Interstellar Marines - For the love of sci-fi

[Luzur]

will it be railroaded as usual?

 

[dragonfk]

According to the video, no.

Yet their status of an indie developer does not give me as much faith in them to actually believe that.

But I'll say that I like the overall feel of the video and what they've shown us. Another bonus is the released demos of the features present in the game.

 

[Tycn]

Man has conquered the stars but still shoot each other with EOTech SCAR lookalikes

And how is that a bad thing? I don't see any problem with that.

Guns looked different 50 years ago, what makes you think they'll be the same after 200 years and numerous technological breakthroughs?

Not to mention, it's fucking generic.

Also

RPG

Playing a pre-made character in a game can be great fun, but when designing Interstellar Marines it was pretty clear that we wanted more than that, we wanted to give players the freedom to shape and mold their character themselves.

In the game the characters will enter the solar system as rookies, but during the progression of the game all gradually become more and more experienced as the story unfolds. With experience comes new skills and abilities as well as access to new and better weaponry, and it is now all up to each player how they want to build and equip their Marine.

Create a stealthy medic with hacking skills, a heavy armored sniper with explosives or maybe an officer with excellent strategic abilities and a minigun?

It is all up to the player to decide.

When the hunter becomes the hunted ...

Just like the character is growing and taking shape by gaining skills during the course of the game, so are the weapons of the marine. In a somewhat similar way to traditional RPG character progression we also wanted the players to be able to "personalize" their weaponry and equipment.

As an Interstellar Marine moves up in rank, he gets to choose more and more weapons and weapon utilities from the vast armory of the IM corps and is now able to freely customize his guns and items. If you pick an assault rifle you could choose to improve it with the shotgun extension and hollow point bullets or perhaps a silencer, piercing rounds and a scope?

The options are plentiful and it is all up to each player to freely make the decisions that suit his or hers preferred play style.

Open Ended Level Design

When we were to create the world of the Interstellar Marines, plenty of ideas came up for great locations and places for the players to explore. However no matter where the story would take the marines, we were pretty sure about one thing; the places should all be open ended and not in any way force the players to just take a pre-chosen path through.

So we constructed the game in such a way that there are always several ways to achieve the main objectives/complete the levels and players will have the option of using brute force, stealth tactics and/or make use of the various skills as a mean to successfully clear a mission.

However not only should players be able to explore the areas of the game freely, we also wished for the levels to be as dynamic as possible, so that the game would stay fresh and exciting even when you came back for the fifth or sixth time. The cool thing about a dynamic environment is that it allows for tactical choices, and the player should consider the effects of shutting down the lights, turning on the sprinklers and how the enemy AI will react to such changes in the environment.

To add to the re-playability all levels are non-scripted and the various “inhabitants” of a location will have a life of their own (guards patrolling, scientists working, crew personnel cleaning, etc) until the players intervene one way or the other, so there are no monsters jumping out of the closet when players step on that exact trigger on the floor.

 

[.Sigurd]

Well now, I was expecting a linear FPS but looks like it's more like Deus Ex.


Also, I think the sharks are only for the beta, the final game will have the proper storyline and characters. Or maybe they are some kind of wildlife created by humans for the colonized planets.

 

[Burning Bridges]

I stopped following this game because I don't believe a word of that AAA indy shit.

Release a game first, then you can talk like that.

The same goes to the developers of Xenonauts.

In the end, what all those new overblown indies do is just vaporware 2.0.

Nothing has changed. They talk about games that don't exist. They make the same promises, just bigger (we have all new marketing concepts, you only need to believe). They release 1 screenshot every year, just they look much better. All their screens and videos are in Hi Def.

I guess it's a new strategy to get back some of the (lost) attention. Because people learned, and if one just talks about games that don't exist, no one takes you serious any more.

I couldn't listen to this moron and his overblown bullshit for more than a minute. So what is their games outstanding feature again, besides being indy (and having a STORY and IMMERSION)?

These guys sure are pretentious as fuck. Over what? Making a generic Space FPS?

TalesfromtheCrypt sums it up very nicely

 

[Hobo Elf]

Do you know what would also be cool? Science Fiction without fucking spess mahreens. Fuck space marines.

 

[denizsi]

Guns looked different 50 years ago

Not really. Some did. Most did not.

