What locations and stories do you think Soulstorm will take us, and how will it play?
 

I personally think we will definitely see Vykkers' Labs, Soulstorm Brew, and Necrum Mines, but other than that..? I don't have a clue of where they are taking the story.
What do you guys think?

Mudoncho vaults.

I'm not sure at this point, but I hope they keep FeeCo, that area was fucking iconic.

With all the clues and ref to RP/1029 and hints of vykkers in the Arg and such I'm thinking we might get to go back to Rupture Farms or even visit a grounded vykkers lab. At least that's what I'm hoping:)

The more we see and hear of Soulstorm, the more I think it's going to be a hybrid between Abe's Exoddus and Munch's Oddysee. So many story elements that we see popping up in Soulstorm were or were supposed to be in MO in some form or another.

I think we're gonna see a massive new side of the story, think more from the industrialists perspective. Not just a narrative from Abe's point of view, but an overal plot that shows both sides of the conflict.

As for locations, I think the Brewery is still in. As is Vykkers Labs. But honestly I'm not sure at this point if we'll see Necrum Mines or FeeCo Depot appear at all. Slig Barracks and Bonewerkz felt like they were mostly filler instead of meaningful locations so I highly doubt they will return in any form at all. If I had to guess I'd say they're going to replace the FeeCo area entirely with Vykkers Labs and transition to the Brewery from there.

My guess we're going to see at least Necrum Mines, Slig Barracks, Bonewerkz and FeeCo Depot... simply based on the fact they are all listed on the Soulstorm t-shirt:

http://www.gametee.co.uk/product/odd...m-official-tee

I suspect we're going to see Vykkers working in Soulstorm Brewery, but not actually see the labs.

That's what I was thinking, I presume they'll tease the Vykkers Labs from MO but that the Vykkers we've seen may be working out of a testing facility within the Soulstorm plant.

Well, the main ingredient for Soulstorm Brew comes from Bonewerkz. On the other hand, Mudomo and Mudanchee Vaults were uninspired levels.

Greeters are developed by the Vykkers right? I'd like to see an area where Greeters are made.

I liked the vaults, and it expanded the game time significantly. I did feel that doing the whole trials again was a bit cliché, but i enjoyed it nonetheless. Even if it seemed weird that the vaults were so close to Necrum and not necessarily desert and forest regions like Paramonia and Scrabania.

I wonder if maybe time constraints kept them from fleshing out the vaults? It would have been interesting if they could have varied the atmosphere and design of Mudomo and Mudanchee, or even expanded upon the lore of the areas so that we could learn a little more about why they're their and what their functions are. For me personally, Mudomo/Mudanchee needed to either act more as extensions of Necrum in terms of design (similar colour pallettes and shit), or they needed to take a more radical departure to make them feel more distinct. As they are, it feels like a bit of a halfway house situation.

I'm hungover as hell and apologise if that made no sense...

Locations and stories
 

It would be great to see some more sabotage. Blowing boilers and rescuing fellows from tear extractors was fun, but I want to see something more engaging where you have to sabotage mechanincal production mechanisms and doing so takes logic, tinkering and intuition.

I think it will include every location and the basic story from Abe's Exoddus. But vastly tweak them to make the game flow better. Meaning certain parts of the locations are either scrapped or reworked. I adore AE as you know. But even I can admit the game does drag on. Necrum Mines, vaults and the Brewery to be exact.

I'd love to see some Munch's Oddysee connections as well. Vykkers in the Soulstorm Brewery is a great idea. I doubt we'll see or hear from Munch. But I reckon if they have no plans to redo MO, the game will flow more nicely into it towards the end.

I would like to see some of the other Vykkers labs as we only got to see number 13 in MO which I think was the first airship location they had. I would also love to see a Glukkon and Vykker interact, maybe talking over plans and stuff as I'm curious as to how they would talk to each other.

When you think about it, Abe (in AO/NnT) completed the trials to gain the powers of Shrykull. In AE, he only earns the power to heal the sick Mudokons. Yet Abe barely uses it (some special Mudokons also happen to have the healing ring ability) throughout the game so it is quite tedious. Mudomo itself has no actual "puzzles" (the level is pretty straightforward). Plus, you are possessing a Paramite to communicate with other Paramites only to complete a secret area (apart from that this feature is superfluous). All in all, I'm not saying that Mudomo and Mudanchee Vaults are bad levels, just that they're "fillers" and feel pale in comparison to Scrabania and Paramonia.

I agree, and actually thinking about it you make a pretty good point about the power to heal mudokons, it's kinda weird he has to go on a spiritual quest to get such a strangely specific power, unless it's a general healing power. They never made it clear and since the whole Necrum part of the game covers gaining that power, and then getting a fuck-off huge scar from it, it's kinda irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

I disagree with you. What's wierd about the vaults is that they were separate to Necrum, given they were all meant to be part of the ancient burial grounds.

I agree with Vlam, the mechanics are underused and the areas definitely feel like rehashes. They're not bad by any stretch of the imagination, but they don't really hold up to the rest of the game. I look forward to seeing what shape they take in Soulstorm.

I agree with Vlam, and would like to point out his English language proficiency has increased a lot compared to when he joined.

I'm not sure if this is correct so don't quote me on this but I seem to remember Lorne talking about early concepts for AO and how they wanted the communication between enemies to feel more in depth. For example, some sligs would question other sligs that are currently being possessed to determine if they are ok or controlled. I'd imagine this would work in a way where some sligs would say hi and the player would need to respond to the more alert sligs. Sort of like the whistle puzzles.

Anyway, the point im getting at is if Vykker labs are in soulstorm then im assuming we may be able to control Vykkers and have another layer of depth involved.

What I'm hoping for is for all those interesting concepts Lorne mentioned back then are actually making it into the game. Same goes for areas that may include Sam hopefully.

If I remember correctly, if you possess a slig on the same screen as other sligs, they will be suspicious and shoot your slig on sight, BUT, if you make your slig say Hi to them, their suspicion would go away. I thought that was such a good and subtle trick. I could see them expanding it into a speech puzzle type thing like the glukkon voice locks, but that seems like it may get tedious

Yeah it makes sense, it would actually give a purpose to the Slog gamespeak. I know they can talk to Slogs but you can tell they were designed for talking to other Slugs too, otherwise why would they say "hi"?

I don't remember it working that way. I always used either Abe or a Possessed Slig to say Hi/Hello to another. If it responded with "Hi" it would not shoot the Slig on sight, and would shout "Freeze!" before shooting at Abe. If the Slig replied with "What?" It would shoot instantly without warning.

I used that little trick all the time when setting personal bests for 100% :D

I always thought it would be cool if sligs could order mudokon around with gamespeak, but I think that would ruin a lot of puzzles. The restrictions they have for who can control who make for good puzzles. Maybe they could make it work though, who knows