Brink Q&A

(tokamak) #1

Feel free to throw in any question on your mind, I will try to keep track of them and update the thread as frequent as I wan… as possible.

Part 1: Answers can be found here.

[ul]
[li]What are the classes?
[/li]> [li]Could you expand on how much customization will affect gameplay?
[/li]> [li]Will servers be ranked/unranked/both? (how will servers work in general?)
[/li]> [li]What engine will the game use?
[/li]> [li]Will the smart button interact with vehicles and turrets? With other words, are these dynamic objects climbable?
[/li]> [li]What kinds of vehicles and how many will there be in the game (if any)?
[/li]> [li]Demo recording/playback. Will the be more expansive controls (GUI, Camera) to support Video/Machinima production?
[/li]> [li]Mod/Maps tools. Will they be available, if so is there target of when Pre/Post retail release?
[/li]> [li]How will mods/maps integrate with the base game? Autodownload, Server types etc.
[/li]> [li]Cross platform play (PC vs 360)?
[/li]> [li]PC Anti-Cheat. Anything other that Punkbuster being considered?
[/li]> [li]Health. Packs or Regenerative?
[/li]> [li]Will there be male and female playable characters?
[/li]> [li]Will there be blood and gibs?
[/li]> [li]Will the Browser system be similar to QW?
[/li]> [li]The Ark is inspired by Curitiba isn’t it?
[/li]> [li]It’s said this game is not having a “Play single player” or “Play online” button, how will this affect competitive play, can we still set up private servers to play clanwars in and stuff?
[/li]> [/ul]

Thanks for answering the first batch Rahdo!

Part 2:Answers and the meaning to life can be found here!

[ul]
[li]Will learning the movement manually give any benefit over traversing the obstacles with the SMART button?
[/li]> [li]Is player customisation confined to only in-game assets or can player created textures be used (Team/Clan insignia)?
[/li]> [li]VOIP on the PC version?
[/li]> [li]Mac and Linux ports coming after release?
[/li]> [li]Any thoughts on tackling the need to tweak via the console by improving gfx configuration options in the menu system? If yes, will there be options to balance “visual clarity vs performance” (i.e. greater draw distance vs lesser texture quality) as well as the usual “visual eyecandy vs performance”?
[/li]> [li]KB+M support on the PS3?
[/li]> [li]Does the new engine support dynamic day/night lighting and weather or is global lighting baked in like ETQW?
[/li]> [li]Map making more, less or equally involved as ETQW? (additional answering here
[/li]> [/ul]

Thanks for answering that second batch as well Rahdo!

And here’s a “Hardcore” lobby for competetive play featuring Rahdo!

[QUOTE=dohfOs;199293]Hello all! As some of ou might know Richard Ham took his time and replied on numerous of questions from the Crossfire.nu-community (W:ET/RtCW/ET:QW-mainly). I took the time to summarize the whole thing into a gigantic Q&A with answers perhaps more leaned towards the competitive scene rather then the general public (which imo makes the thing even more interesting).

http://brink.chefenco.com/gigantic-brink-qa-with-richard-ham/

And yeah, the page is not in english, but the Q&A is, and if you want to make the whole thing English, press the UK-flag in the top right corner for some über Google-translation ;)[/QUOTE]

PS: You guys are making it increasingly harder for me to extract any questions out of your long enthusiastic posts. Please if you have a question embedded in your story, could you post a short version of it at the start of your post to make sure I won’t miss it?

EDIT: refreshed the competition interview link http://brink.chefenco.com/gigantic-brink-qa-with-richard-ham/

(m o n s t r o) #2

I’m interested in the level of character customization, howdeep the rpg elements of the game go and how said elements will effect vehicles should the game feature them.

(tokamak) #3

Will the smart button interact with vehicles and turrets? With other words, are these dynamic objects climbable?

(amazinglarry) #4

I’m wondering if I’ll still be able to Rambo Med? Er… rather, I wonder if I’ll still be able to kill people while doing my job - but the fact that I kill people will have my teammates whining about being a Rambo Medic?

So to my more serious question, what are all the classes to start off with and how or why should we be able to switch classes mid game (in exchange for XP, of course).

