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Splatoon: new info from Famitsu magazine (Hero Mode, multiplayer and more)

ASIS

Member

No bots, no modes, no relationship between single and multiplayer and...

...No communication (and the way it's worded in the OP heavily implies no communication with random team mates but I am not going to pass final judgement on that).

Actually reading the OP again the info is very hard to fully understand.
 

Exile20

Member
No bots, no modes, no relationship between single and multiplayer and...

...No communication (and the way it's worded in the OP heavily implies no communication with random team mates but I am not going to pass final judgement on that).

Actually reading the OP again the info is very hard to fully understand.

No clue why no bots, could be the nature of the game, Bots might be hard to implement.

They said they wanted to concentrate players since the Wii U playerbase is so low. Look at COD, so many unused modes.

Not sure what you mean by relationship between single and multi

Well they said no communication with randoms. Friends chat is still up in the air.
 
Going through the scans now for any interesting information.

-The interview is with producer Hisashi Nogami, who is known as the director of every Animal Crossing up to City Folk, and directors Yusuke Amano, who also directed NSMB2, and Tsubasa Sakaguchi, who was a character designer on Twilight Princess and art director on Nintendo Land.
-The Inkling city (where the plaza is) is known as 'Highcolor/Haikara City' in Japanese.
-The concept of two teams of four shooting ink in a turf battle has been there since the original prototype, even though the characters where tofu-like blocks at the time.
-They experimented with other team sizes, but found with more than four players felt like they had little effect on battles, and with less than four that they had too much responsibility.
-Killing/attacking opponents online to prevent them from painting ink is just one strategy to win. You get no points or advantage directly from doing so.
-Hero mode uses basically the same controls as online matches, so anyone with difficulty in the can use the hero mode to practice.
-Ideally, you'll be matched with players of a similar rank to you (based off of experience points earned in matches). If not enough players, they'll put you with people further away from your rank. If there's only 8 players, you'll be matched together.
-While online is focused on just painting the ground, hero mode focuses on using the ink to move forward.
-Amano says he wants you to be able to look at the map on the GamePad and see where needs to be worked on for your team.
-No way to directly communicate with people you've been randomly matched with. They will appear post-match in your Plaza, where you can check out their gear, weapons, and comment.
-They picked squids because they were the best at representing the gameplay present in the prototype.
-Music for stages is random. Possible that I'm misunderstanding, but each player will have a different song while playing.
-Music is designed to be the sort that would be popular with the young Inklings involved with the turf battles.
-Rather than making some huge number of stages, they want to create stages that feel different when you use different weapon combinations.
-You don't earn money for gear in single player for balance reasons. Someone could grind money in hero mode and have their first online match with high level gear.
-In the final stages of development now.
-Aiming for, more or less, a simultaneous worldwide release.
-They plan on supporting the title post-release.

EDIT: I think I am done
 

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
Going through the scans now for any interesting information. Will update this post until I'm done.

-The Inkling city (where the plaza is) is known as 'Highcolor/Haikara City' in Japanese.
-The concept of two teams of four shooting ink in a turf battle has been there since the original prototype, even though the characters where tofu-like blocks at the time.
-They experimented with other team sizes, but found with more than four players felt like they had little effect on battles, and with less than four that they had too much responsibility.
-

Oh, great! I was waiting for this. F5, F5, F5 ....
 
Not having some way to chat with your team is pretty lame.

Yeah, this game seems to require a lot of teamwork so its kind of strange that they wouldn't even give you the option to opt in to voice chat, even at the bare minimum of just with your own friends.
 

Vena

Member
-No way to directly communicate with people you've been randomly matched with. They will appear post-match in your Plaza, where you can check out their gear, weapons, and comment.

Okay, this makes it sound better since you should (better) be able to chat with friends.
 

ASIS

Member
No clue why no bots, could be the nature of the game, Bots might be hard to implement.

They said they wanted to concentrate players since the Wii U playerbase is so low. Look at COD, so many unused modes.

Not sure what you mean by relationship between single and multi

Well they said no communication with randoms. Friends chat is still up in the air.

Honestly the more I read the OP the more confused I get. I'll get back to you when I understand the points more clearly. At this point I'm not even sure if my critique is factually correct.
 

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
-They experimented with other team sizes, but found with more than four players felt like they had little effect on battles, and with less than four that they had too much responsibility.

This interesting as it explains why they decided to keep just this mode.

-Killing/attacking opponents online to prevent them from painting ink is just one strategy to win. You get no points or advantage directly from doing so.

