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Thief 2 and System Shock 2 patched for W7 compatibility

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Finally, two of the more problematic PC classics in terms of backward compatibility got a fan patch that should fix every problem on modern systems and support any resolutions.

Source: http://kotaku.com/5946462/whoah-system-shock-2-and-thief-2-just-got-surprise-patches

Sorry for the short thread but I don't really have that much to add to the news itself.
Anyway, time to dust off those old boxes for me.

P.S. HOLY SHIT.

P.P.S. It's actually System Shock 2. If someone could fix the title...
 
speaking of System Shock...I just listened to every audio log and the soundtrack to SS2 and watched gameplay videos...That game is AMAZING! Wow!..Alot of people give it props as one the greatest games ever made, and I can totally see why.
 
I am confused. I played SS2 on W7 64 bit last year just fine with previously made fixes. What does this new fix bring?
 
Deadbeat said:
I am confused. I played SS2 on W7 64 bit last year just fine with previously made fixes. What does this new fix bring?
Click to expand...
I guess you are one of the lucky ones, because none of the old fixes for these two games ever worked for me.
In fact, they are probably the only old games I never managed to make work correctly... And it was painful, as they are among my all times favorites.

Actually, I'm not even sure this one will work too, until I try it. but let's not go into details.
 
twinturbo2 said:
Doesn't someone else hold the trademarks? That's what I heard.
Click to expand...

EA owns the IP but there is some kind of licensing problem with selling the original game. Wikipedia shows EA as the original publisher so I cant imagine what the problem might be.

Souther said:
No. I looked yesterday.


Also..Wow SS2 goes for a decent price on ebay...
Click to expand...

$185 new on Amazon. I dont know why the price came down, but it was close to $400 for new copies 2 years ago.
 
twinturbo2 said:
Now how the hell did an insurance company get the rights? Only way I can think of is that it was put up as collateral after Looking Glass went under.
Click to expand...

The Lost History of System Shock

Every once in a while, someone asks Ken Levine whether System Shock 3 will ever be made. It’s a valid question, given System Shock’s status as an influential classic that vanished after a single sequel. Levine’s answers may vary slightly, but the idea is always the same: The rights to the franchise are up in the air, and the studio Levine co-founded, Irrational Games, is quite happy working on System Shock's spiritual successor, BioShock, for 2K Games. In other words, don't get your hopes up anytime soon.

Levine may be right, but the full story of System Shock is more complicated than he and other developers let on. The copyright has changed hands. Trademark was applied for and abandoned. And I've learned that the rights to the franchise are available for acquisition at this very instant.

With so many modern shooters using ideas that System Shock introduced, the time is right for the series to make a comeback and earn some mainstream glory. Let’s take a detailed look at what it would take for System Shock 3 to happen.

Why System Shock Mattered

First-person shooters were a lot different in the mid-1990s than they are now. That was the Doom era, when you'd sprint around a maze of intertwining corridors, fumbling for the exit while blasting any bad guy that got in your way. It was a simple formula for fun, and most games didn't bother to deviate.

System Shock was an exception. Released in 1994, the game gave players a free floating mouse cursor with the ability to select inventory items and interact with objects. Even the heads-up-display was unconventional, occupying half the screen with vital information. You weren't just some grunt with a gun, either. You had to strategize, choosing an appropriate arsenal of weapons and upgrading your character with attachable hardware and biological augmentations. Modern shooters like Mass Effect, Fallout 3 and Borderlands borrow the RPG mold that System Shock helped create.

When System Shock 2 launched in 1999, it expanded on the RPG-shooter concept with a choice of three character types, but more importantly, the series transformed from cyberpunk adventure to high-tech survival horror. The first game's pulsing soundtrack gave way to the ambient groans of an abandoned starship. Audio logs reconstructed the tale of a crew overrun by hideous monsters. And of course, there was SHODAN, the rogue AI that turns up on countless "greatest video game villain" top 10 lists. At every turn, she mocks the protagonist for his insignificance, but only after deceiving him into carrying out her own nefarious objectives. At a time when shooters relied on simple goals -- kill the enemy, get out alive -- System Shock treated plot as yet another mold to be cracked.

System Shock was only a moderate success, selling 170,000 copies over its lifetime according to Gamespot, and the second game was no blockbuster either. Through the years, however, gamers have begun to understand System Shock's significance, which might explain why people keep talking about it. "I’d imagine if the game was still available commercially, it’ll still be selling at this point," Levine told Rock Paper Shotgun in 2008.

So why can’t you buy the System Shock games through download services like Steam or Good Old Games, where it’s one of the most requested titles? And why hasn't anyone rebooted the series or created another sequel?

The answer is where things get messy.

EA's System Shock Story

In 2006, a trio of rumors hinted that Electronic Arts was making System Shock 3. First came a trademark application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Then came a couple of unconfirmed reports in Shacknews and PC Gamer U.K., with the latter publication reporting that EA’s Redwood Shores studio was handling development.

