Introducing a new Rebellion staff member to AvP-Galaxy

[StevieJayMac]

This is going to be a highly debatable question (and I understand if you don't answer), but I would like to know your thoughts on the reviews from sites that seem to have "smeared" AvP, ie. Game Informer and Gamespot. These seem to be the two most controversial reviews of a game (possibly ever?). After reading GI's review I completely disregarded it as it was very poorly written, and Gamespot's review, while being a bit more descriptive, I also have written off as not applicable in my opinion. A lot of people seem to base their opinion on the fact that you're company has developed some other "sub-par" games (which I have not played nor will judge). I've played the demo extensively and I must say I really enjoy it and plan on picking up the game tomorrow. I would like to know your thoughts about these negative reviews and how you plan to improve in the future.

Much respect,
Steve Jaymac
(StevieJayMac@hotmail.com)

[Gladius_]

It's probably going to take an extremely long time for the devs to get this far but I have a question as well. If one of the consoles or pc version suffer in sales, what do you have to increase it's life expectancy? I know that certain games have cross linked systems. 360 with PC etc. Would you consider such an option?

[Suicide767]

My question wasnt answered on page 19 so I shall place in bold for it to stand out.

Ok I have a question as to which i dont think it has been answered and I and lots of other members of the community have been wanting it answered and left bewildered as to why its not included.

AVP Became very popular with its lifecycle options the ability to play as a facehugger and facehug your friends and become a chestburster, why was this not concidered and added into possibly the best game of its time Concidering Lifecycle/Facehuggers scared the bajesus out of thousands of people when it was enabled in AVP2, why remove the option to enable/disable lifecycle?

And please dont reply with balance, AVP2 Kicked arse with its lifecycle and IMO was perfectly balanced both when lifecycle was enabled and disabled. other than the plasma caster spam .

Sui

[Drewid]

My question wasnt answered on page 19 so I shall place in bold for it to stand out.

Ok I have a question as to which i dont think it has been answered and I and lots of other members of the community have been wanting it answered and left bewildered as to why its not included.

AVP Became very popular with its lifecycle options the ability to play as a facehugger and facehug your friends and become a chestburster, why was this not concidered and added into possibly the best game of its time Concidering Lifecycle/Facehuggers scared the bajesus out of thousands of people when it was enabled in AVP2, why remove the option to enable/disable lifecycle?

Sui

I think this has already been answered.

[Suicide767]

no it hasnt, i checked.

Sui

[Insomniac]

no it hasnt, i checked.

Sui

Yes it was:

    Life Cycle
    I know this was answered in a recent interview, so I'll ask it in a different manner.
    Was this mode ever seriously considered, and if so...would you be willing to create it if you had the opportunity to create a sequel? I realize you may not be able to answer this question, but its absence disappointments me as it was very fun back in AVP2. So if you can at least comment on this it would be much appreciated.

It's one of those features that end up being on the wishlist.  To do this properly (and it would have to be done properly for it to feel good) is almost like adding a 4th campaign to the game – something that requires that much effort, is wasted on just one level.  Conversely, doing something small simply ends up feeling tacked on and cheap.  The short answer is that we didn't have the time, sorry!

[[REB]Trigger]

Hi All,

Some more questions answered - but first some housekeeping statements;

For those of you who are further down the list - a reminder.  I am going through and answering in order of posting.  If you are on page 19 (for example) please be patient.  Your answer is coming, or may have already arrived if someone else has asked. 

For those of you who think that PM'ing me will get you an answer, we remind you to post your questions on the forum for the benefit of all - I would like to point out that technical support will not be provided here, and that if you are experiencing problems please go to the SEGA website and click on the "Support" button.  Please don't be offended when you're PM goes unanswered.

I have seen or heard in an interveiw that we could pick what we could do in a Trohy Kill.  Is this true?

No, Trophy kills are picked on a random basis when initiated.  The animation you get will vary depending on whether it is initiated from the front or rear (stealth kill)

As well as that^, in online play, how much XP is generally gathered per kill, and will it vary between game-modes and species? And does the XP amount needed to level up increase the higher you get?

