IM: The Vault

OH MY GOD.

I'm so eager, damn you guys for getting me all hyped!

Before I still believed, now....I am committed. Keep up the good work. I hope it'll be on console next year.

Looks Awesome,

Lets just say I'm proud to be a spearhead, supporting the development of such an amazing game. Keep it going guys, were all rooting for you.

Awesome, awesome, awesome! :D

Six more days?! You guys are killing me (in a good way)!

For the Spearheads who haven't seen it yet, check out the Briefing Room (next to Upgrade - Profile - Logout), for exclusive content, and to see how devoted these guys are.

I'm amazed, as usual. I still can't get it into my head that this is both a danish AND a indie game. The amount of quality overwhelms my little brain, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarh.

Awesome!

Looking very much forward to it :)

so near I can almost taste it!

It would be cool if you guys (at ZPS) could give a full list of updates to the website, each time you do some.

So far, I've noticed Briefing Room, Count-down page for The Vault, updated shiny ranks and accessible profile pages (press the usernames).

Way to go Zero point software, Cant wait to deploy

I just upgraded to Spearhead Unit ^^ Can't wait for "The Vault"

Way to go NickoTron!

Awesome man! Welcome to the Interstellar Marines!

@Siepher: Well you pretty much read our minds; We've definitely been talking about making some kind of Changelog on the site. Hopefully we can push it in, in a not so distant future.

Off the top of my head these are the major things that was made for this release (v1.2.0):

* The Vault countdown app (pre-load the Unity player before launch)
* Briefing Room (Spearheads & Frontliners only)
* Public User Profiles (This one we've been wanting to do ever since the site launch)
* Preview page with the Chapters so far (Not fully exposed yet, but you can find it in the breadcrumbs when accessing the "The Vault" page)
* Database migrations (making room for some cool features launched in the near future)
* Backend updates (makes it easier for ZPSHicks and the likes to provide you with new content)

Besides that the whole team has been hard at work, fine-tuning The Vault which - as you know - will go LIVE next Friday at 15:00 CET. :)

Thanks for the list heks, I'll put that on the Steam group news aswell.

And yeah, I noticed the preview page with the chapters aswell, but I forgot all about adding that to the list, heh. Thanks for the reminder.

Meh, can't edit my comment, but as an idea, make a changelog thread for now, and sticky it.

That would be jawsome.

OMG OMG OMG!!! :D I got boner! I got boner! I got boner! I got boner! I got boner! I got boner! I got boner! I got boner! I got boner! I got boner! I got boner! I got boner! I got boner! I got boner! I got boner! I got boner! I got boner! I got boner! I got boner! I got boner! I got boner! I got boner! I got boner! I got boner! I got boner! I got boner! I got boner! I got boner! I got boner! I got boner! :D

Information that I could have done it without.

Alright, gotta stop stalking the website now, even though I'm bored, because my friday night got cancelled. -.-

Even though we do not yet have a "members online" list / display fuction. You are not alone, Marine! :)

Can't wait till we can all say: "What did you call my mother! OK thats it! YOU and ME basement (multiplay level) NOW! and let settle this with a first frag wins" :)

Peace,
/ZPSHicks

I can not wait for friday now :D!

Friday can't come soon enough! Bad luck to all the muggles.

@Weirdo

Definitely too much information.

@Siepher

But i love sharing! :D And i think what is good should be spared

@Astalano

The boner is almost gone if that counts for something

@ZPSHicks

When will we get that list? :D

@ZPSHicks

Ohhhhh, I like the sound of that. Sounds like a hint of Deathmatch in the game. ;)

Keep up the good work cant wait to see more of what you've been up to.

SARAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! (Marines check briefing room - listen and be ...hmmm..... "happy!?")

Dad!, take a rest...!!

This is just excellent! You guys are all making me proud to be both a Spearhead Unit and Danish at the very same time!

You're inspiring me to work harder and harder for every new thing you're revealing. I adore your work. Can't wait 'till we reach the release date of the game, haha. It'll be SO awesome to meet up with you all (The community and ZPS) in-game, or at a release party IRL? ;)

I will try to get a news page released ASAP over at FPSBanana, so if you get a few more Spearheads or members in general, that might be why, but don't be too exited, the site is not what it used to be. (FPSB, not this one, haha.)

