Vapourware System Shock 3 by OtherSide Entertainment - taken over by Tencent!

[Zep Zepo]

Let's just see how many stay since they f'ed up the SB deal.

They are already now in the hole 12 million(?).

UA couldn't earn 200K completed(?)

I'm curious to learn what other dumbfuck publisher would pay another's bad debts and still hope to make ANY MONEY AT ALL.

The whole OS company is a fucking joke.

Zep--

 

[LESS T_T]

That's a great team. They just need to get good writers now.

Well MCA is doing (or did) some work on this: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.p...ant-is-a-disaster.124859/page-43#post-5910285

I won't be surprised if Austin Grossman involves somehow.

(Speaking of, Sheldon Pacotti, who left the team from very early on, recently revived his Twitter account and published some short stories.)

 

[MasterLobar]

Yeah, at least experiences, relevant and recent, are certainly plenty, unlike the UA team.

UA had Nate Wells, Tim Stellmach, Paul Neurath, Ryan Lesser...

 

[Curratum]

Nothing this company touches will ever be good.

 

[LESS T_T]

Yeah, at least experiences, relevant and recent, are certainly plenty, unlike the UA team.

UA had Nate Wells, Tim Stellmach, Paul Neurath, Ryan Lesser...

Well I'm not sure you can say Paul Neurath and Tim Stellmach had relevant and recent experiences to make a first-person action RPG in modern development environment.

Nate Wells, Art Director, maybe. But he has left with the clay toy art mid-development, whether it was caused by him or the lack of resources. And Ryan Lesser, the new Art Director, was joined Otherside 9 months before the release, so...

(FWIW, Boston studio has hired more experienced developers [Lead Artist, Lead Graphics Engineer, Executive Producer] around the release of UA, possibly thanks to the investment you mentioned from other post, likely for the next project, the Thief spiritual successor.)

 

[thesheeep]

It figures they had to get the Monolith employee who only worked on the LOTR games and not any of the games with actually fun combat that Monolith made before that. And Andromeda as the cherry on top of the shit cake.

Combat was by a mile the best part of Andromeda, so... could've been worse.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I'd rather have a bunch of random mcdonalds employees as writers/designers than "industry veterans" at this point.

 

[Ezeekiel]

Combat was by a mile the best part of Andromeda, so... could've been worse.

Did you play it after all the patches, or at release? And which difficulty?

 

[toro]

That's a great team. They just need to get good writers now.

... and a couple of competent programmers. Just saying.

 

[Ezeekiel]

That's a great team. They just need to get good writers now.

... and a couple of competent programmers. Just saying.

That goes for the entire games industry by now.

 

[thesheeep]

Combat was by a mile the best part of Andromeda, so... could've been worse.

Did you play it after all the patches, or at release? And which difficulty?

Can't remember the difficulty. I usually pick hard (one above normal) in games, if available.
But it was quite a while after release, so I guess it must have been patched.

I found the combat okay. Nothing great, but still the best part of the game (which isn't hard, since everything else was.. well, we all know by now).

 

[Ezeekiel]

Combat was by a mile the best part of Andromeda, so... could've been worse.

Did you play it after all the patches, or at release? And which difficulty?

Can't remember the difficulty. I usually pick hard (one above normal) in games, if available.
But it was quite a while after release, so I guess it must have been patched.

I found the combat okay. Nothing great, but still the best part of the game (which isn't hard, since everything else was.. well, we all know by now).

Yeah, they patched the bullet-sponginess quite a bit, both in single and multiplayer.
I made the mistake of playing it on release and after the beginning it got pretty bad. Lots of guns more or less useless.

The other issue was that the enemies wouldn't trigger until you got fairly close, so you could snipe with near-impunity (but I think there was a max-range built in or something, don't remember).
The overall design just wasn't shooter-oriented in spite of the shooter-ish gameplay. A.I. had lots of issues. Why have these huge areas if the A.I. still thinks it's in a corridor shooter...

The multiplayer dev team was hilariously inept though. Players compared guns between me3 and andromeda to show how bizarre the balancing was (the Mattock, for example... Shit damage in Andromeda but also firerate artificially limited so it wasn't real semi-auto anymore which made it feel horrible to use).
So then the devs nerfed it because it "felt a little too strong". People in the MEcoop subreddit lost their shit over almost every patch because of how dumb the changes usually were.
Great fun to just watch the absurdity unfold.

