Starhawk Message Board older than one year ago
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For the last few months, LightBox has been running a private beta for Starhawk, which just concluded on January 3. Like a big bouncer guarding the door of your city's hot new club, the developer barred entry to all Joe and Jane Schmoes looking to get their taste of what's to come. Boys and girls, soon you'll have your chance: the beta's going public.
PlayStation Plus subscribers get first crack at the public demo starting next week: January 17 for the US and January 18 for Europe, PlayStation Blog reports. If you picked up Uncharted 3, you'll get a crack at the public beta two weeks later: January 31 in the US and February 1 in Europe. Finally, if you've got a regular ol' free PSN account, you can jump in on February 21, when the beta is open to all US users; European users get in on the following day.
If you were one of the lucky few to get into the private beta, you'll have access to the public beta starting next week, granted you didn't erase your original beta files. If you did, you'll have to wait until the appropriate time -- or we guess you could just sign up for PlayStation Plus.
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This past November and December we conducted our Private Beta for Starhawk. It was incredibly valuable to our team at LightBox and SCEA Santa Monica. We really appreciate all of the time that players have spent uncovering bugs and glitches, we would have never been able to find this many of them without real-world gameplay. The Beta effort has been a true partnership with our community so we humbly thank you all. Without your help, we wouldn’t be able to progress to the next chapter in the development of the game: the Public Beta!
We’re now happy to announce that the Starhawk Public Beta begins this Tuesday, January 17th. This is a crucial step for us as we’ll be testing all sorts of things, including game balance, server traffic, and general bugs. This is also a chance for more players to finally see what we’ve been working so hard on. As we’ve been getting so much support and encouragement from fans and press alike, we’re excited to spread the love and get more input to make the best game possible.
That looks kind of fun, right? So maybe you want in the Beta now? Well, take a look below and see how to get early access. Either way, the Beta will be completely open February 21st!
Who gets in, and when?(North American Starhawk Beta schedule)
January 17: All PlayStation Plus subscribers and all Private Beta participants (who haven’t erased their original Private Beta files). You can learn more about PS Plus here.
January 31: UNCHARTED 3 Beta key holders. These voucher codes were found inside of North American copies of UNCHARTED 3.
February 7: Visit GameStop and PlayStation on Facebook and see how you can get early voucher codes.
February 14: IGN.com (details to be revealed soon)
February 21: Everyone with a PlayStation Network account…in other words, everyone who wants in, gets in!
Beta FAQIf I was in the Private Beta, am I in the Public Beta?
If you were in the Private Beta, you are in the Public Beta for the duration. DO NOT delete the Private Beta file from your PS3 or else you won’t have access. Worse, you will be…unhappy.
Is this a demo?
This is NOT a demo. You can expect to find bugs and the vast majority of the game features planned for the final game will not be implemented. Of course, many of you will not read this sentence and will expect the Beta to be final quality. We ask that the community help itself and remind players that this is a test. It happens to be a pretty fun test, but it is a test regardless. Keep an open mind and we’ll continue to regularly update the Beta with changes based directly on your feedback. Remember when you were a kid and you wanted to help make games? This is your chance!
When does the Public Beta end?
When the game is good and ready! :) Honestly, when we’ve learned all we can and feel we can deliver the best product to you. Basically, sometime after February 21st, BUT it’s our recommendation that you do not delay joining or you might find your window of opportunity passing you by.
What’s different from the Private Beta?
We’re going to reveal more about the content updates soon enough. Patience, Padawan…
Will you test out the solo campaign?
Nope! The Public Beta is solely based around the multiplayer experience. While we have a robust solo story campaign in the final game, we can get our testing done elsewhere for that.
How do you send us feedback?
This is very important…to give us feedback, please visit http://us.playstation.com/psn/ and use your PSN login to enter the Beta forums. If you are in the Beta, you can enter the forums. Remember though…with Beta testing comes Beta responsibility. We are on these forums hourly looking for bug info, so please use this. We need your help and this is the best way to give us info.
P.S. Starhawk is in Las Vegas at CES taking in the sun and showing all the tech lovers what Starhawk is all about. Come and visit us at the Sony booth (#14200)! For all other Starhawk news/info please visit www.StarhawkTheGame.com.
