Borderlands

Ik weet niet of het aan mij ligt, maar je link doet het niet Dr0kz.
Probeer deze?

Anyway, het was een erg goed filmpje. Lekker sexy.
Alleen vind ik de trailer met de nieuwe art style nog steeds t best . Maar het blijft nog steeds dope!

 

Nice! Al enig idee hoe groot de spelwereld zal zijn?!

*pre ordered Borderlands*

 

Zijn ze niet echt duidelijk over geweest maar je hebt zeker je vehicles nodig en ze hebben fast travel van stad naar stad erin gedaan dus zal wel aardig groot zijn.

 

doet het niet bij mij

 

Kijk dan ook naar de post van powerlines:b:

 

alles klinkt er ziet er allemaal wel tof uit..
maar in geen enkel preview of hands-on word de diepgang van de game niet behandelt..

 

Bron: GamePlanet

Spoiler

Randy Pitchford on Borderlands: cheating, art direction, DLC and... oompa loompas Interview by Dan Cheer (11/09/09) As well as visiting a Sydney gay bar and playing Borderlands this week, we also got the chance to talk to Gearbox head honcho Randy Pitchford. We put some questions to him about the game. GP: What anti-cheating measures have you got planned for the PC release? RP: Well, you know, cheating is like an arms race. It’s very difficult to anticipate what these guys are going to do. So our strategy is to see what they’re going to do, then go from there. For example, Borderlands as you play it now, it’s a shooter. You know, you can play it by yourself, or it’s a co-operative game, you can play it with friends. And it’s about growing your character and getting loot. You know, I remember when I played Diablo – did you play Diablo? GP: For sure. RP: I loved that game. I played like 300 hours. But one thing that really pissed me off – I played that game single-player and I finished the game. Then I’m like, I want to take my character online now. So I went to play multiplayer and they said no, sorry, multiplayer is totally different and you have to start a new character. And I’m like, what the hell is that crap? So I kind of dug into it a bit, went on the forums, and said why are you guys doing this? And they said, by making it a separate thing, we’re able to control the server. And it helps us fight against cheaters. And guess what? There were still cheaters. It didn’t protect anything. o, they hindered my usability as a customer by separating the single-player from the multiplayer, and it didn’t really help anything. There was still cheating. So I think they learned something from that. So I think with how they do it with World of Warcraft, there’s an action and a reaction. If someone does something, you know what? Don’t do that. We’re going to smack you down and either ban people or shut it down. It’s an arms race. So we’re going to have to see what happens, and react. That’s our strategy. Because if you try to pre-empt, you’ll change things in a way that’s bad for the players. It’s a solid game, it’s put together well, we’ll launch it then see what people do. If there are people out there that are really intent on ruining peoples experiences, we’re going to have to go in there and take care of them. That might be banning them, or patching the game, fixing whatever holes they’ve found, or a number of different strategies depending on what they do. GP: Speaking of World of Warcraft, I was just playing Borderlands multiplayer and there’s an instance where you have to collect crystals. It looks and plays very much like a Warcraft dungeon... RP: Instances, yeah, we call ‘em “doglegs”. That one was a very simple one, we just chose it for you guys because there’s no bosses at the end of it. Many of them have bosses so you can get loot drops, but we used this one because it’s a great place for random people who have never played the game to just get in and kill some stuff. It works well in this situation. But you know, if you ever go into a World of Warcraft instance, to really succeed, everyone has to work together. Everyone has to play their part. If you go into an instance and vastly outlevel it, you can take care of it, you’ll be really powerful. So there are real similarities there between Borderlands and World of Warcraft. GP: So lots of people are talking about the long production cycle, and how the artwork was changed. Did the artwork change allow you to go over the fundamentals of the game? RP: It actually happened in reverse! (laughs) We made the decision in 2008, right after we came back from E3, we knew that what we were doing, starting with a shooter, and laying things on top, was fun. It was working. We knew this was going to be great. At the time, the game was a little more linear, more of a traditional first person shooter. We only had three character classes, and the world wasn’t so large, and there were no side-missions. So we made the decision to delay the game to October 2009 and build a plan to make the world larger, and add another character class – because we needed a tech class – so let’s make a more open world and still have a linear path. Let’s make it a large connected world where you still have the freedom to explore, and discover, and have a choice, and grow - let’s do that. And we planned that all out, so OK, this meant we had to delay until October 2009. So our artists were like, "hey, that’s cool, but we’re kind of done here! So, like, what are we going to do?" And a few of them were like, "we were never really happy with this anyway." Because we started with all these amazing concepts – we had this concept art that was over the top, had all this attitude, and all this personality – then when we built it, it was a safe, kind of realism thing. So it was like, how do we get that personality and attitude back? So a few of them, without me even knowing about it, actually went off to the side and started playing around with it, trying to render the graphic art style into the concept art style in the game engine. By the time I got wind they were up to something, I had no idea what they were doing. But they’d already spent some time doing it, so I made a deal with them – I said, "I don’t know what you guys are doing, but you have three weeks, then I’m making a decision." And I only did that because I knew if I stopped them right then, I’d crush their souls! (laughs) I was hoping over the three weeks they’d give up, but they didn’t. They doubled down. They worked hardcore and they made this prototype, and I looked at it and I remember going into the meeting – and I hadn’t even seen it yet – and I thought, I don’t know