Splash Damage

It's a shame the concept art is so small. Is it possible to see bigger versions?

great stuff. got cravings for more!

yay so next week gameplay :D

Very good blog, I wonder how different the teams will look, with everyone looking so unique in a fast paced shooter this could be a tricky part to sort out

They could be as different as black and white and RosOne will still wipe out his entire team in one go.

Yes, that's a real challenge but on top of the color restrictions in the palettes we're using for each faction, a number of HUD elements will show you who you're aiming at. So no teamkilling you lot! :)\

Please don't tell me "HUD elements" mean "red arrows" (or maybe only show the arrow when you have your crosshair on the person)

guessing that one thing of the "hud elements" mean the crossfire might change colour when hoovering. but suppose there must be something else aswell?\

If that's the case then they better get a colourblind option in there! So bloody hard having to quickly distinguish red and green from each other on the fly when you're colour blind :(

Here's the thing about Brink... you've got to remember there's all these class abilities & upgrades and stuff that can radically change things up... a little small body type enemy who you would expect to die really fast may have been temporarily buffed up to be the equal of a big heavy guy in terms of hitpoints (if he's been helped out by his teammates, for example). And then you'd be shooting at him, you expect him to die very quickly, but he takes a licking and keeps on ticking, and you're left wondering "wha? whas i not hitting him?". Because of situations like that, I think it's VERY impotant to give player's feedback about exactly what they're up against when they're aiming at a bad guy. Which is very different that simply putting a GUI thing over everyone's head before you've even seen them. This is a case of "you've already spotted him, and by looking at him, we're giving you the additional 'bonus' information you need to know to make informed decisions" Am I crazy? :-)

Most def. And I'll be honest, if you guys could see the game today, we're a little too much in the former state, but that's largely because we've been having to make due with programmer art for all our HUD for over a year now. :( That's why I so happy that we've FINALLY got a full time devoted GUI coder (just started last week, hey Russ!) and GUI artist (really talented guy who starts in a few weeks), so they can start working on iterating on exactly this problem. I'd say it's be FAR the single biggest challenge for the HUD and GUI design. But I've now got high hopes!

Here's the thing about Brink... you've got to remember there's all these class abilities & upgrades and stuff that can radically change things up... a little small body type enemy who you would expect to die really fast may have been temporarily buffed up to be the equal of a big heavy guy in terms of hitpoints (if he's been helped out by his teammates, for example). And then you'd be shooting at him, you expect him to die very quickly, but he takes a licking and keeps on ticking, and you're left wondering "wha? whas i not hitting him?". Because of situations like that, I think it's VERY impotant to give player's feedback about exactly what they're up against when they're aiming at a bad guy. Which is very different that simply putting a GUI thing over everyone's head before you've even seen them. This is a case of "you've already spotted him, and by looking at him, we're giving you the additional 'bonus' information you need to know to make informed decisions" Am I crazy? :-)\

Of course it's important to give the player all the information he needs, otherwise it would be a game of chance. But the GUI should be the last resort in these manners, the information should come from the battlefield itself. If a player is buffed, debuffed, wounded, full health, charging, whatever it should be visible on the model itself and not trough a bar a meter or number flashing in your screen. Look at TF2, there's no doubt about whether that heavy is übercharged or not, you can see him coming from miles away. You can see when a player is in a critting state (his weapon has lightening around it and he has temporarily double damage), and you can see to what degree a player is wounded, or when has a jar of urine thrown over him (making him more vulnerable). In fact, TF2 makes no use of the interface at all here it's all in-world stuff. The only exception is team-mates, then it suddenly makes plenty of use of the GUI with little exclamation marks, and all that. I think that's the right direction to take. Use the GUI however you like in order to make the interaction inside a team as smooth as possible, but keep it out of the fight against opponents itself, then it should be the player who judges the world instead of doing what his GUI tells him to do. I understand it takes way more resources, time and energy to take the in-world approach. But that's an economical decision, not a gameplay one.

I should add, that as much as possible, i do want to represent this stuff in game... an upgraded gun has a deeper bass than normal, whereas upgraded ammunition has more intense tracer fire, for instance. i just worry that subtle stuff like that alone might not be enough in all cases, with so much dynamic ebb and flow in the game... also, what's a guy got to do to get a 5 star rep around this place!!! those 4 stars haunt me!

