Defiance Developer Diary: What is a Shooter MMO?

[Almost Tactf]

A new video we just released about Defiance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B82S0BbLvps

[Deluded]

So basically... a 3rd person MMO Borderland. I do hope you can change the POV ingame.

I'm ambivalent. I'll have to see how you guys pull it off first.

[Almost Tactf]

Yes and no, I mean maybe weapon drops like borderlands but that's about where it stops and we keep going lol

[Deluded]

No, I understand that.

I'm just saying, the entire feel of the game is straight out from Borderland, large claw lobster and all.

AFAIK, Borderland is quite unique in the genre in that it's a shooper/RPG and other copycat games that came after it aren't up to snuff. My point is, if you intend to do a Borderland clone, well, I'll have to see how you guys do it.

Soooo, given that you've played Borderland, what are you thoughts about it?

[Almost Tactf]

I like borderlands for the weapons, I hate it for the gameplay. They don't do pixel perfect shooting and they rely on dice rolls. Aside from that part I think the weapon drop mechanic they've come up with is pretty good. I played through Borderlands an easy 6-7 times. We're not intending to do a Borderlands clone, do we like Borderlands of course, but we've been called a ton of things, Borderlands, Halo, Mass Effect...all games which I'm very honored to be compared to. On two different events we had 2 different people compare our game to Borderlands and Mass Effect. This is what they had to say, "Huh, this is like Borderlands, but way better." and "This is kind of like Mass Effect, but a hell of a lot more fun." Going back to Borderlands, they big marketing push they are doing is the "A gazillion more guns" which is cool they have such a powerful system to generate them all. But with the millions of guns I never found in the first one, will I notice a gazillion new ones? Prolly not. We not only have a ton of guns but we let you modify them, like the new assault rifle ur rocking but wish it had a scope? Does it have a mod slot? If so then no problem, mod away and make the weapon your own. I know we'll get compared to Borderlands and I'm totally fine with it, it's an amazing game. But we do so much more than it could ever dream of and I feel it's what'll set Defiance apart, I mean...can you take down Crawermax with 40 other people? I didn't think so.

[SlayVus]

Now that system I like.

Whats the point of having gazillion guns if you can't tear down the ones you do not use for some part of that gun for use on another. Like say you want the special barrel or receiver that lets you shoot two or three rounds at once, but your current gun does more damage. Let me try and take the barrel off to put on a new weapon.