Lanning will be at E3 and OWI will supposedly show live-streams

[Nemin]

If you by any chance haven't seen the news, Lanning will be on the opening show at 10:20 (PST) (that's 18:20 (GMT) for us Europeans).



Also they'll supposedly show "live-streams". The content of these is not known.

We'll be doing some livestreams. We'll be announcing more later.

[Littleleeroy]

So in like 6 hours from now? nice

btw I saw that Abe can double jump (by doing a mid-air roll) in a gameplay video today. This worries me as one cannot do a double jump in real life (as far as I am aware) and the gameplay has generally been quite realistic in AO and AE.

[SgabbitGabbiar]

For those who have missed it:

[SgabbitGabbiar]

EDIT: double post by mistake, sorry

[Nepsotic]

what a mess

[SgabbitGabbiar]

Lorne will be in live again for IGN on Wednesday

Want to hear more from Lorne about Oddworld: Soulstorm? Lorne will be appearing on IGN Live at #E3 on Wednesday, 2PM PT https://t.co/4T0vr0kUdC #Soulstorm

— Oddworld (@OddworldInc) 10 giugno 2019

[MA]

will Soulstorm have crafting in it? because i want to craft a strap-on dildo that abe can wear in-game. and have it visible in the cutscenes. if this isn't possible i will be fucking disgusted.

and i want different colours too

[SgabbitGabbiar]

Lorne has been on IGN. Finally we can see more gameplay.

(It starts at 2:00, just skip the initial part because they had a technical problem)

https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/06/1...n-live-e3-2019

[Michael]

I'm not quite sure what to think yet I don't want to be that guy who judges an entire game based on an early build demo. We've yet to see the whole thing, and it's likely this chunk was chosen specifically because it's fast-paced and action packed to grab more attention at the conference. But I'll admit I'm not entirely fond of what I saw.

While the visual style is more realistic in its details, the gameplay veers in the exact opposite direction. The original games made a point of not cluttering the screen with HUD and other icons, and felt more immersive and atmospheric as a result. You really got the feel of sneaking slowly through a cavernous and lonely factory, where one wrong step could get you killed. You walked slowly, planned every move in advance, and progressed with trepidation.

Now however, it's all running straight into the fray with reckless abandon, guns blazing with explosions and destruction. The screen is littered with visual cues and effects to the point it's almost difficult to appreciate the environment through the lights and flashes. Items, possession, even basic gamespeak have glowing rings and visual cues (which seems odd, as the characters simply responding or not was sufficient a cue before).

It almost felt like the video was playing at 1.5x speed or something. The gameplay is quite erratic with little sense of acceleration/weight, and Abe can now double-jump flip in mid air for some reason, which makes things seem even more frenetic. I also found it weird that Sligs die immediately from fire yet Abe and the Muds could hot-potato through it no problem.

I was hoping the new visual style would translate to a slower pace, more believable experience with a greater focus on hiding, planning and strategy. This segment was a hyperactive free-for-all that feels more to me like Munch in some parts that AE. Granted, it's been said that there are many ways to approach the game and it could be the case that the player here simply chose to run through full-throttle, and other players would have a different experience. It doesn't look bad by any means; it does look like a fun game. However, so far I'm not convinced it'll be the type of game I'd personally hoped for.

[STM]

I'm torn because holy shit it looks good. It looks polished, it looks immersive and absolutely beautiful. The sheer speed of gameplay and the amount of mudokons you have to control for (presuming) extended periods is giving me anxiety. I don't know if I have the capacity to micromanage on that level but I understand that's personal preference. I'm hopeful. It looks gorgeous. The only things I'm ever so slightly worried about is the HUD (confusing for my ADHD ass) and the pacing of play. Nevertheless, on a whole I'm e x c i t e d.

[Mcbee]

My Oddworld nostalgia is at its all-time peak after E3. Man, I hope it's a good one.

[Phoetux]

We finally got more gameplay in these E3 interviews.



Ok, so:

• Death animations are sometimes bad like in New n Tasty (for example: a slig getting shot and just falls to the ground instead of exploding like it used to be), and I honestly still dislike this. Were the explosions of organs realistic? No, but the falling to the ground of the enemies' bodies as if they were simple objects without any kind of weight are honestly worse.
  