The point I was trying to make earlier. To try to flank an enemy with more teammates seems to be wasted resources.

-No way to directly communicate with people you've been randomly matched with. They will appear post-match in your Plaza, where you can check out their gear, weapons, and comment.

Ok, now this is very clearly defined and it's only about the random encounters and makes sense. Let's see if there is something about voice chats with friends.

-They plan on supporting the title post-release.

Good, I hope this means also additional MP maps, not only new clothes and items.
 
My first match in Splatoon with voice-chat:

"Ready everone?"

"Qui és?"

"Hvar er stökk hnappinn?"

"닥쳐!"

Exactly, a worldwide chat wouldn't be wise with everyone speaking a different language. Although I'm hoping chat with friends is available I'm not going to bet on it
 

John Harker

Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
I don't have numbers but I'm pretty sure for a fact that John Harker said once over a year or so ago that no Wii U third party game (not even ZombiU) had passed 500k LTD, which is a number that almost every Nintendo first party release thus far has managed to pass. Splinter Cell Blacklist is a game that had an even worse performance, probably the worst for a big budget third party port, and did abysmally, and supposedly that game has a relatively active online as well.

It's not really that far-fetched to assume that Splatoon's player base is going to be well-dedicated due to Nintendo's online games generally being relatively populated for long periods of time. Before Wi-Fi shut down I could still find players who would play Brawl out of all games and even though yes, that game did sell millions upon millions, it's no secret to anyone how absolutely atrocious that game's online was. Splatoon shouldn't have much trouble doing around 300-400k worldwide and continue being active in spite of that. Many tourney organizers for the Smash community for one thing have been open about how popular the game is with the scene and how a bunch of people discussed organizing Splatoon tourneys.

I know people like to assume that online gaming is some sort of bubble but seriously, finding 8 players online is not the big deal people like to make it out to be.

My friend, if you're referring to retail sales in the US, you're still exaggerating it... it's less 'every Nintendo first party game' and more like 'a small few Nintendo first party games even managed...'

you're over inflating wii u sell thru
 

entremet

Member
Are you being sarcastic?

Swapnote was used by pedos.

Considering the SwapNote situation, they're not entirely in the wrong.

Bummed out with No Voice Chat, but not a deal breaker for me. Understandable for those who feel it is, tho. They really should include SOME sort of voice chat. In TF2 I barely use it (on PC), but some times when people are telling stories or making jokes it adds a lot to the fun.

A 3D Platformer included in the game sounds way more interesting than all the cons for me, imo.

Did not know. If that's the case I can't see in game voice chat ever on an Nintendo console.

I was referring to Friend Codes actually.
 

phanphare

Banned
My friend, if you're referring to retail sales in the US, you're still exaggerating it... it's less 'every Nintendo first party game' and more like 'a small few Nintendo first party games even managed...'

you're over inflating wii u sell thru

that post was referring to worldwide sales
 

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
Alright, I think I'm finished with all the interesting parts.

Thanks a lot for the effort.

What was the part about no bots? Is there any mention if online is just random matching or you can play with friends? What about the voice chat or messages with friends?
 
Going through the scans now for any interesting information.

-The interview is with producer Hisashi Nogami, who is known as the director of every Animal Crossing up to City Folk, and directors Yusuke Amano, who also directed NSMB2, and Tsubasa Sakaguchi, who was a character designer on Twilight Princess and art director on Nintendo Land.
-The Inkling city (where the plaza is) is known as 'Highcolor/Haikara City' in Japanese.
-The concept of two teams of four shooting ink in a turf battle has been there since the original prototype, even though the characters where tofu-like blocks at the time.
-They experimented with other team sizes, but found with more than four players felt like they had little effect on battles, and with less than four that they had too much responsibility.
-Killing/attacking opponents online to prevent them from painting ink is just one strategy to win. You get no points or advantage directly from doing so.
-Hero mode uses basically the same controls as online matches, so anyone with difficulty in the can use the hero mode to practice.
-Ideally, you'll be matched with players of a similar rank to you (based off of experience points earned in matches). If not enough players, they'll put you with people further away from your rank. If there's only 8 players, you'll be matched together.
-While online is focused on just painting the ground, hero mode focuses on using the ink to move forward.
-Amano says he wants you to be able to look at the map on the GamePad and see where needs to be worked on for your team.
-No way to directly communicate with people you've been randomly matched with. They will appear post-match in your Plaza, where you can check out their gear, weapons, and comment.
-They picked squids because they were the best at representing the gameplay present in the prototype.
-Music for stages is random. Possible that I'm misunderstanding, but each player will have a different song while playing.
-Music is designed to be the sort that would be popular with the young Inklings involved with the turf battles.
-Rather than making some huge number of stages, they want to create stages that feel different when you use different weapon combinations.
-You don't earn money for gear in single player for balance reasons. Someone could grind money in hero mode and have their first online match with high level gear.
-In the final stages of development now.
-Aiming for, more or less, a simultaneous worldwide release.
-They plan on supporting the title post-release.

