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Incline System Shock 1 Thread

LESS T_T

Arcane
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Codex 2014
Here's that System Shock 25th anniversary stream:



26:57 - "SALT THE FRIES!", all-nighters of LGS, and the legendary brown couch.

36:35 - Rob tells the visual development of the enemies. Also regrets about Cortex Reaver couldn't properly realized in-game due to technical limitations.

43:43 - Elevator dance time. The ambush of mutants was the work of Tim.

44:58 - Moving stars was last minute addition.

56:04 - Rob's another regret is the bridge level, that didn't live up to Giger inspirations due to technical limitations.

1:08:30 - How SHODAN's gender came to be. Later Terri tells there was a male test voice of SHODAN before she was hired to do it.

1:27:47 - SHODAN wants to kick the butts of GLaDOS.

1:32:47 - Tim explains how SS1's enemies, with the same-y behaviors and abillites, are differentiated, it's all character (visual) design and placement (level design).

1:35:16 - When asked about unused vending machine texture and why it was cut, Tim explains that they wanted the station to look like a real space station with all those objects, but at the same time they didn't want to put things that are not interactable as they expected to be. So the vending machine and other unused assets are casualties of that process. Tim and Warren talk about the dilemma comes from the promise of interactivity in immersive sims, and that it is still a problem today. Warren and his SS3 team were having that discussion last week, because Warren pushed that a lot more things can be interactable in SS3.

1:42:52 - NDS's Danielle asked about Deep Cover, the unmade Looking Glass game (System Shock + Thief + James Bond), and Tim couldn't tell much about it because he was at other team (the unmade LGS Thief 3). Terri remembers she was asked if she can do Russian accent, think that was for that game.

1:44:58 - Who designed the hacking puzzles? The colored wire one was by Doug Church, the grid one was by Tim. Tim thinks the wire one is a better puzzle. Also talks about Doug and other MIT gangs' favorite pastime activity: lockpicking. Warren says a programmer at Otherside Austin who is an MIT graduate also can do lockpicking. (Btw the engineer is Hannah Walker, gameplay engineer.)

1:56:18 - Tim, when asked about Thief 2014, says he intentionally avoided to play it so he doesn't have to talk about it. And he talks about stealth game genre in general, probably somewhat meaningful since Boston team is working on a stealth game.
 
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Unkillable Cat

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Codex 2014 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy
1:56:18 - Tim, when asked about Thief 2014, says he intentionally avoided to play it so he doesn't have to talk about it.

tenor.gif
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
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Codex 2014
Details on the limited edition: https://www.limitedrungames.com/collections/neo-frontpage/products/system-shock-enhanced-edition-pc

System Shock Enhanced Edition (PC)
$59.99
This product is COMING SOON!

This beautiful big box release of Nightdive Studios' System Shock Enhanced Edition has been created to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the legendary game. This box includes the following:
  • USB floppy diskette featuring the following contents:
    • System Shock Enhanced Edition game
    • Remastered soundtrack
    • Never before seen goodies
  • Smiley face enamel pin
  • Metal mutant miniature
  • 4 stickers
    • Logo
    • Shodan (foil)
    • Trioptimum Logo
    • Smiley face
  • Printed user manual
  • Beautiful individually numbered multi-level embossed foil box

https://www.limitedrungames.com/collections/neo-frontpage/products/system-shock-vinyl-soundtrack

System Shock Vinyl Soundtrack
$34.99
This product is COMING SOON!

The 2LP vinyl soundtrack to the legendary classic, System Shock, on 180g neon green vinyl.

Only 500 of the neon green variant will be manufactured!
 

Nano

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Grab the Codex by the pussy Strap Yourselves In
Gonna be honest, I don't care for that front cover. But on the other hand it's kind of a hardware deal, since I'm assuming the floppy USB is reusable for other things.
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
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Codex 2014
The guy behind InkyBlackness (SS modding tool) released "Female Hacker" mod, which replaces cutscenes and few other parts.



