New irish interview with Killzone 3 game director and producer

mystic86

Earlier today, Wednesday 9th March, A live chat was held with Mathijs
de Jonge, Guerilla Games game director for Killzone 3 and Aryeh Loeb,
producer at Guerilla Games.

There were 5 fans that asked the questions - well at least the ones
that got answered.

I have grouped the Questions and answers according to the users who
submitted them.
Because it was a live chat the questions and answers given were all
over the place, so I thought this way of presenting it would be
better. Remember these questions and answers are totally
non-sequential and out of order of the way they occurred in the
session.

First, questions asked by me......

Me: when will the steel rain dlc release date be announced?
Mathijs de Jonge: Pretty soon, but the exact date will be announced
within 2 weeks


.....several questions were asked about multiplayer by several people, to which
Aryeh Loeb replied: Mathijs does not work on the MP part of the game.
We are always
discussing the MP game internally though. We look into all the
feedback, mainly through Killzone.com, so check that out for the
discussion. We need to sort out a couple of other things first......

Me: when you hear people giving out about different aspects of the
multiplayer, please note we just want it to be better, we are not
saying its not already really good. i love killzone 3. but you know,
there is a recession and we did part with our few bucks @Mathijs
and @Aryeh - will you please please view this thread, just the first
post even, and pass this on to whoever in your company that needs to
see it - http://community.killzone.com/t5/Killzone-3-PS3/Bring-Back-These-25-Features-From-Killzone-2/td-p/739829


Mathijis: i'm worried that if I click that link it will kick me out of
this chat window, can you list your top 3?


Me: surely you can copy and paste the link after the chat is finished
anyway i guess my top 3 would be 1)custom game option!! 2) spawn
genades/spawn on leader 3) career modes rebalancing - when each career
mode is fully unlocked they are very uneven.


Mathijis: 1) will be patched! 2) it will mess up the game for lots of
people, so we'd rather not do this 3) we're always looking at
reballancing, but I can't say what specifically yet


Me: thanks for reply, pity about number 2 cause its necessary to
prevent spawn traps (which are happening!)



Next, questions submitted by user called Adam;


Adam: will there be a patch to solve the problew where the
teams do not have equal sides? ive ended up on more than one game
where im the only person on a team against a full team.

Aryeh Loeb: yes we are working on improving Matchmaking


......after some more multiplayer questions we got this from Aryeh Loeb:

We can't answer most of the MP specific questions today. But I'm sure
you have questions about Killzone 3 in general and the Campaign.........


Adam: why does the helghan gun that makes people explode not work
like in the cutscenes? id rather have them latched with the green
energy till they pop than just shoot it.

Mathijis: well spotted. The Helghast have various prototypes of that
gun which is also the reason why the version the player can pickup is
still quite unstable

Adam: i know that im just wondering if there is a method to your
madness in choosing those as the default controls? oh and trust me i
cant stand call of duty, killzone has always been a better game from
start to finish. you guys care about the campaign, activision dont
care about call of duty's campaign


Mathijis: hehe funny question, actually some other very well known
FPS's (which I can't mention here) have the same control layout as we
do, hence the Standard.
Also what our competition does doesn't mean it makes it that
automatically Standard for the world
sorry I have to be a bit cryptic with naming games here

Adam: i love seeing you guys come out with killzone, because it
just breaks the generic FPS barrier and promise me something, keep
it ps3 exclusive. dont sell out to microsoft. metal gear solid is now
gone from our ps3 hearts, we dont want to loose killzone lol


Aryeh: We are owned by Sony, and I can't imagine Sony selling itself
to MS. So don't worry!



Next, questions submitted by user called Kevin;

Kevin: Mathijs, just a question about Natko. How come he
was completely written out of the story, but you play with him when
you play co-op?

And Lugger was mentioned in Killzone Liberations, but in Killzone 2
and 3 she just vanishes?


Mathijs de Jonge:
Well we wanted to focus more on making Rico a good buddy rather than
focusing on 2 at the same time. Also I wasn't the biggest fan of
Natko's looks
Regarding Luger, she's definitely an interesting character, but for
KZ2 and KZ3 we wanted to look at new characters as well rather than
sticking with the old cast


Kevin: Aryeh, on killzone.com there is a post about the latest
patch, when can we expect to see it?

Aryeh: Kevin, when we know we'll let you guys know. We're not holding
anything back just to annoy you. We just don't want to misinform. So
we'll let you know when we have a date.

Kevin: also with regard to Killzone 1 & 2, what's the time-gap
between them? Rico barely ages at all but Yan ages quite a bit?

Mathijis: the gap is about 2 years, Rico has definitely gained some weight
user Daniel: hes has been eating helgans for breakfast!
Aryeh Loeb: lol

user Kevin: the Helghast weapons generally start with "StA", does that
stand for Stahl Arms?

