Night Dive Twitch Streams

[675a942a74433RocketMan]

Reminds me of the sign in the VonBraun in the casino telling adults to accompany their children.  What children? 

[675a942a745e7voodoo47]

presumably, VB would serve as a research/science lab/station when not on a voyage/when docked, with visitors permitted. children of the staff included.

[675a942a74756RocketMan]

Yeah... maybe.  It's a bit of a stretch though.  The sign says otherwise but putting kids on that thing seems like a bad idea, given all the hazards.  As far as handicaps go, we're not given much to go by.  However in 2072 the cyber interface (which seemed established enough) allowed you to fly using hardware in your feet so unless there were wires running down the hacker's legs, it's at least plausible that they figured out how to tap into nerves.  The fact you can plug jacks into your brain and go into cyberspace speaks to the depth of their knowledge of neuro circuitry.  With physical damage being nothing more than a nuisance I have to agree that paralysis would only exist in the poor or the unworthy.  Maybe megacorp law still caters to those people though for philanthropic reasons.

[675a942a74879voodoo47]

there might be disabled people not compatible with commercial grade implants/prosthetics, so wheelchairs of some sort still might be a viable solution to get around for those with no access to a sufficiently large credit pool to afford specialized hardware (knowing the Shock world is a bit of a corporate dystopia, I can imagine that people are pretty much only as worth as much as the number on their credit account, so I wouldn't count much on philanthropy - a few ramps with a bunch of signs are cheaper).

[675a942a74b47ZylonBane]

Reminds me of the sign in the VonBraun in the casino telling adults to accompany their children.  What children? 

Assume the warning signs are legally required.

[675a942a74d76sgupta]

Thanks for the summary, icemann - you picked up a few things I somehow missed.

I don't think my stream was silent at the beginning.  Actually, just checked, and there IS music on the Twitch broadcast for me.  Odd.  Starts about 42 seconds in and is the original SS1 Executive Theme.  Agreed Jonathan was low at first.

I missed the bit about the 63 enemy limit somehow (was doing some other stuff in the background); very cool!

A little sad the lights can't be destroyed since they could in that Unity demo, which was really cool.  But, I can see why the resources to do this could be better spent elsewhere as few people are going to be going through the level destroying every light.  =oP  Though it was pretty darn fun in Unity, so I wouldn't cry if it did eventually make it in.  Possibly a lot of work for little benefit though.

Also missed the mini pistol bit. 

Finally, I'm pretty sure the wheelchair accessible question was meant to be humor since Citadel in SS1 is prettymuch exclusively ramps (NOTE: I'm not in any way saying real-world accessibility concerns are humorous; I just took that question as being somewhat sarcastic in reference to all the ramps on Citadel).  I think the medical questions, while interesting, are overthinking the intent of the question.  Daniel just answered the question saying that there may be more stairs even though I'm pretty sure from past discussions a lot of ramps will remain as well.

[675a942a74ef5icemann]

As for the lights. From what I recall Jonathan saying in the stream. It's just an Unreal toggle property tgat you can enable / disable. I always like having destroyable lights in FPS games. Yes it wasn't in the original I know, but it'd be nice to have.

So unless I'm wrong it sounds like a design decision there.

[675a942a75206icemann]

SS1's future has instant healing beds, resurrection stations, and ready availability of cyborg augmentations. You seriously think anyone on Citadel would be lacking the ability to walk? And even if they were, you think they'd get around in something as primitive as a wheel chair?

Think things through, man.

Whilst sure true, even Star Trek had people on occasion in wheel chairs, and that show was an obvious MEGA inspiration to the original devs. And that was a world without money (on the Federation end). So there would have been people with certain defects that the med beds could not repair, like if they weren't born with the right things in place etc etc. And in SS1's case its not a world without money, it's the polar opposite. Cyberpunk, with cyber implants being super expensive (eg the neural interface by the sound of it was super expensive). So something like implants like that would be far out of reach for the majority of people.

