Paul Rustchynsky: Ah yes! Well, we're referring to it as 'betting' at the moment, and what you'll be able to do, prior to each race, is that depending on what players you select, betting will be available as part of a pre-race activity. Everyone's seeded, so if 16 people are in a lobby and you're seeded the most, every player will have a value associated with them and you can bet on a particular racer to beat. If you get a higher position than the player you've bet against, you win that value of experience to add to your ranking level.
However, at the end of the race you can choose to cash that experience in, or risk it for the next race. If you continue your winning streak, you get to earn a multiplier. If you end up losing the next time around, it's all gone. It's a risk/reward mechanic which I think would be quite fun, especially when playing against your friends. You can start a mini-rivalry and begin setting your own objectives.
As I said, it sometimes can be difficult to go online and always find some elite person who's very difficult to beat. This way, you can create your own rewards by saying Well, I know I'm not good enough to beat the top-seeded guy, but I'll set another target - I reckon I could beat the guy in the middle, Seed #6. You still get your experience, and it's a lot more satisfying.
We've also tied this system into a rewards scheme involving Accolades and Badges, which also give you experience related to the betting and all the actions you do in the race itself. You're being rewarded for everything you do, whether you're drifting, in the air or ramming other players. Whatever your play style is, we'll be rewarding you and giving you a reason to continue playing.
SPOnG: Sony recently announced a date for implementing 3D game capability onto the PlayStation 3. One of those deals revealed was with the purchase of a 3D TV you'd get--
Paul Rustchynsky: Pacific Rift, yeah.
SPOnG: Right. Do you have any plans to go further than that Pacific Rift demo and add 3D to Apocalypse, either for the game's launch or as a title update sometime down the line?
Paul Rustchynsky: At the moment we don't really have anything to say about 3D. Obviously with 3D being one of Sony's key things right now, and the fact that we've engineered a lot of 3D stuff in-house at Evolution Studios, we might hopefully see it in Motorstorm Apocalypse. But as of right now, we have nothing to announce.
SPOnG: There are plenty of new vehicles in Motorstorm Apocalypse, but I've also seen some of the classic buggies and four-wheelers from past Motorstorms there too. Has the balancing changed at all for Apocalypse or has it stayed the same? What differences can we expect in each kind of vehicle?
Paul Rustchynsky: I'll quickly run through what we've got. We've got all nine vehicle classes from Motorstorm: Pacific Rift, and on top of that we've got the musclecar, supercar, the hot hatch, the superbike and the chopper. Now one of the most fun things about the original Motorstorm games was that every single vehicle had a unique driving style, or they each had their unique benefits. The surfaces and terrain layout would all benefit a different type.
That's exactly what we want to do this time around as well. Sure, it's going to be a little more difficult, but we're up to the challenge to make sure all the vehicles are balanced and ensure that the player has the opportunity to play the game according to their own style. A lot of people don't like driving the bigger vehicles so we've added a lot more choice this time around.
What we're generally finding at the moment is that people are latching on to their favourites, but are still competitive and will choose the right vehicles to take advantage of the right routes.
SPOnG: I'd like to extend that concept of variety to the tracks as well the thing I loved about Motorstorm: Pacific Rift was its wonderful use of colour, but obviously because Apocalypse is set in a city, we're seeing lots of grey. Can we expect different scenarios, locations beyond the city streets in Apocalypse?
Paul Rustchynsky: Absolutely. The track that you're seeing here in the E3 demo is actually set towards the end of the Festival timeline, so it's at around the 40-hour period. When you get to the city for example, there's going to be nice sunny beaches. So you're going to get a lot of contrast, absolutely. I don't think it'll be as bright and colourful as a tropical island, but don't expect drag races all over the place. There are some really nice and scenic areas to explore.
SPOnG: How challenging has it been to design all of these tracks and maintain a level of excitement for the player?
Paul Rustchynsky: It's been by far the biggest challenge for us, because it's the one thing we've never done before. We've never dealt with scripted events or even emergent events in this way. It's been a challenge, and this is why we've spent over two years making this.
We started development during Pacific Rift, and we've been prototyping this for a long time now it's gone through many evolutions and I think we've found the sweet spot for what makes an exciting event.
But it's not too distracting, because obviously you can't have too much going on otherwise the player doesn't know what to look at or where to go. We have to be able to still very carefully guide the player down straights at 150mph while everything's going on around them at the same time.
This is one of the reasons we introduced the 'Look At' camera as well, so that as you drive around you ensure you don't miss some of the action. What we found originally was that people were driving through, and we had these big buildings falling down but the player was so focused on what was ahead of them that they were missing some events. There were a lot of lessons learned along the way, but I think we've just about got it right now. [continues...]
Don't forget to read our MotorStorm 3 first look feature.