Dropship - Coming Soon?

[Dhruin]

Remember Dropship (http://www.laidback-gaming.com/)? Only a few, I would guess. We have one other newsbit (http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?newsbit=3278) about the indie space-y RPG project from ex-Troika-ite Michael McCarthy from 2006 and nothing since. I cruise by the site every few days and see the flash animation of a sofa - and nothing else.
Wandering past today I see the flash has been replaced by a static image and the title bar of "Coming soon" - but nothing else. Something is happening. Hopefully.
More information. (http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?newsbit=12533)

[Stormwaltz]

Troika + SFRPG? Of course I remember this one!

[Brother None]

No kidding. Really happy to hear this one is still going.

[rune_74]

I actually never heard of this one...shocking, since if it was trioka I'm super excited by it.

[Dhruin]

Well, not Troika per se but an artist who worked at Troika. It's an exciting prospect but it would be nice have more than a static website. I'm sure he's busy at Massive Black but even a "too busy, can't show anything yet" would be appreciated.

[rune_74]

errr artist? arcanum was hit and miss for its art....toee was pretty good and so was vampire

[Dhruin]

You think? I thought it was spot-on, artistically. The graphic technology was ordinary but the art was great.

[Resch]

You may also want to post about the Dropship cinematic at the Applied Cinematics' website (http://appliedcinematics.com/Applied_Dropship.html). It's a company McCarthy worked at, a year ago they had a splash screen saying they were working on an UE3 game. Furthermore, over at ITS (http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php?topic=655.msg28074#msg28074) puppyonastik noticed that the spaceship in the clip is the same one McCarthy showed to RPGCodex.

[screeg]

I wonder if it's still turn-based, since it appears to be First-Person and as Resch said uses Unreal Engine 3.

[guenthar]

That video doesn't mean it is actually a first person game since most early videos of a 3d game are in a first person view since it is simple to create. Also if a person tried they could put a turn based system in an engine like the Unreal 3 Engine so we have to wait and see how the game is going to be.

PS. I didn't remember this game but now that I know I am waiting for more info about it.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

You think? I thought it was spot-on, artistically. The graphic technology was ordinary but the art was great.

I think we must learn to put an exact distinction between art and technology.

Mixing both is imho unfair to the artists themselves.


Besides, with the name of "Dropship", I must always think of "Homeworld" ...

[Brother None]

errr artist? arcanum was hit and miss for its art....toee was pretty good and so was vampire

Seriously? Because some of the front-runners of today's gaming concept art worked at Troika. Massive Black (http://massiveblack.com/mbNew/frontpage.html), considered by many the best concept art studio in existence, employs several former Troikaites. Same for 3D artists, to some extent.

Besides, McCarthy was actually a programmer on Arcanum. He was the lead artist on ToEE, and did just a bit of artwork on Bloodlines.

He also worked on some of Fallout 2's cutscenes.

[rune_74]

I never said I didn't like arcanum, I did....but it was definately behind in tech when it was released. And it did need a ton of patches to get good....don't get me wrong I loved the game...seeing trioka go was bad.

I guess what I really meant was the resolution and engine they used must have limited them. I'm one of the minority I think who enjoyed TOEE....