EDIT: I think I am done

So. They don't say if friends will be able to chat or not?

Also strange. Comparing your translation to the OP.
No mention about the lack of CPU players / bots?
 

Mit-

Member
Similar to Smash 4 and it's 2v2 online, this should allow for four players locally to take on another team online. This is definitely not going to have that (mostly because of the god blessed gamepad) and I'm not sure I'll buy it because of that.

Sitting down with a friend and whooping ass online on a team is great fun in Smash (not to mention, 2 local players vs another 2 local players has far less input lag). A 4 player local Splatoon team would be an absurd amount of fun. However it's designed for everyone being able to see the map and teleport to one another and I doubt they'll design around that.

Laaaaaame.
 

shaki123

Member
So the WiiU has a built in camera and mic which they don't use for their own games except MK8 and the superawesome (lol) WiiU Chat. Amazing stuff really. I am a huuuge Nintendo fan but this is simply stupid behaviour if true. No wonder non-Nintendo fans think Nintendo is childish. All these restrictions are off putting to new players. Some examples;

- Where are the Themes (the OS with the floating whatevers is so unattractive)
- No way to message my buddies except via Miiverse in a very user-unfriendly way. I cannot believe somebody approved this idea. Why can't I message my friends more easily. And what the hell is the use of the Friend List if only 1 game (SSB) supports joining a lobby from it.
 
Thanks a lot for the effort.

What was the part about no bots? Is there any mention if online is just random matching or you can play with friends? What about the voice chat or messages with friends?

Yeah, that's there, but it's basically the same as the OP. No CPU bots in online.

Nothing about friends online or communicating with friends, though.
 

NotLiquid

Member
Thanks for the translation, StreetsAhead. Clarifies a lot of stuff.

My friend, if you're referring to retail sales in the US, you're still exaggerating it... it's less 'every Nintendo first party game' and more like 'a small few Nintendo first party games even managed...'

you're over inflating wii u sell thru

As said in one of the posts above, I was referring strictly worldwide sales and how the worldwide player base will eventually relate to Splatoon's online community. The main point was that it doesn't even need to reach that much more than a 300k quota in order to have a base reliable to sustain it (i.e at least more than 8 players online world wide).

Pretty surprised to know Pikmin 3 is one of the games that didn't cross 500k. Kind of tragic.
 
How hard is it for the game to have in voice chat? I could understand it for Wii but why doesn't Wii U use it for this game?
 
My thoughts of the missing in-game communication and map-signals from the other thread:

On second thought and having the gameplay in mind, there is actually no need for a beacon or "come here" signal. There is already a clear "beacon" aka goal visible: The paint on the stage and on the map. If you see a free area or a colored area of your opponent, then you should properly go there. If you notice a place losing your color, you should properly check it out and defend it You also can see, if your teammates are on the way to the area, so you can plan in helping them. All the game needs, is a "Assist me" / "Help me" / "Follow me"-Button and there is no need for more in-game communication in regard of the gameplay. I still hope there is post-game communication in a lobby.
There's no valid excuse for not having chat among friends, security reasons far less, since the Wii U comes equpped with a videochat application that is far more dangerous.

Leave it to Nintendo to pack a controller with a camera and a mic, and procede not to use as much as it should.
 

Mesoian

Member
There's no valid excuse for not having chat among friends, security reasons far less, since the Wii U comes equpped with a videochat application that is far more dangerous.

Leave it to Nintendo to pack a controller with a camera and a mic, and procede not to use as much as it should...

...If ever.

How hard is it for the game to have in voice chat? I could understand it for Wii but why doesn't Wii U use it for this game?

It's not a matter of difficulty. It's a design decision.
 
Just like your first day in neogaf?

3550277-7033972547-_1360.gif
 

Pikma

Banned
Going through the scans now for any interesting information.

