Brink - An Update from Splash Damage

[angemon]

Can you please fix 30fps lock in singleplayer while you are at it?

[nephandys]

As a recent poster above me stated could you please comment about your plans for multiplayer lobbies on Xbox 360? Right now it is extremely frustrating when trying to play with your friends. I brought my whole clan over from Monday Night Combat and we can’t even get into games together.

[badfish4444]

First off I want to say after a couple days of playing brink, I went from liking the game to loving it. I had high hopes for this game and they delivered for the most part.

One thing though is the AI. If you are trying to play coop with 2 or 3 people your team mates are stupid as hell. Medics will run in to save you and get gunned down or they just stand next to you until the die. The enemy AI is spot on and destroys you later on in the campaign. They drop turrets and change classes as needed and so on, but not your AI team mates. They never take objectives or even try. They are more concerned with the command posts, which I understand their value, but come on. If someone is taking the main objective thats where everyone else should be.

The enemy AI is awesome and it is tough. I hope they patch team AI so it’s not so frustrating.

Thanks for all of your work SD. I love the game, hate my teams AI

[AntiCitizenJuan]

Fix the Lag pleassse

SD you guys rule, dont let the haters discourage you.
Your game is new and unique, solid and challenging.

Just fix the lag and you’ll have me hooked

[emilio]

(comment shamelessly cross-posted from bethblog.com)

i’m happy to say the stability and performance of Brink have been good under Windows 7: no crashes, and the only performance issue has been very occasional stuttering that may be another process.

what has not been good is the learning curve. i am no stranger to objective-based games, yet even after watching all the tutorial videos the actual flow of gameplay still takes some getting used to. the game tries very hard to help, dangling that 1000xp video, but the most useful thing was the first challenge.

IF YOU ARE BAFFLED BY BRINK, PLAY THE FIRST CHALLENGE.

in fact, i believe the game should shelve that video and offer you the 1000xp to play the first challenge, renaming it a “tutorial”. a video just can’t get across how fast a Brink match moves or how to get stuff done without fumbling on the (numerous) controls for five minutes. i stumbled through the first couple campaign missions, confused and annoyed, and then i played the first Be Objective challenge and then i started to have fun. seriously, force people to play Be Objective!

the other really, really frustrating part is playing the campaign with unscripted, AI-driven NPCs. these guys are disastrously disorganized, and it is not much fun to have to rely on them. just about the only thing they seem good for is reviving and the occasional buff, if they aren’t scattered all over the map. if i’m playing “solo”, the AIs should just form up around me and not do anything else. don’t run off, don’t get in my way, just stick by me. ultimately, Brink (or any other game) is not very fun when you depend on an AI NPC.

IF BRINK SOLO IS PISSING YOU OFF, STOP AND PLAY IT CO-OP.

i’m not even going to attempt solo-play of the other higher-difficulty objective challenges, and will go straight to co-op. i know that it will just be too annoying and frustrating to watch the AIs be worthless while i do everything.

ok, all that having been said, i’m starting to like it. the sound is good, it looks great, and the pitch of battle can be exciting. i’ve been having fun alternating between Sec and Res missions, as you see how the conflict is ratcheting up from both sides – including the misunderstandings and fog of war that unnecessarily exacerbate conflicts. i can see that multiplayer – with friends on VoIP – has the potential for seriously epic battle shenanigans.

they didn’t make it very easy to like, but maybe that’s a bit of a good thing to keep up the quality of multiplayer competition. you can’t really get by as a noob in Brink.

- emilio

[Azev2000]

I did not praise Toyota because they replaced my guess pedal. So I will not do it here either. The few things mentioned are the tip of the iceburg as far as issues go. No I do not expect any launch to be perfect. However when a game has the benefit of not having to really create a campaign I expect the quality of the product to be better than those who offer both a detailed singleplayer and multiplayer. Especially when they charge the same amount for it.

I enjoy the game, but its not nearly as impressive as it was made out to be.One example being the AI which was touted as being groundbreaking in actuality is more like a blind folded child trying to hit a pinata.

Hope all gets fixed soon because with a large community the game has the potential to be great.

