XCOM: Enemy Unknown

[Jason Lutes]

A lot of things we do we do to try and enhance the player driven narrative, you know, your soldiers earn nicknames at the sergeant rank, so once they reach sSrgeant they actually get a nickname and of course everything’s customisable, the names, the look of your soldiers, because again, it’s that sort of thing where you feel like you’re not a movie director, you’re more of like the stagehand and you’re trying to give the players the best props that you can to tell their own story. So we do things like let them earn nicknames and let them customize their soldiers, and along those lines, every soldier, they come from all different countries. We want to make sure that this feels very international, so every soldier when they go into battle they actually have their country’s flag on the back of their armour. So you’ve got a soldier from Brazil, and they’ll have the Brazilian flag on the back of their armour. A lot of those touches that as a player from the original game I said, ‘I always wished I could….x, y, z’, and we’ve tried to bring a lot of those into this game.

This is a great bit, too.

[Jason Lutes]

And lastly:

Yeah, obviously your guys can die of course, the rookies also have to go through the meatgrinder, and of course even your veterans can die. There are permanent consequences to your guys getting wounded as well so if your guys get wounded in combat, when they come back of course they’re going to have to go to the infirmary, and one of the things that I’m excited about is that we actually have our HQ – you’ve seen the screenshots of the base, so that’s actually a living diorama, you’ll actually see there’s people walking around and they’re your actual soldiers, so when you come back from mission they’re shooting pool together, they’re having a beer down in the bar, so your wounded soldiers are laying up in infirmary and maybe some of their oldest friends are down there standing next to the bedside visiting with them.

[BleedTheFreak]

Uh-huh. From the interview:

"The first prototype I wrote was basically a recreation of the original game"

Yea, good grief, I can read. Really, you're tilting at windmills here, and just highlighting the fact he didn't realise it might be of interest to fans of the original. Which says a LOT about their target market.

Holy shit, your serious, aren't you?

[Staff Sergeant]

Holy shit, your serious, aren't you?

It's unhealthy to look directly at a DF post. For your own safety and that of others please step away slowly.

[LordGek]

Let me recount ... have I played through X-Com more than than twice?
FAIL!

I can only repeat, I sure hope they make the game moddable - even so, the randomization engine of X-Com wasn't exactly unimportant. It even covered locales, so you might get a deep forest, a jungle, a farm, a rural area, suburbs, a city, a desert, mountains, arctic terrain depending on where a given mission took place. You can't replicate that with static maps.
_____
rezaf

Yeah, crap weasels. ;-(

[André Costa]

The Game Informer article covers this as well as a heap of other information. Worth reading in my opinion. Basically, there are no randomly generated levels, they are all handcrafted. However, apparently there will be enough levels to last two whole playthroughs at least, apparently. What that means in terms of game length, number of levels, variation is a big unknown.

Can you show us where you have read this? Because i'm pretty sure one of the points on that GI article was:

THE VAST MAJORITY OF XCOM'S CONTENT COMES IN THE FORM OF PROCEDURUALLY GENERATED MISSIONS AND ENCOUNTERS, MEANING THAT EVERY PLAYTHROUGH UNFOLDS DIFFERENTLY

and

randomly generated missions, terrain. Developer says you'll never play the exact same mission twice outside of a few story missions which feature in-game cinematics

[Universal Leader]

Look, even though the original X-Com maps were randomized, they still looked basically the same with few variations. Those farm outbuildings would sometimes be in the top left corner, sometimes the bottom left corner next to the brick wall and the wheat field. The desert, arctic and jungle maps all looked the same to me.

The maps in X-Com Apocalypse were all handcrafted, and after playing it for years I still occasionally find myself on a map I don't recognize. With enough handcrafted maps you can still have lots of variety.

[Adam B]

The maps are handcrafted. Spawn locations for XCOM and aliens, enemy types, all that other stuff is randomized.

[Dawn Falcon]

rezaf - Right.

BleedTheFreak - Yes, I'm serious in disliking reusing game names for making different games. Who knew!

Aaron - Ohnoes, truth/cooties are comming for you. Back away slowly!

[André Costa]

Aaron - Ohnoes, truth/cooties are comming for you. Back away slowly!

[peacedog]

That about sums that up, I think.

