Untold Legends Blog Update

[cliffbo]

It’s about 9pm Wednesday evening here in SOE’s San Diego studio, and as I type this, an army of artists, programmers and designers are busily clicking away modeling, populating, animating and checking in code – many of which will watch the sun set and rise again before heading home. The Dark Kingdom team is comprised of some of the most talented and experienced game developers in the industry, and luckily I managed to convince John Smedley that I needed to be part of this team too. My name is Andy Sites, and I am the Producer of Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom, for the PlayStation 3. Having worked in the game industry for almost 10 years now, I have spent the last seven years working on MMO’s for the PC, and this has been by far the most challenging endeavor that I have undertaken – challenging, but incredibly exciting.

While the PS3 is nearly hardware complete, it is still in its infancy from a developer standpoint. There isn’t a convenient, off-the-shelf engine that is in its third generation of use, or a dozen games that we can pick up from our local games store to use as references for a cool lighting effect or game fun mechanic. Nope, we’re at the forefront of an entirely new generation of gaming system. We’re like a team of test pilots figuring out what works, what doesn’t, and what our limits are – just much more geeky, and when our game crashes, we just get indigestion and less sleep ? Over the next few months, a number of team members will be giving you their perspective and updates on the development of Dark Kingdom.

http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/718/718230/untold-legends-dark-kingdom-20060712104913299.jpg

Castle

In the beginning...

The core development team came together in June of last year, at which point we pitched the idea of Dark Kingdom and began work on a prototype. We spent the majority of last year building the framework of our rendering engine; tool pipelines and establishing the look and feel, along with the core game play elements.

In January of this year, we began ramping up our staff to begin full production. While our engine wasn’t complete at that point, we were able to begin integrating game mechanics and generate the art assets necessary to facilitate core game play. After a few months and some long nights, we had a playable game that represented the core game elements.

Around the end of April, we felt that something wasn’t right. This “something” was our original “Brute” character. His animations looked good, and he played and felt great. But visually, he wasn’t cutting the mustard. When the Brute was originally designed, we wanted to maintain the exaggerated proportional elements that Untold Legends Brotherhood of the Blade on the PSP had defined so well. However, using this style in Dark Kingdom seemed to clash with our story, the environments and our desire to attribute a very “heroic” nature to these characters – to put it bluntly, he looked too “cartoony” for his surroundings. It was at this point, and as painful as it was, that we decided to scrap the months of work we had put into our original three characters and start over.

Within a few days of the “character reset”, and after the initial shock of tossing the existing work had passed, Roel and Dante (our top concept artists) had a stack of new characters concepts. We spent a few days going back and forth on revisions, and by the end of the week we had a new character lineup – a trio that glowed with charisma and really fit their roles within the game world. Now that we had our new lineup, we only had one problem: E3 was less than five weeks away, and we didn’t have the pin for our grenade. It didn’t matter how great the level looked, or how immersive the audio was, if we didn’t have a character to play with, nothing else mattered.

http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/718/718230/untold-legends-dark-kingdom-20060712104912878.jpg

Brute

For many, E3 is that time of year we all look forward to geeking out on the latest games and technology coming down the pipeline. With developers, it’s the six-foot deep pot hole in the road of video game development. Those who are green to the industry will mistakenly think that they can “just show what we have at the time,” then panic about a month before the show when “what we have” isn’t good enough ? I’ve been bitten by this a few times myself, so I prefer to acknowledge the pain early on and just account for it in the schedule. With our goal of being a PS3 launch title just around the corner, we needed to make sure that the work we did for E3 kept us focused on our overall goals of shipping a great game in November. With this in mind, we decided that it would be best to create a demo that showcased our core game play elements, so players could actually get their hands on a controller and play, rather than watch a movie.

As distracting as E3 can be, its also very useful in that it requires us to focus on polish, playability and performance of our game, as it is usually the first time that anyone outside of the company will be playing. In my opinion, the end result of E3 2006 for Dark Kingdom was very positive – we have a more polished game and overall it was received very well by those that played it on the show floor. You can’t ask for much more than that.

With E3 now behind us, we’ve now switched into the most sleepless time of any development cycle: the home stretch to launch. The team has been fully staffed to just under 50 members, with a few new members trickling in here and there. We just had our second playable character checked into the game, a few weeks back, and she is awesome (be sure to check out the July issue of Play Magazine, as she is gracing the cover). For our environments, we have a wave of new levels – caverns, the palace, the golem tower, etc. – coming in over the next few weeks for design to do their final population treatments. And on the programming front, we’re really beginning to realize just how powerful the PS3 SPU’s are. The latest element that we’ve moved from the PPU (main processor) to an SPU has been our flora system, which is what generates all of the grass, schrubs, and other ground cover. By doing so, we essentially made our flora *free* (the asterisk denotes a programmer assaulting me after reading this), from a processing standpoint. Other things that will me moved to SPU in the near future are particles (spells and such), audio, and our animation system.

Well, there you have it. Ten months of blood, sweat and empty pizza boxes, summarized in a few paragraphs. While it’s going to be incredibly tight, we definitely have the right people with the enthusiasm and tenacity to get it done. We look forward to giving you a glimpse into our development over the coming weeks and months.

Thanks,
Andy

[cliffbo]

this has already been posted i think... again i'm sorry folks. lock it. :(

[ddaryl]

I love the comments about then moving cose of the core into the SPU's

For our environments, we have a wave of new levels – caverns, the palace, the golem tower, etc. – coming in over the next few weeks for design to do their final population treatments. And on the programming front, we’re really beginning to realize just how powerful the PS3 SPU’s are. The latest element that we’ve moved from the PPU (main processor) to an SPU has been our flora system, which is what generates all of the grass, schrubs, and other ground cover. By doing so, we essentially made our flora *free* (the asterisk denotes a programmer assaulting me after reading this), from a processing standpoint. Other things that will me moved to SPU in the near future are particles (spells and such), audio, and our animation system.



