System shock remake is now full fledge reboot

[DefunctTheory]

At best, the gameplay, HUD, and UI stuff they showed is just filler for Alpha footage. At worst, it's an indication of some troubling design choices. That in mind, they should have cut it.

What a load of rubbish. I'm sorry, but I shudder to think what you consider good.

Actually scrap it, you referred to the original game's UI as awkward. I really, really don't want to know.

You've completely changed my opinion by saying I'm full of rubbish. Eyes have been blown wide open.

The inventory screen, in my opinion, is massive, blocky, and unattractive. The other menus are, at this time, worthless (Only list the handful of stuff obtained in the first couple of seconds, so unsurprising), but they suffer from the same blocky space waste that will only get worse during a full game where you'd get more stuff.

As for the original games UI... of course it was. I can't think of a game from that era that had a UI that didn't look like it was constructed by someone in the middle of a malaria fueled fever haze. Twas just the way it was.

Completely unrelated, but something I forgot to mention, auto stacking in the inventory was messed up for me as well. But that's pretty clearly a minor bug, so I'm not getting bent out of shape about it. Also, the stacked boxes you could open flopped around hilariously when you opened them.

 

[Sharia]

Eyes have been blown wide open.

Tell me about it Even your prior response to me in this thread makes a hell of a lot more sense.

 

[DefunctTheory]

Eyes have been blown wide open.

Tell me about it Even your prior response to me in this thread makes a hell of a lot more sense.

This is kind of amusing. You're just now realizing I'm an ass?

All the same, I'm curious - Have an argument, or is this just more posturing? Maybe some sources, of which I have provided some (I'm an ass, but I like to show my work), or some sort of reasoning beyond 'You're wrong?' and sassy responses taking shots at my character?

 

[Sharia]

You've provided nothing, all you've done is shown your opinions on certain thigns. It's like your average joe entering the London marathon and half way through trying to argue that it is too long. You can't automatically prove them wrong, but it highlights quite a bit all the same.

I don't think you're an ass in the slightest. It has highlighted your personal intolerances to me though, and it does explain to me why you view certain comments as elitist.

 

[DefunctTheory]

You've provided nothing, all you've done is shown your opinions on certain thigns. It's like your average joe entering the London marathon and half way through trying to argue that it is too long. You can't automatically prove them wrong, but it highlights quite a bit all the same.

I don't think you're an ass in the slightest. It has highlighted your personal intolerances to me though, and it does explain to me why you view certain comments as elitist.

You just compared me to an amateur runner, presumably casting yourself as the professional athlete.

My, this is fun.

In any case, yes, I obviously can't provide sources proving something as subjective as 'unattractive.' I am, however, pretty much the only person in this thread who's bothered to back up any claims I've made, particularly concerning the direction of this game and the influences the original had. I've also articulated all my opinions, most of them further then I've been asked to.

You've called me anti-elitist and belittled my opinions without providing any perspective of your own besides 'No.'

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

I read the rest of the post, all I really saw was a conflict. You recognise there are situations where the argument is valid, but then call the argument itself entirely stupid.

The point was that "dumbing down" is not an argument itself. Some games (e.g. BioShock Infinite) work well with added simplicity. For others (e.g. Battlefield 3), it actively hinders the core of the experience. If you're going to say that a game is "dumbed down", then at least show how it negatively affects the experience beyond simply saying it is "dumbed down" or pointing out that something is different.

The problem that I have is that, far too often, people never move beyond the summation into the explanation. This is perhaps more of a problem when discussing RPGs, but it's still annoying none-the-less. It's all snobbish elitism without anything backing it up.

Personally, I have seen more the opposite; wild, baseless claims of a game somehow being obtuse or unintuitive when really it's not.

There's quite a bit of difference between saying a game is "dumbed down" and that a game controls like shit. You can build a great game around a relatively simple set of mechanics. Part of this discussion even started by someone pointing out how fundamentally simple Doom is. It's a lot harder to justify unresponsive or poorly laid-out controls, and after 2-3 decades of interface design, I'm sure most of us can reasonably expect an interface to be clean, easy to navigate, and not waste our time. Maybe the survival horror genre can get away with it, but beyond that, most genres can't.

In short, saying a game is unintuitive, especially the unintuitive part of the game is mentioned, is generally a criticism most people can understand and recognize as valid. Simply saying a game is "dumbed down" says nothing about its quality, just that it is simplifies things. Whether or not it actually builds well around that is still yet to be explained.

Besides, there's also the common, "You can't understand how bad something feels until you try it for yourself." People can generally describe how a game's simplicity harms the overall experience without requiring you to try it. At the very least, it can lead to discussion beyond a series of "yes/no" responses.

When it comes to bioshock, I think the streamlining of the levels and the players path through the game puts the player in a state where they don't learn the in depth complexity of the game. See the thing about bioshock Vs System shock is that Bioshock has way more depth of systems and interactions. You can do things like set stuffed bears on fire and then use them to open frozen doors. The game is full of little interactions like that, but not many know about them because the design of the levels doesn't put the player into a position where they could benefit from these obscure interactions. The objective arrow always leads you right where you need to go and the game never lets you cheat it's level design.

