[Bags]

New Screenshots:



PSU Higby Lunch Interview (9/15):

• Drivers gun their own vehicles too
• Can spawn in flying galaxy; has equipment terminals, and can spawn maxes (if the pilot certs it)
• Each continent will not by 100% one environment
• Trying to use as much space as possible on each continent for fighting
• Big marketing push planned
• Spawn tubes still in for deconstructing and transportation
• Death screen allows you to look at certs and choose class; *A* terminal let you change class
• MAX can still heal with medkits
• Hacking is in PS2; mechanism is not some mini-game, focus on action
• Boomers in PS2 in some form
• Data of play time and play trends mined from PS1; but not how many bullets have been fired and the like
• Equipment timers still in
• Resources never limit what vehicles you can pull; tanks will not require grass!
• Resources used to add modifications to vehicles, such as mortar/better AI/etc on tank for secondary gunner
• Resources can unlock things forever; not a 100% constant drain of resources for everything
• Choose between saving for an upgrade and adding small things to weapons / vehicles (with resources)
• Place turrets, someone mans it (not auto), such as a heavy machine gun, you get xp for their kills, but you can use it yourself (you get more xp if you use it to kill)
• Different engineer lines in the trees such as an explosive line
• Classes are nailed down; not ready to reveal
• Tested with entire dev team (50+) and with bots to test load / latency
• Auto-Missions: help new players that login for first time; puts big shiny things on screen to give high priority missions, autosquads you based on preferences (outfit/anyone/never): this is the automatic side, allows to do population balance
• Player Missions: SL, OL, officers allowed to create missions; "infiltrate/capture" base, outfit mates will see these as higher priority mission, higher ranking of mission issuer = more xp
• Resource poor empires can still pull all vehicles / weapons; pretty much impossible to lock down an empire or one continent because of other open continents
• Resources earned passively based on territory that your empire owns on the continent you are fighting on
• Can pick up resource canisters from crashed vehicles, just a few resources
• No specific plan for server transfer function, but not hard to add
• To get to the end of a skill tree (some are more in-depth depending on if they are core class skill trees or vehicle/ class), so can take anywhere from days to weeks
• Only one character can train per account at once offline (F2P so make as many as you want!)
• Probably add Facebook integration kind of stuff, but not a requirement to play the game, can use it to send information about capturing a base
• Group transports keep everyone together, nice to sit back and take a breathe while en-route, Sunderers in game, will have some unique aspect - some cool stuff, very well armored at the moment, but up to the person speccing the vehicle, maybe adding gunports to shoot out of (jackhammers!)
• Reaver is one seater
• Empire specific fighters confirmed
• Hot dropping from mossies (and all air): yes
• Bases are completely different from PS1 bases; no more room hallway room hallway, much more open and cyclical; one of the bases feels a lot closer to sort of level design in Call of Duty
• Bases designed to be captured in the end
• In-game rez, medics healing ray increased by progressing down class, no stimpack thing, mostly about healing and resurrecting
• Time to kill variable, general faster than PS1, slower than Bad company, much slower than Modern Warfare
• Shields replace armor, shields regen if you don’t take damage, health takes full damage, no BLOODY SCREEN health heal, different types of shields (regen slower, higher max, faster regen timer)
• Medkits in PS2
• Character creation has relatively limited face customization, but weapons / vehicle / armor / undersuit has a lot, most of the time you will have a helmet on
• Developer sprint cycles are one month
• F2P chosen as that is the direction of industry, maybe a box price, maybe not
• Enemies probably can’t see into footholds; footholds will not move or rotate
• No hacker class
• TR max face no longer exposed
• Not sure if music composer has been picked yet
• Lots of ways for air vehicles to hide such as in cloud = literally invisible
• Higby loves me
• Plan to take care of PS1 players in PS2, some benefits for PS1 players
• Right now can’t pull bullets out of a dead player’s backpack
• Spawning happens
• No DX9, using DX10+ (he thinks)
• Hopefully a ton of servers at launch
• Flying and hovering works very well, requires you paying attention to the game, hard to be precise, transition isn’t so great though; easy to learn, difficult to master
• If shot in an open air vehicle, hurt the player most likely
• All stuff is WIP
• In-game voice, can set ignores on people, lots of voice macros, some automatic (I’m taking fire!), some manual (hotkeyed)
• Cannot hear enemies via vivox voice
• Hopes weather system is in at launch; lots of weather effects
• Change classes at terminal and respawn
• 3 year dev plan is already being planned, want to allow players to decide which features are more important for the 3 year dev plan (expect to see within a couple months)
• Higby loves naval warfare
• Uncapturable footholds are like a base, well more like a fortified warpgate
• Trying to figure out how salvaging will work; if it’s an actual item, or just get resources
• No seat switching at the moment
• Grenade killing depends on type of character and grenade
• Yyyyes to empire specific heavy assault weapons
• Beta as soon as ready
• Jet-troops will not be medics / engineers, agility but can get cut off
• All classes allowed at BR1
• There will be a max killer class
• Auto-run for MAX is still in
• MAXes are maybe on timers
• MAXes cost no resources
• There will be merits hopefully
• You will be able to allow people to apply for your outfit
• Might be a self kill command, probably not a good strategy to use it
• Galaxy can hold ten people
• Buggies on list of things to put in, hopefully