The game isn't the most graphically impressive game, but it's not a slouch either and has shaped up quite a bit in the last 2 months. !st gen PS3 game will barely be using more then the core PPE on the cell.

[yoshaw]

Oh, I don't know how I forgot to tell you guys.

Yesterday I was reading this magazine at the local mall. It was called 'Play', I think it's a British magazine. Anyways, it had a cover story on PS3 Untold Legends and God, the screenshots in those pages looked soo sweet. I always thought this game wasn't attention grabbing but I suppose there is something about print medium that jumps the screenshot quality a few notches. It looked superb and whatever screenshots were in there, I couldn't find them elsewhere on the net. They were mostly of the new Female characters with different attacking poses and all. Looked very very cool.

PS: I wanted to take a photo with my cameraphone but too many people were around me. If anyone got it at local stores, check it out! Good stuff!

[RavenFox]

Yeah man Play magazine rocks. Those are the gamefan dudes from back in the day.

[venomv]

The game has come very far, very fast.

[Beenie Man]

It is amazing how fast devs work.

[Sephiroth_VII]

I remember that a few weeks ago, we were all complaining about the crappyness of this game. It's incredible how much they've done in such short time. It really is a much better looking game now.

[LaLiLuLeLo]

So many people were knocking it's sucktitude that they had no choice but to take a long hard look at themselves and improve it.
So I might actually pick this game up!

[Beenie Man]

Now they just need to add more variety to the gameplay and more combos as the E3 gameplay videos seemed very repetitive.

[EvilTaru]

So many people were knocking it's sucktitude that they had no choice but to take a long hard look at themselves and improve it.
So I might actually pick this game up!

It is getting better but now that they've sort of fixed the male brute, the female character kind of sucks (especially the face, so dead), I hope they fix her.

[ddaryl]

It is amazing how fast devs work.


I think its more of a testament to how much untapped power is left in the cell and RSX.

The dev states they are just starting to move code off of the core PPE to the SPE's. At this point I wouldn't believe anything they have running on the SPE's are even close to being maximized or optomized.

Should be interesting to see this game in action the next chance we get.

[Sephiroth_VII]

Now they just need to add more variety to the gameplay and more combos as the E3 gameplay videos seemed very repetitive.
Well, we now know that we were playing with a very rushed character, so I doubt that they had all of his moves avialible yet.

[cliffbo]

a little update for ya:

Dark Kingdom and the evolving art style
Right now the final push for the look and feel of Untold Legends Dark Kingdom is upon us. Earlier this spring, we began with some prototype art to lay the ground work for the environments, as well as the three main characters. We have honed in on a style now based on feedback from internal sources, as well as from the public.

Most of the people on the Dark Kingdom art team are gamers who share the same desire to make the game look great. The trick so far has been reacting to the technology as it has become available. The power of the PS3 is starting to become apparent to us as artists. The raw graphics power of the machine is pretty amazing, but the one thing, or I should say things, that has quite a few of us excited is the exploitation of the SPU’s. It is pretty amazing what can be off loaded to the SPU’s. For example, we have the reactive water running off one of them right now and it looks great (and it isn’t even totally complete yet w00t!) In addition, we are planning on using the SPU’s for radial flora, particle FX, and real time physics simulation. There are more details about the system I would love to talk about, but I might be violating my NDA.

Ok, now to talk about what we are actually doing art wise. It has been challenging to move forward and evolve to the new system, but our experience using pixel shaders and per pixel lighting on EverQuest II has helped us to understand the demanding nature of the next generation game art. The first hurdle we had to overcome was the art style of the game. It doesn’t sound like it should be a hurdle but it is. Our overall approach initially was to avoid realism and try something stylistic. We eventually evolved into a style that leans towards realism, but I would not call it realistic. We chose this direction because of two primary reasons: It is easier to create environments using photo sampled textures, and focus testing character concepts in a nation wide survey. The environments are turning out to look pretty impressive, but I know they will look better as we progress. It’s easy to say this in a blog, but I guess you will have to take my word on it. The characters are at the beginning of something really good. We are using a high-res to low-res method to create the characters, which leads to the results being incredible. It really maximizes benefit of normal mapping.

With the increased memory of the new PS3 hardware, we are enabled to have a much higher texel density which in turn makes running in the hi-definition modes look fantastic. It sort of makes me laugh that games like Dark Kingdom, will be a big reason that people will buy hi-definition TVs.

Well, more to come as I can write it,



http://www.gametab.com/news/623495/

[Bad_Boy]

With the increased memory of the new PS3 hardware
interesting.

[Sephiroth_VII]

You don't say... Someone call MILR!!!!

Did he have a slip up? Maybe he forgot that Sony hasn't announced it yet?

[liver_kick]

You don't say... Someone call MILR!!!!

Did he have a slip up? Maybe he forgot that Sony hasn't announced it yet?

More likely he's referring to the jump in memory from last gen. Context people. ;)

[Red_Eyes]

Or a jump in the PS3 memory from 256 to 512 for main memory.:laugh:

[cliffbo]

badboy, i think he was just comparing the memory of the PSP with the PS3, don't get too excited! lol

[cliffbo]

A Little Story For The Masses
You are part of the Dragon’s Shade, an elite squad of mystical warriors who have been away from the Kingdom of Dureth for a number of years fighting the barbarians of the Iron Tribes. Little did you realize that during your absence, your king enslaved his people and strengthened his rule by tapping into dark magic. Great and horrible machines were built to convert human anguish into raw power; a power that is used to transform his soldiers into subservient monsters. When you return to your homeland you realize that in order to save the kingdom that you swore to protect, you must first betray your king.

