In this episode of “Inside DICE”, Lead Designer Niklas Fegraeus talks about the inspiration for going indoors, and what possibilities and challenges this presented.
When designing the new “Close Quarters” DLC maps, developers quickly found that Rush, being a large and progressive mode that takes you on a journey from M-COM to M-COM, simply wouldn’t fit. So instead, they turned their attention to Conquest.
Watch an early test video recorded during a play test and judge the effect of all the new destruction for yourself.
Hi everyone. This is Niklas Fegraeus, Lead Designer on Battlefield 3: Close Quarters. Above is an early test video we recorded during a play test to judge the effect of our new destruction. But first things first:
In 2001, while making games for the Sega Dreamcast, I began a career as a clan player in Counter-Strike. This eventually became a semiprofessional part time job, as I got a sponsor, won several LAN tournaments and competed in the Cyber athlete Professional League.
Now, in 2012, my competitive mouse is put on the shelf, but I consider the experiences from those days invaluable to my role as game designer making Battlefield games.
Counter-Strike is a very tactical and precise art of close quarters shooting, so I can comfortably say I know a little about how those tight shooter experiences play, and how they should play.
Battlefield on the other hand, is a huge game in more ways than one. Even we developers sometimes have a hard time realizing its breadth. You can go from clearing a house of enemy soldiers through careful squad tactics to soaring through the sky in a jet fighter, frantically evading enemy anti-air weaponry, all in the same round.
I can still recall the thrill of that scale and freedom I had when I first tried the game. It was the BF1942 demo on Wake Island (before I joined the crew here at DICE) and I was raging over those damn fighter planes that kept dropping bombs on my head! However, rage and confusion turned to evil grin as I found the AA-guns and used them to good effect!
Three years later, I landed my dream job working at DICE on Battlefield 2! Having worked as Animator and Designer on Battlefield 2, it was especially satisfying to be Lead Designer on Battlefield 3: Back to Karkand and bring some of the most classic maps from Battlefield 2 into Battlefield 3.
When I finished up Back to Karkand, I already knew I needed to start on our next themed expansion pack for release in June. This time, I really wanted to expand Battlefield 3 and give players even more experiences to choose from. But I didn’t know how to approach it.
Then I remembered those nights at my sponsor’s Internet café, where I and my clan for hours on end practiced the best way to attack a well-defended room, using only a few grenades and the business end of our rifles.
Team Xecuter have confirmed that the X360USB Pro now reads keys from Slim 9504 and 0225 Liteon drives.
As part of our process we like to give regular updates on our projects. We’d like to confirm that the X360USB Pro now reads keys from the Xbox 360 Slim 9504 and 0225 Liteon drives – this is now verified and complete.
Next job – Bypassing all the new protection for writing the new LT+ Slim fw to the drives……heavy progress being made by the entire Team and you will get an update very soon.
Here is a new unreleased prototype image (this is actually the second revision – we are currently on the 4th revision which has 2 more IC’s for fun stuff).
EA Sports president Peter Moore doubts Microsoft and Sony will invest in new consoles for at least three years.
The ex-Microsoft and SEGA executive described the launch of Kinect and PlayStation Move as "tantamount to new platform launches", and insisted "we're nowhere near mass market pricing".
"If you look at the history of the pricing, we're in mid-cycle," Moore told Eurogamer in a new interview published today.
"Chronologically, this is the last few years of previous cycles, but when you look at pricing, we're mid-cycle.
"Over the years, $199 and below has been where 75 to 80 per cent of business is done. With the exception of 360 and the Wii, PlayStation 3, which seems to have a lot of momentum, is not even close to that.
"So we're still to reach a price point across all three consoles where historically 75 to 80 per cent of business is done. Yeah, I think we're in mid-cycle."
Microsoft has said Kinect, which allows gamers to play games without a controller, will extend the life of the Xbox 360 by five years.
And Sony has repeated its belief that this generation will last significantly longer than previous ones.
The vintage Commodore 64 personal computer is getting a makeover, with a new design and some of the latest computing technologies, as the brand gets primed for a comeback.
The Commodore 64 was a home computer running on an 8-bit processor released by Commodore International in 1982. The computer was one of the most popular models of all time, selling close to 17 million units between 1982 and 1994, according to the Computer History Museum.
The revamped computer will be available through the Commodore USA online store, which is set to open June 1, according to the company's Web site. The computer will be an all-in-one keyboard, with Intel's 64-bit quad-core microprocessors and 3D graphics capabilities, according to the site.
