SRIV Hands on with the Saints Row IV press preview

[[V] Knobby]

Cool! Just out of curiosity, what do you guys do in between the time when you release a game and start working on the next game? Do you take a break, work on DLC, or something else?

And speaking of the next game , what might it be? I kid, I kid...or am I?

I'm not sure what will come from the current cycle, but typically there is a little downtime between things. Usually some R&R days from crunch and people will take vacations shortly after launch. Rolloffs are scheduled all through the cycle and some people like concept artists will roll off onto DLC or other projects long before the game ships. Some people will go to DLC, some will go to other projects and some will go in the core tech group. It all depends on what the studio is doing and where people are needed.

SR3 DLC spun up super fast before we shipped SR3 and we had to pull people from other projects in the studio to work on it. It's generally assumed that DLC that ships on the disc was just content that someone thought they could sell so they pulled it out of the game, but the truth usually is that the content wouldn't have been made if it wasn't for DLC. The fact that it ships on the disc is just because the work was accomplished soon enough to go on the disc so that the players don't burn bandwidth downloading it. It's a bit of a slippery slope though because it's easy to feel cheated as a player if the DLC is on the disc, but on the other hand if the DLC team has completed some of the work, why not include it on the disc if there is room?

 

[Minimaul]

Well, for one thing there is this pesky driver thing that makes AMD cards have pretty terrible frame rates and we're looking at what options we might have to help out there. For the other things, you'll need to wait and read the readme. People read those, right?

I was getting good frame rates on the preview on a 7970... Better than SRTT, actually.

 

[Corrodias]

This post uses information from my conversations with another game dev.

-- And it's not included "in the base game" because of the console certification process; they can't just edit the final build with new skins and stuff. But for some reason, they can release DLC in a much shorter timeframe. I guess that doesn't require certification.

Charging for this DLC is another can of worms. My acquaintance defends this practice of asking for money for on-disc DLC with an analogy based on making cakes and making cupcakes with what's left over -- if they didn't make the DLC, they wouldn't be making anything, because the final build was already sent to certification, and people deserve to be paid for their work. To an extent i agree, and professional model and texture artists do deserve to be paid for their work, but there are two caveats.

• The games that have the most DLC skins and weapons are not moddable, so it's customization being held hostage when the players could have made skins themselves. In a multiplayer environment, it's maybe a little different, as other people can see your model, but... I don't know how to feel about that, as i don't do multiplayer, personally. Are multiplayer skins sold at high prices because most customers will buy 0 or 1 and you somehow couldn't afford the model and texture artists below that level? Why not raise the price of the game by a whole dollar, and then let everybody freely mix and match skins as they please? It comes across to me as being just about profits. It's not about making the game better, or pleasing fans; it's just about pulling in more dough at their expense.
• I don't like spending money. I know this isn't the case for everyone. There are people who love microtransactions in their Facebook apps and whatnot. I'm not one of them, though. The fewer times you can demand that i give you money for a product, the less i will feel like i'm being ripped off. I'd rather pay $60 once than $20 thrice (or, as it usually winds up being, $60 for the game, then $3 another 2o times if you want everything). And please, do not ask me to pay money for things that have been traditionally free (or in the realm of save editors), such as cheat codes and "bonuses" like extra money in a single-player game. I'm looking at you, SR3, Sleeping Dogs, Tomb Raider, and Bioshock Infinite.

That kind of went off on a tangent. On-disc DLC, does it deserve a separate transaction to unlock? I don't know. Of course i'd prefer it to be included so everyone gets to play with it. My goal is always to make it so that the maximum number of people can play and enjoy the games as much as possible. Volition seems to be spending a good amount of effort adding skins to the game for free, up to this point. Some companies wouldn't do that.

 

[Paranoia456]

So do you have any idea who are the voice actors for the new female voices?

If you don't know or can't answer that, what is your favorite dessert?

 

[[V] IdolNinja]

So do you have any idea who are the voice actors for the new female voices?

If you don't know or can't answer that, what is your favorite dessert?

I added the voice actress info to the article a couple days ago.

 

[Paranoia456]

I added the voice actress info to the article a couple days ago.

Oh I see. Thanks. Never heard of those two before though.

Was kinda hoping you'd answer the second question, just for lawls.