Apparently this is done as a part of his effort to extend the editor to support cutscenes.

https://www.moddb.com/mods/system-shock-female-hacker

The modification provides the following:
  • All three cutscenes, with scenes replaced to show the new protagonist,
  • a replaced "grunt" noise, when hacker takes damage,
  • changed wording in one log found later in the game.
Download the mod from moddb.com and follow the installation instructions for "System Shock Enhanced Edition".

You can reach the modder, "dertseha", on Nightdive Studio's Discord server, as well as on the systemshock.org forums.



Background info (dev diary)
This mod was the ideal candidate to drive forward my effort to extend the editor for the game to support the cutscenes.
The video codec used for the cutscenes is an elaborate one, and while the decoding algorithm is known for decades now, developing an encoder was tricky.

Starting in March 2019, I made first attempts at creating a compatible encoder. First encoding static, single-color images, then continuing to re-encode the original scenes. With a very limited byte-budget of the codec, and limited time-budget for this hobby project, progress was slow. After succeeding to properly re-encode all the scenes of the original in August, I had the idea for a great showcase: Have a familiar video and replace the protagonist.
Thus the idea was born to bring some diversity to this classic game.

Asking around, I learned that there's a difference between "pixel-art" and "low-poly" art. With the original videos falling into the category of "low-poly" art, I searched on respective Reddit groups and Discrod servers. Earlier in 2020, I made contact with a freelance artist, VintageWarm, who was willing to take on the project.

After some incremental approaches, we settled on a mixture of re-creating some scenes and "splicing" others, where I took the new part and stitched it into the original video, frame by frame.

It was definitely a fun experience and exercise to work on. I'm very happy to have created the first mod showcasing new videos, as well as bringing a new character option to the players.
 

Deflowerer

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Want to fire up this baby for the first time. Do I understand correctly that setting all difficulties to 3 is fine with the exception of the one that sets a time limit? Or is the time limit reasonable even for a first-timer who isn't a dumbfuck?

Thanks.
 
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RoSoDude

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DO NOT play with the time limit enabled on your first run. I completed it on 3/3/3/3 difficulty on my second run with only 59 seconds to spare. You pretty much need meta knowledge to survive it, it's brutal stuff.

I'd suggest Combat 3 (just because of mouselook) with everything else on 2. You don't necessarily want super complex puzzles or cyberspace while you're still learning how they work.
 

Unkillable Cat

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Codex 2014 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy
Just want to emphasize that having the time limit enabled will ruin your first playthrough, this is a game you want to savor and take your time with, at least on your first try.

Leave speedrun attacks and such for subsequent playthroughs.
 

Nito

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Did I hear Warren say he'd change the UI of System Shock? Has he suffered a series of concussions over the years?

I want to say I'm convinced he was replaced by a pod person after Deus Ex, (along with Harvey Smith), but the sad reality is that he's either not been the chemical X for good games in a long time, just someone who was present among very competent teams, or paired with good writers or better designers.
 

DraQ

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SS1 UI was clunky as fuck.
It had some unique advantages that would be nice to conserve (manipulating objects, throwing grenades), but overal it was awful and it would be quite possible to provide the same functionality (WRT leaning, crouching, crawling, HW and weapon UI) in more modern package, at worst offering toggle between FPS-like and traditional modes like EE does.
 

Eirinjas

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SS1 UI was clunky as fuck.
It had some unique advantages that would be nice to conserve (manipulating objects, throwing grenades), but overal it was awful and it would be quite possible to provide the same functionality (WRT leaning, crouching, crawling, HW and weapon UI) in more modern package, at worst offering toggle between FPS-like and traditional modes like EE does.