What kinds of vehicles and how many will there be in the game? I have a love/hate relationship with them in QW…

Also, will servers be ranked/unranked/both?

(SebaSOFT) #5

Can you put a bulleted list in the first post?

Something like

[ul]
[li]Action packed FPS
[/li][li]Intuitive movement and interaction with the surroundings
[/li][li]Dinamic Mission System
[/li][li]Post-apocaliptic setting
[/li][li]Two factions, one campaign each
[/li][li]Multiplayer/Single Player mixed
[/li][li]8v8 Multiplayer or 8 player co-op
[/li][li]Tapirs on boats
[/li][/ul]

:stroggtapir:

(dommafia) #6

What engine will the game use?

[QUOTE=DeanoC;191939]Its a heavily modified Quake Wars engine (idTech 4), its got a completely new renderer, new multi-core architecture (a job system for NUMA (PS3) and SMP systems), a new tools framework and lots more.

We think its the best of both worlds, get tried and tested Quake Wars tech (its often underestimated how much time it takes to get shipping tech) but with new shiny bits where required.

We hope the screen shots, show shiny new renderer is doing okay ;)[/QUOTE]

Tokamak update your first post with all questions and answers and try to shorten them as much as you can since you didn’t reserve the 2nd post spot :slight_smile:

(Rahdo) #7

Actually, every single one of those questions was asked and answered during the interviews at E3, so presumably they should all be covered in the coming days on various websites. I’d answer them again here, but I’m not sure about the rules (if it messes with exclusives and stuff). I’ll ask Badman.

Badman! Talk to me! Oops, like like he’s already left on the splash damage night out to Terminator. And here I am, stuck in my hotel room in LA… :frowning:

OH wait, there’s one that wasn’t asked, so I guess there’s no harm in answering it: about climbing on vehicles and other dynamic stuff… we’re definitely planning on allowing that, where it seems appropriate, but it’s hard to do. Wish us luck :slight_smile:

(SockDog) #8

I plan on doing some more reading/watching tonight but here’s a couple more.

Q. Demo recording/playback. Will the be more expansive controls (GUI, Camera) to support Video/Machinima production?

Q. Mod/Maps tools. Will they be available, if so is there target of when Pre/Post retail release?

Q. How will mods/maps integrate with the base game? Autodownload, Server types etc.

Q. Cross platform play (PC vs 360)?

Q. PC Anti-Cheat. Anything other that Punkbuster being considered?

Q. Health. Packs or Regenerative?

Q. Male and female playable characters?

Q. Blood?

Q. Gibs?

(dommafia) #9

[QUOTE=Rahdo;192146]
OH wait, there’s one that wasn’t asked, so I guess there’s no harm in answering it: about climbing on vehicles and other dynamic stuff… we’re definitely planning on allowing that, where it seems appropriate, but it’s hard to do. Wish us luck :)[/QUOTE]

I seriously want to see this “smart” button gameplay live. It sounds Like it will give a lot of style to the game, especially for spectators.

Will this game have a competitive multiplayer side to it (VS MODE not co-op, obviously)?

(DarkangelUK) #10

In text form i’m against the smart button. It sounds like an easy way out of a complex problem, i’ve spent years working on my movement, and from what I can tell a single button press will accomplish this.

I will how ever reserve judgement until i actually see how it properly works, but it looks like the days of the movement masters is over :frowning:

(Nail) #11

from QW forums

[QUOTE=Rahdo;462968]Hi guys. I’m Richard Ham, the creative director at Splash Damage, and I just want to let you know, we hear you. Really, we recognize that both ETs were something really special, and we don’t want to f*ck that up by chasing after the new shiny bauble of the consoles, and their millions and millions of players, though obviously, we want to make a little scratch here, so it’s important to us to bring as many new people ‘into the fold’ as possible :slight_smile:

So anyway, yeah your points are totally valid, and I think shirosae summed it up really nicely. So to answer that, I’ll tell you a little story that I probably shouldn’t tell (we’ll see if Badman Hessel raps me on the knuckles when I get home)…

So we’re getting the demo ready for E3 and going over it with Paul (Locki) so he can be as polished as possible. There’s a part in the demo where he specifically shows doing the “vaulting up the small obstacle and then jumping up to climb up the tall wall” bit, while combat is going on all around. So Paul’s doing it just fine, but he calls me down and says “look at this, I just discoverd it… why is this move so much more smooth and flowing if I do the vault and jump manually with the jump button. We need to get it this smooth when I’m using the smart button at the show, because it’s got to look great”.

