Firefall sigue vivo y saldrá el 29 de julio

<before transcript he talks about the AI getting harder, having to choose whether you're going to charge in and pay for it, or be smart about things, basically.>

:red5:Vu Nguyen: The first assignment that I had was a pretty large task. We have a level 40 and above zone that's gonna be launched in late January and it's the "Blackwater Warzone, Chosen Warfront". And this is actually where they are implementing a new style of gameplay where you have convoys that travel between bases and you have to escort them to make sure they don't get jumped by the enemy, different gameplay elements. There's melding and controlling different control points with the bases, and you have to push back the melding to reveal other gameplay areas. And it's a swamp. But the thing that--

Interviewer: Wait it's a swamp?

:red5:Vu Nguyen: Yea it's a swamp. There's gonna be like three different elements in there.

Interviewer: You're not giving away too much here are ya?

:red5:Vu Nguyen: I don't think so.

Interviewer: Alright. <laughs>

:red5:Vu Nguyen: I mean, people that know the game know Blackwater, it's gonna be kind of a swampy zone.

Interviewer: More swamp. Do you like working on a swamp-- I mean, that's gotta be an interesting area to fill?

:red5:Vu Nguyen: It is, I mean it's just gonna be high vegetation, green plants, big trees, roots, water.. You know water's always a nice element, it gives a nice dynamic feel, and they have a really nice water tool in Firefall.

Interviewer: When you're placing elements and working with a good water tool, does like the reflections and stuff, does that come into play while you're building it?

:red5:Vu Nguyen: Yea you get reflections, and there's some water that has wave motions where you get a little bit of a swell, and there's actually a current and flow path that you can like paint in there, so you can actually paint white water around rocks and kinda show which way it's flowing.

Interviewer: The water in Firefall is gorgeous.

:red5:Vu Nguyen: Yea it adds a nice kinda dynamic element to your picture.

Interviewer: I just recently got back into the game, before all you could do was thump. There was PVP but it was kinda rough. So I put it down for a while.. but now there's so much content, storylines, quests..

:red5:Vu Nguyen: Yea, there's a lot of missions where you can get a little bit of gameplay in there, shoot some people and get some rewards. So yea, they've been catering a lot, to try to get something, you know driving people to do stuff instead of just going out there and thumping. And you know, with the stuff, the changes that we are doing for China, we're putting that story in there for people who really like story. You know, give it the lore, the back story, the history of the game, tell you why there's a melding and why the chosen are chosen. So that'll be good, I think that will help a lot with the game with people like that, who are really story driven.

Interviewer: You touched on the China launch, is it a lot of work getting the game ready to launch in a different region like that? Besides just a localization stuff? Do you have to change a lot of art assets and things like that?

:red5:Vu Nguyen: Uh, art assets not so much, but they do have the story, the lore. So we're doing that, we're kind of building more of that into the game.

Interviewer: Gotcha, that's what they want. And I guess that's it, you know, giving everybody a little bit of what they want, that's a lot of it. - How do you think the community is with Firefall? Do you like working with them-- Have you talked with the community much? Do you work with the community at all?

:red5:Vu Nguyen: I don't yet. They do a live broadcast, and I think that goes well with the community. I think the community is pretty fun. I haven't been exposed to them too much, because I haven't really been to any of the events yet. You know like when I was working at Sony I had been to like fan fairs and such, I haven't been to any of those with Red 5 yet. But you know, the feedback that we get on the forums. I think people are receiving it well, you know, the ones who have left I think are coming back and seeing some positive improvements on the game.

Interviewer: Well the game's changed leaps and bounds in about a year or two, it's a testament to how much they've worked on it. Before, it wasn't bad but I just didn't know what I was supposed to be doing here.. and then I come back I'm like, oh they built a game in the past year and a half! They took everything that worked and really built it up. Now this is amazing, it looks fun, it's good, it plays smooth, and you've got this game built around it, like you said you have the story, the lore.

:red5:Vu Nguyen: Yea, we're gonna get some uh, PVP going in there too so.. You know, we're tuning like I said, the combat's getting more revised, to where the mechanics are more along the lines of shooter mechanics. I mean, there's a lot of creatures that aren't gonna be shooting back too much, but there's still gonna have some type of defense, they'll spit poison and stuff like that, so you'll still have to be aware of their attacks and their AI.

<closing statements>

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