Things went by really fast, and while I do have a list the names and positions of the people from NetherRealm who were on the call, there is no audio copy of this interview. This made it difficult to keep up, so the answers given below are accurate, but paraphrased.
With me on the call were:
John Edwards – Lead Designer
Paulo Garcia – Lead Designer
Jon Greenberg – Lead Graphics Engineer
Hans Lo – Senior Producer
Hector Sanchez – Producer
Taaron Silverstein – UI Art Lead
Brian Lebaron – Designer
Adam Urbano – Senior Producer
First up are my questions, and after that, I took note of any answers that the SRK crowd might be interested in.
Keits: In the demo, and presumably in the final game, characters gain meter while being hit, but not when hitting their opponents. They do, however, gain meter when their attacks are blocked. What is the thought process behind this system?
Paulo: To encourage agressive play, without over enoucouraging it. If you are hitting your opponent, they are losing life, so you dont gain meter. You gain the most meter from having your opponent block your attacks, while they gain none. This encourages them not to block too much. If you are getting hit, you can gain meter to help you fight back. Getting hit wont give you a full meter until you've taken about 76 percent damage.
Keits: What would you say are the biggest shortcomings of the more recent games you've done in the MK series, and what does the new game do to change those shortcomings?
Hector: One of the things we wanted to focus on was to fill the audience's thirst for blood and gore. MKvDC was a departure in the presentation aspect, so we wanted to come back and make one of the bloodiest and goriest games ever.
Paulo: We also set out to make it as balanced as we possibly could in the time we had, and I think we did a pretty good job.
Keits: In past MK games, the fatalities were so over the top that it was humorous. This time out, they just seem overly violent due to the newfound realism. Was this a conscious decision? Is it something you'd have done in the past had the technology to allow it been in place?
Taaron: The look of the characters is more realistic, and due to the technology, we were able to make it more realistic.
Jon: Once we started considering X-Ray attacks, we had to consider modeling specific anatomy, it was hard to get away with 37 rib cages popping out of a guy. Knowing we had to deal with that, we realized we had to make it more realistic. One of our goals was to have the game take itself more seriously.
Keits: So is it safe to say that we wont see Lui Kang summoning an MK arcade machine to fall on his opponent's head?
Hector: (laughs) I wouldn't say that at all! To summarize, the tone of the game is more gritty. Violence to be violent doesnt sell anymore, but we gave these more weight so that they'd still be impactful in 2011.
Hony (WB PR Manager): The blood even ages, and browns on the field. Its not big droplets, its more realistic.
Keits: What group of players do you plan to cater to when balance patching your game? Mid level players? High level players? Net play?
Paulo: We want to cater to a level of fairness. Tournament players will find unfair things and abuse them, so we just want to make sure the game is balanced and fair.
Keits: How do you feel about Evo, and more specifically, being included in it for the first time? Nervous? Excited? Will you be there?
John: A lot of us grew up playing competitively. I've been to several Evo's and will go to this one as well if schedule permits. We are excited, and its very cool for us to have our game there.
[The rest of the questions came from other writers at the round table interview]
Q: What systems have been implimented to avoid infinites and exploits?
Paulo: Moves have different startup and recovery, and varried properties. All of these are stored in a database that can be changed on the fly, so infinites can be fixed very quickly, and rebalancing can be based on any future problems that appear. We also have damage scaling, and gravity scaling to stop you from being kept in the air.
Q: Will you update the game with regular patches, or will it update randomly when something is broken?
NetherRealm(NR): Both. We can do it whenever. It is fairly trivial using our variable system.
Q:Will you release patch notes?
NR: Whenever we can, yes.
Q: What have you done to bridge the gap between casual and hardcore?
NR: We have a tutorial mode to help casual gamers learn not just how to do moves, but how to use them. It even teaches juggle combos, resource management with meter, blocking, breakers, etc. We don't want to assume the players know how to play.
Q: How did the development process change based on current gen expectations (online, dlc)?
NR: Online was built from day 1, even during pre-production. We planned around online (which is very very lag free). We learned our lessons from past games, and our team is three times bigger for online.
Q: How did you manage to pull off letting players play in 3D with glasses on while players without glasses can play in 2D at the same time?
NR: The mode was implimented to make every player comfortable. We aren't trying to heavily emphasise the 3D or make it pop. We aimed for something more subtle, where the 3D just enhances the feel of the game. That meant not taking it to an extreme. The ammount of paralax in the image is very reduced, so looking at it without 3D glasses wont cause as much fatigue. It is also worth noting that it still runs 60fps in 3D mode.
