Hi everyone! This is Zico Liu, programmer on WipEout HD; you all might remember me from the “Beat Zico” trophy. Before I talk about what I’ve been up to on the WipEout HD Fury expansion pack I would just like to let you know that the pack will be available from PlayStation Store on Thursday 23rd July.
The pack will be priced at £7.99 / €9.99 and will provide three new race types – Eliminator, Zone Battle and Detonator, 12 new tracks, 13 new ships, 6 new music tracks, a redesigned menu system, a new campaign to complete as well a host of new trophies to win. Oh and let’s not forget the additional ranks for you to achieve online. We are really excited about the content and hope you enjoy all the new features.
Also, on Tuesday 21st July, we are releasing a free update to the existing game. If you boot up WipEout HD at around 5pm GMT, you will be prompted to download the update. It will add a number of new features and tweaks to menus of the game including a brand new statistics section, new redesigned ship and track select screens and some new community/online features.
Now let’s get back to what I’ve been up to since HD was originally released. I’ve been busy working on the new game modes, mostly Eliminator and Zone Battle but also a bit on Detonator.
Eliminator mode was relatively easy to get in since it was taken from WipEout Pulse but we wanted to make it even better. Someone came up with the idea of having the 180 degree flip, which allows you to flip your ship, fly backwards down the track and fire your weapons at on coming opponents, like the Quake, which I know some people missed being able to do like they could in Pulse.
We also didn’t want people doing all the hard work of reducing an opponent’s shield, to then have someone else steal the kill and you receive nothing. So rather than the straight forward kills system seen in Pulse we have introduced a points system where you are awarded points for completing laps, inflicting damage and getting the kill. The winner is the first player to reach the target score.
Playable as both a single player game as well as online we are really pleased with the end product and hope that players will enjoy the new mode.
Zone Battle, our 8 player version of Zone mode, was a bit more difficult to get right as it went through several iterations and name changes. We started with just a one on one duel mode, which was basically a split screen version of Zone which you played until one person lost their entire shield. The initial idea of the zone bar was to speed up the other player so they go faster which hopefully meant they would crash more often and be destroyed sooner than if they were travelling slower. Unfortunately this idea didn’t really work as we had hoped and we returned to the drawing board. As we wanted the game to be played online with up to 8 players, we had to come up with an idea that didn’t have people sitting around waiting until everyone else had been eliminated, so we introduced the idea of racing towards a target zone which meant the race would end at the same time for everyone.
With this in mind the zone bar was changed to increase your own zones so you can reach the target quicker. To add a bit of variety we wanted some obstacles on the track which is where the zone barrier idea came from. Every time you use your zone bar to boost you leave a zone barrier on the track to try and slow down your opponents. This means that players have to constantly look out for the barriers and try to avoid them or use up their zone bar to shield themselves. I think it turned out very well and hopefully people will enjoy playing it in the Fury expansion pack!
Other stuff that I was working on was the new ship, track and campaign cell selection screens for the new front-end, and also the HUD’s for the new modes.
Finally I hope everyone enjoys this expansion and please don’t hate me too much, it’s not really that hard to Beat Zico….
« Previous 1 2
75 CommentsAdd Yours
51
Posted on 17 July, 2009 at 11:28 pm by karmacoma01
Will buy this the second it´s released! Been playing all the wipeout games since the very first! Amazing job you are doing in the team! Thanks!
52
Posted on 17 July, 2009 at 11:38 pm by adamamosa
wipeout hd is the reason i bought a ps3. the volume of content easily justifies the price. especially when you conider how much we are expected to pay for map packs these days. they could easily have released this as a sequel and charged the same price as the original ( and i would have happily paid full retail price for wipeout hd)
53
Posted on 18 July, 2009 at 12:33 am by Spathis
Tony you guys ever consider text chat for the lobbies of this game? It would be an awesome edition to such an awesome game.
54
Posted on 18 July, 2009 at 1:38 am by ReNeGADe1991
i have a problem!
i want this game, and the DLC. I was about to buy it but Noticed that the US store got it on a Discount. Now I am wondering if we will get the same Discount next week. Because I dont want to spend the 14 pound now. Just for it to go down to say 10 pound next week. So any Idea if this is likely or if I should just wait any way?
55
Posted on 18 July, 2009 at 2:33 am by RevolutionBlues
I’d like to beat Zico. With a shovel.
;o)
56
Posted on 18 July, 2009 at 3:39 am by ManjiNinja
Good timing, i’m off work for that week, so i should get plenty of time to enjoy the fruits of your labour. I’m hoping the menu update will allow for full racebox customisation for single player as well as the multiplayer. Sometimes you can’t find the kind of game you want online, so it’d be nice just to be able to set up an ai match too. As for the trophys, i have yet to get them all, but the Zone Zeus and Beat Zico trophys are 2 of my proudest gaming achievements. Gold trophys should be hard, it means more when you earn them!
