System Shock - Q&A and Patch Preview

The latest System Shock update focuses on answering common questions and previews the upcoming patch for the free demo.

Common Questions

Before getting into patch stuff, I'd like to quickly answer the biggest questions I've been seeing:

Pixelated / low-res textures - In the current demo, some textures look "pixelated" up close. This actually has nothing to do with their texture resolution. Before video cards became commonplace in the late 90s, textures did not get filtered. We're doing the same thing to have a bit of a retro touch. In the next demo update, we've switched from no filtering to trilinear. Some screenshots are below in the patch preview section
Orchestral vs. electronic music - We're going to have an audio update written by Jonathan, our audio engineer and composer, to go over this stuff in more detail some time this week. Until then, the short answer is that the final score will definitely be more cyberpunk than just straight orchestral. Also, the full orchestra stretch goal will not change the music style. It will make all orchestral elements crisper while maintaining the electronic pieces.
Story / plot changes - We won't be deviating from the main story or plot from the original. We will be rewriting most of the text (well, when I say "we", I actually mean my good friend, Mr. Chris Avellone). The overall story will be the same, but we might change some details/wording here and there for the sake of consistency and pacing.
RPG elements - We understand this is a pretty vague term and has been confusing to backers. The original System Shock was ahead of its time and introduced a lot of new elements to gaming. We want to preserve that innovation and present a game we feel modern gamers will enjoy. Our goal is to have the gameplay somewhere between System Shock 1 and System Shock 2, with sprinkles of BioShock on top (rich melee attacks and ranged weapons, vending machines, upgrades, and damage types). If there's enough of a demand, we'll add a "Classic Mode" to one of the stretch goals that disables all RPG stuff as an option.
Engine - Our pre-alpha demo is in Unity, and that is the technology the team has been using for the past several months. However, we are familiar with other engines and are open to exploring options that make sense. Changing engines during a project is a pretty big risk and not a choice to be taken lightly. At the end of the day, we will use the technology we feel is best suited to deliver the highest quality game with the resources we have.

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Trilinear-filtered textures

As mentioned above, the current version of the demo is using point-filtered textures. In the next patch, we've switched this over to trilinear to see what our backers think. Here are some before/after shots:

Before

After

Here's an album with higher-res images and more comparisons.

Grenades and items

All consumable items should be usable in the next patch. The item that looks the most interesting to use is the grenade :-D

We've also improved the responsiveness and feel of melee combat.

On top of that, we have lots of fixes and some performance improvements. We're hoping to get the patch out within a few days. Once it's out, we'll post another update with some patch notes.