Introducing a new Rebellion staff member to AvP-Galaxy

[Hunt3r]

Would it be possible to add more gametype for mp(evac,VIP,etc) and also abilty for skins(brown head aliean spit acid but weaker , pratilean and 6 stronger then others,alien pred invisible to alien but more noticble to marines, etc) in a update and new skins(android,preadilean,etc) and lifecycle in future dlc ?

[dallevalle]

when you play online and the game have ended then instead of leaving to the menu we should still be in lobby with the people we just played with so if we like to we could play more instead of we have to look for players and start all over so plz fix that i cannot belive you actully dident inlcude that ( but els the game rocks man ).

[PsychoticMarik]

Ive really only got one other question I'd like to ask.

Its about the aliens in MP being able to see their own body outline.
Why was this done?
In the story 6 doesn't see through peoples bodies and view its own tail/hands. This makes the game look much much better.
So why is it that in MP we have to see ourselves like this?
Its rather disappointing.
Seeing my tail through the entire body may have been kinda neat at first, but overall I think its rather corny and kills the immersion.

It is possible to fix this, or perhaps give us a choice?

[[REB]Trigger]

Hi All,

Sorry for the gap in responses, I'm sure you understand how busy we are!

Straight on to the questions today, and if i'm quick there should be 3 posts in succession unless someone ninja's in!

Is the reason famous movie marines like Hudson, Vasques, and Hicks, are not multiplayer skin choices because of legal issues that have to do with using their likeness? And if that does turn out to be the case, why not have a Bishop skin in there seeing how you worked with Mr. Henriksen himself?

That's a fairly accurate summary of part of the issue.  The other part is because the Aliens vs Predator story is considered by Fox to be separate to the other franchises. 

4:  Combi stick, will it have a melee ability or is it a throwing weapon only?

It is a throwing weapon only

Will there be limited saves in the single player campaign like in the first AVP game? Personally I liked the idea of limited saves, because the atmosphere that they created to the single player game was awesome.

If you play the game on nightmare mode, you will have no checkpoints/saves (depending on which platform you play on).

So, my question stands. Rebellion, have you guys considered adding new weapons and missions via DLC? If not, (and I know my voice means little alone, though I do not think I am alone... not by a long shot) please consider it. I've heard the Alien and Predator campaigns are rather short, so more gameplay and weapons would be an EXCELLENT addition via DLC.

And an option to use the Predator in survival mode wouldn't hurt either... 

Future DLC packs have yet to be decided at this stage

Will Survivor Mode allow players to tweak the options so they can also play as Aliens or Predators against AI Marines or AI Predators and not just only as Marines against AI Aliens?

Will the Marine be updated to include their Infra Red vision from Aliens (not the night vision from previous games)?

Survivor mode only allows Marines vs Aliens

There are currently no plans to introduce a low light/night vision mode for the Marine

Hey Eric, sup man, thanks for your time!!!

couple simple questions about particular gameplay issues I was curious about...

-Why has the grenade launcher for the marine been toned down in terms of distance and accuracy?

   i.e. - in the first two avp games the grenades would travel much further and pretty accurate to where your cursor was aimed even at fairly distant ranges. I noticed in this versions demo, the grenades would merely lob out of the gun. While this isn't exactly a dire concern, it has somewhat hampered the marines disposal of any long range explosives, (being there isn't any rocket launcher, or grenade launcher) as it creates almost impossible situations to shoot any explosives down any long  narrow corriders since the only way to do so is to aim up which in turn causes the grenade to just hit the ceiling far short of intended target.

WASUP! We felt that a flat firing projectile was more akin to a rocket, rather than a grenade.  The grenade is a one hit kill weapon if hit dead on, or area of effect if not.

2. Will the Alien be able to do A head-bite without initiating a trophy kill or stealth kill like in the first one?

No, head bites only occur as a trophy kill animation.  You can head bite corpses though, to regain health – but it is not a selectable offensive move.

3. I think the trophy kills are wicked but there really slow?

This is a balancing measure – trophy kills are seen as high risk/high reward.

4. Will there be flares in the full game (in multiplayer) because i think the marines need more light or the Image Intensifier would be nice?

No, flares are not enabled in MP by design.

Are there female marine skins for multiplayer?

There are no female marine skins for MP.

[[REB]Trigger]

Would it be possible to make a DLC gameplay mode similar to VIP, in this case, it would be a team of Marines or Predators vs. a team of Aliens with a player controlled Queen? Of course, the maps would have to be larger, and possibly gametype specific, but it would pretty cool.

DLC, whether it is maps, modes, skins or any other type are evaluated constantly.  There is no further information about future DLC that we are able to divulge at this time.