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There are plans for "a bunch of" free DLC that "might be surprising," Bonin says, although he adds that he'd be "happy to take your money" for some of the planned content. "We rethought our DLC strategy and we'll reveal more about it as we get closer to release," he says.
More information on the Starhawk public beta will come "very soon," Bonin says, and the game will release "when it's damn good and ready."
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However, that might be easier said than done. We happened to try to play a round today, only to be greeted by a "server connection error." At least after January 3, we'll know ahead of time that the beta won't work.
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Warheads –
The time has come to say “thank you and good night!” As of Tuesday, January 3rd, the lights will go down on the Starhawk Private Beta. It’s been a wild, wild ride and we want to thank ALL the participants that took time out of their schedule to help us test Starhawk. We’ve learned an enormous amount and have applied much of it already. We’ve still got a long way to go but the leg up this info has provided us is incredibly valuable. The Private Beta was our first step to try out the game in the wild and it’s been simply awesome. And because of this success, we’ve decided to keep the Private Beta live through the holiday break. After all, what would ringing in 2012 be without a little Starhawk beatdown session?!!
So what’s next? Why, the Public Beta, of course! In the next few weeks we’ll be announcing the dates for this important step. Many more players will be allowed access, including the UNCHARTED 3 owners who received a Public Beta voucher when they purchased the game! Look for more information and specifics on the PlayStation.Blog very soon.
It only takes a quick web search to find a TON of Starhawk info out there about the Beta. We’ve been really happy with the commentary/opinions and will taking all of the feedback seriously. Here is a convenient sampling of what’s out there: IGN, Kotaku, VG247, GameSpot, Major League Gaming, Pixel Nation, Dual Shockers, PS Nation, and Starhawk Radio—just to name a few.
We’d like to wish everyone happy holidays from LightBox Interactive and Sony Santa Monica. We hope that you enjoy your vacation time. Feel free to spend it waxing noobs in the Beta over holiday break!
“It’s closing time…one last call…”
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At this very moment, a small group of lucky testers are putting the Starhawk Private Beta through its paces. During last week’s PlayStation holiday showcase for New York City media, I had a chance to go hands-on with the beta. But I wanted to learn more about the beta’s reception among the diehard Warhawk community, so I chatted with Senior Producer Harvard Bonin to learn some key findings from the beta: the most popular weapons and vehicles, the sneakiest tactics, and what beta players can expect next.
PlayStation.Blog: Obviously, there’s a private beta going on right now. What have been some of the key learnings?
Oh, boy. There have been too many to name here, but one of the key learnings has been how closely we need to listen to hardcore Warhawk players. We made some changes to the flight controls that they reacted to negatively. We’re now in the process of addressing that, and it’s only because of the beta that we realized. Without a beta, we have no way to do that.
We’ve also seen a lot of strategies we couldn’t have anticipated. The Build & Battle configurations are pretty interesting, people placing walls backwards so enemies can get in but not get out. Some players are employing a more aggressive use of the Spawn Towers, and they’re leapfrogging across the map while planting Spawn Towers in order to progress faster.
PSB: Where do we stand in terms of another wave of beta invites?
We have a lot more invites going out next week (read: this week), and then we’ll go through December with those. At some point, we’ll need to take down the private beta in order to prep for the public beta, which will include new features. So you’ll see us going pretty dark while we prep that public beta for 2012.
PSB: Have you seen any trends in terms of favorite vehicles? What have been the clear favorites so far for private beta players.
Well, it depends on the day and the balance. The mech is very popular. In earlier phases of the beta, it was majorly overpowered and was able to forcibly take advantage of enemy bases. We just made some significant changes to the mech with a live update yesterday, so we’ll see how those go.
The jetpack is also very popular because it’s so versatile. On the outer space map we’ve had players going under the map in the outer space level. Just like Captain Kirk in The Wrath of Kahn, you’ve got to think in three dimensions!
PSB: Have you had to tone down or tweak certain weapons?
Every day something is too powerful. We recently went through a nerf session with the Shotgun, maybe we overdid it. When we make balance changes, we often prefer to swing the pendulum a lot, then in smaller and smaller increments to find the sweet spot. Your initial balance change needs to be big enough.
But yeah, like you mentioned earlier, this is a real beta. It allows us to take our time with balancing: it’s not like we’re scrambling to release the game in a week or two. There’s a big window between the public beta ending and the game releasing. Games need time in the pressure cooker, you know?