Over and out.

You guys got my money, good job. ;)

Hi guys new spearhead marine here i hope to be with you guys till the end and beyond.

@Argoon

One word: Jawsome!

I just updated our Briefing Room with a two images of our weapon concepts in development!

FLOG!
(We talked internally about this the other day! :) both "the" are so last century)

Welcome aboard Argoon!

First thing tomorrow: upgrade account. Now it's starting to look promising.. It all just makes it a little easier believing :D

Very cool indeed, makes me proud to be involved and invested in the project Interstellar Marines! I've been away at college for the last few months with only very limited internet access so this was a real suprise when I came home and fired up my computer! Keep up the great work guys!

This is great news! Good to see the dream lives on. I cant wait!!

I am proud to be supporting this game. You guys are doing a great job. Can't wait till the vault opens!

THE VAULT!!! :D

good stuff!

and...is it just me or does the spearhead/frontliner/enlisted avarts look new as well?

Yes, ther're new as wel :)

Yes, they've been made shinier!

Also, I hope you guys don't mind, but I've spread the news to Railgun.

http://railgun.newz.dk/zero-point-soft
ware-fortsaetter-med-interstellar-marines

I hope that'll bring aboard some new members.

I know this would be a long shot at this point in time, but if possible can you give us feedback on if it might be possible in later additions for a pet type creature in the squad?

wolvern: That would be a spoiler wouldn't it?

@Ree

You kinda let it out there :p Now we know something like that is planned or being planned :p

@weirdoo

Not really. Him saying that telling would be a spoiler, is not really saying that it's being planned. :P

Aye!
NickoTron is mah brother, and he told me to upgrade to Spearhead Unit, so I did.
Can't wait for The Vault either!

- LameHead - Not That Lame Again!

Welcome aboard.. uhm.. Lamehead. :D

This is AWESOME! great news indeed! was looking at the roster at the Unity Engine site and all I can say is DEAR LORD BABY JESUS!, those guys have quite a roster.

Unity + IM = EPIC WIN!

Welcome Lamehead. :)

Is it me or are we getting more Spearheads all of a sudden?

@Astalano

It definately feels like we are. I'm not surprised, since the release of the Vault teaser.

I wonder when we'll reach the 75,000 Spearhead limit... :)

I'm at 1025. :D

Oh yeah, I forgot the limit was 75k.

That's quite alot.

At least I get to laugh at teh noobz later. ^^

*puts on grandpa voice*

I was here from the beginning! I still believe!

I believe your signup date was 4 months and 2 weeks ago, while mine is 4 months and 3 weeks ago, ha!

Hehe...

Anyway, I can't wait for Friday's update.

Me neither.

Alright, gotta stop checking the website now. :P

You do that. ^_-

Haha, so much fun to read your comments guys. I seriously love this community! :D

._.

Been out on a mission for a while ;-)... but I have to say, I'm not dissapointed with what I'm getting back to!! Eager to enter the Vault!

Yeah, progress... This is so sweet... is the quality game quality or will go even further with the textures, models etc... I know that the quality in the unreal engine was even higher than the quality of these models... Is this the limit with unity or can you go even further?

jn20

*edit

Yeah, progress... This is so sweet... is this game quality or will go even further with the textures, models etc... I know that the quality in the unreal engine was even higher than the quality of these models and textures... Is this the limit with unity or can you go even further?

jn20

@ jn20: Well in the top left corner it says "In-game" so I'm pretty sure it'll look like this in-game. ;)

Seriously, wow ZPS.
I remember joining just over four and a half months ago, there was only one or two articles, no forum, little members and to compare it to now, its staggering what you've managed to achieve.

@Capital

Wait till after Christmas...that's when the preview codes will be coming out. We'll have the discussions on the forums that non-Spearheads/Frontliners can watch, but not participate in. Reviews of early builds...it will be amazing once the game starts picking up the pace and more updates keep coming out. I'll be glad when we reach the Spearhead limit. 75,000 x 33 euros=2475000 euros. When we get to that point, the company is made, the games are made. Because a community this strong will show unrivaled support for any game ZPS makes, especially the Interstellar Marines trilogy. That devoted group of 75,000 people will usually tell others...and with more people to back them up, others who were less sure will follow the trend.