And to use Deus Ex as an example there would definitely be those out there that would be anti-aug, just as in Star Trek how some people refused to get in the teleports (the reasons for which kinda make sense).

[675a942a75544sgupta]

07/09/19 Stream w/ Daniel, Jonathan, and Kevin (prop artist)

* Daniel's finally moved, hence the stream hiatus, but he's back with a dev stream on Research.

* Starts by showing off the progress on Research.

* Lighting isn't done yet.

* They are updating several things geometry-wise for the levels.  For example, the underground pathways will make more sense and lead somewhere.  They added a new central hubb-ish type area, and there are some new stairs now (really slick looking IMO).

* There's a porta-potty concept.  o.O  They want to make all toilets flushable.

* Work has officially begun on maintenance as well, though they're not showing it off quite yet.

* For maintenance, they're going to make it as scary/horrifying as possible. They actually really love the concept that Cody Williams did and are trying to make it look a lot like that.  (Here's the art by Cody - https://www.artstation.com/artwork/nx4vX )

* The new "pulsing" tubes shown in the KickStarter update are oxygen scrubbers.

* In response to a question, they may raise the roof in some places, etc.  They're getting the basics in first and then messing with geometry to fix things they don't like.

* The blue lights are actually UltraViolet and they plan to have certain objects and enemies with aspects that will react to the UV light.

* They want to add crew quarters towards the outside of the station decks; lot of windows will be there.

* They also hope to add parts of the station you can see when looking outside. 

* Q: Will it be possible to see debris or bodies floating outside the station?  A: Possible, but not probable; they haven't gotten to this yet.  There is a joke that if you look for 48 hours, you'll see a Tesla float by outside. 

* Q: Are there droids on the outside of the station? A: Maybe; they haven't talked about any of that stuff yet.

* Q: Is Medical done? A: Yes; they may make some small tweaks, add damage, etc. but aren't actively working with it at the moment.

* Glass will be self-repairing and they'll come up with a sci-fi reason, similar to Prey.

[675a942a7574cicemann]

My notes for Daniel's latest stream:

* Love the new look of Research, though it is more blue now than red in some places. Reminds me A LOT of the Recreation Deck in SS2. Has that kinda look to it, in those bits. Daniel explains much later on, that that is due to there not being ceilings in those sections which once placed will balance it out.
* The rings (or the stuff in the rings to be specific) of Saturn move now. Yay.
* Apparently the character artist for this remake. Jed. Worked on the original Bioshock. Very ironic.
* 1:17:00 - Jonathan discusses the changes to the ambush room on Research, and that the big change to the room to it's new look was as the original look doesn't make sense.    - Well that's as Shodan redesigned the room. That stuff is even mentioned in the audio logs (though not about that room). Of course vast bits of the station don't make sense logically, but that's because they were changed. Quite likely the room prior to Shodan changing it, looked (or would have looked) like how it now does. Now of course you could apply the "well Shodan changed it" response to every room, but that is one that really stands out for me. That's just my opinion. But if you look at how the ambush there plays out. That seems like intentional design to me. Like an intentional trap for anyone who would come to do something with the laser. I just think that if all of the areas that don't make sense get changed, then it will all look 100% human designed areas, and no Shodan influences anywhere.
* At the same time, he goes on to say that if they were to just do a 1 to 1 recreation of the original game, level design wise, then that would defeat the entire point of the remake. That I 100% agree with.
* Apparently a secret other game project is in the works, that will be announced soon.

[675a942a7589fRocketMan]

I think it was Ghiran who said "It's (Level 8 ) been remade", referring to how Shodan removed all the catwalks, disabled elevators and put energy drain mines around the central shaft.  In cyberspace you pick up many data fragments referencing orders Shodan has issued to her cyborgs to go to certain areas for protection, reinforcement, etc.  I see no reason why the state of the station that the hacker sees should be just as it has always been.  That would explain some of the inexplicable monster closets and also mission-specific ambushes very well.  Shodan after all is doing all sorts of experiments both with organics (hell she coated the bridge in some biomatter) and with robotics so why not architecture as well.  It's not impossible.

