I don't know if any of you use facebook or not, but there is going to be a presentation, on SOULSTORM! March 18th, 5pm PST. I'm extremely keen to see what Oddworld Inhabitants has in store for us guys. This is grand news, as i have been sooooooooo keen for this.
Keynote is starting!
Edit: Well the stream has started, keynote starts in 20 mins apparently.
Edit 2: Starting now. Those hosts are fun!.. Not sure when the Soulstorm segment will be.
Edit 3: The main part of the keynote:
Last edited by Littleleeroy; 03-18-2019 at 05:20 PM..
Alf is an alcoholic - he should have refused to sacrifice the Beer to speed them up. He should have point blank refused until the Slig's are practically shooting through the window when Kobe grabs it off him and starts throwing it in the coal pile; and Alf attacks him. Because this is what the Cartel's products do to people - they turn them on each-other in the worst of ways. These products don't just ruin lives but they prevent people from doing what's best for them and lose their friends in the process. Make a real comment on companies that profit from these life-destroying products.
Fleshing out the characters like that, and making the story depend on real character-decisions is how you make the world feel darker and more intense for the player; not by redesigning the characters to make their eyes more puppy-dog and giving them all a more unique face.
The animation feels a little too clinical though; Kobe's just been shot at, he should be ducking for cover a lot quicker than that. Graphically it all looks beautiful though (a little too bright for Oddworld IMO but I feel like they've swapped AO & AE's moody shadows for mysterious haze in the new era, so I'll accept that's just my personal preference) and Michael Bross's music is on point ...
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Last edited by Fuzzle Guy; 03-19-2019 at 12:10 AM..
The shaman looks great. The train scene... would be fine if we didn't have their amazing work on the previous games to compare it to.
You're not talking about NnT? Right? The worst part for me was Toby's overly cartoonish eyes when he screams "faster". I thought the whole point of these models was to look realistic so when you throw in a more cartoony expression than anything that was ever in MO you're kind of pissing on your own bonfire. They should just pick one and stick to it.
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Alf is an alcoholic - he should have refused to sacrifice the Beer to speed them up. He should have point blank refused until the Slig's are practically shooting through the window when Kobe grabs it off him and starts throwing it in the coal pile; and Alf attacks him. Because this is what the Cartel's products do to people - they turn them on each-other in the worst of ways. These products don't just ruin lives but they prevent people from doing what's best for them and lose their friends in the process. Make a real comment on companies that profit from these life-destroying products.
This entire rant is stupid because not only are we unaware of the full context and Alf's character, but this is clearly a tense chase sequence where the addictiveness of the brew is important to show how desperate their escape is. If they were just shovelling coal, it would be underwhelming.
Plus, how do you know Alf is even addicted at this point? We have no idea where abouts in the game this takes place, at a guess it's near the end, and that's just a guess since you see the Brewery in the final shot.
I don't have much to say so I'll just repost my YT comment over here.
- FeeCo is now called Comet Depot. Weird change, I preferred the original name by miles. Comet just doesn't sound as 'oddworldian' to me. And it no longer sounds like "feecal"
- They kept the original train design! Awesome, they look even more bulky and industrial now and the tracks have been made beefier to accommodate, they also seem to be double-decker trains now. Even FeeCo- oh, Comet Depot's new design still stays true to the original yet is even more gigantic and intimidating.
- Flying Sligs now have miniguns and jet engines. They also seem to be carrying something in pouches - probably grenades.
- FeeCo trains can be fueled with brew apparently.
- Mudokons seem to be more ripped than ever.
- Alf is not only wearing a Rupture Farms hat, but he also has a SoulStorm tattoo across his chest.
- They kept the SS brew logo.
- I first thought that the building at the end was the mines, but turns out it's the Brewery.
Hopefully we get to see some gameplay before the end of the year
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all Meechmunchie did by trying to troll me was distract from the fact you all have no regard for Hetro or their rights at all, none.
Looks quite cool, but until we see some actual gameplay I'm still tempering expectations. It does worry me a tad that it's been just over 3 years to the day since it was first announced but we've still not seen any.
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''Pokemon! Pokemon With the Poke and the Mon and the bit where the guy comes out the thing, and he bites the Blah bah bah bua'' - Bill Cosby
Jokes aside, I get that they're trying to make the worldbuilding for the industrialists more realistic as opposed to cartoonishly over the top, but honestly FeeCo isn't even that bad compared some of the other examples from the original games.
I loved the cinematic! Loved it. Opening with teh glukk train then to tailed by "Flying friggin sligs" =D.
Though it wasn't gameplay, it was satisfyingly more than just the simple screen shot that was begged for.
Only one thing bugged me a bit, like Nep had mentioned I did find Toby's eyes to be far too cartoonish when he said "faster". I really liking the realistic aesthetic in the characters design and believe they can still display the humor loved in the previous games with out going over the top with dem eyes. (and am i really nitpicking at the wideness of a characters eyes? oh well). Not sure if the I like or dislike the dirt on the lens effect( a feature carried over from NnT?) at first i didn't notice it as I've been watching trailers for other game that did the same.
