News: Jason Good, Sr. Game Designer, answered some questions

Phyrefli · 2012-08-09, 04:12 AM

Hi All,

Hope this hasn't already been posted - couldn't get the search function to work for some reason. If it has been posted, or if this is the wrong place, could a mod please move/delete?

A while ago I asked Matt if he could answer some questions about PS2 from a Battlefield players perspective. To my surprise he said yes. Needless to say he's busy at the moment, so Jason Good answered the questions on his behalf.

As mentioned, these are from a Battlefield players perspective as there are a lot of old-style players from the earlier BF's who are very interested in this game. They were also asked about a month ago (just got the answers) so one or two of the questions have been answered in the intervening time.

The link to the Q&A is here:

http://www.mordorhq.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2644

Hope it is of some interest.

Scotsh · 2012-08-09, 04:25 AM

Very interesting interview, thanks for bringing it up

camycamera · 2012-08-09, 04:55 AM

good q&a

Sunrock · 2012-08-09, 05:04 AM

1. Will there be any training simulation and/or tutorials, for vehicle training and a gun range?
• Not at the moment, but it’s not something we’ve ruled out developing down the road.

Way would anyone want to have tutorials later? By then you most likely already know what you need to know anyway.

If they don't add it at the launch they might as well forget about it all to gather I say.

Firearms · 2012-08-09, 05:21 AM

Originally Posted by Sunrock

If they don't add it at the launch they might as well forget about it all to gather I say.

It's good that you're thinking about the new players.....

Liwen Diamond · 2012-08-09, 05:35 AM

Usually as an MMO get older, they start to include more and more elaborate tutorial levels. This is because they keep adding new features and levels of complexity to the game, and while veterans of PS1 and people like me who will pick PS2 on day one don't need the help to adapt, a new player, especially young players who barely ever touched the MMO or FPS genre before, might have a hard time climbing the steep learning curve. Not to mention older players will trample them because of their long experience with the game. A proper tutorials might help them avoid some of the most elementary mistakes.

In short it's never a waste to add in a tutorial because their will always be new players to train.

The limit to one character per server is a curious one. This limitation is obviously trying to deter the players from doing... something bad, I just don't see what it could be. Spying on other Empires? It's not like it's hard to create a Spy dedicated F2P account if I want to.

Maybe I'm thinking to far. Probably just a measure to encourage server population control and stability, even server "Loyalty". Looks like I'm gonna need 3 servers total if I want to test out all the Empires.

Notsononymous · 2012-08-09, 08:54 AM

Originally Posted by Liwen Diamond

Usually as an MMO get older, they start to include more and more elaborate tutorial levels. This is because they keep adding new features and levels of complexity to the game, and while veterans of PS1 and people like me who will pick PS2 on day one don't need the help to adapt, a new player, especially young players who barely ever touched the MMO or FPS genre before, might have a hard time climbing the steep learning curve. Not to mention older players will trample them because of their long experience with the game. A proper tutorials might help them avoid some of the most elementary mistakes.

In short it's never a waste to add in a tutorial because their will always be new players to train.

But tutorials never cover "elementary mistakes". Things that new players do (like run around corners instead of peek around them) are not covered in tutorials, and instead new players have to rely on the community to improve if they do not want to fixate their life on improving on their own (which takes time).

What tutorials usually cover is "Press [R] to reload your weapon when you low on ammunition". Which doesn't need a tutorial, it just needs to pop up the first few times you need to reload.

What would be awesome is a firing range where you can see your bullet spread so you can work on controlling your recoil, give you the TTK you had on your theoretical enemy etc.

Liwen Diamond · 2012-08-09, 09:15 AM

Originally Posted by Notsononymous

But tutorials never cover "elementary mistakes". Things that new players do (like run around corners instead of peek around them) are not covered in tutorials, and instead new players have to rely on the community to improve if they do not want to fixate their life on improving on their own (which takes time).

What tutorials usually cover is "Press [R] to reload your weapon when you low on ammunition". Which doesn't need a tutorial, it just needs to pop up the first few times you need to reload.

What would be awesome is a firing range where you can see your bullet spread so you can work on controlling your recoil, give you the TTK you had on your theoretical enemy etc.

I guess you could spent time trying the gunplay within the safety of the foothold each faction has on the contients. Also you'd be surprise how useful a basic tutorial on how to handle a plane could be, especially with the sycthe

Hamma · 2012-08-09, 10:01 AM

Updated as news, great Q&A! Be sure to let us know about stuff like this we will always post it up as news.

Phyrefli · 2012-08-09, 10:41 AM

Cheers Hamma

Will do.

Boone · 2012-08-09, 10:46 AM

Tutorials can be very helpful. Nobody wants to try and learn how to fly while getting blanketed by enemies. I'm not sure why it's so hard to implement. Why couldn't we just load up a small portion of the map on our own seperate from the game and just play around and slap "Training" on it?

JFlask · 2012-08-09, 10:53 AM

I love the note on # of characters. Im actually very glad to see its only one char per server. that will help avoid "spy" characters. well other than people having multiple accounts being as they are free

Boone · 2012-08-09, 11:08 AM

Originally Posted by JFlask

I love the note on # of characters. Im actually very glad to see its only one char per server. that will help avoid "spy" characters. well other than people having multiple accounts being as they are free

Spying along with cheaters (not hackers) seems really like a waste of time to me. That's me though, and I'd think you'd have to have fairly beefy PC to be running multiple accounts. Maybe it was useful in PS1, never played.

I like the fact though only one char per server. I'm sure it's going to take a few weeks before server kind of balance out as people will be making multiple characters to test out different factions.

JADO · 2012-08-09, 11:11 AM

Hey Phyrefli, I've missed your weekly digests since mordor closed down.

SpottyGekko · 2012-08-09, 12:37 PM

Originally Posted by Liwen Diamond

<snip>

The limit to one character per server is a curious one. This limitation is obviously trying to deter the players from doing... something bad, I just don't see what it could be. Spying on other Empires? It's not like it's hard to create a Spy dedicated F2P account if I want to.

Maybe I'm thinking to far. Probably just a measure to encourage server population control and stability, even server "Loyalty". Looks like I'm gonna need 3 servers total if I want to test out all the Empires.

One simple reason for the "1 char per server" limit could be purchased Cash Shop items. If you want to play in multiple factions on the same server, you'll have to create multiple accounts. And store bought customizations, etc. will have to be bought separately for each account.

Other than Cash Shop related reasons, I can't really see any point in the character limit, given that it's F2P and you can create as many accounts as you like (in theory).