But even if EA wanted to publish another System Shock, the company didn't have the rights to do so. Back when the original game was made, producer Warren Spector negotiated a deal in which EA got the trademark to the series, while the developers at Looking Glass Studios kept the rights. To create another System Shock game, you need both. "My thinking was it would force us to be married so it never would be that either party should be able to say we own that, we’re making the next game, screw you," Spector told the San Jose Mercury News last November.

In hindsight, the deal only jeopardized System Shock’s future. Looking Glass Studios closed in 2000, a year after System Shock 2's release, and the copyright to the series went into the hands of an insurance company. That left EA with only the System Shock name, but no actual development rights.

In 2007, the System Shock trademark went dead, abandoned by EA. The Redwood Shores studio went on to develop Dead Space, a game with some uncanny similarities to System Shock -- upgradeable attributes, scattered audio logs and a desolate space station overrun by monsters -- but no conclusive evidence that the two games are related.

Exactly what happened on EA’s end remains a mystery. The publisher never confirmed whether it was working on System Shock 3, and declined to comment for this story.

System Shock 3: A New Hope

As Spector had mentioned, an insurance company got the rights to System Shock after Looking Glass Studios shut down. I tracked down the insurer, Star Insurance Company, a subsidiary of Michigan-based Meadowbrook Insurance Group, Inc., and confirmed that the rights are available for sale.

George Borkowski, an outside counsel for Meadowbrook, said the company would consider selling the rights to a game publisher or developer. "The idea would be to enter into some kind of arrangement where the game would be developed and that Meadowbrook would be compensated,” he said.

It sounds to me like Meadowbrook wants a game company to share sales revenue, but Borkowski wouldn't talk about financial details. He did say that there have been inquiries about the rights, but elaborated no further.

Even with development rights, EA's prior trademark could be an issue for potential buyers. Michael Cavaretta, an attorney who deals with trademarks and copyrights in the video game industry, believes a publisher wouldn't be able to create another System Shock without EA's blessing. Oddly enough, there are no records of EA applying for the System Shock trademark through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office until 2005, but EA likely has common law rights as a prior publisher, and could still revive its trademark from the dead, Cavaretta said. That could cause trouble for a publisher looking to bring back the series.

“You'd probably get a rejection from the Patent and Trademark Office, and you'd probably have to demonstrate that the mark had been permanently abandoned or that you've gotten consent from the original applicant," Cavaretta said.

In other words, the future of System Shock is still quite dubious. One dream scenario: 2K Games buys the rights from Meadowbrook, and sets BioShock 4 in deep space, with SHODAN as the surprise antagonist. It would be System Shock minus the trademark, and it would be wonderful. You heard it here first.
Click to expand...
 
MrOogieBoogie said:
Let's get a Kickstarter going to buy it from them.
Click to expand...

twinturbo2 said:
Now how the hell did an insurance company get the rights? Only way I can think of is that it was put up as collateral after Looking Glass went under.
Click to expand...

As Spector had mentioned, an insurance company got the rights to System Shock after Looking Glass Studios shut down. I tracked down the insurer, Star Insurance Company, a subsidiary of Michigan-based Meadowbrook Insurance Group, Inc., and confirmed that the rights are available for sale.

George Borkowski, an outside counsel for Meadowbrook, said the company would consider selling the rights to a game publisher or developer. "The idea would be to enter into some kind of arrangement where the game would be developed and that Meadowbrook would be compensated,” he said.

It sounds to me like Meadowbrook wants a game company to share sales revenue, but Borkowski wouldn't talk about financial details. He did say that there have been inquiries about the rights, but elaborated no further.
Click to expand...

.

Edit: Or MOB can just post the whole thing that works too.
 
FUCKING FINALLY!!!!!!


ahem....


I was just pondering which of my old laptops would be best to play SS2 on again. Nice to see this released.
 
As a Thief fanboy I obviously had System Shock under my radar, unfortunately the first one isn't quite playable, or even watchable to be honest, I've tried lets plays, they do no good. However System Shock 2 seems really amazing, but I do not want to play the second one without at least knowing what happened in the first one (and by that I mean more than the Wikipedia synopsis, which I haven't read anyway, I want to experience it). Is basically the only reason I still haven't played the game.
 
It kinda sucks that the greatest game of all time is stuck where so few people can get on it. Every time I see threads about various "greatest of..." gaming things, System Shock 2 always has a good reason to be mentioned, but people don't mention it because, well, they've never experienced it. :(
 
Deadbeat said:
I am confused. I played SS2 on W7 64 bit last year just fine with previously made fixes. What does this new fix bring?
Click to expand...