[675a942a759a0sgupta]

I'll agree with you guys that I would very much like to see some areas that SHODAN clearly modified to her will.  I think that would add to the flavor of the game.  I do think with current engine tech they could be a bit more sensible than some of the original levels, tho'.

[675a942a75a9bicemann]

Absolutely. All I'm saying is that if one were to apply a "make sense" style philosophy to every room, then nothing would look Shodan designed at all.

Much of her stuff would look completely random to us. And thats the point.

[675a942a75e2fZylonBane]

I'd like to know why SHODAN is remaking the station to look like she's throwing a rave. All that neon and harsh arc lighting is ridiculous for spaces where people supposedly lived and worked.

* Apparently the character artist for this remake. Jed. Worked on the original Bioshock. Very ironic

How is that ironic?

[675a942a76032sgupta]

Very good point regarding rooms "making sense", and I would definitely like to see some of SHODAN's sinister ideas incorporated in the level design.  I guess I just feel like they can make it menacing and more maze-like while still not feeling totally out of place.  But, I do have to concede an AI would certainly be able to design traps that DO look out of place for the purpose of disorienting, so I can see your point.

Re the lighting, keep in mind (re the streams) it's not finished or fully baked yet, so some elements may change when everything's in and the lighting pass is done.  I'd argue the station was always rather garish, which was part of the charm and what made it so different from most space games, and for me that's been largely preserved (from what's been shown of Medical and Research so far - I look forward to seeing once fully baked).  Realistic, tho', I completely agree it is not.

[675a942a7627cicemann]

How is that ironic?

Because Jonathan hates the game (Bioshock) with a passion. And it was Jonathan that mentioned about Jed.

[675a942a7644ficemann]

Daniel 23.07.19

* Just Daniel present. I'd recommend doing something else while this video runs in the background.
* BSP work on level 4 (Storage).
* Some new corpse models implemented. Definite improvement. Severed arms and hands in. Also grenades and batteries.
* The security bot is nearly finished being put together, and should be in-game by the next KS update.
* Unreal crashes at one point. This derails the stream for a bit of time as he has to re-open Unreal which takes a few minutes, then have all the shaders compile which takes a further few minutes.          - This is why I hate Unreal. Give me Unity any day.
* Daniel notes that the maker of the Storage level, prior to working on the level was working on a dungeon game (I'm assuming Ultima Underworld?). Hence the dungeon-like nature to it.
* A invisible blocking barrier has been made available to level makers, to put things in place so that the player wont reach unintended areas.
* By 1:21:00 Daniel finishes BSP work on level 4 and moves onto level 5 (Flight Deck).
* For the first bit on flight deck work has Daniel working out how the level should be divided up, and then have that all visualized in MS Paint. This work is needed since Flight Deck does not have different regions setup (eg Gamma, Beta etc). Once that works done then it can be worked on for BSP side of things.
* By the end of the video, Daniel has roughly half the level done.

[675a942a7674csgupta]

07/22/19 Dev Stream w/ Daniel

* He's working on splitting up levels so different people can work on different areas.  He begins on Level 4 (Storage) and has a color coded map of 4 quadrants.  This is a fairly

* The Shock Bot Security Droid is almost done.  (I'm assuming he means the big Security Bot?)  He has a machine gun for a hand, and we'll see him in the next KickStarter update.

* He clarified above.  Security Bot 1 and 2 are called Shock Bots internally, and he was just using the internal names.  =oP

* Oop.  Nasty Unreal crash.  But it came back textured, so he was happy he didn't have to sit through a whole lot of processing again.

* Q: System Shock on iOS/Android?  A: He doesn't know; maybe; never really thought about it.  Though he says if Stadia runs Android, it could show up on there, so that might count? 

* One of the things that makes System Shock tricky to work on is how close proximity everything is.  The wall of one area is the wall of an adjacent area, with floors becoming ceilings, etc.