Greetings, my name is Kevin O’Hara and I’m a senior game designer on Untold Legends Dark Kingdoms. I’m here to give you a behind the scenes glimpse at the creative process of crafting a story for an action adventure RPG game. I’ve been working in games for the past ten years on various projects such as Meridian 59, Delta Force, Tachyon: The Fringe and Star Wars Galaxies. Before that, I worked in the film industry having graduated from college with a film production/screenwriting degree. While I don’t believe Hollywood should dictate game stories, there are lessons to learn from how movie scripts are put together. On the other hand, one should never forget that, as a media, games are first and foremost about gameplay. A good story should give context and direction to help the player, well… play.

Our first task when pitching Dark Kingdom (known as “Untold Legends PS3” back then) was to figure out what the gameplay was all about. We wanted to build on the “pick up and play” nature of our previous Untold Legends and Champions of Norrath titles, but add more tactics to the gameplay. Instead of relying on drinking health potions continuously and passively regenerating, we wanted most of your healing to come from defeating enemies. Your character can sense whether some enemies might to give you an extra health or mana, so there is inherent strategy to selecting your target based on your current needs. This was the first step to giving context to the story; we needed to make our player characters mystical warriors who could self sustain during long term engagements, hence the birth of the Dragon’s Shade.

The initial direction for the storyline began to take shape as we created concepts for the type of levels and enemies we wanted to the player to experience. The brainstorming sessions usually started with things like, “wouldn’t it be cool if the player had to wade through a sunken city and fight a tentacle abomination?” We spent a few weeks collecting and organizing all of our ideas and then began to cement the basic storyline of the player working for a king who turns evil and uses the suffering of his own people for personal power. Our first draft was a bit darker - from the start you were assassins gearing to take the king out.

Our next step was to hire a professional writer to bring all of the elements of the story together while we focused on the other early stage gameplay decisions. We had worked with Keith Baker before and liked his stuff with the D&D Eberron series. For the next couple months I was on the phone and email with Keith establishing character motives, story arcs and plot points. Keith gave tons of feedback and direction to our original plot, as well as naming all our principle characters. He always had good comments for us on how to mesh the story with our current level designs, and really was a great guy to work with. After he delivered a solid first draft of the story and dialogue, we thanked him profusely and let him go on to his other projects.

As priorities changed with art and programming (as they always seem to do during game development), there became a need to make many story adjustments. Levels and characters were moved, added or cut for schedule or aesthetic reasons. Being a little more action adventure than hardcore RPG, we decided we didn’t want players sitting through long cinematics and instead focused on telling the story with quick in-game cut scenes. So my next big task was to put my screenwriting degree to work and write a second draft of the script that maintained a lot of the flavor and dialog of Keith’s stuff, but make it more concise and faster paced. At the same time, I wanted to differentiate the three player characters’ stories more. Even though the levels are roughly the same, it was important for replayability to give the three stories more individuality, especially when it came to the game’s endings.

We then brought Amanda Flock, the designer responsible for the Untold Legends The Warrior’s Code story, onto the team to help out with the final script rewrites as well as writing all the in-game lore books. The multi-paragraph books are not required for understanding the story, but they give additional depth for those players who want to take time to read them. She also helped to better link the Untold Legends world together between products. I would be remiss, if I didn’t mention all of the story and level direction we got from the other game designers, John, Joe, Paul, Ryan, Shawn and Rich. In addition to feedback from the artists, coders and producers on the team, we were also fortunate to have the Sony Pictures writing staff available to offer suggestions. Though their expertise was squarely in feature film development, they were very enlightening with certain processes for story design.

With the final script in hand, it was time to cast the parts and do voice over recording. The SOE audio team was exceptionally good about keeping the designers in the loop when it came to casting and the actual recording. It is invaluable to have a writer in the recording studio to help the actors with their motivations and to make quick adjustments to the script for better performances; some lines look great on paper but don’t sound quite right when spoken. The turn around time from initial casting to getting the lines as audio files was amazingly quick. The audio team has had a lot of practice in fast delivery from working on EQ2, which had the equivalent of 65 screenplays worth of spoken dialogue in it.

So the final step for us is implementation. This is where designers work with artists to set up cameras, animations and voice-over in game with our Pawn scripting system. From our side, it is a lot of:

http://www.gametab.com/news/629697/

[yoshaw]

I think I saw the first one in PLAY magazine. I'd really like more from that magazine to appear online as they were truly gorgeous looking in paper format. Here's the new screenies anyway. I wonder what else can be added in the next 3 months :)

http://pix.nofrag.com/0c/17/3e8a14eaec471b864433d6381416.jpg
http://pix.nofrag.com/d0/10/928bf2e5a72b932d8d94d9266115.jpg
http://pix.nofrag.com/46/3c/6e3f31220b846de88c5ad7ab14c6.jpg

[Beenie Man]

Will look alot better in High Defintion.

[cliffbo]

this is why i can't understand why many forum members didn't think this looked very promising. have you seen WOW. it doesn't come close to this.

[VG Aficionado]

As long as the gameplay has some interest, this isn't a crappy game anymore. It's a launch game, right?

[cliffbo]

As long as the gameplay has some interest, this isn't a crappy game anymore. It's a launch game, right?

i believe so, but i can't be certain...

[cliffbo]

As long as the gameplay has some interest, this isn't a crappy game anymore. It's a launch game, right?

i believe so, but i can't be certain... and if my memory serves me right its going to be in 1080p

[cornholio12]

looks good. considering this game is from SOE and soe makes some of the worst looking games on ps2, i can't wait to see what talented first party games will look like.

[GTShotoKen]

Those new screens definitely make the game look much more promising.