[Sam6131]

Wow you selfish people. The game has been out just over a day and your already complaining. I haven’t even got the game yet (released 13th may in UK) and I will not even be able to access the online features due to the PSN being down until later this month. When I get the game, I will not have access to those features. Sure, I hate laggy games and buggy errors but at least you have the game and are enjoying it at times. Be gratefull for what you have.

[Pez]

^^ Here Here.

I’ve even seen people already asking for more DLC…I mean, for the love of god!!! lol

[Dormamu]

Great news!!!
About the AI, if i remember correctly, in W:ET when you played with bots and they got stuck, you needed to give them some voice commands to jump start them to do the job/objectives/support. I do not think it was in vanilla, maybe a mod? It’s been so long since I’ve played against bots. Maybe you could do something about that so the player could command his team.
As for the enemy AI, make it more harder (joking)

[okuRaku]

Thanks Locki!! I cannot tell you how awesome it feels to have a developer who actually “understands” us PC players to that level. It’s great to hear you talk about the FOV thing, I was in particular concerned about that when I first got into the game. Anyway, cheers on your launch and I hope everything continues on smoothly! Can’t wait to see what you’ve got (if anything) this year at Quakecon as well, have enjoyed your presentations in 09 and 10.

[LaVaGoD]

Paul!

I’m loving the game and I love you m8!

I have not spoken to you in a while and hope all is well in your life. You and your team have put out another amazing game.

[PopeTackler]

Wow you selfish people. The game has been out just over a day and your already complaining. I haven’t even got the game yet (released 13th may in UK) and I will not even be able to access the online features due to the PSN being down until later this month. When I get the game, I will not have access to those features. Sure, I hate laggy games and buggy errors but at least you have the game and are enjoying it at times. Be gratefull for what you have.

When you pay 40 quid for a game you don’t expect to be met with glaring bugs that shouldn’t have made it passed the Alpha testing phase of the game. People have every right to complain.

I’m glad to have some communication from SD but they already have a lot to make up for. Hope they make good.

[trigg3r]

This is great news, exelent way to show your customers that you care about your product

When you pay 40 quid for a game you don’t expect to be met with glaring bugs that shouldn’t have made it passed the Alpha testing phase of the game. People have every right to complain.

don’t act like this is the first time something like this happens; sadly is how things work in the gaming industry nowadays. At least SD is working to fix those issues just one day after the release unlike otther developers than take months to release a patch

[wasabisushi]

Thanks…I think. Ever since some kind of update today, it lags, if I dont move my mouse its fine, as soon as I move my mouse it chops. This is an amazing game, it worked fine before the update…

[kamikazee]

My best wishes to the dev team working their asses off to get those issues ironed out, and may the flow be with you.

[PopeTackler]

don’t act like this is the first time something like this happens; sadly is how things work in the gaming industry nowadays.

I’m not. Excuse me if I expect a quality product that I can play.

And just because some developers make this a reality in the gaming industry doesn’t mean every single one of them does. And it doesn’t mean that people should stand for it when it does happen.

[ASZaidan]

I’m very upset on how the game came out >:( I have been waiting for a year, SPLASHED it all over my FB page and told EVERYONE about it. To find out the A.I. in the game are dumb as a rock. Please tell me SOMETHING is being done about it? I find the A.I. is fine for your opponents but that teammates are dumb.

[kamikazee]

Sadly, I don’t have the game yet, but how does the AI react to voice commands or general “quick chat” commands?

[Karazykid]

I like how the SD guys are happy to come in and accept praise for cleaning up their mess, but as soon as someone asks about the glaring omission of a lobby they’re nowhere to be seen. I’m starting to think they won’t add a lobby, but don’t want to comment on the issue because it’ll hurt sales.

[gee666]

ummmm SD were the OP but havent seen much else except Badman responding to users questions Karazykid

Check the tech support forums lots of replys to probs there

In relation to the Bots I notice ALOT of servers are running 1 or -1 for BOT AI wondering if this is the prob

I’ve set up the sgs&OCB one with AI 2( wonder if anyone notices a diffrence )