Twitter Dev Chat 9/16:

Question: Auto base defenses?
TRay/Hack: Yes. Automatic and manned defenses. Will be based on gameplay and balance
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Question: Voice chat?
TRay: Yes, built in
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Question: Melee for maxes?
TRay: Yes
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Question: Can I suicide my gal into a bunch of players?
TRay: If that's how you want to play lol
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Question: Weapon draw / reload times?
Hack: we're going to be iterating on the feel through beta, but close to what you'd expect in games today
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Question: When beta?
Hack: Not announced yet
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Question: Cosmetic armor custimzation?
Hack: Definitely
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Question: What engine?
TRay: Our own FORGELIGHT engine
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Question: Mac version announced?
Hack: not currently
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Question: How will sniping work in PS2? Is there a bullet delay, and what are the shots for a kill like? Headshots = kill?
Hack: Headshot = headshot
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Question: Based on the latest screens, will default uniforms use different color (camouflage) schemes, based on the continent?
TRay: the latest screens show characters without tints. tints can be patterns or solids chosen by the player
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Question: Will it run on windows xp?
Hack: yup
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Question: Will the prowler be leener or is it still fat?
TRay: the prowler is a force to be reckoned with and it looks the way it should
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Question: Will the big awesome ship in the concept art be in at launch?
TRay: undecided
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Question: Will I be able to put boomers on a MAX, have that MAX run into the enemy group, and detonate all the boomers when they are in?
TRay: he engineer will have lots of toys to play with, specifics are being worked on as we speak
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Question: Beta when?
TRay: INFORMATION WILL BE COMING SOON
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Question: Can infiltrators be medics at the same time?
TRay: Stealth and medic are two different classes
Hack: not necessarily, but we are looking at ways you can support your squad (THIS ANSWER MIGHT NOT BELONG WITH THIS QUESTION)
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Question: What is the best place to put a decal on a magrider?
TRay: Decal position is up to the player
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Question: Release on steam?
Hack: No specifics announced about steam or otherwise**
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Question: Any word on quick knife vs equipped knife?
Hack: You will be able to stab people...
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Question: What weapons from PS1 will return?
TRay: trying to bring pretty much all of them in some form or fashion
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Question: So no heal guns for cloakers?
TRay: medics heal, cloakers hide
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Question: Friendly fire?
TRay: Current stance is Friendly fire On**
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Question: Are we planning on keeping BFR?
TRay: I personally hope they to come back I think we could do it awesome the second time around
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Question: Towers look a lot larger. Will taking facilities boil still down to hacking one console, or will there be more objectives?
Hack: there are multiple objectives in taking a facility
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Question: How will resources really work? How useful will they be? Who will actually "earn" them - each player, or the faction too?
Hack: Resources can be acquirable by individuals
Higby: resources will help you do everything from unlocking items, addons, or even accelerate cert learning-they're integral
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Question: Will we be getting more faction only weapons on top of the classics?
Higby: Yes, a lot of new faction specific infantry weapons, lots of "variants" of those weapons too for more variety.
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Question: Merits/achievements?
Higby: We've got a system like merits that will be extremely robust
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Question: Medical terminals?
Higby: No plans for medical terminals at the moment
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Question: Restrictions for spawning in a galaxy?
Higby: none right now, may change with balance test
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Question: How many hexes per base?
Higby: One base is roughly 7 hexes
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Question: Long Range artillery?
Higby: we want to emphasize direct warfare, so it's not on our priorty list
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Question: Stamina?
Higby: No stamina, sprinting is available on all infantry, but it's faster or slower depending on role/class
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Question: What happens upon login?
Higby: You're presented with a world map showing available missions and transition to partake in any of them immediately
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Question: Will facilities have an SOI?
Higby: Yup, pretty much the region that the facility is in.
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Question: Lore?
Higby: we're definitely changing lore - those of you interested in story are going to be STOKED at what we're doing.
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Question: How will I plan special outfit events, such as mass tanks?
Higby: Our plan is to allow you to use the mission system to do this type of coordination for your outfit.
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Question: Any plan for empire specific HUDS?
Higby: Ya know, we talked about this a bit -we want to get one HUD perfect then we'll see. Vehicle HUDs are unique.
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Question: with no stamina how do you plan to account for bunny hoppers?
Higby: ridicule them incessantly for not knowing how to play? It won't give you much of an advantage in PS2.
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Question: Will outfits be able to customize parts of their armour to make them stand out as an outfit on the battlefield?
