shinobi602 said:

- Been in development for four years
- Team has placed a big focus on the NPCs’ behavior and personalities
- You’ll be involved with other events when not on a main mission
- Bios flash for a few moments as you pass NPCs
- Examples: “refuses to cycle”, “trolls religious forums”
- Hack into phones, scroll through text messages and tap into conversations, with relevant locations relating to what was discussed marked on the map for later inspection
- Game doesn’t have “a bunch of minions creating personalities one after another”
- NPCs themselves are the product of another system.
- “Every backstory, every look – it’s based on a database. Some of the population will dynamically end up in certain scenarios based upon their personalities, but you’ll never see a mugging, for example, happen in the same way twice.”
- Won’t be bombarded with side-content
- Another system controls how much of it is doled out, depending on how often you participate in it
- The game’s main narrative arc remains under wraps, but there are hints that player interaction in side-missions will draw parallels with the way that Aiden Pearce personally becomes more obsessed and drawn into the actions of Chicago’s population
- Two types of hacking abilities: small-scale actions and larger-scale actions
- Small-scale: scanning passers-by, disabling a nearby car’s security system, etc.
- Larger-scale: access the city-wide Central Operating System (CTOS)
- Access CTOS district-by-district by storming local datacentres
- With CTOS access, Pearce can use the city’s surveillance technology to identify new side-missions and follow-up on potential crimes
- Side-content isn’t always about crimes
- One sequence has you gaining access to a local W-iFi hub and peering into someone’s home
- Watch Dogs will also include opportunities for you to interact with other human players in your single-player game
- “Say you’re playing alone, free-roaming. There’s a bunch of activities you can activate. Sometimes – and you won’t know when – the objective that you have is related to what someone else is doing at the same time. When that happens we merge your reality with the other person’s, and you’ll be able to see them.”
- Ex: spy on another hacker; it’s a real player carrying out an objective within their own game who had unknowingly become part of your city
- Sometimes you will be told if another player will be watching you during these objectives, sometimes you won’t
- Multiplayer mode planned
- Expected to take 80 hours to complete everything in the game
- Access a smartphone full of apps to activate contracts, drop glyphs for friends to find, or look up a tune playing on a nearby radio
- Version of iTunes lets you buy new apps and games with in-game money
- No micro-transactions
- AR shooter mini-game sees nearby NPCs attacked by purple Metroid-esque aliens, with high scores recorded on global leaderboards
- A number of ideas were cut, team is saving the list for the future

http://gamingeverything.com/47415/latest-watch-dogs-details/

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nelsonroyale said:

Good job touting the PS4 version and showing on PC...

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Eurogamer said:

"There's a bunch of activities you can activate. Sometimes - and you won't know when - the objective that you have is related to what someone else is doing at the same time. When that happens we merge your reality with the other person's, and you'll be able to see them."
"Then we tell them it really was other players. And they're like 'what?!'"
Jonathan Morin

Fire a gun near any NPC and they'll quickly dial 911, forcing you to either quickly hack their phone and intercept the call or face the cops.
Morin gave the example of a mission where you had to spy on another hacker - but that person was a real player carrying out an objective within their own game who had unknowingly become part of your city. Sometimes you will be told if another player will be watching you during these objectives. Sometimes you won't.

"In playtests right now, in the scenarios where we don't tell players [they're interacting with another human-controlled character], most say 'oh this is really cool, it feels like there really are other hackers out there. Then we tell them it really was other players. And they're like 'what?!' We can have fun with your perceptions."

The feature is one of the more recent additions to the game and separate from the game's full-blown multiplayer mode (expect to hear more about that in the coming months).

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One of our hopes is that the best moments players will have in the game won't be scripted events

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Four and a half years ago, Ubisoft gave a simple, but daunting, mandate to its Montreal studio: make a new IP. And so, the team began work on "Nexus," the codename for what's now known as Watch Dogs.

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Starting with an open world design means that Watch Dogs shares many design cues from other games, namely Grand Theft Auto. And Guay admits that the team looks towards competing games for ideas. "It's true that there's games that have defined certain rules in open world games, and we're looking at all of them and we're influenced by all of them," he said. However, it wasn't long until Montreal discovered the idea that would differentiate Watch Dogs.

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Even gaming technology has changed quite drastically in the intervening years since Watch Dogs' inception. Although Watch Dogs will launch on PS4, the central DNA of the game is still rooted in the current gen. "We wanted to support those platforms, because we wanted those gamers to play Watch Dogs," Guay said, adding "we're not going to ignore the 30 million people that have current-gen systems."

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With its lengthy development time, Watch Dogs spent most of its production within current-gen pipeline. "We guesstimated that there would possibly be new hardware coming out," Guay admitted, which explains why the PC and PS4 versions of the game will undoubtedly run better than the current-gen versions--and why PS3 and Xbox 360 gamers won't necessarily miss out on the core gaming experience.

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Cyberia said:

http://www.shacknews.com/article/79136/the-four-year-journey-of-watch-dogs

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CassidyIzABeast said:

Next gen graphics, current gen gameplay.

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Dominic Guay, Senior Producer at Ubisoft Montreal, insisted that the game can be played "completely offline if you want."

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Majanew said:

Just watched the 6 mins continuous gameplay. I hope that's the Xbox 360 version because that was ugly for next-gen.

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CassidyIzABeast said:

Next gen graphics, current gen gameplay.

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CassidyIzABeast said:

Next gen graphics, current gen gameplay.

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CassidyIzABeast said:

Next gen graphics, current gen gameplay.

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SniperHunter said:

disappointing to hear

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shinobi602 said:

Not sure what you expected to be honest. This should've been expected given it's a cross generational release. They can't just make the same game on both a PS4 and PS3 and have the PS4 version be drastically different.

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SniperHunter said:

yea true, I thought they would end up cancelling the PS360 versions...

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Although Watch Dogs will launch on PS4, the central DNA of the game is still rooted in the current gen. "We wanted to support those platforms, because we wanted those gamers to play Watch Dogs," Guay said, adding "we're not going to ignore the 30 million people that have current-gen systems."

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SniperHunter said:

yea true, I thought they would end up cancelling the PS360 versions...

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