what they’re doing but I’m going to have to shut this down. All I knew was that what they were doing meant we’d have to change all the art. And I went in there and I saw it, and I’m like this is freaking cool man, I’d never seen anything like this. So it was awesome. And what came to my mind was, have you ever seen auto makers when they make those concept cars? They’re awesome. They have all this style, but have you ever driven one? They never frikken build one. So we were doing the same thing. All this crazy, over-the-top concept art, like all these crazy characters and all the style in that, we made the same thing. And our artists, they weren’t going to stand for it. They did a kind of insurgency, a rebellion, and they brought back the concept. And I’m thankful because they did amazing work, they proved they could do it, they proved it was awesome. So that’s what we have today. GP: I also noticed the music in the game is pretty out there as well, what team have you got working on that? RP: Raison Varner – he’s one of our directors at Gearbox, he directed all the audio for Borderlands, he composed a lot of the music, there’s some audio he got from other composers but most of the audio is his stuff, stuff he did. It’s amazing stuff, brilliant. He’s a great composer and musician. He’s done a lot of great work for Gearbox over the years. That guy is awesome. GP: Are you talking about DLC yet, or is it a bit soon? RP: Yeah, we haven’t announced any yet, but we’re definitely doing it. Right now we’re just focused on shipping the game, but we have people now wheeling off, they’re done. And we’re not done, we’re loving it. So we’re starting to draft out our DLC, and working on it. What we’ve got so far, what we’re planning is pretty awesome, and I think we’ll probably announce it right before the game launches. Maybe even at our launch party on October 17th. I think at that time, it’ll be a good point to announce what we’re doing, because by that point we’ll know. Our passion and momentum right now is pretty high, so I think we’re really going to surprise people with some cool stuff. But it’s not just one thing either, I’m committed to doing a bunch of stuff this year, and into next year. GP: So can you tell us a bit about what it’s actually like to work at Gearbox? Are you pretty laid back? RP: Well, first of all, it’s pretty tough, because we have all the oompa loompas running around... and you have to get across the chocolate river. (laughs) I mean, it’s a development studio, so we have a huge number of awesome, creative people. I wish when I was doing these kind of things I could talk about the awesome talent, because I’m fortunate enough that I get to go around talking to people like you, and I get to brag about the games, but I didn’t make the game by myself. I’m just a small part of a machine full of amazing talent, and my job is supposed to be about enabling that talent to come through, and you know, I help settle arguments and I help steer direction, and I always like to get my hands dirty, but work like this doesn’t happen without a large number of amazing guys. What’s neat about an environment full of creative people is that everyone has crazy ideas, and not all of them are compatible, so a lot of them try stuff and sometimes things come from strange places, like this robot character. We call him Clap Trap. He wasn’t even in the game for the longest time. He was a character that one of our concept artists created off to the side, not even for the game. Just an interesting little character. We thought we could do something with him, so we started to play with him and we thought about what sort of personality he could have, to make him really interesting. Have you ever seen Total Recall? You remember the Johnny Cab? So this guy, he’s lit on fire, but he’s always got this cheery attitude, so we just thought that was hilarious. We kind of borrowed that personality and put it on this little robot dude, and he became a character in the game. He’s so fun, and the voice actor nailed it, he did a great job, and we thought – you know what, it’d be great to have him as the character that kind of helps you through the world. That didn’t happen because of me, that happened because great creative people were working together. GP: So did you get a voice cameo in the game at all? RP: Yeah! I’ve actually done a couple of things. (laughs) I’m not going to say what... because I’m not my own voice... but we had a lot of fun with this game. One of the neat things about the game is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously, we were able to cut loose and get silly with a lot of stuff. It’s been fun to work on. GP: So where did the initial idea for Borderlands come from? Did it just occur to you one day that you wanted to do this type of game? RP: Well, game design usually starts from one point, either story, style or design. Style might be like a graphic look, story might be who, why, when or where. And design might be what kind of gameplay you’re looking for. Borderlands started from a design vector. The idea was talked about between myself and other people at Gearbox over a decade – it probably pre-dates Gearbox. The fundamental idea was to take a fun FPS game, a fun shooter and lay on top of it a fun role playing game, where you could collect loot and level up, get skills, those things had never effectively been blended together. We knew shooters were fun, we’d been building shooters for our entire careers, but to make it insanely compelling we could add loot, levelling up – like Diablo; at the end of the day, if you saw an icon, you’d click it. The skill to play the game is the same skill to launch the application (laughs), but I don’t care, I want another sword! I want to level up! I want a new skill. And so, shooters are the opposite. Gordon Freeman, Master Chief, they finish the game the same person they started. So the core idea was what if we blended those two things together? The compulsion of loot, levelling up, developing skills, blend that into the fun, moment-to-moment action. That was the idea. We committed to doing it just after we shipped Brothers in Arms Road to Hill 30, the first half of 2005. We did about six to eight months, then we started looking at publishing partners, and we ended up doing a deal with 2K Games to publish it. And we’ve been in development for over four years. To find out more about Borderlands, be sure to read our hands-on preview.

