» Fri May 13, 2011 5:42 am In this topic I have 2 goals:
A. Extend the information of the Official FAQ
B. Answer FAQs which are not covered in the Official FAQ
Please note that this an UNOFFICIAL THREAD and a lot of things are subject to change
I will try to describe everything as simple and accurate as possible. I also encourage people to complete and/or correct me. Please post any other common questions you can think of, I'll add them asap.
If you find this topic usefull, please do not ask for a sticky, the mods won't do it since it's unofficial.
Before I start, I suggest everyone to read:
A. http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1113952-brink-faq/
B. http://www.fragworld.org/frag/community-blogs/brink-info-pt-1-story-gameplay-smart-classes-and-objectives.html
Especially the latter provides accurate information. I took a lot of information from HORSE's compendium and I encourage everyone to read this when your question is not covered in this topic. I would also like to thank HORSE for his efforts to put this compendium together. I did not copy any information literally, and if anything happens to be literally the same, then this is a coincidence and should be reported to me, so that I can change it.
PART 1: ADDITIONS TO THE OFFICIAL FAQ
Q: When does Brink get released?
A: Brink will be available in North America May 17th. The rest of the world has to wait untill May 20th.
Q: What is the difference between single player and multiplayer and Coop?
A: Brink blends multiplayer, cooperative, and single player gaming together.
This basically means that Singleplayer = Multiplayer = Coop. When you play Singleplayer you will follow the story like in all other Singleplayer games. A huge difference between Brink and other games is that your friends can jump into your campaign and help you to complete it. Up to 7 of your friends can join your singleplayer game, which has now become a Cooperative game. When you go online, you just play the same maps, but the opposing team now consists of up to 8 real players.
Q: What game modes will multiplayer have?
A: Brink is an objective based game like Splash Damage's previous games Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars.
This means that there will atleast be three gamemodes: Campaign, Objective and Stopwatch.
- Campaign: You will play the story in order. When you lose, you play the same map again, but against another team.
- Freeplay: You will play the story, but you can choose in which order. If you lose, you play the next map against the same or another team.
- Stopwatch: You will play the story, but you can choose in which order. You will play each map twice. The team that is able to complete all objectives in the shortest time span wins. When both teams are unable to complete all objectives, it's a draw. Since we are not sure how stopwatch works exactly, there may be a system in place to prevent draws.
Q: Will Brink include an editor or SDK?
A: No information available.
I would like to add that both SD and Bethesda are known for supporting community created content, therefore I think we should be safe to assume that they will release an SDK.
Q: Will there be a beta for Brink?
A: The release of a Beta for Brink is something that is still being discussed, but no decision has been made one way or the other at this stage.
This is an outdated question, they released a Beta not so long ago. I'll discuss this in depth in the next part.
PART 2: EXTENDING THE FAQ
I: General FAQs
Q: What will the ESRB rating be?
A: Brink will be rated T.
Q: Will I have to pay a monthly fee?
A: No, Brink is confirmed to be "buy" only.
Q: Will there be DLC?
A: There are pictures of customization screens where we could read Downloadable Content. I expect to see DLC, but this is just an assumption.
Q: Can I do these cool tricks like in the trailers?
A: You can't. These are trailers. You can do a lot of fancy stuff with the SMART system, but backflipping over a rocket is impossible, because they want you to be able to shoot at all times.
Q: Will we be able to customize our controls?
A: Mappable controls for all platforms. The game will also include controls schemes based on popular games. (Console only)
Q: What is Challenge Mode?
A: Challenge Mode are Special missions you have to complete. You can consider them minigames. Doing these challenges provides you with more customization (See Customization section below). There are different levels in Challenges, the hard challenges are designed to be challenging to the devs. They plan on making somekind of leaderboards for this mode.
Example of a known Challenge: Win a map, by only supporting your team. Don't fire a single bullet.
II: Characters.
Q: Can you create more than one Character?
A: Yes, you can create up to 16 characters.
Q: Do I have to make a character for each side?
