SSR: System Shock Kickstarter

[6740f20abce64voodoo47]

either way, they are in for a lesson learned, the question is only whether they are willing to learn it before the release, or after the release (the hard way).

we'll see - and I think we are not above a told ya so or two should things end up going in a less than ideal way.

[6740f20abd001icemann]

My main hope is that whatever is released, it comes with mod support. With that we can fix it. Though I'm pretty sure it doesn't so, time will tell.

[6740f20abd362Jules]

icemannMod support would be nice, though I wouldn't count on it either. It seems to have long become a general trend for games to feature increasingly less mod support (which is admittedly partly justified by how much more technically complex games have become over time). This is a reason why many older games still have such strong communities, after all.

[6740f20abd49cicemann]

Older games tend to use their own engines, so are far easier to modify or add to directly. Where as newer games tend to use Unreal, Unity or Game Maker which are far less moddable.

To use SSR as an example, all the levels were done directly in Unreal itself, where as the original SS1's levels were very likely done in an external program of some sort.

[6740f20abd77eJosiahJack]

ZylonBane
For pixellated vs filtered textures, probably a technical limitation as well here as it might require either duplicating every texture and engineering a switch between the two sets, or creating a method that reimports them all on game start and imports them with the different set.  This opposed to letting the engine's build process prepackage them in a compressed format that is readily readable by graphics cards as opposed to uncompressed .png's.  At least those seem to be the only options in Unity which is dumb since older OpenGL games can switch on the fly somehow.

[6740f20abd89avoodoo47]

getting rid of the pixelation is not a matter of a simple texture swap, as explained earlier. everything has been constructed around the pixelations, for.. reasons. they are spread throughout the entire game... they fill every available crack and crevice... they overwhelm... there is no option.

[6740f20abdc0eXkilljoy98]

My main hope is that whatever is released, it comes with mod support. With that we can fix it. Though I'm pretty sure it doesn't so, time will tell.

I hope there is mod support so that more than anything the original music can come back, but also so some of the missing stuff and designs can return as well

[6740f20abdf5cZylonBane]

At least those seem to be the only options in Unity which is dumb since older OpenGL games can switch on the fly somehow.

Even NewDark can trivially turn filtering off for world textures. Since SSR is using Unreal, it certainly should be possible to globally toggle filtering. Older versions of Unreal could do it. So why isn't Night Dive making it optional? I figure it's a tossup between a) They can't figure out how to do it, or b) Pure narcissistic arrogance. Including an option to disable it would require acknowledging that maybe forced pixelation wasn't the genius aesthetic masterstroke they thought it was.

[6740f20abe097Pacmikey]

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[6740f20abe1f2ZylonBane]

That almost makes even less sense. Why would they tattoo him? The hacker isn't a prisoner of war, he's someone Diego wants to covertly do a very illegal job for him.

If it turns out that they did indeed give him the tattoo after capturing him, then that's just one more item on the giant stack of "cool but stupid if you take 30 seconds to think it through" shit that Night Dive has shoveled into this remake.

[6740f20abe31fXkilljoy98]

BTW here are the stretch goals they reached but had not mentioned since

- Mac + Linux Support (also Xbox and Playstation support while not a stretch goal have been mentioned but iirc not mentioned in awhile or at least no store page)

- Localization and multi-language support (French, Italian, German, and Spanish)

- Additional Locations and Expanded Narrative

- Gender/Sex Choice for player

-Remix Album as alt gameplay mode

[6740f20abe48cJDoran]

The longer the release is delayed, the more I fear that the PS4 (and XBox One) versions might be abandoned. I really hope not, and it wouldn't make sense to abandon them, given how many tens of millions of people still use the last generation consoles, but then I don't see the logic in taking two thirds of a decade to remake a game that was released in 1994 and could run on a 486.

[6740f20abe562Pacmikey]

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[6740f20abe727Berathraben]

It is the employee ID code given to him by Diego. I suspect it being there before he meets Diego is just a placeholder art that is on the model. Probably going to not be there for the final release. But hard to say. Logically, I don't see why it would be.