The higher the rank, the more XP is required to earn it

Action	Time	XP Reward
Kill Marine	-	2
Kill Alien	-	2
Kill Predator	-	2
Inflict 100 points of damage	-	2
Counter melee attack	-	1
Capture Control Point(CP)	-	2
Defended CP (rewarded only after a kill near teams CP)	20 secs	1
Attack CP (rewarded only after a kill near enemy CP)	20 secs	1
Assist in a Kill	-	1
Trophy Kill Marine	-	3
Trophy Kill Alien	-	3
Trophy Kill Predator	-	5
Melee Kill as Marine	-	6
Assist in a Kill	-	1
Get a kill streak of 5 or more with out dying	-	5
Kill Persecutor	-	4
Win a round of Infestation	-	5
Survive to the end of a round of Infestation as a Marine and get the Bonus	-	10

This question is console related: Because of more difficult capacity of aim, are the X360, PS3 and PC Marine weapon damages all equal? I'm asking, because it is easier to aim on PC and harder on PS3 X360, so are there compromises done to facilitate "taking down" enemies while being a marine?

The damage/health values for all species are consistent across all platforms – there have been no compromises.

2b. Will different skins for the alien have a different hiss sound?

I'm afraid not, sorry!

XBOX FORUMS: This is probably a major thing and why hasn't there been one made for this game? It will increase the popularity huge.

This isn't something we have any control over – if you would like to see this happen please voice your concerns to Microsoft and/or SEGA

Alien Movement Question
It's a little long, so sorry about that. The Aliens are typically restricted to moving on all fours, but have occasionally been seen transitioning to moving on 2 limbs. I'm curious if this is an intended mechanic (such as a slow walk animation when on the ground) or just a glitch (it's difficult to tell, because it's only been seen on AI controlled Aliens, since the first person Character Model can't be seen while under player control). I've got some examples to show what I'm talking about.

The MP movement anims are all "crouch" based, while in SP some of them have the (AI only) aliens standing on their legs.

3) Are all your Multiplayer maps built on the same "sample"? I mean 2 levels, symmetrical, 2 main room where fight happened both link by one corridor?

No, our other maps may have the same design elements, but are not simply clones of Refinery with different textures.

5) I guess the whole concept of "Predator de-cloaking" is about honour but there's a thing I can't get. If a Predator has sense of honour, he probably won't stealth kill someone who's stealth killing someone else from the back. Is there anyway to see this cloak fixed also which doesn't de-cloak everytime you fire?

We will not be changing the predator de-cloaking, as we see this as fundamental to the balance of the game.  Honorable predators in MP, rely on honourable players controlling them!

6) Is there a chance to see the Predator "cloak" fixed? I mean Alien does better cloak in the environment than predator cos of thus "electric distortion".

The distortion only shows up when you are moving, or have been hit.  If you are standing still, you should be far less visible than an Alien.  However, a Predator who is standing still can easily fall prey to roving Aliens.

will the voip bug be fixed in full version?
No ability to mute as it is now.

The main game has a PTT button at the lobby, as well as a mute function.



Cheers,
Eric

[rufuzmitchell]

Hi All,

I'll follow on from Alex and give a small intro about me, and what I do;

My name is Eric Miller, I work for Rebellion Oxford as an Assistant Producer on AVP for Multiplayer and Animation.  Alongside our Multiplayer designers Phil Gresley (Lead) and Stephen Elkins and our Code team, we have been working very hard to bring you the best possible experience we can when it comes to lovingly ripping other players in half online.

We recognise that there has been a lot of confusion lately since the release of the Demo, and as such would like to engage in a dialogue with the community about issues or questions that people have - to that end, we have decided to directly engage with you through the magic of the internet in order to provide feedback where possible to the questions that have come up.

To that end, I will be posting statements on this board in an attempt to answer questions about the game that occur in broad categories.  I will not be responding to private messages, and I will not be engaging in forum thread discussions.  This is not because I or Rebellion do not care, but simply because I do not have the time (in the case of private messages) nor do we want to influence the discussions that have occured to date without our invovlement.  Discussions have the ability to be derailed or ended simply because a "dev said X" and while answering your questions will to some degree have that effect anyway, we want the community to be able to discuss their desires and opinions without an official Rebellion response coming along to end such a discussion prematurely.  You've managed quite well without us before now, and we don't want to change that through our involvement.

I aim to post such "round up responses" on a regular basis, but of course this depends on the volume of questions that are asked.  If I don't post a response to your question, it could be for a number of reasons;

- I didn't see it
- Only one person asked, and as a result it was deemed to be a low priority question to respond to
- An answer is not currently available at this time (I will endeavour to point this out)
- The question asked was not gameplay related  (i.e. Aesthetics, Story, Audio, etc.)

Please try to not read too much into any lack of response to a question - you are of course free to speculate, but it's more than likely not the end of the world if a question does not get a response immediately.

Why here, and why now?  Well, we've been lurking on this and other boards for over 3 years now (3 years ago, there were less AVP dedicated sites to go to) - some of us have posted privately before, others simply watched .  With the release of the game imminent, we felt that this was a good time to get involved - and yes, the issues with the Demo made it more desirable as well.