-The interview is with producer Hisashi Nogami, who is known as the director of every Animal Crossing up to City Folk, and directors Yusuke Amano, who also directed NSMB2, and Tsubasa Sakaguchi, who was a character designer on Twilight Princess and art director on Nintendo Land.
-The Inkling city (where the plaza is) is known as 'Highcolor/Haikara City' in Japanese.
-The concept of two teams of four shooting ink in a turf battle has been there since the original prototype, even though the characters where tofu-like blocks at the time.
-They experimented with other team sizes, but found with more than four players felt like they had little effect on battles, and with less than four that they had too much responsibility.
-Killing/attacking opponents online to prevent them from painting ink is just one strategy to win. You get no points or advantage directly from doing so.
-Hero mode uses basically the same controls as online matches, so anyone with difficulty in the can use the hero mode to practice.
-Ideally, you'll be matched with players of a similar rank to you (based off of experience points earned in matches). If not enough players, they'll put you with people further away from your rank. If there's only 8 players, you'll be matched together.
-While online is focused on just painting the ground, hero mode focuses on using the ink to move forward.
-Amano says he wants you to be able to look at the map on the GamePad and see where needs to be worked on for your team.
-No way to directly communicate with people you've been randomly matched with. They will appear post-match in your Plaza, where you can check out their gear, weapons, and comment.
-They picked squids because they were the best at representing the gameplay present in the prototype.
-Music for stages is random. Possible that I'm misunderstanding, but each player will have a different song while playing.
-Music is designed to be the sort that would be popular with the young Inklings involved with the turf battles.
-Rather than making some huge number of stages, they want to create stages that feel different when you use different weapon combinations.
-You don't earn money for gear in single player for balance reasons. Someone could grind money in hero mode and have their first online match with high level gear.
-In the final stages of development now.
-Aiming for, more or less, a simultaneous worldwide release.
-They plan on supporting the title post-release.

EDIT: I think I am done
All that sounds pretty good, I'm super excited!
 

jimi_dini

Member
My first match in Splatoon with voice-chat:

"Ready everone?"

"Qui és?"

"Hvar er stökk hnappinn?"

"닥쳐!"

Would be better than my first match in a PS3 game with voice-chat:


WhoDeyP1mp: "Suck my dick"

xXxHardcorexXx: "you bitch-ass n*gga, get the fuck off my dick"

U_Smell_0f_Poo: "Shut your whore-mouth"

XB0XSUKD33k: "you gay fuck"

It's really sad that Sony never figured it out that there may be the need to mute everyone automatically for every game out there.
 

MrBadger

Member
I can always live without voice chat, but 8 people required for every match sounds risky. Nintendo better market the crap out of this game if they want it to succeed.

What does make me happy though is confirmation that single player is a 3D platformer, since despite everything we've seen, I was still thinking it could turn out to be a "kill enemy waves in the multiplayer arenas" type deal. I hope the single player campaign is substantial.
 
Which hasn't even been confirmed yet. No chat is only confirmed for random opponents
Like i said no excuses, it hasn't been confirmed. But how many Nintendo games has full voice chat during online play at least among friends?

How much should a segment of the user base proceed to defend NIntendo in this matter with the "it's for the kids" line. When the console comes with that videoapp? There's nothing that prevents Nintendo to potentially incorporate a parent control for voice chat in their games. Come on friends, enough is enough. People could play Virtua Fighter with voice chat in the 7th gen.

Are you really comparing an English forum with a console available worldwide with localized OS and games (including the game in discussion)?
Yes. im comparing a forum with people from many places that are not native english speakers to a console where the gross of the sales come from english speaking countries. i don't see the BAbel tower anywhere around here. XD

HAving 2 guys speaking french among the other 6 would be hilarious, fun maybe? Like those stupid games Nintendo make, which purpose ishaving fun mainly.
 
Yes. im comparing a forum with people from many places that are not native english speakers to a console where the gross of the sales come from english speaking countries. i don't see the BAbel tower anywhere around here. XD

Non native English speakers chose to come on an English speaking forum.

There's the difference.

- The only multiplayer mode announced thus far requires at least some sort of coordination in order to actually win

While I do question how much coordination it actually would require, the developers do suggest that having the full map available to you in real time will give you enough information about what to do next.
 

Mesoian

Member
Lol, do you even know what the game's about? This is not a typical shooter

Yeah, that kind of snark is going to make people take your points seriously.

Seriously, let's go over this.

Splatoon is:

- a 3rd person shooter where you win by painting the majority of the stage in your team's color ink
- The only multiplayer mode announced thus far requires at least some sort of coordination in order to actually win
- There is no in game chat announced yet (which, if MK8 was any indication, means there won't be any)
- You do not score by landing kills, even though there are weapons specifically designed for landing kills (there's a bloody sniper rifle for christ's sake)
- The loot loop for the game centers around gaining points and money which you can use for cosmetics and weapons for your character, but it focuses on playing the same game type again and again which, again, success of which really has little to do with the player vs player demographic.
- So what Splatoon boils down to, essentially, is everyone running around randomly in the stage painting wherever they may see the opponents color as it sounds like it will be impossible to actually tell people "go left up the wall, there's a purple hallway; I'll go straight up and use paint grenades to open up a jump point so we can spawn closer to their base."