  
• Possession is different now and it works as a floating orb, just like in MO but it definitively looks better. Glad to see that you have to get through open spaces (and so to even open doors or gates) to possess an enemy. Makes the game more challenging.
  
  
• Quarma seems to be more complex now: you get bad quarma even for killing sligs and other enemies, so imagine if you wanted to do a run with only good quarma; that'd make the game more difficult, but it looks like you can stunt the enemies by possessing them or by throwing a rock against them, which would let you to get past them and ransack em easily. Yet, if you meet multiple enemies on your path I guess getting past them would be more difficult. By seeing how more detailed and complex the Quarma system is now, it really feels more like a real Karma concept.
  
  
• We got what Lorne calls the 2.9D perspective, and it seems to work greatly. The camera acts in a smart way along your movement through the game, but I wonder if you can actually control it.
  
  
• We have double jump now, but that doesn't make things easier. If you have mudokons following you around they wouldn't double jump like you, so you have to search a path for them.
  
  
• We interact more with the level ambient by scavenging cabinets, trash cans etc. That's a cool feature.
  
  
• And so crafting and using weapons,"potions" etc now are an actually thing. We also have money now and I wonder what you can really do with it.
  The more I look at these kind of features the more I realize that this is an Oddworld game that has expanded its own franchise formula for the series; there are still puzzles and you always have to save (or kill) your Mudokon friends, but now with more expanded ways. Tbh, this makes me more excited for the game and I feel like OWI is taking a good path for this series. I really like how the gameplay evolved, all these new things makes the whole game more interesting.
  
  
• Level design here seems to be still complex and interesting. Even if Abe can do more things, you have to be reactive and smart enough to figure out how to proceed through the level.
  
  
• We also have a bar that indicates the level of alarm of the enemies present in the level. They could sleep while we get through the level silently, or they can still be highly alarmed by our presence so much that we are forced to face them all. As a result, the choices we make during the game make a greater difference now.
  
  
• UI is okay, but it looks temporary to me? Some icons are not entirely detailed and have simple artstyles that don't match much with the game itself. Not saying that the UI is bad, but its graphical style might be a little unfitting to the game artstyle. I really wonder how it is going to look like in the final version.
  
  
• Talking about the UI, it has yet the same concept Lorne showed at EGX 2017, and with it the health bar is official now. We don't die at the first shot we get, same for our Mudokons friends. At first, this made me more perplexed, but seeing that with the new features we got we have to be more careful in the level progress, the perplexity faded away. So I guess the game is still balanced on the level of difficulty. But I'd still want an hard difficulty (where you can get oneshotted, just like in NnT) that makes the game more "classic" and even more challenging. If they include it, that makes everyone happy.

I gotta say that we got an HUGE amount of gameplay content now, and of course we're all happy. Yet the wait was a terrible struggle: the release date of the game has been postponed three times, and we had to wait almost 4 years to get a preview of the game itself. The advertising of the game itself wasn't even that good; there have been times when we had various types of information regarding the game to then have moments of total silence by OWI. They tried to make the future release of the game more relevant with the ARG, which was a really good experience but its flame went out slowly and progressively with less involvement of the fans in it. There was also the Oddwall, but it wasn't a good move: instead of making the future release of the game more relevant with a new screenshot that had to be unlocked through votes and the need to reach a certain share of likes on Facebook, of Twitter followers and Youtube subscribers, it has made the whole social activity more unnerving and the fans more anxious and even angry.
On these aspects, OWI didn't do well. Yet the game looks totally promising now.
Soulstorm is going to change the original series for good, and I'm looking forward for it. These new features at first could've make the game easier to play, but it's actually the opposite as I said in the previous points; we must be even more cautious, reactive and clever in the actions we take. If we thought that these three fundamental characteristics were necessary to complete the first two old games, we can be sure that this time they will be even more necessary to complete a game that apparently will be even more challenging. Yet we have not yet tried it with our own hands, and I can't wait to try it. I hope the game will be released in 2020, and that it will not be postponed for the fifth time.
Keep going OWI, you're doing a great job

This is not a revolutionary game, it's an evolutionary game about revolution.