Bron: Palgn

Spoiler

Borderlands Preview Denny Markovic, 11 Sep, 2009 There’s been a recent trend growing within the gaming industry. That trend is the blending of RPG elements with the frenetic gameplay of shooters, and stirring them within the proverbial pot to create a brand new kind of game. Some games do it quite well, others not so much, but regardless of the quality, none have quite felt as in-depth in either the RPG or shooter format. They either add too much RPG and not enough gunplay, or too much gunplay and not enough RPG. Following four years of development, in comes Borderlands, Gearbox’s latest creation which combines their vast experience in FPS gaming with a whole lot of RPG elements, which ends up feeling a hell of a lot like World of Warcraft, of all things. While this may seem strange, it's certainly not a bad thing though, because after our extended hands on and a nice chat with Gearbox president, Randy Pitchford, we were yearning to hit just one more level. The story of Borderlands has you playing the role of a Loot Hunter on the planet of Pandora, and your mission is to find an ancient alien treasure, rumoured to be hidden in a legendary vault. Pandora itself is very bleak and desolate, looking like something out of Mad Max. While on the way to finding this treasure, you end up going through several other story chains and side quests, giving a lot more depth to the world of Pandora. Once you’ve picked one of four character classes to use throughout the game (each having distinct play styles and character builds), you’re on your way, starting off with killing and gathering quests, much like any good Western or MMORPG. There is something about Borderlands that manages to maintain a certain appeal; so from the moment you start questing, you simply can’t stop. Objectives are simple and not too challenging initially, and level progression is extremely smooth and enjoyable, particularly because the shooting mechanics are so good. It works just like a traditional shooter, however damage is counted as you'd expect in a shooter, in numbers and HP gauges as opposed to a dice roll. So critical strikes such as head shots are on your ability to aim, not on percentages: if you manage to lodge a sniper bullet directly into the face of an enemy, you’re going to score a critical hit (on the high level playthrough’s with a sniper/critical strike build, we were pulling off criticals hitting into the 20,000 damage range), so loot and such will not dictate if you win a fight or not, but your own skill and accuracy, which is hugely rewarding in a game like this. Loot still plays an important part in sustaining the addiction and satisfaction of the game however, with over 16 million different weapons to loot. Yes, you read right, over 16 million. Borderlands uses a loot AI system, which randomly generates weapons of all kinds, all with different stats. It works much like Diablo or more recently Too Human, where the amount of loot and weaponry available is ridiculous, and they also drop in random intervals, so one day you might just get a legendary item (orange coloured) drop and you’ll suddenly be a walking powerhouse. It’s a system that works exceptionally well for a game such as Borderlands. It not only keeps you playing, but also encourages you to take on the quests involving bosses, which drop the really good stuff. Bosses are not just in quests however, but in caves and other secluded areas as well, which are basically the same as instances in many MMO’s. Here you can blast through elite mobs (which are named ‘badasses’ in this game), pick up loot and take down the bigger and badder bosses so you can get the ultimate kinds of loot. And if you’re struggling with taking down some guys, your buddies can instantly join in with the press of an invite, with up to 4 players being able to join. The build we played was on the Xbox 360, and suffice to say multiplayer was seamless and fantastic. Apart from the polished and addictive gameplay, Borderlands also looks freaking awesome. Using a cel-shaded style of rendering, everything stands out and looks vibrant, giving the game a very comical but gritty feel. It’s also insanely gorey and very dark in its humor, an example being us blowing the arm off a midget with a chaingun, which we then set on fire. It has quite a unique art style too, giving off a very Mad Max kind of feel and great sense of mystery in the barren world of Pandora. We didn’t get to hear much in terms of sound, however guns were loud and crisp, as you would expect, and screaming midgets that are on fire never sounded better (though we admit, we don’t know if we’ve ever heard that before). We could easily write a lot more about the content available in Borderlands, with things such as vehicles, the PvP and Arena systems and individual classes, but we figure you’d best want to discover most of it for yourself. From what we have seen in our play time with it, Gearbox seemed to have successfully captured the addictive feel and nature of the most popular MMO out there, but also blended their experience in FPS into it, to create a vivid and immense world which is easy to get consumed by and hard to leave alone. Out on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and the PC on October 23rd, Borderlands is definitely one to keep an eye on, as it could very well be the surprise hit of the year. Overall: After our extended playthrough of Borderlands, we're dying to get back in and play some more. A title worth keeping your eyes on.