Come on with the HD videos SOE. It isn't like you have alot of time before launch.

[cliffbo]

what i'm interested in is the sudden influx of all those millions of PS fans on Sony's Online service. the community will grow rapidly, especially if PS2s can connect as well as PSPs and PS3s. with games like this hopefully free that community will overtake any already established...

cheers for the pics Yoshaw by the way ;)

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h307/cramit_churchy/dkphotoid.jpg

After serving the King loyally for years in foreign conflicts, an elite unit of knights return home to find it a changed place. Appalled by the discovery that dark magic has corrupted their kingdom and that the King now plans to use them against their own people, the knights devise a plan to assassinate the malevolent ruler. When the attempt on the King's life is foiled, the would-be assassins barely escape into the ravaged lands below the King's floating palace. On the run from an army they once served and tainted by the dark magic of the King's sorcerers, the assassins must survive in a kingdom they no longer recognize. Vowing to avenge their fallen comrades, the heroes embark upon an epic journey to defeat the corrupt King by destroying the sources from which he draws his evil power.

Untold Legends Dark Kingdom will set the standard for next-gen RPGs through never-before-seen graphics delivered in true high-definition and all-new action-RPG combat featuring physics-based gameplay. Immerse yourself in a truly epic fantasy adventure that comes to life through engaging storylines and action-packed battles filled with heart-pounding combat, magical spells and brilliant SFX. Experience cinematic storytelling and in-depth character progression as a hero in a fantastic world of beauty, terror and betrayal, where only you can end the long standing oppression of a tyrannical king. Collect and equip thousands of weapons, armor, and items along your journey as you slay the hordes of monsters which inhabit the magical worlds from which they come. In addition, Dark Kingdom will feature online gameplay and expanded online game options through the PlayStation®3’s online service. Prepare to experience the next generation of console gaming. Prepare to experience Dark Kingdom. The truth lies in darkness on PlayStation®3.

[cliffbo]

Jonric: How did the Untold Legends property originally come about, and what led to the decision to make The Warrior's Code?

Robert Hill: When we first heard about the launch lineup for the PSP, we noticed a glaring gap. Role-playing games were not represented. With Champions of Norrath and Champions: Return to Arms, we had gained experience in the action RPG realm. We decided to use that knowledge and create a game in a similar vein on the PSP. With the success of Untold Legends: Brotherhood of the Blade, a sequel was a no brainer.

players will play the part of several roles ranging from that of a refugee to the champion of the last surviving heir, and excavators of a long-lost history that may hold the key to defeating the false Emperor - just to name a few.

Jonric: What were the most significant strengths of the first game that form the foundation for the new one?

Bill Trost: It's fun. I think we nailed the feel of combat. It feels satisfying but not overwhelming. I think our focus on fun over challenge suits our portable platform well. People play handheld games out in the world, with tons of external distractions as a fun time killer. The last thing we want to do is frustrate them.



Jonric: What will attract players to The Warrior's Code, and keep them playing? And do you have a sense as to the likely duration?

Robert Hill: The great thing about action role-playing games is that they appeal to all kinds of gamers. Since they're fast-paced, action fans tend to pick these games up and really enjoy them. Players can simply jump in and slay tons of monsters if they want to.

They also offer the depth you typically see in other types of role-playing games. Players gain new skills and items to increase their power in combat. By constantly delivering upgrade options to players in a simple way, it keeps them compelled to continue playing. With Untold Legends: The Warriors Code, we expect 20 to 25 hours of general gameplay.

Jonric: Since we've been told that this game isn't a direct sequel to Brotherhood of the Blade, how are the two conncted?




Amanda Flock: While the Warrior's Code and Brotherhood of the Blade occur in the same gameworld, the peoples that we encounter in The Warrior's Code differ in culture and history from those in its predecessor. Essentially, we are exploring a different history and plight in the same gaming world. As we wanted to focus on this new realm and story arc, we decided to make the links between the two Untold Legends games subtle, but they will be notable to those who followed the storyline of Brotherhood of the Blade.

Jonric: What has happened in the backstory to create the situation players will encounter at the beginning of the game?

Amanda Flock: The Warrior's Code begins 18 years after the hostile takeover of the peaceful capital city, Koryn Thal, which also happens to be the players' hometown. The ruthless warlord, who has been revealed to be the half-brother of the former king of the realm, has been crowned Emperor, and his otherworldly minions prowl every inch of the realm.

The players begin the game as refugees in their own home; their people, known as the changelings (a new species of shape-shifters), have been persecuted to near-extinction by the tyrannical Emperor. Left with no other choice, the players are forced to flee and fend for themselves in the war-torn landscape beyond Koryn Thal.

Jonric: Without giving away too much in the way of spoilers, what are you able to tell us about the story element we'll see?

Amanda Flock: The players' adventures lead them to uncover the existence of the last surviving heir of the rightful dynasty, an 18 year-old boy who has been safeguarded by an ancient order of monks since the dawn of the invasion. This revelation gives the players hope that they may save their people and the kingdom from the tyranny of the false Emperor.

As the players progress through the game, their objectives take new turns with each story revelation. At first, the players' objectives are those of survival in a harsh and rugged wilderness, but the course of their destinies are slowly unveiled as each chapter progresses. Throughout the game, the players will play the part of several roles ranging from that of a refugee to the champion of the last surviving heir, and excavators of a long-lost history that may hold the key to defeating the false Emperor - just to name a few.

Jonric: What kind of gameworld will players experience, and to what extent will they travel to places other than Koryn Thal?

Amanda Flock: The setting of Warrior's Code is that of a war-torn realm that must be reclaimed from a near god-like Emperor who commands a legion of otherworldly fiends. Every inch of the world is in a state of chaos and oppression, forcing the players to remain on their guard if they are to survive.

