Special Forces Q&A

jonski · 17-11-2005 2:17am #1

Taken From EA forums

Fletchett wrote:

Translation of http://www.fz.se/artiklar/article.php?id=1024:

When Fragzone interviewed Lars Gustavsson a little over three years ago right before Battlefield 1942 took the gaming world by storm, we asked him the question "what is the differance between Battlefield 1942 and other 'soldiersimulators'". The answer we ot was that it most of all focused on vehicles, which all were controlled by players. When Battlefield 2 now is granted it's first expansion focus is shifted to intensive infantry combat in close quarters.

In Battlefield 2: Special Forces we get acquaintanced with some of the worlds most famous special forces, or Spec Ops if you will, such as the American Navy Seals, Russian Spetsnaz and the Brittish SAS. With the help of advanced technological gear and under the cover of darkness it's about well planned and fast strikes at various targets.

On the Thursday DICE invited the collected Swedish gaming press to premier this upcoming expansion and FragZone was of course there to meet Lars Gustavsson, creative director for Special Forces. It was all stated with a short demonstration of the new additions to the expansion - where the biggest, the darkness, made it a little hard to see the others. But DICE is not the fumbling in the dark, instead they have given us the perfect solution, the night stalkers friend, night vision goggles.

- 99% of the game has been made at Dice Canadian offices, says Lars, who is the one who has had the most contact with the developers.
He then goes on to say: - The reigns has been pretty loose, towards the end we have talked a lot about the balance in perticular. Whatever part people buy in the series, whether or not it's done in Stockholm or Kanada, people should feel that it's a Battlefield product.

And the balance is clear when we test the game. The controls is exactly the same as is the feeling. The differances is most of all the new vehicles and the specially equiped soldiers. Even the darkness has a great impact on the maps as the time is set at night.

- In total 10 vehicles is going to be there, Lars clarifies. In the air we can find new things such as the helicopters MI-24 HIND and the AH-64 Apache while on the ground there's now an even bigger flora of wheeled vehicles, civilian as well as millitary. The strongest impression on us visitors is made by a forklift that we quickly named Attacklift 90, a dangerous creation, especially to the person transported on the lift. Players suffering from "Top-Gun"-syndrome will miss the jets though, since they are removed from the new maps.
- It's the only vehicle class that gets cut and it's done because the area of play is so much smaller.

It's been unclear if the expansion were to implement a whole new class-system based on Special Forces but we can now confirm that it's not the case. The old classes are still there, even though they have been given new weapons and special gear. Even the old ingame voices has been renewed, complete with new comments and battlecrys. One of the keywords Dice keeps mentioning is "vertical gameplay" - hooks and mobile ziplines makes it possible to attack targets from previously impossible angles. The leveldesign focuses a lot around this, players are encouraged to use the new toys to get around hazardous machinegun emplacements and snipers.

The extra gear does not just mean benefits for high-wire artists and Willhem Tell-wannabees (the ziplines are fired from a crossbow), in the arsenal we also find teargas and flashbangs. The teargas makes your vision blurred for a few seconds unless your wearing your gasmask. You cannot combine that with the night vision goggles though, who are devastating if you happen to have on while a flashbang goes off. Also other lightsources makes it harder to use night vision.

Many wonders how the ranking will separate itself from the original game, will it be split into two?
The ranking will be the same, we will use the same system, that you build up on your points, however with the expansion you will get special unlockable weapons and awards that others cannot get. Vi don't want to separate the playerbase, our goal is to keep the community as one instead of spliting it.

If you before the expansion have a certain rank, will you get to keep it or are you forced to restart?
You continue from your current rank and if you already have a very high rank you can even get unlockables directly since you have worked your way up in advance. I don't have the exact points in my head, but there is some room to play even for the high ranked players.

When you install and play the expansion you continue to build on your current profile. As you advance in rank you will gain access to weapons from the expansion to use in BF2. This means that there are no unique unlocks in the expansion but you unlock the possibility to use weapons from the expansion in the original game.

Have you done anything to prevent players maximizing the gamma on the screen to avoid having to use night vision?
I have spoken to the Kanada offices about that very question and they are supposed to have a solution in place which shortens your vision if you just maximize the gamma. They have a little way yet to go, the goal is however to counter any ways to cheat around the use of night vision.

- It worked last time I was there, says Lars jokingly and laughs.

Will there be any new gamemodes in the expansion? There has been a lot of talk about "supply lines"?
No, there won't. Supply lines is something we have been testing. However any now gamemodes does not exist and we feel that the vertical gameplay is change enough. Supply lines is something that has bounced back and forth on the forums and has been talked about a lot. Vi will see if it pops up sometime in the future. It might be the perfectionist in me, but when we release something we want it to be perfect, not just perfect.

Will the expansion come with a patch for the original game?
Yes, there will have to be a patch available for the original game at the release of the expansion.