PSB: What’s been the reaction to the private beta so far?
Some days they love it, some days they’ve got constructive criticism! We had originally invited very top Warhawk players to join the Starhawk private beta, and they were apprehensive at first. But now we’ve seen some of the harshest critics from before begin to evangelize Starhawk. It takes some time to get your feet wet, but once you do, you begin to find layers to the game you didn’t realize were there. That’s what’s exciting about Starhawk.
Overall, though, it’s been a very positive private beta, both in terms of the constructive criticism and the feedback.
PSB: What was the logic behind keeping the Outcast and Rifters identical in multiplayer?
Whenever you start to differentiating the skill set of players, it’s tricky. We’re already treading on thin ice with our skill system, which we’ll be introducing soon in an upcoming patch. Our system of gaining skills is different than most games; you earn them by accomplishing certain goals. All of these are designed to encourage players to play in a way that is “optimal fun,” whether it’s assists or playing in a more cooperative way.
PSB: What’s the sneakiest move you’ve seen in the Beta so far?
People love the drop pods, trying to land on an enemy when they respawn. One of the most useful tactics so far is using the jetpack to sneak close to the enemy and then knifing him from behind. It’s not exactly a science, but some of these guys are great at it.
PSB: How is the single-player campaign coming along?
Really well, we’ve recently hit alpha. All the pieces are in place, and right now we’re going into each individual mission to make sure that the core structure, the moments are as fun as possible, and that everything works. Sometimes we have to change the entire layout of a scenario; other times we just have to upgrade the presentation level.
We’re going to start talking more about the solo campaign soon in the next few months, so stay tuned.
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Typical Monday, we hassled Tom the Soup Salesman about those two shillings he owed us until he slipped us some free broth and gave Cratchit some grief about Christmas. No big. But no sooner had we drifted off to sleep then we were visited by three spirits. They showed us how callous we'd been to our fellow man through an increasingly elaborate set of what we can only assume were broth-induced hallucinations.
This morning, we awoke to find that not only had we not missed Christmas, we hadn't even missed the series premiere of Storage Wars: Texas. To show the spirits our gratitude and that we're serious about our new commitment to generosity, we're giving away one thousand codes good for entrance into the closed Starhawk beta.
What? ... No, they didn't cost us anything, Sony gave them to us for free. But if you think about it, isn't gifting something you got for free double generous?
... Alright, funny guy, just shut up and get your key.
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You're only a few short days away from sampling Starhawk, folks! Well, okay, you have to be a veteran Warhawk player and have opted-in for the beta, but we're sure you already did that, right? At the very least, we're sure you'll get to check out some videos on YouTube.
But we digress. The PlayStation Blog reveals that Tuesday beta keys should be hitting anxious inboxes for the select few who'll be in the semi-private beta. If you don't see a key on Tuesday, don't fret: SCEA's Harvard Bonin says this will be a "slow rolled" beta -- as the beta chugs along, Sony will slowly be adding more players. So try to be patient!
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After many, many months of hard work we are happy to announce that the Starhawk Private Beta will be live on PSN beginning Tuesday, November 22nd! As you may have read in Dylan’s last PlayStation.Blog post, a selected a number of loyal Warhawk players who have opted-in to receive PlayStation emails will will receive Private Beta keys, so if you played Warhawk there’s a chance that you’ll have a voucher invitation in your email in the upcoming weeks! If you don’t get on day one, don’t get discouraged: our Private Beta will be “slow rolled.” That means that we’ll slowly add more fans and features as the Private Beta progresses.
Making a game is hard work, but it’s also a lot of fun! To show you what I mean, check out this new Behind the Scenes video to give you an inside look at the SCEA Santa Monica/LightBox Interactive working life! We really, really appreciate the Warhawk faithful joining us in our Beta efforts. Hopefully this video will give you all some insight into our day to day lives. You Warheads are always at the forefront of our thoughts, as you will see.
Be sure to visit www.StarhawkTheGame.com for the extended version!
For those of you that get Private Beta access very early, you can expect to play Capture the Flag on a couple of maps to your heart’s content. You’ll be able to find games via our Matchmaker system or choose your own game server via our Game Lists. We’ve kept the initial roll out pretty tight as we exercise the systems, but we’ll open the kimono inch by inch so keep playing to see what we have in store for you.
