System Shock remake and System Shock 3

[673f8ac81ee5eKolya]

The original System Shock did away with friendly NPCs

In 1994 there weren't many games with friendly NPCs I think, if any. And if you're referring to SS2 then Levine made it clear many times that they didn't know how to do NPC interaction realistic and that's why they avoided it.
I would argue that apart from heavily scripted games NPC interaction still isn't being done on a realistic level and may not be for years. So it was to their credit to realise this AND come up with another story  telling technique that survived to this day: audio logs.

[673f8ac81f3a2Join2]

Ultima Underworld 1 & 2 (and its friendly NPCs) is where that comment has basis. Underworld is the design framework of the Immersive Sim and also the code framework of System Shock, so they "did away with NPCs" in that regard. And yes, I know why they done it. I was simply using it as one example of System Shock's less complex design compared to the likes of Ultima Underworld & Deus Ex, and how I don't see a System Shock 3 as being a good catalyst to further emergent gameplay beyond or even to the standard of what was achieved in those games. System Shock was intended to be more scripted and restrictive than DX or UW, there's not great potential for emergent gameplay given the setting, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. So when I see links like this:

venturebeat.com - Warren Spector wants to mine new ’emergent gameplay’ from System Shock’s nostalgia

...and read emergent gameplay mentioned frequently by Spector as the highlight of the immersive sim, I can't help but question Spector's intentions. Is he going to be happy making a more restrictive game with SS3 where you're doing a whole lot of cyborg slaying and not a great deal else (slight exaggeration)?

[673f8ac81f5e1fox]

I can see where you are coming from and I agree that other aspects of SS's design are more important. Still, I totally share that specific fascination with Spector and think that SS is a good place to continue work on that element. I always thought that Levine and Spector would make a potentially great team because Levine does seem to excell more at story writing while Spector seems better in the gameplay department.

[673f8ac81f7ebQuindorrian]

Apparently, Specter is playing through SS1 and SS2 before he starts on SS3.  I think that is a great thing, but I hope he is able to appreciate the right things about these beloved games.  Depth of game-play is just as important as atmosphere.  The ability to modify weapons, change their firing behavior, and improve your skills with them, is something that should not be perceived as "a hassle".  The same goes for many elements of System Shock. 

For some reason, this whole thing kinda reminds me of Star Wars where Episode VII is the movie fans have wanted.  System Shock 3 needs to be the game we fans have wanted.  If Specter bases SS3 on his opinions only, then we may have some problems.  He (or an important part of his team) needs to be fan(s) of the series with the intent of really making it shine even brighter.  That was the problem Lucas had with Stars Wars in E1-E3.  He created the movies based on his own opinions and then got pissed when the fans were pissed.  Something like System Shock, with its own sub-culture, needs to be treated like a fan would treat it.  That is why the mods on this site are so great; because they were created by fans and it shows. 

I couldn't be more excited about SS3, especially after listening to the teaser (I got chills, as well).  There's something about the teaser...  It feels right...  This gives me a lot of hope.  I really hope Specter understands the fan-base though (at least enough to pull this off).  This is my most anticipated game of all time.  Crossing my fingers.

[673f8ac81f98afox]

I'm leaving this here because it's Spector talking but it's not really about System Shock.

"You Don’t Have as Much Control in Videogames as You Think"
http://www.wired.com/2016/03/geeks-guide-warren-spector/

In case you don't like Wired's anti-adblock-wall, here's the cached version:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_en95HdUxBgJ:http://www.wired.com/2016/03/geeks-guide-warren-spector/%2Bhttp://www.wired.com/2016/03/geeks-guide-warren-spector/&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&hl=de&&ct=clnk

[673f8ac81fe87Producer_chris]

Apparently, Specter is playing through SS1 and SS2 before he starts on SS3.  I think that is a great thing, but I hope he is able to appreciate the right things about these beloved games.  Depth of game-play is just as important as atmosphere.  The ability to modify weapons, change their firing behavior, and improve your skills with them, is something that should not be perceived as "a hassle".  The same goes for many elements of System Shock. 

For some reason, this whole thing kinda reminds me of Star Wars where Episode VII is the movie fans have wanted.  System Shock 3 needs to be the game we fans have wanted.  If Specter bases SS3 on his opinions only, then we may have some problems.  He (or an important part of his team) needs to be fan(s) of the series with the intent of really making it shine even brighter.  That was the problem Lucas had with Stars Wars in E1-E3.  He created the movies based on his own opinions and then got pissed when the fans were pissed.  Something like System Shock, with its own sub-culture, needs to be treated like a fan would treat it.  That is why the mods on this site are so great; because they were created by fans and it shows. 

