2006-06-15 19:16:38 Wanna ask the GRAW-developers a question?

Do you have any questions about Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter? We now have the opportunity to send some questions to the GRAW developer team, and at least two or three quesitons will be answered.

We can send up to four questions, and please write in the thread if you think that any submitted question is great or not so great - that will help us choosing the best questions.

GRAW: Chapter 2 will be released in the end of June and features "12 additional maps designed for Live multiplayer play, four new missions that extend the co-op campaign through Nicaragua, new game types (Team Blind Siege and Team Battle), more camouflage customisation options and five new weapons."

The questions will be sent the 19th of June, the upcoming monday.

I'm not totally sure if the questions HAVE to be about the DLC, so we will send two about GRAW in general and two about the DLC. If there are two good questions per game/DLC, of course.

2006-06-15 19:34:24

Is the engine being used in graw an engine built specifically for the 360 and did they have any issues with the 360's disc format and most importantly were they surprised by what they could pull off on the 360?

Did they take advantage of the tesselator or do they plan to do so in the future? Understanding the game was also coming to current gen consoles did this fact prevent them from doing certain things with the 360 version for fear that it would make the current gen version seem lacking in content?

After the completion of Graw or in the process of completing it did they find out later that there are better ways to implement certain things, but thought it was too far along in development or too close to release to go back and change game code?

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[b] Never judge a game too harshly via screenshots or videos, because they are in no way capable of properly representing what the game truly looks like were you to see it running in front of you on a 360 [/b]

2006-06-15 20:13:27

There were obvious differences between the graphical engines used for single player and multiplayer. Are they finally using the single player engine for multiplayer, or at least improving on the multiplayer engine, specially in co-op?

Does the content includes the addition of only new multiplayer maps, or also single player? What about new classes and weapons specifically designed for this class?

Is GRAW on x360 only going to see content updates through Xbox Live or can we expect new expansions like in past versions of Ghost Recon for X360? In case we see this expansions, will Ubisoft try to improve the A.I. of the squad mates? Please say yes...

2006-06-15 20:19:05

dude, they're not going to redo the engine for multiplayer in DLC.

2006-06-15 20:22:28 In reply to rjcc (2006-06-15 20:19:05)

I know.. that would require a heavy update, but still, one can dream...

2006-06-15 20:25:52

There wasn't much they could do with AI this time around as they go ahead they'll be able to get more graphical quality in addition to improved AI when they've had more time developing for the console. Its similar to the PGR3 team saying the next PGR game will not only look much better, but run alot faster as well.


I'd REALLY like the tesselator and disc format question to be asked.

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[b] Never judge a game too harshly via screenshots or videos, because they are in no way capable of properly representing what the game truly looks like were you to see it running in front of you on a 360 [/b]

2006-06-15 20:35:51

What is specifically the tesselator? Is that a special feature of the graphic card? , maybe i know it from a different name.

2006-06-15 20:43:52

My questions are more about tweaking the existing elements in the game rather than asking for new features:

1. Any improvements to the multiplayer game search feature?
I am not a fan of finding a multiplayer game in GRAW. It takes too long to pull down the available game list. By the time I find a game server that I like, the game has started and I gotta either wait till the next round or re-search the game list. Somedays I spent more time, like 10+ min, trying to find a server than actually playing a game. WTF. Something like Halo's match making, or atleast populate the server list immediately upon searching as oppose to wait for the search to finish then display the available matches.

2. Usable third person view in multiplayer mode?
The character model wiggles too much in third person perspective. It really hinders the gameplay in multiplayer. Too often guy's head, especially in crouch stance, gets in the way of the crosshair. I don't notice this being a issue in single player. The third person view character movements in single player mode seems much more solid.

3. any improvements on the control?
Ok, last question, and a bit of a complaint. The auto/single shot mode switch and weapon switching mechanism is laggy/lame. I know when I want to pull out my handgun and when I want to switch to single shot. Why do I have to look at my UI to make sure I am doing the right thing. That feature could be faster and more responsive.

2006-06-15 21:01:38 In reply to godhandiscen (2006-06-15 20:35:51)

Matt Lee from the group in Microsoft responsible for helping developers to understand the best possible way to take advantage of the 360 talked about it being a powerful features that most games have yet to use.A definition of it I found on wikipedia

Tessellations and computer graphics
In the subject of computer graphics, tessellation techniques are often used to manage datasets of polygons and divide them into suitable structures for rendering. Normally, at least for real-time rendering, the data is tessellated into triangles, which sometimes get referred to as triangulation. In computer-aided design, arbitrary 3D shapes are often too complicated to analyze directly. So they are divided (tessellated) into a mesh of small, easy-to-analyze pieces -- usually either irregular tetrahedrons, or irregular hexahedrons. The mesh is used for finite element analysis. Some geodesic domes are designed by tessellating the sphere with triangles that are as close to equilateral triangles as possible.

