Welcome to the OE2 update for May… First we would like to thank you for your patience for the lack of OE2 news recently. We simply weren’t in a position to show you what we wanted, so rather than padding out an update for the sake of it, we took the decision that we would wait until we could release something meaningful. We hope that you think it was worth the wait! We have been on a real journey of discovery since our last news release, in this update: · Soroc brings you up to date from the 1st Crytek Community Summit until now
· We introduce you to 2 further gametypes, “Team Elimination” and “All Out War”
· We explain some recent changes and upcoming changes to the site
· The Obsidian Edge 2 Newsletter is launched
· We have a feature on our Sound Production teams
· OE2 concept art which reflect the mood we are trying to evoke in the maps
· First sight of Obsidian Edge 2, CryEngineTM 2 Screen captures
Soroc's Update Hi, Soroc here with the rest of the Developer Blog post I promised Cuz after the return from the Crysis Spring Summit. Well, a lot has happened since our January update. First, when we got the lastest build of the editor, we spent quite a bit of time getting acquainted with it and seeing what we could do. Next, we re-aligned the team into separate Cabals, or mini-teams. Four of the cabals are each focused on every aspect of getting a level completed and include:
- Level Designer
- Environment Model Support
- Prop Model Support
- Sound Support
- Technical/Code Support
- Quality Assurance. Then there is a Common Assets team developing stuff that spans all levels (weapons, music, gamerules, etc.). So that adjustment took some time as well. It was clear we had to make some type of adjustment, as Suli and I could not manage a team of 30 people efficiently without some structure to keep folks focused. The good news is that this seems to be working well, and you will see some outstanding results from two of the level design teams in this update. I got to learn a lot about the base Crysis game at the spring summit at Crytek headquarters. Spent a bit of time talking with several of the development team, asking questions and playing both the single player and multiplayer sides of the game. While Obsidian Edge 2 will be a lot different from Crysis, there was still much to learn about how multiplayer things are handled in-game; I was able to ask some pretty detailed questions on issues and features we have planned for OE2, and the Crytek guys were great with answers. The most stunning aspect of playing Crysis was the immersiveness of the visuals. On Wednesday of the Summit we got to play the SP game (at that point never shown outside Crytek yet) on one level and the Crytek SP team came in to observe. Like most of you, I have seen all of the videos and thought I knew what I was going to be experiencing. I was wrong. Everything you've seen so far cannot prepare you for the feel of being in this game. You think you know what it's going to feel like...you're wrong. It's overwhelming...I was literally stunned. It does not feel like any game ever made. Watching one player cap a sniper and then couldn't find the weapon in the underbrush...unbelievable. Here in our work, Manglord (one of our level designers) mentioned to me that he has repeatedly been disoriented on his own map in the editor when walking the map. The feeling is insanely real, and we plan to put that feature to good use in OE2. Since you can almost stumble into enemies in some environments, we plan to use that to raise the "pucker factor" of OE2. We are still shaking some issues out of our workflow process right now. Some are issues with the pre-Alpha copy of the SDK we are working with, and some are more internal issues we need to make decisions on. In any case, there is a feeling of acceleration that was missing before. It feels as if the most difficult times are behind us now, as we are making some sort of progress daily. That said, it's time to present the public with the third and fourth game types for Obsidian Edge 2. In previous updates we have revealed Enemy Territory (ET) and Defiance (DEF). Today we will share the game types Team Elimination (TE) and All Out War (AOW).
New OE2 Gametype - Team EliminationOverview: In Team Elimination game mode the player’s team goes up against an opposing team. It is designed around a focus of team work and foot movement. This game mode is developed to be best suited to small or medium sized squads and maps with limited or no respawns. Larger maps and vehicles are possible.
Objective: There are two ways to win a game - 1) Eliminate the opposing team including all (if any) of their respawns, 2) Your team has a higher number of kills than the other team when time runs out.
Scoring: Each team member that dies scores a point for the opposing team. This includes self-kills and team kills.
Respawns: Respawns are usually minimal or zero, particularly in match play. Optionally they can be set to be on a per-team basis, meaning that the team as a whole has a pool of respawns to use for the whole team during the game.