I couldn't be more excited about SS3, especially after listening to the teaser (I got chills, as well).  There's something about the teaser...  It feels right...  This gives me a lot of hope.  I really hope Specter understands the fan-base though (at least enough to pull this off).  This is my most anticipated game of all time.  Crossing my fingers.

We at Otherside completely agree. But we can't be slaves to the past either. I think one of the first questions we need to ask is are we 'old time' cyberpunk, or do we push forward to 'modern' cyberpunk? So much has changed since the early days of this genre do we explore where that takes us? Episode VII is the great example of reintroduction, but to just do a beat for beat SS remake I don't think would make fans, or frankly us, happy.

[673f8ac8202b3RocketMan]

It depends on what you believe has become antiquated about the 94/99 way of making System Shock.  What elements of those games do you believe would tie you down in a modern sequel?  Why is it that we did not get pissed off when SS2 was released?  It was certainly a different sort of game than SS1 was.  Use that as your template.  Some things changed but much of what mattered stayed the same.  And just as a thought experiment, pretend that time flowed in reverse and SS1 came after SS2.  Would we have been upset with that?  What was it about SS1 that would have kept us happy in spite of its older design?

[673f8ac820431fox]

Overall something that is known for oldschool cyberpunk should stay oldschool but I think there's still room for subtle updates. If something is so glaringly anachronistic that it becomes unintentionally funny (like DXs landline-phones) then it should be changed. While Human Revolution overdid it a bit in some areas (and with the whole stylizing) and generally lacked a bit in grit, it managed the transistion quite ok, I think. Not an easy task though.

[673f8ac820582Producer_chris]

Sure basic gameplay IS Looking Glass. That won't change. But I see a number of people talking about another Haunted House experience, retreading that same ideal. I'm not sure that is the best call..it may be the right call. There are other fears than isolation. What happens if Shodan gets into the wild? What happens if she 'wins'? Either of these threads won't allow the game to take place in a vacuum. Anyway...

But Cyberspace and cyberpunk in general has so many new and interesting threads to pull. Cyborg-ism, bio-enginnering, hell, computing in general has completely changed since 99.

All of this said, I'm head down in Underworld right now and honestly try not to give Shock too many brain cells.

[673f8ac8206caProducer_chris]

Retro: Best example is the latest Alien game which kept to the seventies version of the future.
But is that really what we want to do with Shock?
Like I said, I'm not completely sure that Retrofuture is the way to go. It all starts feeling like a Terry Brooks film to me thinking that way, and never feels quite right.
Now, reimagining old cyberpunk tropes with modern thoughts around it. I still think 'entering' the net can be done and still be awesome. But what that looks like needs to be completely reimagined, even if we kept the cyperpunk terminology the same -black ice..exc.

[673f8ac82088dfox]

Please don't stray too far from SS2's look and feel (aesthetics and gameplay). Once again I want to point at "Invisible War" as a warning and bad example. And then compare that to Human Revolution (+The Missing Link). Otherwise what's the point of using the franchise?

In terms of visible cyberspace I can't really think of an appealing way to make it look less retro as it's one of the few tropes that didn't become a reality. I guess that's not just because of hardware limitations but simply because 2D-diagrams and text-based lists still offer a better overview of the desired informations then fancy 3D-tunnels you have to maneuver through with almost zero usability. 

So if you'd want to make that more realistic I guess it should be more like todays augmanted reality-applications for engineering or architects. You know, enhancing stuff visually only when it makes sense in the context and offering text or symbols where that is the easier to comprehend solution. Offering options for zooming in and out of stuff, etc.. 

There are some interesting videos about the HoloLens on YT. If you'd replace the 80ies cyberspace with something like that in SS3, I'd consider it a reasonable update but I guess others would find that too much of a change already.

[673f8ac820a2fJoin2]

A modern, or just different take on the setting is fine to me. I do think it is important OtherSide get creative even with the established IPs, but so much of the original designs in Shock, Deus Ex, Underworld and the like are so logical, synergistic and well executed that very little should be discarded I feel. Each Immersive Sim shares a hell of a lot in common, yet have so many differences. There's a lot of iterative design, building upon the past.