Q: What has the MK team done to reduce lag online?
NR: We rewrote our netcode from the ground up, starting two years ago. We made everything as efficient as possible, even letting the game switch hosts to optimize things. We feel it is optimized as far as netcode can be optimized for online play.
Q: What sort of unique features can players expect online?
NR: King of the Hill mode. This is a very exagerated version of spectator mode. The inspiration behind this was that this generation of gamers don't have the arcade experience we grew up on. We wanted to bring the feeling back. When you come into the room, you can see who is the king and how many wins he has. While you wait your turn, you can control your avatar to cheer or react, and you can scout your opponent to try to learn how to beat him. We also have traditional player and ranked matches. We have a very intricate stat tracking system, so you can see with each individual character how well you do in various aspects.
Q: Can you save or watch replays of your matches?
NR: We have offline replays, so you can save your favorite matches. That is all we've announced right now.
Q: What is the biggest challenge the team faced bringing MK to 2011?
NR: Living up to the expectations of an 18 year old franchise. We want to cater to old fans, but also embrace new players. We don't want to do anything to turn away casual players and general fans, so we isolate the things that make people really excited about MK, like the gore, and build from there. Riding that line is the biggest challenge, but the team is great and has worked really hard.
Q: Is any single player DLC planned?
NR: More DLC is planned, but we can't say what right now.
Q: Will the variable system, used to make changes to the game on the fly, affect single player play?
NR: Yes, if you connect to Live or PSN, the game will auto-update for all modes.
Q: PC version possible?
NR: As of right now, we have not had any discussions about PC.
Q: This game is said to be inspired mostly by UMK3. How much of it came over from that game?
NR: We based gameplay styles for characters loosely on UMK3. The fast pace, geared toward the agressor, is based on this game as well. The story is like a retelling of the first three games.
Q: With other fatality types, like babalities or friendships, appear in the game?
NR: Ignorality, just like we are going to do to that question (laughs). Seriously though, our team has quite the imagination, but we can't talk about that stuff right now.
Q: Was each stage built to include a Stage fatality?
NR: We want them in as many stages as possible. We designed most of the stages to have them. Even back in the day, fans were making up rumors about stage fatalities that didn't exist. We fed off some of those rumors and made them reality this time out.
Q: Is Kratos in the story?
NR: Kratos is not involved in the story at all. He is not part of our universe, he has no influence over the story. He is not a permanent thing, just a guest in this game. He does have his own single player ladder sequence, but he is not part of the game's canon.
Q: What if a challenge mode combo is invalidated by a later change made through the variable system?
NR: Pretty much every change we make, we will take everything into account. If it will break some other part of the game, we will do a full title update instead of a tweak. Everything we do goes through a full QA path, so we shouldn't miss anything.
Q: Is there a low gore mode for public events like tournaments?
NR: We don't have direct involvement with a lot of the tournaments, so tournament directors will have to decide how to handle this. We haven't done anything specifically to address these concerns. Gore is an integral part of the game, and especially due to X-Rays, there is no way to turn it down or off without making it a totally different game.
Q: What happens when one player has a DLC character that their online opponent doesnt?
NR: This isn't an issue. We can't explain that right now, but its covered. DLC content however is not on the disc. Everything is download based. We did not start work on DLC until the game was finished and submitted and done. The DLC is just to support our fans. Lady in red is officially named Skarlet (this was spoken out loud, so it could be Scarlet).
Q: Are the bosses playable?
NR: We set out to make the bosses feel like bosses. If they were playable, it would be unfair. They are a big hurdle, and we decided they are not to be playable normally. You may be able to control one in a special mode, but they are not for competitive play.
Q: What can we do with Combat Codes?
NR: These trigger tons of secrets, like Zombie mode. Players will be able to find tons of combinations to unlock secrets.
Q: Where the strategy guide authors given all the secrets?
NR: The guide is very extensive, and has an explanation of a lot of things in the game. It is a good way to learn about a lot of content, but there will still be things left to discover after reading the guide.
Q: What does change stance do for you?
NR: It has no gameplay impact, it is just for show.
Thank you to Ron from Fortyseven Communications for hosting this interview, and thank you to the team at NetherRealm for their time and patience. Thank you to Warpticon, skisonic, Chindogg, and the rest of IRC for help with question ideas.
Reply
