Exclusive SOCOM 3 Interview
We go straight to the source and ask Zipper about SOCOM 3.
By Ryan Greer
June 9, 2005-
At E3, gamers were finally given their first look at SOCOM 3 in action. Several videos and interviews began surfacing online via gaming websites, as well as crude audio clips that had been uploaded by your average gamer. Although many key details were finally revealed, there were still quite a few questions that remained to be answered. I was recently granted an interview by Zipper Interactive, and had a chance to ask the questions that many of the gamers on our forums have been asking.
GB: Framerate slowdown was a big issue in SOCOM II, especially in certain maps such as Vigilance and Bitter Jungle. Has this been addressed in SOCOM 3?
Brian Soderberg (CTO, Zipper Interactive): For SOCOM 3: US Navy SEALs, we're working hard to optimize the game to improve overall multiplayer game performance. We've done many things with the new SOCOM 3 game engine to speed up network, character, and background processing. I believe that our pre-alpha SOCOM 3 multiplayer missions, with 32 players, already run at a faster framerate compared with some production SOCOM II missions. And we're continuing to work on additional optimizations for the final release of the game.
GB: Will PMN mines make a return? Will claymores still be able to be blown up?
CJ Heine (Lead Designer, SOCOM 3 Multiplayer, Zipper Interactive): Yes, PMNs will be returning for SOCOM 3. Players will be given fewer in order to help balance them, and we've reduced the blast damage slightly. The players can still destroy PMNs and claymores with explosives.
GB: Will we be seeing a return of SOCOM 1, or SOCOM II style crouching/proning/standing? In SOCOM 2, was the inability to pivot while prone without getting stuck on nearby objects intentional or a glitch?
Doug Wilcox (Lead Animator, Zipper Interactive): SOCOM 3 locomotion and interaction with terrain and obstacles has advanced dramatically. The character will slide more easily along walls, and be allowed to turn in all situations, including prone next to a wall.
GB: What are the pros and cons of using a vehicle?
CJ: Before I begin, it is important to note that all of the maps are designed around the players on foot, and the vehicles are designed to support and compliment these players on foot. All of the key objective locations in the maps require the player to be on foot before the player can interact with the objective. Whether this involves simply stepping out of the vehicle to take control of a hostage, or having to exit the vehicle and walk for a while on foot to an area that doesn't allow vehicles, this was intentionally done to keep the focus of the game on the players and not the vehicles.
The vehicles are great for moving around the maps quickly. In some maps it will be important to reach key locations as fast as possible, and the vehicles fit that role perfectly. However, while the vehicles do have speed on their side, the players on foot will always have more stealthy options for moving around than the players in vehicles, which increases their survivability, since players in vehicles tend to draw more attention than the players on foot. Also, most of the maps force the vehicles to pass through specific areas on the way to objectives, wheras players on foot have multiple options and shortcuts.
The vehicles make excellent mobile turrets. Most of the vehicles can provide more powerful firepower than what can be selected by players from the armory. Also, the accuracy of the turrets in SOCOM 3 has been increased so there is additional incentive to use them. Again, the trade-off here is that when players are in the vehicles, they're going to be drawing a lot of attention. Most of the vehicles are suceptible to gunfire, especially explosives, and can be destroyed if they take too much damage. In addition, the majority of vehicles leave the drivers, gunners, and occasionally the passengers exposed, and able to be shot by players outside the vehicle.
We intend for all of the maps to have a good balance between the players on foot and the vehicles, but we also wanted the players to have the option to disable them if they choose. The player always has the option in the Game Create screen to disable the vehicles.
GB: From the demo at E3 it appears as if the quick L2 switch is gone. Will it be back in the final version?
Travis Steiner (Lead Designer, SOCOM 3 Single Player, Zipper Interactive): Updating our control scheme was necessary to optimize gameplay and accommodate new features. It may take seasoned SOCOM veterans a few rounds to get their muscle memory adjusted to the new setup, but we are confident that they will quickly embrace the new control scheme based on the advantages it offers. L2 will now be used for communication, which makes the player less vulnerable when attempting to chat; they can keep their other hand on the aim and fire controls. No functionality is lost by having L1 as the lone weapon swap button, and it is actually quicker for players to switch between their primary and secondary weapons now.