[Nepsotic]

I feel like Michael Bay secretly directed this game

Soulstorm is going to change the original series for good, and I'm looking forward for it

Soulstorm isn't going to change the original series whatsoever which is arguably the only saving grace.

[Phoetux]

Soulstorm isn't going to change the original series whatsoever which is arguably the only saving grace.

How so?

[Gunnr]

I'm torn because holy shit it looks good. It looks polished, it looks immersive and absolutely beautiful. The sheer speed of gameplay and the amount of mudokons you have to control for (presuming) extended periods is giving me anxiety. I don't know if I have the capacity to micromanage on that level but I understand that's personal preference. I'm hopeful. It looks gorgeous. The only things I'm ever so slightly worried about is the HUD (confusing for my ADHD ass) and the pacing of play. Nevertheless, on a whole I'm e x c i t e d.

I mostly agree with STM, eh minus the ADHD
'probably

Anyway I'd rather not judge the whole of the game based on these chosen clips. Until I have the game in my have and give it a run on..whatever console it will be released for, I'm a bit torn.

[Nepsotic]

How so?

Well the release of soulstorm isn't going to delete AO and AE.

[Phoetux]

Well the release of soulstorm isn't going to delete AO and AE.

You probably misunderstood me. By original series I meant the main one, the quintology. And by "changing for good" I meant that it'd take a different path unlike the other games, not that it was going to kill AO and AE.

Also to those who think the gameplay is too fast: we still have to play it and so when we are actually going to try it it might be a total different experience. Games like Doom 2016 for example looked like they were too fast to play in a proper way, yet it wasn't. So dont get anxious, we still have to try the game with our own hands.

[Admiral Zaarin]

I've already posted in another topic but will repeat myself here. I have nothing against the new gameplay features but there's one thing that I didn't like in N'n'T and I see it in these trailers, again. I'm talking about the visuals, namely about the amount of flashing and shining lights. There are so many of those lights that the level starts to look like a Christmas tree. Those neon lights going from the levers to the machines they activate can be easily raplaced with wires and it would've looked much better. Same goes for the lightnings shooting out of the teleporter doors (the idea of the teleporter doors is very reasonable though). The less of those flashing lights - the better. Speaking of the neon signs, I'd keep them to the minimum. Good-old painted signs and boards with paint peeling off from rust are much better.

You can see how much effort the devs are putting in the details of the environment but for now there's one thing missing regarding that traditional grim and shabby Oddworldian atmosphere, at least for me. I had the same feeling when I played N'nT'. Everything was great regarding the details but the style was off in terms of lighting and the amount of indication lights flashing or glowing way too brightly (at grinders, levers, trapdoors, ledges etc). The levels looked overall too bright.

Also, I agree with the above posters about the pace of gameplay being somewhat too high.

I hope that the developers will tweak this out later and everything turns out just right. Anyway, I look forward this game. Hope it turns out good, especially story-wise.

[Nepsotic]

Zaarin is totally right.
It looks like a pile of murky diarrhea has washed over my screen, and there's a bunch of Christmas lights in it. Hardly feels like Oddworld but it is a videogame.

[STM]

Given the task of developing a new Oddworld game, an understanding of game programming and infinite time, the users of Oddworld Forums will recreate Abe's Oddysee to the minutest of details, forever.

[OWI_Alex]

Given the task of developing a new Oddworld game, an understanding of game programming and infinite time, the users of Oddworld Forums will recreate Abe's Oddysee to the minutest of details, forever.

quite.

[Nate]

Given the task of developing a new Oddworld game, an understanding of game programming and infinite time, the users of Oddworld Forums will recreate Abe's Oddysee to the minutest of details, forever.

Even with infinite time they'd never get the shade of green just right.

[Nepsotic]

quite.

Thank you for proving to us that you don't listen to or give a shit about our actual opinions. Not like it matters, the STMs will buy your game all the same, and you're free to laugh at the grumpy old-time fans who were completely unpleasable.

Given the task of developing a new Oddworld game, an understanding of game programming and infinite time, the users of Oddworld Forums will recreate Abe's Oddysee to the minutest of details, forever.