So what are we doing here?

Gentleman, I have been on the Splatoon Hype Train from day one, and this new info has me WORRIED.

I mean, seriously, are people in this thread ACTUALLY making the argument that because the world is multilingual, we shouldn't have voice chat because it would be confusing? Do you realize how insane that sounds?

It sounds like anyone who has the slightest bit of coordination is simply going to dominate. And that's not even worrying about dropped players, connection issues, people using motion controls vs sticks...

This is troubling news indeed.
 
I mean, seriously, are people in this thread ACTUALLY making the argument that because the world is multilingual, we shouldn't have voice chat because it would be confusing? Do you realize how insane that sounds?

Didn't sound like an argument against at all, sounded like "Hey, this could happen!"
The only one confused is...
 

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
Splatoon is:

- a 3rd person shooter where you win by painting the majority of the stage in your team's color ink
- The only multiplayer mode announced thus far requires at least some sort of coordination in order to actually win
- There is no in game chat announced yet (which, if MK8 was any indication, means there won't be any)
- You do not score by landing kills, even though there are weapons specifically designed for landing kills (there's a bloody sniper rifle for christ's sake)
- The loot loop for the game centers around gaining points and money which you can use for cosmetics and weapons for your character, but it focuses on playing the same game type again and again which, again, success of which really has little to do with the player vs player demographic.
- So what Splatoon boils down to, essentially, is everyone running around randomly in the stage painting wherever they may see the opponents color as it sounds like it will be impossible to actually tell people "go left up the wall, there's a purple hallway; I'll go straight up and use paint grenades to open up a jump point so we can spawn closer to their base."

But this was Splatoon since the day 1 (when you said you jumped into the hype train), as shown at E3.

On top of that we have now a full SP mode as a 3d platformer based on shooting ink and diving plus a local MP mode announced but for which we don't have any info yet.

So, what made hyped you at E3 and made you worried now exactly? What changed since the E3 announcement?

Edit: and the points for upgrades and leveling you win by your personal achievements mostly - the amount of territory painted. (we don't know yet if there is some bonus for team win though)
 

jimi_dini

Member
HAving 2 guys speaking french among the other 6 would be hilarious, fun maybe?

Rather 2 speaking Japanese, 1 speaking French and another one speaking German. Maybe also a Spanish one mixed in.

I played Revelations a lot and most of the players were from Japan. Played lots of it with a Spanish dude too.

Wii U is non existant in UK, which means almost everyone from Europe won't speak English natively.

That's why for example the dialog options in Mario Kart 8 are so great. Nintendo did the same (but with way more options) in The Last Story. I was able to communicate with for example Japanese players.

Like those stupid games Nintendo make, which purpose ishaving fun mainly.

???
 

Mesoian

Member
Didn't sound like an argument against at all, sounded like "Hey, this could happen!"
The only one confused is...

I mean, "Hey, it happens now in every game with voice chat and p2p matchmaking". Who cares?

But this was Splatoon since the day 1 (when you said you jumped into the hype train), as shown at E3.

On top of that we have now a full SP mode as a 3d platformer based on shooting ink and diving plus a local MP mode announced but for which we don't have any info yet.

So, what made hyped you at E3 and made you worried now exactly? What changed since the E3 announcement?

The fact that what was shown at e3 in a alpha build was apparently the lionshare of the game. That's not a good thing you guys. It's great that we got a single player campaign that seems functionally different from just running games against bots or special enemies but...come one, an online multiplayer 3rd person shooter with 1 mode and no way to coordinate with people on your team? You guys are just swallowing that?
 

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
The fact that what was shown at e3 in a alpha build was apparently the lionshare of the game. That's not a good thing you guys. It's great that we got a single player campaign that seems functionally different from just running games against bots or special enemies but...come one, an online multiplayer 3rd person shooter with 1 mode and no way to coordinate with people on your team? You guys are just swallowing that?

Yes, because I played the demo. May I be hyped for something that I enjoyed tremendously playing? (so much that I stood in line twice for it)

Edit: I don't understand how can you say you were hyped for something and now to be upset that the same something will be delivered? Or were you hyped for something else that was in your imagination?
 
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