Please bang on the Private Beta and help us make Starhawk the greatest possible game. We’ll do our best to avoid hiccups, but you may see some bugs or other unintended gremlins — it’s all part of the process. We ask those of you that play in the Private Beta to participate in the Starhawk Private Beta Forum located here(note: If you’re accepted into the Private Beta, you’ll notice a “Beta Central” section here). This forum is set up to help us collect feedback, bugs, feature requests, etc. Keep it clean, respectful, and specific so that we can try to address your issues. You’ll need to log in with your PSN account and choose the “PSN Beta” tab under your log-in name. If you aren’t in the Beta, you won’t be allowed access to this forum so please be patient.
How to Gain Access to the Starhawk Private BetaWe’ll be looking to unlock the door for registered players later on in the Private Beta. Fans that want to get in but may not get an invite can increase their chances by registering on the official site. Remember, we can’t send you Private Beta keys unless you have opted-in to receive them. Check out this Beta FAQ page for more info. We’ll also be working with great partners like G4, IGN, GameSpot, GameTrailers, 1UP, Kotaku, WIRED, USA Today, CNET, Maxim, and TIME (just to name a few) to make sure there are even more chances for you to get into the Private Beta. Even our community manager, HawkStar Jay, has a handful he’s itching to give away, so stay tuned for more details!
Finally, if you have a Starhawk Public Beta voucher from UNCHARTED 3, you are guaranteed access in early 2012. We’ll have even more features, game modes, guns, weapons, and general goodness to show during that next Beta phase.
Congratulations to those of you fans that got (or will get) an invite, we love your enthusiasm and loyalty. We don’t think of a Private Beta as a privilege for you. You’re doing us a favor and helping to create Starhawk…and we thank you.
Warheads….have fun! Everyone else, stay tuned! We’ve got a lot more in our bag o’ tricks!
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The public private beta will include access to a secure SCEA forum for players to discuss the game and ask questions of the Lightbox team, who will also post their PSN handles and be available for voice chat in-beta. If you're a Warkhawk beast with a clean record, look for an email with an invite soon.
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Boy, do I have some exciting news to share with all of our Warhawk fans today, but first, let me serve you all some delicious hors d’oeuvres de internets!
We were so happy with the response to Starhawk at PAX that the SCEA marketing machine leveled-up, cast Videozzaga and summoned a quick video of our Santa Monica Sr. Producer Harvard Bonin talking with people at the show in Seattle after they got hands-on with Starhawk!
Not only was it great to see people loving Starhawk at PAX, the team and I love seeing coverage and buzz about the game start to pick up speed. And with our announcement last week that early access keys for the Starhawk Public Beta will be included in Uncharted 3, well… things are now moving forward at ludicrous speed! It was great to read all the comments, tweets and Facebook posts from players who are just now getting introduced to Starhawk’s gameplay and universe and the LightBox Interactive team and I can’t wait to see all of you online in early 2012!
But Dylan, you ask, what about now? Did you forget about us? What about all of the die-hard Warhawk fans who waited patiently for Starhawk to emerge from the shadowy nether regions of game development?
Five words: Private. Beta. Starting. In. November!
Let me explain.
Normally before a team releases a Public Beta for a game, the dev team goes through a phase known as the closed beta or “Private Beta.” This is when the dev team works very closely with a small group of colleagues from the publisher, quality assurance (QA) team, or very close friends to make sure things are solid, the gameplay is tuned, big bugs are squashed, etc. It’s all about a tight feedback loop and close interaction with the developer.
And we want the team here at LightBox Interactive to have that close communication with our Warhawk fans! Even as I write this blog post I’m still blown away that SCEA has approved this!
Ok, let’s break it down:
We’re going to be starting the Private Beta in November and we’ll be sending a bunch of our Warhawk players (European players too!!) special email invites with Starhawk Private Beta keys. We’re going to be letting players into the Private Beta in waves so we can manage the server load, watch the game balance analytics, etc. The order in which players are granted access is a dark art known only to Sith-IT-Managers and Gywn, Lord of Cinder. But, suffice it to say it’s a mix of your rank/level in Warhawk, your involvement in the Warhawk community, and a few other magical parameters.