Just add a spark and you have fireworks. :)

well I’ll give them this idea of sorts for free, make a pet like creature with the same swarm properties as the ant-lions in HL2 then adjust the ability to lead them with noise frequency either away or towards yourself. I've seen a few movies in which this worked because the bugs/animals were attracted by noise since they couldn't see.

Nice idea and it also allows a panic situation when under fire, which in turn also leads to tactical use of them sometimes. The old star trek elite force/2 used this in some aspect of a swarm enemy but it always had a friend / foe.

Most of my upcoming titles include this feature with multiple use aspects to it, if you'd want us to help you with the implementation of its use.

well...the titan walker would be an obvious choice for a pet-like-creature.... :)

I agree with forgefire.

@kosai106

Wrong... It's In-Engine... which could mean that there's more work to be done on the textures, models, effects etc... Besides the quality is currently lower than what I have seen in the Unreal engine... I believe that's because they are still porting their work to the new engine... Hope I didn't reveal anything covered by my NDA. But since I didn't mention anything but the quality I hope I'm safe.

I think you're safe jn20.

But to be honest, I think it looks higher of quality than before. Also, keep in mind that the material shown in the Vault, is made to show off in the Unity Web Player, it may have limitations.

It looks a lot "cleaner", more crisp, especially the landsharks.

Spearhead a Frontliners! You are lucky:)).. I love this game, that timer is fu..ing sweet!!! And that ship - Megalodon, she is awesome..

Grats for your featured comment. ^^

graphics doesnt seem to be quite up there....yet :)
But hopefully that will come with time...and yeah there may be some limitations to the browser player in unity as well

I'm pretty sure that the web player got limitations, or else it'll be a hell to run it.
My guess is that most of the textures are sized down to half size or even lower.

SARA (Terri Brosius) ....

Just looking forward to "her voice" guiding us Marines.......... on our way......... forward...

@ReStMarine

This is why we need an edit option...

You know the Briefing Room is only for Spearheads/Frontliners, right...

Meh, spoiler, great.

Epic fail restmarine :P On the other hand im taking a overdose of sleeping pills to push forward the procees a so called i sleep for 3 days and nearly die just to see the vault open :D thing :P Well what im trying to say... This is gonna be JAWSOME! :)

anxiety is building up and still 5 days to go! I want to get into the vault!... friday 8am local time I'll get up just to get in the vault(or not sleep... maybe red faction can help achieve not sleeping)

Ya'know, it's perfect timing, I got the Friday off, so I'm gonna sit glued to the screen around 15 CET.

i like the Vault idea, now i finally have good reason to LOVE IM, besides the cool sharks, raw guns the freaking good concept art, your forum, the whole game and the titan walker. did i mention everything ? ;D

You forgot me. I'm gonna be in the game too.

*cough*

He he :) you guys are like litle children waiting for the party.





And i sure comprehend why. ;) All the work shown this far looks fantastic, and the interactive "vault" idea is very good.

Is it really that obvious that we excited? :D

OK.. five more days!!! to D-DAY..

@ Siepher: I'm sure as hell are going to be in the game too! Buy the full package and get a free Kosai included in the price! ;D

@Kosai106

Can I skip it? ._.

My version will have cookies.

Shark cookies?

http://sugarcoatedlove.com/images/uplo
ads/shark_lg.jpg

And Siepher-flavoured cookies. :)

I taste the same as Hello Kitty Poptarts.

http://www.savingadvice.com/images/bl
og/hellokittypoptarts.jpg

Or at least, so I've been told.

I have actually seen this technique before -- both the other indie engine, Unigine, the ATi Ruby videos and several other systems offer an interactive "diorama" that users can freeze, navigate around or return to a predefined animation. But you are correct; most studios neither have the time or can even be bothered to offer something like this...

