James Salt, Lead Designer
Character Classes, Cameras, and Computers | Battlefield Heroes - Free to Play, Cartoon Shooter
Character Classes, Cameras, and Computers
Hello Heroes,
James Salt here, Lead Designer for Battlefield Heroes. Ben is away this week, so I am going to be continuing the story of how we made the game. This week I'm going to be talking about our character classes and the 3rd person camera.
When I joined the team we started talking about what character classes we wanted. In previous Battlefield games you were a soldier who picked up a kit and assumed that role. For Heroes we wanted to take a different slant on that idea. We wanted you to own your Hero. First up, we started by thinking of all the heroic characters from old war movies, and what kind of things made them unique. After a couple of days trapped in a meeting room, we came up with these:
- That sneaky sniper character you never see coming
- The good all-round leader who seems to have a 6th sense about what the enemy is doing.
- The big and reliable fellow who's always got the big gun and seems to be able to absorb bullets.
Mad design scribblings about Heroes
These archetypes were the starting point for the classes in Battlefield Heroes. The Sneaky Sniper became the Commando class. The all-round leader became the Soldier class, and the bullet absorber became the Gunner class.
The unique abilities each class has in Heroes are also based around the archetypes. For example the Soldier's ability to 'See enemy Soldiers' is to give that class a feeling of having a 6th sense.
While the work on the classes was happening I got an text message from Ben, who was away again. It read, "We should try 3rd person cameras." My first reaction was along the lines of "LOLWUT!". But it cant hurt to try it out now can it? So we made a 3rd person camera in our Heroes prototype. I spent most of the day running around the world with this new view. I was surprised. It didn't feel bad, it felt different for sure, but it felt good.
A non-typical 3rd person
The camera isn't one of those you commonly find in 3rd person games, where you are controlling your character relative to the camera position. And that camera position is constantly moving around to give you the best view.
The best way of describing how our 3rd person camera feels is: rather than seeing the arm and weapon as with a traditional 1st person shooter camera, you now see your character. Everything else is basically the same as a traditional camera, so you still have a solid feeling of aiming and control.
There are a bunch of other things that were helped with this new camera. Firstly, new players seemed to have a much better idea of where they were and which way they were facing. Also it allows you to see your Hero character actually being a Hero in the game, along with all your customizations and emotes.
Last thing for this post is a quick mention of the lowest system specification we currently support:
- Operating System: Windows XP or Windows Vista
- CPU: 1.0 GHz
- RAM: 512 Mb (1Gb on Windows Vista)
- Video Card: 64Mb DirectX compliant video card with at least pixel shader 2.0 support
- Hard Drive space: 1Gb of space is required to install the game
- Internet connection: 256kbit Cable/DSL connection
When you are making a game, the system specs can move around quite a bit. Especially for the lowest spec. So this is what we are aiming for, but we may need to change them a little later.
Next time: Pitching the game to EA, and coming up with a name.
Comments (92)
Love the modifiable class idea of making your custom hero.
Minspecs for the RAM and the Coneection speed mightmake a few people higly disspointed. Glad my PC is good enought to play this awesome looking game when it comes out
All sounds really good. Hope the Spec doesn't rise too much, nice and low at the moment! :)
Wow, the news have so much new contents now that you modified the website design! Love the images on the text. They make the article more lively. Good information too. :)
the Specs arent bad at all, most crappy walmart computers come with specs better than that out of the box. Should be popular with the hardcore gamers and with the casual ones.
Good to see a company making a game using classical ideas with a fun twist.
I also think it will be great that the game's low spec requirements will provide the best overall player base around.
Good thing if Developers put their game on www.systemrequirementslab.com everyone will able to test their computer and see - can they run this product!
najs
this game looks good but how do you start playing
Hi !
My girl friend want to play !
Do you have a girl avatar ??
Thank !!
When does the game come out ?