Each new level also brings with it ability points, which are used to purchase and upgrade special attacks and spells. In addition to dealing more damage, lasting longer, etc., upgraded abilities add extra effects.

As the game progresses, the players will find themselves exploring many unique landscapes including a war-torn province, the ruins of an ancient civilization, and others that were once believed to exist only in legend. Each of these locations will be host to a faction of friendly NPCs that the players must work to befriend if they are to succeed in their goals.

Jonric: What goals did you lay out for the environments and overall setting, and have you included any locations from the first game?




Amanda Flock: When we were first working to develop the setting we wanted to create something that was unique in both story and atmosphere. The game designers and artists have worked together since the initial conceptions of the world to ensure that the locations have met the team's style and story relevance goals.

Every zone in The Warrior's Code is distinct and unique to the sequel, meaning that there will be no crossover zones or looks between the two Untold Legends games. The reason for this was to support the intricate story arch that we've developed for this installment of the Untold Legends franchise.

Jonric: To what extent are the game and world in which it takes place structured so as to permit open-ended exploration and play?

Amanda Flock: Unlike Brotherhood of the Blade, the structure of the world in The Warrior's Code is not open-ended. The gameplay is broken up into five distinct chapters, each one containing its own hub, dungeons and exterior locations that go hand in hand with the mood and atmosphere of that particular arc of the meta-plot.

The quests and objectives in each chapter have been designed to be completed in a linear fashion, giving the players a true sense of progress and accomplishment as they fight their way from one chapter to the next.

Jonric: What playable characters will be available, and have you made significant changes to the selection this time?




Amanda Flock: We have five playable characters in The Warrior's Code - the Prowler, the Scout, the Guardian, the Disciple and the Mercenary. They are distinct from those we played in Brotherhood of Blade in both look and gameplay. Every player character can hold its own in melee, ranged and spellcasting combat situations. This means that every player character has a melee weapon, a ranged weapon and a host of special abilities that have been tailor-made to suit that particular character's style.

Unlike the Brotherhood of the Blade, our player characters are tailor-fit to their weaponry, meaning that there will no longer by cross-usable weapons. For example, the Scout utilizes a set of twin daggers for her melee weapons. All of her animations and skills have been rigged for that style of weaponry, and so the Scout will be limited to dagger weapons only. These class-specific restrictions apply to range weapons as well.

To accommodate this new take on the player characters, the designers have taken the extra steps to ensure that there is the same amount of weapon diversity as there was in Brotherhood of the Blade is present in Warrior's Code.

Player characters are chosen at the start of any new game. The menu offers a brief descriptive write-up regarding the character's combative styles, weaponry and personality flares.

Jonric: Are you willing to say anything more at this time with respect to how you've made these five different from the four in Brotherhood of the Blade?

Amanda Flock: In addition to the weapon-specific player classes, we have also added a new feature, the alternate beast form. Every player character is a member of a new race unique to The Warrior's Code called changelings. The changelings are a race of shape-shifters who utilize "Essence", which can be harvested throughout the game, to fuel their alternate beast forms.

Every class has its own unique beast form that has been designed from both the art and design standpoint to maintain the same unique and distinct flare between each of the player characters.

Another difference between Brotherhood of the Blade and Warrior's Code is that the personality of each player character acted as the foundation in determining the gameplay of each character. This personality is portrayed through weapons, armor, class-specific abilities and in-game canned responses that will help players communicate in multiplayer sessions.

Jonric: What kind of character advancement system will we see, and what aspects will it be possible to improve?

Nels Nelson: With each new level the player receives points, which can be spent to raise attributes such as Strength and Intelligence. Each attribute affects several aspects of gameplay, and has benefits for every character class.

Each new level also brings with it ability points, which are used to purchase and upgrade special attacks and spells. In addition to dealing more damage, lasting longer, etc., upgraded abilities add extra effects. For example, the Fire Spray ability initially shoots forth two fireballs, hitting enemies only in front of the player; by the time the ability is fully upgraded, it is launching fireballs in all directions, burning all surrounding creatures.

Another thing that will certainly become greater over time is our desire for further information about Untold Legends: The Warrior's Code. As a result, we'll be looking in front of ourselves and all around for additional opportunities to check in on the progress of Sony's PSP action RPG. In this respect, we anticipate bringing you the remaining segment of this already edifying interview before too long, and also thank the developers who took part in this portion.

[cliffbo]

keep this forum tight guys:

Environment Creation
Hello, my name is Brad White and I’m the lead environment artist for Untold Legends Dark Kingdom. I’ve been making video games for over 10 years now, shipping titles on PC, Xbox and now, happily, the PS3 as well.

I was brought onto the project during an earlier prototype stage, and found myself in a sink-or-swim situation. So much more can be done graphically on the PS3 than in PC titles I’ve worked on, so learning the new engine and the strengths/limitations of the hardware was my first hurdle. The PS3 allows us to throw large amounts of vertex data and shaders on screen, but finding out how much is too much was my first task.

After many discussions and code requests, we got past the prototype stage and began building the environments. The process is pretty straight-forward, but our very short development cycle meant that we had to be very restrictive on what we allowed the designers to do in the levels, since there would be little or no time for re-work. It’s never fun to have to tell someone that that can’t have this-or-that in their level, but we had to make sure we weren’t biting off more than we could chew (in some cases we did anyway).

http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/723/723488/untold-legends-dark-kingdom-20060804115919799.jpg

Our main priority for the levels was that they be constructed in a fashion that was easy to alter for gameplay or performance reasons. This brought us to a tileset method in which the artist creates chunks of halls, rooms, etc, that are completely modeled and shaded. Not all levels in Dark Kingdom are built using this method, but most have been. The level is then pieced together by hand, with changes and customized sections of the level added to keep the environment from feeling too similar. Collision is added for our physics engine, the scene is exported, and we focus on objects and lighting usually while the designer is populating the level and inserting activate-able and breakable objects.