When I bought the game I thought "who cares about some bad animations and some bad writing, I'm used to eurojank after all". Surely it'll at least be decent in other ways.
Boy did I regret my uncharacteristic optimism :D

 

[LESS T_T]

Hey, another designer from BioWare Austin. He sounds like a level designer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-ammer-0168517/

Designer and Scripter with a background in architecture and a passion for making the best gameplay experiences possible. Experience in both crafting worlds, and the tools and systems necessary to build them. Proficient in a multitude of design editors and scripting languages, as well as art creation tools and utilities.

World Designer & Scripter
Company Name Bioware
Dates Employed Jul 2009 – Sep 2018
Employment Duration 9 yrs 3 mos

* Anthem [Shipped, February 2019]
 Designed and worked closely with engineers to implement content-authoring systems, such as Interaction, Creature Spawning, Quest, and Object State Machine systems
 Designed, constructed, and scripted many of the game's non-character interactable objects
 Documented & maintained scripting standards for Design Dept, instructed Designers in standards and mentored junior Technical Designers

* Mass Effect: Andromeda [Shipped, March 2017]
 Designed, implemented, and maintained content for the planets Aya and Havarl
 Created a custom combat spawning system to appropriately populate Havarl, the game's only "Exploration" planet without the Nomad vehicle
 Custom-scripted complex AI behaviors such as "Player Escorting" and "Location Guarding"

* Shadow Realms [Unreleased]
 Designed, constructed, scripted, and spawned branching multiplayer gameplay levels
 Scripted, and maintained core gameplay objects such as Doors, Checkpoints and Traps
 Worked with Engineers to design and implement gameplay systems and their respective Designer-facing tools

* Star Wars: The Old Republic [Shipped, Dec. 2011]
 Responsible for scripting all Quest Content on the planet Alderaan
 Designed and implemented Macrobinocular and Seeker Droid systems as well as their quest content (Rise of the Hutt Cartel Expansion)
 Designed, constructed, and scripted "Star Fortress" repeatable, randomized end-game dungeons (Knights of the Fallen Empire Expansion)

Senior Designer
Company Name OtherSide Entertainment
Dates Employed Sep 2018 – Present
Employment Duration 6 mos

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

core gameplay objects

Traps

oy vey

 

[Katana1000S]

System Shock 3 is going to be another disaster by these has-been, once were good ... but now lying cash grabbing hounds.

Industry vets indeed Industry crooks more like.

https://www.othersideentertainment....8696f67600060b5d3f9b19dfa8ce2773&topic=8573.0

OtherSide is rolling forward with System Shock 3. Warren Spector has built a great team and the game is more than halfway completed. At its core, it already feels like a System Shock game, while at the same time introducing new elements to the franchise. As the original creators of the game, we want to see this game made as much as our fans do. Look for more information about System Shock 3 soon

So, SS3 is more than half way complete already but not one hint of its gamplay design shown, not one screenshot ... hell you guys released Underworld Ascendant when it was not even 1/4 complete ... and we are expected to trust you with SS3 ... and you say its more than half way complete already ??

I'm not buying ... but oh, its a completely different team stuff either, can point to many of their official statements where they comment team members are switching over to SS3 now.

What a tangled web of lies.

Bunch of lying bastards ... part of me wants them to ruin the SS franchise too, just to qualify the deception they do and willingness to lie and cheat, then jail them for a long period of time as a warning to future game software publishers who might be tempted to try the same crooked tricks for a quick cash grab as they did.

 

[MasterLobar]

So, SS3 is more than half way complete already but not one hint of its gamplay design shown, not one screenshot

They published some concept art in 2017. It looked like a Kandinsky painting.

https://www.ign.com/articles/2017/05/10/system-shock-3-concept-art-images-released

Soon after that, the design director left the team.

https://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=1395.0

UA redux.

 

[Terenty]

Sheldon Pacotti left this project, i wonder why

And how many people are working on this? In may 2017 it was 4 , and now? 15?

