Night Dive Twitch Streams

[665b2f48b3ba2ZylonBane]

I think the help system should stay in. Yes its not in SS2 but who cares.

Are we talking about the system that points out usable objects in the first level?

Sure, why not? That sort of thing was ahead of its time back in 1994, but would be considered fairly standard today.

I'm not sure what SS2 has to do with anything.

[665b2f48b3f85sgupta]

09/10/18 System Shock 2 Playthrough w/ Daniel (Karlee too; Stephen comes in the last hour or so)

* He's not doing dev stuff today because there are a lot of changes/transitions going on as far as what's being worked on so he's waiting until all that's figured out for his next dev task.

* He resumes the last SS2 stream with Karlee rolling dice for upgrades when he gets them.

* He confirmed the sourceport will most likely be getting a native version for Mac and Linux.

* Q. Is it true the remake was delayed to 2020?  A. Yes it was delayed, but there's no firm date at this time; basically, when it's done.  They're happy with how fast progress is going and it's going a bit faster than they expected (since the hiatus).

* Q. What has been harder than he thought it would be with the remake?  A. Nothing really - it was about as difficult as expected.  Some of the paper-thin wall thicknesses and connections were a bit tricky.

* Q. How difficult will it be to make enemy AI?  A. They haven't gotten there yet.  It might be interesting to talk about for a team stream.

* So there was a really interesting discussion in the last 20 minutes of the stream.  Stephen was talking about how cool it would be to release a source port of System Shock 2, but where oh where would they possibly get the source code.  His voice tone was VERY interesting.  I'll leave it there, because I actually know nothing...but...yeah.  Maybe I'm reading too much into it.

* Q. Will they be keeping the 4 different customizable difficulty settings for the original (puzzle, combat, mission, cyber)?  A. They can't promise it'll be exactly the same, but it will be something similar.  It's novel and unique and he didn't think anybody's really done it before or since.  (But, I just watched a review for Shadow of the Tomb Raider, which literally released yesterday, and has customizable difficulty for puzzles, combat, and exploration...I think it's the only time I've seen such a system too, and funnily enough, they're getting a lot of praise for it).

* Based on a Q, final art is made with Substance.

* Based on a Q, they want to do a lot of work to improve the groves so they feel a lot more grove-like/foresty.

[665b2f48b4134icemann]

The let's plays I'm not going to bother with. I watched a bit of one a few days ago, and it was Daniel hiding behind some cargo boxes from the robots for the first 10 minutes. Got bored so moved on.

[665b2f48b446fsgupta]

09.18.18 Dev Stream w/ Daniel (Karlee as well, & Stephen joins a bit in)

* Just some random small stuff that needs to be done for Adventure Alpha, starting on Executive Level.

* They show off the new camera asset!  It's quite large and moves a bit.  There are a few versions for various reasons.  Placement (and possibly the asset) aren't final yet.

* They'll stare at the player, focus lenses on the player, etc. similar to what happened in Unity.

* He places some teleporters as well.  Some point out they feel out of place, and he says they may fiddle with things as they go.

* He was hoping the Executive Door was ready to place, but not quite yet.

* He shows how you can put things inside other things (ie. items in a crate).

* He figures out how others (Matt?) wired up a door and wires one up to an access panel and gets it to work.

* They plan for inventory management and looting crates, etc., to be somewhere between how System Shock 1 and 2 did it.

* Q: Can you destroy crates?  A: Not at present; in the original, if you did, the stuff would just be deposited on the floor, and they're not sure how to feel about that.

* Stephen thinks a System Shock beer would be cool and approached a beer company about the idea (but it doesn't sound like it went anywhere) =oP

* Q: Will there still be impassable doors (ie. broken)?  A: Probably.

* Q: How will mantling be improved in the remake?  A: Not discussed yet, but it was added in Turok 2 and pretty cool.  Matt may have already tested mantling in it.  (Daniel thought there might be a mantling test map but he doesn't think there is now.)

* Q: Will door colors change to match wall colors?  A: They can tint doors and may do an art pass towards the end, but they like that they stand out.

* Q: Will the System Shock remake have Steam Trading Cards?  A: Yes.

* Q: Will they be doing any shows like GDC, PAX, etc., as the game approaches release?  A:  Yes - they're not sure what their setups will be like, but they're planning to do as much as they can, which will depend on factors.  It sounds possible a publisher will help them with marketing, but they're also not actively looking right now.

* Q: Will Citadel be proportionate to real-world Saturn?  A: Probably not; whatever's most cinematic.

[665b2f48b465dicemann]

Watching Daniel's latest:

* Not wrong on the new cameras. Look wayyyyyyyy too big.
* Mini-map is in the game now.
* Those teleporters definitely look out of place. Like a really bright light placed on the floor.
* Containers can now be interacted with, and contain items
* They've returned to the inventory tetris style of SS2. Hmm. Not a fan of that.

