System Shock 2 Enhanced Edition

[664c86c532becZylonBane]

Swap the mouse wheel? What?

[664c86c532d83voodoo47]

pressing down/flipping a key to make the mouse wheel cycle/cast all psi-powers in a convenient way, I think.

and yes, that would be an UI/controls redesign that actually would make a lot of sense.

[664c86c532e8cJMF Plays]

Anybody hear any further news on it ? last I seen it was announced in August and they managed to get the source code as well as implementing the KEX engine. (drools on self thinking of graphical upgrades) I can't find any information on it over 3 months later

[664c86c532ff3icemann]

I'm still mixed on whether we really need it or not. We have NewDark already. That to me is SS2 Enhanced Edition.

[664c86c5330e6JMF Plays]

id say the enhanced co op and possibility of console ports is great, Im mostly looking forward to better visuals or atleast the possibility of it

[664c86c5333d9Hikari]

I'm still mixed on whether we really need it or not. We have NewDark already. That to me is SS2 Enhanced Edition.

If it happens we get the potential for better modern system portibility, better netcode for coop, true modern rendering support, and theoretically better future moddability.

However if it does not happen? It is what it is. I'm mostly confused about what sparked the notion of porting it.

[664c86c5334ecicemann]

Well if what JMF says about console ports then thats more about greater $$$ for Night Dive and less about a more improved experience for the player.

Better multiplayer though sure, but who plays SS2 for multiplayer? I think I only ever played it that way twice.

[664c86c5335favoodoo47]

it makes sense from the business perspective. as far as the release date goes, anything earlier than xmas 2020 would be nothing short of a miracle - these things take time.

[664c86c53389eJDoran]

If they do make console ports, then they really will have to upgrade the graphics. I mean, to most of us here, SS2 still looks great, but we've been fans of the game for a long time, and of course we stuck through any "This game isn't pretty" feelings we had (which largely depended on how late we came to the game) long enough to realise that if we did feel any disappointment to the way the game looked then the depth and uniqueness of the gameplay utterly obliterated any graphical let downs.

But modern games expect games to look better, well, unless it's a 2D 'retro style' game, in which case for some reason you can get away with making the game look far uglier and more pixelated than most really popular games from the classic age.

And whilst I wouldn't, of course, be against better graphics, I do think that SS2 still looks great even now. Granted it's not exactly detailed, and I'd like to see more presence of things that would make the ships look lived in by humans, but when adding details there is always the risk of compromising the feel of the original graphical style.

It's such a shame that the two biggest factors that sell a game are advertising and graphics.

[664c86c533bf5ZylonBane]

If they do make console ports, then they really will have to upgrade the graphics.

I assume you're completely unaware of their recent console port of Turok.

[664c86c533eefJDoran]

On the plus side, (if this image posted on Gamefaqs is genuine  then) at least people with Valve's official VR hardware will be getting this game for free:

I assume you're completely unaware of their recent console port of Turok.

I know of it, but I've not played it as it's not on PS4, and my mates are all PS4 or PC gamers. But I'd have thought it was graphically updated beyond the 1997? I did play the PC version on a mate's PC, briefly, but I can't remember. But it must have been noticeably better than the twenty year old N64 version.

[664c86c534063Godlike]

VOICE OF SHOCK2 COMMUNITY AND THE WHOLE WORLD: We would like to get System Shock 2 Source Code (long time waiting for this magic code lines) so we get untie the hands for creating wonderful things, Thank you

[664c86c534158voodoo47]

umm, NDS already have announced that SS2 source code will be released together with SS2EE. we have no reason to doubt this.

[664c86c534258JDoran]

Have Night Dive ever said anything about releasing the DOS source code for SS1, as so far (as far as I know) they've only released the Mac source code?

[664c86c5343a1Gawain]

My guess is that the DOS source is lost and that Mac port source came from a 3rd party developer who did it.

[664c86c534481voodoo47]

the Mac source is all they have.

[664c86c53492dvoodoo47]

My understanding of Kex is that it's mostly just a replacement renderer. You still need all the underlying game logic, which means you still need the original engine running in the background.

It's not like an emulator. That's something extremely different.
Kex3 is just hyper moduler. Everything it provides is generic interfaces that connect with low level stuff. Where another game will have numerous #ifdef macros surrounding specific rendering tasks, we have a generic renderer that can swapped with any different low level renderer.
So a game can be ported to Kex3 and itself have no care what platform it's running on, Kex3 handles all the magical differences and handles the platform task.
Plus has a library of useful recurrent tools such as network packet management and a suite of math functions.

[664c86c534aeeKolya]

hyper moduler is the name of my synthwave band.

[664c86c534bf7voodoo47]

I'm guessing a typo, but didn't correct as I might be wrong.

[664c86c534cedKolya]

Also because you don't correct typos in quotes. You just put a (sic!) there to show how smart you are.

[664c86c534f5avoodoo47]

one person is working on it, devs said that on last dev stream

I think it's very safe to say that a 2020 release is not happening.

[664c86c535111GuyFawkesGaming]

You know, I'm curious. If this port works out what do you think will become of NewDark? On that topic has anyone experimented with getting SGSSAA or HBAO in NewDark? I'm mainly asking because those features aren't available on renderers past DX9, or at least SGSSAA won't without enhancable builtin MSAA. KEX is DX12 + Vulkan if I'm not mistaken.

[664c86c535233voodoo47]

very sure it will business as usual, as far as systemshock.org is concerned - the Shocked people who have spent the last two decades in the Dark are not going anywhere, I'd reckon.

especially if KEX will be able to load NewDark mods directly (meaning, no file/format conversion required).