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KickStarter System Shock 1 Remake by Nightdive Studios

LESS T_T

Arcane
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Codex 2014
"Why 'System Shock' Matters", with some quotes from Warren Spector, Paul Neurath, and Chris Avellone.: http://www.glixel.com/news/why-system-shock-matters-w483835

I quote parts somewhat related to SS 3 and SS reboot:

That next level, of course, did not include living humans. As Spector has often said, he, Church, and Neurath’s collective distaste for the "dialogue trees" of the day caused them to leave no survivors on Citadel Station for the player to interact with. While it seemed like a minor point at the time, this decision has inspired countless imitators, from Dark Souls to Bioshock – perhaps even presaging the now-popular walking simulator genre. To Spector, it was just a solution to a problem. "Honestly, we just couldn’t think of anything better to do. We had no idea how to make a better conversation system. So, somebody eventually said ‘let’s just kill them all.’ It was a practical decision that ended up working out really well creatively. But, working on Shock 3 now, I’m wrestling with that. I’m not sure if we should have more living NPCs or not."

As Neurath and Spector themselves admit, these early efforts to maximize suspension of disbelief seem rather primitive today, but they irrevocably altered player’s perceptions of what was possible in these emerging artificial worlds. To Chris Avellone – famed writer behind such titles as Fallout: New Vegas and contributor to Arkane Studio’s recent System Shock-like Prey – at the time, to an outsider, the scope of Shock’s achievement was unfathomable, if a bit muddled. "They did a truly amazing number of things," he says. "Even the game’s ‘help’ function was totally unheard of. The game told you what everything did, and what everything was. Not to mention SHODAN. Antagonists weren’t that aggressive back then – or as direct."

This unparalleled depth came with a cost, however. As Spector himself rudely discovered upon returning to the original two decades later, between its unwieldy controls and bloated interface, Looking Glass’s creation is far from accessible to those of us who weren’t exactly rocking a Pentium in 1994. "It’s just really hard to go back to now," says Avellone. "A lot of the thrill comes from the dungeon design, combined with SHODAN’s reactivity. It did an amazing amount of things, but people remember the way it made them feel, and not so much the actual game itself."

In late 2015, developer Night Dive Studios – best-known for reclaiming and republishing "abandoned" games, like the Wizardry series and 7th Guest – announced their intention to pursue a "reimagining" of the original System Shock, aiming to wipe off some of the layers of dust that the game has accumulated over the years. And, as you might expect, industry luminary Avellone was one of their first hires. "Honestly, I’m thrilled to be a part of it," he says. "I love sci-fi, but I so rarely get a chance to do it." Don’t call it a “remaster," though – Avellone says that it’s more a reboot than anything else. "We’re taking the original storyline and expanding it to reflect the new ways you can play – the combat path, the hacking path, the stealth path. Part of the thrill of the first System Shock is that SHODAN doesn’t know you’re there at first. We’re aiming to surprise the player by taking that a little further."

Though Spector and Neurath aren’t explicitly involved, they’re both enthused about it. "It’s nice to see that now, twenty-three years later, with the reboot, and even Prey, that people are still influenced by what we did back then," says Neurath. Spector takes a bolder tack: "My heart tells me that if you take the original Shock and modernize it, it’ll be just as good as any immersive sim that’s come since. Well, I guess now we’ll find out, won’t we?" He lets out a hearty laugh. The duo are more focused on their own efforts, and for good reason – the game called System Shock 3 is just beginning to take form, at least conceptually. When pressed for information, Spector just laughs again. "We’ll talk in a year," he says.

Ultimately, for Spector, the retroactive acclaim is heartening – as well as the buckets and buckets of copies that the two Shock games have moved on services like GOG – but ultimately, he’s puts the medium first. "Recognition is nice, but it’s not the be-all-end-all. The important thing is not that the great unwashed masses think of System Shock and say, ‘wow, that really changed things!’ The important thing is that other developers saw that game when it came out and it changed the way they thought about the games they were making. People who care about games know how important System Shock was to video games. That’s all that matters to me."
 