Side By Side
Usually when people refer to the term “Next-Gen” they don’t really know what they mean. It’s a nebulous word. In our early prototypes, we didn’t have much in terms of next-gen technology yet built into our pipeline. We had to rely on just making the levels with your typical color-bump-spec shaders. Aside from the high number of polygons, the feedback was that levels didn’t look next-gen but looked more “PS2”. Later in development, many new shaders were delivered to the team to allow for special surface effects in the levels like refraction, fresnel, real-time water, and parallax bump mapping. Once these started going into the levels, the game’s visual quality really ramped up. The visual quality we’re achieving has been really exciting.

We’re using Maya to build the levels for Dark Kingdom, with some of the artists creating normal maps in Z-Brush. The levels are time-consuming to create - all next-gen games take longer to make. This is because, when you’re playing Dark Kingdom, every inch of artwork on your TV is many times more detailed than could be done on previous consoles. All that detail takes times to create, and create correctly.

http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/723/723488/untold-legends-dark-kingdom-20060804115921034.jpg

Once the level is constructed, the artist will go in and create light source objects, destructible objects, and DPO’s (designer placed objects), usually animated. I’d like everything in every level to be breakable by the player, but there are performance issues with having so much of the level in a ready-to-break-state (official gamer-dude jargon).

Next in the pipeline is lighting the level. An artist or myself will load the level in our in-house tool, setup the environmental lighting conditions, and place lights where appropriate. This stage for me is the most fun because the level is blank slate and lighting is really where you can inject mood into the scene, and create the polished look that makes a level look finished (even when it isn’t).

In the early stage of development we had a very nice lighting tool created by John Buckley which took the level, baked in the lighting and shadows, and basically made the level look wonderful. The downside was that the tool was VERY slow to render the levels, and calculating out how long it would take to run all the levels through the light tool was frightening. John then added radiosity to the tool (a method of simulating light bouncing off surfaces in the environment), and the lighting times became twice as long!

John didn’t leave us hanging though, he began a series of optimizations and that, coupled with some crazy-powerful workstation machines we ordered to run the tool on, gave us the ability to run the lighting passes overnight, which is amazing. To give you an idea of the lighting times in the early lighting tool, one early level I ran through the first lighting tool took 3 weeks to render, and when I ran though the level I realized I had a couple of torch flames floating a meter above the torch objects! This is now not such a problem. Thanks John!

Once the lighting is done and we are happy with it, I submit the level into the system and move on to the next one. This process of building, fixing, placing, and lighting usually happens many, many times before the level is considered complete.

This project has been a tough but rewarding experience. The team that I have to work with on this title is very talented, professional and really want to make a game we can all be proud of and that you will enjoy.

I think we’ve succeeded in that effort and I hope you will agree.



http://www.gametab.com/news/623495/

Look at the title of this thread. it has now received 4 updates!

[cliffbo]

Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom Update - Mages in Caves
SOE shows off one new environment and lets us play as the mage in its upcoming PS3 action RPG.
By Ricardo Torres, GameSpot
Posted Aug 17, 2006 10:55 pm GMT

Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom is the upcoming third-person action game from Sony Online Entertainment that casts you as a lone hero out to save a troubled land from evil. Our previous looks at the game have touched on two of the three available classes as we've seen them in work-in-progress versions. The Southern California-based developer stopped by this week with an updated version of the game, which let us try out the mage.

Fire, ice, lightning--all the tasty flavors of magic will be at the mage's call.

The highlight of the new version was the chance to see and play as the mage, the last class we had yet to see. The wiry magic user is set apart from his more buff peers (who have physique-accentuating outfits) by a flowing cape. The cape showcases some tech flash that SOE is able to perform courtesy of the PlayStation 3. A cloth sim is being used to have the cape move fluidly as the mage fights. The complicated bit of calculation is being thrown at one of the PlayStation 3's Cell cores so as not to bog down performance. While the cape is still being integrated into the game, it certainly looks cool in its current state.

Besides the cape, the big things that differentiate the mage from the other classes are his staff and magic attacks. Unlike his two aggro pals who are at home getting up close and personal with fools, the mage isn't quite sturdy enough for Rambo-style combat. His melee attacks rely on his staff, which actually hits multiple targets around him during combos. His magic attacks are excellent at dealing death along with some crowd control--chain lightning jumps between his foes and stuns them, an ice blast does a nice "frost nova"-style job of holding his foes in place so he can get away, and powerful fireballs help pick enemies off from a distance.

The cavern area served as a good showcase for the mage's abilities, as the goal of the level was to take out a necromancer who's hiding out in the cavern interior. To reach him you'll have to make your way through his undead hordes. Navigating the cavern to get to him was a bit tricky, as it was easy to get turned around after a fight due to the copious amounts of skeletons sent to stop you. But with a little perseverance and a lot of murdering, we got there. Taking out the hoofed evildoer requires some thought because, unlike the more-physical classes in the game, the mage can't barge into mobs, so you'll have to figure out how to deal with the mass of respawning skeletons while murdering their boss.


Staff? Check. Pointy hat? Check. Command of explosive arcane powers? Check.

The visuals in this latest version of Dark Kingdom have made some progress since we last saw the game in motion. The biggest improvement is the frame rate, which is now more consistent and stable, although still rough in places. Detail and special effects have been bumped up, which is especially important to maintain the appearance of the mage--a high-maintenance kind of character with his wavy cape and magic effects. The cavern environment was good and atmospheric, as caves go, thanks to some interesting design and liberal use of water effects. The undead enemies we faced were suitably gaunt and bony and they animated well. The necromancer sported solid amounts of detail and animation. There's still work to be done for sure, especially on the mage's cape, which moved inconsistently.