Bron: GamePlanet

Spoiler

Borderlands Hands-on by Dan Cheer (11/09/09) We hopped across the ditch to spend some time with 2K's Borderlands. Is it a shooter, or an RPG? You can have both, it seems. A gay bar in the heart of Sydney’s Kings Cross is hardly the typical place for a video game show-and-tell session. But then, Borderlands is hardly a typical video game. Upon descending the flight of stairs and discovering a cavernous space with brightly lit LCD screens and an open bar, it was immediately clear that 2K Games were pulling out the stops for the media. Having the improbably named Randy Pitchford, founder and CEO of Gearbox Software in attendance, along with vice president Steve Gibson, allowed us to learn about this much anticipated title directly from the people who have nursed it through a difficult inception. In production now for four years, Borderland’s development could hardly be called swift. Although the artwork was largely finished halfway through 2008, a minor revolt from within caused the design team to drop the ultra-realistic look they had originally gone with for Borderlands in favour of a more laid back, hand-drawn approach. Despite being somewhat at odds with the brutal, gritty game world, this was a fortuitous move, as the laconic and over-the-top NPC’s manage to simultaneously inject the title with humour and charm, as well as seamlessly providing a point of differentiation with pretty much every other shooter out there. Of course, Borderlands is no mere shooter. Gearbox always intended to include a strong RPG element in the game, fusing fast paced first-person action with a robust skill tree and level system. Each of the four main playable characters is uniquely adapted to suit a particular fighting style – Lillith is more adept at sneaking from rock to rock and using sniper weapons, for example, whilst Brick can stock up on defensive skills and act as a tank. It’s very much up to the player as to which they prefer. The creatures that inhabit the game world are diverse and, generally speaking, mutated. If you can imagine a mix of Mad Max, Tremors, Dune, Aliens, Starship Troopers and Total Recall, you’re probably on the right track. You’ll initially face fairly basic creatures that have relatively slow movement and damage potential; however before long your skills will be tested with “Badass” monster variants, and instanced boss fights which are every bit as tricky as they sound. If this seems terribly familiar, it might be because Gearbox has drawn inspiration from not only popular films, but also other games. There are clearly elements of World of Warcraft, Diablo, Fallout and Gears of War to be seen, however the positive attributes of these titles have been retained carefully and appropriately. For example, you can enter the aforementioned instances (called “doglegs” in Borderlands) where you may have a strategic objective to complete, such as killing a named boss or plundering the zone for resources, yet loot is largely confined to ammunition, weapons and money, the latter being used to purchase additional items from the many vending machines dotted around the environment. Weapon drops are random, and the now familiar colour identification system of white, green, blue, purple and orange has been retained to denote the quality of the find. Where Borderlands differs however is the procedural generation used to create the items. Gearbox essentially fed a bunch of manufacturers, types of weapons and ingredients such as wood, steel, and plastic and told the software to engineer the weapons from there. The result? Millions of permutations. There are more weapon variants, we’re told, than every game ever made for the Xbox 360 and PS3 combined. The artwork, too, reflects this. Pick up a rifle with a large magazine capacity, and the associated picture will faithfully reproduce the additional volume. Need a better scope? You’ll know one when you see it. It’s the little touches like this that sets Borderlands apart, and it’s clear that a team somewhere has spent a considerable amount of time getting it right. Shooters just don’t cut it these days without co-op, and sticking with the RPG theme, Borderlands features drop in, drop out matchmaking that also adjusts creature difficulty on-the-fly depending on the number of players allied in the game. The co-op has a number of advantages – you can have multiple people controlling vehicles (and able to swap seats without stopping) as well as the neat ability to duel with your allies to test your new skills and equipment. Not to mention making up the numbers for those dogleg challenges, too. Before setting out for this trip, I’d read somewhere that Borderlands could most accurately be described as a RPS – a Role Playing Shooter. This is probably the best definition, as although it’s clearly a shooter above all else, the RPG element will be what keeps punters glued to their screens. With thirty main quest trees and over a hundred additional side quests, players can expect around eighty hours gameplay before the game hands you over to the wild and expects your character to fend for themselves. It’s at this point that we’ll discover whether it truly has legs to stand on, although with that amount of gameplay already promised, it seems likely the trip there will be a blast. Borderlands launches October 23rd for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, so if you like a bit of depth to your shooters, you’ll definitely want to watch for this one prior to the festive season. --- Our thanks to 2K Australia and Take Two Interactive New Zealand for getting us to Sydney to check out Borderlands. Stay tuned for our interview with Randy Pitchford shortly!