Rahdo: Talking about upgrades. Will you be able to turn off such upgrades (or, a few selected ones) on "non ranked" servers? If it proves to be unsuitable for competitive game? (like in CoD4 when some of the upgrades are just.. "too good"). Hopefully it won't be needed, but I'd still appreciate an answer =)\

I'm more interested in knowing whether we can turn them all on by default (ehh, I mean, allow players to customize their character with unlockables they have not achieved yet). That might make matches a lot more interesting while still not destroying the balance. And I think it will help blur the lines between casual and online competitive play. I'm not sure if SD is interested in blurring that line though, considering competitive players like me (or at least like I used to be when I still had time to play several hours a day) are in general far from the easiest customers to please :)

Well yes, that's equally interesting. So I'd like an answer to Both questions now :stroggbanana:\

Well, I dare not deny the strogg banana! To both those questions, what I *want* to do is give as much flexibility for players to make their own preferred server settings, allowing/disallowing weapons/abilities/game features etc. as they see fit. When we get to the point where we're actively working on setting up the interface for these things, I actually intend to start asking on the boards about what kinds of choices players really want in detail (hopefully being able to talk openly by that point about the kinds of things that are on the table). So there's your vague non-committal answer for the evening :rolleyes:

So there's your vague non-committal answer for the evening :rolleyes:\

Thanks, you get a tapir for that :stroggtapir: Also, I agree with the post above me (Nail) this time aswell =)

So when the player's got situations where they're making life or death decisions in literally split seconds, I think they need information is the fastest, easiest to read, most effecient means possible. Much like a medic does in TF2...\

Aye, but I already made that distinction between team interaction and engaging an enemy. Use all the GUI stuff you like if it helps interacting with the rest of the team. It's just when it comes to engaging with the enemy things get really delicate. Someone hiding behind a table or wall or in a dark place shouldn't be given away by GUI features on your screen. In that way the player should only have his cognitive skills to rely on. And if you want to use GUI on enemies, it should be really simple. You could use one single indicator that indicates how the opponent player matches up to you. In a similar way like WoW displays colours in the enemy player's name. A player you simply can't beat is a skull, a very dangerous player is red, a nearly beatable player is orange, equal player is yellow a green player is a piece of cake and a grey player is like beating up kids. These colours are all relative to your own level. The same can be done for brink. A player equal to you is yellow, if he has more upgrades than you he's orange, and if he has less than you he's green. This means that a player with a lower 'level' of experience but with upgraded weapons (through class abilities) to compromise he can still be indicated as 'equal' to you. So in that way, the GUI will tell you whether there's something going on or not, and then it's up to you to find out what's really going on judging the player model. The point is, elaborate GUI features to help in enemy engagement can quickly turn a shooter into a semi-turnbased RPG. That's just my concern.

If that's the case then they better get a colourblind option in there! So bloody hard having to quickly distinguish red and green from each other on the fly when you're colour blind :(\

Agreed - the radar/command map in ETQW is basically useless for me due to the tinyness of the arrows :(

from irc:

[2009-10-09 19:57] RR2DO2: what does "mix and match any and all ..." mean? can all different body types pick clothes from the same collection? ... [2009-10-09 19:58] Joe999: exactly how is that achieved for the different body types? is the same texture stretched or are there multiple textures for the different body types, like mip-mapping or sth?

Well, I dare not deny the strogg banana! To both those questions, what I *want* to do is give as much flexibility for players to make their own preferred server settings, allowing/disallowing weapons/abilities/game features etc. as they see fit. When we get to the point where we're actively working on setting up the interface for these things, I actually intend to start asking on the boards about what kinds of choices players really want in detail (hopefully being able to talk openly by that point about the kinds of things that are on the table). So there's your vague non-committal answer for the evening :rolleyes:\

Thats really encouraging to read :) The competetive scene usually sets their "standards" after a couple of months (which makes sense) how do you plan to respond to that? - Some sort of presets system could work but needs to be planned way before release. That way you can release a new preset several months after release based on how its really played at the time. - A patch works too but could hurt non-competetive gamers. It needs to be said that the competetive scene can decide on some pretty stupid rules sometimes depending on whos the most vocal or respected at the time. (i dream of a game where i dont have to download small plugins that changes tiny little features that really dont matter to anyone except those few that needs to boost their pro egos) ops, did i really type that? ;) Anyway, its really nice to read that youre atleast thinking about these things before the games shipped :tup:

i have to bump this regarding: "There has been a big trend in recent games to push for an overly desaturated look, for Brink we wanted ‘colour’ back." ^^ did you change your opinion? the e3 videos look overly desaturated compared to earlier footage :( gief color back! and gief beta!

Man, stop saying "gief".. you sound like a spoiled rich-kid brat lol.\

go here: [url]http://www.splashdamage.com/forums/profile.php?do=ignorelist[/url] and put "Joe999" into the textbox below "Add a Member to Your List..." and hit the Okay button

i have to bump this regarding: "There has been a big trend in recent games to push for an overly desaturated look, for Brink we wanted ‘colour’ back." ^^ did you change your opinion? the e3 videos look overly desaturated compared to earlier footage :( gief color back! and gief beta!\

i take that back. seems my mp4 codec was messing with me. thx to rr2do2 & mop for clarification :)