RoSoDude

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In late 2015, developer Night Dive Studios – best-known for reclaiming and republishing "abandoned" games, like the Wizardry series and 7th Guest – announced their intention to pursue a "reimagining" of the original System Shock, aiming to wipe off some of the layers of dust that the game has accumulated over the years. And, as you might expect, industry luminary Avellone was one of their first hires. "Honestly, I’m thrilled to be a part of it," he says. "I love sci-fi, but I so rarely get a chance to do it." Don’t call it a “remaster," though – Avellone says that it’s more a reboot than anything else. "We’re taking the original storyline and expanding it to reflect the new ways you can play – the combat path, the hacking path, the stealth path. Part of the thrill of the first System Shock is that SHODAN doesn’t know you’re there at first. We’re aiming to surprise the player by taking that a little further."

Not the shot-for-shot remake you all thought you were paying for, people.

Granted, I actually think augmenting the gameplay and RPG mechanics (which increased only complexity and not actual gameplay depth in the original) would be a good thing. But the preview material doesn't look, sound, or feel like System Shock at all, so I'm skeptical these changes will be any good either. Glad I kept to my rule of never Kickstarting anything.

Should have seen the shitty music coming from the Kickstarter page though:

System Shock will have a dramatic and modern take on a musical score. Combining its root sci-fi elements with dynamic acoustic elements à la BioShock, we are striving to set System Shock apart from other more action-based shooters as an atmospheric and dark experience.
 

Infinitron

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Perkel

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I am playing right now SS1 and even with medium setting toward combat, there is waaaay to much combat in it. Like every 5 seconds.

I absolutely love design of station and art design with textures that despite being rough in 2017 they still convey what they are supposed to convey.

If they adding something more than gun down everything then it is a + in my book.
On other hand i fear they will remove complexity of levels.

I played SS1 remake demo they released and i loved how it was basically 1:1 remake of level and it managed to get right how station looks.

My wish for remake would be to make station more "mechanical" aka more things to interact with like lights, doors, cameras etc. in SS1
 
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LESS T_T

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Codex 2014
Speaking of level design, Jason Fader talks about the engine change, modular level design process and freezing mutants: https://www.pcgamesn.com/system-shock-remastered/system-shock-remastered-unreal-engine-4

Making it in Unreal: why Nightdive rebooted System Shock, then rebooted it again

System Shock’s remaster already looked stunning more than a year ago. Citadel Station, thought rendered obsolete by two decades of first-person genre development, was resplendent in that first trailer - a blue-green cathedral of coloured lights and jittery post-humans. It was as if developers Nightdive had casually dropped the word ‘cyberspace’ into conversation and not only got away with it, but somehow made it sound right again - even relevant.

“All game content in this video is subject to change,” read the disclaimer. It was tough to imagine why anyone would change anything about this densely stylised sister to the Bioshock series. Yet change it did.

Why did Nightdive shift the new System Shock from Unity to Unreal Engine 4? And what’s new now that they’ve made the switch?

TriOptimisation
There were two important considerations behind the engine swap. First, after conversations with both Epic and Unity, Nightdive decided Unreal Engine 4 would be the better choice for hitting their performance targets on consoles. And second, more pertinent for our purposes, was the team. Nightdive have hired a bunch of “very senior” developers, a number of whom worked alongside game director Jason Fader at Obsidian on Fallout: New Vegas.

System%20Shock%20Remastered%20screenshots.jpg


“These guys had more Unreal experience than Unity experience,” explains Fader. “And instead of having them get up to speed on Unity, it made more sense with what we had in the pipeline to go with an Unreal ecosystem.”

Thankfully, Nightdive were able to pull over a “good chunk” of the work they’d already done in pre-alpha.

“The code doesn’t really translate, but the core fundamentals of the system we were working on definitely do map over,” says Fader.

Creature design, items, weapons, and to a certain degree environmental layouts - all were translated from the Unity demo with a minimum of time lost. In March, less than a year after the initial reveal, Nightdive put out another trailer in Unreal.

“Overall, it’s been a pretty seamless transition,” Fader concludes. “I guess what we showed off in the Unreal trailer was more of a tech demo than a final representation of the art style. It was just something we wanted to put together to show that we were making something: it’s in Unreal, and Unreal will help us to get better visual fidelity at the same time on multiple platforms.”

A modular Citadel
Ask Ken Levine about working in Thief’s Dark Engine for System Shock 2 and he’ll tell you about carving passageways into the editor, as if space itself was made from dense rock. Rebuilding Citadel for the new System Shock couldn’t be more different - the team used a tile-based construction system reminiscent of the one Fader and much of his team worked with on Fallout: New Vegas.