Even kijken of ik de dingen nog wat mooier kan maken o.o.

 

Lol dat is wel een hele oude foto van Randy.

 

Is dat Randy? Hij ziet er nu veel anders uit.

 

Filmpje net gekeken. Is echt vet.

Ik denk dat ik toch voor Lilith ga de underdog

 

Iedereen is jong geweest.

 

ik heb m ge-pre-ordered bij gamehubs.com voor €32 en een beetje.

 

De game begint zowaar populair te worden.
Vroegah was het een stuk eenzamer in dit topic. Ook PowerLines was er nog niet.

 

ik houd m al een hele tijd in de gaten, post gewoon wat weinig hier trailers zeggen genoeg i guess, dan hoef ik niet ook nog een zegje te doen.

 

Jep, true that.
Ik had eerst niet zo'n interesse in het spel.
Ik vond het maar een twijfel geval, maar toen ik me er in ging verdiepen, begon het me steeds meer aan te spreken.

En ja, nu ben ik dus een BL-fan.
Noem me maar Delano of Power BTW.

Bron: AusGamer

Borderlands Randy Pitchford Interview Post by Steve Farrelly @ 02:23pm 11/09/09 AusGamers had a chance to chat to Gearbox Software President, Randy Pitchford, to talk about all things Borderlands. read on for the full interview... As many of you know, AusGamers was invited to a 2K-hosted Borderlands event which featured Gearbox Software President, Randy Pitchford who we had a chance to sit down and talk with. We also asked you for a host of questions you wanted answered about Borderlands, most of which were actually answered in the presentation prior to our interview. So in the interest of giving you the goods, we've compiled your questions below with our own answers based on what we were shown at the event. Greazy: The game has the standard Tank, Mage, Rogue and Healer classes, does that mean similar to WoW you need at least three of the four classes to be able to quest or can a group be dominated by say healers or mages and still get the job done? And will there be aggro? Can you use terrain to your advantage (ie: choke point forcing the enemies to come through in fewer numbers at a time, distance etc)? Is this simply a RPG with guns or FPS with RPG elements? AusGamers: You can pretty much solo the game, and you're not forced to ensure you have any one specific class. Class abilities are more of a bonus and just help get the job done quicker and better - but any number of classes can play through the game in any set-up. We didn't see any examples of aggro and didn't get a chance to ask Randy that one, however, as this is a shooter with RPG elements (not the other way around), shooter staples such as choke points and terrain are definitely part of the experience. It's also not a roll of the dice affair - it's all skill-based, so FPS aficionados will have no problem owning the mechanic. Khel: Oh, and another thing, are people with the PC version going to be able to play with people who have the 360 version? AusGamers: Nope. It's a platform-specific affair. Though Randy mentioned each platform would have something unique over the other platforms to take specific advantage of each of their various strengths, though no specifics were given. (Khel your other question was answered in the comment below yours). TheFlyingEgg: Clap Trap, shortly before being interrupted by a rather cranky skag, mentioned that enemies are generated in the same way as guns. What are some of the variables we can expect to see in the baddies of Borderlands? AusGamers: Again, we didn't get a lot of info about this as they didn't want to reveal too much. The only thing we saw in the way of enemies were variations on a theme (ie Pup Skag, Disgruntled Skag, Adult Skag, and so on...). There are also Elites called "Badasses" - you'll also be able to look at any enemy from a distance through ironsights or cross-hairs - if a red skull appears next to their details, the game is recommending you don't try and engage that monster as you're likely going to wind up dead. d0mino: So there is LOTS of co-op (which is awesome) but no deathmatch? Planning some DLC game modes (like dm, tdm, capture the flag etc)? AusGamers: This pretty much gets answered in my interview, but yeah, Randy was fairly open to DLC MP coming if demand is high enough, which I guess just means joining the official forums and screaming for it. Most of everyone else's questions were answered by other users, but I played the game extensively for a while and chatted to Randy on the side, so feel free to ask any other questions and I'll see if I can answer them based on what I was privy to at the event. But know this - the time I spent with this has me salivating for it - it is essentially World of WarCraft meets Diablo, Left 4 Dead, Call of Duty and Fallout 3, 'nuff said. Randy Pitchford Interview AusGamers: We're sitting with Randy Pitchford, president of Gearbox Software after having just run through a local demo of the impressive looking Borderlands. Randy, let's start at the beginning: You guys have previously worked with Ubisoft on the Brothers in Arms series, can you tell us how you found your way to 2K Games and just how Borderlands came about? It's a pretty distinct departure from the aforementioned series... Randy Pitchford: Yeah, well we're gamers, so we play a lot of different types of games and as game-makers, we also make a lot of different types of games. For example, last year we put out Samba Di Amigo for the Wii - shaking maracas to Latin music which was a lot of fun. And several years ago we made one of the Tony Hawk games for Activision and Neversoft, which was fun too. And so we've had some great things, and we actually starting working on this one [Borderlands] in 2005 after we shipped the very first Brothers in Arms, so yeah, this game has been in development for about four years. You know, we loved working with Ubisoft on our Brothers in Arms brand and you can expect we'll continue to care for that, but this [Borderlands] has really been a lot of fun for us, because not only have we been able to push it in a new direction in terms of game design; blending shooting and role-playing, but we've