* There are pink boxes with Nightdive logos in the levels - they are boundary volume markers/invisible walls to prevent players from going places they're not supposed to be.

* He gets prettymuch done with this process for Storage, though expect areas that are bad level design to change when they do the actual build-out passes.

* They may keep the original level design for the retro mode they hope will make it in.

* They had to make a change to their streaming technology as it was causing them to fall through the floor when testing; you have to apparently load all level blockout for that to not happen.

* The rest of the stream is figuring out the 2D color-coded plan for splitting up Level 5, Flight Deck, and then making a start on that (about 2 quadrants done).

* Q: Any concept for what you're doing with the Flight Decks?  A: Not yet.

* In response to a question about what this project was, Daniel talked about it being the official System Shock remake and mentioned they're actually pretty happy with the progress.  While this particular process may look like they're not far along, enemies are going in, art is going in, levels are being built, etc., and this just needed done, but they're cracking along quite well.

* He again reiterated they're not going for 1:1 and are going to use some more modern level design standards for levels (including things like stairs), but that it would still be quite close to the original.

[675a942a768d1sgupta]

So they did an SS2 anniversary stream today (some original devs), which is really fun to watch.  I haven't summarized the whole thing since it's not a dev stream, buuuut, a few highlights:

- One of the guiding principles of the System Shock reboot is certain constraints placed on the art/designs (ie. pixel density), which they feel makes the work better as it forces them to be more creative within those limits.

- The sphincter doors in the Body of the Many are actually based on a real sphincter from the colonoscopy of their composer, Josh Randall.  And now, you'll never NOT know that.  =oP

- The SS1 anniversary is actually next month, and they're planning a Big Box Re-Release with a few surprises. 

- SS2 Enhanced Edition is coming (announced right after the stream ended).  No date announced and few other details, but it is in the works. 

[675a942a77348unn_atropos]

So they did an SS2 anniversary stream today (some original devs), which is really fun to watch.  I haven't summarized the whole thing since it's not a dev stream, buuuut, a few highlights:

Did they announce it? Would have liked to watch it -_-

- The sphincter doors in the Body of the Many are actually based on a real sphincter from the colonoscopy of their composer, Josh Randall.  And now, you'll never NOT know that.  =oP

We already tried to forget that here. And the government is keeping it away from the public! #stormthecolon

- The SS1 anniversary is actually next month, and they're planning a Big Box Re-Release with a few surprises. 

Nice

- SS2 Enhanced Edition is coming (announced right after the stream ended).  No date announced and few other details, but it is in the works.

Hm.

[675a942a778edicemann]

Stream notes:

