MP gameplay footage - Map editor officially confirmed!

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Far Cry 3: first in-game multiplayer footage

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MP Interviews with MP designer Daniel Berlin

Far Cry 3 Level Editor - EXCLUSIVE News - Platform32

Far Cry 3 Multiplayer - Developer Interview with Daniel Berlin (Game Designer)

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Interview with Daniel Berlin, MP designer

Voice is dead. Long live Vouice. It was interesting listening to the developers when they went over their team play features, and how they wanted to promote cooperation by 'hard-coding' more co-operative elements into the game player. We hunted down Game Designer Dan Berlin to find out more...

Strategy Informer: Just as a quick overview then, can you talk a bit about what the multiplayer is 'about' for you guys?

Dan Berlin: We wanted really early on to push Teamplay, and this lead us to look at classes – we don't have a class that can only revive, we don't have an engineer that can only do other things... all these teamplay interactions are available to anyone at any time. I think that availability of teamplay is important, because it's more accessible for the player. This whole thing is then bound together because you're then rewarded for it – we didn't want to reward a guy who goes out alone and gets loads of kills, only to then give him a tool that gives him even more kills.

We want to reward the guy who supports his team, who captures points... he gets the Team Support Points. You end up realising that the guy who actually shot the most people, isn't the same guy who got the most kills.


Strategy Informer: Would you say then that multiplayer by way of voice communications is a failed venture?

Dan Berlin: Yes I do. The multiplayer today isn't really people sitting together in a room, so they can't really talk to each other. Not a lot of people use the voice functionality anyway – I never use it, I'm just sitting alone at home playing on my couch, and I get match-made with strangers, people who I've never met before, so that's why we brought in the silent communication into the game, the backend systems that help you with communications.

Strategy Informer: Before this you worked on World in Conflict, what did those games teach you about online gaming?

Dan Berlin: Doing an RTS in a multiplayer universe is a tough thing – it has a lot of balancing in it, and we have a lot of stats and stuff that we've got from after we released the game. But it relates to stuff like latency, and a load of techie stuff that our guys handle that I know nothing about, but they're really good at it. It's really about brining that top-notch experience to FarCry, it plays really well. We also have a bit of legacy coming into FarCry – if you look at the Firestorm game mode, it takes a lot of legacy from World of Conflict.

The whole idea of having two nodes burning at the same – that idea came from World in Conflict, where there were three of them all connected, and so that inherited into the Firestorm game mode. Also the idea of altering the map, and altering the flow of the map also was something that was pretty big in WiC. You started off with these beautiful times, you know, real American Suburbia, and by the end of the map it's all destroyed, craters everywhere that you could hide troops in and everything...

That's the idea with Firestorm – the fires grow and grow, and they alter the flow of the map and where you can go, and they also change the landscape of the island as well.

Strategy Informer: I imagine you guys are still found of the WiC franchise – will you ever go back to it do you think?

Dan Berlin: Do another RTS? We all love World in Conflict, but I can't comment on anything to do with that at this point.

Strategy Informer: FarCry 3 uses a classes system, where people basically create their own loadouts. Can you describe for us exactly what people will be able to do there?

Dan Berlin: Of course weapons will be unlocked as you progress, you can also unlock attachments for those weapons and so on... we're also working on skills – for example we have one called Bloodlust, whereby you gain some health back when you kill someone, and that really suites certain play styles. Equip him say with a shotgun and some heavy armour as well, and he becomes a bit of a juggernaut. So it's very much up to the player to customise a character that fits his or her own play style. Also you're going to unlock new Battle Cry boosts, and other sequences for the end of match scenes.

Strategy Informer: Do you worry about doing the PC players justice? Especially considering the history of the franchise and your own history as a studio.

Dan Berlin: Of course we do, and that's a good thing because it puts you on your seat to make sure you deliver. But I know there are people out there who bought an entire new rig for FarCry 2, and that's what people do - they see a game they really want and then they upgrade their computer for it. So if you have a monster rig and you want to play FarCry with it we're going to have some very specific tweaks... the PC version is going to be modelled for PC.

Strategy Informer: What can you tell us about the map editor and how it'll fit in with the modding community?

Dan Berlin: We want people to be able to just go crazy with it, but we also want players who aren't map-makers themselves, to be able to find and play quality custom content. So we're going to make it easier for them to find maps, and rank maps as they play. So if you are a map-maker and create something really awesome, there's a good chance that people will see it and it'll become popular.

A little insight for you into the minds and thinking behind FarCry 3's multiplayer. It's certainly a big step to go from an RTS to this jungle shooter, but Massive are confident they can pull it off and keep everyone (well, mostly everyone) happy. Don't forget to check out our hands on preview.

http://www.strategyinformer.com/xbox360/farcry3/interviews.html

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Interview with Lead Game Designer Magnus Jansen:

Team Play Interview HD - Far Cry 3

[mandru]

Well.  ????

How to say it... That first vid was entirely to weird, incomprehensible and frantic for me.  It's something I'll never do.

I just hope that it doesn't reflect what the single player game is going to be like.  ???

[PZ]

Frantic is not for me either - I like being able to think things through, almost like playing a game of chess.  That's one of the reasons I didn't mind the travel time in FC2 - allowed me to plan my actions while driving.  :-()

I suspect that the SP will not have that frantic quality about it, much like the AC series - sure looks hectic in the MP videos I've seen, but the SP game is just fine.