A: No you don't. Every character has a look for both sides. Everything, except look, transfers when you change sides.
Q: Can I switch characters during a match?
A: No, you can't. You can switch sides, weapons and class. Your bodytype and character remain the same. Switching sides is only possible while not playing campaign mode.
Q: Can you level up your characters and if so, how many levels are there?
A: There's a level cap of 20.
Q: What if I don't want to play against high level characters?
A: You don't have to. There are a couple of systems in place to prevent this "unfair" advantage.
- There are 4 blocks of levels:
R1: Lvls 1 - 5
R2: Lvls 6 - 10
R3: Lvls 11 - 15
R4: Lvls 16 - 20
- You will only play against people of your block (Standard)
- You can chose to play against higher levels if you want.
- You will unlock all main abilities and upgrades in your first levels.
- Higher level people who join low level lobbies can't use their high level abilities, unlocks.
Q: How does the ability system works?
A: For each level, you gain a skillpoint. With your points, you can "buy" an ability. You have a test period of 24 hours to test that ability and remove it for free. If you wait longer, you will get a penalty (Not sure what this penalty will be). There are 50 abilities in total. You can have a maximum of 20 abilities. The abilities are equally distributed in 5 categories, one for each class and a general ability tree. All standard class abilities are available from the start, so you can be usefull if you switch classes during a match. Some abilites have more levels in one skill, some of them are more expensive to get.
Q: I want to play competitive and I need a new character, but don't have time to get it to level 20, what now?
A: When you play with any character, you gain experience points. If you keep playing with your level 20 character, you will gain experience points which you can transfer to your freshly made character.
We don't know if you can actually level your character to 20 in this way. You won't have to start from scratch though.
Q: How long does it take to complete both Campaigns and will I be level 20 by then?
A: They said it would take about 10 hours of gameplay. You won't reach the level cap, we assume you will be around level 14-17.
III: Customization
Q: What are archetypes?
A: Archetypes are preset characters. There are fully equiped with clothing that fits together without changing it. When you make a character, you will start from an Archetype and start to customize it to your likings. We are aware of 20 Archetypes, 10 for each side.
Q: How do you unlock clothes?
A: You get clothes for leveling up and completing challenges in the challenge mode.
Q: How far can you go in customising?
A: You can changes different pieces of clothing, you can give them another color/texture. Faces are not customisable because they rather have good looking standard faces. (A face editor like the Sims is too "difficult" to use)
Q: I want to change the looks of my character, is this possible and to what extend?
A: You can create a new look anytime you want, except during a match.
There are some fixed characteristics for each character:
- Voice
- Tattoos
Bodytype has been confirmed to NOT be fixed.
Q: I keep hearing about these voices, what do they do?
A: You have to choose two voices to complete your character.
The first voice is your own. They confirmed 8 accents, but they didn't reveal all of them yet. You will hear this voice when f.e. Shouting for ammo.
The second voice is the squad commanders' voice. He is an AI that shouts new missions f.e. "We need more soldiers."
Q: How do I unlock weapons and attachments?
A: You unlock weapons by leveling up and completing challenges in the challenge mode.
Q: Can I only use one attachment on a weapon?
A: No, you can get multiple attachments, you can really make crazy guns, but everything you change comes with a drawback.
IV: Regarding Multiplayer
Q: Will there be killstreaks?
A: No, this is not COD. SD aims for teamplay and doing the objective. They are not focused on getting the most kills.
Q: But I need a UAV.
A: The operative has the interrogate ability, which reveals all enemies for a short duration (I believe 10 seconds)
Q: Are there killcams?
A: No there aren't, because when you lose all your health, your incapacitated instead of dead.
Q: Is this incapacitated thing the same as Last stand?
A: It's not. When you're incapacitated, you'll have two options:
- Stay dead, wait for a medic to throw a revive syringe. When you use that, you'll have full health again.
- Deploy in the next respawn wave.
Note that there's an ability that makes you able to shoot like in last stand.
