SSR: System Shock Kickstarter

[6745971c4a7b8Autz]

Xkilljoy98I recognize where those plays, except the purchase one, which I assume is related to the vending machines.
The remake will have the ramp at level 4 if that "nice jump, insect" line exists. I wonder how it will play out with the current physics.

[6745971c4abb6Xkilljoy98]

IDK what any of it means, but it seems to be being updated recently and mentions of shipping and testing

https://steamdb.info/app/482400/history/

[6745971c4aeb6Autz]

Xkilljoy98only the testing branches. AKA: making the game available for QA companies like QuanticLab, which has its own branch.
More bug hunting I suppose.

[6745971c4b103JDoran]

'Bug hunting', what's that? 

I pre-installed the XBox One verson of Atomic Heart, the day before the game's release. It took 40-something GB of HD space.

The next day, I went to play it, and it downloaded a 20GB patch. The next time I played it, a couple of days later, it downloaded another 14GB patch. I've not played it since, so I don't know if any more patches have been issued, but even if not, then that's still 34 GB of data to patch a game that was less that 50 GB when initially installed. You have to wonder what passed for 'bug hunting' in the game's development. And that's for the XBox consoles version, not the PC version for which the developers would need to account for *many* combinations of PC hardware, software, and drivers.

[6745971c4b293voodoo47]

but.. robot booba?

anyway, if we want to talk about Atomic Heart, then maybe a split wouldn't be a bad idea.

[6745971c4b61cAutz]

JDoranEach company is different, not all of them goes for the day-1 patch, or for the heavy update files for minor changes.

In case of NightDive, seeing the overlooked errors like the medical bay clipping, Edward Diego's missing face in the intro, the progress reset on cyberspace... Tells me that they are only looking for game-breaking bugs if anything, not for errors like these. I doubt we are going to see day-1 patches if they deliver the beta release, so I would either expect more errors like the ones I mentioned, or early patches before the official release. Dunno.

[6745971c4b79dicemann]

Also indicates that they need more paid testers

[6745971c4b8dfJDoran]

I played Atomic Heart again, yesterday. After it had downloaded another patch, 8 GB this time, I mean.  That's 42 GB worth of patches, and the game now takes up 39 GB of hard drive space, which is *less* than the total amount of patch data!

[6745971c4ba11Xkilljoy98]

A dev says the backer beta has a release aimed of friday, whether that is true, we shall see

https://www.reddit.com/r/systemshock/comments/11dr6t8/wheres_the_beta/

[6745971c4bf54sarge945]

I played Atomic Heart again, yesterday. After it had downloaded another patch, 8 GB this time, I mean.  That's 42 GB worth of patches, and the game now takes up 39 GB of hard drive space, which is *less* than the total amount of patch data!

Most games bundle up their files into archives because constantly opening and closing thousands of files for each model, texture, etc can be very performance-intensive.

The downside is that some games may have to download an entire package archive worth of files if a small file inside them changes.

The developers of Atomic Heart are probably using an inferior update system that simply replaces any archives which are changed, resulting in massive downloads.

Valve had a similar problem with GCF files, which they fixed using VPK files in the SteamPipe update.

I highly doubt Atomic Heart has had gigabytes worth of actual changes.

[6745971c4c0dfJDoran]

Regarding System Shock Remake, someone has merged the audio from the the original game, with the visuals of the new game's intro. It's just a video, of course, not an alteration to the actual game, but I think it's great.

You can watch the video at:

https://www.reddit.com/r/systemshock/comments/110t78l/system_shock_remake_demo_intro_but_with_the/

[6745971c4c53cJDoran]

Most games bundle up their files into archives because constantly opening and closing thousands of files for each model, texture, etc can be very performance-intensive.

The downside is that some games may have to download an entire package archive worth of files if a small file inside them changes.

The developers of Atomic Heart are probably using an inferior update system that simply replaces any archives which are changed, resulting in massive downloads.

Valve had a similar problem with GCF files, which they fixed using VPK files in the SteamPipe update.

I highly doubt Atomic Heart has had gigabytes worth of actual changes.

Agreed. Though I haven't noticed one single change at all. Granted, most of the changes will be 'under the hood', but they haven't made the changes that I would have hoped for, such as larger text in the subtitles, the ability to go faster through the conversations with the NPCs (you have to listen for the NPC's to speak their current line, so if you've read the text already then there's no quick way to jump to the next row of the text), adding a text description for each item on the inventory screen, making the inventory a little larger, the option to redefine the controls (and to actually show you the controls on the game's menu - how can any game, in this day and age, not list the controls to help new players?), and if possible speed up the loading times after death (I mean on the XBox One, I don't know about the other versions).

[6745971c4c8b0icemann]

Regarding System Shock Remake, someone has merged the audio from the the original game, with the visuals of the new game's intro. It's just a video, of course, not an alteration to the actual game, but I think it's great.

