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INTERVIEW: FAR CRY MULTIPLAYER RIPPED OPEN
Crytek gives us the heads-up on online and LAN action in tropical paradise
In development at Germany-based studio Crytek, Far Cry is one of the key first-person shooters due out in 2004 that, if there's any justice in the world, should do extremely well. Graphically splendid, cracking AI, top-notch physics implementation and gung-ho action - it's a title that scores high where it counts.
Although Far Cry isn't due out till March next year, its release will be preceeded by a beta test phase that will put the FPS's multiplayer component through its paces. We caught up with Crytek to discover exactly what to expect from this part of the game.
Answering questions are Christopher Natsuume, producer, Rich Tsao, multiplayer producer, Chris Auty, multiplayer designer and Michael "Kolly" Kolkau, multiplayer designer.
We understand Far Cry multiplayer has three different modes - Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and Assault. The first two are pretty self-explanatory we guess, so could you go into detail about the third mode, Assault?
Natsuume: The assault mode is designed to allow the players to utilize team strategies in a large environment - primarily outdoors. Two teams play either Attacker or Defender, and struggle for control of critical points on the map. As the Attacker moves forward, the spawn points change, and the action moves to a new part of the map. The critical goal was to centralise the fighting on certain areas at certain times - which was very necessary, due to the massive size of our maps.
Guns and equipment - what are you including here?
Natsuume: Just about all the weapons from the single-player game are available - as well as some special tools for the Support class.
Assault mode is class-based, from what we know. Can you tell us about each of the classes involved and the weapons and equipment they can utilise? What other classes, if any, are you considering adding?
Auty: The player can be any one of three classes - Grunt, Sniper, or Support. Each of these classes plays a vital role in the success of the group in capturing or defending points across the map. The different classes each have a few weapons that they can select, allowing the player a higher level of personalisation.
The Grunt, of course, gets the best weapons, while the Sniper specialises in powerful long-range weapons. The Support class has the worst selection of weapons, but has the ability to build and destroy useful objects in the game, as well as support the team with health pickups.
We had more classes earlier in development, but we found that having fewer classes made the class selection more meaningful. As the game is extremely combat-oriented, we found that the Support class in particular needed to be carefully considered to ensure that it was an equally fun choice to the Sniper or Grunt.
What balancing issues have you had to overcome with the class-based system and multiplayer in general?
Auty: We have the same balancing issues as all multiplayer shooters. The most important is making sure that all of the characters are meaningfully different, but equal in value to the team - and that a combined team is meaningfully more powerful than a group of all the same class.
In the same way, we also spent a great deal of time testing and balancing the weapons, so that there is no single "uberweapon." There must always be a good reason for choosing each weapon, and good reasons for not choosing each weapon. Every weapon and class must provide extra support for one type of playing style, which comes with some cost.
Similarly, what technical issues have you had to overcome in multiplayer, if any?
Tsao: We encountered typical multiplayer challenges that many other game developers have in the past, just with a much more intimidating graphics and physics model to work from. We needed to ensure that the game played smoothly, with minimum problem with lag, and server/client synchronisation.
In multiplayer games, framerate is especially critical, so we had to tweak our game to make sure that every framerate-costing tradeoff was really worth it, and ensure that things that optimised for both framerates and network bandwidth.
Our vehicle physics were especially difficult to synchronise - but they were such an integral part of the Far Cry universe that the development team said: "Either we have vehicles or we don't have multiplayer!" Not having multiplayer really wasn't really much of an option for us, so we made it happen.
How many players does each Far Cry multiplayer mode support?
Natsuume: We have some great games with 16 players, and we are trying to optimise where you can still have a great game with up to 32. In case you want to play a more close-and-personal game, we have made a few smaller maps that support a great game with fewer people.
How many maps will there be for multiplayer? How big are the maps, and are they unique to multiplayer or taken from the single-player game? What are the maps like environmentally?
Auty: All of the multiplayer maps are completely original to the multiplayer game. We used many of the same objects, elements, and moods to ensure that the game still feels like Far Cry - but the actual locations are completely different.
Because our editor is extremely strong, and our hopes for the mod community are very high, we focused on the code and features of multiplayer, not on the creation of dozens of maps - so the map list is not extraordinarily long.
We've heard that each map in multiplayer can be played during daytime, at night or have different weather effects - what weather effects are we talking about here and how does weather affect gameplay?
Natsuume: Weather is essentially a visual effect. But in a FPS, visual effects can make a great difference to the gameplay. The night missions are darker, and easier to hide in, while day missions encourage a great deal more long-range sniping.
