News for May '98

 

May 31, 1998

ShockShots. - 9:31pm EST - Dan
 I places images from Cutscenes in the ShockShots page. When the "guide to Citadel" is finished, I shall place all of the gameplay screanshots from it on the ShockShots page in zip format.

May 30, 1998

Recent Additions. - 1:32am EST - Dan
 I put a nifty little poll device on the ShockTunes page. Now visitors can vote on their favorite level Midi!

I hooked up to a new guestbook, one that I feel is nicer, and to a Discussion panel, where System Shock fans can post up messages, and reply to them, and so forth and so on.

(And for all of those out there who notice my 1:00 AM work hours; Yes, I do have a life. I can afford to sleep in.)

May 29, 1998

ShockWaves and ShockTunes. - 12:10am EST - Dan
 Me and my overambitious self cracked open those themes, grabbed all the good wave files, and posted them up in our new waves section!! Not wanting our Midi files to feel second best, I moved them to a page all their own as well. Check out the new midi section !!! I hope all of you Shock fans appreciate all of my HARD WORK, and download a bunch of your favorite wave files.

Oh yes, I also added UniVBE.exe to the files page. Go look there and look, if you are interested in knowing what the heck I'm talking about...

EA to publish System Shock 2 - 1:08pm EST - Dan
 I picked up this bit of news at OGR.com. What does this mean? My guess at this point is that System Shock 2 will be an "Official" sequal, continuing the System Shock story, rather than a Cyberpunk adventure in the System Shock style. Expect TONS more news to come as soon as Saam gets back from E3! (should be sunday night)

Today at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, Electronic Arts announced a distribution agreement with Looking Glass Studios. Under the agreement, EA will publish several titles that bear the Looking Glass brand.

The first two titles to be developed will be System Shock 2 and Flight Unlimited III. System Shock 2 will be a first-person 3D science fiction role-playing game; according to Looking Glass, System Shock 2 will "match the role-playing depth" of the original while incorporating advanced 3D graphics technologies and AI.

Flight Unlimited III will be the next title in their well-received series of FU games. Tom Frisina, vice president of Electronic Arts Distribution, said: "Looking Glass Studios has a rich history of developing superb PC entertainment software titles. They have created several of the game industry's best-liked franchises, including Ultima Underworld and the Flight Unlimited series. Because of their outstanding track record, we are extremely pleased with our co-publishing partnership and look forward to adding the Looking Glass brand to our roster of best-of-breed titles."

Paul Neurath, managing director of Looking Glass Studios, said: "EA's industry renowned marketing and worldwide distribution makes them the perfect publishing partner for System Shock 2 and Flight Unlimited III. We believe that working with Electronic Arts will allow us to maximize the reach of Looking Glass' products."

by Doug Radcliffe
May 29, 1998

(By the way, I modified the walkthrough with a nifty table of contents, so you don't have to sift through the whole thing to find one speck of much needed info.)

New Desktop Themes - 12:10am EST - Dan
 I found some more themes on the ftp site. It looked as if Saam had forgotten about them, or was just about to post them up. They are all up now, in the files section. They contain many waves that we don't have posted, so if your favorite quote isn't in our waves section, you may want to try the Theme that you think it might be in.

May 28, 1998

Guestbook Moved - 4:17pm EST - Dan
 The Guestbook has been moved to the front page, where it should be more accessible, to encourage visitors to sign it. We like to hear from our fellow Shock fans!!

Files page Updated - 3:40pm EST - Dan
 The files page has been completely updated. All of the new Midis, the texture extractor, and a new System Shock Theme has been posted. Email me if there are any download problems.

New Overview Page! - 2:00pm EST - Dan
 The Overview page is now much more official. In fact, it bears a striking resemblance to the generic System Shock description given by Origin. (That's because that's exactly what it is...)

Regular visitors may also notice some changes to the sidebar, such email links to both Saam and I, a link to Elite Enterprises webpage, a removal of the FAQ and SS2 Petition links, and other changes to insignificant to be worth mentioning.

Expect many more small tweaks and alterations to come!

May 27, 1998

Greetings From Elite Enterprises!! - 10:45am EST - Dan
 Hello, My name is Daniel Todd. I am not only the Chief Graphic artist at Elite Enterprises, but a devoted fan of System Shock, and all of LookingGlass's other fabulous action adventure titles. I will be helping Saam with site updates, remodeling, and possibly soon a complete re-conception of this site. The latter may take a while, but in the meantime, he and I will be working together to make browsing TriOptimum a great experience, for System Shock fans, or anyone who passes through these portals.

