Why there is no lean (by Dave Matthews) and more...

[Merchant2006]

Word of Advice, please keep this a civil thread. I'm posting this up because it's a straight answer from Dave/Dayne and I want to ensure that some people get the answers they want. I've picked out the MAIN questions that people want answered so... yyyyeeeah. Read through it all if you want to have some answers.

Right, here's what Dave Matthews had to say with regards to why Lean was removed from F.E.A.R. 2 (and other bits and bobs that will greatly interest you):

Q: "Why no Lean, why no quicksave, why no extreme difficulty mode and why checkpoints don't indicate where they are saving?"

Originally Posted by Dave Matthews - Primary Art Lead of Project Origin

"Okay, so aright, no lean. We found out that when you're playing in F.E.A.R. and you have the ability to lean, what that does is if you lean around a corner it starts to disable that idea of tension.

So basically it's a... you have no threat to lean around a corner and be able to peek into a space and now you gain complete knowledge of that space. based on your perception of what you can see. By doing that it kinda disables your fighter flight mentality, so by pulling it out (I mean it was a very conscience decision to take it out) so by taking it out you don't have that freedom now to be able to- you have to expose yourself to get around corners and look into a space and as soon as you do that you maintain that tension a lot better.

So it was a very concience decision to why we decided to pull the lean function out of F.E.A.R. 2."

"So lets see... checkpoint saves, that was one of them?" - "Yep" - "Oh in here, quick save, they're kinda tied together. So quick save, you know again this gets back to this idea of like you have this godly type of ability, you know right before you're about to come into this heavy scene, "I'll just quick save it" and that way if anything happens then you're right back at the point you saved it. And the idea with that again is that it starts to reduce the amount of tension and the amount of apprehension that you have when coming into a combat space. So what we did was we implemented a checkpoint system that we kinda define where those checkpoints are at and we did a pretty good job of setting those up so that you still have an opportunity to start to build up that tension and know that you're gonna have to get through some sorta firefight. But we don't position them so far apart that it takes you forever to get back to the same spot which you were at if you happened to fall because of the enemies that you're going up against.

So because of that, again coming back to this idea of tension in remaining that... that kinda tightness in your stomach throughout a lot of the game; as soon as we had a quick save system it kinda started to disable some of that emotion. So that's the reason that those two got implemented the way they did."

"And uh... let's see, what was the last one.. extreme difficulty. That one I really can't tell you why. I know we got 3 different modes of difficulty now. If we realise that there's some more augumentation that we have to do then again, we listen to our community. And if it requires us to come back and come round and change how the (AI) behavior works so we can have an extreme version then I don't see it being as, again this is off the table.

Q: Will there be clan support?

Originally Posted by Dave Matthews

"Currently we don't have any plans for it, but again, if our community is vocal, we are always open to listening to those kinda things."

Q: Speaking of PointMan, are we gonna find out what happened to him?

Originally Posted by Dave Matthews

"Uhh I refuse to say anything on that one, you guys are gonna have to wait " *laughter heard around*

Q: Will the game have the options to disable effects like the HUD or the film grain?

Originally Posted by Dave Matthews

"You know it's this thing, we had this discussion recently when we put out the demo we started seeing some feedback on our forums so right now we're currently discussing it, so it's definately now that, again because our community is pretty active it came onto the table so now we're currently dealing with this right now and I dunno which way the resolution is for ship or you know after post-ship."

Q: Were any compromises made for either of the PS3, 360 or PC versions of the game due to the weaknesses and strengths of the three plaforms?

Originally Posted by Dave Matthews

"Well for me to say that everything was hand-tendered for every single platform, I think it'd probably be a fabrication. What we did was we went through the idea of, while we were making our assets, we went with the idea of synonymy, we wanted to make sure the experience was synonymous on all three platforms. Each machine, each platform definately had the strengths. We tried to speak to them as much as possible but not diminish the experience between the three so when someone is, you know, if they have an experience on the 360 and they talk about how 'this is how the explosion was at the end of the first one and this is what went down and this is how it made me feel', we want that same conversation so someone can come across and talk to to a guy from the PC side and they can have the exact same touchdown on talking about it and everything. And you know some of the options here and there may change a little bit but that doesn't mean that experience isn't the same, so I dunno if that helped answer your question or not." *laughs*

Q: Are there any changes to the user interface that you can talk about?