That aside i enjoyed watching how smooth and life like their body motions were and find the graphics were good. I'm wondering if motion capture was used. Was that mentioned at all?
I personally saw it a great "demonstrating some of Unity's rendering techniques" as Lorne had said. I really hope that Soulstorm will stand out and catch the eye of new people both familiar and new to the franchise.
Loved Alf, Alf is bae
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[FONT="Verdana"]I live in a desert and I drink brew, guess that means that I'm a mud too
In all seriousness, 4 years of development are understable for the various reasons OWI explained but imo you can't keep changing the release date every year, that could really kill the hype and the fan base itself. A lot of people are pissed, including myself. I understand that Lorne is worried about making the game as appreciable as possible, but teasing is essential for a title like this.
We've seen what Soulstorm is like this time: it's a whole new and darker game which also got a new design that looks more realistic and less comical unlike the previous titles. Yet as others said we didn't see any gameplay, we only got some little info about how it could be like but no footage at all. And postponing the release date every year will make OWI eventually lose a great part of its community's interest regarding Soulstorm.
As for the cinematic I liked it and appreciated its release, but not so much.
The flying Sligs are looking good and got a more modern tech sort of (they just got two propellers, which aids them in the flight for sure), but yet, even with 1080p of video quality, I see that their textures are not well defined and/or not fully rendered. There may be two possible reasons for this: 1) The models or the whole cinematic are not final and actually need to be improved (or, even better, completed); 2) The latest Unity rendering techniques are not of a great quality.
Anyway I like em. The Magog logo is a nice touch, the machine gun makes them more dangerous (but it's kind of illogical, it's a heavy gun and it shouldn't help much in flying) and they look more modern with still an industrial style at which OWI never fails imo. The train is the proof of it, it's dope but yet it looks like its texture quality is also not great, same for the bottles, which makes me really less intersted in Unity latest rendering engines. At least Toby and Alf are well rendered. I like them more ofc. They both have more muscle mass than other mudokons did (especially Alf, which was skinny as everymud else was), and this is normal; they're not slaves, and I'm sure it's possible for them to get some muscles as well it is for humans when they're being forced to work 24h a day.
The animation is also good, definitively better than the one seen in New n Tasty.
But in some points...
...it's bad. Toby's eyes stretching up there for example is exaggerated and probably was meant to still have that comic style every main Oddworld game had, yet it's bad.
The lighting and the bloom seems to be both better compared to NnT, but not the best imo.
Alf saying "Holy Fuck" is the best thing of this cinematic.
And the Shaman is amazing, probably the most well-made thing we saw from Soulstorm.
So what I can say, I am excited but obviously it's gonna take lots of time for OWI to finish this. The more I see this video the more I realize it. I can wait but I'm not sure if this is coming around 2020, I'm sorry but I can't trust OWI anymore regarding release dates. I just can't. Well done, but I hope Lorne leads the project in the best way as possible.
We've seen what Soulstorm is like this time: it's a whole new and darker game which also got a new design that looks more realistic and less comical unlike the previous titles
Yeah we've sort of already known all this since 2017 though.
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it's bad. Toby's eyes stretching up there for example is exaggerated and probably was meant to still have that comic style every main Oddworld game had, yet it's bad.
It's bad because like I said it doesn't fit the style at all and can come off as jarring. On the subject of Toby, why was his voice so obviously timestretched? I hope it's not like that in the final release.
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The lighting and the bloom seems to be both better compared to NnT, but not the best
Why?
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Alf saying "Holy Fuck" is the best thing of this cinematic.
He says 'holy shit' and I agree, it's pretty unexpected.
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all Meechmunchie did by trying to troll me was distract from the fact you all have no regard for Hetro or their rights at all, none.
I'm not a great expert about gamma etc for now, but it's obvious (at least for me) that it is less applied compared to NnT, I noticed that since I played the game recently. And the lighting seems also a bit more balanced. Yet they both feel strange to my eyes, not sure how I can explain this exactly but I think you got it.
Oh Oddworld Inhabitants, why are you so conflicting?
It's super exciting to finally see some moving footage from Soulstorm. The characters look great and have some actual personality this time which is good. And just like with New 'n' Tasty I feel like they're pushing the graphical capabilities of the Unity engine to their max. And yet somehow, despite all the criticism on NnT's complete overuse of bloom and lens flare and all that other nonsense, here we are again with the exact same bullshit. The entire cut scene is covered in lens 'dirt', and there's bloom all over the place. It's completely unnecessary and does no justice to the amazingly modeled characters.
Then, the animations. I like them, they're fluid and 'cinematic' for lack of a better word. But then we again venture back into bad habits with this comically intended wide eyed Toby shit that actually manages to nearly break the character model. That part of the scene needs to be cut out entirely, it's THAT bad.
It's a great scene, but it makes some really weird mistakes that I hope get polished. Drop the bloom, drop the lens flare, drop the weird comedic undertone. Soulstorm was going back to Oddworld's darker roots. Please stay there. Comedy can be weaved in through dialog. We don't need cartoony wide eyed characters screaming "FASTERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR" to convey some terrible attempt at comedy or something.