What I desire to see is another step in evolution from the crew once more. The evolution of the early '90s LG games (Underworld, Shock) to the late 90s (Shock 2, Deus Ex and even Arx). That was both an innovative and iterative evolution, kept nearly everything good about the earlier games, and another evolution along those lines would blow my fucking mind (again). Pull it off and you truly would be the finest talent the industry has ever seen, and probably ever will. Sadly, I doubt you will pull it off on that level, mostly due to circumstance (i.e budget and some other things), but I would not be surprised if you proved me wrong.

[673f8ac820d4bOlfred]

What always bothered me about cyberspace is the natural move forward. Especially at the beginning when you aren't used to the controls you just bounce around. So maybe something like w,a,s,d being up,left,down,right and jump becomes a forward drift and crouch becomes backwards.
I'll probably get a lot of hate for this, but hey, that's just my opinion.

When it comes to a more modern take of the virtual reality or cyberspace world. Tron Uprising (,the animated series which sadly got cancelled,) did a good job on visualising it.

[673f8ac821947Producer_chris]

Please don't stray too far from SS2's look and feel (aesthetics and gameplay). Once again I want to point at "Invisible War" as a warning and bad example. And then compare that to Human Revolution (+The Missing Link). Otherwise what's the point of using the franchise?

In terms of visible cyberspace I can't really think of an appealing way to make it look less retro as it's one of the few tropes that didn't become a reality. I guess that's not just because of hardware limitations but simply because 2D-diagrams and text-based lists still offer a better overview of the desired informations then fancy 3D-tunnels you have to maneuver through with almost zero usability. 

So if you'd want to make that more realistic I guess it should be more like todays augmanted reality-applications for engineering or architects. You know, enhancing stuff visually only when it makes sense in the context and offering text or symbols where that is the easier to comprehend solution. Offering options for zooming in and out of stuff, etc.. 

There are some interesting videos about the HoloLens on YT. If you'd replace the 80ies cyberspace with something like that in SS3, I'd consider it a reasonable update but I guess others would find that too much of a change already.

That said--look at Star Trek TNG vs. TOS, or BattleStar vs old Battlestar. You can nod back to the originals but still modernize. Like old Trek, there has been so much advancement in our world that some of Shock just isn't Sci-fi anymore. It may come off very forced if we just retro it. Unlike the Alien game, which worked because the noises, wall patterns, suit design exc, not only became the genre, but frankly were designed by Gieger, so calling back to that completely works.

[673f8ac821deffox]

That said--look at Star Trek TNG vs. TOS, or BattleStar vs old Battlestar. You can nod back to the originals but still modernize. Like old Trek, there has been so much advancement in our world that some of Shock just isn't Sci-fi anymore. It may come off very forced if we just retro it. Unlike the Alien game, which worked because the noises, wall patterns, suit design exc, not only became the genre, but frankly were designed by Gieger, so calling back to that completely works.

If you really go that route, I would strongly advise you to not call it "System Shock 3" and to indicate the change of style like "The Next Generation" did instead. It would be more of a spin-off rather than a sequel.  I'm pretty sure that this is not what most people are hoping for at this point. I don't know how often I read the sentence "Might be a nice game/movie/comic/book but they really shouldn't have called it [enter franchise-name]". I haven't played "Alien: Isolation" but from what I've seen, I'd be absoultely fine with that degree of retro in SS actually. Visually the environment of the "Dead Space"-games are fitting too. A capable art-department should be able to whip something like that up even without Giger on the team.

[673f8ac822081RocketMan]

Chris, I get a bit of a sense that by "sticking to the original" you think we mean, "don't update the perception of the era".  As mentioned by others and yourself, we know things now that make our present view of the future a lot different than our prior views.  That's ok.  Nothing wrong with refining the reality you are portraying by replacing PDAs with tablets or something like that.  The more important considerations transcend simple details like that.  The engineering that went into the space station's architecture for example...it was very very cool in SS1.  Obviously limited by the engine but that almost made it better in some instances.  There's a style to it.  What if Shodan wins?  Cool.  I don't need a game with a happy ending.  I don't think that's really important.  I don't play a game EVER to see if I'm going to win or lose.  It's everything in between that I care about.  My personal recommendation is to try to think more holistically at first.  Once that's done, details tend to fall into place more easily, as the environment you've crafted won't feel right, unless populated a certain way. 