Is there any other changes planned for the original game in that patch? The issue about not being able to paste IP addresses into the Join IP window has been a hot topic?
They have a very small amount of time left and very tight deadline in general, so we have chosen to not add any more content. What it means regarding the expansion is that any new content would have to be added to the expansion as well, so if the patch gets delayed two days the expansion would also be delayed two days. For their sake we have tried to minimize all production times so as to increase theirs. I know they have added something small, to focus of the patch is to ensure compatability between the expansion and the original game.

Have you remade any of the original maps to support night time.
No, we have not. We have talked about it but we felt that we could not have it in the expansion, since people already bought and payed for them once. We have however talked about the potential, if we ever are to do it in the future. We have not done it now though, it's better to give the players new and fresh maps.

How many new maps are there?
Eight new maps, all in differant variants for 16, 32 and 64 players. One of the maps differs quite a bit between running in 32 or 64 players. An aircraft carrier lies docked and the entire interior is built inside it. There are only a few american soldiers left inside and suddenly the enemy attacks from land. The ones who attack have transports, attack helos, jetskis and everything they need to get aboard and get a hold on the carrier, only to then proceed through enginerooms, cafeterias and so on. However in the 16 player mode you can almost say it's more like a Counter-Strike map, similar to a classic FPS with the exception of a few vehicles on deck. The rest of the fight is indoors though, which is new for the Battlefield series.

Is there any clear devide between outdoor maps and city maps?
Yes, there is. I can say that they have a more defined focus than the BF2 maps had, we have different enviroments such as the missile launchpad, the sub pen and so on, this brings more focus. It's a mix between daytime and nighttime maps, between industrial maps and citys. It's not just city much such as Strike at Karkand.

jonski · 17-11-2005 2:18am

Continued

Will there be any more interactive objects, such as for example stationary machineguns?
They have added elevators that you can use to get up or down, on the aircraft carrier there is even an aircraft elevator. There is one map that is set around an insane assylum; to get in there you have to either sneak in through the back or use the hooks to climb over the walls. When your inside you can then open the gates and let your friends in.

Will the expansion need more in terms of system requirements compared to the original game?
They are working on the final optimizations and our goal is that there will not be. We tried to see if we could not make it the opposite actually. At the same time the darkness is the hardest thing in terms of preformance. The goal is for the system requirements to stay the same. That's what we have been told to do, that's what we are striving for. *laughter* - Battlefield 2 is demanding enough as it is...

Some critisism has been voiced in the forums about the authenticity of the special forces and their gear. Have you examined how the real world looks?
In part we have done what we have done with previous games and scoured the market for weapons. Vi look at how the real world then pick what we think would be most fun for the game. If you look up the standard gear for an SAS soldier then it might not be correct but on the otherhand they are pretty free to use whatever gear they want to, if I have understood it correctly. We have among other things some people who have worked in the in the US military and if they want to use a weapon... well, they use that weapon.

There won't be any guest appearances by the "Särkilda Skyddsgruppen" (Swedish SF) in the game?
If I could have gotten it in there. *laughter* No, I'm still waiting to get some Swedish into the game. I'll keep on trying until I do...

You might buy Silent Heroes (mod based on Swedish forces)?
Yes, *laughter* or Invasion Gotland (another similar mod)

Has the Commander role changed any?
No, it's the same, however now it has another goal. He now has nightvision, so he sees the units better wehn they run through the streets. Just like the helicopters, when you fly at night you automatically have nightvision on. I'd say the commander almost has an even bigger role now than ever before. It's a differant battlefield, but it's and interessting battlefield, you can do a lot of it, especially when you play the testers and what they are doing over in Canada, when they play us it's just sad to see how much of an asskicking we get. There are always people everywhere and you don't have any clue as to how they got there.

If I see an enemy setup a zipline, can I follow him on it?
Yes. As long as it's there it's usable. (They disapear after a set time, if not picked up)

Kan I wrech or pick up other peoples ziplines?
Of you have spent your ziplind and the enemy is using his or has theirs setup you can pick it up. If there is a player on it they will fall off. Same goes for the hooks.

In games such as Counter-Strike there are civilians, is that present here?
No, we have talked about it, and there has come in suggestions from every possible place, but we have chosen not to do it, it's always a sensitive matter, plus if we add civilians with AI that means we might have to remove a human player for preformance reasons. It does not seem to justify the loss.

Do you get assists when someone is killed in your teargas?
From the beginning they wanted to add poison gas, but we chose not to. It was just like back when you could place C4 on people, it was a little too sensitive so we removed it. Teargas does not hurt people, your vision is distorted, just as it is when you get hit by a flashbang.

So no points?
No no, but you get a rather easy kill.

jaggeh · 17-11-2005 10:37am

Kan I wrech or pick up other peoples ziplines?
Of you have spent your ziplind and the enemy is using his or has theirs setup you can pick it up. If there is a player on it they will fall off. Same goes for the hooks.

teehee, i cant wait.