GB: Some users on our forums are expressing concern about how gunfights may be effected by the ability to throw grenades while running. How is this being prevented from happening?
CJ: The ability to throw grenades while running should not seriously impact any of the gunfights. If the player is shot while attempting to throw a grenade, it will drop at their feet and detonate, making this a risky maneuver.
GB: Have flashbangs or smoke been tweaked to be more effective?
CJ: We've adjusted the range and angle at which the Mark141 will affect the player. We have also increased the amount of time players are under the effect of the grenade.
We are looking into increasing the density and volume of the smoke cloud produced from the smoke grenades, to make them a more attractive option for concealing player movements.
GB: Will players be able to see their hit percentage and hits taken at the end of each round?
CJ: We currently do not have these stats listed, but we will look into adding these in addition to the numerous stats already available.
GB: Is there anything Zipper can do to prevent players from pulling their cable or pressing the standby button on their modem to purposely lag?
Bob Gutman (Senior Engineer, Zipper Interactive): We obviously can't prevent players from pulling their cables or otherwise manually inducing network lag. There are a variety of techniques to determine how frequently messages are getting in and out of the console, but it always takes some time to determine if what we are seeing is an anomaly, or just normal internet behavior. If players are disconnected from the network for more than a short period of time, they will be removed from a SOCOM 3 game.
The best solution to this problem is to make sure there is no advantage for lagging players. We are looking at how we can best address this in SOCOM 3 as we are committed to offering a quality multiplayer game experience for broadband players. We also encourage players to take advantage of the built in features that allow them to police fellow gamers by voting off players or password-protecting games.
GB: Can you explain the evolution in hit detection from SOCOM, SOCOM II, and SOCOM 3?
CJ: In SOCOM: US Navy SEALs, our goal was to create realistic feeling weapons, damage, and player health. This translated into a game where players were taking very few hits before dying and the rounds usually ended very quickly. There was very little feedback given to players, such as blood effects and health meters, but the overall goal of creating an accurate damage and weapon system was in place.
In SOCOM II, we wanted to add in more feedback and effects. For example, we added the blood effects to help players see when they hit their target, and a more accurate health meter to allow players to monitor their health. We tightened the player controls and movement so that players were more responsive than they were in SOCOM: US Navy SEALs. We also experimented with ways that could allow players to live longer in the round. This included decreasing the accuracy of the weapons when fired from longer ranges, increasing the health of the player and slightly reducing the damage done by the weapons and ammo.
When all of these were brought together in SOCOM II, we got many of the results we were looking for, however, there were several undesirable results as well. The reduced accuracy ranges, faster player movements, more health and less damaging weapons encouraged close-range, circle-strafing battles in which players would dance back and forth in front of each other until one of them finally died.
For SOCOM 3, we've focused on identifying and dealing with many of the issues that arose in SOCOM II. This includes reworking some of the network code, the hit messages, the blood effects, and some framerate issues.
In addition, many of the features we've added to SOCOM 3, such as the attachment modification system, which allows players to customize their weapons to be more accurate and longer/shorter ranges, and player encumbrance, which will slow down the player movement speeds, work to bring the gameplay back to a more strategic, slower paced style of playing where players can expect to kill their targets with fewer shots and at longer ranges.
GB: Has the night vision been improved to be more like SOCOM?
Travis: Our development team frequently evaluates the content we put into the previous SOCOM titles as we work on SOCOM 3 features. For night vision, we have considerably updated both the look and functionality of it to maximize its usefulness.
GB: Many players have also voiced concern on our forums regarding Nextel and AIM use. Will the camera still track players indefinitely after killing a player, or only for a few seconds?
CJ: We are currently looking into reducing the time the camera tracks the shooter before returning back to the player's corpse. We're also removing the 360-degree camer rotation when ghosting a living player, so that they can only view what the player is viewing.
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http://ps2.gamebattles.com/game/859/index.html
Jar: Yeah, it came from gáybattles.com, but it's still a good interview.
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