Support NeoGAF

[bati]

When you are able to deliver a Deus Ex game,i doubt you lose the ability to create another masterpiece..The fact that he didn't deliver in the last games involved could be due to various other factors,but not his incapability of producing quality games.

There are plenty of rumors going around that Harvey Smith was the chief reason for DX turning out the way it did, not Spectors.

For me this news mean very little. If I've learned anything in these last few years with Kickstarter and old pros asking people for money so that they could make a game of their dreams it's this: you're only as good as your last game and your name is in no way a guarantee of quality.

 

[mclem]

For me this news mean very little. If I've learned anything in these last few years with Kickstarter and old pros asking people for money so that they could make a game of their dreams it's this: you're only as good as your last game and your name is in no way a guarantee of quality.

If people are using Kickstarter to fund creative works and expecting a guarantee, they're rather missing the point. It's about opening up possibilities, but they're still only possibilities.

 

[Mr. Tibbs]

I dunno. 3 commercial games with big franchises involved isn't enough?

It can be too easy to outright dismiss great designers who have had a few missteps. A guy like Harvey Smith released two terrible, albeit fucking subversive, games back-to-back before Dishonored restored him to "game auteur" status.

Spector's involvement in SS3 is definitely a wait and see proposition, but I would way rather see both Underworld and System Shock in hands of some of the developers who created the originals than teams who just name-drop LGS as influences. We've seen way too many times what happens when people have the name and the rights but not the soul.

Chris Siegel, former LGS staffer and producer on SS3 and Underworld, stood up for Spector over on SystemShock.org.

Selling Warren short is kind of silly. The guy has a string of hits and a track record better than most in the game industry going back almost 30 years. Saying he wasn't involved as much as Doug in SS is crazy talk. It just doesn't work that way in a LGS type company. The producer, designer, eng exc all have massive input. Trust me, been working with these guys for years, a person's title doesn't really matter in this environment.

I do love this storyline about how old game designers lose their mojo. Seems to me the ones still doing interesting stuff is not old or young, but smart and talented. Ken Rolston did Oblivion in his 50's for example. Did he lose a step? No, that is arguably his best work ever. The beauty about having a very veteran core is gasp--we have all done it before. So many mistakes learned over years. The what if's and what could have beens are still fresh in our heads. We do remember feature 332 that we didn't get to do in Thief. Or the missteps made in the Shock games. Those are not armchair experiences for us, that is personal history. That is just as much a memory for us as our kids being born or our wedding. I haven't talked to Warren about Shock yet, but I bet he has a laundry list of stuff he disliked about any number of his games, and ideas on how to address them.

As for Epic Mickey--it's flawed, but if there is a console game out there that has the DNA of Looking Glass--it's that game. All the tenets of player agency and whatnot are in there. Why did he do that project? My guess is he loves cartoons--his first game was Toon after all. Love it or hate it, if Disney walks up with a big check, let you do the game your way, hell they redesigned Mickey for it, you take the chance. It's not like it was a failure, it just wasn't 'hardcore'.

Polygon Feature: Here's what Warren Spector's doing about System Shock 3 - Maker of 1994 original is getting to work on newest iteration

Spector: "I'm certainly going to put the word out and see if I can find people who worked on the original games because there aren't a lot of people in the game business who understand the idea of player empowerment in the way that's important to me. There aren't a lot of people who understand the concept of shared authorship. I need to reach out to people who understand those things. I don't want to spend the next year teaching people those things."

 

[Dr. Kitty Muffins]

Say what you will, but Kickstarter has changed the industry for the better. Now I just want a Kickstarter app for the PS4 and Xbox One.

 

[Purkake4]

Glad to have him back, hope he knows where to contribute and where to let others do their thing.

As for paying people, I'd guess they're giving shares of the company and self-publishing?

 

[TheSpaceBetween]

All of his mediocre games were the result of stifling AAA development and publishing environments: Invisible War was one of the first console dumb-downs (and still remains one of the most disappointing ones). The Epic Mickey series seems to be a case where potentially interesting and clever design ideas clashed with a "stupid" big budget / big team mentality. Epic Mickey would probably have turned out much better with a Nintendo-like approach (i.e. mid-sized teams with mid-sized budgets, but also very clear design goals and strict and competent oversight). Thief 3, though, was surprisingly alright despite not holding a candle to Thief 2; the game had the freaking Shalebridge Cradle, after all.