Are we right in saying that five vehicles will feature in multiplayer? What vehicles are you including, and will they be in all multiplayer modes? Can multiple players use one vehicle, and if so what roles does each player play in the vehicles - can you man guns, shoot from passenger positions, for example?
Natsuume: We have all of the player-driveable vehicles from the single-player game, except for the hang glider, which we decided was not the most desireable vehicle for the multiplayer game - you would hang in the air like a sitting duck! But there are two land vehicles and two boats that you can use. You can sit as a passenger, gunner, or driver in all of the vehicles. Passengers can use their handheld weapons to shoot.
How easy is it going to be for the mod community to design their own multiplayer modes and multiplayer maps?
Natsuume: Our editor is easy enough that, with a simple tutorial, your grandma can probably make a map. Well, if you have a pretty bright grandma, anyway. We demoed the game to the press in the States and showed how a decent map can be made and played in a few hours.
Of course, more time means better results, but the most important thing is that our "What You See is What You Play" sandbox editor allows you to play almost at the same time you are creating - you can push a button and play right there in the editor.
This means that you can really polish your work the first time, and get the best possible "first play experience" when you give the game out to a bigger audience - and this is especially key to the multiplayer community.
As for mods, the system is as easy as we can make it. We have brought on a few new members to the team that come from the mod community, and they tell us that it is as easy, if not easier, to work with our game than other competitive products. We hope that we can even increase this ease through our continued support of the CryEngine after the game's release.
Finally, what's your most fun Far Cry multiplayer experience to date?
Kolkau: The coolest thing was during the first press event in Coburg. In the last few hours, a bunch of the press guys were fighting for almost 20 minutes on the last capture point of a map called Dune. It was a very hard fight, and when the attackers finally captured the flag, they all jumped from their chairs and in one voice celebrated their victory. For a developer, being able to see this kind of moment pays for a lot of the hard work.
Tsao: The best so far was that someone commented that there wasn't any long-range gameplay on a particular map. So I decided to choose a sniper and quickly made 17 kills within 10 minutes to prove them wrong. It was quite fun, because long-range gameplay is really fun in Far Cry, without it being too overpowered.
INTERVIEW: FAR CRY MULTIPLAYER RIPPED OPEN
Crytek gives us the heads-up on online and LAN action in tropical paradise
In development at Germany-based studio Crytek, Far Cry is one of the key first-person shooters due out in 2004 that, if there's any justice in the world, should do extremely well. Graphically splendid, cracking AI, top-notch physics implementation and gung-ho action - it's a title that scores high where it counts.
Although Far Cry isn't due out till March next year, its release will be preceeded by a beta test phase that will put the FPS's multiplayer component through its paces. We caught up with Crytek to discover exactly what to expect from this part of the game.
Answering questions are Christopher Natsuume, producer, Rich Tsao, multiplayer producer, Chris Auty, multiplayer designer and Michael "Kolly" Kolkau, multiplayer designer.
We understand Far Cry multiplayer has three different modes - Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and Assault. The first two are pretty self-explanatory we guess, so could you go into detail about the third mode, Assault?
Natsuume: The assault mode is designed to allow the players to utilize team strategies in a large environment - primarily outdoors. Two teams play either Attacker or Defender, and struggle for control of critical points on the map. As the Attacker moves forward, the spawn points change, and the action moves to a new part of the map. The critical goal was to centralise the fighting on certain areas at certain times - which was very necessary, due to the massive size of our maps.
Guns and equipment - what are you including here?
Natsuume: Just about all the weapons from the single-player game are available - as well as some special tools for the Support class.
Assault mode is class-based, from what we know. Can you tell us about each of the classes involved and the weapons and equipment they can utilise? What other classes, if any, are you considering adding?
Auty: The player can be any one of three classes - Grunt, Sniper, or Support. Each of these classes plays a vital role in the success of the group in capturing or defending points across the map. The different classes each have a few weapons that they can select, allowing the player a higher level of personalisation.
The Grunt, of course, gets the best weapons, while the Sniper specialises in powerful long-range weapons. The Support class has the worst selection of weapons, but has the ability to build and destroy useful objects in the game, as well as support the team with health pickups.
We had more classes earlier in development, but we found that having fewer classes made the class selection more meaningful. As the game is extremely combat-oriented, we found that the Support class in particular needed to be carefully considered to ensure that it was an equally fun choice to the Sniper or Grunt.
