilla.ca/toxicfrog/ss1/maps/
- The character portraits show members of the developement team, as well as the severed heads.
- The picture that is shown when you activate the laser before the shield is up was taken from a road Atlas for Boston.
- When the sensearound is activated, no enemies will spawn in your view

Mrminman: my version of Salt the Fries was that we stayed late one night and in the morning, we made a run to the Lexington McDonalds. We got so much food they got us a box - and it said "Salt the Fries" on the box

[68296451a9280Join2]

-When throwing grenades or other objects, drag the object forwards to impart extra velocity. Can also throw objects away to the side (useful when dealing with a pile of items I imagine).

[68296451a93d1voodoo47]

any details from the second part of the stream? had to ho to sleep (at 3 am, and going to work in the morning).

[68296451a952aKolya]

And who posted this pastebin, which looks like part of the source code for SS1 minigames?
http://pastebin.com/epfmWNQJ

[68296451a97d1Join2]

any details from the second part of the stream? had to ho to sleep (at 3 am, and going to work in the morning).

There may or may not be a second stream where MAHK finishes up SS.
They did another Q&A.
Someone recorded the chat along with the stream, so you won't miss a thing.

[68296451a98bevoodoo47]

excellent.

[68296451ab3b3ToxicFrog]

The stream was a blast, I had to leave around the time they reached deck 3 but I'm definitely going to be downloading and watching the rest sometime this week.

Technical suggestion for next time: leave the Shock volume settings alone, and instead use the OS mixer, streaming software, or DOSBOX's built-in mixer (run the MIXER command before starting Shock) to reduce the volume across the board -- that way we can still hear sound effects and audio logs, and don't get punished by the cutscene volume when you die.

It should also be possible for the stream to follow the resolution change successfully, I know I've streamed variable-resolution games in the past without that issue, so I may spend some time this week taffing about in OBS to see if I can get it working at 640x480 and then post instructions here.

And who posted this pastebin, which looks like part of the source code for SS1 minigames?
http://pastebin.com/epfmWNQJ

That was Nothings, I think.

There may or may not be a second stream where MAHK finishes up SS.
They did another Q&A.
Someone recorded the chat along with the stream, so you won't miss a thing.

Ooo, where's the record of the chat? Or is it not uploaded yet?

[68296451ab72fZylonBane]

The teleporting code used to take care of level transitions used an original way to locate the elevators in the map, by checking whether a tile was playing the elevator muzak or not.

What's being said oddly here is that when they realized they needed to code the elevators so that objects dropped on the floor would be moved between maps along with the player, the only way they could determine the actual bounds of each elevator was by checking which tiles were set to play the elevator muzak. A side effect of this was that all elevators had to play the muzak or the system wouldn't work.

In SS2 this system is called object elevatoring, and is handled by room brushes.

[68296451abac5Join2]

Ooo, where's the record of the chat? Or is it not uploaded yet?

The guy said he'd post it here when it's uploaded iirc.

[68296451abbd5unn_atropos]

Stream records are up: http://www.youtube.com/user/algorithmancyTube/videos

[68296451abcedJudicator]

Tonight has been great, the nerd in me is still excited.
I just would like to thank all the people that made this possible and the people in the chat who gave us incredible infos.
Unfortunately I had to go to sleep but today as soon as I woke up I downloaded the twitch streams, I have still 5 hours of SS awesomess.

Edit: typos

[68296451abdd7OmegaDEATH]

I just want to say that I loved watching this.
Thanks alot

[68296451abfcaToxicFrog]

I think I've figured out a good configuration for streaming SS1.

First, in the DOSBOX configuration, set dosbox to use openGL rendering and scale everything to the in-game resolution. I'm using 800x600 here:

Code: [Select]

[sdl]
fullresolution=800x600
windowresolution=800x600
output=opengl

[render]
aspect=true
scaler=none

This means that the SS1 window will always be 800x600; if you switch to a lower mode, like the menus or in-game map, it'll just get a bit blurry rather than shrinking the window. Note that it is important to use opengl here; the default, surface, (a) won't scale things and (b) will crash as soon as OBS tries to capture it.

Then, in OBS, open the settings and set Video->Resolution->Custom: 800x600, Downscaling: none.

