Stirling Rank: our team has already dedicated a large amount of time improving performance and pushing the bar where possible. However, 1.0 is not the end of development and optimization, we’re actively working on improving it every single day.
At some stage though, it may be worth looking at your hardware. Ready or Not can be pretty demanding.
Stirling Rank: We found inspiration through many avenues, particularly film – but also music and games. The list is extensive, but includes movies that explore the criminal underbelly like “We Own the Night” or “True Detective Season 1”, and especially the visual design and incredible tone of “Too Old To Die Young” (which funnily enough also inspired the names for some of the achievements – if you know you know).
For games, our tactical FPS predecessors were naturally a large inspiration, but since we wanted to make our game a unique entry into the genre, it didn’t stop there. We took inspiration from the dense environmental storytelling in Left 4 Dead and Bioshock as well, which was a critical solution for storytelling in a game with so many avenues of approach in level design.
Sean Gorman: we do indeed have a consultant to help us on this topic. We have a Police Advisor who we speak to regularly, to make sure that the language and terms we use in mission briefings, in equipment descriptions, and many other intricacies across the game are consistent with the examples also found in the real world.
Sean Gorman: Realistically, we reached a point of what 1.0 Ready or Not content complete looked like. Some cut-content is in a sense only cut for a window in time and can be lined up post launch. Often this is decided, because internally, our team wants to make certain that the quality of upcoming content should meet our own level of expectation. If we can't achieve that, it's unfortunately something we must put down, at least for the short term, so that we can make sure that that feature gets the right amount of love and development time needed, for it to see the light of day.
Stirling Rank: Tappy is a cool mod, but it seems to largely only cater to a small subset of the community, who would likely be running other mods anyways to create a more “realistic” feeling within Ready or Not (eg. Gunfighter and Jugs AI), so it begs the question why not just install the mod? I think, as well, if we made a squeeze feature, we’d go the whole nine yards and include a nice animation, shake, and visual effects. Perhaps it’s something for a future title.
Stirling Rank: I’m glad this had such a strong impact. It worked really well particularly because Judge had never said anything outside of his usual lines until then. I definitely want to explore this more, there’s more to tell about Judges backstory and his place in the chain of Los Suenos collapse.
Zack Hamilton: The briefings won’t be too different from how they were previously. On the support system, we do have some ideas that haven’t been announced before that could offer a bit of a ‘higher’ ground view
Sean Gorman: As we move forward with development, we will continue to add new content, new features; as well making improvements to existing systems. We've certainly identified that the less lethal systems could use more fidelity. We're investigating how we might be able to make some improvements to these systems, without compromising what people do enjoy about this feature.
Stirling Rank: it’s still in our plans, but we’re exploring another idea first. We’ll announce it eventually.
Stirling Rank: originally, I wanted to have an SDK released this year, but we just don’t have the time right now. Ideally, this is something that will arrive next year.
Tisa: I see no problem with this, but we'd have to arrange a separate call with the mod community so I can take a look at what features exactly are undocumented and what's available in the current modding kit. Happy to help anyway I can.
Sean Gorman: Zooming out, every space is a piece in a larger puzzle; every space in the level should have a use and a justification for its existence, and this should help facilitate a Design need. When developing a combat space in an interior, we should first ask ourselves: what is the purpose of this space in context of the whole level?
Once you have an understanding of the goal, or the question/problem presented to us (i.e. the vision), then we can start working out; how we - as Designers - can best achieve that goal or come up with solutions.
Second to that, having an understanding of human psychology, as well as reference gathering (real world references) is integral. Reading studies on Urban Planning is particularly insightful for us at the VOID Design team for example. This is because Urban Planning is the study and craft of designing spaces for humans to inhabit, traverse and navigate in urban areas. For us in Level Design, this is particularly important when designing levels that otherwise take place in a modern-day city like Los Suenos.
Thirdly, we start prototyping as soon as possible, in Engine, in-editor. This is a quick and dirty process, where we experiment with level layouts, room layouts, cover layouts, and do this multiple times, with multiple variations; present our work to each other constantly. Once we're remotely happy with one version, we create another, then another. We do this in a group setting, all amongst the other Designers. This allows us to explore different ideas, different solutions, to be wildly creative, and testing our content whilst constantly providing one another feedback to improve the design of the level. This has been a hugely successful process for us throughout the last few levels we've developed, and we're hoping that it allows us to create better and better levels each time.
With regards to "what are your main concerns when designing spaces with CQB in mind?":
Any and every space in Ready or Not, is designed using Thresholds (including Doors, Windows, etc.), as well as Cover and Walls, to name a few components. When designing for a smaller space, we must also consider some fundamentals: spatial complexity (arrangement of space, any spatial strategies, readability etc.), as well as the availability of movement (freedom to traverse or lack of freedom to traverse a space), as well a list of potential player challenges, and interconnectivity (part of a greater whole).
Smaller close-quarter spaces can certainly be the deadliest spaces to engage in Ready or Not, but designed without the above in mind, they can also be very dull. Even working with the first three components, we can create an innumerable amount of variation, some high in complexity, or some low in challenge, or elsewise. Ask yourself when creating any kind of CQB space: What opportunities do I have at each threshold? i.e. What can I see? What can I do (action)? Where can I go? And ask, what am I trying to create? You might be trying to intentionally create a CQB nightmare for the player to solve in a particular sequence, or you might be trying to create a simple square, terminating room for Civilians to hide inside. To go to a previous answer: it all depends on what the space is doing to service the level.