“What that means is that we have our environment artist creating tiles - chunks of a level, chunks of a hallway, wall pieces, floor pieces, ceiling pieces,” Fader explains. “And then they go away and construct these things, almost like working with a digital set of Lego.”

The system allows them to get levels up and running quickly, and Fader believes modular design is even better suited to System Shock than it was to Fallout: “Mainly because we don’t have to worry too much about terrain and extreme environments, and fortunately a space station already feels modular in its construction.”

An issue that Bethesda have run into in the past is ‘asset fatigue’. It’s that uncanny sense, on the 20th Ayleid dungeon, that you’ve seen that same set of sarcophagi before. Once you’ve noticed, it’s hard to shake - and it’s something Nightdive are working to avoid.

“One of the strategies we’ve adopted from past games that we’ve worked on is that it’s not necessarily about the environment, it’s about what you put in it,” says Fader. “We can have a game where you see a lot of viscera strewn about the station, and there’s a lot of opportunity for visual storytelling.”

A corridor in a space station might not in itself set the industry alight with its visual inventiveness. But the way it’s dressed, with cybernetic doohickies, body parts, and dramatic lighting, can play on our fears and make it distinctive.

Making-it-in-Unreal_SystemShock-Q.png


Of course, Nightdive are somewhat wedded to maps drawn up by Looking Glass in 1994. That’s no bad thing - there were few, if any studios in the ‘90s, with greater pedigree in that area - but the team aren’t letting the limitations of two-decades-old level editing hold them back.

“Back then, oftentimes level design was a product of the time, and it’s since evolved to a point where it can engage players more effectively,” notes Fader. “There are areas where we could make that aspect of the game more fun by opening the level up more or making it a little less maze-like, and adding more areas of interest to show exactly what they’ve done to create these cyber monstrosities. It really gives us a lot of flexibility.”

Murder in the frozen aisle
The most striking part of System Shock’s Unreal Engine 4 trailer - more tech demo than representative slice of the game - was the moment a couple of mutants were frozen solid by a nearby fuel canister. Using a wrench, the player was able to knock heads and limbs off the station’s new statues, which keeled over and shattered on the hard metal floor.

“You’re on a space station, it’s very cold,” argues Fader. “There are a lot of cooling systems going throughout the station, and we want to give players a lot of cool opportunities to interact with these physics systems.”

The team looked at the way freezing was handled in Bioshock and Mass Effect, but found their solutions lacking.

ezgif.com-crop_0.gif


“Their technology is limited in that it’s not target-based destruction,” Fader expands. “If you swing a pipe at something that’s frozen in Bioshock, the whole entire thing shatters, and there’s no actual feedback as to what you’re hitting. We want to take it a step further.”

For System Shock, Nightdive have been working with an Nvidia package that can turn a non-static mesh - i.e. a living, lurching mutant - and turn it into a static mesh, so that it essentially becomes an object in the world. That object is then subject to locational destruction in a way it wasn’t just moments before.

“What you saw in the trailer was our first pass at that technology,” says Fader. “Since then, our lead programmer Matthew Kenneally has been hard at work refining it. What we’ll show in future trailers will definitely be more impressive than what you saw before.”
 

schru

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Feb 27, 2015
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Tile-based level design doesn't sound good. Perhaps it can be done in a more sophisticated way, but generally it's one of the main reasons why levels feel so boring and unconvincing these days.
 

hajro

Arbiter
Joined
Nov 22, 2015
Messages
592
I fucking hate all procedural generation, fucking wankers. The moment you understand the process of how the game makes rooms it becomes a turd, and even before that the levels are just meh levels to be honest. 0 details, all filler is procedural generation in a nutshell.
 

Wirdschowerdn

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Doing it like the old 90s BSP-based format though would take them approx. 5 times longer, with minimally improved level design.

Tile-based is a necessity due to the vast increase of art complexity and the time it takes to create it.
 

toro

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I'm waiting for the 3rd reboot. It should be the lucky one.

PS: Thank God I did not pledge for this shit.
 

Perkel

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Messages
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System Shock 1:

1208950F1B8654ED513E7C8C9885D4492F2B7B49
200


"Look at you, hacker: a pathetic creature of meat and bone, panting and sweating as you run through my corridors. How can you challenge a perfect, immortal machine? "



SS2 shodan:

SHODAN_hires.jpg


"Your flesh is an insult to the perfection of the digital."