Based on our latest look at Dark Kingdom, it appears that the game will deliver on what it's setting out to offer: third-person hacking and slashing with some light RPG elements. The gameplay is accessible, the visuals are clean, and the audio is good. While it may not be the flashiest PS3 game we've seen, it has definitely got some appeal, because beating the living (or unliving) crap out of something really never gets old. Look for more on Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom in the coming months. The game is slated to ship this fall alongside the launch of the PlayStation 3.

[woundingchaney]

Die Game Die

[cliffbo]

Die Game Die

?

[Fats]

Die Game Die

Lmao...:crazy2:

[venomv]

After all that we don't get any screen shots with the mage in them........

[Coded-Dude]

http://i.i.com.com/cnet.g2/images/2006/228/reviews/932329_20060816_screen004.jpg
http://i.i.com.com/cnet.g2/images/2006/228/reviews/932329_20060816_screen001.jpg
http://i.i.com.com/cnet.g2/images/2006/228/reviews/932329_20060816_screen002.jpg

[Illmatic]

http://i.i.com.com/cnet.g2/images/2006/228/reviews/932329_20060816_screen003.jpg
http://i.i.com.com/cnet.g2/images/2006/228/reviews/932329_20060816_screen005.jpg

[venomv]

Well....OK. That's a cool looking mage and some seriously nice looking spells.

[Coded-Dude]

yeah a vid woudl be nicer though.........

[Illmatic]

If you have a Gamespot account you can get a new gameplay vid in HD from here: http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/rpg/untoldlegendsdarkkingdom/media.html?sid=6155993


TBH, from that it didn't look too hot, the cape was definitely the highlight for me.

EDIT: I wonder if these 'new' screens are actually old? The mage has a completely different cape in the new video, his cloths are slightly different too...

[yoshaw]

Props for finding it. But I'll pass my frank judgement on the video. Let me sum it up in 3 words,.







boring as hell

PS: No offense to people who like it.

[EvilTaru]

My biggest gripe with the game is level design, it's just FLAT, UNINTERESTING in terms of gameplay, the area is too large, there's no real interactions with the environments. Especially with the mage, you've got spells, USE IT IN CONJUNCTION WITH PHYSICS, pick up debris, smash a crate of weapons and pick them up and have it float around the mage like a protective shield like a bunch of deadly satellites, or hurl them at enemies. Have physics-based spells where you can knock enemies into spikes or columns that break and fall on them, or send them off the edge of the environment like a bridge so they can plummet to their doom. LET THE MAGE HAVE FREE AIM WITH THE SPELLS. Use a spell to knock out a window to let the light in to create columns of light that can immolate some enemies and offer protective sanctuaries from light-sensitive enemies, use a spell to exploit cracks in areas so water can flow that can be used to douse giant magma golems, there are SO MANY gameplay opportunities that are being missed.

Instead of travelling on flat surfaces, have the characters either go uphill or downhill, up spiral staircases, up grand cathedral-like towers, let the player see where he's heading by showing distant landmarks or top/bottom of structures (that you can actually go to) instead of just making the player stare at a flat map, have more unified structures instead of just having walls or nothing at all. Towns or locales are not just flat surfaces with things along the way like houses and the occasional potholes with water in them, it has to be a UNIFIED, ORGANIC design, with the player travelling from the outskirt to the very heart of the level and FEELING like one is travelling to the heart of the level.

In some way they're advancing little by little in graphics and in animations but they still think in this really STUPID 2D hack and slash gauntlet style mentality where they're still designing 2D maps (but things are in 3D now although that has no impact on gameplay whatsoever) when they have to design 3D environments and the fact that folks like Amy Hennig and Richard Lemarchand managed to pull off believable, unified and interesting 3D environments back in the PSONE era shows how conceptually behind some developers like SOE really are. What the game currently lacks the most is AMBITION and CREATIVITY, heck some of the shit I talked about have been done in various ways, I don't get this 2D map with 3D objects shit at all, let's get out of this whole isometric gauntlet age, please.

That said, the game is getting better everytime I see it. ^__^

[Illmatic]

IGN have some multiplayer vids up.

http://media.ps3.ign.com/media/814/814614/vids_1.html

[lilkoy123]

gamevideos has a footage of the third character, the mage. Judging solely on the moves he had, he's now my favorite character...

http://www.gamevideos.com/video/id/5142

[MAdThor]

New input
Character Design
Adam McMahon – Lead Character Artist

I’d like to start by giving you a little background on myself. As the title above describes my name is Adam McMahon and I’m the lead character artist on Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom. My venture in the gaming industry started with Sony working on NCAA Gamebreaker. More sports titles followed including NFL Gameday ’97, Shootout ’98, and MLB ’98 – ’02. I soon made the jump to SOE (then Verant) to follow my passion doing fantasy art working on the Everquest franchise. Five years later, and enter the Playstation 3. “Next-Gen” gaming technology had me chompin’ at the bit. Finally, console technology that allows us to expand and create truly amazing visuals.

Character creation begins in the most basic form of sketches and concepts. It starts with thumbnail silhouettes and gradually morphs into full blown paintings before any in-game assets are actually created. The concept stage is by far, the most important part of character design and is key to developing the look and feel of the game. Just for the three main characters in the game, I have folders upon folders with stacks of concepts in each. Achieving the right look can be long and tedious, though very necessary in a successful product.

Below are some examples of both player and non-player characters that exist within the world of Dark Kingdom.