Q: How does the spawn system work and what action will be taken against Spawnkilling and spawncamping?
A: You respawn in waves. Every 20-30 seconds every dead man will respawn at one of the fixed spawn points. Spawn times change depending on the side you play and certain bonuses you get from command posts.
Every non-captureable spawnpoint has high damage, undestroyable turrets, which will shoot at you if you ignore the warnings. Yes, you'll get warned that you are getting too close to the spawn.
Q: You said non captureable spawnpoints, so there also are capturable?
A: There are forward spawns. Command posts have been confirmed to NOT provide a new spawn point, because it imbalanced the game.
Q: OMG, NO QUICKSCOPING?
A: No, SD wants you to experience close combat, they want you to have something personal with enemies. There won't be OHKO snipers, not even at close range.
There will be short rifles and you can put a scope on them.
Q: Are there OHKO headshots?
A: No, standard headshots are never One Hit Knock Outs. There are exceptions, when you take bodytypes and buffs into account. A headshots does more damage than a chest shot.
Q: And Melee OHKO?
A: Same as with headshots. If you carry a knife, which is NOT the standard melee equiment, you might possibly kill another UNbuffed light with one shot. This is not sure. There were also rumors of a OHKO backstab ability for Operatives, but it's been confirmed that there won't be a backstab ability.
Q: Will we be able to customize Melee weapons?
A: No, it's confirmed you can't.
Q: How many Melee weapons are there?
A: There are just two melee weapons, a knife and your gunbutt. The knife can only be accessed when carrying a pistol as secondary. The gunbutt is your standaard melee. Some people have heard something about other weapons, but this remains unconfirmed.
Q: You mentioned buffing, how does this work in an FPS?
A: It's part of the teamplay aspect. You can get your health, weapon and speed buffed. Other buffs remain unknown if there are any.
Q: Will there be a theater mode like in Halo:reach of Cod: BO?
A: No. There have been rumors that they will make one after release, but this is unconfirmed.
Q: Will there be decent clan support?
A: They're working on it, that's all we know.
Q: How many maps will there be?
A: We don't know yet. They put a lot of effort in the maps, to get the most out of the SMART system. We are currently aware of 5-6 maps, but this will probably increase. Rumor has it that there are 8 maps.
Q: I heard you can tackle enemies, is that true?
A: Yea, you can tackle enemies. When tackled you can melee them for an instant kill or shoot them. It's risky to knife them since the can choose to get up, or pull out their gun and shoot you.
Q: Are there persistent stats?
A: No, SD wants to encourage teamplay, not getting high stats.
Q: I heard you get no XP for killing enemies, is that right?
A: No, you do get XP, but it's a tiny amount compared to helping teammates or completing objectives. Originally you gained extra XP for playing online, but they deleted this feature to not punish the people who want to play singleplayer only. Killing people while you're near teammates or an objective gives extra XP, based on a multiplier system.
Q: Will there be a hardcoe mode?
A: Nothing confirmed, but knowing SplashDamage and their typical game design and mentality, they will not put it in.
V: Beta
Note: A lot of this is educated guessing, based on what most people think. The only information we can be sure off is this: http://www.splashdamage.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22638
Q: Is there a beta?
A: Yes, but it's a closed one.
Q: But I heard certain people got invited.
A: That's true. Only PS3 players from Europe are invited for as far as we know. This might change, as we did not receive an official statement regarding this subject.
Q: OMG, why are the PS3 guys the only ones with a Beta?
A: Because the PS3 version is the least smooth at this point. They need more players to test everything, to make it work like they intended. Remember, a Beta is for testing, not for playing the game in advance and for free.
Q: I'm a PS3 player from North America and I want to participate in the Beta.
A: We assume that players from North America and other regions can't join, because in Europe you can be sued when breaking the Non Disclosure Act. This remains unconfirmed.
Q: So, no Beta for Xbox/PC and other regions (PS3)?
A: We don't know as of yet. The Developers, nor the Publisher has released any info on this subject. You can hope, but that's pretty much it.