Mathijis: StA stands for Stahl Arms, which has been around for a while
but was only first mentioned in Killzone 2


user Kevin: are there any plans for campaign DLC? I would love another
one of those sneaking missions like in the Helghan jungle. And
although it was mentioned that you'd only talk about the story and
campaign, is there any chance of online DLC in zero gravity
conditions?

Aryeh: we don't have any plans for campaign DLC at the moment. And
unfortunately we can't comment on DLC plans after Steel Rain


Kevin: Mathijs & Aryeh, what was your proudest moment in working
for and developing Killzone3?

Mathijis: lots of proud moments actually, each time a new mechanic is
'born' it feels great to see how plays/looks after first writing it
down on paper. For example the BrutalMelee was awesome to work on


Aryeh: proudest moment...I like the end of the process where
everything comes together. The game leaps forward in terms of looks
performance etc, it was amazing to see


user Kevin: Mathijs & Aryeh, how difficult was it to implement 3D and
PlayStation Move?
And also, why is there no function to play music on the HDD while
playing online?


Mathijis: it was quite easy to build in basic support for 3D and Move,
but..... getting it right was a lot of work

Mathijis: it's like with everything we do here at Guerrilla, if we do
something, we want to do it well, not half baked


user Kevin: Is there any chance of fan merchandise being released on a
wider scale? I'd love to get some Helghast propaganda posters (Which I
noticed a lack of in Killzone 3) and other merchandise! The Helghast
edition is awesome, but it leaves me wanting more and more Killzone
merchandise!


Aryeh: Check out Killzone.com for more on that in the near future!




Next, questions submitted by user Daniel;


Daniel: question regarding the campaign and trophies - I loved
killzone 2 - put almost 200 hours into it, at least 60 of these were
on single player, I was no were near the platinum, however I was alble
to platinum killzone 3 in 4 days, did you as a team releaise that the
trophies in killzone 2 were "too hard" or were you just trying to make
the game easier


Mathijs: Haha, good question! Well we got information on how many
people ever got the platinum trophy and that weren't too many. So for
Killzone 3 we wanted to have a more evenly distribution of trophies,
and easier to get platinum
Achieving that in just 4 days is pretty good btw!


Daniel: another question regarding campaign. I was kinda
disapointed with the final level, I was looking forward to a boss
fight. Can I ask why didnt this happen?


Mathijs: you sure can, the whole space station mission and space
flight section were designed to feel as intense as an end boss
mission, rather than facing 1 guy and shooting lots of bullets in him


Daniel: tell me whats next for guerilla? Cleary some time off lol
but will it be killzone 4 or a brand new ip? Personally I would love
to see something new, you guys are artists!


Mathijis: We've just moved into our new office here in Amsterdam. And
since a couple of weeks started up 2 new projects. That's all I can
say for now!


Daniel: as developers, do you enjoy gaming in "downtime" or do
you just turn all electronics off on days off lol, do you have any
platinums? Killzone 3 was platinum number 10 for me

Mathijis: an evening or weekend without electronics is great indeed
but I can't stay away from games for too long

Aryeh: yes! love to game. At work, at home, on my bike, I don't care!
I have 1 Platinum trophy, for Infamous. I have a number of games close
to completion. Star 12 now

Aryeh: Oh noes, I lied: 2 Plats, Assassins Creed 2 as well.


Daniel: mathijs on the subject of brutal melee, was there any
that got "removed" from the final cut for being "too graphic" or was
it a case of the blooder the better?

Mathijis: yeah at some point it got a little too bloody, so we toned
down the fountain of red a bit


Daniel: aryel - is there any easter eggs in the game?

Aryeh: sure but if I told you they wouldn't be easter eggs, now would
they?! But you can find baby dolls in each level and beer crates can
be found as well..



Finally, Questions submitted by user James;

James: Not wanting to pry but would one of the projects (mentioned
above - new ones started since they moved premises) be for the NGP?

Mathijis: nope, that project is done by Sony Cambridge


Aryeh: No more prying people! We can't answer those questions :P


James: Mathijs and Aryeh. Which games coming out this year are
you looking forward to the most. For me, it'd be Mass Effect 3,
Uncharted 3 and Gears of War 3 (console agnostic :P)


Mathijis: great games on your list, my most anticipated title has to
be The Last Guardian

Aryeh: Uncharted for sure, but secretly I am waiting for Guild Wars 2
the most. I hope it gets released in 2011. Infamous 2 as well

mystic86

wow, no replys or anything... there is some good stuff in there! and it took me nearly 2 hours to put together.

Boddah101

good post. you must have alota time to kill for that to take 2 hrs

mystic86

yup, this and playing kz3 with some useless fecker online takes up all my time