So keep checking your email like a Hawk!
Like what I did there?
SCEA has setup a secure forum where all the Warhawk players that are granted access into the Starhawk Private Beta will be able to talk directly with me, and some of our other team members here at LightBox Interactive. We’ll be posting our special PlayStation Network handles so you know when you’re playing with one of us online and we’ll be on VOIP in-game so you can talk directly to us if you want to!
We’re really looking for lots of feedback to help make sure Starhawk is as solid and tuned as possible. So we’ll be actively requesting comments on tuning changes and other game updates that we’ll be making to Starhawk throughout the Private Beta.
And this is a *key* part of the process because we are going to be validating our SkillScore player ranking system as well as weapon and Build & Battle game balance. Our new Hot-Fix system lets us really keep up with the demands of the community so we’ll be trying to push updates almost every day.
We’ll be going into more details on which features will be included in the Private Beta in the coming weeks, but for now, I hope our Warhawk player community is as excited about this opportunity as we are!!!
And for all the Warhawk players that are going to be helping us play Starhawk during the Private Beta, we have a special “gift” planned for all of you when Starhawk is officially released. Oh the
anticipation… THE ANTICIPATION!!!!!
*deep breath*
Ok…what’s next? Oh yeah…
And lastly, no blog post would be complete without my obligatory mention of our website, www.StarhawkTheGame.com —so keep tabs on it because SCEA will be updating it with all the latest as things really start to get rolling for Starhawk!
Rock on!
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Nearly one year ago Entertainment Weekly broke the news that UNCHARTED 3: Drake’s Deception was real and coming out in 2011. Today we have finally reached the point of breaking through that finish line tape in another marathon of game development. We’re proud to announce that the third installment in the UNCHARTED franchise has gone gold, and is on its way to being manufactured for its November 1st release. We can’t wait to see everyone’s reaction to the next chapter of Nathan Drake’s adventures as it hits store shelves and homes everywhere in just three short weeks!
And as an added bonus, all retail copies of Uncharted 3 will include a voucher code for early access to the upcoming Starhawk Public Beta, which will be coming in early 2012. Just like Uncharted 3, Starhawk promises to provide an incredible multiplayer experience that only PS3 can deliver. Here’s a glimpse of what the voucher insert looks like, and you can keep tabs on StarhawkTheGame.com for more details.
We also wanted to tell you about another very cool bonus that our tireless dev team helped produce. We’ll have four behind-the-scenes videos detailing the development and production of UNCHARTED 3 for free and available on the retail UNCHARTED 3 disc! Those of you attending our AMC Theatre events will be in for a special treat as we’ll have a teaser of some of that behind-the-scenes video content.
Be sure to check back to the PlayStation.Blog for more details and information about UNCHARTED 3 in the coming weeks as we rocket towards launch on November 1st. We’re excited to get the full retail game into your hands and hear your reactions very soon!
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Did you totally dig the Starhawk reveal a few months ago, but get turned off by all that dirt? Well, good news! There's less dirt in space. Unfortunately, there are hordes of pissed off war-painted people up there. It's a trade-off.
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Hey everyone! Last night on G4 we premiered Starhawk’s Space Combat trailer! And if you happen to be too busy tracking the orbit of ELENIN, and didn’t get a chance to see it on X-Play, then shame on you!
But don’t worry! Don’t despair! We’ve got the full, extended version of the Starhawk Space Combat Trailer right here. Click it! Play it! Let it burn its shooter-goodness deep into your eyes!
So this video was cut together by our team in San Diego, California and was captured from gameplay on our Capture the Flag Small Orbital Platform map. The trailer gives a really great taste of what our space combat is like in Starhawk! You may have seen some of our previous gameplay vids that were recorded on one of our Acid Sea maps with its cool-looking terrain, jagged spires, and noxious acid. But what’s really awesome about the Orbital Space Platform maps is that they feel urban, with city and street combat and that’s something that we’re really happy about!
The team and I here at LightBox Interactive really want each of our environment types to have a unique feel, but still all based on the fast-paced troop, vehicle and aircraft gameplay that our fans love. And because of each environment’s unique structure and style, our Build & Battle mechanics feel really cool and fresh in each of the environment as well. We absolutely love this and hope you all will too because it allows players to not only adapt their combat tactics per environment, but their support and building tactics as well.