Originally Posted by Dave Matthews

"Uhh... from the Demo to the release?" - "Correct, yeah, I believe from the Demo to the release" - "Like I said we're already started on discussing some of the things that we've got feedback on and ultimately I'm not- what we've finally committed on we're working on a bunch of stuff but I dunno what we've finally committed on or what we're gonna be able to have available or not. So unfortunately I can't talk too much with great certainty."

Q: How representative of the game is the demo?

Originally Posted by Dave Matthews

"I think the demo provides a decent protocol slice of what you're gonna see like an experience throughout the game. I think when you're crafting a demo you wanna make it more accessible so you try to make things a little bit easier, because you don't want people to be really frustrated and die like at every 3 or 4 steps; so by providing them with a sense of a little bit more empowerment I think it would get them a little bit more excited about the game and they'll continue to push forward in the demo to see what it's all about. I think the big thing is you try to capture what the essence of the entire game is about and you have try and do that in, you know, 15 - 20 minutes and that's the real big challenge."

Q: Are you guys gonna do a recap of the story (of F.E.A.R.) for those who haven't played it?

Originally Posted by Dave Matthews

"Yeah, that was one of the things we wanted to make sure, in F.E.A.R. 2 we make sure that people understand what happened in the first game, what the projects are all about and if you're the kind that likes to explore you'll find a lot of stuff that we leverage inside the PDA so we have all the main bits that we try to bring back so that you have a clearer understanding of what happens in F.E.A.R. and F.E.A.R. 2. But if you really wanna get deep in our universe so that's when the collectibles start coming into play so you can understand where the assassins came from and why they can do what they can do, all those kinda things are all there. It just comes down to how you explore the world."

(sorry, that one was a little abbreviated, but I believe Dave is referring to that Armacham Field Guide... which actually does detail about the assassins and their creation etc, you can get this if you preorder F.E.A.R. 2 from Gamestop).


Q: Why did you remove the destructible cover system that was in F.E.A.R. 1?

Originally Posted by Dave Matthews

"Well the destructible cover system that we had wasn't overly robust. I think that as far as we have in F.E.A.R. 2 I think people are gonna see that there is even more destructible cover than there was in the first game and you're gonna start to see as you move through the space the amount of interaction that kinda occured during the combat has gone up tremendously. So I think people are gonna be pretty excited about how much, getting back to this idea of that John Woo over-the-top action, I think they're gonna see a lot more of that.

Q: Will there be a way to remove the glowing effect around the enemies during Slo-Mo?

Originally Posted by Dave Matthews

"That's another one that's kinda been on our topics since we released the demo so again I'll leave that one up to how we release it I think people will start to see what those are gonna be."

Q: Will there be a map creator/editor for the PC version?

Originally Posted by Dave Matthews

"We've talked about it, we understand that our community, they like to mod stuff too and be able to build maps. Currently we don't have anything that we're gonna release at the time of launch but I mean our tools systems have definately become more complex from the first F.E.A.R. so one of the big challenges for us is how we make our tools accessible and compatible so that the people out there that wanna mod wanna take advantage of that so that's one of the things we're currently evaluating right now.

(Part 2 is in my next post on this thread)

SOURCE: http://www.gogaminggiant.com/2009/02...onolith-games/

[ChildofAlma]

So, that's why. The only thing I have a problem with is the fact tat there's no extreme difficulty.

[Merchant2006]

Part 2:

Q: It's pretty obvious that you guys are really involved in getting the community what it wants and what they're asking for. Do you guys address those in patches, in updates, DLC or future game releases or sequels. What's the methodology behind that?

Originally Posted by Dave Matthews

"If there are we try and address them as soon as possible. If it's something that, I'd say like the Powered Armour; when we first started playing around with the powered armour when people wanted to be able to pilot it, it was like the sooner we jumped in and just the base mechanics of what the AI was capable of doing we provided that back to the player it didn't feel like F.E.A.R. So it caused us to go back in and refine that process, and refine and augment the mechanics behind it and so what ended up happening is, just to really give you a sense of what the EPA kinda, because it's a great example, the EPA used to move a lot more like uhmm... think of it like in Riddick, the big mech which you get to pilot, it was a lot slower, real beefy and it was slow to fire, slow to move and that really mimicked a lot of behaviour from the powered armour in F.E.A.R. and as soon as you were inside of it you felt kinda lame, like you were inhibited, you didn't feel as much of a badass inside of that thing than you were outside of it."

