Friday Livestream with the Dev Team

Last night, Friday 26 July. The community team hosted a livestream session of Defiance.

The Community Managers; dahanese, OverloadUT and Sledgehammer; were joined by the new Producer, RedAvocado. This stream focuses on a Q&A with the new producer.

Summary

News

• Dodge high speed challenge kicked off for the weekend
• 3 day boosts active for the last 48 hours of service disruption

Chris Lena (Producer) introduces himself and summarises his priorities

• Makes sure that the game that exists at the moment is solid
• Moving forward with adding content, first DLC and four more after that
• Interact more with the community

If you have maxed out the full character slots, can you create characters on a new server region?

All characters are server specific, so when you move server you have an additional 4 character slots

DLC Date

They do internally have a date, but they don't want to give an exact date because of the recent date shifting. They feel confident of delivering in August 2013.

Fixes that will come with the DLC

Because of the way the game works they bulk their fixes in larger chunks than pure PC games. *holds up five pages of patchnotes*.

Chat Changes

A lot of changes are coming. Soon they will show off some in-game screenshots and highlight some of them.

Public Test Server

Yes, they will have some form of Alpha Test Server, it won't be up constantly. It will be brought up for the public to test some of the bigger patches. They are looking to get it up and running shortly.

Higher EGO Rating, the higher salvage cost

They are looking at ways to not penalise the higher EGO Rating. They are looking to base the salvage cost on item rarity not EGO Rating. That change should come around the DLC time.

They also want to make sure that having higher EGO Rating is something desirable.

Can we customize pvp matches to exclude or only use infectors / detonators?

An interesting idea, having a menu to customize the rules of a match. We'll talk about it. We won't be doing it in the near future.

We have such a laundry list of things to improve in the live game, and add to the longevity of the game. Give something for players to do that isn't already there, will take over priority over something like that.

Can we have a paid service to transfer characters across regions?

We've talked about that, but the way things work there are some complications there. You probably won't see anything like that in the near future?

Will we see any new areas on the island?

Nothing we can talk about at this time. We're always discussing a bunch of different items, that kind of large scale content chunks is something we'd roll out when we are much more sure about things.

We'll definitely always be adding the world, we really love to add to a lot of the dynamic world content like arkfalls and sieges and things like that. We're going to try and do all sorts of stuff going forward.

When will the salvage matrix changes be released?

With the DLC will be a really big patch, a lot of changes will be be bulked in there. There's probably some salvage matrix changes in there, but it's something that's going to be ongoing. When we do do it, it will definitely be part of a patch and not a DLC.

Charlies fate

Charlies fate is discussed often within the office. We have a love of Charlie and we'll figure out some way to make him a permanent part of Defiance.

Can we add the Dark Matter Monolith to the world?

It is included in our first DLC where the Monolith will be part of an arkfall.

Character slots, can we have more?

Definitely a possibility. Something that is on the list of the things they may want to do, but no near plans.

Can everyone get charge blades?

Charge blades will be dropping in the world and in lockboxes for everyone, but having the DLC will provide you with a direct path to get one.

Is the Dark Matter Arkfall for everyone or just the DLC?

It will be for everyone, all the open world content is not something they would want to try to segment out.

Is Defiance going to be on next gen consoles?

Next gen console, I can't really talk about. Our priority is our current live game.

TBD don't have any info on that yet.

Auction Houses and Banks

Banks, made a post on the forums today about this. Banks is always on our list, but never seems to make it. It gets de-prioritised compared to other things we want to do. Banks is something we are interested in, but no immediate plans to put it in the game, just a matter of prioritization.

New co-op maps or pvp maps

Yes, the first DLC has a new pvp map, Military Academy. Screenshots and video may be previewed on livestreams.

Do you have to be Castithan to do the new story content?

No

In the DLC what general things are free and paid?

Open world events will be for everyone, they don't want to segment people. In the paid portion is the storyline missions.

Details on the Battle Arena

It's best described as more like a horde mode. It is you against lots of enemies coming at you. 4 or 5 different arenas for that. New game mode. At first it isn't going to be a multiplayer game mode but it is something they are looking at.

XBOX Games on Demand

I can't give you a date for that, it is something we are interested in and looking at.

Show team members quests

Another thing we have been talking about, things that helps people grouping together. We have to balance these features with having too many things on the minimap and being in a situation where players have to fully filter things on the map. It is something we want to do.

Any more outfits?

Yes, some real themed outfits that look pretty different than what we have at the moment.

Salvage matrix bulk selection

It is something on the list of things they want to do. The simplicity of the UI especially on the PC is import to us. So any sort of multi selection in the salvage matrix or vendors is something we are working towards.

Buy backpack slots with keycodes?

It's just a balance of how they want the economy to work. It'll probably stay that way. The rate at which you gather keycodes has been tough to balance for us.

Why did you remove weapons from the new Raptor vehicle?

Firing weapons from vehicles we think are really cool. I don't remember us making a change there, there was never a turret there.

Contest for community designed outfits and vehicle skins?

Community designed outfits is a great idea. They can do that, but it would take a couple of months to make it happen.

Inventory slot unlocks between characters

It's not that it's impossible, that would change the cost of them. They had to weigh whether people would buy them for account or character and made their decision.

Sieges

Yes, Volge sieges will be in the DLC. From that point sieges should be back in the game permanently.

RIFT Crossover Items

Maybe, they are in a different spot. They have to work with Syfy so the universe makes sense.

Group Size

Anything is possible, probably not. Group size has huge effect on co-op maps and how encounters are balanced. No plans on changing the group size.

Official Merchandise

No plans right now, but never say never. They do want to.

Redesign PC UI

They are making some changes to the PC specific UI, but when there is a game for 3 platforms there is an efficency factor that they have to pay attention to. They will be slowly adding some more PC specific settings and changes, but not a sweeping full UI change just for PC.

Raptr Rewards Program

They love Raptr rewards. There could be something more in the future, but they don't know yet.

Co-op mode for main mission storyline

They are actively working on making changes to a lot of the main storyline missions so that you are not taken away from other people. 

This is a long term project for us, it's not something we will have in the DLC patch but it is something they are actively working on.

Unique skills and gear

They want to continue to emphasise different ways of playing the game. When talking about new weapons or weapon types the question is how it can make the game play differently.

Community Interaction

Interacting as a team more in the community, the easiest way to do that is through the forums. They might not post all the time but they are definitely reading and will post when they can.

They really love posts with bullet pointed things to change, well written and formatted threads, they are easier to understand.

PvP Community Needs Love

New map coming out, we are looking at how Shadow Wars are currently working. We think there may be problems with the queueing system so we are looking into fixing some of those.

We have larger scale plans to deal with the world in a way where more people can interact with eachother.

Can't comment on balance, lots of details better suited to the designer.

Future Streams

They will feature different people, designers and programmers.

Video

The Defiance portion starts about 1:30:00 through the video.

Watch live video from riftgame on TwitchTV