Anyone ever see their hero faceplant off a pedestal? I think that just happened to me. I simply can't believe that a perfectionist like Lorne who has dozens of years of experience in film making believes the lens effects in this cutscene are a positive addition. Just... how? Is he blind?
Holy crap; I didn't notice this before. They definitely should do something about that before the game gets released (if it ever does). Now I see why you guys were so upset about that part.
EDIT: Also, oh my gosh; why do they still have the "dirty lens effect"? It's really annoying to look at.
i love the train cutscene. sligs look cool with upgraded flight suits so it's actually believable that they might be able to keep up with a train in comparison to their previous flight suit designs which was basically a propeller stuck to what sounded like a two-stroke engine. now they seem like they can actually fly fast at long distances, rather than just being nimble at short distances. also, guns are cool, maybe a little 'overstated' for their size but i'm not complaining. like STM said, it reminds me of the vickers machine guns they used in aerial combat during the first world war.
i'll admit, i also found the part with Toby yelling "FASTEERR" sort of out of place, but at the same time i was instantly reminded of stereotypical Oddworld humour. it's like how they're powering a train with bottles of soulstorm brew, i just wrote it off as more Oddworld quirkiness or video game logic like a lot of you probably did too. yeah, AO and AE were darker than, say, MO, but that doesn't mean to say there was absolutely no 'silly' humour in those games. i think we just forget some things or choose to ignore them. for example, vice president Aslik. ass-lick. that's a pretty dumb name and it's not exactly realistic, yet no one seems to complain about it.
and don't forget Dripik being so dumb he forgets his own name, having to use farts while mimicking native muds because using flatulence as part of a native password is totally normal, possessing your own farts (how the fuck does that even work?) etc. there never has been an Oddworld game that's been completely serious, and their humour has always been a little quirky and 'odd', but i think at this stage that's part of their signature. SW was probably the game with the most serious overall tone.
all in all i fucking love the cutscene. train looks like a thundering juggernaut, sligs look like they just joined up with the SAS, the way the mudokons look and move really pleases me and I LOVE ALF'S HAT
tbh i've never been that crazy about the Toby character, but Alf is fucking great. much love for Alf. he's an old workhorse.
EDIT EDIT EDIT: hang on a second, are you dicks really complaining about how his fucking brows overlap his hat? fucking jesus.
1) it's a computer game. if you want that level of fucking high definition realism, watch a movie. they contain real life actors with real life facial expressions. you'll be amazed.
2) how picky do you want to be? i didn't even notice that one second of cutscene where his eyelids happened to move over the bottom of his hat. i mean, did you watch the cutscene one frame at a fucking time or something? or have you just been replaying the video over and over again since they first uploaded it to youtube? seriously, talk about petty.
3) this is just personal opinion, but he's wearing his hat at an angle near the back of his head and his eyebrows are pretty deep. by that i mean that his eyebrows stick out more than normal. the fact they stick out of his face more than normal would make it plausible that they might hide the bottom of his hat while he was pulling an extremely surprised expression. you people have already said how his eyes seemed to open wider than natural, makes sense to me that his big fat eyebrows might hide part of his hat while he made that expression. fuck me.
4) grow up. i've already typed too much shit in response to this. oddworld fans are the fucking worst. just enjoy the cutscene you insufferable fucking turds.
says the guy who never, ever seems to have anything good to say about the newer oddworld games. how many fucking arguments have you started with OWI members here on the forums because you think you know better than the game designers? have you ever tried shutting the fuck up or making criticism that actually is constructive and not just thinly veiled chances to ridicule and micromanage their progress?
nah, of course not. because you know what's best for OWI. you know everything.
and how the fuck am i praising it into the heavens? i just pointed out a bunch of faults with this cutscene and the previous oddworld games did i not? are you fucking retarded or just looking for an argument?
you're still the same dumb cunt as when i first fucking joined. at least you're reliable in that regard.
says the guy who never, ever seems to have anything good to say about the newer oddworld games. how many fucking arguments have you started with OWI members here on the forums because you think you know better than the game designers? have you ever tried shutting the fuck up or making criticism that actually is constructive and not just thinly veiled chances to ridicule and micromanage their progress?
nah, of course not. because you know what's best for OWI. you know everything.
and how the fuck am i praising it into the heavens? i just pointed out a bunch of faults with this cutscene and the previous oddworld games did i not? are you fucking retarded or just looking for an argument?
you're still the same dumb cunt as when i first fucking joined. at least you're reliable in that regard.
I had to leave the official discord because he and other users would do nothing but argue, argue, argue. Today alone he tried to start an argument with an OWI user over percieved slights by the PR team and tried to start an argument with me because he was personally offended by me taking issue with another user directly harassing me.
Exciting News! SOULSTORM!
I loved the cinematic! Loved it. Opening with teh glukk train then to tailed by "Flying friggin sligs" =D. 
