Saw Extraction at PAX, have some questions

(CptFancyPants) #1

Howdy,

So after wandering PAX for 4 days, a friend and I stumbled on the bright yellow Extraction booth. And since shooters are my jam, I had to try it.

Super glad I did; game of the show. Now that I’m finally back home and recovering from the PAX Plague, I wanted to jump in and say hi and ask a few questions. I’m sure that these are the newb questions that get answered daily, so if that’s the case just load me up with links and I’ll get to reading. Also, given the stage of the game I’m sure a lot of the answers will be along the lines of “we don’t know yet” or “can’t talk about it”, so just let me know if that’s the case.

  1. If it’s possible to do concisely, I’m interested in hearing a bit of the dev history of the game. Where did it come from? How long has it been in development? What engine does it use? That kind of thing.

  2. Following with the above, are there any inklings for the start of closed beta?

  3. What’s the model going to be? Pay to play? F2P?

  4. Talk to me about weapon customization. We can has?

  5. How many modes/maps are we looking at? The one I played ( I forget the name) was a 2 part objective map about crashing a train, what else is there (or going to be)?

  6. I read some things about Founder’s Packs. Are those still available? How else can I make them shut up and take my money?

That’s all I’ve got for now. I’ve got some other gameplay related questions/feedback but it makes more sense to wait until I’ve got more than 3 matches under my belt to dive into that kind of stuff.

(Kendle) #2

As we’re under NDA (game is currently in closed Alpha) there’s not a lot we can say but :-

  1. SD have made 3 previous games of a similar genre (objective shooters), so I guess this a natural thing for them to do next, and I think the game has been in development for a year or so. It uses the Unreal 3 engine.

  2. No idea.

3.F2P

  1. Not allowed to say.

  2. Not allowed to say.

  3. https://secure.warchest.com/dirtybomb/

(Rex) #3

Hey man, I hope I can answer some of your questions:

1 . Unreal Engine 3

  1. “We expect the Closed Beta to start later this year.” Source

  2. F2P or Free2Win, NEVER pay2win, see also the interview with Ed Stern from PAX: Video

      1. Can’t say.

  4. I’m pretty sure you can still purchase the packs here: https://secure.warchest.com/dirtybomb/

(Mustang) #4

Heavily modified unreal 3 engine. I’m not so good with general waffle so if you want to ask something more specific then go ahead.

Originally planned before the year is out, no idea if they’re still on that schedule though.

Free-to-play, free-to-win, pay-for-things-that-look-nice-or-level-me-up-faster… something along those lines. Ethical seems to be a word thrown around in these parts.

There are character skins, character will have a small set of weapons to choose from that suit their flavour, there will also be scopes and attachments and as you level up you can unlock smaller perks.

There is confirmed Stopwatch (that you played) and Team Deathmatch, nothing else has been mentioned publically yet. I think the map you played was call Trainyard or something similar, there was also mentioned maps called Camden, Whitechapel, Victoria, Waterloo, Battersea and London Bridge.

https://secure.warchest.com/dirtybomb/

(Everything here is public knowledge, I just collated it for you, I may or may not know more than I’m letting on, but non-disclosure agreements being what they are and such, also remember alpha is alpha so things may still change)

(CptFancyPants) #5

Thanks for all the help, guys. It’s much appreciated. Now I’ll just be waiting for the email for closed beta.

(Nail) #6

if it makes you feel better, you got to play a version we alpha types haven’t yet

(CptFancyPants) #7

Well, it’s super fun. I’m seriously considering throwing down on a Founder’s Pack so I can start playing immediately. Is there a date for when they wont’ be available anymore?

(Nail) #8

game launch, next year

cheapest pack will at least get you access to the development videos and guarantee priority access to closed beta and possible access to closed alpha, your call

(Rex) #9

How do you know? Nail don’t spread such nonsense around here… :rolleyes:

(Nail) #10

founders packs will be available until game launch, which is slated for 2014, the end of which is in 15 months,

edited

(Falcon.PL) #11

Hey!

I believe you are not under the NDA, and yet you have played the game :). This means we can learn something from you as well as you could have learned from us. Let us ask you some questions if you don’t mind:

  1. How different are the classes you can chose to play as? We heard that any class can fulfill any objective type, but some are better in particular objectives than others, how much better are they?

  2. In case you had played Wolfenstein Enemy Territory - how much similarity do you find between the two titles?

  3. Have you noticed lowering damage of weapons as the distance is increasing? If so, how big the difference feels?

Have a good day!

(CptFancyPants) #12

[QUOTE=Nail;468001]game launch, next year

cheapest pack will at least get you access to the development videos and guarantee priority access to closed beta and possible access to closed alpha, your call[/QUOTE]

Well, it was my understanding that those of us who played at PAX would get gauranteed closed beta access when it started. So the only ones of real value to me (basically to begin playing immediately) would be the $120 and up packs. Because, as I understand it, those offer instant access. Is this correct?

[QUOTE=Falcon.PL;468028]Hey!

I believe you are not under the NDA, and yet you have played the game :). This means we can learn something from you as well as you could have learned from us. Let us ask you some questions if you don’t mind:

  1. How different are the classes you can chose to play as? We heard that any class can fulfill any objective type, but some are better in particular objectives than others, how much better are they?