Although I and my parents were skeptical about paying a fee for something that might've never seen the light of day, so far, I think it's money well spent. You haven't stopped production and your're even providing incentives that distance from the norm. You should be extremely proud.

@ Hyncharas: I wasn't skeptical at all. I just bought the subscription at first glance!
If the game wouldn't ever be released, I wouldn't care 'cause I know I would have helped the development of something awesome!

I feel the same.

It's also been explained a ton of times, how bad a scam this would be, if it was, which it's not.

Sorry for the lack of confidence, in my own understanding I can't really be hyped for a game just because of the content or the genre. The only thing that will make my decision of the game is how it actually feels to play and in the most of sense the ability to have memorable moments that define the game play.

I liked halo 3 yet I don't own it, even so I liked it for the memorable deaths that ended up with funny videos of road cones killing someone from a grenade sent into the match 5 minutes beforehand. Some things within games can be memorable for the feelings throughout; Doom 3 in co-op gave me the sense of fear while running around in the dark which was only illuminated by fireballs from the enemy that I needed to kill. Crysis had a great stealth ability and even more so in Splinter Cell Chaos Theory.

"A good game is not a onetime play through, it's the journey within ourselves that gives us, the gamers a memory that we like to keep so that we may be able to experience that hype again."

I can, I will, I need and I want is the main difference behind a person who thinks for themselves opposed to the "We" factor in games. Single player games are a journey but co-operative play is what we like in a game that forces us to stay together and rely upon others more than ourselves, this is what makes a game an experience...

I vote Wolvern for featured comment. :)

agreed with the first part....but disagree very strongly with the last part of that comment :)

2 days and 21 hours to go.

Getting more and more eager.

OPEN ZEE VAULT! I WANTS YOUR HIDDEN BELONGINGS!

only five days remain!!!..

If you have seen our special "The Vault is unlocked" Teaser on Gametrailers.com, know that is was meant to be shown on Sunday October 11th after The Vault was unlocked for everybody! Does it matter, who knows! :)

We still LOVE gametrailers.com for their kick ass support

/ZPSHicks

Cant wait! ><

My long post was in direct relation to the squad of 4 and the possible lack of co-op play that may be in this game. If there is no co-op play then it'll be a squad of AI that you'll be relying upon. Most squad play games have the inadequate enemy resistance for even 1 player due to the run and gun styling of players who ditch the AI because they're too clunky to keep around during a firefight. You might as well just use them as a distraction during your assault...

Key features

"Single player or up to four players cooperative game play"

quoted from ZPS own "The Game" section.

never means the AI wont be clunky and hard to work with, L4d styled it that way and you're always shooting that bunch in SP

Yeah, the comaback!!!

People play L4D singleplayer? that must be a lot of fun... NOT!

Eh... it's alright.

Alright? I don't even know why they decided to implement a singleplayer feature in Left 4 Dead, it just didn't feel right to play with 3 AI buddies.

It was O K. Nice to have the ability to play single player but it wasn't that much fun.

Yeah I guess it's okay to play a coop game with bots... IF YOU HAVE NO FRIENDS!!

The bots are my real friends. *sob*

@windfield...

At least you have the option of influencing them... you get to decide how aggresive/passive stupid/intelligent, interesting/boring etc. they will be... Being a ZPS guy ;)

Wish I could decide that much about how my friends act... but if I did they wouldn't be them so... ;o)

We still love you Windfeld. :)

I really hope that AAA is the future. And I believe that you guys are the Spearhead.
Great work.

Viva La Windfeld!

*Pats on the head* Don't worry Windfeld, we're here for you.

Hope your AI programmer is REALLY good then windfeld, that way you can have intelligent friends =)

oooooooh... do I detect a Homeworld Cataclysm fan amidst us?

Gametrailers is the reason I stumbled upon this remarkable project. And I must add, I am so glad I did! You guys have made me a believer! :)

IN THE VAULT !!! FIRST!.... lol

i wanna sleep in the vault no night.....

I am amazed, I am truly amazed from what I saw in the Vault, ZPS, you KICK ASS!!! AND I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!

I want me a [redacted] its so freaking cool.

