The Death of System Shock

shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=42010

"That game is now on “hiatus”. They’re calling it a hiatus, but I would wager the odds of them resuming work on this project are extraordinarily low. I guess “hiatus” sounds better than “we laid off the team because we ran out of money”. The closure was announced in a post hilariously titled Sometimes You Need To Take a Step Back In Order To Take Two Steps Forward.

Yes, you can put a good spin on bad news. But there’s only so far you can get with corporate-speak. Even if we’re willing to call shutting down the whole team “one step back” instead of “falling over dead”, there’s nothing in the announcement to hint at what those “two steps forward” could possibly be. This announcement is like the doctor calling you a week after the funeral to tell you he thinks grandma is gonna pull through.

From the announcement:

“Maybe we were too successful. Maybe we lost our focus. The vision began to change. We moved from a Remaster to a completely new game. We shifted engines from Unity to Unreal, a choice that we don’t regret and one that has worked out for us. With the switch we began envisioning doing more, but straying from the core concepts of the original title.”

Your project was “too successful”? You blew through all your money and you never even escaped pre-production! Maybe you personally had fun working on it, but from the standpoint of everyone else on the planet this result is identical to taking the Kickstarter money, putting it in a big pile, and setting it on fire. From our point of view it’s the same: Money went in, and nothing came out.

You don’t regret changing engines? You say it “worked out” for you? How so? The state of the game at the end of the project is not as robust as what we saw during the pitch video, when you had combat and more than one working weapon. After all that work, you never even made it back to your original position at the starting line."

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Was looking forward to it as my first system shock experience as well.

archive or fuck off
system shock is shit and it died because its shit

Play System Shock 2. It's a lot more accessible than System Shock 1 and you can play it more or less like a standard FPSRPG.
System Shock Enhanced has a massive hurdle to get over with the control scheme, so don't try to tackle it unless you're seriously willing to dedicate yourself.

The worst part about all this is that they have System Shock's source code and they're still refusing to release it

Jesus Christ, do any of you autistic gigglecunts know how to press E? Why do I have to post this in every fucking thread.
Read the fucking game manual.

Shit like this is why you should never, ever have a problem with piracy and emulation.

the state of autistic faggots of the board


that is largely irrelevant to the case, are you trying to start shit or something?

I do not get it.
System Shock released in 1994.
Are you all from a different timeline?

Ah, Kikestarter shit of the same name.
With such marketing speak as:
So nothing of value has been lost.

You don't see a correlation between "shitty developer holding source code hostage" and "for the love of god pirate everything"?

Here, you fucking crybaby
archive.is/ed8p3

All it takes is a few minutes to get used to them. Acquaint yourself with your damn keyboard.

What are the odds that they eventually release the game that people paid them to make, but just way way later? Maybe after some connection throws them a lifeline or they negotiate something with a publisher.

Or is this thing totally dead, Jim?

Also, how the fuck did they run out of money when they've got 17 games spread across Steam/GOG ""that are already done and just earn profit""? The colossal mismanagement is extraordinary and just reinforces how badly you need actual team leads/managers to keep things on track but lol it's kikestarter who cares right


I had no idea they actually had the source code, the least they could do is just release it into the wild and let the SS autists go to town on it.

I would if releasing sourcecode was a common practice

It isn't just controls. Anything less than having instructions on screen at all time perhaps with a voiced guide will scare off the vast majority of people and it's a crying shame.

Didn't this kikestarter raise over a million dollars?
NO REFUNDS

Practically zero. The retard was half done with the remake, then changed the engine and the scope into essentially making SS3.
Unless he finds someone getting ready to burn a giant pile of money because too many zeros in the bank account broke the bank's software, it's not gonna happen.

The vast majority of a game's profits are earned in the first month after release.
There's no way 17 old games can keep a team in full production mode going.

Not to mention the faggot decided to do a reboot of the series right when the OG Looking Glass crew got back together to do an actual third game.

How about try playing the port that people already fixed to play on new computers you cultural parasitic dipshit.

There's a literal 30-year backlog available for consumers and pirates alike.

Part of what gave old games their charm is in the workarounds to technical limitations. You can't expect some current year game company (with nothing to lose because it's crowdfunded) all the modern game design tools and expect them do justice to a game from 1994. Why was this even anticipated?

It's not that, the game is just clunky as fuck to play. The only good thing modern games have is a proper UI and smooth controls

Name one

Then press the fullscreen button on the left side. Now that's something that was always there, not just in the EE.

Anything that's multiplat has consolized UI and controls. Is there a specific example you're thinking of? Because when I think of the worst offenders it's all modern games.

Not totally getting the hate for SS1's controls. It isn't the smoothest by its sequel's standards but it takes only a few minutes before you know what you're doing and can navigate around smoothly.

It really is a great little game that would have benefited from a proper remake.

Remember that "hiatus" is code for "we are unable to scam people for their money anymore".


Those.
Also: current western games = high chance of being pozzed shit or made by pozzed shits. Don't waste your time or money on them.


Reported for being a shill for the linked site.
Always archive.

It would have sucked donkey balls anyway and you know it.

Of course, but I'd prefer dogshit getting released so that more people wake up rather than them staying in the dark thanks to hype.

They are pretty damn simple once you get used to them. And with mouselook, the game is even better. The underage faggots just need something to hold their hands.

Can't say I care too much about it.


Go and stay go, please.

Every cent these kikestarter idiots throw away on dead games is a cent that won't go to worse cucks.