Up to this point we’ve pretty much only showed Starhawk at venues where you needed a pass or some kind of credentials like E3, Comic-Con, PAX, Gamescom, or the upcoming Eurogamer Expo, or GAMEfest. Basically conferences, expos, closed-door meetings, and back alleys — that all changes now!
Maybe some of you have heard of the Alamo Drafthouse’s Fantastic Fest here in Austin. It’s an awesome film festival specializing in horror, fantasy, sci-fi, action… ya know, “fantastic” movies! They have an arcade portion of the festival focusing on indie games called Fantastic Arcade that is totally open to the public (and FREE) and it’s held at the awesome HighBall Lounge! So we thought, let’s setup a LAN party and give the public a chance to play Starhawk!
So if you’re in the Austin area and interested in getting your hands on Starhawk, swing by the Highball on Thursday, September 22nd starting around 5pm. We’re gonna have a LAN party of 12 PS3 stations, each decked out with a 40” SONY Bravia EX 400 HD Monitor and of course Astro headsets. We’ll be holding a Capture the Flag tournament too and there will be prizes but honestly, I’m not sure what the prizes are going to be but Sony is providing them.
We’ve also got something really special planned for all our fans that show up to the HighBall for our Starhawk LAN Party — It’s a voucher code for an exclusive multiplayer skin for Starhawk!
So swing by, play Starhawk, play the other games at Fantastic Arcade, hang out and meet the LightBox Interactive team!
Oh, and one last thing! Here’s a Starhawk avatar if you’d like to use it for Twitter, NeoGaf or some other forum.
Keep your eye’s on www.StarhawkTheGame.com and the PlayStation.Blog here for the latest updates and announcements on Starhawk — and boy, do we have some big ones right around the corner!
Rock out with your Hawk out!
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There's also a Starhawk gameplay demonstration from fellow Austin-based studio Lightbox Interactive, and a panel hosted by a whole bevy of PSN developers. Check out Juegos Rancheros for the full lineup, trailers and a schedule of events for the weekend.
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It has been a wild and crazy few months since we announced in May. E3s, Comic-Con, Gamescom…and now PAX and MLG! It has really been an incredibly exciting time for us and we truly appreciate all of your support. We announced the title back on May 5th at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, TX, and it’s been a sweet ride ever since!
It’s easy for us to tell everyone how cool the game is, but we think it’s much more believable if it comes from the fans directly. So, I’ve included a video from some of our great fans at San Diego Comic-Con a few weeks ago right after they got to play the game. Here’s what they had to say!
Next up is PAX Prime in Seattle this weekend, August 26th – 28th. We’ll be on hand to show off our new space station level, the same environment we showed Gamescom last week….but it damn well deserves an encore. You’ll be able to play with the jet packs and prox mines all in the friendly confines of space so come by the show floor and check us out! I’ll be there running the observer cam and will also be giving out some Starhawk t-shirts and Starhawk bags! Best of all you can get your hands on some great multiplayer action and blow some ++bleep++ up! Here’s a little taste of what the space environment looks like. Come to PAX and try it yourself!
Also this week, Starhawk will be playable at the Major League Gaming Pro Circuit in Raleigh, NC. Swing by the PlayStation Compound at the Raleigh Convention Center (500 South Salisbury Street, Raleigh, NC 26701) on Saturday, August 27th from 10:00am-10:00pm for a chance to win copies of Starhawk when it releases next year and other awesome PlayStation swag! Details can be found on the MLG website. Remember a spectator pass is required.
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Greetings from Cologne, Germany! Moments after we wrapped up our PlayStation Gamescom press event, Dylan Jobe and I jumped in front of the camera, and he did what he does best–talk Starhawk. Lightbox Interactive and Santa Monica studios finally revealed the much-anticipated outer space combat settings, as well as a fan favorite from Warhawk — the jetpack (with some new bells and whistles.)
Make sure to watch all three minutes of our interview for the quick skinny for the latest on Starhawk at gamescom. For a more in-depth look, keep an eye out for Jeff’s feature from his behind close door session with Dylan Jobe coming up later this week.
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Starhawk is a rare beast — a big-budget shooter with a story to tell. That tale centers squarely on Emmett Graves, a reluctant protagonist saddled with some serious baggage. I spoke with Harvard Bonin, Sony Santa Monica Studios’ Senior Producer on Starhawk, to try and get a grip on what makes Emmett Graves tick.