ATI has said that they imagine most 360 developeres will use many small triangles in their games. I'm assuming the 360 gpu runs its best when tiney triangles are being used and I guess something like this is a big help.

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[b] Never judge a game too harshly via screenshots or videos, because they are in no way capable of properly representing what the game truly looks like were you to see it running in front of you on a 360 [/b]

2006-06-15 21:37:04

Q: Will matchmaking and searching for games be improved?

Q: Is there better AI in the DL-Content?

Q: Will you be able to do co-op with bots?

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2006-06-15 23:31:16 In reply to Optimusv2 (2006-06-15 21:01:38)

Ok i see, I actually get what you are talking about, however that will not improve the graphics or the framerate. Procedurally generated graphics are graphics that use some sort of formula to be generated at load time and can be seen while you play in real time as any other graphic component. However, this will only help developers with the development costs by knowing they can rely on adding procedurally generated graphics instead of needing an artist to generate the graphics and hard code them into the disk. This piece of hardware will help developers with disk space, and as i said before, load times. However, procedurally generated graphics are known to be of less quality than artist created graphics, thus the use of the "tesselator" will not involve a graphical upgrade. Anyways, it is a good thing because somethings do need to be procedurally generated because of their vast size, like the forests in Oblivion. Also, if the x360 is effective at that, some game could come up with randomized worlds in which no level is always the same because the world changes since it is generated at load time instead of being hardcoded on the disk. A tesselator opens up many possibilities, but I doubt it could be used in a game like GRAW. However, I am eager to see the answer to your question too.

2006-06-16 00:41:59

Question:

For future Ghost Recon games (or Ubi games in general) , do you plan on using the GRAW graphics engine? Does the engine have a lot more room for expansion?

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Did you agree with me? Yes, No? Visit http://www.lebato.blogspot.com and see if we agree on something.

2006-06-16 04:09:37

Nah I'm not talking about the procedural generated graphics part I mean just this tesselator can do wonders for 360 games seeing as how the 360 GPU reportedly works best with tons of small triangles.

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[b] Never judge a game too harshly via screenshots or videos, because they are in no way capable of properly representing what the game truly looks like were you to see it running in front of you on a 360 [/b]

2006-06-22 19:22:03

We've picked out four questions and sent them in. We choosed to not use the more-or-less complaining-questions, as... well, we didn't want to piss them off (Optimusv2). Some other questions were answered in this thread, so we didn't think we had to use them.

"After the completion of Graw or in the process of completing it did you find out later that there are better ways to implement certain things, but thought it was too far along in development or too close to release to go back and change game code?

"Is GRAW on X360 only going to see content updates through Xbox Live or can we expect new expansions like in past versions of Ghost Recon for X360? In case we see this expansions, will Ubisoft try to improve the A.I. of the squad mates?"

"Will the update do any improvements to the multiplayer game search feature, which some people find not so good?"

"For future Ghost Recon games (or Ubi games in general) , do you plan on using the GRAW graphics engine? Does the engine have a lot more room for expansion?"

2006-06-22 19:54:37

Thanks manager, my question got chosen! LOL

When can we expect to see the answer to some of these questions? I'm really hoping they answer the one about the game search feature.

BTW, you said you were going to send the questions this past monday, was there a delay or you just didn't tell us until today?

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Did you agree with me? Yes, No? Visit http://www.lebato.blogspot.com and see if we agree on something.

2006-06-22 20:13:43

LEBATO:
Super-unfortunately, I completely forgot about it as the thread went down a couple of pages. I sent it in a couple of days late, but hopefully they will be in there anyway. Remember the GoW questions, that was submitted for like a month ago? They still haven't been answered, so I'm still hoping for the best.

2006-06-23 05:32:10

The question regarding the current gen game possibly holding back the 360 version is the one you though could potentially piss them off right?

Also thanks for choosing my question i can't wait to see the answer :)

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[b] Never judge a game too harshly via screenshots or videos, because they are in no way capable of properly representing what the game truly looks like were you to see it running in front of you on a 360 [/b]

2006-07-14 14:27:53

Umm, when the interview will be posted? Did you get the answers from Ubi at all?

Topic about SC:DA interview reminded me about this one;)

2006-07-14 15:45:52

Question 1: Where is the AF?

Question 2: Why is DLC so expensive

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360 = 299 + 100 HDDVD = 399 | Wii = 199
Wii60 = 399 + 199 = 600$