Leaning, crouching and looking up and down were functions accessible by the UI, but that doesn't reflect on the usefulness of the UI hud itself, which was well organized and flexible. It puts a lot of modern games to shame, imo. SS1 was released in 1994 when those actions weren't even a part of core gameplay mechanics in first person games on the market. Quake launched two years later in 1996 without leaning, crouching, crawling, mouselook, or a snazzy interface hud you could interact with using a mouse, presumably because Id software thought it'd be too advanced for gamers to understand (this was the definitive reason given for the adsence of mouselook by Romero, btw).
 

schru

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But Quake did have mouselook and System Shock in fact did not. Also, Quake would be a worse game if it had any of those other features.

Not to say I dislike System Shock's interface. It feels so characteristic to the game that it's hard to imagine it without it. It's something of a gimmick, but all of its elaborate functionality and obtrusiveness play into the cyberpunk theme very well.
 

Nito

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But Quake did have mouselook and System Shock in fact did not. Also, Quake would be a worse game if it had any of those other features.

Not to say I dislike System Shock's interface. It feels so characteristic to the game that it's hard to imagine it without it. It's something of a gimmick, but all of its elaborate functionality and obtrusiveness play into the cyberpunk theme very well.

I agree with this. The fact that the UI is clunky and intrusive and more reminiscent of a flight simulator than a first person shooter is not just an intrinsic part of not just the claustrophobic, vulnerable horror aspect of the Shock series, but also plays into the themes of being an 80s Cyberpunk hacker. It's not a UI built for gameplay or convenience, it's an alienating, awkward over-designed OS UI that tells its own story about Tri-Op.
 

Eirinjas

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But Quake did have mouselook and System Shock in fact did not.

I know SS1 didn't have mouselook. My point was that System Shock was so ahead of the curve that even 2 years later Quake was released without any of the UI enhancements System Shock had, and in addition did not have mouselook (now considered a basic FPS mechanic that SS1 has been too often criticized for not having). Yes, mouselook was added to Quake in a patch update, but the original retail box version DID NOT have mouselook. And the reason it did not have mouselook? Id software thought it was too advanced for gamers.
 

schru

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I know SS1 didn't have mouselook. My point was that System Shock was so ahead of the curve that even 2 years later Quake was released without any of the UI enhancements System Shock had, and in addition did not have mouselook (now considered a basic FPS mechanic that SS1 has been too often criticized for not having). Yes, mouselook was added to Quake in a patch update, but the original retail box version DID NOT have mouselook. And the reason it did not have mouselook? Id software thought it was too advanced for gamers.
I just checked the first retail release, 1.01. It does have mouselook. Besides, all of Id's shooters since Wolfenstein 3D had had mouselook, it was just limited to the horizontal axis until Quake.

At any rate, I don't want to dismiss System Shock. I enjoyed it greatly even though I played it twenty years after its release. It's just that those special movement functions it had did not help it to be a good shooter (not that this is what makes that game good), while Quake wouldn't benefit in any way from such additions.
 

Eirinjas

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I just checked the first retail release, 1.01. It does have mouselook. Besides, all of Id's shooters since Wolfenstein 3D had had mouselook, it was just limited to the horizontal axis until Quake.



I don't have the time or inclination to install Quake, but I remember the game very well because it was one of the first PC games I ever owned and mouselook ( free look ) was not enabled, nor was there an option to enable in the game's menu.
 

Owl

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Codex USB, 2014
Mouselook was originally "hidden" in Quake, disabled by default, you had to enable it with a console command.
 

schru

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It was always there, the y axis was enabled by holding down \ or mouse 3 and it works as seamlessly as all the implementations have since. It's in the controls, F1 screens, and the text file manual.

It's true that some or many players may have ignored it initially, but it's difficult to say what Romero is talking about, as all the final versions (DOS, Windows, OpenGL) work the exact same way. Perhaps the +mlook (makes it so the key doesn't need to be depressed) setting was permanently enabled for QuakeWorld? Or perhaps the first shareware version was different? I did manage to find scans of the original manual and at least it doesn't mention using the mouse to look up and down, but then its section on controls is generally very brief and not that thorough.

Edit: The same mouse look scheme is also present in the first shareware release (1.01).
 
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