 

[MasterLobar]

The technical director left, too.

https://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=1865.0

Seems to be a toxic place to work.

 

[MasterLobar]

Folks, I know this is "old" news (2017), I stated it in my last post above.

 

[Ezeekiel]

Folks, I know this is "old" news (2017), I stated it in my last post above.

Don't take the ratings too seriously. You'll end up like poor Irenaeus otherwise :D

 

[LESS T_T]

Alexander Brandon (Deus Ex, Unreal) is doing music: https://www.facebook.com/AlexanderBrandonMusic/posts/10156042569932621

2019. Current status: Wasteland 3 and System Shock 3. All good things come in threes. Working with some great people and tackling some serious challenges, the greatest of which is "how can we be creative so as to keep with the old games' traditions yet break new ground?"

Personal projects STILL (yes, believe it or not) include the next All Things Funky video as well as Thunder Blazer (guitar album) and a secret project in the works to be announced soon!

And this is from last year's post, this totally flew under the radar: https://www.facebook.com/AlexanderBrandonMusic/posts/10155679450977621

Why the delay? I'm helping Bard's Tale 4 ship, working with audio lead Brian DiDomenico on some great sounds and music. We got to work with Simple Minds bass player Ged Grimes, who composed and recorded authentic Scottish players. This is the Bard's Tale I grew up with and it's going to be a super fun RPG to play, so check it out.

In addition, I'm helping the great folks at inXile with Wasteland 3. Yep! Back into Wasteland I go. But that's once Bard's Tale is all sewn up.

Finally, and most excitingly, Warren Spector has tapped me to handle audio for System Shock 3. We're in early stages so I've nothing to share just yet. But yes, music is a part of that. And I couldn't be more excited to be involved. It's back to my Deus Ex roots. In fact the reason I reached out to Warren in the first place was System Shock. He's assembled a killer group of awesome developers to work on this so I hope to report a bit more as things move forward.

(For Wasteland 3 looks like it's just audio design role, like last inXile games.)

 

[Space Nugget]

Alexander Brandon (Deus Ex, Unreal) is doing music: https://www.facebook.com/AlexanderBrandonMusic/posts/10156042569932621

2019. Current status: Wasteland 3 and System Shock 3. All good things come in threes. Working with some great people and tackling some serious challenges, the greatest of which is "how can we be creative so as to keep with the old games' traditions yet break new ground?"

Personal projects STILL (yes, believe it or not) include the next All Things Funky video as well as Thunder Blazer (guitar album) and a secret project in the works to be announced soon!

And this is from last year's post, this totally flew under the radar: https://www.facebook.com/AlexanderBrandonMusic/posts/10155679450977621

Why the delay? I'm helping Bard's Tale 4 ship, working with audio lead Brian DiDomenico on some great sounds and music. We got to work with Simple Minds bass player Ged Grimes, who composed and recorded authentic Scottish players. This is the Bard's Tale I grew up with and it's going to be a super fun RPG to play, so check it out.

In addition, I'm helping the great folks at inXile with Wasteland 3. Yep! Back into Wasteland I go. But that's once Bard's Tale is all sewn up.

Finally, and most excitingly, Warren Spector has tapped me to handle audio for System Shock 3. We're in early stages so I've nothing to share just yet. But yes, music is a part of that. And I couldn't be more excited to be involved. It's back to my Deus Ex roots. In fact the reason I reached out to Warren in the first place was System Shock. He's assembled a killer group of awesome developers to work on this so I hope to report a bit more as things move forward.

(For Wasteland 3 looks like it's just audio design role, like last inXile games.)

 

[LESS T_T]

Alexander Brandon (Deus Ex, Unreal) is doing music: https://www.facebook.com/AlexanderBrandonMusic/posts/10156042569932621

From Russian SS group: https://vk.com/wall-756159_5300

 

[MasterLobar]

//Offtopic (well, sort of)

On February 25th, OS planned a migration of their forums, something an undergraduate IT student could do in a few days.

Two weeks later, they announce that they've botched it (surprise, surprise!).

https://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=8588.msg38951#msg38951

Can these people get anything right?

 

[Zep Zepo]

They probably couldn't figure out how to "accidentally lose" all the bad comments while retaining the good ones.

Zep--