What balancing issues have you had to overcome with the class-based system and multiplayer in general?
Auty: We have the same balancing issues as all multiplayer shooters. The most important is making sure that all of the characters are meaningfully different, but equal in value to the team - and that a combined team is meaningfully more powerful than a group of all the same class.
In the same way, we also spent a great deal of time testing and balancing the weapons, so that there is no single "uberweapon." There must always be a good reason for choosing each weapon, and good reasons for not choosing each weapon. Every weapon and class must provide extra support for one type of playing style, which comes with some cost.
Similarly, what technical issues have you had to overcome in multiplayer, if any?
Tsao: We encountered typical multiplayer challenges that many other game developers have in the past, just with a much more intimidating graphics and physics model to work from. We needed to ensure that the game played smoothly, with minimum problem with lag, and server/client synchronisation.
In multiplayer games, framerate is especially critical, so we had to tweak our game to make sure that every framerate-costing tradeoff was really worth it, and ensure that things that optimised for both framerates and network bandwidth.
Our vehicle physics were especially difficult to synchronise - but they were such an integral part of the Far Cry universe that the development team said: "Either we have vehicles or we don't have multiplayer!" Not having multiplayer really wasn't really much of an option for us, so we made it happen.
How many players does each Far Cry multiplayer mode support?
Natsuume: We have some great games with 16 players, and we are trying to optimise where you can still have a great game with up to 32. In case you want to play a more close-and-personal game, we have made a few smaller maps that support a great game with fewer people.
How many maps will there be for multiplayer? How big are the maps, and are they unique to multiplayer or taken from the single-player game? What are the maps like environmentally?
Auty: All of the multiplayer maps are completely original to the multiplayer game. We used many of the same objects, elements, and moods to ensure that the game still feels like Far Cry - but the actual locations are completely different.
Because our editor is extremely strong, and our hopes for the mod community are very high, we focused on the code and features of multiplayer, not on the creation of dozens of maps - so the map list is not extraordinarily long.
We've heard that each map in multiplayer can be played during daytime, at night or have different weather effects - what weather effects are we talking about here and how does weather affect gameplay?
Natsuume: Weather is essentially a visual effect. But in a FPS, visual effects can make a great difference to the gameplay. The night missions are darker, and easier to hide in, while day missions encourage a great deal more long-range sniping.
Are we right in saying that five vehicles will feature in multiplayer? What vehicles are you including, and will they be in all multiplayer modes? Can multiple players use one vehicle, and if so what roles does each player play in the vehicles - can you man guns, shoot from passenger positions, for example?
Natsuume: We have all of the player-driveable vehicles from the single-player game, except for the hang glider, which we decided was not the most desireable vehicle for the multiplayer game - you would hang in the air like a sitting duck! But there are two land vehicles and two boats that you can use. You can sit as a passenger, gunner, or driver in all of the vehicles. Passengers can use their handheld weapons to shoot.
How easy is it going to be for the mod community to design their own multiplayer modes and multiplayer maps?
Natsuume: Our editor is easy enough that, with a simple tutorial, your grandma can probably make a map. Well, if you have a pretty bright grandma, anyway. We demoed the game to the press in the States and showed how a decent map can be made and played in a few hours.
Of course, more time means better results, but the most important thing is that our "What You See is What You Play" sandbox editor allows you to play almost at the same time you are creating - you can push a button and play right there in the editor.
This means that you can really polish your work the first time, and get the best possible "first play experience" when you give the game out to a bigger audience - and this is especially key to the multiplayer community.
As for mods, the system is as easy as we can make it. We have brought on a few new members to the team that come from the mod community, and they tell us that it is as easy, if not easier, to work with our game than other competitive products. We hope that we can even increase this ease through our continued support of the CryEngine after the game's release.
Finally, what's your most fun Far Cry multiplayer experience to date?
Kolkau: The coolest thing was during the first press event in Coburg. In the last few hours, a bunch of the press guys were fighting for almost 20 minutes on the last capture point of a map called Dune. It was a very hard fight, and when the attackers finally captured the flag, they all jumped from their chairs and in one voice celebrated their victory. For a developer, being able to see this kind of moment pays for a lot of the hard work.
Tsao: The best so far was that someone commented that there wasn't any long-range gameplay on a particular map. So I decided to choose a sniper and quickly made 17 kills within 10 minutes to prove them wrong. It was quite fun, because long-range gameplay is really fun in Far Cry, without it being too overpowered.