[665b2f48b47ddlgs]

Inventory tetris is best inventory 

[665b2f48b48f2ZylonBane]

I wonder if they'll be upgrading any of the ramps to stairs.

[665b2f48b4a2dicemann]

They better not. The next time I'm able to make it to one of the live streams I need to bring that up. I think it'd be a complete fuck up for the reasons I said before (from a realism standpoint). Plus Shodans robots wouldnt be able to get around.

[665b2f48b4b8cZylonBane]

Most of SHODAN's robots have legs. Only the autobomb and serv-bot wouldn't be able to handle stairs. It would be trivial to only add steps and stairs in areas that don't have those enemies. While ramps certainly make sense in areas like the flight decks and cargo bays, in the executive level steps would make more sense.

As for accessibility, just assume that in a future with teleporters, resurrection stations, and cybernetic implants, they have the medical technology to repair legs. Or at least provide hover chairs.

[665b2f48b4c82icemann]

True. Didn't think of it that way.

I know in Star Trek disabilities like that were a thing of the past for the most part.

[665b2f48b4da3icemann]

Watching Jonathan's latest stream:

* Starts off showing his latest work on the Flight Deck level. Looking very nice.
* They finally have some dead body models in-game. Look half half.
* Then onto texturing and lighting.
* Stream mucks up around 1:15:00 as he went to grab a light from medical. I had to reload the video for it to work around that point. Twitch reported an error.

[665b2f48b5159sgupta]

09.20.18 Dev Stream w/ Jonathan

* More retexturing prep for Adventure Alpha, this time on Flight Bay with animated landing strip lights, etc.

* His least favorite level (to play and work on both) is 7 (Systems Engineering) and he's dreading that due to its crazy maze.

* His favorite (to play and looking forward to working on) is 8 (Security). 

* There are creepy corpse dolls now in place of bodies (They remind me of Doctor Who Autons or shop mannequins).  =oP

* He changed some of the soft wall paneling to a wood-like texture as he thought it fit better (though honestly, I kind of like the neater pattern of the old paneling, but that's completely subjective).

* He thinks the ying-yang door is going to be interesting and can't wait for us to see what Robb has in mind.

* Sometimes performance chugs during the work because of real-time lighting; most of the lighting in the final will be baked, though, so performance should be pretty great.

* He replaced the chandelier sprites temporarily with regular but cool-looking regular lighting and looks forward to actually making the chandelier model.

* One of his biggest critiques of Unreal is that when you move assets (like ceiling blocks), pivot points stay where they were.  This takes a lot of time to fix as you keep having to switch back and forth, and he'd love to see it changed at some point in the engine for quality of life.

* He's reworked some of the textures, such as metal panels, to have better and less repetitive damage so it's not as obviously repeating.  Looks really great!  This involves removing the grime from the original and putting on a new damage layer, but only takes a few minutes, and he thinks it's a massive improvement and worth it. 

* He'd love for the team to do further texture work if there's time (such as making them fully physically based), but says don't count on it as most of the work will be in the actual remake assets, so this might be as good as the original textures will look (which is still very nice IMO).  Still, he thinks it'd be really cool if there's eventually mod support and some players do more work there, but no promises as to mod support at this time.

* All textures are converted to use materials; that way they can be changed much easier without having to rebake everything.

* Q: Are you taking advantage of color-changing textures?  A: Not in the remaster of the old assets (ie. retro mode), but they are in the actual remake itself - one example will be different colored audio logs for different people.

* He's changed another one of the regeration rooms from all white lighting to be more like medical.

* He'd like to add a lot more light switches throughout the station for each room, section, etc., as in the original, only some rooms have them and it's fairly hit or miss.  He's a big fan of as many interactables as possible and cites the original Deus Ex as a pretty good example of it (though he doesn't think that had light switches per se, but you could use most things and it had a ton of interactables).

[665b2f48b5576sgupta]

09.25.18 Dev Stream w/ Daniel (Karlee too and back from being sick!; Steve a bit into the stream!)

* Some item placement, but much of it is walkthrough testing things for the Alpha and making sure not too much is broken, starting in Medical and moving to Research.

* Cyberspace terminals are in now and not working, but they do unlock cyberspace-triggered doors, etc.

* Cameras are hooked up, animated, and working - appear to follow the player as well

* No Cyberspace in Adventure Alpha per se, but they  might have something in mind; can't share that yet.

* Gravlifts are now working.

* Some doors aren't opening properly, which is one of the things he's working on.  Apparently the first one he finds wasn't set with an interactable in the level and he had to use some different assets to fix it.

* Some levers and things need added.