To conform with the times, the PC also offers up to 500GB of hard drive storage and 4GB of RAM. Also included are a DVD-RW drive, a touchpad, four USB ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port and a DVI (Digital Visual Interface) port to connect monitors. No price information was given on the Web site.
Commodore USA is a new company that has licensed the Commodore name from Commodore Gaming, which makes games for PCs and consoles. The PC company is trying to invoke the glory of the Commodore 64's past to promote the new PC. On its Web site, the company shows an image of the old Commodore 64 with the caption "you loved us then," and then an image of the new PC, with the caption "you'll love us again."
The device is small, measuring 17.5 inches (0.44 meters) wide and 2 inches (0.05 meters) tall, Commodore said. "It's designed to take up far less room -- and use far less energy -- than any other desktop computer," Commodore USA said. The PC will run the Linux, Windows and Mac OS X operating systems.
But will it find buyers? The glorious past of Commodore PCs might not be repeated for its successor, said Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates.
"It's a weird legacy thing with modern inerts," Kay said. Commodore PCs had a heavy following in the 1980s among hobbyists, but the glory days may not translate to better sales with price-conscious customers today, Kay said.
Commodore started selling Commodore 64 in 1982 for US$599 and managed to reduce the price to $199 over time, a revolutionary price then, said Jack Tramiel, former chairman of Commodore International, during a panel discussion in late 2007.
During the same panel, Apple co-founders Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs approached Commodore with an Apple II prototype, which was much more advanced in color, graphics, sound and games. Apple at the time didn't have the money to make and sell the Apple II, and was hoping Commodore would push the design to market. Commodore, however, preferred to develop the Commodore 64 as a simpler, lower-cost, black-and-white-only machine.
Commodore wanted to serve the "masses," not the "classes," Tramiel said during the discussion. Commodore kept updating the original Commodore 64 design and became the first to sell more than a million PCs, but the company filed for bankruptcy in 1994 and liquidated its assets. In the meanwhile, Apple managed to survive, and the Apple II became one of the most recognized computers in the 1980s.
Commodore computers were made for enthusiasts and came with fairly arcane software and hardware elements, Kay said. Kay bypassed a Commodore and bought an Apple II in the early 1980s, as it had software that made the computer easier to use.
"It wasn't so easy [to use a Commodore], the way Apple always understood the experience should be," Kay said. That made the Apple II computer better for new users entering the computer market.
Team Xecuter have just released more detailed information about the Xecuter CK3-CP. Check out the info below..
Xecuter CK3-CP Update
The Xecuter CK3-CP is the crown jewel in the range of CK3 products. We have combined all the functionality of the CK3 Pro plus into a fully featured PC driven LCD Display & Control Panel, not to mention a slew of new automated features. Please note that the following image is a prototype. We expect to begin shipping sometime in April 2010.
Xecuter CK3-CP
Features:
* Fits into any 5.25″ PC bay
* 2×16 Custom Design LCD Display
* 4 x Button Directional Keypad (e.g Jungle Flasher No-Mouse Operation)
* 1 x SATA Port
* 2 x USB 2.0 Ports
* CK3 Power Connector for any XBOX 360 DVD Drive
* Xbox 360 DVD Eject Button
* IVM (Intelligent Vendor Mode) - Software can control DVD Power and Eject (inc half tray) for fully automated DVD fw access (vendor mode etc)
* 2 x Programmable LED's (Many uses with apps like Jungle Flasher)
* When not being used for CK3, the LCD can be used to display ANY information (Huge Possibilities)
* LCD Smartie open source software is fully compatible with the LCD. Includes custom driver.
* The LCD display is fully customizable from the PC, including the directional pad and the notification LED's.
* LCD backlight and contrast are software controllable.
* The simplified and robust protocol allows anyone from hobbyists to professionals to interface the CK3 CP.
* Great for displaying system statistics like temperature, cpu usage, and ram.
* Compatible with all versions of Windows. Most linux distributions and even PowerPC and Intel Macintosh systems.
CK3 Related (Sources and info available for 3rd party software developers)
* IVM (Intelligent Vendor Mode) - DVD Power and Eject (inc half tray) full software controlled
* The LCD display can guide you step by step when flashing a 360 drive (or other app functions)
* Any input inquiry can be done right on the directional pad - and also an OK/ENTER button.
* No need to keep looking to the monitor or fiddling with the mouse to control the PC for the next step.
* Metal frame means the unit is sturdy and reliable.
* CK3-CP works with all current 360 drives.
* Industry standard, PL2303 transceiver for communication. This means you get great stability and compatibility.