I am soo impressed by what you guys are doing. The Vault was awsome.
And the grapichs are super nice, espessialy for the Unity Engine.
I am very exited to see the animasjon flow. Thanks for your hard work.

SHOUTS FROM YOUR NABOR FROM NORWAY!

This is mindblowing and aweinspiring.
This is the future in gaming.
This is The Vault.

Great Work Guys... What does the count down mean... will another room be opened soon?

It keeps saying I should refresh my browser, and I've done that, restarted it and tried several browsers to get in, it keeps saying I should refresh.

if this game doesn´t come out soon, I will kill myself!

@Loyen: If you're an Enlisted Marine, the Vault won't open until Sunday.
@timmar92: Not sure about when the game will be released, but I'd expect some playable content within the next 2-3 months, so hang on in there! :)

I want to add that AA and sharper textures would be nice.
When making clean textured surfaces it need heavy lighting.
But if you use detailed texture, you'll need less "hard to process" light and shadow.
I don't know how high the texture res is, but I'll guess 1024x, but instead go for 4096x.

@MILLHA

AA, caching, better streaming and shader compatibility on Mac is all available ones we upgrade to Unity 2.6, hopefully sometimes next week (Only waiting for Unity to release the web player) :)

@MILLHA: 4096x2 is a very extreme size for a game texture. You'll only use sizes that large if its for a cinematic or a CG movie, but not a game. It's simply too hard for the computer to load up such big a thing.

The lowest a next-gen game should go, texture size wise, is 512x2 and the highest should be 2048x2 IMO. Or else a lot of people can't run the game.

Btw @ZPSHicks: I hope you're including LOD (Level of detail) models, to keep the game as optimized as possible. The same goes for textures. Make sure you have settings to etc. turn off shadows, lower the texture and model details, remove fog etc. I got really disappointed when playing IO-Interactive's Kane and Lynch: Dead Men due to the lag of some settings, so the game got very buggy on my rather old computer.

Thanks!

COOL! COOL! COOL! This is what I'm talking about! I really hope it's as good on PS3 or 360 than it is on PC.

Keep up the good work ZPS!

@GamerSan I wouldnt expect playable content untill next year...unless ZPS wins the lottery... :)

Great Work ...... Can't wait to play.

Congratulations on the 3300 members, and the opening of The Vault to the public!

With todays hardware it is very possible to use 4096x.
But there should be 512x, 1024x, 2048x also so that they can use out from specs. At least one of the first two.
Games must have balance, soo that there can be a stable low and high. But why not make it soo that people that have heavy machines can max their rig, it would not hurt. And think how the game would age... Yes it would age with style. ;)

:D Nice i can't wait to play this

Nicely done! This is good stuff!

Probably one of the best modes of advertisement ive seen in a while. It got me a bit hyped up. Im not much of a gamer more nowadays, but this looks interesting. (although, a rough tough state of the art space marine isnt very original)

Good advertising campaign with the Vault.
Look forward to the next update especially if it uses the new Unity 2.6 update with AA and other goodies. I agree that the game should scale well for old and new PCs, this way it will still look good even after a few years on higher settings and will play on most pcs on lower settings.

Very nice and of course very interesting to see what this new AAA Indie can do.

I have played lots of space games but i think this one is the most innovating and interesting of them all to do. Hope to see more of this game very soon :)

Keep up the good stuff, you guys are doing a hell of a job atm !

What happens in 3 days and roughly 15 hours?

More stuff for us to look at. ;)
Meet at "the vault" =P

very nice

Welcome to the Interstellar Marines Dark. ^^

Guys, please, keep working on this. We NEED to change the way how games are being made! Let's start the revolution!

Awesome two updates. I wonder what will be in the Megalodon section...

I think it will reveal a new room with several doors... so they have the option of showing us even more stuff ;o)

Maybe that gun simulator thing they hinted at. :)

You never cease to amaze with your new additions to the Vault! Keep up the good work!

OMG I WANT TO PLAY AROUND WITH THE GUNS IN LIKE A WALK AROUND SPAWN SHARK THINGS AND SHOOT AT THEM KINDA THING. LIKE MULTIPLAYER PLAYABLE. WITH GUNS

it might take quite a while before you can do that.