Q: With grates and doors that look like you should be able to shoot through them (spaces in them, etc.), will that work?  A: Daniel thinks it's quite immersion breaking when you can't, so yes, it should.

* Since weapons aren't in yet, nodes can be destroyed by walking into them.  He's got the numbers rigged to stop as well.

* They're working on level streaming (in but buggy).  He showed off the elevator, and when you click a button, the doors close, and then it goes to research, like the original, loading the level in the background.  No loading screen!  (It actually worked, which surprised him as he thought it was still broken.)

* He also found some elevators floating way above the level, which might have to do with how it works?  I'm not sure if he knew what he was seeing either.

* I noticed in the editor, this is called SystemReShock =oP

* Some of the doors on Research (the red ones) are upside down for some unknown reason; Robb Waters is designing new ones anyways, so he's not worried about it.

* Minimap is working on the lower left corner. 

* Bulkhead door is fully animated/working (we sort of saw in the KS update, but you get a better view here).

* The stream had issues when he rebuilt the lighting, but it did come back.

* Q: Will the Q&A streams/Friday streams with Stephen be coming back soon?  A: Probably after Adventure Alpha is out - they've been light on streams lately because of an all-hands-on-deck situation.  But he might stream this Friday.  He had a randomizer pick a game for him to play, and it was Dropsy, a creepy clown game on Steam.

* Q: What does Stephen want from the remake the most?  A: To be a really good game and as good as they can make it.  He also wants to bring it to a new audience while pleasing long-time fans.  It's a tricky balance to get right (new vs. old), and they hope to do it.

* Q: Does Nightdive own the rights to the Dark engine used in SS2?  A: As far as they know, the engine was never marketed as it's own product, so it doesn't seem to have rights apart from the titles it's used in, and since they do own rights to SS2, they can use it in relation to that title. 

* Q: Was Nightdive aware the SS2 source code was found some time ago?  A: Yes, apparently it and the code for Thief and SS2 was on a Dreamcast disc; they're collecting everything they can.

* Matt apparently wired up cameras to affect Security Level as well as be destroyable with right click.  Daniel wasn't able to test it in the current build. 

* They talked a bit about general progress, and they are really pleased with how well this is coming along so far.  They're getting a lot done pretty quickly.

[665b2f48b5681ZylonBane]

I look forward to seeing the vmail they create for the player accidentally vaporizing Earth. I was always disappointed that all we got was a still shot of that happening.

[665b2f48b57d3JosiahJack]

I'm pretty sure all you did was fire off a halfcharged laser at boston. 

[665b2f48b5905icemann]

Elevators are now functional as well, though the buttons they have in place look quite amateur. Each button has the name of the corresponding level, rather than it's floor number. Would look far better just numbered. If you look at real elevators, they do this for a reason.

The animation you see when the nodes get destroyed looks quite generic, and occurs the exact same way each time a node is destroyed. A bit like in DRIV3R with the car explosions. That will be fixed in time, I'm sure.

[665b2f48b5ac2sgupta]

09.27.18 Dev Stream w/ Jonathan (Daniel also pops in VERY briefly near the beginning, and Jonathan Peros [audio] jumps in briefly near the end.)

* More Executive level work.

* He's still making changes he feels are appropriate, but Steve pointed out to note how it was originally so they can talk about it when doing the actual remake work (instead of the reworked textures for the alpha and retro mode).

* A lot of the textures in the original have built-in lighting with no actual light sources, which has a neat effect, but they'd like to add realistic lighting where possible (ie. light sconces).

* (Based on a Q) Final artwork will be closer to the work of Cody Williams rather than what was seen pre-hiatus.

* He's now toying with the idea of tracing the textures at 2X and making them fully physically based, but it's not a certainty yet.  If so, things will look even better.

* He has to rebuild the light maps again for the Flight Deck.

* All Adventure Alpha goals haven't been quite reached yet, but it's still coming shortly - probably before the weekend to a very small group of people under an NDA.

[665b2f48b5bb7icemann]

It's going to run overtime I'm betting. Still quite a bit left to do.

[665b2f48b5cc5icemann]

Watching Jonathan's latest stream.

* Jonathan got banned from TTLG.com by Gingerbreadman for crapping on Bioshock. Wow. I wonder what his username over there was. He was refusing to say what his username was, but did say that this happened ages ago. If he turned out to be dethtoll or koki that would be HILARIOUS. He says he was quite vocal over there. Hmm. Has me wondering.

[665b2f48b5f41ZylonBane]

That would have to be some pretty spectacular crapping considering how much pretty much everyone crapped on Bioshock. You'd almost have to threaten to personally murder Ken Levine to get banned.

