Killzone 2 - Developer Q&A - Part 1

A summary of interesting Q&As from Seb Downie, the QA manager of Guerilla Games.

"This is 'Part 1' of our (GamersDigest's) Q&A summary, this article focuses more on the offline and singleplayer aspects.

'Part 2' will be out later today for the online and multiplayer focused questions."

[MasFlowKiller]

do any of you guys think that GG had a system install feature and was taken off because the media would probably have taken some mayor points off?

I mean i wouldn't care about a small install if it could make such and amazing game even better

[Hallucinate]

nope installs arent needed if you not a lazy dev but i hope theres an optinal install to spead up load times

[Cronnie]

It will not have an install at all, optional or not.

[Lifendz]

Waiving the install or mandating an install is no good. Give the gamer the option. I have a large HDD. I don't mind installing a game. But hey, KZ2 is a graphical monster. Props to GG for doing what the fanboys said they couldn't, and props to SOny for showing us all that blu-ray matters for gaming.

[Mr Tretton]

"do any of you guys think that GG had a system install feature and was taken off because the media would probably have taken some mayor points off?"

The funny thing is I've seen reviewers now complain that they wish there was an install to help with the 1 second checkpoint loading hitches.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

[Kleptic]

I can't find the thread anymore...as it was another 'ask the dev' thread setup before phase 3 of the beta...and was over 300 pages...

that was where the 'no install, optional, or otherwise' as confirmed...in the question list...Seb answered it...however this is not verbatum...

he stated that killzone 2 was using some new texture streaming tech...in which texture banks where stored on the disc in an uncompressed format...and a single SPE of the CPU was used to pull those uncompressed textures off the disc, and get them to the GPU...it was all done in the background...and overall saved significant ram and processing power otherwise needed for 'unpacking' textures off the disc or from the HDD...

the side effect of this though is that it makes a texture based HDD install moot...normally...texture banks are placed compressed on the HDD...the CPU can pull from an HDD MUCH faster than from any optical format (DVD or BD)...but even being able to pull the textures faster, they would still be wasting valuable processing and memory on unpacking those textures...while they could put the textures in an uncompressed format on the HDD, it would have involved a MASSIVE footprint...something that would make the 5gb for RE5 a joke in comparison...

so it simply wasn't an option...he did say that this is a major reason on how killzone 2's engine has so much more tech compared to other console games...as this process allows processing and memory to be used in other areas...and also stated that it will be used on A LOT more game for the PS3...heavy rain and GoW III being 2 examples confirmed elsewhere...

its a process that Sony and GG, as well as other internal developers, purposely focused on...and is something simply can't be done without BD...this is the exact same process that Carmack commented on with Rage...and how BD allowed room for uncompressed textures on the disc, which frees up significant memory compared to the traditional method...a method of which is usually used on multiplat games because of the 360's DVD drive (the 360 can not do this...at all...yet game code has to be built for this from the ground up...so we'll likely never see it in multiplatform games)...the only 3rd party title I have read about that used something similar to this was MGS4...

MGS4 did it quite differently though...MGS4 had an allocated mandatory install put on the HDD at start up...but would then add uncompressed texture banks for only the 'act' you were playing...every act invloved deleting the 'old' bank, and installing a new...each act was nearly 4gb of data in terms of uncompressed textures...so KP instead had only one act at a time put on the drive...that is another way to do basically the same thing...

great articles though...interesting stuff...great to see the medic thing was addressed...but wish Seb would have finally addressed the Home questions...it was always 'more on that closer to release'...so something is definitely coming...just hope its in time for the game' release...

[Ryangp]

In-Game music! I hope they add in screen shots and video upload, that would really be cool, I would love to make a montage video. I don't want to have to buy a video card.

[Kleptic]

many rumors have been circulating the killzone.com forums on video uploading to Home...and that it will be integrated into the Home space for killzone 2...no devs have given feedback for that though...other than 'more on that later', or 'its being looked into'...

the only thing that gave a clue towards a much more robust home space for killzone 2 than other games was the issue of the party system...killzone 2 does not have any real party system in game like R2 or CoD...only way to play with friends from the game lobby is 'follow player' options in your friends list...

this is just like Warhawk...but Warhawk put the party system into Home instead...where players can launch party based games from the home space or their apartment...Sony also stated that Home will eventually turn into the PSN's unified party/invite system...where when playing with friends, and switching games, your party relocates to home before launching the next game or whatever...

the only thing confirmed was a small blog post on the ps blog a few weeks ago...saying 'that every 2009 PS3 game is to have trophies, Home integration, and in game music'...'home integration', or to what degree at least, is whats unknown...as we were not given a full feature list of what every game must have for home...it may just be launching games from home...it may be just having a useless game space like Far Cry 2...with nothing to do other than walk around in it...or it may be both...not sure yet...

[Sheddi]

Can someone explain this one to me please.

Question: "Can nearby enemies hear you on proximity chat, similar to SOCOM?"
Answer: "Yes"

Does that mean that if ur talking through ur mic nearby an enemy, can he hear u? If so.....thats real cool!

[Pennywise]

Thats what it means!

[Kleptic]

yep...it was in the beta too...

if it goes unchanged from the beta...which it probably will...it works like this:

the whole game is open mic...based on proximity only...you can hear enemies close to you...and they can hear you...makes it great for kills, as trash talking is everywhere haha...

you can mute any player on either team you want...both in the pre-game lobby or during the game...

there is also dedicated chat channels for your squad...the squad can hear each other no matter where you are on the map and no matter what is going on...its not proximity based...

there were requests for that to be expanded in terms of squads...where a squad leader could have a push to talk option to request back up from other squad leaders...by pressing up on the dpad or something...and that way a different squad leader could hear you (assuming you are a squad leader) no matter where you and your squad was...and would further help squad tactics throughout the team...you can have up to 4 different squads per 16 player teams (or more, but you can have 4 'full' squads I mean)...this would be completely awesome for killzone 2 because of the dynamic objective system...you could be playing body count, where everyone was spread out...then instantly switch to capture and hold...where squad leaders could tell each other which objective they were heading for no matter where they were on the map...most of you probably already know...some maps in this game are massive...being able to operate as several small groups would be much more effective...

but its still unknown if that last part will be put in...it did get a lot of dev feedback...and they seemed to like the idea...it was more a matter of how complicated it would be to put in...so its not known yet, no reviews have put much time into MP yet anyway...so it may already be there, just no one said anything about it...

[METtAL-GAMER]

ALRIGHT!!!
In-game music, time to thrash it up.