TRay: we will offer a number of ways for outfit and players to customize themselves thru progression and or purchase
Higby: Absolutely. the plan is to allow leader / designee to create a 'uniform' and then you, as a member easily select it.
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Question: Hows it looking for Vehicle enter and exit animations? Any updates? Yes/No/After Release?
TRay: Not currently in the game
Higby: Animations are a no, sorry, i know some of you guys love em. There will very likely be vehicle "start up sequences"
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Question: Can we reserve outfit / nicknames?
TRay: Good idea, running it up the flag pole
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Question: is hit detection going to be client side or serverside based?
Question: so ADAD spamming is still gonna be common place as well? Cuz annoying!
Higby: I sure hope not. Our updated netcode should really mitigate that little "feature", haha
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Question: Will the sun's glare effect pilots or other aspects of the game?
Higby: not through some set mechanic although it's possible that the bloom would occlude under some circumstances.
TRay: the world is a living world, dust, sun glare, fog, clouds, night time all effect game play
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Question: Since it'll be easier to kill in PS2, how easy will it be to take down a vehicle compared to PS1?
TRay: eta testing will provide us with the right level of balance. hard to say right now
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Question: Need more Vanu screen shots. NC & TR hogging all the face time thus far.
TRay: we are definitely saving the best for last,. I personally think the VS is the most badass looking of the 3
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Question: Will the GUI be customizable a la WoW?
Higby: Not currently. We do want to give players UI customization options and mods at some point. Stay tuned on that.
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Question: Will there be different voices for voice macros?
Higby: Yep, although the exact number I'm not sure on right now. There will be some variants per empire too
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Question: since the galaxy also acts as a ams now will it have some sort of deployed version or will it just rain troops from the air?
Higby: Galaxy deploying and making a ground "fortress" is something we've discussed a lot. Not 100% sure it will make it in
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Question: Will there be a area to see all your stats possible on your character? (on the web or mobile)
Higby: Yes, web and in game. We'll be externalizing a LOT of game data for people to play with, make apps with, etc.
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Question: Is the Phantasm going in? Or any sort of stealth vehicles. Volumetric clouds are awesome but is there stealth too?
Higby: no stealth veh slated for launch
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Question: Is it still one continent at launch? What happens if there's a peak of online users, and that single continent becomes full?
Higby: We'll be shipping with more than one continent.
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Question: training speed offline vs online? 2-to-1?
Higby: less than that. Online training speed is based on activity, currently you can build up to a 50% boost.
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Question: Bases still have generators?
Higby: Yes, but not the same as in PS1
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Question: How many players will a continent support? Is it really 2000?
Higby: Thousands is the goal, man. Obviously we're still working really hard to make that happen. Lots of optimization.
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Question: Is Commander or Squad leader going to be a role as such? Or are you command certs going to carry over if you play a medic?
Higby: You can be a squad leader as any class, you get some awesome passive perks and coordination tools.
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Question: Awesomesauce. Also, when you mentioned "biospheres", you meant different environment types on a single continent?
Higby: Yep, exactly. We want the continents to be varied. So you might have conifer forest, Glacier, and alpine peaks.
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Question: will we see base type benefits a la PS1?
Higby: currently facilities don't carry the same sort of benefits as on PS1. This is something that might change.
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Question: the AMS may have been slow, but it served a vital purpose. Will there be a ground-based cloakable spawn point of some sort?
Higby: infiltrators in your squad when you have a squadleader with squad spawning spec'd. <trollface>
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Question: going f2p is a great idea but isn't it opening up to to aimbotters to over run the game get ban make a new account
Higby: We're taking hacks VERY seriously in PS2 yes F2P makes it difficult to police, but we're already working on solutions
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Question: Will you share a list of voice macros with us, before you start recording? We might need some weird, non-obvious stuff.
Higby: No, but start a thread on it in the psu ps2 ideas forum and if I see new ones I'll get them added to the list. Cool?
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Question: Is there going to be a pilot class? In ps1 you needed agile, in ps2 is the class that boosts vehicles?
Higby: There isn't a "pilot class" for vehicles. Any non-heavy infantry class can pilot / gun in a vehicle.
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Question: I see you take a lot of influence from EVE Online, will there be killboards that can list all of the kills of a player or outfit?
Higby: Yes, absolutely. We're planning on having extensive leaderboards in game and web, you'll be able to see lots of cool stuff
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Question: How much of your hair is left after the onslaught of the barber? And are you saving the cutt-off in a bag?
Higby: still a bit of hair left. Mostly on my face =(
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Question: I also see and am glad that Battlefield 2 BC influenced your team a lot, will there be pins and medals like BF:BC2?
Higby: we have similar achievement system, but not identical.
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Question: The six classes are MAX, Heavy Infantry, Medic, Engy, Cloaker, Jetpack. Confirm/Deny?
Higby: pretty close.