Vehicles: Transport vehicles of any type placed on the map will always be available. Armored vehicles placed on the map will be controlled by a server setting to either be available or not.
Resupply: There is no resupply in this gameplay mode.
Co-op mode: There will be a co-op mode for this gameplay mode.
Note: This game mode is the LMS game mode from OE1
New OE2 Gametype - All Out WarOverview: All out war is a "Controlled Zone" gametype, where a team gains points by controlling zones of the battlefield, as well as killing opponents. Since these gametypes seem to work better by driving scores to zero, a "point" gained by a team is actually a point deducted from the opposing team. First team to a zero score loses.
Objective: There are two ways to win a game - 1) Drive the other team's score to zero, 2) Hold all zones on the map for two minutes without interruption.
Scoring: Initial score for the teams is a server option, and will have a default value. Teams lose a point each time a team member dies, for any reason. Teams also lose a point for each zone controlled by the enemy per period of time (i.e., 3 zones enemy controlled = 3 points per period lost).
Control Zones: Typically, a map will have five control zones on it. Each control zone begins in a neutral state, and the teams start in their "home base", which is a base that cannot be captured by the enemy. Certain types of zones will have special value on a map when you control that zone. Typically, a map will contain two special function zones.
Capturing zones: Zones can only be captured by a force differential of more than one player. For example, if a zone is neutral, a team must have at least two players in the zone to capture it. More players change the ownership of the zone faster. If red team is trying to capture a zone from blue team, red team must have at least two more players in the zone than blue team. Of course, this can be accomplished by killing some of blue team to achieve the numerical advantage. Zone control will be indicated by a flag in the zone (usually on top of a structure for better visibility). Proximity to the flag is unimportant to capture of the zone. Projecting a force in the area will achieve capture.
Retaining Zone Ownership: Unless a force of two or more players remains in a captured zone, the zone will slowly go neutral again, and no team will receive points for ownership. Therefore, each team must devise a strategy for not only capturing zones, but also holding them. If a team can hold all zones at once for a period of two minutes, they immediately win the game. Once all zones are controlled by one team, a two minute countdown begins to inform the players of the situation. If one of the zones at least goes neutral during the countdown, the countdown is cancelled and play resumes normally.
Respawns: Respawns are controlled on a per-team basis. In other words, as long as the team still has points to spend on respawns, a player can respawn. Players may only spawn in zones controlled by their team, or their home base. This will force teams to bring a force of consequence to battle for a zone.
Vehicles: Transport vehicles of any type placed on the map will always be available. Armored vehicles placed on the map will be controlled by a server setting to either be available or not.
Resupply: Resupply can be performed at any controlled zone and at the home base. If additional ammunition is needed in the field, it must be transported by vehicle from a controlled zone or a home base. It can also be carried as a crate, but there are obvious disadvantages to this, as you must put the crate down to fight, and a player's speed is reduced when carrying an ammo crate.
Co-op mode: No co-op mode will be available for this gameplay mode.
Website ChangesWith a view to the way we want to develop community interaction over the coming months, we have been striving to make our website a more useful and user friendly place to visit and have made quite a few changes over the last few months, most have had positive effects, some not so good: - Upgraded the CMS to Joomla! v1.0.12. While this fixed a number of bugs on the management side, it appears to have had a nasty side effect for some users, with the “remember me” function no longer working. We are still trying to get to the bottom of this, if there are any Joomla! experts who know what’s causing this please get in touch.
- We upgraded the comments component to allow you to embed “trackbacks”; if you mention Obsidian Edge articles in your blogs, if you use these, we can see who is spreading the word for us.
- Enhanced the Private Message system so that you can now enable email notifications of PMs.
- Simplified the links submission, if you would like your site featured on www.ObsidianEdge.net, you can now do it easily by clicking the Submit links option under the community menu, or the Submit Link Banner on the left side of the home page.
- By adding a Time zone clock and Calendar function, both the team and the community will be able to coordinate events more easily in the future.
- Lastly, building on the suggestion from one of our members, over this weekend we are introducing the Obsidian Edge Newsletter. All members who registered with a valid email address will be receiving an invitation to subscribe. The subscription to the newsletter is the quickest and easiest way to keep up to date with OE2 news!
