EA developing System Shock 3

Werner Spahl wrote:


> Imagine the terror of witnessing them being slaughtered in front
> of your eyes instead of finding just another set of corpses with log
> files nearby!

Yeh, but that's a subjective assessment, and depends more on the
intended effect of the designer.

Was Alfred Hitchcock's (for example) ability to make you uneasy with
his movies inherently inferior to that of an eighties' slasher-flick
simply because he wasn't as "in your face"?

Not IMHO. It's different, of course, but not automatically worse. I
liked the creepy "haunted house" feel of SS2. For me, it was more
unnerving repeatedly stumbling onto the resulting carnage while never
really being too sure exactly what had occurred there. I was certainly
no less hesitant to go through the "next door" in SS2, even absent, say,
Doom 3's
evil-hellion-just-hanging-around-in-a-closet-waiting-for-unsuspecting-player-to-open-the-door-so-I-can-jump-out-and-attack-him
"wash-rinse-repeat" schtick.

In terms of movies, my wife and I refer to the difference as
"squirmers" versus "shockers".

S-M

Werner Spahl <spahl.RemoveThis@cup.uni-muenchen.de> writes:

> On Wed, 16 Aug 2006, Walter Mitty wrote:
>
>> Change the record Werner. Its not that it couldnt : its that it was not
>> supposed to and you know it. There were moving robots etc anyway.
>
> Even worse then. One great moment in Bloodlines is when your personal

before or after you spent 1.5 years patching it?

In article <Pine.LNX.4.64.0608172318490.12617.TakeThisOut@cicum1.cup.uni-muenchen.de>,
Werner Spahl <spahl.TakeThisOut@cup.uni-muenchen.de> wrote:
>On Wed, 16 Aug 2006, Hank the Rapper wrote:
>
>> NPCs to interact with but that was not how the story unfolded. You went
>> aboard a ship to discover everyone died, not that you went aboard a ship to
>> discover that people were dieing. Again, a design decision. You are trying
>
>As far as I remember SS2 really tried to do the impression that others are
>alive only you never reached them in time. That's what I disliked and
>contrary to SS1 where this seemed to have worked in SS2 they overdid it.

When it comes to the story elements, I really think that the most
accurate way of stating it was that it didn't work _for you_. Clearly
it worked for a lot of other people. This is no different from how
different people enjoy different novels. SS2 takes place in a dystopic
setting, the protagonist is on a doomed quest to find fellow humans,
and every near miss brings him deeper into depression. It's a tragic
story from start to end with few if any bright points along the way
(those few there are get turned around on you eventually).

Some people might like this sort of story while others get enough of
it after a while. Personally, I quite enjoyed it in spite of . . .

>> do with everything else). Broken weapons and enemy respawns were a design
>> decision. It wasn't poor coding that made weapons break. Many people didn't
>> like it so a patch was issued so the user could tweak it to their liking.
>
>I think I already said that I believe these were design decisions albeit
>very bad ones. Releasing a patch to remove such design elements because of
>user protest is a clear sign to me that I'm not alone with that opinion!

.. . . weapon breakage and respawning monsters.

Weapon breakage was just silly, not least of all because the zombies
would fire away at will with their shotguns but once I got my hands on
one, it had one or two uses left in it.

Respawning monsters could have been ok, after all the ship is an
ever-changing environment and creatures are bound to walk into
previously vacated areas from time to time. It was implemented in a
brain dead fashion, though, with poorly motivated static spawn points
that did little to assist in my immersion in the setting.

Cheers
Bent D
--
Bent Dalager - bcd.TakeThisOut@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
powered by emacs

In article <34qdnZbbJvQ3LHjZnZ2dnUVZ_sSdnZ2d DeleteThis @comcast.com>,
StreetMedic <zhyvaxxeSPAMMERJAMMER DeleteThis @Comcast.net> wrote:
> Not IMHO. It's different, of course, but not automatically worse. I
>liked the creepy "haunted house" feel of SS2. For me, it was more
>unnerving repeatedly stumbling onto the resulting carnage while never
>really being too sure exactly what had occurred there. I was certainly
>no less hesitant to go through the "next door" in SS2, even absent, say,
>Doom 3's
>evil-hellion-just-hanging-around-in-a-closet-waiting-for-unsuspecting-player-to-open-the-door-so-I-can-jump-out-and-attack-him
>"wash-rinse-repeat" schtick.

You have one point in SS2 where you're watching a ghost scene through
a door and while you're watching, a robot of some sort sneaks up
behind you and starts bonking you on the head.

Now that was evil

Cheers
Bent D
--
Bent Dalager - bcd DeleteThis @pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
powered by emacs

Werner Spahl <spahl RemoveThis @cup.uni-muenchen.de> looked up from reading the
entrails of the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs
say:

>On Wed, 16 Aug 2006, Hank the Rapper wrote:
>
>> NPCs to interact with but that was not how the story unfolded. You went
>> aboard a ship to discover everyone died, not that you went aboard a ship to
>> discover that people were dieing. Again, a design decision. You are trying
>
>As far as I remember SS2 really tried to do the impression that others are
>alive only you never reached them in time. That's what I disliked and
>contrary to SS1 where this seemed to have worked in SS2 they overdid it.