Stirling Rank: we haven’t explored this yet, but it doesn’t mean we won’t do so in the future. Good shout out to those mods.
Stirling Rank: Relapse was originally a “revenge” killing for the player containing Qadamah, instead of allowing him to martyr himself. Ultimately that didn’t make much sense due to the nature of the game and the different ways you could play missions to progress. In fact, many missions had to be reassessed with this in mind.
The original concept for ready or not was a 12-mission story with a team of five officers in a tight narrative. However, that eventually was replaced with what we have now, which I think lends better to the type of game, however having a stricter narrative campaign would have been interesting to explore.
Stirling Rank: 23 Megabytes was supposed to be our tutorial mission back in the early vision of the game, where the player would just go to arrest Michael and never face any danger. The issue was that with the rest of our game being so frantic and combat oriented, this one level would likely never be played after its first run through. The number of goons on the level is very unrealistic, but it offers a fun challenge.
Tisa: I like Hell Comes to the Hills; it's got that nice home invasion feel to it. Small map, well connected, enjoyable gameplay.
Stirling: Florida Man and The Row are great examples of the different experiences modders can achieve that we aren’t necessarily doing ourselves. I also really like Private Airport. However, there are so many great maps! Can’t name them all.
Stirling Rank: one of the biggest hurdles was actually modernizing this game while retaining the difficulty. Here’s the biggest issue: players expect to be able to aim down sight and to sprint nowadays in their FPS games. Earlier entries in the genre created difficulty by having some relatively smart AI coupled with a gunplay experience that promoted slow and steady movement. Modern games are the opposite, favouring player movement over restriction, preferring to keep AI predictable and static. So, we needed to develop a modern feeling hardcore FPS that had some sort of “old school” feel to it.
Our solution was to slow the player right down, providing some light limitations on how accurate they could be when aiming and firing. Then, make sure the AI can outmaneuver you, so the player MUST think about their positioning and item use. This took us years to get right. Years. I know there are plenty of valid qualms with Ready or Not, but I don’t know of any other games that come close to replicating that experience of a close quarters' gunfight (against AI at least) that RoN does, and it’s all down to why we made the decisions we made.
Stirling Rank: Thanks for enjoying our game and the gunplay as well. To your question, older assets were made so long ago they don’t fit our current style as well anymore. Those guys are a nice Easter egg but they’re certainly not representing uniforms we’d want to reuse now.
Stirling Rank: some clipping we are fixing, but a lot we likely won't get to for a while. Many things listed are just limitations of our systems such as alignment in some areas, and is a side effect of years of evolving plans back in the day.
Stirling Rank: I’m still reeling from the original PVP in 2020. It’ll be a while before I get behind a proper RoN-themed PVP, sorry.My question is for Sterling:
WHERE IS PVP!!!
Ok, sorry for shoutingbut the game was advertised as having PvP at full release, and there is still no sign or mention of it.
I know a lot of the player base may not want it, but they don't have to play it. A good PvP could see a lot more players picking up the game.
However, when we release a Modding SDK, creators will be able to use the tools provided to make any sort of mod they’d like, including PVP. Perhaps with your passion you’ll be the one to do it!
Sean Gorman: We're very comfortable continuing development in the PVE space, this is what we love and enjoy, and so too our players. In the past there were attempts to bring PVP to RoN, but it’s not something that has fit together for a number of reasons. Might change in the future, but currently we have a lot of exciting plans for Ready or Not.
Stirling Rank: DLC2 will have some improvements to this to make it feel a lot better, NPCs seeking you out at the end and whatnot. We will see how it goes from there.
Stirling Rank: Thanks. The community of modders is one we will always serve with Ready or Not, and look forward to doing so far into the future. Ideally, we will include some of our tools in the modding SDK that level and game designers would have access to, which includes our data assets, blueprints, etc. whether we give out anything deeper will be answered later as it could have some pretty significant implications. Not opposed to the idea though.
Guest Appearance Mark Ranson: Zonal lighting is a very important way to bring design and art together with the player’s experience. Firstly, with navigation and orientation in such a large map, having different lighting scenarios allows the player to create a map in their head in relationship to the space they are in. Additionally, it creates not only some visual variety within a map that is overwise very similar in context but also increases the challenge for the player in specific points.
Stirling Rank: I don’t know if you will see an official return, but it may be a possibility far down the line. We now have over 20 maps for players to experience in our game so adding multiple modes per map isn’t as easy as it sounds when you need to test and ensure they all work perfectly. It’s easy when we were in early access, but as the game gets older it needs to become more polished – not less. My fear would be adding potentially 20x3 missions will blow out so many other timelines. However, for the future it’s something we will consider, certainly for other projects.
Sean Gorman: We're constantly trying to find ways to improve the game, to make better content. Those two maps are two examples where we felt that there were some rather glaring weaknesses with the fundamental design of said levels. We spent some time in the year prior to release, reevaluating our work and making those improvements. We feel that the newest iteration of Farm and Port, better represents the standard of quality you can expect from VOID. But we're just as excited to make new content to share with our players, to show how we're constantly trying to raise that bar ever higher and higher with each new update.
Stirling Rank: We are exploring options for difficulty so players can have easier or much harder experiences. How that will manifest is currently a big topic of conversation actually. Also yes, you’ve hit the nail on the head. It’s actually a very hard line to walk if you wanna have a fun or exciting game.
Zack Hamilton: Thanks for the shoutout. Blushing over here
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