SSR: System Shock Kickstarter

[6740bcfc53038sarge945]

I guess I don't really believe in an isolated element being good or bad on its own, just what works or doesn't work in context. SS1's interface is built for its gameplay and vice versa. Streamline the UI by itself and the gameplay becomes trivial. Make the enemies fast and aggressive and the interface becomes a deadly nuisance. As they are, though, they work nicely together and create a compelling experience that can't be boiled down to the quality of individual components. It's like when people say the tank controls in the fixed camera Resident Evil games are bad full stop without putting them in context. The enemies and obstacles are tuned with them in mind, working together to create the challenge, pacing, and tension for which people remember the games fondly. The games wouldn't be improved just by a topdown camera and twinstick shooter controls that let you see and target everything easily, nor just by making zombies harder to run past. Those two combined might make for an interesting experiment (see Darkwood, which I have yet to play), but it doesn't obsolete the prior style. Both can be peaks on the design landscape that are worth exploring.

To clarify, I think SS1's enemies are disappointing even in context. Most of them are slowly shambling hitscanners that differ only in damage and toughness and it's rather dull. I wish they were better differentiated and more interesting to fight without necessarily making them fast and aggressive, which is the distinction I was trying to make between the priorities of SS1 and SS2. There are also some minor things I'd change about the UI, like button placement and item swapping, but not the way you reload your weapon or use items, which I think enhance the gameplay in a unique and worthwhile manner.

I like this take, and I agree with it for the most part. I approach the same issue a bit differently (and I think NightDive will too). Part of the remake process is modernization, something they will have to be intelligent about. You are absolutely right that you can't just improve the UI/UX and leave it at that, as clunky controls are a blocker to player ability (albeit a bad one that should be avoided whenever possible, in my opinion). ND won't be crazy enough to retain the old UI or control scheme, as it's woefully out of date and extremely clunky, but they are going to have to make some hard decisions, because modernizing it will inherently require updating other parts of the gameplay.

I fear they will have to walk a fine line between the new people exploring their first System Shock game being turned off the -frankly awful- control scheme, and the veterans going "why are all the enemies more aggressive!!! This isn't system shock anymore!!!!"

What I really hope they DONT do is what they did with EE - modernize the user interface but keep the gameplay intact without any thought towards changes because "it's authentic". There are multiple issues with that in the EE version already - like the (now completely useless) "look backwards" implant. That would have to be scrapped entirely and replaced with something else to really make it viable.

I don't really care that much about dismemberment. It's cool and all. But seeing as how the game has already been on a pretty big hiatus in the past, I think they have more important things to be working on. Implement the core gameplay first, get everything basically ready to go, THEN add cool modernizations afterwards. There are modern games that don't have dismemberment and they work fine, so this seems like an oddly specific thing for them to focus on, especially when the demo us backers have access to is pretty barebones, still, after multiple years. I'm sure they have good stuff cooking, but I want to see that before they talk about peripheral features.

I'm all for reimagining the game. I'm not a purist. Both SS1 and SS2 have some pretty major design flaws, and I would prefer both of them to be invigorated with new ideas than kept "authentic" and remaining flawed forever. Obviously that doesn't mean I would want a system shock game that is reimagined to be a call of duty game (we already have that, it's called Bioshock Infinite and it's awful). But I'm not afraid of big changes or overhauls to features, if they are well thought out, make sense, and tangibly fix existing issues with the game or add something of real value. They just need to actually get the important stuff in before adding extra unnecessary features. People aren't going to say the game sucks if it doesn't have a dismemberment system. They will say it sucks if the AI is barely functional and the engine is a buggy mess.

NightDive aren't stupid and they have a long history of making good quality stuff, so I hope they do the right thing here. I am somewhat optimistic, based on their history and the demo (even if it is extremely barebones).

[6740bcfc5324aedx]

August Update: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1598858095/system-shock/posts/2921582

[6740bcfc53452icemann]

I'm all good with all the enemies redesigns except for:

Versus:

In the original the Cyborg Enforcer was one of my favorite enemies visually. Now it just looks like a maintenance related robot. Meh.

[6740bcfc53723RocketMan]

Shit, that looks like I modelled it... except I would not have covered up so much.

[6740bcfc538b3voodoo47]

it's the stripey things. stripey things translate into maintenance.

[6740bcfc53a0bJosiahJack]

Ever so vaguely female.  At least they didn't go the opposite route of having her run around in underwear.

I mean they could have done really cool things like a leather outfit and such.  Wasted potential.

[6740bcfc53cecRoSoDude]

There's something missing on the new the Cyborg Enforcer, but I can't put my finger on it...

[6740bcfc53e43Kolya]

We haven't seen her new backside yet. #hopespringseternal

[6740bcfc53fb3RoSoDude]

Hope is dead, Kolya! DEAD!

https://v.kickstarter.com/1598019417_7602476be6e1b9bb293683beb2733cac59e5799f/assets/030/251/211/3791f76911f6eb979eccf1ae98c4755f_h264_high.mp4

[6740bcfc546d9RocketMan]

There's something missing on the new the Cyborg Enforcer, but I can't put my finger on in it...

I can 

[6740bcfc54877ZylonBane]

Everybody can. That's the joke.

[6740bcfc5498cRocketMan]

Tsk tsk.  Somebody didn't pick out the subtle edit...