You seem to have forgotten that there were a couple survivors in SS2 -
you missed meeting them by seconds, but they were there.

>> do with everything else). Broken weapons and enemy respawns were a design
>> decision. It wasn't poor coding that made weapons break. Many people didn't
>> like it so a patch was issued so the user could tweak it to their liking.
>
>I think I already said that I believe these were design decisions albeit
>very bad ones. Releasing a patch to remove such design elements because of
>user protest is a clear sign to me that I'm not alone with that opinion!

The patch didn't remove anything, it merely let the user adjust those
settings should they choose to do so.
While you could turn weapon wear down to the point that weapons never
wore out, you couldn't turn off spawning.

>> Again, a design decision. It's absolutely fine that you do not like SS2, but
>> don't try to come up with irrational reasons to diss the game. I've never
>
>That are not irrational reasons. Breaking weapons and constant respawning
>just sucks from a gameplay point of view and many user agreed, see above.

It's not what people coming from a FPS wanted certainly, but it's hardly
unique in role playing. Melee weapons didn't wear and neither did the
psi-amp.

Respawn was bad for the DOOM generation since they'd become used to the
idea of clearing a level and it remaining clear for all time afterwards
- living ecologies don't work that way.

>> and other people's opinion. Like your opinion that Blooodlines is a
>> masterpiece, yet you don't see everyone jumping into your bi-weekly
>
>Just to make clear that I'm not bashing a game just for fun while praising
>another, Bloodlines may be one of the best games for me up to date but of
>course it has some bad design decisions as well: e.g. forcing third person
>view while melee fighting or only dropping one of the two weapons enemies
>normally carry. Sadly I can't do anything about these issues myself .

Or not dropping any weapon at all, or dropping the weapon then
evaporating it - eastern vampire in santa monica drops a katana but you
can't have it.
The whole "you can't have this weapon yet, you have to have reached set
point X first" is one of the WORST design points of all time, but I
don't see you criticizing Bloodlines for using it.

Or not being able to carry two of the same weapon and selling the
excess, or selling ammo or...

At least in SS2, if you had the skill to use a weapon, you could use it
immediately upon finding it, instead of having to wait till a certain
point in the story before you're ALLOWED to start using it.

Xocyll
--
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably,
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr

"Xocyll" <Xocyll RemoveThis @kingston.net> wrote in message
news:clvbe2hs5fbpnvj346eb42lhij0gvl5hen@4ax.com...
> Werner Spahl <spahl RemoveThis @cup.uni-muenchen.de> looked up from reading the
> entrails of the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs
> say:
>
> The patch didn't remove anything, it merely let the user adjust those
> settings should they choose to do so.
> While you could turn weapon wear down to the point that weapons never
> wore out, you couldn't turn off spawning.
>
I don't know what the official patch did for the game, all I know is there
was/is a non-official patch for the game that turned off weapon breakage and
re-spawning. It worked great and made the game a lot more fun to play. JLC

I wish you hadn't mentioned this, because I found it a really annoying fault
of SS2 (that you don't have the skill to use a weapon). It doesn't take a
PHd in physics or mechanical engineering to fire a gun -- gangbangers do it
all the time w/minimal training/education. SS2 had way too many
problems/differences from SS1 to be considered as good.

--
Doug
"Xocyll" <Xocyll.RemoveThis@kingston.net> wrote in message
news:clvbe2hs5fbpnvj346eb42lhij0gvl5hen@4ax.com...
>
> At least in SS2, if you had the skill to use a weapon, you could use it
> immediately upon finding it, instead of having to wait till a certain
> point in the story before you're ALLOWED to start using it.
>
> Xocyll
> --
> I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of
> a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably,
> Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So
> FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr

"Werner Spahl" <spahl.TakeThisOut@cup.uni-muenchen.de> wrote in message
news:Pine.LNX.4.64.0608172318490.12617@cicum1.cup.uni-muenchen.de...
> On Wed, 16 Aug 2006, Hank the Rapper wrote:
>
> As far as I remember SS2 really tried to do the impression that others are
> alive only you never reached them in time. That's what I disliked

You don't seem to remember correctly; you can count the number of
people you were told to meet on one hand and except for the Med-Sci
guy those are all well into the game. You knew from the very first that
something was screwy with your "modifications" and this "Polito" character
who was supposedly guiding you. The framework of only getting
messages from the unseen and probably already dead was absolutely
faithful to the original game. I didn't have any feelings or expectations
during the entire game that I needed to go back and 'do it different' to
try and save someone.

There were also at least two people alive throughout the game, who you
eventually get to see them grab a shuttle and escape...