Obsidian Edge 2 Sound TeamsThe Polishing Weevils are incredibly lucky to have two professional arms to our Sound team. Effects and Music are the responsibility of the team from Sonic Valley; lead on this project by Stringed Evil, while Voice Production is the realm of Dirty Rat. We asked the guys to try and give an insight as to how they go about their roles. Dirty Rat:The voice production process starts with casting the right talent. This isn't always easy as often game developers/publishers have very tight deadlines, particularly if you are working on the localisation of the game audio. For example recently I had an enquiry at my studio to cast 17 actors to read more than 50,000 words of dialogue, edit and deliver as more than 6000 files, and they only gave us two weeks to do it! Normally I look at the character descriptions first and I can usually get a quick feel for which voice talent would suit each character. Sometimes the game developers will have very fixed ideas about what they want, particularly if they are considering celebrity voices, in which case much of my time is spent negotiating with agents to fit within the budget. Lower budget games, or games which require a fast turn around for the voice, dont allow me the luxury of always selecting the best talent, and I often have to do the best with who we have available. Once we have agreed on the casting, and costs I then book them in our studios. Sometimes the developer may want me to proof read the scripts and also direct the actors, but if the budget is low this can simply boil down to putting the script into context for the actor since there isn't normally a great deal of time to try out different things, especially if the actor is expected to play many different characters! Once the recording is done (in our pro-tools studio) it is then on to post processing the audio, and cleaning and editing it into files as named on the scripts. This can take quite a long time if there are many files to edit. Normally we dont add any special FX the develoeprs tend to prefer doing this themselves since they can play around with it in their engine. Obviously I have been explaining the professional side of what I do above working for Matinée Sound and Vision in the UK. However in my spare time as a modder I also enjoy the process of casting and recording voices since it often allows much more time, and I can get involved with writing the actual scripts. It can be very difficult sourcing actors willing to do stuff for free though, so in many ways I need all the time I can get! If any actors have their own recording software at home, or are in proximity to my studios in Reading (UK), I would be happy to hear from you, I'm sure we'll be making a formal announcement about our voice actor requirements for OE2 shortly! Stringed Evil:Sonic Valley Productions are a dedicated audio team whose primary goal is to produce quality audio for games. The team consists of sound designers and musicians, all from different parts of the world who strive to learn and expand their skills. Taking on mods and indie game projects is something we do to experiment with our production skills and use as a reason to produce up to date, modern sounds. Like any modder we create and implement audio for various game engines because we enjoy it! We want to push audio to the cutting edge, rewarding all those audiophile gamers out there with clean, quality sfx and music tracks to enhance their gaming experience. It goes without saying then, that the sonic valley team is very excited about Obsidian Edge 2 and working with such a powerful game engine in CryEngine 2. We have many ideas of how sound can influence the gamer’s perception of the world and even affect gameplay. From the beginning, our focus for OE2 sound design has been realism. It might sound simple but we are making a tactical shooter here, there won't be flashing lights on your HUD giving all the information you ever need, rendering the gamers brain power to focus and pointing and clicking, no, in OE2 you will have to take in your environment, study what you see and hear before making your move. It's important that our audio provides useful information in this way, how far away the enemy is, how many and behind which building? We are taking steps to make sure OE2 sounds are vibrant and full without going over the top! Creating a good balance between muted and soft sounds against those that jump out at you makes for an exciting and realistic experience...we plan to use the cryengine2 to its full capacity and make use of accurate distance and occlusion for all the in-game sounds. In order to get there though, we first need to ask ourselves questions about the game, so Sonic Valley spends a lot of time researching to compliment the actual design. Stringed has promised to elaborate more on this in a future Devs Blog!
Selected Media for MayAs Soroc said above...here is some superb work by two of the level design teams. Some of these shots are concepts, while the others are in-game screen captures. Enjoy!
Well thats it for this for this update! We hope that you enjoyed it, we will try not to make you wait so long for the next one!
As always, please feel free to use the comment function or discuss the update on our forums!
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The new modes sound pretty sweet too. 
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