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All of your questions were taken from
this forum topic.
SoundFX says:
I was searching for information on the plans for the sniper rifle. Is the team going to keep it a charge-up weapon or will it basically be a standard sniper rifle (point and click)?
The sniper rifle will return as a charge up weapon in Fortress Forever. The weapon will have a faster charge time compared to TFC and an otherwise similar feel.
From Shaggy:
Just reading the thread named "soldier special" or something like that so I figure this would be a good place to ask the question. Will there be any changes to the special each class has? And if so, could you please tell us your ideas.
We are making changes to the use of special compared with TFC's implementation. Most of the functionality that was just recycling other existing commands in TFC will be altered. For instance, the scout's special won't be to call the flag location, there is already a command for that. In the scout's case special will call the new ability which will hopefully be a secret until you all can discover it for yourselves playing FF.
Obviously for the demoman we won't change detting pipes with the command. Engineer will have a new sentry gun trick usable with his command. Other classes might see some new things, spy and pyro in particular, though nothing we can share at this time. I'm sure you can use your imaginations. =)
Skanky Butterpuss and the rest of our boards it seems:
What about the pyro?
We aren't ignoring requests for information on the pyro. The main concern right now is prior to beta testing and the inevitable changes that occur then, some of our pyro plans just don't make sense to announce. What I can say is that the flame thrower fire will negotiate surfaces in the game world more realistically than in other versions of TF. Pyro will hopefully have a bit more mobility with tweaks being made to his existing arsenal. The on fire and burning effects are being worked on right now. More information about that when it's ready, perhaps look to a dev journal from Mirv in the future.
From Atari:
1. Have you made many design changes to FF as a result of the feedback from the FF community?
2. From a development point of view, how are you finding Steam and the SDK?
3. I get the impression you have many more ideas for FF that'll be implemented after release, do you see FF as a long term project?
1. This is a strange question to answer because we consider ourselves the TFC and now FF community, in a sense. The project began as feedback from the players over years of play and experience with the game, collected into a cohesive team made up of those with the talents needed to craft a new TF game. In other words, FF could be considered a design change that came about from the TF community.
We've taken into account all sorts of perspectives in designing FF. Most changes happening behind the scenes that came about from the community weren't necessarily from feedback, but from the dev team taking a better look at what players want, or what will make for a better game for a wider variety of players. One example I can use is the focus of maps in production away from standard CTF and more towards alternate gameplay types that are more fun to play for new players. We are still producing quite a few CTF maps, some have simply been pushed back from our first public release.
Of the feedback on more visceral elements, mostly art and sound so far, we've received invaluable feedback from our forum goers and the community at large.
2. I don't work much with the SDK but I can provide a few general thoughts here. The consensus seems to be positive except for the recent Hammer issues over the holidays that left mappers unable to work. Bugs and glitches are to be expected, and we have experienced our fair share of things getting broken with updates to the SDK or game code. Valve does a better job than most in this area so we have few complaints.
3. Briefly, yes there have been quite a few features and ideas that will wait until after our first public release. We've gotten quite good at pushing these back and prioritizing feature implementation for our first release. And yes, this is a long term project for all of us.
Garland-W asked:
Are you going to make a specific death icon for rpg airshot or is this not possible?
Not a death icon, but special events of this type have been considered for inclusion in a yet unannounced part of the game. We've considered all of the slam dunk and home run type scenarios that exist in TF and developed a system which will attempt to infuse explicit rewards for these actions into the game and community at large. Not just for personal accomplishments, these rewards will also play out on the team level for objective oriented gameplay feats and other related actions. Ideas from the game Gunbound contributed a bunch to our development in this area.
Sid6.7:
Can you build an sg with its feet NOT touching the ground? (like on stairs, or straight along a ramp) Does the inclined sg change its search path?
The plan is to keep most of the sentry gun positions that worked in TFC intact. Whether or not we'll allow the ground area needed to build to be smaller than the tripod feet of the sentry gun will be determined after more testing. The issue of angles and the sg search path has already been addressed. Specifically, you will have more control over this search path in FF.
There were many questions about engineer, What the Hell? in particular had a laundry list. I'll go into a bit of detail here and leave some things for you guys to discover for yourselves when you play the game.
Visually the engy is a mix between old and new TFC models. He's beefy and has a bit of a gut. He also has a few new abilities. While his health and armor max will remain the same as it was in TFC, he can regenerate his armor slowly, similar to the medic's health.
The rail gun is being improved. In the Gamesurge Radio interview I did, I explained that the weapon's projectile will gain power over 2 bounces and if striking an enemy target directly on its way, will deal extra damage and explode if on the 2nd bounce. The rate of fire will be reduced from TFC, and nothing will happen if you don't score a direct hit after the 2nd bounce. That is to say, concerns over spamming were addressed in the design process.
Sentry gun placement will continue to be a work in progress as we move into more gameplay testing. The goal is to not have rail building or floating guns or anything like that, but maintain as well as we can the gun placements from classic TFC maps. Map makers should take sg locations into account when creating their maps. Given this, we don't think engineers from TFC will have many problems adapting to FF. I personally have played a lot of engineer over the last few years for my TFC clans. I can't wait to play it in FF!
That wraps things up for now,
keep the questions coming. If they are new, well conceived questions and don't fall into the secret category, I'll try to provide answers.
Posted 1 decade ago Lead Sound Design