--
RobP
'There are only 10 types of people in this world - Those that understand
binary and those that don't'

"Gregory E. Garland" <geg1.DeleteThis@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:E6yFg.7998$Qf.2323@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net...
>
> "Werner Spahl" <spahl.DeleteThis@cup.uni-muenchen.de> wrote in message
> news:Pine.LNX.4.64.0608172318490.12617@cicum1.cup.uni-muenchen.de...
>> On Wed, 16 Aug 2006, Hank the Rapper wrote:
>>
>> As far as I remember SS2 really tried to do the impression that others
>> are alive only you never reached them in time. That's what I disliked
>
> You don't seem to remember correctly; you can count the number of
> people you were told to meet on one hand and except for the Med-Sci
> guy those are all well into the game. You knew from the very first that
> something was screwy with your "modifications" and this "Polito" character
> who was supposedly guiding you. The framework of only getting
> messages from the unseen and probably already dead was absolutely
> faithful to the original game. I didn't have any feelings or expectations
> during the entire game that I needed to go back and 'do it different' to
> try and save someone.
>
>

No, you can't. I've just been trying to replay Doom3 and every level has
some sort of BS reason why you can't go back to the previous level. Either:

a. the elevators suddenly magically stop working
b. you drop through a hole to get to the next level
c. the doors slam shut and you can't ever open them again

As a matter of fact WM, I don't think there's a SINGLE level in Doom3 where
you can go back to the previous level...

--
Doug
"Walter Mitty" <mitticus DeleteThis @gmail.com> wrote in message
news:87d5b0bzch.fsf@mail.com...
> "Rob Pollard" <robertapollard DeleteThis @hotmail.com> writes:
>
>> Yup you could use the elevators to get anywhere.... During the latter
>> stages
>> of the game you could take some quite devious routes to avoid SHODAN's
>> main
>> vanguard, as some levels had more than one elevator. It made it feel like
>> you were on a space station and not some game with lots of levels....
>
> my memory might be failing me here, but I'm pretty damn sure you could
> go back levels in Doom3. Anyone?
>
..

"Rob Pollard" <robertapollard.TakeThisOut@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:5KBFg.14364$fV1.3409@fe1.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
> There were also at least two people alive throughout the game, who you
> eventually get to see them grab a shuttle and escape...
>

I always thought that was intended to be (or at least would be) a good
setup for the "next" System Shock. I.e., several years after the 'Von Braun
Incident' Tommy and Rebecca are happily married and working at a big
Tri-Optimum/UN project such as terra-forming a planet when Shodan
re-emergizes and proceeds to borg-ify the whole operation. Tommy has
to stop Rebecca/Shodan and ultimately has to decide whether to join
with them to save his wife, or else kill her to destroy Shodan.


> --
> RobP
> 'There are only 10 types of people in this world - Those that understand
> binary and those that don't'
>
> "Gregory E. Garland" <geg1.TakeThisOut@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> news:E6yFg.7998$Qf.2323@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net...
>>
>> "Werner Spahl" <spahl.TakeThisOut@cup.uni-muenchen.de> wrote in message
>> news:Pine.LNX.4.64.0608172318490.12617@cicum1.cup.uni-muenchen.de...
>>> On Wed, 16 Aug 2006, Hank the Rapper wrote:
>>>
>>> As far as I remember SS2 really tried to do the impression that others
>>> are alive only you never reached them in time. That's what I disliked
>>
>> You don't seem to remember correctly; you can count the number of
>> people you were told to meet on one hand and except for the Med-Sci
>> guy those are all well into the game. You knew from the very first that
>> something was screwy with your "modifications" and this "Polito"
>> character
>> who was supposedly guiding you. The framework of only getting
>> messages from the unseen and probably already dead was absolutely
>> faithful to the original game. I didn't have any feelings or expectations
>> during the entire game that I needed to go back and 'do it different' to
>> try and save someone.
>>
>>
>
>

"Gregory E. Garland" wrote:

> I always thought that was intended to be (or at least would be) a good
> setup for the "next" System Shock. I.e., several years after the 'Von
> Braun
> Incident' Tommy and Rebecca are happily married and working at a big
> Tri-Optimum/UN project such as terra-forming a planet when Shodan
> re-emergizes and proceeds to borg-ify the whole operation.

I love this idea for adaption!

*Until*...

> Tommy has
> to stop Rebecca/Shodan and ultimately has to decide whether to join
> with them to save his wife, or else kill her to destroy Shodan.

....but I guess to truly "Borg-ify" something, one needs a host. In this
case, I guess the logical "host" would be Rebecca.

Too bad, though. Tommy loves Rebecca.

[evil grin] How 'bout one of the kids or something? [/evil grin]

*Anything* but the dog.

Mark

On Wed, 16 Aug 2006 15:10:38 +0200, Walter Mitty <mitticus.RemoveThis@gmail.com>
wrote:

>"Rob Pollard" <robertapollard.RemoveThis@hotmail.com> writes:
>
>> Yup you could use the elevators to get anywhere.... During the latter stages
>> of the game you could take some quite devious routes to avoid SHODAN's main
>> vanguard, as some levels had more than one elevator. It made it feel like
>> you were on a space station and not some game with lots of levels....
>
>my memory might be failing me here, but I'm pretty damn sure you could
>go back levels in Doom3. Anyone?

You can't go back. You do, however, re-visit some levels further on
into the game (usually, a hellified* version of the original). But
once you exit a level and load the next, you can't step back to the
previous level. It's all one-way doors.







* is "hellified" a word? I guess it is now.