It makes no sense to have it there before. As for it being tattooed at all. Well, it is a controlling corporation in a dystopian society. Might be in the contract for the term of employment. Who knows. According to the email from Rebecca Hacker is on file as being an employee for Tri op.
And they seem to know about Diego's plans already and can even trace the employee ID to hacker. So, at that point the operation does not even feel all that covert.


[System Shock -- Pre-Beta 2 Build -- Revision 12438 -- 2022-11-10  -- Development Version  2022-11-12 10_45_40 PM.png expired]

[6740f20abe9faZylonBane]

And they seem to know about Diego's plans already and can even trace the employee ID to hacker. So, at that point the operation does not even feel all that covert.

She literally uses the word "cover" in that email.

Rebecca Lansing is a counter-terrorism consultant. It's her job to know things that people don't want known.

[6740f20abeb7aXkilljoy98]

New update:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1598858095/system-shock/posts/3699917

Videos:
https://www.youtube.com/@Shodanpedia/videos

Here are the pics:

[6740f20abeda4ZylonBane]

When accessing a locked area, you’ll now scan the appropriate card to gain entry.

"Hey, you know how much everyone complained about the pointless animations that take away control from the player? Let's add MORE of them!"

As you know dismemberment has been a high priority for us and every enemy is receiving a completely custom dismemberment model - there are a lot of enemies and the amount of effort being spent on this is staggering.

I swear to god, the way things are going they should just call this "System Shock: Dudebro Edition".

Hey guys, instead of spending that staggering effort on a feature that literally nobody asked for, how about spending it on fixing the level lighting and improving the texture resolution so you don't have to do that insultingly awful pixelation effect?

[6740f20abef13fox]

I never understood why some people thought of Dead Space as "almost System Shock" but I guess that's where this penchant for dismemberment stems from. I'm ok with a nuanced body damage system if it enhances the gameplay options and not just as a vehicle to squeeze in some unecessary gore.

[6740f20abf2b5Xkilljoy98]

"Hey, you know how much everyone complained about the pointless animations that take away control from the player? Let's add MORE of them!"

I swear to god, the way things are going they should just call this "System Shock: Dudebro Edition".

Hey guys, instead of spending that staggering effort on a feature that literally nobody asked for, how about spending it on fixing the level lighting and improving the texture resolution so you don't have to do that insultingly awful pixelation effect?

Yeah their priorities are very odd, they spend time on features that don't need to be in there to be good. Sure they are fine but they are small in the grand scheme of things. Plus some find some of them annoying like the animations, if there will be a way to turn them off idk.

On top of the new/altered weapons, enemies, levels, etc

But they would rather spend time doing this, instead of say adding an alt soundtrack or some art options or something.

Or just not delay the game even more with features that aren't important to most people

[6740f20abf3a8Pacmikey]

I miss when seeing the door open and hearing *bloop* was considered satisfying enough

[6740f20abf4f9ZylonBane]

In my vision of an ideal System Shock remake, it would look pretty much like Routine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAcAd1fUiy8
Light areas and dark areas. Nice sharp textures. Environments that are easy on the eyes. Bright lights only where it makes sense for them to be. Retro in the design of the world, not in the renderer.

And bear in mind, this was created by a dev team even smaller than Night Dive.

[6740f20abf6bfCreamy]

...Routine also never saw any release or much footage beyond the two or three videos amounting to less than 15 minutes, if memory serves. I don't think it really got off the ground (sadly) as it did look rather awesome from an artistic perspective, though I feel it was forever in the conceptual stages. I remember following it pretty extensively back in 2014 or so. It got revived recently, so presumably some publisher or someone picked it up. I'm definitely interested to see where it goes!

And to expand on the card reader thing. It only plays the first time a card is used on a locked door, is less than a second long, and after that - the door will open like any other. I realize this likely won't do anything to persuade you on it, merely wanted to clarify.

[6740f20abf79aPacmikey]

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[6740f20abfa82ZylonBane]

It only plays the first time a card is used on a locked door

But even better would be if it NEVER played. This sort of thing has been easily doable for over 20 years, yet almost no games do it. There's a reason for that. The reason is that players very rapidly come to despise things that take away control and waste their time.

I suppose a "Disable Time-Wasting Animations" checkbox in the settings would resolve this issue, but I'm not holding my breath for such a thing to be implemented.