2...always walk/run button

On the Consoles, this is done via moving the analogue stick the desired amount, to walk/run.  On PC, you always run unless you push the walk button.

why is predators focus mode in "normal vision" not as good for pounce as it is in other visions?

It's to encourage you to use the correct vision mode when attacking.  Lock on, focus attack range, are all slower in normal vision, than in the appropriate vision mode vs the appropriate species.

Will the single-player aliens A.I spawn randomly like they did in AVP 1999 or will it all be scripted events (like AvP2 had)?

It's a bit of a mixture – once spawned they don't use any pre-scripted paths to get to you, but we do have scripted events in the game as well.

In single player will you be able to dismember limbs from aliens A.I with pulse rifle like the 1999 version?

Yes

Will the facehugger kill you as fast as in 1999?

Depends how much health you have when they decide to get up close and personal!

As for MY question I was wondering how the survival mode works in terms of:

* If there is some sort of ranking with the amount of time that you survive or how many kills you get?

You achieve a score, which is calculated on a few variables;

o   From Wave 1-4 the base points for killing an alien, is 1 point
o   At Wave 4 you get a x10 multiplier for killing an alien
o   This increases up to x50 by wave 8
o   If you kill an Alien every 10 seconds, you get a kill streak modifier, up to x5 per Alien killed.
o   So, if you are on Wave 1 and kill an Alien, you get 1 point.  If you kill 4 more within 10 seconds of each kill, the last alien you kill gives you 5 points.  In the same scenario at Wave 8, the first alien you kill gives you 50 points, and the 5th alien you kill gives you 250 points.

* Will there be a round system or some sort of elapsed time or something to know how long you have survived for?

Aliens come at you in infinite waves, which scale in size (amount you need to kill per wave, as well as number of aliens active at any point) depending on the number of players in the game (i.e. with 1 player, you get less aliens than with 4 players).  The Wave you are on, is displayed on the HUD at the beginning of each wave.

* What aspects will the A.I. increase in as you get further? Numbers and different types of aliens obviously, but will they increase in things like strength, speed, dexterity and will they evolve their tactics accordingly to how your team plays and how far you get?

As the waves increase, so do the numbers of aliens you need to kill, different alien types appear (damage, health etc. modified), and different tactics are used by the AI.

Hello,

Devs should do what you do and it should be mandatory, but it's not, and still here you are. I respect that alot and all of us here appreciate the gesture.

Here goes: Rebellion worked on the first AvP, people still plays AvP (gold) despite it being a 10 years old game.
What made you switch from Gold's gameplay an insanely fast paced multiplayer to a more tactical approach? What made you say, " we think this is the right recipe" ?

Thanks!

It's a question of evolving the gameplay, you might even call it originality although that seems to be in dispute depending on what you read.  Gold/Classic 2000 was what it was, because of the time/era that it was made in.  That gameplay was essentially what everybody thought FPS gameplay to be, possibly even could be.  We think it was a good game at the time, and looking back are still proud of what we did.  But we couldn't just make it prettier and release it again, 10 years later and expect to be applauded! 

We wanted to make you feel like you were 3 distinct species, with advantages and disadvantages for each species – clearly there is a lot of conflicting opinions about this, with all species "OP" depending on who you might ask.  It might be an indication of balance in some cases, but in most others is more likely an indication that the learning curve is still one of the hardest things about this game – even in the 3rd iteration where we have put in a lot of work into making it easier to pick up.

Ultimately, what we thought the "right recipe" was is to realise that AVP both as a franchise and as a concept is entirely distinct from anything else.  We made the game with that idea in mind, it's not to say we didn't consider any other FPS on the market – no developer ignores other developers work.  But neither did we say "those guys did it, everybody loves it and so we have to do it too".  It took a lot of guts to not try and go down the route of making an FPS clone with an AVP skin job, and we'd like to thank both SEGA and Fox for being supportive of that decision.  Obviously if the opportunity arises to do a sequel, we'd like to continue to innovate in that direction.

How many diffrentn types of Aliens are in this game?
And,are there other unknown types of monsters?

(excuse my embaressing english ^^)

No problem, please excuse my inability to speak any other language!  The types of aliens encountered in the SP game are;

o   Facehuggers
o   Jungle aliens – (brown skins) there are also "spitter" variants
o   Warrior aliens
o   Praetorians
o   Alien Queen
o   PredAlien

will the alien be able to pounce on marines/preds like the one we saw in the Marine's trailler? I mean to knock them over. That would be awesome. Thank you for answering the questions.

