SPOnG: So was the 'Look At' feature more to help players identify incoming dangers or as more of a spectator tool?
Paul Rustchynsky: It's cinematic framing, really. We want to be careful and not use it too much, because there's nothing more frustrating than these cameras coming in all the time. So we've added optional ones as well, which you use by pressing the Triangle button and that will direct your attention to something cool that's going on.
It might also give hints as to what could happen on subsequent laps too. Obviously the E3 demo is just a point-to-point race, but in the lap-based races we can do a lot more clever things. We can stage all of the events a lot better.
You might get the chance to look at a particular building and think Hmmm... what might happen there? (laughs). Or we might play around with the player a bit, trick them into thinking that something will happen.
SPOnG: There are other obstacles to your racing besides the natural disasters the private military and the Looters/Crazies. In what different ways will they try to impede your progress?
Paul Rustchynsky: In the E3 demo itself all we had in terms of the Crazies and NPCs was the oil tanker at the beginning of the track, really. One of the Crazies just hijacks a vehicle and just bursts into the stage just to cause mayhem. They don't like your presence there, and they just want to mess you around, basically, and destroy your fun.
The military had a few soldiers with guns here and there, but it didn't have a really big presence because at that point in the game, their forces have been pushed back a little bit. The military have a much bigger presence earlier on in the game, as they have almost complete control of the city at that point. As you progress, the Crazies start fighting against the military even more.
So you'll see helicopters flying around, which will fire rockets at you, take out buildings... The thing is, what we can't do is rely on everything for every single race, so the Festival is paced in such a way that you'll be in races that focus more on earthquakes, some will focus on Crazies or the military, or a combination of two of them, as the E3 demo shows. Some will be entirely focused on a battle between the Crazies and the Private Military Company... and some might just be simple races.
It's a balance to make sure every race isn't quite as intense as each other, because going through the peaks and troughs of the Festival career mode helps make it feel more like a rollercoaster ride as you go through it.
SPOnG: As the Festival mode is fleshed out with a bit of a story, can we expect to see boss battles? Will be going head-to-head with certain military forces for example? Or is that something you're not saying?
Paul Rustchynsky: Er ...We're not saying just yet. Although, you said head-to-head there are some tracks in the game where you will be driving head-to-head... with oncoming traffic, which is quite cool (laughs).
SPOnG: As much as I loved Pacific Rift, one thing that really bugged me about the game was some of the rubber-banding that took place when racing against CPU opponents. You're taking a different tack with the single-player storyline, in splitting up the difficulty levels between three playable characters. Is that your way of getting around that AI situation?
Paul Rustchynsky: It doesn't necessarily get around it. Obviously, we're looking to introduce a lot slower and smoother difficulty curve, to make it more accessible to the masses. But we've been aware of the criticism on the forums our fanbase is quite vocal, and we've introduced steps to ensure that the 'pack management', as we call it, isn't quite severe this time around.
We still want the player to be busy all the time, and that experience of being on a track where 16 other vehicles are just ahead or behind you. We definitely want to keep that, but we want to make sure it's absolutely fair this time. So it won't be frustrating.
SPOnG: Can you talk about the Mode Creator in a little more detail, as that sounds quite interesting for those who like to build things in games.
Paul Rustchynsky: What we're looking to do is allow the player to create any mode that they can come up with. There's going to be about four or five game modes included on the disc, but we're going to create those using the same creator that players will use to make their own ones. It's like LittleBigPlanet, where we use the same tools as the community.
It works as a series of actions and events. You choose what actions you want, and you decide what the consequences of those actions will be. So it can be anything as crazy as, Any vehicles that come into contact with one another both explode. And you can combine multiple rules just like that one as a complete game mode, publish it online, and have other people play it.
Hopefully we'll see some great creations from the users, and we'll be able to put the best ones up in the playlist as official ones. We hope it will make sure that players always have something new. Every day they go online, try out a new game mode.
SPOnG: Are you going to have some sort of community spotlight mode, like LittleBigPlanet does with its featured user levels and content?
Paul Rustchynsky: Yeah. We actually rate them as 'hottest.' So when you log in you can go in and see all of the official playlists, and then there'll be a list of top user-generated ones. And the number of people who have played each one in the last 24 hours will help push a particular one to the top.
We'll also have a full-time community manager this time around as well, so he'll be able to look at what the community is doing and speak to them in forums and actively push up user-made game modes.