Finally, create a Game Capture source, and point it at dosbox. If it doesn't show the entire screen, press ctrl-F (or right-click->position/size->fit to screen).

There you go! System Shock at glorious high resolution, streaming the entire game screen and properly following the game through resolution changes.

To scale down the game audio, start up dosbox and then, before starting SS1, run

mixer master 20:20

(for example) to reduce all dosbox audio to 20%. This is a better option than using the in-game volume settings because it affects cutscenes as well. You can also automate this procedure by putting the mixer command in dosbox.conf's [autoexec] section.

[68296451ac2b4Kolya]

mixer master 20:20

Couldn't that also go into the dosbox.conf? Seems easier, especially when using SSP.

[68296451ac439mahk]

Hi all.  Thanks to everyone who watched!   The stream was super fun.  After a break, I ended up going back and playing Shock on my own for another hour or so. 

I see someone already posted a link to the archive.  Thanks!

I'll post to this thread when I know when we're doing it again.  I definitely want to get the audio problems solved, and probably do a full playthrough on my own as well, so I remember the terrain better.

[68296451ac699Ndrake]

I think the dev. playthrough deserves some branching out on this forum so I propose a favorite quotes thread.

[The question of the longevity of System Shock and why people still remember it is picked up from the chat at 1:49:24 (youtube)]
[Shock is seminal, influences on the industry, "other games with Shock in the title", hardcore following are mentioned]

Hour 1:50:51:

mahk: "....back here again, now that I'm healed up? ... Yes! Have I learned my lesson? No!" [laughter ] ...

Austin: "Yeah if I had to answer the question for myself i guess i would probably add two more things. One is that this sort of open design of the game means that... for me it means that like people had more their own experiences  in System Shock. It didn't feel like they had run through a script when they were done. They felt like they kind of owned their particular playthrough in a way that I think sticks in the memory more."

- "Yeah I think ownership was exactly the word that i was thinking. I totally agree."

[68296451ac8c8mahk]

Anyway to download it with one gigantic 7-hour file?

I have an FLV recording from the streaming software.  I'll upload it as soon as I find a good place to store it. 

[68296451adc33ToxicFrog]

- Strategic maps by toxicfrog: http://funkyhorror.ancilla.ca/toxicfrog/ss1/maps/

I've been making some updates to these in the wake of the stream; they should now be about half the size they were yesterday, and I'm working on a "unified map" output that crams them all into one file -- which will enable features like searching for objects by name across the entire game.

Couldn't that also go into the dosbox.conf? Seems easier, especially when using SSP.

It could, I totally forgot that there's an [autoexec] section. (Supposedly there's also a [mixer] section, but documentation on it is basically nonexistent, so I don't know if you can do it there too.)

Hi all.  Thanks to everyone who watched!   The stream was super fun.  After a break, I ended up going back and playing Shock on my own for another hour or so. 

I see someone already posted a link to the archive.  Thanks!

I'll post to this thread when I know when we're doing it again.  I definitely want to get the audio problems solved, and probably do a full playthrough on my own as well, so I remember the terrain better.

Thanks again for doing this, it was a blast! The stream seemed to pick up a bunch of people who hadn't played System Shock, too, so maybe this has enticed a few more people to play it.

As for the A/V issues, I posted the results of some experimentation with dosbox and OBS a few posts ago; you might find it useful.

[68296451ae3f0ZylonBane]

I think the dev. playthrough deserves some branching out on this forum so I propose a favorite quotes thread.

I think that would be pointlessly fragmenting a single topic that's so far barely even two pages long.

[68296451ae87cToxicFrog]

The maps have been further updated; you can now search for objects (per level or across the entire game). Mousing over the search results will hilight them in the map, and clicking on them will jump to that deck (if it wasn't already showing). No more wandering around wondering where the hazard suits are.

[68296451af84cfox]

Thanks for the event, mahk! Haven't been able to see more then a few minutes of audio fiddeling yet but from the comments here I'm sure you got that fixed at some point.

[68296451afb8fJoin2]

I guess I am mistaken regarding someone recording the chat?

It was great to witness this event and to see numerous LGS alumni reminiscing together.