[TheFishlord]

What I'm really liking is that the majority of weapons are no longer left handed versions - the controls and ejection ports are on the correct sides. The Dragunov and the PP19 still look like they're flipped though... :-\\

[Binnatics]

I'm very surprised by the amount of info the devs drop pre-release.  :o

Incredible that they keep on giving away info, clues, gameplay etc. almost weekly. Isn't that a weird publicity strategy? It's almost that they're afraid that nobody will buy the game ;)

I don't really like the MP either. It looks too much like CoD MP. And it's a damn shame that you won't be able to drive vehicles in the MP. But this game I will buy for SP so I don't really worry about it either ^-^

[Art Blade]

the MP almost looked as overladen as bulletstorm or brink :-() I will if at all play SP only

[fragger]

Incredible that they keep on giving away info, clues, gameplay etc. almost weekly. Isn't that a weird publicity strategy? It's almost that they're afraid that nobody will buy the game ;)

That comment made me shudder a little. Often when something is hyped this much it turns out to be a disappointment... I sincerely hope that's not the case here :-\\

I'm having trouble lately viewing vids (not just at OWG, but anywhere on the net - it's my shonky ISP) so for now I'll take you guys' words for it about the MP gameplay. I'm strictly a SP guy with games like this anyway, but I too hope that the SP game won't turn out to be some kind of extreme exercise in freneticism (is that a word? If not it should be).

[PZ]

I'm with you fragger - SP all the way for me... and "freneticism" should definitely be a word if not already so.  Consider it added to the dictionary of world language.  :-()

[ninzza]

I'm a SP only guy, too.
MP is not fun, just gun and run, no planning, exploration ...

[PZ]

MP is not fun, just gun and run, no planning, exploration ...

So true - I managed to play a little FC2 MP when my connection worked, and it was largely like jumping into a nest of hornets - complete chaos.  However there were these lurkers that took joy in shooting players just as they spawned.  I have about as much use for MP the way it is as I do for the majority of sites on the Internet.

One thing I think would have been really cool is if OWG members could have gone online in cooperative play in FC2.  Imagine how much fun it would have been to load 4 OWG members into an assault truck and go through missions to places like Weelegol, Sepoko or really any of the areas.  With the number of different attack methods, we could have gone in from multiple angles and really taught those mercs a lesson or two.

[fragger]

...However there were these lurkers that took joy in shooting players just as they spawned.

Grr... I really hate gamers who do that. Tells me everything I need to know about what sort of people they are.

I agree that going co-op with other OWG members against the mercs would have been great fun :-X

[mandru]

If multi-player involved:

*Creating game maps
*Creating scenarios to explain the player's motivation as they undertake each mission
*Populating the objective points with necessary resources, weapon upgrades and smart enemy committed to defending their positions
*Cooperative play from a team charging in to rip things up
*When the group gets handed their a$$es back to them in their helmets each player can look over their round stats and decide how to replay things different on the reset
*Friendly cooperation

You bet, I'd be there.

[PZ]

I so agree.  In addition, I would like to see a mission creation tool for SP.  Imagine if such a tool existed for FC2 (like exists for ArmA2), and a good number of gamers became interested in developing missions - I'd be playing FC2 for a long time to come - of course, that is not exactly what the developers would want, is it?  :-()

[ninzza]

I agree, 4 player co-op in SP would be fantastic.   :-X

[Binnatics]

I agree totally on the coop desires here. Coop campaign with you guys should be heaven. But most games that deliver coop campaign offer a linear gameplay, not open world. free roam in GTA IV comes the closest to that idea of cooperatively taking it up against police and/or innocent >:D civilians, but the lack of a common goal makes it boring after a while.
I can imagine taking part in an OWG squad while Art *sniper* Blade is in position, Nexor *AT-jumper*  and Fragg *BOOM* -er are holding the flanks with P *silenced* Z on the side to teach them mercs body count >:D >:D >:D

By the way, Fragger I had probably the same problem with online videos. I saw green screens or coloured bars, while the audio was fine. It turned out to be some sort of conflict between my old nvidia driver and the newest flash player. When I updated my nvidia driver the problem was gone :)

[nexor]

If you need them, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the
    "OWG TEAM"

[Binnatics]

If there's something strange, in the neighbourhood, who you're gonna call....

    "OWG TEAM"

[ninzza]

I agree totally on the coop desires here. Coop campaign with you guys should be heaven. But most games that deliver coop campaign offer a linear gameplay, not open world. free roam in GTA IV comes the closest to that idea of cooperatively taking it up against police and/or innocent >:D civilians, but the lack of a common goal makes it boring after a while.

You forgot Borderlands, it has 4 player co-op :)

[fragger]

Thanks for your help Binn, but it's not a graphical problem, it's an access speed one. It takes ages for vids to come down to me. I get to watch three seconds, then I wait half a minute for the next three seconds to load, and so on, until I get to the middle of the vid when the little twirly load icon keeps spinning and never gets any further no matter how long I wait. I've had it happen before, it comes and goes. After a few weeks it'll probably be alright again. It's a small community I live in and there's only one wireless broadband tower nearby so it could be the result of local businesses and/or schools doing periodical high-traffic accessing or something. It usually comes good again after a while.

It's the price I pay for peace and quiet :-()

[PZ]

I hear you fragger - I'd give up my Internet altogether to stay out in the country.

[Binnatics]

Sorry to hear that Fragger, that must be quite frustrating :-\\

[nexor]

Mine was very simular when I still had dialup, was something like 30kbps... so I know what you going thru