 

[Sharia]

You just compared me to an amateur runner, presumably casting yourself as the professional athlete.

My, this is fun.

Not at all, I don't want to cast myself in that analogy at all if I can avoid it. It does makes sense though. In the hypothetical situation, I'm sure said person would not like to hear that maybe they just aren't cut out for said event, and, who's wrong here?

Oh and by the way, your attempt to play the victim here isn't going to help you.

In any case, yes, I obviously can't provide sources proving something as subjective as 'unattractive.' I am, however, pretty much the only person in this thread who's bothered to back up any claims I've made, particularly concerning the direction of this game and the influences the original had. I've also articulated all my opinions, most of them further then I've been asked to.

You've called me anti-elitist and belittled my opinions without providing any perspective of your own besides 'No.'

Would you like me to state the exact opposite to everything you have, in just as much detail? I can do so, but I consider it a waste of time considering everything you have said is actually subjective. Would the London marathon runner telling the average joe that, "actually, the length of this run is just right" mean anything? probably not.

I'm not even going to end this with saying you are wrong, but if you honestly consider the original SS's UI as awkward, all it really does is tell me something about what you consider awkward.....

 

[DefunctTheory]

Spoiler

You just compared me to an amateur runner, presumably casting yourself as the professional athlete.

My, this is fun.

Not at all, I don't want to cast myself in this at all if I can avoid it. It makes sense though. In a hypothetical situation, I'm sure said person would not like to hear that maybe they just aren't cut out for said event.

In any case, yes, I obviously can't provide sources proving something as subjective as 'unattractive.' I am, however, pretty much the only person in this thread who's bothered to back up any claims I've made, particularly concerning the direction of this game and the influences the original had. I've also articulated all my opinions, most of them further then I've been asked to.

You've called me anti-elitist and belittled my opinions without providing any perspective of your own besides 'No.'

Would you like me to state the exact opposite to everything you have, in just as much detail? I can do so, I consider it a waste of time though considering everything you have said is actually subjective. Would the London marathon runner telling the average joe that, "actually, the length of this run is just right" mean anything? probably not.

I'd prefer for you to either give an honest opinion on the subject at hand (The game) or not comment on it.

If you'd done either of those, everything would have been gravy. You may have even been able to endear me a bit to the project by giving me an opposing viewpoint. Perhaps we could have had an interesting conversation on proper UI design, and what each of us likes and dislikes about how System Shock Classic and NEW System Shock handled this touchy subject.

Instead, you just said my opinion was literal trash. But somehow I've been cast as the anti-elitist (Hilarious, considering being bitchy about terminology admittedly puts me firmly on the other side of the elitism line) dick in this scenario.

 

[Skatalite]

I'm not even going to end this with saying you are wrong, but if you honestly consider the original SS's UI as awkward, all it really does is tell me something about what you consider awkward.....

I haven't played the first SS, but I doubt it faring better than SS2. I don't really remember the UI itself, but the game as a whole, like most early 3D games, is definitely clunky. The controls, shooting mechanics, AI, graphics, all of it.
But then I played the game for the first time only a couple of years ago, mostly because of people like you. It's good, especially for its time, but I don't think it does well when compared to the best modern games.

 

[MysticSlayer]

Actually scrap it, you referred to the original game's UI as awkward. I really, really don't want to know.

I'm actually struggling to figure out how you could imply this:

Spoiler

is even remotely passable by today's standards. It's a mess. It's all over the place, obscuring the actual game, and offering way too much information at once. Even if you can discern it all (which I'm sure anyone could after long enough), it is an absolute eyesore. There's a reason absolutely no one uses this type of interface anymore: Our design standards have evolved light years beyond that.

System Shock 2 cleaned things up quite a bit:

Spoiler

But even then, it still isn't that great by today's standards. When held up against the still much cleaner BioShock games:

Spoiler

it's very easy to see why the System Shock games absolutely do not hold up to modern standards of UI design.

Now, I will say the remaster/reboot is passable, but a lot of its cleanness may be lost once they add to it, and the inventory it gives us is basically Resident Evil 4's inventory but more boring to look at:

Spoiler

I mean, it's little different than an Excel spreadsheet at this point.

When it comes to bioshock, I think the streamlining of the levels and the players path through the game puts the player in a state where they don't learn the in depth complexity of the game. See the thing about bioshock Vs System shock is that Bioshock has way more depth of systems and interactions. You can do things like set stuffed bears on fire and then use them to open frozen doors. The game is full of little interactions like that, but not many know about them because the design of the levels doesn't put the player into a position where they could benefit from these obscure interactions.