Nearly all of them? The fuck you thinking about? System shock has that old and completely unnecessary UI, full of useless graphical elements blocking your view. Even fullscreen mode has useless shit on it. Cancerous drag and drop that while it was novel at the time is also another thing that's completely unnecessary and only makes you waste time moving objects around. Moving is awkward as fuck and certainly not made for strafing, the way it moves sideways is like the devs only wanted you to strafe when you wanted to dodge, that makes moving forward without hitting corners awkward since the map is a cluster in the vertical dimension and strafing is terrible, making precise movement difficult. The depth perception is completely warped due to old graphics and claustrophobic field of view, making it awkward to guess when you are in range of melee or not. Leaning is slow and requires a third button to recenter because who the hell not? And finally you have to double-click on everything because sure, I always want to inspect things first instead of grabbing them.


That's not what I mean.


The fuck you on about? I didn't mention anything specific because it doesn't matter, the UI and controls are greatly outdated. I'm not saying the game has bad story or atmosphere or whatever else, or even that it wasn't good at the time it launched, but you have to be blinded by nostalgia if you think this games is more responsive than what we have today. Playing SS1 feels like playing an old console fps that someone patched in some mouse look.

Something tells me they see that money regardless because the industry is a racket.

wasd for starters

I'm glad it's dead and I hope it stays dead.

...

That's the guy who made this comic series.

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System Shock 2 compared to 1.

That Prey game was the new system shock and probably no better or worse than what an actual SS3 would be today

...

Can't name one?

If you really struggle with clicking on a weapon/first aid kit/battery/key item and dropping it on the ground/into key item slot, which is the only time you should ever need to drag or drop anything, you should probably seek help for the cerebral palsy you clearly have.

You're full of shit I can strafe all day, did you have the turbo skates turned on? They restrict your sideways movement in exchange for faster forward momentum.

What? I think you need to go visit an optician because depth is not an issue the game has. Now melee hitboxes can be funky for different reasons but you'd only know that had you played the god damn game for more than 5 minutes

This is a problem in a slow paced rpg? Also you can simply walk forwards to cancel your lean.

You've clearly not played the game more than a few seconds or read the manual otherwise you may have noticed the existence of alt-click to pick up items in one click

Read the fucking manual and stop talking out your ass.

It was also quite possibly the single most forgettable game ever made.

Cuckchan leaking again?

They hired degenerate retards like this guy, it was always bound to die encyclopediadramatica.rs/Maxofs2d

Whatever you do, don't follow this tard's advice. Playing any game out of chronological order is always a mistake and in this case, it ruins a huge twist in SS2 that wouldn't have as much of an impact if you hadn't beaten 1. Oh yeah, and if you play the first game with the mouselook mod, you're a casual faggot who needs to git gud at vidya. OH NO IT DOESN'T PLAY LIKE MUH GENERIC FPS FROM CURRENT YEAR, deal with it bitch and learn to love it.

I was fairly "immersed" up until the late game when plotting became a bit of a mess, but yeah, it was forgettable. Why though?
imo, the safe/pc writing made it seem a bit generic. Also the lack of new enemies (the military bots were lame af) didn't help.

Shodan is literally in the trailer of the game

This has to be bait. Holla Forums surely can't be so underage that a DOS game with extremely fluid movement and an easy and short manual to read is too hard for them.

she's on the fucking cover art. She's on the manual, the jewel case, the CD. It's not a twist. Thinking it's a twist just devalues what a corny and gay moment it is by making it a shitty twist as well.

Nigger the original controls are archaic. There is nothing to be gained from using them over the mouselook version. This isn't like ASCII vs Tilesets, there are no redeeming features to that control scheme. The game is great but the original controls were poorly designed, there is even an in-game rear view mirror to compensate for the awkward controls. Get your head out your ass and stop virtue signalling. If you want to flagellate yourself by using shitty control schemes in pursuit of "authenticity" go right ahead. But if you're going to bitch at others for using an improved and perfectly functional version that doesn't detract from the experience in any way you're on par with a screeching vegan.

Good.

No,i just wanted a more up to date experience,that's all.

I assume you're baiting but the new version looked like ass, the only thing that "aged" System Shock were the shitty controls which was remedied by mouselook. The system of switching between mouselook mode and using the mouse for item manipulation/navigating menus wasn't cumbersome. And the game looks great to this day, wanting to play shitty remakes of a 24 year old game is shameful my man.

lmao

Fucking underage

'up to date' is codeword for dumbed down, casualized and politically propagandized piece of shit that barely resembles the original product and this is only praised by underageb& faggots and hipster normalfags seeking e-cred for having played nu-remakes of old games. It is a travesty and utter insult to anyone who had ever played the original game to be lumped with these assholes and their jewish enablers.

Do yourself a favour and pirate the original game.
If you are unable, unwilling or turned off by this, you are beyond salvation and the only thing left for you is to become human cattle for the consumerism wage-slavery machinations of the modern world and i sincerely hope your skin turns into cancer before being fested upon by your zionist master.

no
it died because devs are fags, unity, and because there is simply no fuckin need for remaster/remake or whatever
who would have thought that no one who played ss sponsored it and modern gaymers are good with alien isolation

What's it like being a gigantic casual faggot?
>>>/cuckchan/
>>>/somethingawful/
>>>/reddit/

So you didn't want to play System Shock in the first place. Tell me soyboy, what do you even mean with "up to date experience"? Do you even know what you're asking for?

I recall some user here telling how he had his young son (or nephew, or whatever) play MechWarrior 2, and the kid was confused by all the buttons you had to use. "How do you figure out these controls?" "You read the manual, of course." And the kid looked at him like he had just said something crazy. Like, they expect me to read?!

Better than Prey

That makes sense.
I mean, maybe it was good when it came out back in the eighties or whatever, but at this point it's just weird if a game doesn't feature modern developments like health-regen, QTE's and set-pieces to make it clear what I am meant to be feeling at any given time.

/ss/ -Shota Shock.