Before that, at Origin and Looking Glass, he consistently delivered high-quality games. So I'm quite optimistic about him returning to his roots with a small- or mid-sized development team as part of an independent studio.

Funny you say that. A handful or two of Junction Point staff joined Retro after the studio dissolved. Hopefully their talents can be put to good use.

 

[duckroll]

It can be too easy to outright dismiss great designers who have had a few missteps. A guy like Harvey Smith released two terrible, albeit fucking subversive, games back-to-back before Dishonored restored him to "game auteur" status.

Sure, but just personally speaking, I wasn't impressed by Dishonored either. It's no Thief. Happy to see Harvey Smith find success again though. I'm just not excited by the idea of Warren Spector directing SS3 anymore. Heck, after all the Bioshocks I'm not even excited by the prospect of a SS3 anymore!

 

[Purkake4]

Sure, but just personally speaking, I wasn't impressed by Dishonored either. It's no Thief. Happy to see Harvey Smith find success again though. I'm just not excited by the idea of Warren Spector directing SS3 anymore. Heck, after all the Bioshocks I'm not even excited by the prospect of a SS3 anymore!

Because Bioshock did it better or because Bioshock ruined it?

 

[ashecitism]

Gamasutra interview: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/266210/The_Comeback_Why_Warren_Spector_is_making_games_again.php

 

[Purkake4]

Any news on the potential kickstarter?

 

[Triggerhappytel]

I kind of consider Spector on a similar level to Molyneux at the moment, in that he talks big ideas and has been in charge of interesting projects, but it's been about a decade and a half since he's actually made a good game. Will be interesting to see what he can manage back at a studio like this.

 

[duckroll]

Because Bioshock did it better or because Bioshock ruined it?

Neither really, just that I've come to accept that the exact sort of games System Shock 2 and Thief were back in the day just isn't really the sort of game which is easily made today. And I don't mean that SS3 won't be very similar to SS2, it could well be, just like PoE is very similar to old Infinity Engine RPGs, but it's easier to replicate nostalgia than it is to create something new and cutting edge with the same spirit that originally birthed those games.

 

[epmode]

And I don't mean that SS3 won't be very similar to SS2, it could well be, just like PoE is very similar to old Infinity Engine RPGs, but it's easier to replicate nostalgia than it is to create something new and cutting edge with the same spirit that originally birthed those games.

This is true. I'm optimistic about SS3 because of what I've seen in the Underworld alpha. Rather than playing up the nostalgia factor and simply remaking the old games, they're really pushing the boundaries of physics systems. For example, every door and trap in the game is physically simulated which makes for some crazy strategies. They've also been experimenting with physically simulated momentum and wallrunning.

 

[duckroll]

This is true. I'm optimistic about SS3 because of what I've seen in the Underworld alpha. Rather than playing up the nostalgia factor and simply remaking the old games, they're really pushing the boundaries of physics systems. For example, every door and trap in the game is physically simulated which makes for some crazy strategies. They've also been experimenting with physically simulated momentum and wallrunning.

That's pretty promising. I haven't really kept up with the Underworld stuff, mainly because I'm not a -huge- UU fan, but I do hope the project turns out well so at the end I have a great new FP dungeon crawler to buy.

 

[Purkake4]

Neither really, just that I've come to accept that the exact sort of games System Shock 2 and Thief were back in the day just isn't really the sort of game which is easily made today. And I don't mean that SS3 won't be very similar to SS2, it could well be, just like PoE is very similar to old Infinity Engine RPGs, but it's easier to replicate nostalgia than it is to create something new and cutting edge with the same spirit that originally birthed those games.

I think the best case here would be to keep SS2's complexity and take it forward using the opportunities and tools available in modern game design. The factors that made Bioshock what it is aren't really the driving factors in the industry any more, there is much more space for niche games (and SS2 is quite a large niche at that). Keep the good ideas, ditch the questionable implementation.

I can even see throwing a bunch of gameplay mechanics at SOMA and it already being a half-decent System Shock. (Not that it wasn't good already.)

I feel that bringing a CRPG back is a much taller order as the RPG genre has gone in a wildly different direction and a lot of the gameplay would need to be reinvented.

 

[down 2 orth]

What the hell??!!! How did I miss this information??

 

[ashecitism]

VentureBeat interview: http://venturebeat.com/2016/02/24/w...f-system-shock-can-deliver-emergent-gameplay/