 

[Bring the Noise]

I'm not sure what will come from the current cycle, but typically there is a little downtime between things. Usually some R&R days from crunch and people will take vacations shortly after launch. Rolloffs are scheduled all through the cycle and some people like concept artists will roll off onto DLC or other projects long before the game ships. Some people will go to DLC, some will go to other projects and some will go in the core tech group. It all depends on what the studio is doing and where people are needed.

SR3 DLC spun up super fast before we shipped SR3 and we had to pull people from other projects in the studio to work on it. It's generally assumed that DLC that ships on the disc was just content that someone thought they could sell so they pulled it out of the game, but the truth usually is that the content wouldn't have been made if it wasn't for DLC. The fact that it ships on the disc is just because the work was accomplished soon enough to go on the disc so that the players don't burn bandwidth downloading it. It's a bit of a slippery slope though because it's easy to feel cheated as a player if the DLC is on the disc, but on the other hand if the DLC team has completed some of the work, why not include it on the disc if there is room?

With the next generation consoles coming out this winter. Will there be a new engine for the next game (after SR4)?
If so, how much about the new engine can be revealed?

One thing that was listed in one of the threads (can not remember where) was that doing more then a 2 person CO-OP is/was difficult due to the amount of data that is sent between players just for the users data.

Is there a way to compress the user data and send it once to the other players.
Then just call on the present data instead of resending all of the users data every time (to cut down on network bandwidth).

Something like a compressed 3 or 4 part setup.
IAD material (Body build, skins, facial features, hair, taunts, voice, etc)
Cloths (everything)
Weapons
User level & unlocks.

Then only update the part or parts that a the player makes a change to during co-op or open world game play.
IE someone goes into IAD and changes there face features, but leaves everything else the same.
Then the system would only send an update for that part of the compressed user data to the other players.

Example. Player 1 kicks off a taunt after doing a beatdown on an npc in the OpenWorld/Co-op environment.
The other players would get a call for the compressed data set of player 1 on there box, at location X,Y,Z and taunt.
Or something along that idea.

For an open world environment you could preset an area that other players would be visible in (say 200 meters in game from user location).
Player compressed data sets that are outside of that users zone on the server would not be sent to the user.
Then as the user moves around the open world they would receive compressed data sets for other users that entered their zone and would drop data sets from users that were well outside of there zone or had disconnected from the servers (say over 400 meters in game).

This would be tricky in that everyone on the server would need all of the cloths, and weapons in there game folder (IE mod's that would offer new cloths or weapons would need to be on all users machines, even if they do not use them). This would be possible by gettings the SDK out to allow building cloths, and weapons as addons, instead of replacements (IE create new vpp's to go into the cache folder that list: the item, the store where it can be purchased, and the price).

Also using a server listing along the lines of Tribes 2's old Server list would be very useful for the users.
As it would list what version of the game was running on different servers. As well as what mods are running on that server (IE for T2 things like Ultra, Renegades, Meltdown, and Warfare were just some of the mods).

Hmmm I may have put to much into this post????

 

[[V] IdolNinja]

Fun NPC behavior story time:

I'm standing in an intersection, and a drunk driver in a Raycaster runs into a preppie in a sweater and he goes flying over the hood and lands in the street. A biker on a motorcycle then runs over him but gets stopped by traffic just ahead. The preppie gets up, pulls out a bat, runs up to the biker and yanks him off the bike. The biker freaks out and throws his hands up in the air and starts running away. The preppie chases him down and corners him next to Rim Jobs where he proceeds to beat him with the bat until he's dead.

I didn't do anything to instigate any of it. I was just standing there bemused while watching it unfold.

Yes, indeed. NPC behavior is massively improved from SRTT.

 

[Ben Osborne]

Fun NPC behavior story time:

I'm standing in an intersection, and a drunk driver in a Raycaster runs into a preppie in a sweater and he goes flying over the hood and lands in the street. A biker on a motorcycle then runs over him but gets stopped by traffic just ahead. The preppie gets up, pulls out a bat, runs up to the biker and yanks him off the bike. The biker freaks out and throws his hands up in the air and starts running away. The preppie chases him down and corners him next to Rim Jobs where he proceeds to beat him with the bat until he's dead.

I didn't do anything to instigate any of it. I was just standing there bemused while watching it unfold.

Yes, indeed. NPC behavior is massively improved from SRTT.

Wow that is very impressive and so great to hear!

 

[[V] IdolNinja]

Something else I just realized. Weapon quick switch is back from SR1! A quick tap of the b button will advance to the next slot!

EDIT:
False alarm. It doesn't seem to be working like I thought. Weird.