* Quite a bit of interesting SS2 info in this stream.
* Who put the macarena into SS2 - Was motion capped in a day. Question not answered.
* LGS was formed largely due to some D&D sessions, which several of the founders were part of.
* What happened with the dreamcast port - Not sure.
* The stat path stuff at the start of the game, was directly ripped from a P&P game "Traveller" by Steve Jackson (of Fighting Fantasy game).   - Not heard of that game.
* If SS2 had been made today, what changes would they have made - More clearly detail what stat upgrades bring, give players a chance to respec at some point in case they made bad choices, go the Deus Ex path of having multiple solutions to an obstacle.
* Bioshock's UI was simplified largely due to consoles.
* Was SS2 voiced by in-house staff - Yes and no. Minor characters - Yes, Lead Roles - No. SS1 however was 100% all in-house staff.
* Discussion on how Prey has brought back more complicated systems into games.
* When they went to demo the game at E3, they had to show the German version of the game, due to insistence by EA, who were concerned after the Columbine shooting. The German version had lesser amounts of blood (which was pink in that version). They also only played as OSA, so as to not show gun use.
* The game performed terribly at E3 due to the style of game that it is. Irrational learned from this with Bioshock, and with that game only demo'd the game in quiet dark rooms, and had people play it rather than just watch it.
* LGS and Irrational were in the same building throughout the development of SS2.
* Were there any sections of SS2 that had to be cut, due to technical limitations of the time - The ending section was originally going to be completely different. Nothing else beyond that.
* Originally the shotgun hybrid's did not drop shotguns when killed. Only added in later due to complaints by testers. This change then resulted in levels being overloaded with shotgun's everywhere. They fixed this by putting in code to remove any broken shotguns from a level when returned to later.
* Whose arm was used for modelling the player's arm - Gareth Hines.
* Who came up with the idea for weapon degradation - This came from Traveller as well. Much of this was modelled off, how SS1 was so scary, which was from ammo scarcity. So this was put in for similar effect in SS2, so that the player would not be overpowered. And it would increase the fear factor, from knowing that use of a weapon would = slow degradation over time + enforce the idea that nothing is 100% reliable. If you had plenty of ammo and your weapon never broke, then you would cruise through the levels.    - I completely agree with this. Be a more Doom-Like experience.
* Are there things in SS2 that you feel are absent from modern games, that you'd like to see brought back - Incremental stat growth / Slow player improvement over time and where choices are permanent and cannot be changed. He cites the original early versions of WoW, as one of the last good later examples of this.    - Agreed on this. Games nowadays do not have this.
* A second one - Having things in games that you know will piss people off. Like having a door that the player will never be able to open on that play through due to previous choices. He goes on to say that with modern games, devs are FAR more likely to remove something if there is any negative feedback about it. Later comments that if a player is willing to spend $50+ on your game, then they are willing to put the time in to learn how the systems work.    - 110% agree.

[675a942a77e5cvoodoo47]

Originally the shotgun hybrid's did not drop shotguns when killed. Only added in later due to complaints by testers. This change then resulted in levels being overloaded with shotgun's everywhere. They fixed this by putting in code to remove any broken shotguns from a level when returned to later.

yes, we know. thanks again, testers.

[675a942a77fdeicemann]

Note that I'm editing my post above as I watch the stream. There is ALOT of good Q&A questions happening, so watch that post. I'd highly recommend watching the stream to the more SS2 inclined here as there is an absolute heap of good info on SS2 in it.

[675a942a7834bicemann]

Post 2, as my first post has filled up big time:

* What is their favorite level from SS2 - Hydroponics, and the upside down Rickenbacker.
* As SS1 did not sell well. How were the higher ups convinced on making SS2 - They were super fans from the get go. Bad sales or not, they were very much wanting to make it.
* The robots from SS2 were a big inspiration for the Big Daddy's in Bioshock.
* Originally in Bioshock, adam was going to be stored in slugs that you'd drop near a corpse, it'd soak up the adam, then it would seek out a hive to return to. The player then could choose to either pickup the slug immediately, or wait till they returned to the hive for a larger adam boost. That was the idea, but they never got the ecology of it all to work properly in-game so it was scrapped.
* Were there anything extra you'd have liked to have put in SS2 - A zero G level outside the ship, that would have needed grav boots to get around. More multiplayer content.
* Funny fact - The game reviewed badly on some game reviews site called "Old Man Murry" (never heard of it) based on a factor of how quickly you'd come across a crate in a game, which SS2 had some of in the starting level.
* SS2 marked the first time that colored lighting was added to the Dark Engine. Thief 1 prior had only white lights.
* Was the idea for The Many inspired by the movie "The Thing" - No
* The movie "Outland" was a big influence on SS2.   - Not heard of that movie.
* Was Half-Life an influence - Yes. The way they did the interactive "cutscenes" was a direct influence.
* EA had zero confidence in SS2 being a success at all. They considered the game niche, and very likely to turn a profit. For this reason they didn't want to put much money into marketing for the game.
* Has there been any attempt to get the old team behind SS2 together to put a new game out - No, though they do get together on occasion.
* Whose idea was it for the player to take damage and sometimes die if the run into the wall really fast - That's just how the physics were setup, as it's setup the same way that fall damage is calculated.
* What modern engine would you remake SS2 in - Unreal.