If there is no server, how do we keep a clan together. Me and my friends who are all HUGE fans of the BF series are putting together a clan because it is such an easy game to get. But i heard there was no server, so what do we do to keep us together?
Will this game have vehicle weaknesses? I don't care about human weakness but vehicles shouldn't be cheap. Hope this is better than Battlefield 2 (No vehicle Weakness).
All i hope for is that time should go faster.
It realy has to come out soon. When the game comes out, I'll hug it!
Wait!? Awwww, darn! It'll be distributed trough downloadpages :s
Mr. Gee's preview on Battlefield Heroes:
Con:
- No huggable box
Pro's:
+ Look
+ Free 4 play
+ Customisation
+ ...
i can't wait for the game. it says it's coming out in summer 2008 but it's already summer 2008
seems good, the graphics look amazingly neat for such small specs!
cool
I can't wait for the game. it's cooooooooooooooooool xd
Does the game use DX10?
Sounds awesome and lol at the picture of you btw for the commando class i hope you guys add a guille suit cus i love in BF2 where if you just lay there and dont shoot ppl run right past you if UAV isnt on lmao k cya
Battlefieldheroelicious!
Hmmmmm...Will you be able to change classes I wonder...
I'm not sure I'll want to be a sniper forever...
make sure you can kill people in cockpit so you can watch a funny sight with planes falling and they cant do anything lol...
can you make another one that is based on battlefield 2142 and medal of honor?
is iemand nederlans ik weet niet hoe ik het moet spelen en op starten help me plz
dat kan nog niet,het spel is nog niet uit. morgen misschien(6 juni)
i think if u live in Britain it will be out maybe on 26th June 08
Can They give us a release date please and fix the right side of the screen
wot is the REALEASE DATE???????????
lol the summer is the release dat xD No precise one yet... just wait and see
when does the beta come out???
Hmmm... skeptical about the 3rd person camera view. Why not have both 1st and 3rd, and let the player decide.
Nice mustache
I can't wait for this, is it coming to consoles?
that sounds best
Im curious to see how the view feels. I think i have a decent idea but not positive yet.
Muhahahaha commando class for me (:
AWESOME IDEA KEEP UP WITH 3 MAIN CLASSES ONLY THAT ALL DO 3 JOBS EACH U GUYZ VERY SMART
ohh yeah i´m really looking forward to play this awesome game!
Good job BFH Team !
My Pc can run it easily even if they would raise the requirements.But not every one has the best computer in world so its good that requirements are not high so, great job guys!
Does anyone know if a laptop with Mobile Intel 965 Express Chipset Family, Intel Celeron M540 (1,8GhZ) and 1GB will handle this game? It has Windows Vista Home Basic 32-bit operative system, if that's helpful:)
hmm keep up teh good work you can do it!
Are those the lowest system requirements
when do this game come out or is it out?:S plz someone help me:/ and if he is out how do you get him i really look forward too test this game isint it a little like team fortress 2 i mean hes just a cartoon game but he is first person and you get bored of him pretty quikly but i recement him to peablo ho dont like cs/counter strike becouse it really kills time and its a great fun but i also recament you yo crysis its full off options and you can do the game how ever you want its like free form game they ar really fun i like those games when you can just get into cars,helicoter,tanks,planes,boats and stuff so i think this game is a little like hi;) so plz tell me when he comes out.
ps. i love ea games;)
i don't know what to choose a commando seems sneaky,but has very low hp.
On the other hand i can be a bullet absorbing gunner.
which should i choose????
how and where can i play if this is started yet
Christ, my 6 years old desktop might be able to handle the lowest specs!
Gladly, my 2 years old laptop is more than powerful enough for the lowest specs. Looking sooo forward 'til 'Summer 2008'. And crossing fingers for a PS3-version!
please tell me you can go first person because then snipers are useless and i prefer fpses
the fact that it is cartoon allows alot of neat graphics and keeps it low in specs which is good...no delay please!!!!
ReAlY ToOnY!!!!
CoOl
GO JAMES!
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