So I smile and remind him that it was kind of the point. That to get the perfect smooth movement, the player’s gotta go the extra mile and time his jumps perfectly and do the heavy lifting himself. And if he relies on the button, he’ll still get where he needs to go without frustration (which is really important when we’re trying to expand our base), but it’ll be just a little bit slower and less efficient. The fact that he’d discovered this himself while playing was actually perfect, exactly how I’d hoped it would go with players.

“Oh, good point”, says Paul. “But I still need to guarantee it looks great for E3, so can we just fudge it for now and make the smartbutton equally smooth, since I don’t have time to practice enough to guarantee the smooth flow”.

So we went with the slight fudge, for the show only, but when we get back, we’ll be rolling back onto the main, non-E3 branch and we’ll pick up where we left off :wink:

So I hope that gives you guys a bit of an idea of how we’re approaching things. Let me tell you, the guy in charge of all our movement stuff (Aubrey, aka Bezzy) is actually a real life parkour practitioner and is very much invested in supporting the “easy to pick up, hard to master” approach to kinesthetic design, so I think you’ll be happy with how things turn out in this regard. Knock on wood…

So anyway, keep following Brink, and keep in touch. We want to know when we’re doing right and spot checked when we’re doing wrong. Now if only we could get you over to the Splash boards… :rolleyes:[/QUOTE]

(Shiv) #12

awesome, nice post nail :slight_smile:

(Joe999) #13

thanks nail for bringing that up. as he seems to be caring for smoothness, i took my chance:

http://community.enemyterritory.com/forums/showthread.php?p=463100#post463100

(Nail) #14

I kinda think the stuttering problems could have been resolved if Activision had kept supporting development instead of writing QW off in favour of other “popular” games, similar to Valve dissing everyone with L4D2 instead of following up on their promises to give new maps, weapons updates, campaigns and patches for L4D

(SockDog) #15

LOL there’s a new CoD every year and that’s just flipping awesome but Valve knock out L4D2 (largely an equal amount of content to L4D1) and it’s dissing people? Entitled much?

Oh and lest I forget during that 1 year cycle for CoD they release DLC too.

Sorry. Don’t want to contaminate an Q&A thread more than that.

(gee666) #16

Will the Browser system be similar to QW?

it’s about the only one I like out of games recently cough L4D cough

(Floris) #17

Rahdo you talk about not having a “Play single player” or “Play online” button, how will this affect competitive play, can we still set up private servers to play clanwars in and stuff? (platform: PC)

[QUOTE=SockDog;192173]LOL there’s a new CoD every year and that’s just flipping awesome but Valve knock out L4D2 (largely an equal amount of content to L4D1) and it’s dissing people? Entitled much?

Oh and lest I forget during that 1 year cycle for CoD they release DLC too.

Sorry. Don’t want to contaminate an Q&A thread more than that.[/QUOTE]

CoD4 got DLC (even though it was ripped from the original game before release just to sell it afterwards)
CoD:WaW got DLC twice
Fallout 3 is already at its fourth DLC (just to bring Bethesda into the discussion)

I wonder what L4D got from Valve?

Really hope they release a Left4Dead Two Pack considering I don’t own the original yet :slight_smile:

(DarkangelUK) #18

Ah Mr Ham has alleviated my fears. The SMART button will help users who have trouble with the movement, but mastering it manually with give benefits over the smart button if done properly… now THAT I like the sound of :slight_smile:

(SockDog) #19

I’m concerned with Paul’s feedback though. If he thinks it isn’t smooth it’s very likely other gamers will also. I assume SD will need to give some clear visual and perhaps audible feedback concerning the success of the SMART button when used.

(tokamak) #20

Indeed, a few frustrated grunts here and there will help.

Perhaps the different body types will also have different tresholds for what counts as timing. With other words, a slim body will reach a high level of perfection easier then a fat bloke.