I'm not sure that's a downside. There may not be a lot of incentive, but the BioShock games have never been about challenging the player, more focusing on the environment and story. But even with the environment and story, much of what is there is never spoon fed to the player. They have to discover it for themselves. The gameplay reflects this in not restricting the player but letting them have creative freedom to discover as much as they want.

Sure, there's a place for more restrictive challenges, but I'm not sure that place is in games that emphasize letting the player discover most about the world on their own without being forced to do so.

The objective arrow always leads you right where you need to go

You can turn that off, and I doubt anyone complaining about BioShock being a "dumbed down" System Shock 2 is too stupid to find that in the menu.

 

[Sharia]

is even remotely passable by today's standards.

Unfortunately, you're probabally right.

It's a mess. It's all over the place, obscuring the actual game, and offering way too much information at once. Even if you can discern it all (which I'm sure anyone could after long enough), it is an absolute eyesore.

You consider it a mess and and eyesore. The information displayed is an equally important part of the "actual game", and I'm sorry if you consider that "too much" information, but that's not going to apply to everyone. You've also said nothing to convince me that it's awkward. I don't need a picture, I have the original game sitting right here on my shelf, I know what it looks like.

There's a reason absolutely no one uses this type of interface anymore .

I know the reason; it will turn a certain type of player off. I get it, you like a clean look and information as condensed as possible. But do you honestly think continuously stating "modern standards" is making you right?

 

[Wylade]

is even remotely passable by today's standards.

Unfortunately, you're probabally right.

It's a mess. It's all over the place, obscuring the actual game, and offering way too much information at once. Even if you can discern it all (which I'm sure anyone could after long enough), it is an absolute eyesore.

You consider it a mess and and eyesore. The information displayed is an equally important part of the "actual game", and I'm sorry if you consider that "too much" information, but that's not going to apply to everyone. You've also said nothing to convince me that it's awkward. I don't need a picture, I have the original game sitting right here on my shelf, I know what it looks like.

There's a reason absolutely no one uses this type of interface anymore .

I know the reason; it will turn a certain type of player off. I get it, you like a clean look and information as condensed as possible. But do you honestly think continuously stating "modern standards" is making you right?

It's because there are better methods of conveying the same information. Give a critical look to what is on the screen, and ask yourself this serious question: "What needs to be there 100% of the time?" In general, it's better to let the player see more of their screen. It aids in immersion, and helps free the mind to focus on the tasks at hand.

For starters, that massive weapon list taking up the entire middle-bottom section of the screen is pointless. You can put it in your inventory/weapon select screen, where it will be useful, but right now it's taking up valuable screen space where you could instead be drawing information the player will be using right now, like what's directly in front of them.

Bottom-Right has a picture of your currently equipped weapon, but it's drawn as a blueprint which is both 1) unintuitive and unappealing and 2) redundant, because we are currently also drawing the currently equipped weapon in the middle of the screen. At least, I THINK we are, I haven't played the game and am unsure what that block is supposed to be if not the barrel of the players weapon. It's also got good information, like currently equipped ammo type. With a higher rez monitor and current generation graphics, we can draw this smaller and save a lot of screen space again.

I see a lot of buttons around the outside of the screen and I struggle to understand what many of them mean, but if they all tell environmental cues as I suspect they do (I came to this assumption by extrapolating from the compass which I recognize) we can make them context sensitive, or hide them until the player presses a button to summon them to the screen. We could make it a "physical" piece of equipment even, the way ARMA does with it's compass. Doing this even makes those blips feel more important, by forcing the player to actively think about how/when to use them instead of just having them be omnipresent, EVEN IF IN ACTUALITY THEY ARE!!

This obviously isn't an exhaustive list, and it's being written by someone who's never even played the game, but hopefully I've demonstrated how cleaning up the UI doesn't mean getting rid of important information, it just means hiding information until it BECOMES important.

 

[DOOM GUY]

Honestly, I really liked System Shock's UI, more information is good I say.

Fullscreen mode is pretty clean anyway, your inventory/data reader/etc is only gonna be on the screen when you press the button that activates it.

 

[MysticSlayer]

You consider it a mess and and eyesore. The information displayed is an equally important part of the "actual game", and I'm sorry if you consider that "too much" information, but that's not going to apply to everyone. You've also said nothing to convince me that it's awkward. I don't need a picture, I have the original game sitting right here on my shelf, I know what it looks like.

The picture was mostly for the later comparison of how much better System Shock 2 and BioShock do their interface design, as well as an example for what you'd need to explain as suitable.

As for everything else, it was mostly covered by Wylade. The interface is absolutely cluttered with information not immediately needed. You can easily break it up and put it into separate screens for the player to access when needed.

I know the reason; it will turn a certain type of player off. I get it, you like a clean look and information as condensed as possible. But do you honestly think continuously stating "modern standards" is making you right?

This isn't a matter of condensing information. It is a matter of presenting information as needed. If anything, that interface is horrible for presenting a lot of information on any one detail, as every detail has to share space with a bunch of unrelated stuff.