[AaronSofaer]

Please stop quoting Dawn Falcon. I have him on ignore for a reason. :)

[Sarkus]

Please stop quoting Dawn Falcon. I have him on ignore for a reason. :)

I did that just so peope who have you on ignore can see what you said. ;-)

I continue to be optimistic about what the new XCom will be like. A demo before release would be nice, though. At the very least I'm looking forward to some gameplay video.

[AaronSofaer]

I did that just so peope who have you on ignore can see what you said. ;-)

But... you didn't quote what I said. I'm so confused!

Also, I haven't posted in this thread in like two pages.

[Arbit]

BleedTheFreak - Yes, I'm serious in disliking reusing game names for making different games. Who knew!

Better to have no new X-Com games and wait for Mr. Right to come along and sweep us away with the perfect remake, right? We've only been waiting 17 years or so.

[Dawn Falcon]

Better to have no new X-Com games and wait for Mr. Right to come along and sweep us away with the perfect remake, right?

Funny, it's almost like other games have been made in the genre without having the exact same name.

Keep pretending that Fallout: Tactics is a cannon Fallout-setting game...

[Universal Leader]

Seriously, who cares if the new XCOM is canon or not? What's the difference? Do you even know what that word means?

[garin]

Funny, it's almost like other games have been made in the genre without having the exact same name.

You're an idiot. There has never been another game called XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

[Dawn Falcon]

You're an idiot. There has never been another game called XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

Oh yes, because it's not totally trading on X-Com: Enemy Unknown or anything. No.

Only an idiot could think they resemble...

[BleedTheFreak]

I'm starting to think Don Falcone is just a troll, honestly. He's probably got the game pre-ordered already and is just fucking with us.

Nothing else makes any damn sense.

[garin]

Oh yes, because it's not totally trading on X-Com: Enemy Unknown or anything. No.

There was never a game called that, either. Idiot.

[Dawn Falcon]

I'm starting to think Don Falcone is just a troll, honestly.

Oh yes, because I don't think that if you're making a new game you should have the same name an an older game makes me a troll. Nope, nobody else is allowed an opinion in your world as usual, since you HAVE to be right at all costs. I'm really of quite a moderate opinion on this, you're lashing out simply because I hold a different opinion to you again <yawns>

Again, for those people who have any marginal connections with sanity, it might well be a good game. I just seriously doubt from what what's been said so far it'll be especially X-Com. It sounds like it'll be on the other side of the UFO series from X-Com, actually. I quite liked the UFO series...it's just not X-Com.

There was never a game called that, either. Idiot.

Incorrect. Please keep up the faux rage and personal insults though, while you continue to flail at windmills.

[Universal Leader]

I'm curious, Dawn Falcon, what would XCOM need to make it X-Com?

[BleedTheFreak]

I'm curious, Dawn Falcon, what would XCOM need to make it X-Com?

Stop feeding him!

[Dawn Falcon]

I'm curious, Dawn Falcon, what would XCOM need to make it X-Com?

My objection in this case is purely to re-using "Enemy Unknown". Well, for this game. I object to the FPS on principle :P (Enforcer was a dud as well...)

"Spiritual Successor" is fine, but why re-use virtually the same name for it? They didn't try and call Fallout 3 "2.1", did they?


Freakie - Oh yes, gotta suppress anything which doesn't agree with you, troll.

[André Costa]

[Pogo]

I'm starting to think Don Falcone is just a troll, honestly. He's probably got the game pre-ordered already and is just fucking with us.

Nothing else makes any damn sense.

No, seriously, stop talking to him. He's getting back into the swing of things and will soon be calling everyone Tories anyways.

[garin]

Incorrect. Please keep up the faux rage and personal insults though, while you continue to flail at windmills.

Fair enough. Possibly after some frantic Googling, you've proven me wrong. I do like that your affection is apparently for the PS1 port.

I don't regret calling you an idiot, though. I recommend it.

[Juan Rayo]

From the linked interview:

There’s a memorial wall where you’ve got all your fallen soldiers, so maybe somebody’s visiting

Heh. That´s pretty awesome, and one of the very things I always wished I had in a base when I played.

[BleedTheFreak]

No, seriously, stop talking to him. He's getting back into the swing of things and will soon be calling everyone Tories anyways.

Oh, he's on my ignore list for sure. The thing I can't figure out is why he would be in THIS thread if he despises this crazy new game. /boggle

EDIT: I thought his screen name was familiar, he was already banned on the other forum. LOL.