Myagi on 8/12/2007 at 14:42

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I think it's a very common mistake IMO, to give Spector more credit for ss1 than is due. I'd put my money on Doug Church being a bigger factor in that game.


To quote Spector

"I also got the chance to work with the guys at Blue Sky Productions on Ultima Underworld. That was where I first met Doug Church, lead programmer and project director on Underworld, Underworld 2, and System Shock. Collaborating with Doug on those titles was probably the high point of my time at ORIGIN. He's a special and underappreciated guy in this business."

And being an "outside producer" is probably correct, he worked for Origin and lived in Austin.


As a side note, media is often happy to list Thief too in Spector's credits, so let me paste another quote from him

"So I signed on with Looking Glass, worked briefly on Thief: The Dark Project (though my impact on that title was, at best, minimal)"

ZylonBane on 8/12/2007 at 17:20

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I've been looking for an excuse to post this scan. Perhaps someone more energetic than myself would feel like typing it up.

(http://img114.imageshack.us/my.php?image=highscoressscangl6.jpg) http://img114.imageshack.us/img114/7512/highscoressscangl6.th.jpg

It's a page and a half from (http://www.amazon.com/High-Score-Illustrated-History-Electronic/dp/0072231726/) High Score!: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games, where Warren talks about SS and DX.

D'Arcy on 8/12/2007 at 19:12

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The text on the right edge doesn't concern System Shock.

Incidentally, that's the kind of problem I'm having with I.C.E. Breaker. The book doesn't have a standard size, and doesn't fit properly into my scanner.

jtr7 on 8/12/2007 at 23:19

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Warren Spector and System Shock

One of our favorite producer/designers is Warren Spector, who has worked variously at Steve Jackson Games, TSR, Origin Systems, Blue Sky Software, and Ion Storm. He worked often as a producer and designer, with multiple credits, including several Ultima and Ultima Underworld games and several Wing Commander games. He was the producer on the ground-breaking game System Shock, which set the stage for 3D first-person adventure games. System Shock was developed by Looking Glass, the same great team that brought us the Ultima Underworld games, with Doug Church as the project leader.

"I think Doug Church, Looking Glass studio Head Paul Neurath, and I were so tired of fantasy games," says Spector. "We just wanted to move into a different genre entirely. The science fiction setting had a strong appeal. But mostly, I think, it was an attempt to bring even more depth--of story, of simulation, of player experience--to gaming."
Spector comments on the collaborative nature of the project: "Doug Church was clearly a guy with a vision, and I kibitzed mightily, but the design work was spread around as much as I've ever experienced. Programmers came up with system designs...writers came up with story elements...designers built levels...but there were some incredible team meetings where high-level conceptual stuff got hammered out, as well as a lot of details, in an atmosphere of total respect and commitment to quality. That was a cohesive team, I can tell you..."
Like many games, System Shock nearly didn't make it out the door. "On Shock, the biggest challenge from my perspective as out-of-house producer, was communicating what the game was all about to a management group that didn't always get what the team was trying to do," said Spector. "You don't want to know how many times the game came this close to getting killed (or how late in the project)."

Inset "It's all in the details":

Warren Spector comments on the special attention that went into the details in System Shock: "I just remember being blown away (and, I admit, terrified) at the team's audacity. They'd do stuff like take time out from actually finishing the game to implement little minigames you could download in cyberspace, or make a starfield outside the station windows appear to move, or start securtiy cameras rotating the day before we signed off. Drove the poor producer crazy, but it's stuff like that that takes a game from really good to great... That's what I keep telling myself anyway."

Kolya on 9/12/2007 at 03:03

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Deus Ex

Later, Spector got the opportunity of a lifetime when John Romero offered him the chance to make "the game he's always wanted to make" for Romero's newly established company, Ion Storm. The game Spector made, Deus Ex, has been hailed by players and press as one of the most innovative action adventure games ever made. In a time when so many games were plotless firefests, Deus Ex offered deep stories, characters, real dilemmas, and alternative methods of play.
Again, Spector comments: "I was really feeling like I had to prove something to execs, journalists, and fans who had pounded into me the idea that the kind of games I loved were doomed to be nichey and appealing only to the hard core. I wanted so badly to prove them all wrong. I think we did OK on that score!
Deus Ex was the next logical step, at least in my mind along an evolutionary path that started with the Underworld and then Shock and then Thief. I spent a year working with the Thief team and found myself a little frustrated at how narrowly focused that game was shaping up to be. That's not a bad thing, but I just kept arguing that we could allow players more freedom of action than Thief allowed. We ??? let them fight their way through problems as well as ???.
We could allow them to interact directly with NPCs as ??? as overhear them and avoid them... None of those ideas ??? any place in Thief, so I knew I had to find a way to make ??? game that allowed a broader range of player choices than any other game had ever had.
On Deus Ex, the biggest challenge, in terms of of pro??? was dealing with a game that was, by design, unfocused. (???)
We didn't want it to be a shooter or an RPG or an ad??? game or a strategy game. We wanted it to incorporate elements of all those games types. And I (perhaps ???) assembled a team of people who, well, let's just say they didn't always agree on what made a good game, a bad ??? and so on. Merging disparate opinions and differing ??? and implementations styles into a reasonably coherent ??? product was tough! In terms of design and implement??? the biggest challenge was probably making sure that ??? enough variety of play style choices was supported ??? macro level and at the micro level. Every problem had to have multiple solutions. Every character develop??? choice - every augmentation, every skill, every item ??? be useful in enough circumstances to be worthy of ??? in the game. And the emergent game play possibilities ??? so broad we couldn't always predict what circumstances players would find themselves in! Balancing DX was ??? toughest challenge I've experienced."