Greetings Community!
We would like to take the time and give you a global update on the multiplayer part of Crysis. Since last years' Games Convention 2006 in Leipzig many things have been changed. Lots of content has been updated, the game play style of the remaining game modes has been modified and quite a few questions from the community are still left to be answered.
This note should give you a solid overview about the current status of our multiplayer and might even prepare you for the upcoming Crysis Beta.
The Expert's Club
Crytek has set up an "Expert's Club" to get the most possible feedback about Crysis multiplayer without having the necessity to start a beta. Over 20 hardcore and pro-gamers have been invited to Crytek's office in Frankfurt once a week over a few months to play-test our multiplayer modes. Their direct feedback and the discussions with the developers after each match gave Crytek and EA an impression what aspects of the multiplayer part needed to be improved and adjusted.
Thanks to the guys from Qantm Institute in Munich, 360.eSports and all the other gamers that participated we were able to make a significant progress and deliver something very unique to the gaming community.
PowerStruggle
This game mode is all about team play and tactics. Capture factories and buildings to gain prestige points which can be spent on weaponry and vehicles. Fight together with your team mates on the server for the ultimate glory and victory which can be accomplished by destroying the enemy headquarter with endgame high-tech weaponry like tactical nukes or Alien technology.
To access these endgame weapons you need to have the generator of the research facility loaded at 100% which can be achieved by capturing and holding several Alien crash sites.
PowerStruggle, our main multiplayer mode, has experienced the most dramatic changes since the Games Convention 2006 and the Community Summit in Spring 2007. Thanks to all the feedback from the community we have reworked the very complex mode and tried to make it as accessible as possible without removing the tactical depth.
To give you a small overview here are the most important changes:
- Captured Alien Crash sites automatically transfer energy to the captured Research Facility.
- Energy only charges when the Research Facility and at least one Alien Crash site is captured by one team.
- Overall two stages of charging the reactor are available. At 50% you have basic Alien technology available and at 100% you have the endgame technology available for your team.
- The enemy HQ can be destroyed by TAC Gun, TAC Tank or Singularity Tank only.
- Defensive Turrets do attack enemy infantry and vehicles but do not destroy shells of endgame weaponry anymore.
- HUD has been completely re-designed for a much better overview.
- Overall economy has been modified and improved to guarantee a constant game flow.
- Camouflage Nanosuit mode has been replaced with the Alien cloak mode.
Instant Action
This game mode can be compared to classic death match in general. Due to the Nanosuit being available in multiplayer as well the player will experience a whole new variety of this mode. It is more dramatic, intense and includes a lot more action.
Actually Instant Action has not changed very much. The pace and the variety of how to play this mode are still granted by the Nanosuit functionality. Enough weaponry, attachments and equipment placed throughout the maps encourage players to experience different tactics. Small, medium and large map sizes allow multiplayer fun for each team size.
Team Action
After having the Expert's Club and many internal sessions with TA we felt that this game mode is not as challenging as we wanted it to be. With the major focus on PowerStruggle we decided to better leave out Team Action since it could not compete in quality anymore. This may be disappointing for some of you, but we can ensure that with PowerStruggle and Instant Action we deliver two high quality multiplayer modes that support both small player numbers and huge battles.
DX9 vs. DX10 - The endless question
To shed some light into one of the most discussed topics regarding Crysis multiplayer I would like to explain you the differences between Crysis MP DX9 and DX10.
As for the DX9 version we won't have physics and day and night cycle in-game. That means you won't be able to shoot down trees and/or alter any other objects than vehicles on the map. Additionally the time of day setting doesn't change dynamically. This is caused due to the tremendous server load such physics might cause on crowded gaming servers. Still you will be able to experience maps with different time of day settings since the maps can be altered in the Sandbox2 Editor.
Rather than providing the community partially working features we limit this for the DX10 version only. Due to the strong hardware available with DX10, server load is less and performance is increased. This ensures the pure physics and day and night cycle experience without any limitation.
Gamers with a DX10 card are able to play on DX9 servers, but with the limitation of the respective server. Vice versa it is not possible for gamers with DX9 cards to play on DX10 servers due to the limited features.
Conclusion
Features come and go - that's the usual development of a game. With the cut of Team Action we can fully focus on two very strong and competitive game modes. We hope this note provides a good overview and prepares for the upcoming Crysis beta everyone is looking forward to!
