I don't if anyone else has mentioned it, but there are a few new screenshots in the UK edition of PC Gamer (physical magazine) that I've not seen elseware. The most interesting ones show a shootout around what looks like an map with ongoing roadworks (including a large mechanical digger, barriers, and what looks like a damaged part of road)
Scan and post please. I need it for my rotating background montage.
Now I feel compelled to name my new squaddies Bob Saget, Daisy Fuentes, and Tom Bergeron!Originally Posted by Lokik
Late, but the article is available here. First page as a preview, the rest are available to members. Mentions that the troopers have smaller sets of stats, and said stats are automatically levelling, so I hope that doesn't mean they go up by fixed amounts per level. Also, the previewer doesn't seem to know much about X-Com games - he thinks we used to level troops manually.
Yep, that was one bit that had me very confused.
Anyway, if it is confirmed as a four man squad, then it's gotta be Hannibal, Murdoch, Face and BA! It'd be rude not to...
Good that they've put some of the article up now - when I first started this thread it wasn't there.
Wrong. You hope for a certain answer and attempt to bend statements to fit your desired answer. What we know: Have seen examples of 4 squad missions. Firaxis themselves said 4 to start with being able to increase "final numbers not decided) - and now an article by someone who was with them, got to see it played, and asked lots of Q's and article says, "Up to 6". Meaning up to six.. meaning less than six but can go up to six.
The fact that you give your squad members perks (RPGesque) and can MODIFY THEIR APPEARANCE all leans toward significant time investment. It would be a waste to put all that effort into disposable soldiers. Only is rewarded if those soldiers are your core and stick around long enough for the investment to pay off.
Here's an interview with Solomon. Not much new, but:
- His conversation with Julian Gollop sounds kinda like it consisted of something like "Hey, I'm working on a game based on your game!" "Oh. That's nice.".
- Wall and scenery objects can be destroyed, floors and ceilings can't, and won't collapse.
Return of the floating roofs? "It’s essentially the same as the original game.", he says. "It's a step back from Apocalypse", I can't help thinking. Heck, we could even blow holes in floors and ceilings in the original game, and it was many peoples' favoured tactic for dealing with big UFOs. Wat.
Also, out of the five or so things he lists as a hindrance to having TUs, the only one that actually looks like it'd be problematic in any way is, as usual, the perks system, and we've already discussed ways to make that work with TUs, elsewhere.
Wow. One of the aspects that could have definitely been improved, with FULLY destructible environments... I guess they were too busy coding multiplayer...? I was kinda taking for granted that full destructibility was in there and was rather excited about it.
At least there's a tentative maybe on the mod tools.
I'm not suprised, really.
There is a reason why so very few games have fulle destructible environments: It's a goddamn pain to implement.
We should be glad to have this level of destructible environments, although im kinda dissapointed there wont be any physics...
As for mods: Don't get your hopes up. Fully destructible environments would most likely require a total conversion.
I still hope there WON'T be a multiplayer mode, allthough it's weird that they won't talk about it.
I know they're difficult to implement, and would require a huge engine overhaul, but I'd expect a company like Firaxis to be able to pull it off with their ample funding and 4 year dev time. Thinking about it though, the appearance of randomness that physics would present really wouldn't fit well with their whole "rigid rules" mindset. And no, I don't expect for a moment that that level of destructibility would be incorporated through modding.
Yeah I also don't like where this whole game is going. They spent so much time and in the end they significantly reduced the amount of freedom we had in the original.
And now it seems they are working on some kind of multiplayer mode -why else wouldn't they just say there won't be one-which will most likely be pointless and a waste of precious developement time.
So hold on. Mr Solomon said that they made a prototype at the beginning which was the original but with better graphics. Then they proceeded to remove/change things to make this game their own. Ok, that sounds like a solid plan (not that I agree with their choices from there).
Following this though, what is the benefit for removing destructible ceilings? Why would they now limit players in this way? What is the benefit of this 'gameplay' wise?
Does this mean that they are taking out high explosives too...?
Also no "physics system". Which implies no collision system, which in turn implies no possibility for an inaccurately-thrown grenade to bounce off something in its path, but then, I'm betting grenades will just go exactly where you aim them in this game anyway, more's the pity.
I think you misunderstand the term prototype.
A tleast in the normal software industry a prototype is a very limited implementation of the core features of a system and it gets discarded once the real developement starts.
Basicaly it's a bit like building a model of a house before starting the construction of the house. It's meant to demonstrate the basic functions, the look and the "feel" of a system, but its not a well designed and reusable implementation.
I'm sure you're right on the nades. Super soldiers. Seems like this is going to play more like chess than X-COM. I like chess and all, but that's not the point. I guess the bright side would be that they should be able to make a killer AI by keeping the variables so limited.
If that's true, that's very disappointing. We've progressed from 1994 to 2012 and we still can't bounce a grenade off an open door and into a room?
I haven't yet read the whole interview, but what you've picked out there is very disappointing. So we can't even blow holes in the tops of buildings now? I haven't played Apocalypse enough to tell the 2nd time round, but couldn't you basically demolish an entire block in that game? What, so we're back to floating ceilings and floors?? Come on Firaxis, this is 2012 and we're still using the same, frankly dumb, physics that we had in the first game?Here's an interview with Solomon. Not much new, but:
His conversation with Julian Gollop sounds kinda like it consisted of something like "Hey, I'm working on a game based on your game!" "Oh. That's nice.".
Wall and scenery objects can be destroyed, floors and ceilings can't, and won't collapse.
Return of the floating roofs? "It’s essentially the same as the original game.", he says. "It's a step back from Apocalypse", I can't help thinking. Heck, we could even blow holes in floors and ceilings in the original game, and it was many peoples' favoured tactic for dealing with big UFOs. Wat.
Also, out of the five or so things he lists as a hindrance to having TUs, the only one that actually looks like it'd be problematic in any way is, as usual, the perks system, and we've already discussed ways to make that work with TUs, elsewhere.
If that's the case, then why the removal of things like inventory and multiple bases around the world?Has it been simplified for consoles?
No. “There’s no reason to pull any punches with any platform,” says Solomon. “Because, when it comes to input, X-Com is not particularly complicated. I don’t feel the need to streamline any aspects of gameplay because the player’s interaction with the game experience is still simple.” The PC version will have its own UI specifically designed for use with a mouse and keyboard.
Last edited by SectoidSquisher; 02-29-2012 at 12:23 PM.
Their description of it was that it was the original but re-skinned. So either they lied about that, or they must have some good reason to remove destructible ceilings...
Eh, it'll likely be just like the original. Doubt they'd make it that simple of "click here to place nade".
As for the ceilings and floors...odd choice to not make them destructible. Unless he meant they don't collapse and they're still destroyable? Mind you, those responses don't appear to be direct quotes to anyone from Firaxis, so could be some misunderstanding going on. (I doubt anyone would be quoted in saying "The official line is that they’re not discussing that at this time.", just saying)
With everything else that we've heard, I'm doubtful on the grenades thing unless they work in specific code to deal with accidental collisions arising from trajectory deviation, but even that's going to need knowledge of the basic shapes of the destructible tiles to work, which could just as easily be done by giving them hulls and leveraging the Unreal Engine's integrated PhysX system, which it sounds like they've decided not to use. We'll see.
And no, I'm pretty sure they're not direct quotes, but I'm not holding out hope that they're massively inaccurate, either.
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