A small sample of changes and fixes
-----------------------------------

Renderer:
- Added windowed mode
- Added single display mode option - no resolution change between menus and game
- Added ingame support for all common resolutions, including widescreen
- Added support for 32-bit color
- Textures can now be automatically promoted to 32-bit, improving quality and effectively eliminating the palette limit
- Added UI framerate cap option to avoid GPU fan spinning up in UI
- Added DDS/PNG image support
- Added full 24/32-bit TGA/BMP image support
- Increased the maximum number of frames allowed in animated textures from 20 to 99, and increased the allowable filename length for animated textures (before the underscore) to support more than 7
- Animated texture rate can now be specified via a material file for that texture
- Fixed a bug where Transparency property didn't (correctly) apply on objects that contain transparent polys

General:
- Replaced video player lib with an FFMpeg based one to play cutscenes. LGVid.ax or other codecs are no longer required
- Option to use OpenAL (if available) instead of DirectSound. Includes support for audio effects in Windows 7 without an EAX-enabled driver (e.g. ALchemy)
- Added "head_bob" config var to control amount of head bob
- Added mousewheel support to options menu
- Fixed player ground contact tracking when walking off an object (caused footstep sounds to get "stuck" on previous material)
- Fixed sound cap per schema type bug and upped max sound channels to 48
- Changed screenshot output format to BMP and also added support for PNG screenshots
- Changed mouselook sensitivity to be resolution independent
- Added check to avoid trying to open files with reserved system name like com ports
- AIs now breathe from their head instead of their stomachs. They will no longer drown when up to their waist in water.
- Lowered player crouch height by a tiny fraction so he's less likely to get stuck on 4 unit tall spaces
- Added better support for binding actions to the mouse wheel (can bind wheel up and wheel down as separate actions, with modifier key support)
- Fixed star rendering
- Added "log_player_pos" command that dumps current player pos to log file (when enabled)
- Added the ability to detach from ladders by crouching
- Improved mantling a bit and added optional new mantling algorithm with lower failure rate
- Fixed a bug which limited number of sound channels to 16 even if more were selected
- Fixed a bug that sometimes caused doors to float away into infinity
- Fixed (or at least greatly improved) a bug with edge triggered OBBs sometimes failing to detect collision (in particular for slow moving objects)
- Fixed framerate dependent speed issue for camvators/moving terrain (with collision type: none)
- Added "fixed_star_size" option for resolution independent star size
- Fixed some bugs when attaching to a ladder from water.
- AIs who are facing very close to a wall will no longer turn to face south when the game begins
- Fixed a crash when the "current" folder is missing (it will now be created)
- Added an option to only use a single binding file, eliminating the "broken use/shoot mode" bug once and for all
- Added option to have the quicksave save to a proper slot (now defaults to last regular save slot), complete with proper name (as opposed to "crouchhold")
- Removed four junk lines at the bottom of the map window
- Fixed gun jitter
 
inA8uW.jpg
 
Nice, managed to get them working nicely on my XP machine years back but I haven't tried them out on W7 yet. Wish Steam would add patches like these in their classic games for the sake of convenience.
 
How much would it cost to buy the rights? A million? Two? If EA hasn't even bothered to buy them at this point, it might be that the insurance company is holding out for a publishing deal, instead of waiting for a lump sum. Bastards.
 
Huh I am mildly surprised that it was such a headache to get SS2 to run on modern PCs. It took me about half an hour to patch and mod the game and it ran without any issues.
 
Grabbed both, but I wonder how relevant it is to the Steam version of Thief 2, IE do I need it or can I even apply it?

Definitely going to dig up System Shock 2 to try again. And make no headway because I'm a wimp and Bioshock eases it just enough for me to get through.
 
This is awesome. I tried running SS2 a few years back but couldn't get it to work, I'll have to give this a try sometime here soon!
 
I'm more interested in playing the original System Shock rather than its sequel, since its one of the first 3D PC game i ever played. But it probably aged so badly it could probably ruin all the good memories i have of it.
 
Bisnic said:
I'm more interested in playing the original System Shock rather than its sequel, since its one of the first 3D PC game i ever played. But it probably aged so badly it could probably ruin all the good memories i have of it.
Click to expand...

Yeah the original has aged badly. The sequel has terrible graphics but otherwise holds up really well.
 
Bisnic said:
I'm more interested in playing the original System Shock rather than its sequel, since its one of the first 3D PC game i ever played. But it probably aged so badly it could probably ruin all the good memories i have of it.
Click to expand...

System Shock Portable is what you want:

http://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=211.0

It's a fantastic little bundle that includes a higher-res (up to 1280x1024), mouselook (which makes the game feel even more modern than ever before!), and Windows Vista/7 compatibility.

Believe me, with mouselook, the first System Shock plays wonderfully. It's without doubt the most advanced shooter for its time, so it feels contemporary in many ways even today.

sp3000 said:
Yeah the original has aged badly. The sequel has terrible graphics but otherwise holds up really well.
Click to expand...

Even as a self-proclaimed graphics whore, I feel like my definition of what constitutes "good" graphics is so different from everyone else's. I still think System Shock 2 looks absolutely beautiful, largely because of the art. It NAILS the clean, sterile spaceship look, and while TECHNICALLY it may not be impressive anymore, the level of detail and composition of the art and everything else is still wonderful.
 
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