And I agree that cyberspace is an exception to the rule.  Cyberspace can be updated but it shouldn't be "modernized" like what Tron Legacy did to "the system" artistically.  Cyberspace is supposed to be simple and crude and high contrast and colourful.  It's supposed to be very iconic of everything it represents.  Simple primitives and wireframe walls are just fine if you decide to keep that.

Also TNG is a not so common example of how you can get things right and it doesn't have to improve or degrade as a function of time.  TNG was way better than the original AND all the ones that came after it.  In fact TNG is a great place to get inspiration for SS3 I would think... not so much stylistically or for props, but for storytelling and thematic elements and such.

[673f8ac8222d4Kolya]

Personally I think that the icons of Cyberpunk are over and done. The lonely hacker and his fight against the mega-corporations would quickly be made out as what they are today: Antiquated ideals of the early hacker pioneers. But the themes of Cyberpunk are very much alive. The fear of technology and where it may lead us has entered the daily news, the mainstream.

Watch Dogs used contemporary topics like mass surveillance and hyper connectivity and that's where I would like to see System Shock go. But what Watch Dogs lacked, especially compared to Cyberpunk works, was any kind of personal or political perspective on those technological changes. A perspective that might show a way into the future.

In Cyberpunk this was the knowledgable hacker David prevailing against the dumb greedy corporate Goliath. His main fight though was against himself, his own curiosity in technology and what may come from it. An AI like SHODAN and the singularity it would bring are both: the goal the hacker aspires to and his nightmare.

That's a classic narrative. But it's also complete bullshit from today's perspective. No single hacker will save us from the arbitrary power that mass surveillance puts into the hands of governments and corporations. Not even a legion will do. In fact they brought us there and their ignorance to the world's diversity shapes our daily lives. If your last name is Islam you will get your Facebook account suspended. If your kid says "cooker-bomb" because it can't say "cucumber" someone will inform the secret service. You may get arrested, detained, flown in blindfolds to lawless countries and interrogated for years, if your name, friends and lifestyle pop up in some filter algorithm.

So if someone creates a game today in which a single hacker saves the world because he's packing an Oculus Rift and a Dart Gun, I'm not gonna be amused. Hackers aren't the underdogs anymore, they've become perpetrators on a global scale. It's not 1994 anymore, the internet isn't "new media" anymore and your mom is probably pirating TV shows right now. No work of science fiction can ignore the last 22 years and expect to be taken seriously today.

[673f8ac8225b2vurt]

Didnt see it posted so..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okPLF9Ad9ns

dont like the cartoonish character, but everything else looks pretty good.
 

[673f8ac82270evoodoo47]

the lighting felt like it didn't fit completely at certain spots, but yeah, not bad, not bad at all.

[673f8ac82284cZylonBane]

I'm impressed by how they're attempting to combine SS1's garish texturing with more modern levels of environmental detail. It certainly gives it a unique, almost pulp sci-fi look.

[673f8ac82293fOlfred]

I must admit. I also like the style of the visuals presented. But as I already mentioned before, I would like to have a less "cuby" layout.

[673f8ac822aa4ZylonBane]

Since SS1's levels are very densely mapped, with most areas fitting tightly together, breaking out of the grid of SS1's original design would require essentially remapping the entire game (when Citadel Conversion Project was still going, they even had problems tweaking the layout to allow doors more than 1 pixel thick). That would be an order of magnitude more work. I'm surprised they managed to gather the budget for even this level of remake, so I'm not about to complain.

I noticed that the briefcase at the start has the SS2-era TriOp logo on it. I hope they aren't ditching the wider SS1-era version for this.

I also don't care for the HUD texture wrapping around the left and right edges of the screen. Makes me feel like I'm viewing the game through a porthole.

[673f8ac822f0eMarvin]

Seems like a 50:50 mixture between Bioshock and Alien Isolation with an 80s style vibe and contrast pushed to the max... mmh, not sure about that. They're certainly not cheap about it, that's a plus. I really like the new skybox, looks fantastic.

I also don't care for the HUD texture wrapping around the left and right edges of the screen. Makes me feel like I'm viewing the game through a porthole.

Well, they said we'd be able to configure it. Hope they keep their word.

[673f8ac823150RocketMan]

Didnt see it posted so..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okPLF9Ad9ns

Pretty... damn... good!

If this is how you guys plan to "change" things, then my hope is further renewed.