57
Posted on 18 July, 2009 at 8:15 am by Nocturnvs
Beat Zico? I feel more like hugging Zico =)
9.99€ is a bargain for this kind of quality content, I don’t care what anyone says. Wipeout HD has constantly been my most played PSN-bought game and for good reason.
Thanks Studio Liverpool for giving us such a great, polished piece of fun =D Here’s hoping we get more of these expansions in the future!
Now to wait an agonizing week… >_<
58
Posted on 18 July, 2009 at 9:07 am by Workshed
@Tony Buckley
Sorry Tony, I meant the stats on the website not the stats in game. I want to be able to gloat in the office
59
Posted on 18 July, 2009 at 3:17 pm by Rolodzeo
This is going to be absolutely awesome. I just can’t wait for this expansion >.<
60
Posted on 18 July, 2009 at 9:42 pm by BugattiEBveyron
Beat Zico was the second to last trophy I got (the last was Bling Brigade, quite naturally) but thanks to Beat Zico and Zone Zeus, getting Transcendence was probably the most rewarding moment of my LIFE
61
Posted on 18 July, 2009 at 11:52 pm by Smegzilla
These pricing conversions are done by a monkey aren’t they?
$9.99
€9.99
£7.99
That makes no sense whatsoever.
62
Posted on 19 July, 2009 at 12:31 pm by Michelasso
I agree with Smegzilla. Why do we always have to be charged a lot MORE in Euro??
9,99 Euro = $14,08 = £8,62
It uses to be Sony standard for many PSN games to pay 4 euro every $5 of content. Which is fair. It’s not for the little money extra. It’s a matter of principle. It’s getting tedious to subsidize American gamers.
63
Posted on 19 July, 2009 at 5:34 pm by Smegzilla
Exactly, Michelasso.
Why do we have to pay more so that the US gamers can get cheaper content?
I’d have thought £7.99 or €9.99 for this was a bargain until I realised that the price in dollars is so much less.
64
Posted on 20 July, 2009 at 8:32 am by Noisepurge
i guess ill be picking this up come thursday
65
Posted on 20 July, 2009 at 8:33 am by Noisepurge
oh yeah and that pricing is still so wrong, but its the sony way to make europeans bend over
66
Posted on 20 July, 2009 at 10:19 am by Vraiages
Ok, you can’t make me a better double gift than this.
Yeah, yeah, 23th july is my birthday’s anniversary…
And it’s my first day of holiday too !
Great, thanks Scee.
67
Posted on 20 July, 2009 at 12:48 pm by reakt
So Zico got the beat Zico trophy! That shouldn’t be possible.
68
Posted on 20 July, 2009 at 1:20 pm by taurus82
Now, on to more pressing matters, how is the Shadow of the Beast and/or Agony remake coming along (I’m assuming Liverpool Studio (formerly Psygnosis) still owns the IP’s)?
69
Posted on 20 July, 2009 at 6:16 pm by donwhann
looks awesome!!!, just a pity my ps3 has YLOD syndrome…..
70
Posted on 20 July, 2009 at 11:00 pm by tgooding01
Wipeout is easily the best franchise I’ve played, Wipeout 3 being the best before HD, how about redoing some of them tracks in a future release?
71
Posted on 21 July, 2009 at 10:33 am by Gulzt
What a great post!! Thank you so much, this is the stuff I like to read about. It’s time to boot up Wipeout again. I look so much forward to these zone battles!!
72
Posted on 21 July, 2009 at 6:39 pm by EncodedFun
Wow, this is the first time i have seen a gamedeveloper pay so much atention to there fan base, with severel big info updates for the fans to read and comment on. Totally great.
But other than that, this DLC looks so F****** great and im gonna get this as soon as it hits PSN.
The only thing i would wish for is the “one button” air break option that the Wipeout Pure have on the PSP, insted of the “two button” (l/R) air break that Wipeout HD have. This would greatly inprove the game if you ask me. (hope you guys implenemt this in a future update)
73
Posted on 26 July, 2009 at 2:29 pm by Bad_Byte
—
Finally I hope everyone enjoys this expansion and please don’t hate me too much, it’s not really that hard to Beat Zico….
—
The thing that annoyed me the most with Zico’s time was the fact that there was no ghost to race against. Many times I could have sworn the time was picked by a random number generator as there is no way to tell if the time was doable (read: give us Zico’s ghost to race against).
74
Posted on 26 July, 2009 at 3:46 pm by CheikhOmar
hi you can add a mod team could exchange items in race?
75
Posted on 29 July, 2009 at 12:27 am by BuLLet_87
lol … That Trophy is sooo easy!
« Previous 1 2
We close the comments for posts after 30 days. If you would still like to comment on this post, please use our contact form.