EDIT: Also, can't be dethtoll, because:

I still say Bioshock is a better game overall than System Shock 2.

http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=138334&p=2111571&viewfull=1#post2111571

[665b2f48b613eSynaesthesia]

I have no idea who Dethtoll was, but I registered in the very early 2000s if that helps. I hate my old username and really don't want to associate with it going forward. Sorry if I sound cryptic, but I was indeed permanently banned and the message was literally "Stop shitting up the BioShock forum." Haha.

[665b2f48b6393icemann]

Interesting. Well I consider myself a System Shock fanatic (due to staying avidly in the Shock scene originally at TTLG only, then here a while later), and even I'm fine with the first 2 Bioshock's. Infinite I hated. But the first 2 were good games. Their just not great games, that's all.

I can see the reasons for the dislike, and I'd certainly have preferred more System Shock games than Bioshock's, but I'm still fine with them. From memory, Bioshock 1 started out as a System Shock game didn't it? Then Irrational / 2K changed it over to what we got. Possibly due to the System Shock rights.

I see the plot stuff of Bioshock, of a place where one was free to pursue their interests without limit, and the ensuing chaos that later developed, as quite fascinating stuff. It doesn't hold a candle to what went on in SS2 with the corruption of the Many, and the battle of individual vs collective. But it's still interesting in it's own right. In a perfect world we'd have got both games. In many ways we will, with SS3 coming out in a few years.

If Bioshock sent some people into a rage, the potential fury that SS3 could create if done badly, could be much worse. The Many can't be in it as their all gone (thanks to the players actions in SS2), so chances are that it's to be far more akin to SS1 with robots, cyborgs etc taking center point. Will it be more like SS1 with a strong cyberpunk feel? Will it do what Fallout 4 did and ditch all the RPG stuff from SS2 and be more of a FPS game? Will they do a Dawn of War 3 and try and blend the differing styles of both games prior and fail spectacularly? Time shall tell.

[665b2f48b6b73JDoran]

I can see the reasons for the dislike, and I'd certainly have preferred more System Shock games than Bioshock's, but I'm still fine with them. From memory, Bioshock 1 started out as a System Shock game didn't it? Then Irrational / 2K changed it over to what we got. Possibly due to the System Shock rights.

And other reasons, too, of course.For example, originally Bioshock was supposed to pose a moral challenge in that you could either save the Little Sisters (innocent little girls) by curing them of their physical and mental state of slavery and returning to them their humanity, or you could choose to kill them. If you killed them, then you received lots of Adam, which would help to make your offensive an defensive abilities more powerful and so make the game easier, whereas if you saved them then you'd receive little or no Adam, which would hamper your chances of survival.

But allegedly their publisher got cold feet, and said that they didn't want the game to encourage the player to kill the Little Sisters - i.e. if the game were seen to encourage the player to kill children then it would get a *lot* of bad publicity from people who wouldn't understand (and wouldn't bother checking) that the game wasn't designed to encourage you to kill children, it was asking you to make a moral choice, with you having to balance morality against your own survival chances. Plus even if you did kill all of the Little Sisters (as well as all of the cute creatures in every Disney game ever made, and everyone else in any game, ever) then you wouldn't have killed even a fly in reality, as they are just moving pixels on a screen. But the multi-millionaires who make a fortune selling firearms and bullets are always glad to blame someone else, along with the sycophantic media who are always keen to whip up publicity by hightlighting how rock music, violent films, video games, canabis, etc, all turn people into mindless psychotic mass murderers, and so the decision was made to force Bioshock's developers to instead reward you for saving the Little Sisters, meaning that you now get almost as much Adam for saving them (when you take into account the gifts from Tenanbaum) as you do for harvesting them, plus Tenanbaum's gifts include things that you can't get if you harvest the Little Sisters. So they removed the moral choice from the game, basically, which weakened part of the game's theme and atmosphere.

And I don't know if the game was originally meant to be so easy to complete, and as free with ammunition (which is lying around everywhere) as the released game is, or whether it was planned to be more difficult but was nerfed mid-development to encourage more gamers to play it, but it's another regrettable difference between Bioshock and the System Shock games. System Shock 1 and 2 were horror games both in theme and gameplay-wise (the latter in that you had to conserve ammunition, especially near the start of the game, and the possibility of death was ever present, whereas Bioshock had a great horror premise and atmosphere, but the over-abundance of ammunition and the ready availability of powerful firearms (which you could use fully as soon as you picked them up) made Bioshock simply a first person shooter.  Even the inventory was removed from Bioshock, no doubt because gamers are too stupid to understand how to use such a things...

[665b2f48b6cccicemann]

People love a scapegoat. Something they can lay all the blame on, rather than the real root causes of such things (lack of gun control, bad/lack of parenting etc). It's human nature really. People by nature hate taking responsibility for their own actions, and thus look for something else to blame.

"I did it because the drugs made me do it", "I did it because the guy in the movie did it", "I did it because the voices told me to". Etc etc.