Finally (sorry for the wall of text!) I'd like to thank you for reading this, Rebellion as a whole would like to thank you for your support of the game so far, and we look forward to the release of the game in 6 more days (USA).

If you see someone in a game who has a [REB] Tag, it's possible they're a rebellionite, especially if they're a member of our steam group . 

Cheers,
Eric

Hi Eric,

I know this thread is mainly about MP but are the people from Rebellion aware of the problems with the Predator Campaign on PS3? The Marine and Alien Campaigns are fine but the Predator campaign is prone to random freezing. (the disc is clean and my ps3 isn't faulty)

Anyway, i am a bit short on time tonight so i'll just copy and paste my topic about this problem that i posted elsewhere on this board:

'' Hi folks,

I registered here to ask if anyone else has encountered random freezes on the Predator campaign.

I finished the Marines and the Aliens campaigns with no problems at all. But everytime i play the Predator my system randomly locks up.

I already asked this on another forum and there are more people who have the same problem.(aliens and marine are fine: problems with the pred!)

So, anyone here who has the ps3 version and has the same problems?
Also, is there a way to let Rebellion know so they might eventually patch it?

Thanks in advance!''


I hope you will take the time to read this and hopefully there will be a solution to this prolem shortly.

Thank you.

[Xenodog]

Ahhh, thanks guys. 

[JayHy17]

Question to Rebellion, Will you ever release the pre-order multiplayer skins via DLC?

[Sharkey1337]

Hi Eric! Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions! My question relates with game balancing (and I know you wrote a general response to this) but I'm really curious in the dev's team's decision on the Smart Disc mechanics, such as why it doesn't require any energy and the ease of 'spamming' the disc by players as the disc doesn't have a 'cool down' much like the Spear does. I'm sure you guys will be balancing the disc down the road, soon I hope, but can we at least get a confirmation from you guys that the disc has behaved differently than intended in the demo, much like the flamethrower? Thanks again!

[yaji]

I have question about the muzzle flares:



Why they have to be so big ? I can't see anything though it.

[Brother]

I have question about the muzzle flares:



Why they have to be so big ? I can't see anything though it.

2nd, very annoying.

[Insomniac]

I have question about the muzzle flares:



Why they have to be so big ? I can't see anything though it.

You sure thats all muzzle flare? looks like your standing on a light...

[Valheru]

6) Is there a chance to see the Predator "cloak" fixed? I mean Alien does better cloak in the environment than predator cos of thus "electric distortion".

The distortion only shows up when you are moving, or have been hit.  If you are standing still, you should be far less visible than an Alien.  However, a Predator who is standing still can easily fall prey to roving Aliens.

Hi Eric,

Thanks for all the great, timely responses to people's questions...I have one of my own though regarding your response above.

Can you please explain the theory behind this electronic distortion when the predator moves? I can understand it when he gets hit by an explosion blast such as splash damage from a RPG or Plasma bolt or when he moves through water, but it doesn't make any sense when he simply moves.

My reasoning behind asking this, is that at times playing against marines I am anywhere between 2 and 20 meters away and they can pin point me with deadly accuracy every time! Couple that with the smart gun, the scope on the sniper rifle, the motion tracker, the fact that the predator uncloaks with every attack and every weapon except the spear gives away your position (5 marine advantages against the 1 advantage cloaking gives the predator!) and the predator's cloak is almost useless except when standing still and even then if the marine is close he can still find you from the shimmer...so really what is the point of the cloak? I find I am having to play like a marine to have any chance at killing them in a lot of games...have a spear ready, dodge out and throw it and dodge back in before I get owned by the PR...theyll be camping up where the SG is and no matter which doorway ill try to come out off or up the ramps they instantly nail me...thats before they get the SG!

I've been playing the demo for a while now and consider myself an OK predator (so not saying im leet or anything ) and against inexperienced marines I absolutely nail them...ones that know what to look for, well I might as well not bother with the cloak as it does me no good and in my opinion is a serious balance issue on the predator's side, the electronic distortion from moving is a big disadvantage.

And most of all this doesn't represent or follow through on any cloaking example from any of the Predator or AVP movies where moving does not induce this electronic distortion. I'm not sure why you introduced it as an obvious balance to the cloak when the marines already have so many things to balance it out. I hope this gets looked into further down the track once the full version is out.

I mean, without an effective cloak the predator simply becomes another marine class with claws and futuristic weapons.

Cheers!

Valheru