Citadel - System Shock Fan Remake

[6743a83bd929cJDoran]

This could be brilliant! Please don't give up on this, JosiahJack - I'm really looking forward to seeing how this turns out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright
http://www.mpelletier.net/temp/dead_letter/

What ever happened to their new project/game? They say on that page "Rather than decimate a recreation of a great game by following Mr. Bené's (frankly laughable) suggestion, our team members have agreed to create an excellent game meritous of the title "next-generation successor to the genre defined by the System Shock series", so did they ever release a game, or not?

[6743a83bd947fvoodoo47]

I believe it was called Sapphire Scar, and it never got finished/released. the 'net is full of indie projects that were too ambitious and died along the way for one reason or another.

[6743a83bd9596JamesRossi]

Sapphire Scar had some neat ideas but ultimately the team just wasn't up to the task. I don't recall how far we got though. YoricksRequiem and I were doing some story stuff for it.

[6743a83bd970cvoodoo47]

ah, so you were on the team - anything more specific, like what exactly turned out to be the nut too tough to crack?

anyway, I'm always skeptical when I see an indie project that aims to be (quasi) AAA - there is just no way of pulling that off without at least some financial backing (decent voiceacting is quite costly, and such projects have little chance of commercial success with just some stock sounds off the internet).

smaller projects have a better chance, as they usually can be finished by one man (the project lead, usually) if need be, but tend to rise and fall on that one man.


also, it'd be great if JosiahJack would share some more plans and details - considering the amount of work, the release date (this december) is quite ambitious.

[6743a83bd98d5JamesRossi]

If I recall correctly it was just too ambitious. It was a big idea worked on by a small untested group. Not entirely unexpected. There was some really impressive talent there though. Some of the concept art is still good even now. You can find a fair amount here: http://www.moddb.com/mods/sapphire-scar/ or https://web.archive.org/web/20061012120020/http://sapphirescar.marsmodule.com/site/index.php

[6743a83bd9ae9voodoo47]

I see. anyway, lets try to steer the topic back to the Citadel project;

- is the inventory/hud going to be changed in any way?
- how do the mouse controls work? full, modern mouselook (with the required modifications to how the obj interactions work, lets say SS2 style) or something hybrid, like the SS1 with the mouselook mod?
- what about jumping, mantling, crouching, leaning, ladder climbing? all of these are very clunky in vanilla SS1, I assume Citadel will use something smoother?
- in orig SS1, the player has a lot of inertia (even without the skates), this combined with bouncing off the walls and obstacles leads into a lot of tumbling around, making it feel like the player is controlling a puppet on strings, and not an actual human body. I assume Citadel will smooth this out as well?
- are the resources (maps, textures, objects etc) going to be imported from SS1, or made from scratch? what about the voiceovers from the cd version, are they going to be supported? what about the rest of the sounds, are they going to be imported from SS1, or remade?
- are all the 2d sprites going to be remade as (simple) 3D models?
- and last but not least, are the original SS1 data going to be required during the install (legal safety measure)?

[6743a83bd9c5cKolya]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/09/23/system-shock-remake-citadel/

[6743a83bd9d32mahk]

This is awesome. 

[6743a83bd9e40Ndrake]

^     ^     ^     ^
|     |     |     |

I think that's what they call a blurb

[6743a83bda302JDoran]

I believe it was called Sapphire Scar, and it never got finished/released. the 'net is full of indie projects that were too ambitious and died along the way for one reason or another.

Ah, I see. Yes, the 'net is full of abandoned projects, ranging from something that doesn't even have a name, and is little more than an idea, all the way to almost finished versions that you'd think would definitely merit a release. As someone who loves (good) game mods, I've seen quite a few fall by the wayside, over the years.

On the plus side, it does at least make it all the more special when a mod is completed* and released.



* Well, not so much completed, as often the modders are perfectionists, and continue to work, or at least want to someday work, on the mods some more. To paraphrase someone, no real work of quality is ever finished, only abandoned.

Sapphire Scar had some neat ideas but ultimately the team just wasn't up to the task. I don't recall how far we got though. YoricksRequiem and I were doing some story stuff for it.

Fair enough mate. Have you worked on any other projects?

Personally, I'm really displeased (to put it lightly) that less and less games come with the modding tools nowadays. I miss the days when most good first person shooters could be modded, and to me it's a  HUGE shame that Bioshock 1 and 2 couldn't be modded, as these two games could have produced some stunning mods.

[6743a83bda433voodoo47]

intentional, most probably - nowadays, you don't really want the players to keep playing a game (and its mods and FMs) for months and years, you want them to be done with it asap so they'll go buy a new one.

[6743a83bda710JDoran]

intentional, most probably - nowadays, you don't really want the players to keep playing a game (and its mods and FMs) for months and years, you want them to be done with it asap so they'll go buy a new one.

In many cases I don't doubt that that's right. Plus of course, with the rise of paid for DLC, companies have realised that they can create the extra content themselves, and sell it for a profit, so they don't want anyone else making content for the game and giving it away for free.