"So we started speeding it up, changing the rate of fire and we changed weapon results and ultimately we started getting stuff, dare I say, we started getting into more like Shogo *laughter* and in the process we realised we were heading down a right path. We were starting to feel more F.E.A.R.-like and a little more agile. We kept tuning it and we went too far and it started to feel more like Shogo and we pulled it back so that it felt more F.E.A.R.-like. But ultimately, what you're starting to experience is that in parts some of it's directly due to our community and their involvement and their requests in which they had and for us to be able to have that big of an experience in F.E.A.R. and still have it maintain that F.E.A.R. aspect would have been a monumental task for us to try and do as like a DLC so ultimately it was something that we added as a leverage for a next sequel."

Q: Is there going to be another one? (F.E.A.R. 3)

Originally Posted by Dave Matthews

"Yeah I get asked that so many times you know, 'when you gonna do that, when you gonna another' uhm... what I can tell you is, again we listen to our community and ultimately if the community is like 'thats what we've wanted, that's what we need, that's what we want' and WB (Warner Bros) is all up for it as well, we're (Monolith) up for it.

Q: Is the hard difficulty going to be as hard as the extreme difficulty?

Originally Posted by Dave Matthews

"That's a tough question to answer but I think the way that we scaled our difficulties, I think you'd probably gonna see something like that. At one point while we were doing demos we shifted everything down a gear. So like, if there was an extreme, extreme became hard, hard became medium, medium became easy because we wanted to make sure that everything felt a lot more accessible again getting back to the idea that getting people to play through the whole demo and kinda see what the world's about. I'm pretty sure that stuff has kinda gone back to its original settings but what that translates to as far as comparing between F.E.A.R. 2 and F.E.A.R. 1, it'd be tough for me if I hooked up the numbers and the data to be able to tell you with any great certainty.

Q: What happened to instant action and is it out for good?

Originally Posted by Dave Matthews

"Hmm... Uhm, you know I don't think it's out for good... Uhhmm.... *laughs* We definately have like the idea of that but we, it's definately a different feel than anything that's actually from F.E.A.R, mmm... yeah you'll have to look and see *more laughter* I don't wanna just flat out tell ya but you have to experience it to understand what I'm talking about.

Q: Butters also wants to know, I honestly don't know what this means but maybe you guys do, but he just wrote "Cheezy Pooz"

Originally Posted by Dave Matthews

"Oh! *laughter* Sure sure sure, aright. So, throughout the first game, Mapes was kinda the comical character to the comical relief of the game, he kinda sprayed these Cheezy Pooz cartons all over the frigging place which were his hallmark of where he's been. There's an homage to the them in the game but they don't make as prevalent of a comeback because the comical relief is a little bit different this time around (in F.E.A.R. 2). So you're gonna see a different set of comedy but it'll have equivalent weight.

Q: We also have to ask if Mapes will be making an appearence.

Originally Posted by Dave Matthews

*laughs* "Well, it's actually at the end of F.E.A.R. it's kinda uncertain what happened to Mapes. But we definately have a grand scheme of what happened to all the characters and that's about as far as I can probably push down that story and people will have to see how that story plays out.

Q: Can we expect any Easter Eggs?

Originally Posted by Dave Matthews

"Well let's see, things you're gonna find throughout the game, actually there's all sorts of stuff. There are a lot of interesting things to look at in the school and I think some of them you can even find in the demo. I think in a lot of the levels you're gonna start to see some little throwbacks to our teams, some nods to previous stuff that's been in other games that we've done. Ultimately yes, there's definately gonna be a lot of stuff there.

Q: How long will the game be?

Originally Posted by Dave Matthews

"Aright, well depending on how [person who asked question] plays, if you're a person that goes in guns blazing I think the first F.E.A.R. was a little shorter to play through but if you're a guy who plays through real systematically and kinda plays more defensively it was a longer game. So with that in mind it's tough for me to put an hour on F.E.A.R. but what I can do is compare content. So F.E.A.R. 2's got 25 - 30% more content than what the first F.E.A.R. had so, I mean that's probably gonna translate to extra gameplay. But again it comes down to if he was a person who played fast you can expect that much more content he's gonna have to traverse or of course if he was slow and how long it would take him to traverse that additional content."

Q: Are you guys gonna support the game after launch? We know in the first few months there's gonna be DLC but what about in a year and a half in the road, are you guys gonna support it with updates/patches and DLC?

Originally Posted by Dave Matthews

"We have plans to, we recognise the importance of how DLC is and we have plans to support it for quite some time.

Q: Before you guys go though, are there any exclusives you could give us or anything that hasn't been revealed yet?

Originally Posted by Dave Matthews

"Oh I this is a pretty in-depth conversation as it was! *laughter around* Yeah I think all the other stuff I'd love to tell you about like if I'd even try to whisper it someone would bust in my office and stab me in the neck, so I don't think I could talk about it."