Colt 1911 from 1912:

Colt 1911 from 1917 and 1944:

M-45 MEUSOC, the modern replacement for Colt 1911:

Even the design for majority of world's leading assault rifles are based on the same basic models that started coming out in 40s and 50s. Since then, most of the basic design is derived and it's not because of nostalgia but because they got the basics right for the intended function.

Necessities define change, not some distant breakthroughs and scienmajifics. Think of how many technological breakthroughs came about since early 20th century and compare that to firearms. We got sturdier, more reliable weapons built out of better materials, we got more varied ammo, the few odd designs and that's about it. Especially in the last 50 years, guns have changed little in principle. Cosmetically, what has changed is ergonomics and modularity based on necessities. If you are sending SPEHZ MARINES to fight in environments not dissimilar to present on earth, why the change? Especially considering the current basics that has been working for 100+ years will probably keep working for a lot longer and still cost very little as opposed to whatever new shit may hit the street.

Not that I find their design tasteful, I think it looks like shit and could use some more character instead of being generic shit, but other than that, there really is no argument.

 

[Twinkle]

In principle, the idea of a space marines game is great. SF story, campaign mode, non linear, lots of micromanagement, strategic gameplay, RPG stats and character development.

Play Chaos Gate.

 

[Destroid]

When I loaded up that video I thought the guys who used to be working on the Hull Breach mod for source had gone indie.

 

[Tycn]

The longevity of the M1911 contributes in no small measure to its iconic status, which I'd say makes it the exception that proves the rule. 200 years is more than enough to facilitate a breakthrough in weapons design, especially since the whole colonisation thing would require breakthroughs in multiple fields. Modern small arms have hardly reached the apex of killing ability so future developments are likely.

Though I have no objection to slugthrowers, at least add some damn flavour.

 

[denizsi]

Entire catalogue of 60+ years of near-identical looking assault rifles would like to have a word with your "rule" but whatever. It's not even like I disagree about the uninspired generic crap look. Give me 80s tubular sci-fi weapons any day anyway.

 

[JarlFrank]

One of the earliest types of muskets, 1500s and 1600s:

German rifle K98k, invented in 1898, the most common weapon for German soldiers in WW2:

Time between these two designs:
Almost 500 years.

 

[Tycn]

1944

1959

1997

Looks pretty different to me. Also,

Dont start explaining that space travel was a miracle breakthrough/whatever and everything else (except for bipedal self-sustaining robots) progressed more slowly to stay up to todays standards. Especially the guns.

 

[Darth Roxor]

You know, I was browsing Wikipedia's pages about people from Looking Glass, and when I checked Terri Brosius, the 'partial list of games' actually featured Interstellar Marines.

http://www.interstellarmarines.com/arti ... i-brosius/

Well, that's at least some incline right there. Although it's just voice-acting and nothing else, but still...

 

[Luigi]

Dont start explaining that space travel was a miracle breakthrough/whatever and everything else (except for bipedal self-sustaining robots) progressed more slowly to stay up to todays standards. Especially the guns.

Dont quote me out of context for your agenda. I essentially dont see a logical problem design-wise, only aesthetically. Because design can be tricky to understand for a layperson especially if looking into the future.
Of course those in question are artist designs and those usually are horrible shit all around.

My issue with them is that the guns look like crap and if they want "realistic scifi" they should start with The fundamental of a universe: energy.

 

[someone else]

There are not enough games like this.

 

[MetalCraze]

I totally didn't expect to see a shitty corridor shooter with made up weapons that sound 'pew pew' and 'special forces' marenz fighting aleins!

I will be surprised if it's for X360 too!

 

[Exmit]

This will be shit.

 

[Helly]

And now it's on kickstarter: www.kickstarter.com/projects/zeropointsoftware/interstellar-marines-prologue

 

[Jaesun]

At least there is no console faggotry....... yet.

 

[Burning Bridges]

The history section in the video sounds like a horror story. Started as a commercial game over five (?) years ago. Cancelled for the first time. Team layed off. What follows are some years of weird promises about "AAA Indy" and soon to be released betas. Now several more years later, they appear on kickstarter and ask for 600.000 $ Target: generic shooter. GTFO

 

[Darth Roxor]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/07/03/hot-drop-into-interstellar-marines-early-access/

Holy shit, this vapourware is still around?

 

[Haba]

Apparently they have two people working on the game at the moment...

 

[circ]

Nice dane accent on the narrator but shooter nein.

 

[Branm]

Soooo I saw the early access trailer. Am i right in assuming that this is yet just another boring FPS?