Interstellar Marines

They're back:

http://www.interstellarmarines.com/

I'm getting the Spearhead Membership, and I suggest everyone else who's interested does the same... whilst stocks last (as in June 1st)!

 

I've only known a few mods who've gone that extra mile. For a studio to turn down a publisher over going independent is a monumental step. The fact is, unless people do it, big names who buy out their competition because its cheaper are all people will ever hear; until we take a stand. After being in mods at one time or another for 10 years, I've seen projects come and go and I've worked for a few of them.

I won't speak for the clan in this matter. I respect everyone's own opinion, but I am going to support this.

 

There are actually videos besides the earlier trailers. If you use RealPlayer and select the newsbites "For The Love of The Game", or "Behind the Photo Session" -- that has a tone of concept art on the wall -- these are development videos you can download straight to you computer using it's streaming function.

There is a character-pass in the "Photo Session Trailer", which if you look carefully is a huge step forward from the earlier video.

Granted, there are still no new gameplay vids or screens, but E3's in July. They may be doing a preview then.

 

You can post comments, but no forums. Right now I've logged out but don't know the password, so I can't get back in! Apparently, the overwhelming support from fans has partly overloaded their system to the point their email server isn't working at the moment.

Hopefully this will be fixed so I can enlist. I'd hate for the game to be over before it begins because their email is broken.

It seems everything this past week has gone to shit. The same problem is happening with Black Library in response to another short-story competition I'm hoping to enter, and the site's just frozen. We didn't even do my group's Uni MoCap Presentation because someone deleted the config files... so we have to wait until next week to do it

[UPDATE]: Ooh head's up, the company just sent a new password through an email I didn't know existed. Now that's support for ya!

 

A couple of updates. First, they are now on Facebook, Youtube and Twitter:

Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Interstellar-Marines/80174683431
Twitter - http://twitter.com/zeropointsoft
Youtube - http://www.youtube.com/zeropointsoftware

I reckon the Facebook site is probably the best, as it could be argued as being a small forum given the site doesn't have an official one.

To kick off the community involvement, the second piece of news is the launch of a viral campaign for fans who want to make IM-based videos to either show their appreciation, or as fan machinimas like Halo's RvB. You can find them at the following addresses:

http://www.aaaindie.com/
http://www.youtube.com/aaaindie

 

Back when the clan joined PlanetSide, this partly promoted the creation of the PS Idea Lab for users to suggest and develop possible ideas that would make the game better. After 6 years, that site is still running!

Now that my degree is all but completed, I have time to think about community things with more focus...

What if we did a similar thing with PSU for Interstellar Marines? It would be useful for fans who've already subscribed, support members of our clan who have paid for an account, and it might encourage the developer to signify us as one of the driving forces behind community interaction; espcially new additions or mods to the universe when the games are released. I am prepared to commit some funding for this as well once I have employment at a studio.

 

Something's coming on Oct 11th (well, the 9th for me since I'm a Spearheader), called The Vault...

Basically it's a kind of interactive diorama system showing action scenes from the game "frozen in time", allowing users to navigate around models, see what the world will look like when the game launches and (perhaps) play out preset animations.

 

Oh and two forum sections are now available that the studio does read (and regularly replies on) with the community.

They've also launched the Briefing Room, which gives people access to HiDef forms of all the videos, music, audio tests, hires screens of models, etc. Eventually they plan to release ringtones in the area as well

 

A Christmas-morning treat may be expected this year for fans of the game.

If you're a Spearhead customer than you'll know as much as I do by email... if not, fret not. It sounds like it'll be good!