Over the course of the last year of owning an Xbox 360 my Gamerscore has been steadily climbing, although I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's impressive. My score is exactly 11,715, which I suppose is a decent number for only a year of gaming. According to the new "Achievement Progress" tab on my 360's dashboard I have a potential Gamerscore of 51,640. This is, of course, made much higher by games that I popped in for only a second before never playing them again (Spiderman 3, Fable 2, Too Human, Guitar Hero: Metallica, Prototype, Flock, Need for Speed Carbon, and many others among them), but I've also only gotten 100% in one game in all of my hours playing the 360 over the course of the last year, that game being the original Banjo-Kazooie for XBLA.
Needless to say, I've gone for 100% in many of my other games, but with no success. Several achievements for Left 4 Dead alluded me due to the necessity of having a great team to acquire them (Safety First and Nothing Special come to mind), and I put over 100 hours in Tales of Vesperia before deciding halfway through my second playthrough that I simply did not have the time to go for the full 1000. Despite my lack of success at getting all the achievements in each game I played, I often spent hours grinding away at games that I otherwise would have put down much sooner; I did this all for the sake of getting something extra tacked onto the big flashing number that greets me whenever I turn on my console.
While going for the insanely difficult "Manbearpig" achievement in the surprisingly fun XBLA release, South Park Tower Defense, I had a bit of an epiphany. As I restarted the level for the 10th time due to the drunkeness and overall inability to do anything correctly of my teammates, it hit me that I was not having fun. I had performed a meaningless task in a game that would have otherwise been enjoyable for hours, with no reward to myself. Even if I had gotten the achievement, I still could've spent those hours of my time doing something interesting instead of just tacking on another 20 points to my Gamerscore. What other games could I have been experiencing for the first time if I had chosen to spend my time with them instead? Mass Effect and The Orange Box are sitting unplayed in my library, and I know that once I dive into those games I'll enjoy them a lot, so why would I waste my time going for achievements in games that I have already played to the point of souring them?
Take for instance the "Smile" achievement in Geometry Wars 2, where players not only have to beat the ridiculously difficult "Sequence" mode, but they have to intentionally fail on some parts of it in order to make the sequence board look like a smiley face. That's not fun! I had to spend hours just to beat sequence in the first place; beating the mode while intentionally doing badly on the 2nd, 4th, 11th, 15th, 17th, 18th, and 19th levels of it (as the "smile" achievement requires) would likely take an entire day, and the reward of getting 25 meaningless achievement points would simply not be worth it.
I'd love to hear from someone who got the "Light Seeds Master" achievement in Prince of Persia. Tell me, was that fun for you? I bet following around the predetermined paths and revisiting all of the environments more than twice, all for the mindless collection of over 1,000 of those God-forsaken light seeds was just a blast. How about it, those of you who found every flag in Assassin's Creed? Were those few points really worth the hours upon hours that you spent holding down the trigger button and running laps around the cities?
For me, I think that while achievements are often fun little distractions that can add on significantly to the amount of time (and ultimately value) that players get out games, really hard achievements that require repetitive action, grinding, or otherwise boring activities that wouldn't be considered fun should be completely ignored in favor of spending gaming time with something new. Instead, it might be better to just enjoy games for what they are, playing through the campaign and, if necessary, letting that stand as the experience that was had with the game.
Despite my rather staunch stance on the fact that a Gamerscore isn't worth anything and shouldn't be pursued with too much of a person's time, I do believe that achievements are a great way to get more out of a game in an interesting and fun way. The best achievements are ones that can be acquired through cooperative play, as getting in other people on a challenge can make for a fun experience. I eventually got the "Manbearpig" achievement in South Park TD by playing the game locally with friends, and explaining the game's mechanics and successfully completing the challenge was pretty enjoyable, but I don't think that I'll ever return to the game to go for the other two achievements that I'm missing. As gamers, we should always get our money's worth out of games, but we should also know when to put a game down and go do something else, regardless of whether or not we've wrung all the silly achievement points from it. There are too many fantastic games available on the 360 to only experience a few, so go ahead, rent some random games that you think might be fun to just play through one time. Dig into the back catalog for your game system and just have fun.
Metro Simulator 2 is coming soon for Xbox and PlayStation consoles Ultimate Games (@ULTGames) confirmed that Metro Simulator 2, the realistic and relaxing simulator with faithfully reproduced subway realities and train control mechanics from KishMish Games, will laun..
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"If you look at the history of the pricing, we're in mid-cycle," Moore told Eurogamer in a new interview published today.
The revamped computer will be available through the Commodore USA online store, which is set to open June 1, according to the company's Web site. The computer will be an all-in-one keyboard, with Intel's 64-bit quad-core microprocessors and 3D graphics capabilities, according to the site.