PSB: A gigantic multiplayer shooter that includes RTS elements has been seen as something of a gaming Holy Grail. Which part did you conceptualize first — shooter, or RTS?
Harvard Bonin, Senior producer, Sony Santa Monica Studios: At first, we just wanted to do a sequel to Warhawk and set it in space — just bring a new setting, story, and a solo campaign. But we realized that we needed to bring something extra, so when LittleBigPlanet came out, we thought, “wouldn’t it be cool to make your own shooter?” So, we tried it, and we actually have test levels back at the office. Instead of LittleBigPlanet giving you these macro tools, we gave you these almost jigsaw puzzle pieces — anything that you saw in a level, you could’ve built in this early prototype. It had this cerebral appeal, and game developers are geeky that way, so we liked it. But as we showed it to Warhawk fans, they asked, “where’s the bad-ass action and the running and gunning? Where’s the fun stuff?” So we thought that probably wasn’t the way to go.
We still loved this idea of changing the battlefield, but we needed to do it easily while retaining the speed of Warhawk. And that’s how we ended up where we are. Actually, we even had an older version where the camera would go top-down very much like a strategy game. Through working with LightBox Interactive, we got to the point where we decided to go real-time. We kept telling ourselves, “this is a shooter, and don’t forget it!”
PSB: Starhawk’s story is told using graphic-novel style cinematics. How do they transition into and out of gameplay?
HB: We’re doing the cinematics in a style that best matches the game. The cinematics that you’ll see are actually Emmett’s Rift visions showing the player what happened with his brother Logan, what happened in White Sands, why he got kicked off the planet Dust — that sort of stuff.
We don’t want to break the player’s concentration on the game. We want to keep it fast, and load times get in the way of the player’s immersion, let alone the fun! So if you come to the end of a mission, it will catch the last gameplay frame and transition into the Rift vision sequence. At the end of the movie, it transitions right back into the next mission. We don’t have classic load screens, so it’s very seamless. Our objective is to make load times completely invisible to players. We think its pretty elegant and you should really see it in action to appreciate it.
PSB: And so Emmett retains his humanity through this surgical regulator? Is Emmett in pain? Does that impact his personality?
HB: It does! He’s not Kratos (and he’s not full of vengeance). Emmett is a little more subtle, a little more cerebral. He’s been victimized, but he handles it in a different way than a character like Kratos. He’s not out to kill everybody. He feels bad about what happened on Dust and what happened to his brother Logan. He’s been ostracized from the Rifter society, and he’s not trusted. He feels abandoned and alone. He’s pretty ticked off about how he was treated and has a big distaste for the miserable Outcasts that he blames for his situation. That’s why he’s never been back to Dust since he got the boot.
The regulator helps him control the Rift energy. Emmett didn’t fully mutate after being exposed to it and nobody really knows why. Emmett is kept sane by the release of this energy that has taken over all of these other Outcast monsters — they’re psychos, fanatics, almost like crazed addicts for the energy. Emmett’s contraption protects him, though he’s in pain. Cutter is his partner and is pretty much his gear man. He created the regulator that Emmett uses to keep the energy at bay.
PSB: A troubled, vulnerable protagonist is a rarity in video games. The only other game that jumps out at me is Metal Gear Solid 4…
HB: Snake definitely has his demons and so does Emmett. He’s not a fantastical superhero, he’s just a guy who got caught up in a bad situation…we like to think he’s a bit like John McClane, kind of an “everyman.” Granted, the Rift energy does allow him to be a little stronger and a little faster than the other Rifters. I don’t think that a cookie-cutter superhero character is what sophisticated gamers are looking for. While we want to be a popcorn blockbuster type of action game, we also think there’s room for smart storytelling. Even Batman is a tortured guy, and you’ve seen how well that’s done.
We’re aiming the story, and the gameplay, toward a bit more of sophisticated gamer. I’ve been quoted as saying “This isn’t your mom’s game…it’s for gamers” and I stand behind that. While we are trying to make the fun in the game more accessible, that doesn’t mean we’re dumbing it down. We’re making this for shooter game players. It’s not going to be watered down to try and please casual gamers that don’t know no-scoping from a hole in their head.
