An interview with pcdev, mostly PC questions

[Cornrow Wallace Profile]

http://planetcallofduty.gamespy.com/Vie ... tail&id=82

A noteworthy question & answer:

Josh: Will the Base Assault gametype return on the pc?

Cesar: Hopefully the modding community will help us out here, I’d love to see that.

[MajorFullWood Profile Website]

Kinda lame answer, if you ask me. You already did it, so I'm guessing they're anticipating you to do it again so they don't have to? I don't think BAS would work with stock BO, as far as the way we know BAS, considering no vehicles, so why include it? Let someone else(you and Alex) figure out all that.

[Arctictiger Profile]

I agree with Fullwood, BAS wouldnt work with no tanks, transport, or big maps. BO probably wont have any of that

[MajorFullWood Profile Website]

It's not out of the question. We still haven't gotten our hands on the mod tools, so we don't know what's possible. I meant it was a half-assed answer. He basically said, I'm not doing it but it'd be sweet if someone else does.

[krautnapped Profile WebsiteYIM]

First, Treyarch is building on the WaW engine. If all goes well, then that means vehicals might be possible. Have you seen the stuff Zeroy has done for BAS and other mods? Don't count modders out.

Second, even if vehicles aren't possible, that doesn't mean BAS will be out. Just because you have to crack a base another way won't mean it will play bad. Instead of thinking how much BAS in this game will suck, let's think about how the new features, items, and game play will make it better.

Positivity, people. There are a lot of awesome modders in this very community and outside of it that help us. Anything at all is possible. So far, Treyarch has only been positive with their attitude towards modders. Until something actually can't be done, don't jump the gun just yet.

[Gunslinger Profile Website]

This is probaly the best question asked out of all of them. For every one wondering to what extent the mod tools will be ,this at least tells us that they plan on giving us the full tools at present. Now whether we get tools that advanced will still remain to be seen because they are beating around the bush when certain questions are asked. I wouldn't count my chickens yet because they are gonna have dlc and taking the ability to make maps from us could be their chance for this. Hopefully we will get the full tools so you guys can make another excellent mod as you did with WAW.

[Cornrow Wallace Profile]

This is all speculation on my part, but in my opinion, this is the issue with the mod tools.

The developers tools & the community tools are different in many ways, but the biggest is that nothing is hidden in the dev tools. Meaning all their code, the rendering methods, all the stuff that makes the engine what it is, is right out in the open, so all that stuff needs to be hidden for the community version so the engine can't be stolen or ripped off by another developer. This would most likely mean they would need to spend a major amount of time & money to basically rebuild Radiant so there are no security issues. Then there are all the extra utilities they use, such as asset manager, fx editor, etc.. same process applies. Then there are copyright issues with the raw files, as we saw with World at War. People all seem to think it's as easy as them throwing it all into a .zip & uploading it to a server, when in reality it's a huge amount of work to give us mod tools.

As for why pcdev is saying he doesn't know to what extent the game will be moddable, I think that is mostly due to time & money, also steam integration. I think if when they sit down to work on the community tools they don't hit any snags and it all goes well & is done quickly, we'll get a full package of tools like we did with WaW. But there's a chance they could run into major problems that they can't afford to spend more time on, so they may have to scrap some things. They don't make a penny on mod tools, as a matter of fact they lose money developing them for us. So while I would hate to think I won't be able to map for Black Ops, I would understand why if it came down to that, shitty as it may be.

As for relying on the community for Base Assault being a lazy answer, it's not. They were able to make BAS for UO because it was just an expansion of an existing game; a PC game. BAS as we know it isn't what the majority (teeange console players) of CoD players want. They want fast paced action, they want all the ranks & unlocks and things to brag about, whereas we the PC players are typically older and enjoy a slower paced game & a social environment that BAS provides. So I would only expect BAS to live on in UO or modded into newer games, stock BAS is a dead issue, I'd put money on it.

[Chevrolet Profile]

whereas we the PC players are typically older and enjoy a slower paced game & a social environment that BAS provides.

I actually liked CoD 2's pacing the best. Neuville, Brecourt, Toujane, Railyard - medium-sized maps with only infantry. Some of my most enjoyable gaming moments have been defending the german flag on Railyard and chasing down a flag on Toujane.

BAS's game pace is good, but I guess my ideal is a little faster.

It's all personal taste.