[6740bcfc54ae4icemann]

I liked the original more as it looked more like a robot with human parts left over. The new one looks far more human, less robot. Also lacks the warrior look. Just me?

[6740bcfc54c4aKolya]

They gave our beloved PAWG cyborg a floating hexagon for an ass? How you gonna night dive that? Tell me.

[6740bcfc54da4JosiahJack]

Any comments on the characterless hop...er....tracker?  Maybe they will still make it hop at least, fingers crossed.  With the way the original game had the hoppers slightly slide sometimes, it could be neat to see them coast a bit on the treads after a hop....if they hop.

Or the goofy mantis?  Where would that make sense?  I like the shape but seems more suitable for a mutant akin to those shard shooting aliens in Opposing Force.

The red Sec-3 bot is cool.  Others are alright.

[6740bcfc54f61bigfatfrog605]

Yeah, personally I feel like adding the treads to the hopper sucks the soul out of it (as much as "soul" is a meme these days). I also can't say I'm a fan with the modular approach to the enemies/weapons in that the cyborg enforcer incorporates parts from the other enemies. It probably streamlines the character creation process, but it reminds me too much of how the combat shotgun and combat rifle in Fallout 4 look exactly the same. It's just less visual variety for something you're gonna be staring at a lot.

I'm starting to feel like this isn't going to make its 2020 release which is a shame.

Something about cyberspace also feels a little off, not quite sure though...

[6740bcfc5508aJosiahJack]

Cyberspace uses natural pbr materials to its detriment.  It makes it look too much like a real space with it's specular shine. The fog and colors aren't terrible but the destaturation makes it look too close to a normal station room in meatspace. It reminds me more of the abstract Portal test chambers than a total digital landscape that it is supposed to be.

A good intro to the hopper would be if the first one had missing/broken treads and had to hop and was also weaker than normal.

[6740bcfc5517dZylonBane]

I don't mind them adding treads to the Hopper because honestly, there's no way to make an actual 3D version of the original hopping around not look laughably stupid.

[6740bcfc552dbJosiahJack]

Harsh lol.

For an alternative [correct] interpretation of the Cyborg Enforcer https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=6977.msg135720#msg135720

Ok, I try not to step on ND's stuff too much as it's mostly just opinion and interpretation of a few tiny pixels but this one was just too painful to leave alone.

[6740bcfc554febigfatfrog605]

So Nightdive is going to be at this 3D realms event tomorrow and it looks like we are going to be getting two new videos regarding the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQn_9K4e2bw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKNAdGcZ2Q8

I guess that's it. For a game that's supposed to be releasing this year I find it disappointing that all we are going to see is a preview of a core feature that should have already been implemented with the medical demo and a gore system which, although looks awesome in the dev streams I've seen, makes me feel like we're treading back into the pre-hiatus territory of feature creep.

Maybe I'm overreacting, I'm obviously not a game dev but I don't think that this game is going to be coming out any time soon, certainly not in 2020. It feels like System Shock is a side project at this point when all we get in these updates are character models and concept art. Maybe this franchise is cursed, or maybe the truth is that the original games were lightning in a bottle and we should spend more time just trying to enhance the original experience (SCP, SS1EE, etc.).

At this point I'm more appreciative of the 25 year veterans of this franchise who have, without getting paid for it and solely out of the love of the game, have made it playable for the masses. Hats off to them, not to this.

Again, probably a controversial opinion but it's getting to be enough at this point.

[6740bcfc55641Briareos H]

The cyberspace looks nifty. Love the soundtrack remix.

[6740bcfc55a02hemebond]

I'm obviously not a game dev

[6740bcfc55ca5bigfatfrog605]

Yes, that is a correct statement. But as a consumer I think it's reasonable to ask about the overall progress that has been made on a crowd-funded game that has been in development for over four years now if we include the time that was spent before the hiatus. A roadmap is not a big thing to ask for when the players were the primary funders of the game, 

Personally it dawned on me the other night that they are trying to take the level design of system shock 1 and give it the system shock 2 gameplay treatment. We're getting inventory tetris, simplified weapons/ammo/enemies (no dart gun or all the sec bots we're used to, for example) and injections of survival horror when the original is more action and adventure than anything. Even cyberspace that we saw was lacking many of the objects and software that we're used to. It just screams of lacking a cohesive vision. Is it going to be a "faithful" remake in maps only? Is it trying to take the original game and make it play more like a system shock 2 or bioshock? Is it going to reimagine the game in nu-doom/nu-wolfenstein style that we saw before the hiatus?

If they had decided to remake System Shock 2 or make a project in the vein of Bioshock maybe it would be further along because it's clear that they would rather be doing that. But once they open up the hood of System Shock I'm sure they're realizing that there's a lot of depth and nuance to it that is hard to replicate unless they port the gameplay over 1:1 but they have no interest in that, clearly.

I sound like ZylonBane. Am I ZylonBane? (jk I love you man).

[6740bcfc55e0eZylonBane]

Those cyberspace wall textures are too goddamn busy. They need to tone that animated graph paper shit way, WAY down. Right now the wall textures are so distracting that it's challenging to distinguish the enemies, etc. from the background. That's not good game design.

This is how you do a cyberspace-looking environment that's easy to visually read.

Also, the enemy explosions look far too analog. It almost looks like they just took stock explosion footage and ran a pixelate filter over it.