PSB: Emmett has a foot in two different worlds, Outcast and Rifter. How does this impact his relationship with other characters?
HB: He doesn’t like other people that much. He was kicked off Dust because he became the representation of the thing that the Rifters hate — the Outcast, who are killing off settler families and taking over their claims. And now Emmett’s been overtaken by the Rift energy, through no fault of his own. The Rift energy is mysterious, they don’t know what it is, and the Rifters think Emmett could turn into an Outcast at any time. So he decides the best thing to do is get off-world. When he returns to Dust it’s many, many years later. He’s been out in the space systems making a living with Cutter and hunting down Outcast fanatics.
PSB: From what I’m hearing, Starhawk will offer a lot of multiplayer customization and flexibility. What’s your strategy there?
HB: Hells yes! We feel like a lot of games have been making choices for gamers; we’d rather have gamers make the choices. We’ll have matchmaking, game lists like Warhawk, party systems, tournament systems, and custom games where you can send out invites to bring your friends in. A lot of console games have gone to the “only matchmaking” solution. While it might streamline the game for new users, we think that our players are more sophisticated and deserve to make their own choice. You’ll be able to customize your skills, too, and you’ll gain skills as you level up. Character outfit customization as well…everything that you would expect in a top-of-the-line shooter. Some of the hardcore Warheads (the team’s nickname for Warhawk fans) are very concerned about the skills system and they think it’ll throw off the fairness of the game. We don’t think so and we also know that collecting stuff and making progress online is fun. So we’re going to do it.
Of course, it’s forefront in our mind to make this a very fair game. A public beta will be part of that. Our beta plans are being worked out right now, but we will have one for sure. Our hope is to take care of Warhawk players first.
PSB: Does that extend to weapon customization?
HB: We don’t do that because we like to keep an arcade-y feel. That can be fun in some games, but we prefer to keep a faster pace and keep your choices more macro. When you make a choice, it will be a big choice. The skill set that we offer will allow fans to drastically change the kind of player you want to be online. We’ll be rolling out the list down the line. Also, its not a “skill tree” exactly, but we do have a system for gaining skills. We’ll also talk about that later on.
PSB: In vehicle-centric multiplayer shooters, balancing infantry and vehicular combat is often a touch-and-go process. What’s the philosophy regarding infantry versus vehicles?
HB: I have experience in making RTS games so I’m very familiar with people being concerned about balance. My normal response is, “yes, that’s always a challenge but we’re working hard on it,” but my inside voice is saying “it’s cool, don’t worry about it, it’ll be fine.” There are so, so many dials that we can tweak in the name of balance. For instance, maybe your rocket launcher is weak but it fires quickly. And we have armor types, so maybe that rocket launcher is particularly strong against a certain armor type. There are cooldown times, speed of reload, all sorts of things. Our massive amount of testing should clean out oddities and we also learned a lot from Warhawk. We’re counting on our public beta to squeeze out a lot of issues as well.
In Starhawk there are a lot of weapons at your disposal and it’s up to you to find out which is the most effective against what. It’s a typical rock-paper-scissors approach. Honestly, I’m not too worried about it, and I think the public beta and play test sessions will be a gigantic help. If we see balance issues we’ll either tweak the knobs or even add new gameplay abilities. We actually just added a new anti-infantry attack for the mech, which is a stomp. It’s perfect, because we used to make you wade through these minions blasting away and it really wasn’t satisfying as they little guys are hard to hit. Now you just R3 for melee and they get crushed.
PSB: What’s your personal favorite weapon so far? Favorite vehicle?
HB: We have the Grinder, our flamethrower, which we haven’t really shown so far. But I’ve always been a huge fan of rocket launchers, particularly for multiplayer matches. As for vehicles, it’s probably the jetbike. You can do these crazy jumps and it’s so much fun riding over the plains of Dust, using it for Capture the Flag…its definitely today’s favorite. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.
PSB: What’s next for the Starhawk team?
HB: We’re going to be rolling out our Space level at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany on August 17th. I can’t wait till everyone sees it…Gotta love dogfighting in space! Also we’ll be at PAX in Seattle with the same demo the week after, August 26 to 28th, but there we’ll have our Observer Cam up and running so the crowd can enjoy the action too. It should be a blast!
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