[GER] Communityevent in Frankfurt: Review

[Angrim]

Are we talking about something really close to COD’s theater mode, recording all that happens in a match and allowing you to fly everywhere and see people move and shoot even when they are at the other side of the map ? I didn’t expect it but if it’s true, that would be really neat. Don’t want to raise my hope too high on that one though… can a developper comment it please ?

I would expect demo mode like in W:ET. You capture the match from your own perspective.

Deutchland über alles[/QUOTE]

You should edit that out. That is an insanely stupid and offensive comment.

[DarkangelUK]

I’m fully expecting standard network demos ETQW style, any more than what ETQW had is a bonus and very welcomed. I believe idtech4 is quite poor for demo control and manipulation.

[Bullveyr]

I’m working on a translation atm.

[JeP]

I would expect demo mode like in W:ET. You capture the match from your own perspective.

Thought so… I imagine something like COD theater mode can easily add some lag if the server has to record everything every second and more.

[Bullveyr]

Wolfi you lucky swiss bastard.

I skipped the introduction, arrival, etc.

Translation on Gamingpalace.de

Gamplay:

Character and Weapon Selection:

The PR Manager advised us to choose the medium body type because for getting started it would be the easiest to handle.
But I deliberately choose the light body type because I wanted to find out the movement and pace/speed of the game.
PS: It seems you can freely change your nick.

After that we could customize the look of our character. It might be attractive to iindividually customize your character (in every detail) but you have to be aware that ingame only the rough design is recognizable, not the details.
That’s no because of bad graphics but because you just don’t pay attention. You recognice the stylish haircut of guy right in front of you on the first glance but a tattoo or bandana gets lost in the gameplay.

You could choose two weapons, a primary and a secondary one.
A lot of the guns weren’t unlocked. According to badman there will be many weapons.

During gameplay I didn’t recognise many differences between the various weapons in accuracy and damage besides ofc the heavy weapons which can mow down one enemy after the other.
More about that later.

Ofc you can customize/upgrade your weapons but that costs you points which get via XP.

The menu navigation isn’t the easiest at the beginning. A lot of sub menus and settings make the game/FPS a little labyrinth/maze. In return you can really adjust every little detail.
After a while you can orient very well threw the sub menues due to neat and varied illustration of the menus.

Getting started:

After a short loading screen (?) with a really good design you get to the intro which you can abort and go straight to the warm up. During warmup you can neither move or interact.
On the question if there will be a spectator mode, not unimportant for eSports, badman answered:

Not on consoles, there is only a 3rd person view. On the PC on the other hand there is such a mode. We were well aware that such a mode is wished-for.

Therefore there will also be demo recording.

Then we could start. At first I had a few problems with various buttons/functions, certainly because I’m really not used to a XBox controller. I’m positive that the “handling” will be easier on the PC.

SMART:

First thing I realised: Allthough I played a light body type the movement is slower than for example RTCW or Enemy Territory. On the PC version the movement will feel faster because you won’t be limited to FOV 75 like on the consoles. Jumping (from the stand) on the XBox feels more like a little jump but if you jump against a wall (?) you’re making quite a real (bigger) jump.

However, I was surprised by the speed during firefights. In normal shooters you’re accustomed that enemies come around corners or jump over walls but in Brink they come from everywhere. Especially the display of sliding and jumping makes the movement of the enemies really looking very smooth and fast. That’s SMART!
Suddenly 2 enemies jump laterally over a rail down to the player, on the left side an enemy slides under a barrel towards me (wtf? :D).
The gameplay is pretty hectic, you need to keep a good overview over the battle (battle awareness?).

SMART kind of surprised me. I thought that you hve tp press a certain button to activate SMART. Instead, if you run against a cardboard or some elevation/ledge your character will automatically climb over it. Only for sliding or a wall jump you had tp press a ceratin button.
But maybe I was simply to stupid (to figure it out).
After a while I could combine the various movements which resulted in a really slidy ans smooth movement where you’re still able to shoot. Never the less it made hitting a target more difficult when you jum around like Tarzan. To some part it was also because of the unfamiliarly Xbox system.

Fighting:

You can see a red life meter over the enemies heads if you aim at them. I find that very positive, this way you can tell if you can win this firefight or if it’s maybe better to take cover around a corner. You can also tell if you should/could battle the next enemy or if you should wait for life meter to refill.

The game itself is designed pretty realistic. The weapons don’t sound cheap but have a versatile mix of various sounds.
(Dunno how to translate it better but I have to note that General Wolfens is a “First Lieutenant” in the swiss militia).
The light reflections on the weapons itself and the influences of the surroundings look realistic.

While watching another player I took his headset and concentrated on the ingame sound and enemies noises. The game really has a good surround sound (with the right speakers or headphones), you could hear the enemy footsteps very well. You can also filter out very well how many enemies are coming up that stair. I was dissapointed that there were no hitsounds. There is no sound if you hit an enemy, only your own heartbeat when you get hit/shot. Doesn’t really matter because we have the life meter over the enemys head, that way the hitsounds don’t sound important.

Headshots definitely do more damage but it was hard to really test it because it isn’t easy to aim for the head with a controller.

I also looked for the amount of spread. I believe you have (much) more spread while making fast movements (especially sliding) . If you stand still or even crouch the spread is correspondingly lowered.
The heavy weapon seemed to have a (more?) constant spread.

