Crysis-Welten Q&A with Alex Marschal

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Crysis-Welten Q&A with Alex Marschal

« on: June 14, 2007, 07:20:28 PM »

German fansite, Crysis-Welten.de have published a Q&A with Crytek's Community Manager, Alex Marschal ( aka. Cry-Alex ). As you've probably guessed, the Q&A is in german and requires translation for those like me who don't understand German. Lucky for us however, incrysis forum member 'demon-chan' has kindly translated the entire article to english. You can view that translation by following the comment button, or the text link below.

The Q&A contains some interesting new information and I must way, Crysis-Welten asked some great questions which have been on the minds of many. If you understand and can read German, then head over to Crysis-Welten and read the original article, if not, then you may read the translation here at Crysis-Online.

Go to Crysis-Welten >>

Read English Translation Below!

Quote

Online-Welten: Thank you for taking some time to talk with us about your next blockbuster, Crysis. What's the current status of the development? Is everything fine or are there – here and there – small problems?

Alexander: The current status is pre-Alpha. That means, right now we try to get all the features to work and implement the essential content into the game. Of course every now and then there are some minor or bigger problems, but all in all everything is fine.

Online-Welten: The variety of the enemies, especially in shooters, is very important. But not only is the design of great importance, because different ways of playing and characteristics make sure the game is fun to play. How does Crysis do that? Will certain enemies be immune to specific weapons or will they have a different amount of health?

Alex: In the game we have both human enemies (North Koreans) and alien invaders. Both parties have completely different ways of behaving. Of course every party also has different "classes". The North Koreans for example have standard infantry units, sharpshooters, heavily armoured close combat units, pilots, etc. who all differ in both appearance as well as behaviour. That is also true for the aliens – but we are not going to tell you more about them right now wink

Online-Welten: With Far Cry you had a breakthrough; even today many players still play it. Will it be possible to convert the Far Cry maps or at least parts of the maps?

Alex: You can convert parts of the maps like heightmap and maybe some objects. But we changed much of the structure of the Sandbox 2 editor, so that a complete downward compatibility is just not possible. The technical difference is just enormous.

Online-Welten: Besides the game itself, the modding scene plays a major role in the success of a game. Will there be an importer/exporter for the XSI mod tool?

Alex: We already work closely together with XSI and try to be able to present you such a mod tool at the release day of Crysis.

Online-Welten: Will there be a "liquid simulation system", which renders water in real time (like in CellFactor with PhysX)?). Did you plan something in that direction or perhaps even created something yourself?

Alex: We have a very complex ocean shader that uses both CPU and GPU; the waves also influence floating objects. Furthermore we have rivers and wet surfaces which are based on simple algorithms. We do not have a liquid simulation, but our ocean still looks much better than any real-time simulation ever will.

Online-Welten: What do you do to ensure that the game runs on older rigs and still looks good? Because nothing looks worse than downgraded bump mapping. Will there be a fallback mode? And if so, what will it look like?

Alex: We have nearly 100 parameters that influence the quality and performance. The players can change these parameters, which are sorted into groups, in a menu. The PC hardware is very multifaceted and the tastes of the players differ. Because some players do not like to change the settings manually, the game tries to find the best configuration itself.

Online-Welten: The developers nowadays tend to create add-ons. Are there already plans for a Crysis sequel or will you concentrate on complete games?

Alex: Right now the most important thing for us is to finish Crysis; everything else we'll see after the release.

Online-Welten: Online features are nowadays a must for shooters, but if your internet connection doesn't work you still want to be able to play one or two death match games. Are there going to be bots for this situation? Or will it only be possible to play against other players?

Alex: We won't have bot support in Crysis at release. But I'm quite sure the modders of the modding community are going to create them, just like they did in Far Cry.

Online-Welten: In your demo trailer you already showed us amazing day-night lighting changes. Will the multiplayer maps also support the change of time? Or will there be day- and night-time maps?

Alex: For the DX10 version we will implement day- and night-cycles in the multiplayer matches. The length of a day can be set freely by the administrator. So you will be able to play the maps at every time of the day.

Online-Welten: Looking back at the beginning of the development of Crysis: What is your resume, if you look back at the first impressions of Crysis and then look at the current status? Did you image the game to look and feel this way? What expectations were fulfilled, which not?

Alex: When I look back I can see an ambitious vision that slowly but surely assumed shaped. It is fun to see how Crysis changes every day and becomes a game that, hopefully, amazes the whole gaming community.

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« Last Edit: June 14, 2007, 07:55:14 PM by Admin »	Logged

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