Okay, that was my official "Hello" spiel. Hi! I'm Dan. Saam and Dan... Hmmm... maybe I should change my name to Daan. Or why not just go with Da`an, and Sa`am "We are the companions, we are here, to help" (Any "Earth: Final Conflict" fans out there?...no? okay, never mind then.) That bit about me, the Graphic Artist is no joke, don't believe me? Check out the Art Gallery at http://www.rwtodd.com/artgallery. It's named "Lord-Reaper's Fantasy Art Gallery". (Lord-Reaper is my screen-name.) Enough about that, I need to get back to work on "The Guide to Citadel" (working title). Yes, that is the thing that you have seen screen-shots of. Yes, they are full of typos, and no, I haven't fixed the typos yet. 8-D.

Thank you, and Goodnight.
-Daniel Todd
~Lord-Reaper

May 25, 1998

News/New Counter - 8:01pm EST - Saam
Cheers to my partner Dan for quickly finding me a counter to use for the site- the hits is slightly off, but hey, who cares? :)

-Regarding E3 and LookingGlass, I have spoken to Doug Church- yes you should know who he is (SS's Project Leader/Lead Programmer) and we're supposed to meet/hang out probably every day or so during E3. There will be a "semi-playable" demo of Thief, but unfortunately, nothing on Shock from what I hear. I even begged him to send me a screenshot of Shock, but to no avail.

-Also, I archived the news for your downloading pleasure, so if you haven't visited TriOptimum in a long time, I suggest you take a look at the News Archive.

-I am pleased to announce that I will be one of the 2 Editors-in-Chief's at eXscape Productions, located at http://www.exscape.com. It is a very cool online gaming site, and I used to work there before I started up this page (Jan of '97). I will be heading up the news/hardware section over there, so expect a big bang during and after E3, around June 1st. I hope to see all you there!

-What I love about the Internet is that if you go to AltaVista and search for, let's say, System Shock (who would've guessed?), you'll find a bunch of pages relating to it. If you then check back a few months later, and type in the same search string, you will find a crapload of more pages! I did that today, and here is what I found:
-A store where they sell some kind of hint book (no, not I.C.E. Breaker) for an insane amount of money!
-Another SS walkthrough, this time by Todd Bailey.
-A little review on Allaboutgames.com; they even have a mini-message board!
-A discussion on System Shock and BlackOps (hmm.. now who was that written by? :))
-A band called System Shock?

Well, that's all for today's show (hehe). I will be back with TONS of info after E3! See ya!

May 22, 1998

Counter Not Working!! - 1:05am EST - Saam
Crap! My counter, for some odd reason, has decided to stop working- I disabled it for now. Can anyone find me a new, more reliable counter? I'd really appreciate it.

Also, as you have probably guessed, I'll be heading off to E3 on Wednesday, May 27th, and I'll be there till Sunday (woohoo!!). You can bet your hacker ass that I'm going to visit LG's booth and ask questions about Thief and Shock like there's no tomorrow. :)

May 17, 1998

I'm Back!! - 6:29pm EST - Saam
Wow! What a busy 2 1/2 weeks this has been! I'm glad to say that I'm back (not for good, though). There have been a lot of things going on lately with my life, so I'm not sure if I can maintain this page as often as I want to. Dan, my friend who's helping me with the re-design, has also taken a slight break (exams), but he assured me that work will continue on throughout the summer. Anyway, onto the news:

-I have finally posted the SS Texture Extractor!! NOTE: Use at your own risk. Click here to download it (15k or something like that). Thanks again to Volkov Vasily for providing this wonderful program. I also have the source code (in C) if you coders would like to try and edit/optimize it. Email me if you want the source code.

-Looking Glass's Thief: The Dark Project page has been updated with new screenshots and their latest post in the development diary. Check it out!

-Regarding to more Shock news, I haven't spoken to my contact in a while, but as soon as I reach him, I will let you know on anything new. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten you loyal SS fans!

-In case you're looking for an excellent gaming site, complete with reviews, news, hardware, and fun, look no further. My boy Amer and the girls over at Cyrellis 3D suit the title of "studmuffin" perfectly. What are you waiting for? Check it out! (Amer, you're *mine* at E3!)

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