  2. In case you had played Wolfenstein Enemy Territory - how much similarity do you find between the two titles?

  3. Have you noticed lowering damage of weapons as the distance is increasing? If so, how big the difference feels?

Have a good day![/QUOTE]

As far as I know, I’m not under an NDA (I didn’t sign anything) so I’ll share what I saw. Which was admitedly very little. Only got to play 3 matches of Stopwatch.

  1. The different classes had pretty clearly defined roles. I played a bit as the engineer, soldier (not changing it again), and the medic (please forgive me if I’m using the wrong names). The engineer’s main was a shotgun, which is not my favorite weapon type usually, but she was able to hack/plant C4 quicker than the other classes. What we tried to do as a team was have 1 engineer hacking/planting while the rest provided cover. The other classes could hack/plant as well, but it took a little longer. I was unable to tell if every other class had the same speed or not, though.

The Field Ops class was able to throw down ammo packs for the team as well as use his special ability of calling in an airstrike, which was super helpful for when the point was getting overrun. The medic could throw down health packs and his special ability was a defib, which could pick up downed players to get them right back in the fight without respawning. As far as utility, both the medic and engi were able to dish damage as well as take it; neither felt really hamstrung by their roles. Each class had different health values (the heavy having the most, obviously although he pays for that with slower movement).

  1. Unfortunately I don’t have enough experience with Wolfenstein: ET to really draw any comparisons. When I get home from work I’ll dl it and edit this post with what I noticed.

  2. On the assault rifle there seemed to be some spread at range, but I’m not sure about damage drop off. For the shotgun, there was a definite range where it was not effective at all, but it was difficult to tell how much less damage was being delivered.

As I said, these are only observations based off 3 matches during PAX. But as long as I’m not crossing the NDA line, feel free to ask me things and I’ll do what I can do remember.

To the mods, if I am in violation here please let me know and I’ll edit/remove the post.

(Dthy) #13

Just like to chime in that the Soldier was a Field Ops :slight_smile:

(CptFancyPants) #14

Thanks. Edited.

(Mustang) #15

Just like to chime in that the Field Ops was a Fire Support. :tongue:

(CptFancyPants) #16

You guys are killing me.

Thought of some more questions for you guys:

  1. How active/visible are the devs around here? I saw a couple threads that had “dev post” on them but haven’t really had the time to dig in super deep here. And it’s my understanding that there’s a super secret cool guy forum for alpha testers; do they spend most of the time in there?

  2. The swag that comes with the upper level Founder’s Packs all show it saying “Dirty Bomb”. Given the name change are those changing as well? If I were to buy one, say, next week would I be getting Dirty Bomb branded gear or Extraction? Either is cool with me, more of just a curiosity thing.

  3. Server structure? Pretty sure this will fall under the NDA/don’t know yet answer, but I figured it was worth asking. Are we looking at a traditional server browser? Matchmaking?

  4. Grouping/playing with friends. Kinda going with the above what about a squad/clan/group system?

(Kendle) #17

“Field Ops” is the name of the Fire Support class in ET, some of us can’t let go of the past (it was called Lieutenant in RTCW, an even earlier game, and some of us still call it “Lt” for short even now).

To answer your questions :-

  1. There is a super-secret Alpha tester forum, and the Devs are VERY active on there.

  2. The swag will be delivered when the game is released, and presumably will be branded Extraction. If you bought a founders pack next week you’d only get forum / alpha access right now, the swag comes later anyway.

  3. and 4. NDA, sorry :slight_smile:

(CptFancyPants) #18

[QUOTE=Kendle;468113]“Field Ops” is the name of the Fire Support class in ET, some of us can’t let go of the past (it was called Lieutenant in RTCW, an even earlier game, and some of us still call it “Lt” for short even now).

To answer your questions :-

  1. There is a super-secret Alpha tester forum, and the Devs are VERY active on there.

  2. The swag will be delivered when the game is released, and presumably will be branded Extraction. If you bought a founders pack next week you’d only get forum / alpha access right now, the swag comes later anyway.

  3. and 4. NDA, sorry :)[/QUOTE]
    The forums won’t let me give you any more rep for being helpful, so thanks.

(Sheza) #19

Allow me to speculate some answers to your questions.

  1. No dedicated servers. At least I would hugely surprised if there are any. All the servers I expect will be ran by NEXON. Matchmaking’s a possibility.

  2. Clan systems and buddy systems are pretty much a guaranteed feature in any F2P FPS right now, so yes.

How can you have actually visited the booth and PAX and not instantly know it was a Free 2 Play game?

(By the way guys, I’ll bet a virtual cookie that the game will end up being Pay to Win)

(CptFancyPants) #20

[QUOTE=Sheza;468154]Allow me to speculate some answers to your questions.

  1. No dedicated servers. At least I would hugely surprised if there are any. All the servers I expect will be ran by NEXON. Matchmaking’s a possibility.
    [/QUOTE]
    I’m all for speculation. Although I’d be interested to hear the reasoning behind it, for discussions’s sake.

Honestly, I was loving the gameplay so much that the pay model was of secondary concern, so I didn’t think to ask.