You can watch the video at:

https://www.reddit.com/r/systemshock/comments/110t78l/system_shock_remake_demo_intro_but_with_the/

That video massively improves that bit in the remake. Still lacks the visual stuff of the original, for example it's now there that the hacker is forced to do the changes to the ethical sub-routines, rather than it being a mutually beneficial arrangement. The enforcers standing next to the hacker (vs Diego sitting alongside in the original) and then knocking him out when he's finished very much shows that.

Been playing a lot of Prey lately, and it makes for a good example of how to do a System Shock game properly. It has very little presense of super dark areas, new mechanics added that complement existing gameplay and great AI. Love it.

[6745971c4cab0Join2]

"Prey"

MEH.

My praise doesn't go much further than "It's better than Bioshock, at least"

[6745971c4cc18sarge945]

Prey has some good highs and a whole lot of really awful lows.

It's playable with corrbalance and nofrerlunch, but it's inherently broken still in a lot of ways.

Overall, a solid "it's decent" out of ten.

[6745971c4cec7icemann]

"Prey"

MEH.

My praise doesn't go much further than "It's better than Bioshock, at least"

Each to their own. I call it legendary. Very System Shock 2-like, whilst its own thing all the same.

[6745971c4d153Xkilljoy98]

"Prey"

MEH.

My praise doesn't go much further than "It's better than Bioshock, at least"

Most people IK that like Imm Sims love Prey, and many like Bioshock (aside from maybe people on this server), but to each their own

TBH I think Prey can be harder than SS2 at times

[6745971c4d28cAutz]

dunno if you guys saw this ealier, but I wanna see your opinions. The leak is old, hence, no music or sounds.

youtube watch?v=K1KAwHwKsPE

[6745971c4d410JDoran]

It looks like the forum mangled your URL. It should be:

youtube.com/watch?v=K1KAwHwKsPE

[6745971c4d66aAutz]

JDoranYeah, but I can't post links as a Guest. 

[6745971c4da3bkrumpet]

TBH I think Prey can be harder than SS2 at times

SS2 isn't a particularly difficult game, though for some reason a lot of people seem to think it is.

[6745971c4dd74ZylonBane]

SS2 isn't a particularly difficult game, though for some reason a lot of people seem to think it is.

The absolute lack of self-awareness from people who post things like this is always a sight to behold.

[6745971c4e114sarge945]

SS2 really isn't difficult once you understand how to game the system. What makes it hard is the scarcity of resources, which disappears around the end of Hydro if you're not playing like a complete moron.

The actual gameplay and mechanics are quite easy. It gets hard for people because they invest in things like Repair and Hack 5 that end up being worthless and wasting their resources, which is a really lazy way of doing difficulty and only works on a first playthrough.

If you do a bog standard run with Standard weapons, shoot every camera, don't waste tools like FE devices stupidly, and hoard your ICE Picks for the final battle, the game is pretty easy, even on Impossible. Once you have a reasonable-quality Assault rifle with an upgrade or two, the game becomes comically easy, to the point where you can gun down rumblers with ease, especially if you have even a casual grasp of ammo types. If you know how to backpedal enemies like Rumblers can be taken down with a wrench with no real danger because they will run at you forever without attacking.

It's much harder and much less cheesable now that we have things like ss2tool, SCP, Secmod, Scary Monsters, RSD etc to make some of the bad investments less worthless, to nerf overpowered strategies, and to increase the overall danger and threat of enemies. The game is significantly better as a result, and much harder because you need to strategize a lot more and your decisions mean a lot more, so a bad strategy can cripple a run.

I can pretty reliably get through Vanilla SS2 on Impossible with cheese with maybe 1-2 deaths max. Using a combination of mods now, I struggle on Hard.

I know that may come across like I am saying "the game is easy if you're so good that you make the game easy", which is true of any game and is largely a meaningless statement. What I am actually trying to say is that, because it was rushed, the way the mechanics in SS2 are implemented is very flawed, and as a result it's very easy to make the game way easier in really simple ways like not investing in "noob trap" upgrades, which has no bearing on strategy or skill and is basically a trial-and-error "avoid the bad stuff" approach to difficulty, which most people should figure out after a playthrough or two, then the game becomes quite trivial to get through regardless of your actual skill level.

All that said, Prey is also quite easy, and I don't really think it ever approaches the early-game difficulty of SS2 on Impossible, even when you cheese. Mods can help, but when you can drink your way to full health at any faucet or drinking fountain, all the difficulty is gone.

[6745971c4e3d3krumpet]

The absolute lack of self-awareness from people who post things like this is always a sight to behold.

Yeah suppose that may have been a bit patronising or something. My bad.

I personally have never found SS2 to be all that difficult.