also been able to cut loose with the humour. You know, when we make our Brothers in Arms games we really treat that subject with a huge amount of respect - we really care for that subject-matter, but with Borderlands we're making it all up, so we can just cut loose and have fun. AG: Speaking of making it all up, during the presentation you were talking vividly about backgrounds to all of the characters we came across - there seems to be a huge amount of lore involved in this game, which makes a lot of sense now that we know it's been in development for four years, but just how expansive is the game's lore and is there a chance you might explore it in other mediums? Randy: Maybe. Umm, there's a lot of content in the game that's about the 'lore' as you call it, but we don't really force it down your throat, you know. We make everything really accessible because we want the game to be fun and we want the player to enjoy the action of the game - we don't want to slow the player down with having to read a bunch of stuff they really don't care about and so even when we do have information, we kind of just push it in the corner and you can just ignore that and keep shooting and doing what you're doing, or you can stop for a moment and focus on that and listen to what the game has to say. When you're taking missions, you can read all of the mission text and understand the back-story behind it all and what the intent is or you can just 'Accept' and follow the little carrot that tells me where to go. But it's really variable based on our game styles because there's very little that frustrates me more than games that really slow me down unnecessarily because they feel so highly about their own content, and frankly if I wanted to read a bunch of stuff or watch a bunch of movies I'm gonna watch something from Steven Spielberg - you know, someone who's really good at making movies. If I wanna read, I'll read a book from a great novelist; I'll read J.K. Rowling, I'll read Harry Potter, you know... and I'm not going to get that from a game developer, what I want from a game developer is interactivity - I need a videogame. And so that's what we're kind of focusing on there. Now, having said that there is a lot of lore, in fact this week we launched an episode starring the Clap Trap character - the little robot. And you can watch it on your site and it's just Clap Trap behind the scenes and we had a lot of fun doing it and you know, with Brothers in Arms we did a documentary with the History Channel we have a comic book series we launched in the United States, there're action figures - it's a big brand and there's lots of material and I think it would be great to do that stuff for Borderlands but there has to be demand for it; some people might spend money forcing that sort of stuff out there, trying to overly suggest it but it needs to be demanded - customers need to want it. AG: It seems like that's the step you're taking with Borderlands, you know it came out of nowhere, then you had this massive, risky visual overhaul and it seems almost like you're testing the waters... well as much as launching a new IP can be described as that, but is it your hope this becomes an ongoing franchise? Randy: Absolutely - that's always the hope. Especially when it's something you've been working on for so long. You know so many people at Gearbox have put so much of themselves into it; it's always your hope that you're building something relevant that's going to be important to your customers and they're going to want more of, so yeah... right now in fact, as we wrap the game up and ship it, we've already committed ourselves to a whole string of downladable content so we're already committing ourselves to supporting the game even after launch, and that's really exciting and we can already see strength based on pre-orders and that we're doing something right here. The pre-orders are climbing every day and the buzz when we track it on Google shows an incredible spike as people discover the game and more and more people seem to be discovering it every day. And you know, at first we were nervous as hell because we know we're doing some silly, crazy stuff here and we didn't know if people would like it, but the more people hear about it the more we hear they like it and we feel pretty good because of that - what we think is cool, other people seem to think is cool which is... cool! AG: There seems to be a lot mixed here that... I wouldn't say is derived, but sits in line with so many popular portions of other popular games. For example, I notice for the console iteration, you've immediately gone with Call of Duty controls, which is a great... Randy: Yeah there're actually a lot of presets for the controls but the default is exactly that - you know, if you're familiar with Call of Duty you're going to be immediately familiar with this... AG: ... and that's great, I picked it up and knew exactly what was going on immediately - Randy: Two seconds right, you had it all sorted in two seconds... AG: Yeah, and that's really important because so many other games tend to take the time to try and force you to play another way - Randy: Everybody wants to reinvent everything, but we're doing soo much reinvention here and so much crazy new stuff, that we don't need to reinvent the fundamentals, in fact it benefits us because we're doing so much that's innovative and new and in some cases even a bit over-the-top and risky that it benefits us, the customer and the game if we stick to the familiar fundamentals - we're already asking you to consume a lot of stuff that's new we don't expect you to also learn to play an entirely new type of control set-up. AG: One of the key things I've noticed is that - and this comes back to your shift in visual style - so many games on the market now try and minimise the HUD yet you guys have heaps of stuff going on; a huge amount of information displayed everywhere, which is great because there's so much to consume... Randy: That's right, and we make sure that it's all relevant. I mean, you're playing a videogame - that's what this is and we don't want to try and trick players into thinking they're not. We want to make this fun and so the information we have isn't superfluous but the information we do present we're not afraid to present because it's relevant to the gameplay. You know, I can see right on-screen how much experience I have, that's how much I need to go up a level, this is the level of my character, this is how much ammo I have, here's how much health I have, how much shield I have, here's a compass that helps me find things I'm looking for - it all makes sense and it's all there to help. It's very clear. AG: So is there a main story? Randy: Yeah, actually there is (smiles). There is a plot, and even though we don't force it down your throat I think it's important to touch upon. It's relevant. The story - fundamentally - is about you becoming one of these characters who is a treasure hunter; a vault hunter. And in this Universe there's a legend; an ancient myth about an alien vault. Now alien ruins and technology have been discovered long ago - centuries ago in this world and on all these distant planets, but they've all been broken ruins and people have translated, or started to translate some of the markings and those translations have almost become a religion; creating this legend that somewhere, the aliens have this vault and inside the vault they've all of their most valuable treasure and all of their most powerful technology and they keep it safe and secure inside this vault. And it's become this kind of romantic legend that parents would tell their children: Work hard and some day you might be the one to find it. And in fact, some people grow and become vault hunters and so they spend their lives looking for this thing no one's ever found that is just a rumour, just a myth. So these characters, the main characters, are vault hunters and they're on Pandora, this planet that's been abandoned by corporations because they just went there to mine the thing and strip it of all the value it had and they've since abandoned it because it's too dangerous and too volatile making it too expensive for them to work there, but you're there because you believe the vault is there. And in fact, not to spoil anything but make the story interesting, the vault is there but there are lots of people who are after it and so the grand quest is about being the ones who discover and find the vault and it's believed whoever can claim this thing will the most powerful, wealthiest person in the whole Universe - so you want to be there first. You're kind of like a mix between a Mad-Max character, where you're the only sane one in an insane world, and an Indiana Jones kind of character where you care about the hunt and the treasure, and so like Indiana Jones, this vault is like your Lost Ark. AG: So there's plenty of vehicle action in the game and I've noticed there seem to be a lot of conveniently placed ramps or jumps - will there be races, or stunt side-quests or anything like that? Randy: There's some side gameplay like that but we're not trying to blend a racing game with a shooter. Vehicles are a great way to get around the world faster; they're fun, they're armed... AG:... can you upgrade them like you can your weapons? Randy: Yeah, but the upgrades are free - we make that really easy. You can choose what weapons you wanna load your vehicle out with, you can choose your paint job but we don't really vary that stuff. The gameplay is more about exploring your character and about completing the missions and levelling up and finding loot. Cars are fun, they're in the world, they're great and there are plenty of Road Warrior style moments and areas but racing is a totally different genre - cars are in Borderlands like Warthogs are in Halo, you know what I mean. AG: It's like your mount... Randy: Exactly! Except unlike your mount in World of WarCraft where you go through things, your mount in Borderlands is armed and you can roadkill with it. AG: One of the biggest questions our community had was about the lack of competitive multiplayer, and I know you mentioned there are actual arenas in the game-world where you can set your own rules for deathmatching and the like... Randy: One of the things we discovered when playing the game (we're losing productivity now because we're having so much fun playing), sometimes you know, you're talking smack and someone is like "dude, you know I'm totally carrying this" and we realised we needed a way for people to settle who is the best playing the game and so we added the Duel which is a true PVP one-on-one battle (very much like WoW duels - Steve.) where you can throw down and see who's the best, and you can do this with anyone, anytime, anywhere in the game - even if you're in the middle of a boss fight you can totally duel. AG: Is there are chance we might see dedicated multiplayer as DLC or in a sequel because it seems like you have all these great tools that would be perfect for it... Randy: Maybe. We'll just have to see if there's a demand for it. Right now we're focusing on the co-operative side of it and of course, you can still duel each other and in the arenas you can have four-player deathmatching or whatever rules you want to create. AG: Will we be seeing dedicated servers and will you be able to choose to drop in to local games? We have a serious issue with peer-to-peer latency here, especially on consoles, so the ability to choose a locally hosted game would be better... Randy: There won't be dedicated servers, but you can play locally via LAN or split-screen and it's only single-disc for LAN set-ups. But you'll just drop into games instantly from the lobby if that's what you want to do - it's drop in drop out co-op, anytime... AG: Damn, we're being wound up Randy, unfortunately we have to end it there. Thanks very much. Randy: You're welcome, it was great talking to you today.