SPOnG: Thank you for your time.
Paul Rustchynsky: Cheers, thank you.
Don't forget to read our MotorStorm 3 first look feature.
Paul Rustchynsky: It's cinematic framing, really. We want to be careful and not use it too much, because there's nothing more frustrating than these cameras coming in all the time. So we've added optional ones as well, which you use by pressing the Triangle button and that will direct your attention to something cool that's going on.
It might also give hints as to what could happen on subsequent laps too. Obviously the E3 demo is just a point-to-point race, but in the lap-based races we can do a lot more clever things. We can stage all of the events a lot better.
You might get the chance to look at a particular building and think Hmmm... what might happen there? (laughs). Or we might play around with the player a bit, trick them into thinking that something will happen.
SPOnG: There are other obstacles to your racing besides the natural disasters the private military and the Looters/Crazies. In what different ways will they try to impede your progress?
Paul Rustchynsky: In the E3 demo itself all we had in terms of the Crazies and NPCs was the oil tanker at the beginning of the track, really. One of the Crazies just hijacks a vehicle and just bursts into the stage just to cause mayhem. They don't like your presence there, and they just want to mess you around, basically, and destroy your fun.
The military had a few soldiers with guns here and there, but it didn't have a really big presence because at that point in the game, their forces have been pushed back a little bit. The military have a much bigger presence earlier on in the game, as they have almost complete control of the city at that point. As you progress, the Crazies start fighting against the military even more.
So you'll see helicopters flying around, which will fire rockets at you, take out buildings... The thing is, what we can't do is rely on everything for every single race, so the Festival is paced in such a way that you'll be in races that focus more on earthquakes, some will focus on Crazies or the military, or a combination of two of them, as the E3 demo shows. Some will be entirely focused on a battle between the Crazies and the Private Military Company... and some might just be simple races.
It's a balance to make sure every race isn't quite as intense as each other, because going through the peaks and troughs of the Festival career mode helps make it feel more like a rollercoaster ride as you go through it.
SPOnG: As the Festival mode is fleshed out with a bit of a story, can we expect to see boss battles? Will be going head-to-head with certain military forces for example? Or is that something you're not saying?
Paul Rustchynsky: Er ...We're not saying just yet. Although, you said head-to-head there are some tracks in the game where you will be driving head-to-head... with oncoming traffic, which is quite cool (laughs).
SPOnG: As much as I loved Pacific Rift, one thing that really bugged me about the game was some of the rubber-banding that took place when racing against CPU opponents. You're taking a different tack with the single-player storyline, in splitting up the difficulty levels between three playable characters. Is that your way of getting around that AI situation?
Paul Rustchynsky: It doesn't necessarily get around it. Obviously, we're looking to introduce a lot slower and smoother difficulty curve, to make it more accessible to the masses. But we've been aware of the criticism on the forums our fanbase is quite vocal, and we've introduced steps to ensure that the 'pack management', as we call it, isn't quite severe this time around.
We still want the player to be busy all the time, and that experience of being on a track where 16 other vehicles are just ahead or behind you. We definitely want to keep that, but we want to make sure it's absolutely fair this time. So it won't be frustrating.
SPOnG: Can you talk about the Mode Creator in a little more detail, as that sounds quite interesting for those who like to build things in games.
Paul Rustchynsky: What we're looking to do is allow the player to create any mode that they can come up with. There's going to be about four or five game modes included on the disc, but we're going to create those using the same creator that players will use to make their own ones. It's like LittleBigPlanet, where we use the same tools as the community.
It works as a series of actions and events. You choose what actions you want, and you decide what the consequences of those actions will be. So it can be anything as crazy as, Any vehicles that come into contact with one another both explode. And you can combine multiple rules just like that one as a complete game mode, publish it online, and have other people play it.
Hopefully we'll see some great creations from the users, and we'll be able to put the best ones up in the playlist as official ones. We hope it will make sure that players always have something new. Every day they go online, try out a new game mode.
SPOnG: Are you going to have some sort of community spotlight mode, like LittleBigPlanet does with its featured user levels and content?
We'll also have a full-time community manager this time around as well, so he'll be able to look at what the community is doing and speak to them in forums and actively push up user-made game modes.
SPOnG: Thank you for your time.
Paul Rustchynsky: Cheers, thank you.
Don't forget to read our MotorStorm 3 first look feature.