StrainedEyes
All the way up it!
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2000
- Messages
- 16,332
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 31
What do you do with 650,000 guns at your disposal?
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/985/985914p2.html
Here is the video from last year that shows off a lot of weapons and some gameplay!
[YT]VOwjobQv-AA[/YT]
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/985/985914p2.html
May 22, 2009 - It's been a year since we last saw Gearbox's Borderlands. In that span of time the art style has been completely redone and the weapon count has grown to well over half a million. At E3 2009, we will finally get to see the new look of Borderlands in action. To prep us for the big unveiling, we spoke with Randy Pitchford, co-founder of Gearbox Software.
IGN: What lead to the decision to alter the art style and what how much did that delay the release of Borderlands?
Randy Pitchford: Borderlands is a big, huge game and it was decided earlier that it would be best for the game to move it into later in 2009. With the time, the artists had been itching for awhile to see if they could render their concept art style in real-time. So a bunch of them got together and put a prototype together. When they scheduled a meeting to let me see it, I went in there thinking I was going to have to shut it down for being too risky. But when I saw it on screen, I was blown away. They did it! Quickly, I shared what we had done with our amazing publishing partner, 2K Games, who found a lot of value with the creative risks that were taken with BioShock, and I was excited that they saw the same value that we did and supported us. In fact, the art direction turned out to be bonus value that came from artists effectively using time that the project needed anyway.
IGN: This is a game built for co-op. But a lot of people who buy Borderlands will end up playing the single-player mode. How do the two experiences differ?
Randy Pitchford: The single player experience and the cooperative experience are very similar, except that with cooperative play friends can work together to fight and win. Single player and cooperative play mingle seamlessly and your character is totally persistent, so you can get some way through and invite a friend or you can join a friend and bring everything you've earned along with you. It's amazing technology and there isn't a single other game on the consoles that offers the kind of persistent character development in cooperative gaming that Borderlands does.
IGN: One of the biggest challenges for co-op games is telling a compelling story to multiple people. What are you doing to make the story elements work for multiple people?
Randy Pitchford: It works fine when you play alone or with friends. I think you're going to have to play the game to see what we've done there.
IGN: You can choose from four different characters, correct? Tell us about them and the advantages and disadvantages that come with each.
Randy Pitchford: You can pick from one of four different character classes and each personalized character will grow as you play the game to have different skills and capabilities from others of the same class. There is Roland, the soldier. He's an expert with all weapons, though he prefers shotguns and assault rifles. He can deploy a shield turret that can be upgraded throughout the game. He can also buy other skills and augmentations that befit the soldier class. Mordecai is the hunter. He's agile and is equipped with a sword as a melee weapon. He's expert with sniper rifles. He has a pet Bloodwing, which is, like, a hundred times more deadly than even the best trained falcon. He can send that thing at enemies to rend them apart. The Bloodwing can get tougher and grow in skill too as you play the game. Lilith is a Siren, which is a mysterious, mystical type that has been touched by alien technology. She has strange powers such as the ability to Phase Walk, which is kind of like when Frodo puts on the ring, except that when she takes it off she can kill everything around her with a shock-wave like nova effect. She's awesome. Finally there is Brick, who is the tank bruiser of the group. He's just as comfortable smashing you to a pulp with his fists as he is blowing you to bits with a heavy rocket launcher. Among other traits he can improve and grow, he has the ability to go into a berserker blood rage which makes him super powerful at close range with his meaty fists.
IGN: As for the RPG elements, how deep is the character upgrade system? What sorts of things can you improve?
Randy Pitchford: We've linked the characters in the game to the classes because the characters are really cool, but you'll name your own character and pick your favorite colors for them and all that. As you play, your character will get tougher and more skilled. You'll level up and get stronger in the usual ways and in some ways that are unique to Borderlands. Each character also has a skill tree where you can develop your character in unique ways to make them more powerful with the play style you prefer. It astonishingly robust for a first person shooter, but we've made sure to make it super accessible and not too complicated. It won't slow anyone down just add value to the growth experience.