Watching another player again I concentrated on the heavy body type. I wanted to find out how much more damage he can take. I can’t really tell but compared to my light body type he takes far less damage from a grenade explosion near him.
I have to note that the grenades in general seem pretty weak. I looks like they have to be spot on what is confirmed by badman:

We didn’t want Engi-Nades like in W:ET again

Back to the Heavy. If you take him under fire you can down him pretty quick as long as long as you don’t get shot at with a heavy weapon yourself. This is because the Heavy is pretty slow and therefore is an easy target. He seems more like an mobile MG nest, which should be stationed at a good position, than someone that should jump right into the fight, at least not alone. But together with a medic at his side he is hard to crack.

I was also asked by the community if you can get some kind of armor. I don’t think so but it’s hard to give a clear anwere because we had to start with a low level character, so we didn’t have much clothing options.
Therefore I assume they are only for style and don’t have an effect. Maybe I’m wrong.
(we know the answere to that anyway)

Teamplay:

I really have to applaud on the implementation of the team aspect. The teamplay reminds me of RtCW and Enemy Territory and you get the same feeling of “team power”. But the implementation is more complex. You really have to be aware of your abilities, otherwise you maybe miss a situation where you could be of assistance. Also I fear that some players will totally ignore the objective wheel and blindly jump into the action. The game allways shows you what to do with yellow icons but still you might overlook your mission and “get your will” if youaren’t a team player.

Maps:

As allready mentioned the maps have a strong resemblance to Enemy Territory, the same goes for the objectives. All the maps we played were really well thought out. In contrast to some other shooters you can look forward to fascinating maps.
One of the reasons why the maps are so good is surely de_dust2.

badman:

We hired de_dust2 to make MP maps for us

(@Wolfi: That guy also has a real name :D)

Conclusion:

Brink is a shooter that catches the attentionright from the start. It just makes a lot of fun and it won’t get boring fast. The game is definitely finished, we won’t get a half-done version.

Final Conversations:

Competetive Gaming:

You can block every ability. You can set everyone to level 1 or if you want to some other level.
badman couldn’t give a definite answer on the SDK or a promod. At the moment they want people to play the game how it’s released.
About DLC: There won’t be charged items or an item shop.

ESL:

Talking to the ESL guys they said that they have big plans for Brink.
TheFly, ESL founder, was also at the event.
OFC they will use their ESL Anti Wire Cheat Tool. They will focus on the PC but they also plan some smaller console leagues.

Christian ‘gambo’ Orts seems to be very confident:

Brink will bring some brisk wind into the the fps genre. which is especially welcome with the focus on eSports.
SD allready showed us in the past what they are able of.

Stefan ‘Speedy’ Weber also sees good premises for the console section:

My impression of Brink is very positive and I’m pretty sure, also because of the feedback from in console guys in the forum, that Brink not only will establish itself in the CSL but also will make a big impact.

Steve ‘badman’ Hessel had to fly back to London soon after the event. He answered many question and when I asked him about linux server files he affirmed it.

[SuperWaz]

Some good info there. Thank you.

[PsYcHo]

Danke! Very good written!
Sounds very very good. Man… I can’t wait! Must… get… it… now!

[dommafia]

[QUOTE=Bullveyr;289263]Wolfi you lucky swiss bastard.

I skipped the introduction, arrival, etc.

[/QUOTE]

Thanks to you and General Wolfens, a lot of good info in here

[Diablo85]

Thanks for translating. Great read.

[Mustang]

I have to note that the grenades in general seem pretty weak. I looks like they have to be spot on what is confirmed by badman, “We didn’t want Engi-Nades like in W:ET again”

This is the second time I’ve seen this, what does it mean?

[ClickClickBOOM]

well done (:

[Hansi]

This is the second time I’ve seen this, what does it mean?

Probably he means this W:et Weapon:

“If equipped by an Engineer the rifles are no longer sniper rifles just ordinary rifles but with a rather interesting alternate fire. The Engineer can attach a grenade, “a rifle grenade”, on the muzzle of the gun and lob it over a great distance for some hefty impact damage. This requires some practice though but with a good aim this is a nasty instant kill feature that should be looked out for. Tip: the rifle grenades need to travel some distance to blow up on impact, so it’s not the best choice in close combat since they can be easily dodged before they detonate. Think of this as a mortar-light!”

http://www.planetwolfenstein.com/enemyterritory/weapons.shtml

[stonecutter]

Well nice work ! It was realy nice to read the translation !

[Mustang]

@Hansi
Ah yes, the riffle nade, thanks for the reminded
Been a while since I played W:ET

[H8tz]

This is the second time I’ve seen this, what does it mean?

I think it refers to the fact that after the first promotion the engi in W:ET had 8 (!!!) handgranades. So there was a lot of nade-spamming over the fuel dump wall etc.
The rifle nades were relative weak (or at least limited to guard some bottlenecks on maps).

[mortis]

Indeed, you’d almost think he was German… oh wait he is!

I knew his German was good, but I just thought he was fluent. I had no idea that he actually IS German. It all makes sense to me now…

[General_Wolfens]

Found a hands-on video of this event:

http://www.gamingpalace.de/index.php/brink/news/1274-community-event-video.html

[PsYcHo]

Watched that video already today, great video

[Why_So_SiriuS]

Thanx ! =D

I made this Video yesterday evening …
Nice to know that the Splas Damage Community like it…

Sorry for my worse English, but i found this on google and its realy fantastic for me =)
Gretings SiriuS

[Mustang]

[QUOTE=Why So SiriuS;289447]Thanx ! =D

I made this Video yesterday evening …
Nice to know that the Splas Damage Community like it…

Sorry for my worse English, but i found this on google and its realy fantastic for me =)
Gretings SiriuS[/QUOTE]
Any chance there is a transcription of the interviews?