No, that is an AI specific move that is their equivalent of a Trophy kill and operates under the same mechanics as a player initiated Trophy kill. 

[[REB]Trigger]

This isn't a avp related question but rather A rebellion developments question

Is there any word on another Sniper Elite, Rogue Trooper...Rogue Warrior (has sold around 120,000 u.s.). Any new ip's in development? Im sorry to put you on the spot. However, Rebellion usuallys has at least acouple projects coming out each year. So far this year we have avp and Free running (wii) coming out on the same month. I was curious as to what you guys are working on. Will a annoucement be made in a press release soon on the future of the company? 

Rebellion is currently working on several projects across our Studios, not including our post-release support of AVP.  Regarding our stable of IP's - which beyond what you mention include Judge Dredd and other 2000AD icons, we are always looking at exciting ideas and designs for future games based upon them! 

In avp related questions:
What is your guys reaction to the gi review?
Do you like the reaction the game is getting so far from the gaming community?

We think that everyone (whether reviewer or consumer) is entitled to their own opinions of the game.  We are very encouraged by the vast majority of them rating far in excess of that particular review, and perhaps even more so the response from the gaming community!

Hey guys! Awesome to see you here at AVP Galaxy! You guys are my idols!
Why does the queen look discolored?

We assume you are asking why the queen does not have the black colouration?  It is our interpretation of what happens to an alien queen who has been locked up in a Predator Temple for "10,000? 100,000?" years 

I have two questions.  The first, why did you choose to make the alien have a longer Heavy-Attack charge than that of the Predator, even though the Alien is melee only?  Why have the Predator barely able to be stunned and have the stun effet on the Alien basically condemning.  I was just wondering why you chose this design route?

The heavy attack for both alien and predator are the same in terms of timings.  The "damage flag" on the animation occurs at the same frame.  Visually it may look different, but we can assure you that it isn't.  The heavy attack however is modified based on distance.  The closer you are when you initiate it, the faster it will complete.

Will you distirbute dedicated server software for Linux ?

No, the dedicated server will be Windows based only.

Thanks for the answer of my questions.Another question that I have for you is - Is there XP earning in Survival mode,and if so how its earned? For every kill you earn XP or per wave ?

No, Survivor is non-ranked and therefore does not award XP

A little off topic,    but related to my dedicated server question, what ports will need to be open for hosting of a dedicated server?

You can set the ports to be whatever you want them to be - however whatever ports you set them to will need to be forwarded (if necessary) if your server is behind a firewall.  For further information, please see the Dedicated server Readme when the server is released.

Are the skins only for multi-player?

Yes

Another question I thought of that I'm concerned about: Does matchmaking take into consideration the player's skill level, so that it automatically matches the player with similar-skilled players? Or is it completely random on who gets assigned to a group?

Ranked matchmaking attempts to join players together based on Skill, which is entirely separate to rank.  On X360, it uses TrueSkill and on PS3 and PC it uses our own proprietary skill system.   We do however not restrict players of unequal skill playing against each other, if no suitable matches can be found in an acceptable timeframe.



We hope that you all have a very enjoyable first weekend playing AVP!

Cheers,
Eric

[Eat-this]

hay rebellion team i like the new game but
this guy brings up some good point  for some  possable DL CONTENT /Retail  add on  packs
so i hope you guys make an add-on like this  i love the lighting effects and sound please check out this video below reply to this topic with your thoughts

[predpant]

hi my question wasnt answerd and it was about the game ??

Why is the heart beat in predator thermal vision the sound of a human

[Puks]

A better way of asking this: Why was the iconic noise of the predator vision from the movies replaced by a generic heartbeat?

And another one regarding sound: Why does the smartgun sound like a minigun?

[mrc1988]

To whomever asked for crouch...I dont think it is needed AT ALL in this type of game. Along with iron sights..both do nothing but slow you down. Crouching wont help you with these types of species..if a pred doesnt get you an alien will crawl over w/e surface and destroy you. If you wanna hide under something..that makes you even more vulnerable.

Some of the questions I have are(HOPE they get answered lol)

Survibor: I understand it is meant to be intense..and to survive. BUT is they anyway lather on down teh road thata a "teammate respawn" feature can be added? For instance if someone dies and we live through 3/4waves, he is able to come back? I think that is fair and allows people to enjoy the game mode more..cause I love it, and everyone I play with does.