The best part is that it would be better than anything the company has put out in at least 20 years.

[Admiral Zaarin]

Thank you for proving to us that you don't listen to or give a shit about our actual opinions. Not like it matters, the STMs will buy your game all the same, and you're free to laugh at the grumpy old-time fans who were completely unpleasable.


The best part is that it would be better than anything the company has put out in at least 20 years.

What is a better way to manage PR than to mock your potential client's opinion?

[Littleleeroy]

Anyone who mocks Nepsotic gets my support x

[Nepsotic]

Simple minds are pleased by simple things

[STM]

Thank you for proving to us that you don't listen to or give a shit about our actual opinions. Not like it matters, the STMs will buy your game all the same, and you're free to laugh at the grumpy old-time fans who were completely unpleasable.


The best part is that it would be better than anything the company has put out in at least 20 years.

The idiot STMs will buy Soulstorm while galaxy brain Nepsotics will abstain in disgust, frontal veins throbbing as they spray the verbal equivalent of liquified shit at the developers because they believe that their vitriol equates to some sort of constructive criticism.

I have criticisms based on what I've seen, but I've not yet seen enough to determine whether or not they're merely situational. Wanking over subjective complaints such as whether or not neon billboards are o d d s t h e t i c or not are redundant, imo.

[Nepsotic]

Yes, I'm sure this one section of the game that looks terrible is definitely not indicative of the quality as a whole. I'm sure that in every other part of the game, animations actually move at normal speeds and the game doesn't look like someone vomited up christmas lights all over my screen. It's situational. It's subjective.

verbal equivalent of liquified shit at the developers because they believe that their vitriol equates to some sort of constructive criticism.

Everyone knows that if you ain't polite, you ain't right.

Wanking over subjective complaints such as whether or not neon billboards are o d d s t h e t i c or not are redundant, imo.

What complaints aren't redundant, STM? What complaints are we allowed to wank over?
Obviously the only reason people don't like those billboards is because they're busy sucking off the nostalgia cock and can't see past their rose tinted goggles. In fact that's pretty much what every complaint of SS boils down to, if we're honest. I mean come on guys, this is Oddworld. They've never let us down before.

[MA]

to be fair mate all you seem to do recently is fucking bitch bitch bitch about everything and it's starting to really get under my skin. i'm not talking about the fact you have qualms with SS, i'm talking about your general attitude and the way you voice those qualms. i don't have an issue with people criticizing the game, everyone is entitled to an opinion, what i have an issue with is your apparent need to over-aggressively defend your opinion from anyone who might think differently than you. all the time. it's tiresome, it's irritating to read and it's all the time.

you don't need to fight every battle. we get it, there are many fucking things you dislike about what you've seen of this game so far. we get it. you can stop rabidly defending your right to call it horseshit now.

and before you start harping on about this just being a 'discussion' (and i use that term very fucking loosely) and that you have the right to voice your views; yeah you're absolutely right, you do have the right to speak your mind. but you're not having a civil, sensible '''''debate''''' here that actually makes ground, and you very rarely do. what you're doing is making points steeped in toxicity. it becomes a pissing match where the 'victor' is the one who throws the ugliest insults. that is not a discussion. it's possible to make a good argument, and make it funny or aggressive or whatever you're going for, without ridiculing or trying to humiliate the opposition in the process.

and i know i'm hardly one to talk about being less hostile, but come on for fuck's sake.

also i'm not trying to further any argument with this, i'm just trying to point out what's going on otherwise nothing will change and we'll continue to go in circles, and this toxic wankery will just go on and on. which is no good for the general atmosphere. it isn't necessary. at least this way you can't say that you haven't been told. not that it fucking matters in the long run anyway. when SS dies down we'll go back into stasis and this place will be like a fucking desert wasteland again. but that's another long-winded story for another day.

TL;DR every time i come here i see you whinging about some shit and ragging on rando members and it's become stereotypical of you. you're like the boy who cried wolf, except you didn't cry wolf, what you actually did was see the wolf then complain to everyone else about how shit you thought the wolf looked and that it was the wrong green until eventually everyone stopped fucking listening to you. then they lived happily ever after. THE END.

[Nepsotic]