Once again I really wanna thank you guys for taking the time out to speak to us, it's always cool to speak to the actual developers of the game so anytime we can get them on is always positive.

Originally Posted by Dave Matthews

"Well you know we appreciate truly how active the community is and how interested you guys are in what we do. it really means a lot.

Thanks to Dave and Dayne from Monolith and we all really appreciate what you do.

Originally Posted by Dave Matthews

"Thanks, we appreciate it too."

[Captain_Bugs]

What I want to know is whether I'll be able to load any of the checkpoints I've passed after finishing the game. Players might want to video capture a certain area or experiment with something or visit a scare they may have missed. Only being able to load the last checkpoint would suck for that reason. If they all appear in a nice tidy list then I'll be happy, else I want my custom saves.

[Merchant2006]

True. But I suppose you're gonna want to record it after a playthrough so you know which bits to capture etc...

[fords8]

Merchant2006, could you post this over at Maximum Origin when you are done with it?

[Merchant2006]

Originally Posted by fords8

Merchant2006, could you post this over at Maximum Origin when you are done with it?

Sure thing, I'm nearly done lol

[George_2Alpha]

Wait so this is saying that there is no quicksave in the PC version???????

[Captain_Bugs]

Originally Posted by Merchant2006

True. But I suppose you're gonna want to record it after a playthrough so you know which bits to capture etc...

That's assuming you can select which checkpoint to load rather than having to start from the beginning of an interval or worse.

Leaning and quicksaves do not ruin tension, but the PDA DOES.

[Foggle]

Originally Posted by Captain_Bugs

That's assuming you can select which checkpoint to load rather than having to start from the beginning of an interval or worse.

Leaning and quicksaves do not ruin tension, but the PDA DOES.

They'll probably do something like most recent FPSs, there will be two checkpoint saves accessible at all times (the previous one and your newest one). They also might have included the ability to restart the level from the load game menu, like was available in the original F.E.A.R.

Also, Doom 3 had a PDA. It didn't ruin the tension in that game, so I doubt F.E.A.R. 2's PDA will ruin the tension at all.

[Merchant2006]

Okay everyone! I've finished typing it all up, feel free to read it all in it's glory. Man that took ages...

And yeah, I have Doom 3 and the PDA really didn't ruin anything at all. I don't see the fuss with the PDA being implemented into F.E.A.R. 2, nothing bad will come from it. And I always read the PDA in Doom 3 whenever I got new intel and it was just great, it also made me feel more unnerved about the whole situation as I learnt more from the accounts of the people. Bioshock did the same, those Audio bits you can pick up throughout the game really did scare me, the voice acting for that was amazing. Resident Evil had loads of diary entries, yet that didn't slow it down. Heck, picking up a diary and reading how the infected person writing it along the days slowly lost his mind, lost his grammar, his ability to write and ends the diary entries with "4/ Itchy. Scratchy." freaked the living hell out of me.

[fords8]

Nice work Merchant2006! Thank you for putting the time into this.

[Merchant2006]

Originally Posted by fords8

Nice work Merchant2006! Thank you for putting the time into this.

Thanks very much. I'll post it onto your site after... I need a break lol. Either that or you could happily do it for me hehehe.

[linfosoma]

Thank you a lot. That was a very nice read. Im glad to see that most of my concerns (like the hud and glow) were taken in consideration.

[Merchant2006]

Indeed, I hope that those idiots that are complaining understand that Monolith has always been listening and taking into account about what changes should be made...

[Bergerac]

I can understand all of that, but by God I hope there's an option to tone down the motion. There'd better be considering it makes some people feel ill. LOL

[Merchant2006]

Motion Sickness eh? My friend nearly threw up which both her and myself were watching Cloverfield. Oh well... I don't think we can do anything about that other than have a warning on the game about Health and Safety, you know, "this game contains flashing images that may be harmful to people who have photosensitive epilepsy etc etc etc"

[Bergerac]

The head bob doesn't make me ill, it just annoys me. Ha ha.

EDIT: Actually, its not really the head bob, its the friggin footsteps. The stilt action..

[MeltDown]

Great thnx merchant.
So that explains why the enemies where pretty easy, great, great.
Thats a great interview, gave a ton of new info and some unaswered questions.

Again thnx merchant

[RotaryPowered]

I was kinda dreading finishing the rest of the podcast because it moved a little too slow.

Thanks for putting the time into making this a quick and easy read, Merch.