 

Ik stem voor Randy als Game Guru '09
weer een geweldig interview!

 

En weer dezelfde dingen...
Als je 1 filmpje/interview gezien hebt heb je ze allemaal gezien.
HUD/Co-op/graphics/multiplayer etc...
Zelfde geld voor de andere filmpjes, te veel hetzelfde.

Jammer gewoon.

 

eerder de schuld van die interviewers. ze stellen allemaal dezelfde vragen.

 

Als ik eerlijk mag zijn, vin d ik veel filmpjes van vele games hetzelfde laten zien. Je verwacht toch niet dat ze super veel informatie gaan vrijgeven? Dan is het niet meer leuk om alles zelf te ontdekken. En ze laten best wel wat nieuwe dingen zien; de verschillende skills, effecten van kogels, wapens, monsters etc.

Dus over het ''als je 1 filmpje hebt gezien, heb je ze allemaal gezien'' ben ik het niet mee eens. Ik moet wel toegeven dat ik de interviews tegenwoordig niet meer veel vindt toevoegen aan wat wij al weten. Inmiddels is het wel bekend van de art style change etc, wapens etc.

Toch zijn er altijd wel wát kleine verschillen in de interviews die BL het wachten waard maken. Als je ziet hoe positief iedereen is over BL, en dat alles gewoon goed werkt, is toch prettig om te horen. Er zijn vele interviews, vele zeggen hetzelfde, maar vele zeggen ook hoe goed BL is. Simpelweg; de interviews zijn vaak hetzelfde, maar er zijn toch altijd wel wat kleine, nieuwe stukjes. Ik ben daar zelf ook blij om (, maar ook weer niet want ik ben gewoon té nieuwschierig ), want het houdt je op de één of andere manier toch in de ban. Je wilt meer weten, maar je krijgt niet veel meer te weten, dus dan wacht je, totdat je het uiteindelijk zelf kan uitzoeken. En het zelf doen blijft altijd leuker. Als alles van een spel wordt voorgeschoteld, is het spel gewoon minder leuk om te spelen IMO.

@WOUW5, hij heeft gelijk. De interviewers stellen wel altijd dezelfde vragen .

 

Bij deze game vind ik het heel wat erger dan bij andere games.
En geloof me ik volg tientallen games.