IGN: What are some of the co-op skills you can learn and how are they used?
Randy Pitchford: There are a lot of complimentary cooperative skills. The classes themselves complement each other well and within each character, there are ways to get unique and distinctive for particular play styles. I don't want to spoil anything here because a lot of this stuff is really fun to discover.
IGN: Last I remember hearing there was a claim that Borderlands features more than 650,000 unique weapons. Are you sticking to that statement? And if so, how is that even remotely possible?
Randy Pitchford: Actually, 650,000 guns is the safe number. We've now got some other new types of weapon classes and a lot of different weapon manufacturers and we have created a bunch of super rare and unique epic weapons and other gear, so the actual number of different weapons in the game is quite a bit higher than that. There are more weapons in Borderlands than in every shooter on both the 360 and PS3 added together. It's an absurd number of guns to the point where talking about it isn't really relevant any more. What's relevant is to realize that you'll be able to find lots of varied and better weapons and gear as you play to become more and more powerful.
Theoretically there is a "best" weapon in every class and type, but some of that will be up to taste as some traits are mutually exclusive with others. Some players will get there and find some of those "best" weapons, though. It feels pretty good to go back through and just completely own some bosses that were tough when you were weaker.
How is it possible that we've created so many guns? We've created technology, as sort of AI for all of the different weapon's manufacturers that we've created, that uses all kinds of different raw materials and components and parts and other content to procedurally generate the weapons for us within the styles of each manufacturer and the nature and general specifications of each class of weapon. It's amazing stuff. I'm still being surprised by it!
IGN: I guess as a follow up, why do you feel the need to have such an astronomically wide array of guns that no one gamer could possibly experience? Do you worry at all that having too many options might actually be overwhelming to gamers?
Randy Pitchford: The game is about discovery and choice and achievement and growth. At any given moment when you're playing the game, you're not thinking about half a million guns. You're thinking, "That bandit has a badass shotgun. I want that. I'm going to get him and take it from him." You're thinking, "Oh man - that assault rifle that's for sale in that vending machine is awesome! It's got an incendiary tech effect, too! I'm going to go do some missions and earn some more credits so I can buy that thing!" You're thinking, "Let's see what's in this locker Okay, a repeater, mine's better, but that one has a huge magazine... I guess I'll just take it and if I don't want it I'll just sell it later. But whoa!!! There's also a double thunder shotgun in there with a freaking scope on it! A scope! Yeah, I'll take that!"
When you join in with friends, it's fun to see what kind of equipment they've found. It's fun to discover new varieties you didn't know could exist. There are surprises to find, too.
IGN: How big of a role do vehicles play in Borderlands?
Randy Pitchford: The runner vehicle is your mount. Some of the bad guys have them too. They're a great way to go from point A to point B more quickly and since the world is so big, you'll want to use them whenever you can. You can also get runners with weapons and nitro boost on them lots of fun!
IGN: Can you customizes vehicles or is it a pretty much a what you see is what you get sort of tool?
Randy Pitchford: There are some customization options with the runners and other surprises too, but I don't want to spoil it.
IGN: The world is said to be pretty massive. Is this a completely open-world game then and if so how are you going to be pointing players in the right direction?
Randy Pitchford: It's a big, seamless and really interesting and exciting world to explore. I haven't quite seen it all yet, but that's because it's getting bigger and better and more rich all the time. There's a narrative that drives you when you want to stay on track, but you can consume that at your own pace. You can take odd jobs, get core missions or just go off track and see what you can find. When you want to follow a path, the game does a great job of showing you the path. You can also just go off about your business. If you want to grind for loot and experience, you can do that too. When you want to just explore and discover, the Borderlands are a great place to be.
Here is the video from last year that shows off a lot of weapons and some gameplay!
[YT]VOwjobQv-AA[/YT]