Stealth kills: They dont bother me. BUT for the sake of the game and everyone who complains about them, allow the option to turn them on or off during ranked games and player games(ranked games via a VOTE before he game starts, much like how the map is vetoed)  OR decrease the range the player is allowed. I have teleported quite a distance to stealth kill someone..I can see how it can be frustrating.  I think both of those or even one of those additions would be excellent

DLC: I know you arent giving out details..but WOULD DLC allow for other weapons? I.E is is only limited to Skins/Maps/Modes etc.  I think some kind of BR type gun for the marine would be excellent,maybe even a rocket launcher with very few rounds(2). Net for the predator that knocks down or kills an enemy depending upon health.

MM: Are there any plans to increase its effectiveness, I.E shorten time it takes to find a game? Also, is there any chance of host migration during a game/when a host leaves?

Game Lobby: After a game ranked or not, we are forced back to main lobby screen. Is there a way to add in/patch in something so that once a game finishn we can simply STAY in that particular game lobby with those people we just played with? Allow the game to divide up species so every has a chance to play as what they like? I think it would really make the MM run smoother IMHO.

Overral I have had an excellent time playing this game, I think what you guys did for balance works well. Unlocking weapons and abilities would cause balance issues.

Hope you read my questions and hope to see the respone.

Thanks

-Matt C.

[xboxgamer4life]

i have a question. i was playing survivor on mausoleum by myself i got to wave 17 and it seamed the waves were all the same after 8 or 9. so my question is do the waves in survivior stop increasing in difficulty.

[Eat-this]

hay rebellion team i like the new game a lot  nice job

but this guy brings up some good points  for some  possable DL CONTENT /Retail  add on  packs maybe
i hope you guys make an add-on like this  half Marines Aliens / half predator hunting humans but not marines kind of like the GTA double add-on pack but not as big but a good amount of game play
i like the lighting effects and sound please check out this video below reply to this topic with your thoughts
i still have heaps of AVP to get though but would like to see more DLC/Retail Add-ons for this next gen game

this guy brings up some good points with some negative feed back but good for creative criticism

[hellrazr1231]

*Why is there NO HOST MIGRATION.*
May people are becoming annoyed by this and some have started to give up on this game because of it.  Takes to long to get in a ranked game just for a host to decide to cut the game short because it is not going their way.
**Why is friendly matches setup nicely (create and browse games) while ranked only has time consuming quick match?[/b**
***Why did you decide to kick all games back to the main lobby after the game is over?***
This is extremely annoying.  Takes forever to get in a ranked game. Host quits. Then you have to wait 5-10mins again to find a game.  I'm a ps3 user so not sure if the wait time is such an issue for xbox or pc.  4 Friends have gave up on this game because of these problems.  The game is really using mp to keep it going since sp was short.  I believe turok's biggest failure was the fact that it did not have mp support (mics, host migration, endless search for games)
Beyond that I have no other issues with the game.  It is well rounded game.  Wouldn't hurt if the aliens had the ability to spit acid like in the single player games (coming from a pred/marine player mainly)
If there is a sequel as the game endings suggest, would you consider going back to the different aliens/ predators have different abilities and strength? I believe this would find its own way of balancing the game out.
Predalien-increased strength and health= slower speed, larger target
pretorian-just like in the sp but obviously less health. increased strength and health=no wall walking and limited jumping ability
runner-faster speed and increased jumping ability=decreased strength and brown coloring
Preds and marines should have different load outs for each character.  Still have to go pick up weapons though. Some preds get disk, net gun, spear, plasma caster, mines, etc.  Whatever combination you decided. Weapons not for that character would not have the option to pick it up. (would need more weapons of coarse) Horrible in avp2 how you could instantly have a disk or smart.  Maybe even a jungle marine that uses a large hunting knife to get stealth kills him self.  Bow with two types of arrows, explosive and regular.  Thinking of Arnold in the movie predator.  Plus sides to not having have weaponry would be he would show up like a cloaked pred if seen in heat vision (cloaked preds are hard to see even with a pred) and smaller range for aliens to pick up his pheromones.  (covered in mud or whatever to cover his own scent).  Just simple ideas that could put avp back to being played for years to come. 
P.s I like the melee system, in your face action unlike anything else on the market.

[Shardik]

Sooooooo, I have a question that I do not know if it has been asked. Whycome is there no death count on the score/statboards? This means that you can just killwhore and actually the stats and scores are irrelevant because you could have 7x the amount of deaths than kills.

This totally detracts from the teamwork style that can totally make this game because people get point crazed and just throw themselves in for kills and end up as fodder for the opposing team. Dont get me wrong though Rebellion you have a made a very solid game.

[Valheru]

Since no comment was made on my posts I'll put them as simple questions  :

1. What creates the electronic distortion specifically in the predator's cloak? Jumping? Sprinting? Running? Walking?

2. Why did you make the plasma caster still lock on in normal vision mode?

Cheers!

Valheru