[6743a83bda8b8Judicator]

JosiahJack has updated the screenshots section of Citadel MODDB page with a shot of the full MED level.

Image: http://media.moddb.com/images/games/1/36/35232/medicalfull.jpg


Edit: typo.

[6743a83bdad9dJosiahJack]

voodoo47

- is the inventory/hud going to be changed in any way?

Yes, quite a bit actually.  The inventory works like System Shock 2's.  The weapons' inventory works a bit differently and is my focus this upcoming week.  Check out my weekly report for more info each week: http://www.indiedb.com/games/citadel/features/weekly-report-9-27-14

- how do the mouse controls work? full, modern mouselook (with the required modifications to how the obj interactions work, lets say SS2 style) or something hybrid, like the SS1 with the mouselook mod?

Standard modern fps mouselook.  Left Click for shooting.  Righ click to use/frob in and outside of inventory, Double Click in inventory to bring up item details panel for stuff like grenade timer settings, info, etc.

- what about jumping, mantling, crouching, leaning, ladder climbing? all of these are very clunky in vanilla SS1, I assume Citadel will use something smoother?
- in orig SS1, the player has a lot of inertia (even without the skates), this combined with bouncing off the walls and obstacles leads into a lot of tumbling around, making it feel like the player is controlling a puppet on strings, and not an actual human body. I assume Citadel will smooth this out as well?

FPS controls will feel very similar to Quake's.  The code involved for head movement to get the feel right for smacking into walls is fairly tricky.  I don't think it's really necessary though.  Jumping will be different in that every surface is NOT a trampoline where jumping repeatedly gets you higher like the original game did, not happening.  Mantling is in System Shock 2 only.  Crouching can work from a visual standpoint, but I haven't figured out how to compile in new physics hulls for crouching and prone physics calculations for collision against the world to work properly, but I can fake it for the most part but in multiplayer it will mean that players who are crouched can get shot just by hitting the air above them right now.  Hoo!

- are the resources (maps, textures, objects etc) going to be imported from SS1, or made from scratch? what about the voiceovers from the cd version, are they going to be supported? what about the rest of the sounds, are they going to be imported from SS1, or remade?
- are all the 2d sprites going to be remade as (simple) 3D models?
- and last but not least, are the original SS1 data going to be required during the install (legal safety measure

Textures for walls are direct import, converted, then baked into the level geometry.  Everything else is modified or done from scratch.  The final release will have everything needed to play the game.  A separate package will be available to provide mod tools and resource gimp files, base bmps,  model .blends, etc.

@Everyone-else: Yikes, looks like I opened a can of worms.

[6743a83bdaf2avoodoo47]

and what about the sounds, voiceovers and music? can't imagine you'll be redoing that from scratch. anyway, prepare for some flak from purists. I personally don't mind the changes, as long as everything clicks together in the end and the game will play and feel nice. so again, good luck, and may you meet your deadline.

also, if you need some help with something, do ask around, this place ain't called systemshock.org for nothing.


//made the first post a bit more presentable - remember, embedding pics will not work unless they are https, but you should now have permissions to remove/attach them to your post as deemed fit. slight cleanup on the offtopic posts as well.

[6743a83bdb040JDoran]

Will this be open-source (and is Darkplaces open-source), so that anyone can compile it to run on other machines, too?

Please say yes, as I'd love to see this on the original XBox!

[6743a83bdb139Judicator]

Count me as a purist.
What about the health monitor, Upgrade sockets, double MFD and UI in general?

[6743a83bdb255Seba313]

Your project is very promising, and i even started some modelling if you are still interested.

Image: http://s8.postimg.org/4f9iywcvp/mutant.jpg

[6743a83bdb5c8unn_atropos]

@Seba313: Here is another Sys1 hybrid model here  and a picture here (since the pictures in the thread seem to be gone)

[6743a83bdb732icemann]

Oooo some SS1 models. Don't see anyone attempting those that often.

[6743a83bdbd14Marvin]

[...]Mantling is in System Shock 2 only.

Wrong. SS1 supports mantling, just not for every surface or height.

[6743a83bdbfb7ToxicFrog]

Wrong. SS1 supports mantling, just not for every surface or height.

I though what SS1 actually supports is ladder textures. You can't mantle, but you can climb ladders (which includes both actual ladders and pipework, vines, etc). And a lot of places where you would plausibly want to mantle have these textures applied.

[6743a83bdc290Marvin]

I though what SS1 actually supports is ladder textures. You can't mantle, but you can climb ladders (which includes both actual ladders and pipework, vines, etc). And a lot of places where you would plausibly want to mantle have these textures applied.

True (if you don't want to call that mantling - I would), but you can also climb any surface which is slightly above waist high. If all of that is implemented with some variation of the ladder mechanic, okay, but I was perplexed by the idea such things would not be included.

[6743a83bdc3e0ToxicFrog]

I wouldn't call that mantling because it requires the level designer to explicitly mark where it's allowed, rather than it being an inherent property of the player physics that you can use anywhere a la Thief.

I didn't think you could mantle arbitrary surfaces, and I could have sworn I'd tried that before without success. I'll fire up SS1 when I get home and investigate.