-Final Mage concept
http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/730/730230/untold-legends-dark-kingdom-20060901020201760.jpg
-Barbarian concept
http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/730/730230/untold-legends-dark-kingdom-20060901020158870.jpg
-Barbarian Chieftain Concept
http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/730/730230/untold-legends-dark-kingdom-20060901020158026.jpg

Once the look of the game has been established, we move onto the modeling phase. This process was a little tricky with the early PS3 hardware. Questions regarding limitations, such as max-polygon budget, and maximum texture size arose early on. Without the ability to run extensive testing due to the early state of the hardware, it required leveraging the team’s experience to make an educated guess on the system’s capabilities. For example, PS2 characters for a game of this type were generally 1,000 to 3,000 polygons. Initial specs indicated we could push much further, though ultimately we wouldn’t know for sure until we tested it ourselves. We had originally estimated that approximately 6,000 to 9,000 polygons for the main characters would be used. However, we realized that through the use of normal maps, we were able to generate characters at roughly 4,000+ poly’s, thus allowing us to display more on-screen in a given scene. The use of normal maps is what really allows us get away with using far fewer polygons while still maintaining the detail of a high-res mesh.

Below are examples of in-game models in various states of completion.

-High res model of the Brute Razor used to create the normal map
http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/730/730230/untold-legends-dark-kingdom-20060901020200120.jpg
-Final in game Razor.
http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/730/730230/untold-legends-dark-kingdom-20060901020202260.jpg
-Scout high res and in game models
http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/730/730230/untold-legends-dark-kingdom-20060901020201198.jpg
-In game Chieftain model
http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/730/730230/untold-legends-dark-kingdom-20060901020200651.jpg

Normal maps are the main ingredient of what makes these games look “next-gen”. There are multiple approaches to creating a normal map of which I’ll discuss in a moment. The first method used a few years ago was the conversion of grayscale height maps. While this still looks pretty good and can work in some cases, overall it lacks the volume and depth you get from today’s methods. Software such as Zbrush is taking the industry by storm, allowing artists to create phenomenal looking models in half the time it would normally take. Another method we used was through high poly projection. Using Maya’s surface sampler, we create a high-res version of the character consisting of 1-2 million polygons. This mesh is sampled from and projected onto the in game low-res mesh we’ve created, giving us a clean and detailed normal map. The results speak volumes for how great this method is. The leg work is done at this point and the color and specular maps are created for the final look, along with any special shader maps needed.

The PS3 also allows us to use larger texture maps.

-Normal map with UV’s used for a piece of the Mage’s heavy armor set
http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/730/730230/untold-legends-dark-kingdom-20060901020202744.jpg
-In game model of the Mage’s heavy armor set using normal maps.
http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/730/730230/untold-legends-dark-kingdom-20060901020159620.jpg

Now to bring these characters to life! At this point our animators take the hollow shells we’ve created and breathe magic into them. The animation team I have simply ROCKS!

As you’ll see in the game, there are some truly amazing and creative moves that no amount of modeling, painting, or technology can take away from. Add to that a little cloth technology, and you have what is turning out to be some fantastic visuals.

I’m very tired and have been rambling on too long now. If you’ve gotten this far then I commend you ? And contrary to popular belief there is no such thing as “pro-pixel leatherization”.

Signing off,

-Udom
Source : BLOG IGN (http://blogs.ign.com/Untold-Legends/2006/09/01/29797/)
For biggers images : http://media.ps3.ign.com/media/814/814614/imgs_1.html

[EvilTaru]

Good job. I'm surprised the poly budget is so low, but then it's SOE we're talking about, how many characters did they manage to fit on screen? I'm glad they're so enthusiastic about their game though. :P

[makeitlookreal]

His comment about the increased memory of the PS3 hardware has been previously debated.

Basically, some of us such as myself think it *may* mean that there has been an upgrade in RAM. Of course I dont' know, but I think it's at least possible and something that is really fun to think about.

Others think it is impossible due to cost reasons and bandwidth issues.

No one really knows. However, the dramatic improvements in this game and others recently have me really excited. It's like someone threw a switch that made the games go from VERY good to GREAT.

By the time these games launch I'm expecting some amazing stuff!

[yoshaw]

Official website has now gone live.

http://xs206.xs.to/xs206/06381/DK-site.jpg
http://xs206.xs.to/xs206/06381/DK-site01.jpg

http://darkkingdom.station.sony.com/

:happy:

[VG Aficionado]

Good thing they changed the official website, because the previous one sucked. Now it looks quite good!

I wonder if they discarded the "Brute" character? I wouldn't mind at all if they did :uhh:

Anyway, this game has come a long way since we first saw it. It may not be a masterpiece, but...

[EvilTaru]

Damn, I REALLY want to get behind this game because they're making progress all the time, but do they have to just have one expression on the character's face?

The character models seemed to have changed again, it seems.

Anyway, thanks. ~_~

[hevymac]

I also hope it's good!!! Allthough I didn't like the prev ones

[EvilTaru]

One thing I dislike about the website though was that when I closed the window, that god forsaken track wouldn't stop playing!!! >_<

:P

[warmachine]

Official Website (http://darkkingdom.station.sony.com/)

With new Media in a veeeeeeery decent quality! -_-

[cliffbo]

new vid:

http://www.gametab.com/news/700205/

[MegaCot]

The gameplay... the trailer... it's so dull, lifeless and uninspired.

[Z]

The gameplay... the trailer... it's so dull, lifeless and uninspired.
welcome to Western RPGs...

[Applefiend]

Thing about Untold Legends is it was the filler RPG on PSP until something better came along.

With Oblivion you got no need for Untold Legends.

You're just glad they're no longer the worse looking game for PS3 launch anymore. Not sure who holds that current title.

[EvilTaru]

new vid:

http://www.gametab.com/news/700205/

I'm amused by the thief's antics at the end, only SOE would think of something like that to put in a trailer.http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v500/EvilTaru/bunny.gif