NIGHTDIVE SHOCK 1

systemshock3-shodanface.jpg


" I LOVE YOU ! BAKA !"



DECLINE IS COMPLETE. It only took 20 years.
 

Darth Roxor

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Ahahaha :hero:

edit:

<Chomik> Of course, Nightdive are somewhat wedded to maps drawn up by Looking Glass in 1994. That’s no bad thing - there were few, if any studios in the ‘90s, with greater pedigree in that area - but the team aren’t letting the limitations of two-decades-old level editing hold them back.
<Chomik> limitations
<Chomik> of system shock 1
<Chomik> level design
<Chomik> my sides
<Jaedar> hmm
<Jaedar> I'm trying to think of any
<Jaedar> but I really can't
<Chomik> no shit
<Hoaxmetal> they were limited to sprawling levels
<Chomik> “There are areas where we could make that aspect of the game more fun by opening the level up more or making it a little less maze-like, and adding more areas of interest to show exactly what they’ve done to create these cyber monstrosities. It really gives us a lot of flexibility.”
<Jaedar> ss1 has all sorts of verticality, large rooms twisting stuff, smaller spaces
<Chomik> hoax wins the prize
<rej> yeah hoax nailed it

:hero:

I would like to thank Nightdive for letting me laugh daily at all the suckers who backed this scam.
 
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Durandal

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My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
NIGHTDIVE SHOCK 1

systemshock3-shodanface.jpg

To be fair though, this "artwork" (and I'm using the term loosely here) was apparently made by OtherSide for System Shock 3, not Nightdive. Not that I have high hopes for either game.
This one is too human, which would be incredibly ironic considering SHODAN's character
You'd think she'd want to represent herself as something other than the very thing she despises, but with the ending of SS2 who really knows
 

Ash

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Ahahaha :hero:

edit:

<Chomik> Of course, Nightdive are somewhat wedded to maps drawn up by Looking Glass in 1994. That’s no bad thing - there were few, if any studios in the ‘90s, with greater pedigree in that area - but the team aren’t letting the limitations of two-decades-old level editing hold them back.
<Chomik> limitations
<Chomik> of system shock 1
<Chomik> level design
<Chomik> my sides
<Jaedar> hmm
<Jaedar> I'm trying to think of any
<Jaedar> but I really can't
<Chomik> no shit
<Hoaxmetal> they were limited to sprawling levels
<Chomik> “There are areas where we could make that aspect of the game more fun by opening the level up more or making it a little less maze-like, and adding more areas of interest to show exactly what they’ve done to create these cyber monstrosities. It really gives us a lot of flexibility.”
<Jaedar> ss1 has all sorts of verticality, large rooms twisting stuff, smaller spaces
<Chomik> hoax wins the prize
<rej> yeah hoax nailed it

:hero:

I would like to thank Nightdive for letting me laugh daily at all the suckers who backed this scam.

While 90s level design generally destroys anything modern, there were many limitations of the time.

-System Shock couldn't have rooms upon rooms. Major limitation.
-Lack of graphical detail prevents players being able to easily identify objects and obstacles in the environment.
-Limited physics? Limited physics implementation in level design.
-Limited audio capability? Limited audio usage in level design.

And so on...

Pretty much everything of note was sorted in the late 90s and not present in Shock 2 though.

Technical capability has increased (yet never really taken advantage of from a gameplay POV), allowing deeper level design. Level design and game design in general has digressed. Considerably.

I think the problem here stems from Fader's use of words. Level design...well it has evolved, but not into something generally good. He should have focused on how engines were the problem but have since evolved, and use of a modern one is where their advantage lies, and in theory allows for better level design. But idk, maybe that quote is just taken out of context.
 
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Unkillable Cat

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It isn't. System Shock uses a more advanced version of the Ultima Underworld engine, and this limitation is very apparent there.

It's very easy to design around it, though, so it's no big deal.

I agree that some rooms that were to serve a specific purpose did suffer a bit in the original SS1, and could do with a facelift. IIRC there's a banquet room on Level 6 where a bunch of people hid from SHODAN, and Edward Diego sold them out. You get there it's mostly just a big room full of dead bodies.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I believe Underworld and SS1 both are true 3D implementation, but there are reasons why even a true 3D implementation wouldn't support room-over-room.
 

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