| | Digital Extremes' Steve Sinclair
When Xbox Live launches on November 15, the majority of Xbox owners will go online to play Infogrames' Unreal Championship. The first-person shooter was one of the first Xbox games announced that planned from the outset to use all the features of Microsoft's online gaming service. Xbox.com was fortunate enough to talk with Digital Extremes' Steve Sinclair, the lead programmer on Unreal Championship. Sinclair reveals how the game takes advantage of XboxLive with content downloads, stat tracking, player rankings, bots, and much more!
Xbox.com: Just to dismiss any lingering confusion, what is the street availability date for Unreal Championship?
When Xbox Live goes "live"! :) Very soon!
Xbox.com: Being a Live launch title, as well as joining a series that has enjoyed huge success on a number of platforms, Unreal Championship has built up a lot of anticipation. How long was the game under development at Digital Extremes? Any memorable moments during the work? How does it feel to finally get this baby out the door?
Memorable moments?These are too numerous and controversial to mention here...The game is *almost* out, and when it is I'm sure I'll feel empty and hollow when I'm not working on it anymore, playing song four of Outlandos d'Amour over and over.
Xbox.com: It seems that a lot of resources have been devoted to making Unreal Championship a more refined team-based game beyond the simple Domination and Capture the Flag in the original Unreal Tournament for the PC. Now individual characters have different stats and the like. How did the concept develop, and can you talk about some particular stats?
The concept came from the desire to give the AI some personality, and to make choosing your character more than a visual choice, but also a strategic one.Each race has certain statistics and every character has a weapon affinity.For example, the Alien race is very agile and fast moving, but dies more easily than the Juggernauts, who are more tanks than anything.
The weapon affinity gives your character an extra edge when using that weapon. The affinity bonus can be greater starting and maximum ammunition, increased rate of fire, or greater damage.Now combine these with the individual team AI skills (Tactics, Accuracy, and Agility) that increase as you play!
This adds replayability to the game: the choices you make — what character to take, what characters to hire for your team, and where to place them — have apparent consequences. Our QA guys have developed their own favorite races and enjoy pitting them against one another; it's amazing to watch the frail Nightmare race leeching health away from a massive Juggernaut as he goes for a Bombing Run score!This particular Nightmare "Harlequin" has a minigun affinity that makes him particularly effective for slow draining.
Xbox.com: Specifically, how will stats work with the Xbox Live player-matching function in Unreal Championship?
Your Live stats will act as a "bias" for finding games with players that are appropriate to your level.Your efficiency, kills, and so on will be tracked per game type.Currently there are leaderboard time intervals for weekly, monthly, and overall.
Xbox.com: The single player part of Unreal Championship will pit human players against AI bots; how will bots be available for online play? Will they fill up free spots in a team roster, or will you simply be able to use a team you've built up?
The AI will fill in empty slots on the server depending on your server settings.The bots can fill in any team imbalances you might have when playing team games.
Xbox.com: On the other hand, will two players on a single Xbox with a split screen be able to play UC Live?
Yes! The second player can log in to the game as a guest simply by grabbing a free controller and hitting the START button.No getting out of the action to get into the same game; it's a very cool feature. You can also do this with a third and fourth player for up to four-player split screen online or offline.
Xbox.com: Bot technology and AI have certainly come a long way in a couple of years. Can you comment specifically on the bot AI in Unreal Championship? Does it use waypoints or some other kind of logic engine to determine actions? Does it learn in-game?
The bots use a waypoint system where the level designer lays out the possible navigation network as well as placing hints for the AI (for example, placing a marker to indicate a good sniping position). It doesn't learn in-game, although their skills do increase (so they get better), but they technically do not learn the layout or item positions while the game is running (this would harm performance).
Xbox.com: Can you speak a bit more specifically about the worldwide stats that will be collected from online play? In other words, what individual and team stats will be kept? Number of hours played/total kills, matches won, matches lost, and so on.
Points, frags, deaths, games played, specials, and efficiency are currently being tracked.
Xbox.com: What are the strengths of the Xbox Live engine over the usual PC Internet gaming experience?
The coolest part about Xbox Live support in our game is the Friends List. If a friend of mine is playing, I can, within a few seconds, put my game disc in, sign in to Live, and join the server where my friend is playing.
Likewise, I can start up a server (or join a different one) and invite my friend while they are playing somewhere else.My friend will see an invite icon flashing on the in-game HUD and can choose to pull up their Friends List and accept it, immediately "traveling" to my game.On PC, it's usually a shouting or instant messaging "What server are you on?"With XboxLive, you don't need to hunt for your friends; if they are online, you can play with them.
Xbox.com: One of the biggest promises of the Live experience coupled with the Xbox hard disk is the potential to have post-release updates, add-ons, and the like. There have been reports of downloadable content available after Unreal Championship's launch. Can you be more specific and maybe dangle a new tidbit?
I was playing one of the Live add-on maps today and it's looking absolutely gorgeous! You'll definitely be getting FREE cool stuff available for download after UC ships.
Xbox.com: One of the most anticipated pieces of hardware for the Xbox is the Xbox Communicator headset that comes with the Live pack. Aside from all of the obvious advantages for team play, can players "mute" other annoying players who won't shut it?
Absolutely, you just pull up your Players List and see a flashing "talking" icon beside the annoying person and mute them on the spot... this setting is saved in your Live account details so you don't need to repeatedly mute them.
Xbox.com: Even in a proprietary "protected" system like Live, there's bound to be some gamers who are out to spoil the fun. What about booting players who won't behave?
There is an in-game complaint system that can be used to bring Customer Support's attention to particularly troublesome players. There is no ability to kick out players in the game; however, you can host your own server and make it a "Friends only" server with zero public player slots available.
Xbox.com: There has been some mention of unlockable features that become available as a player progresses. Are these just in the single player mode, or will gamers get some extras for spending more time playing on Live?
I'll never tell!
Xbox.com: What kind of a kick will HDTV owners get with Unreal Championship? Is there a 16:9 mode and progressive support?
Yep, progressive support is in there!Yes, 16:9 widescreen is in also.
Xbox.com: How many maps total will be available for play in the boxed version of the game, and how many will be available for Live play?
There will be 28 in the box, and there are4 maps in the works for download from Xbox Live immediately following the game's release.
Xbox.com: Can players expect the same graphics and frame rates playing on Live as they experience in the single player game?
Indeed! The networking adds some negligible amount of overhead.
Steve Sinclair
Lead Programmer
Digital Extremes Interview by John Marrin |
