Homefront - March 2011

the game does look interestign but the sheer impossibility of NK invading anything let alone crossing the ocean and hitting the US coast is kind of a turn off. I mean to think it is even possible for NK to invade the US is insulting frankly to the US.
 
dajet24 said:
the game does look interestign but the sheer impossibility of NK invading anything let alone crossing the ocean and hitting the US coast is kind of a turn off. I mean to think it is even possible for NK to invade the US is insulting frankly to the US.
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I'm pretty sure in 1920 no one thought Germany would take over most of Europe by 1940, either.

BTW in the game it's a unified Korea.
 
dajet24 said:
the game does look interestign but the sheer impossibility of NK invading anything let alone crossing the ocean and hitting the US coast is kind of a turn off. I mean to think it is even possible for NK to invade the US is insulting frankly to the US.
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i won't touch the politics in your post, but i will say that i've had ample fun shooting aliens in Doom, legless lightning-shooting experimental nazi creatures in RTCW, a little-girl ghost in FEAR, a cartoon character wielding a flamethrower in TF2, and nuclear-altered wild boars in a post-apocalyptic future in STALKER.

suspend your disbelief :p
 
Rizen said:
I'm pretty sure in 1920 no one thought Germany would take over most of Europe by 1940, either.

BTW in the game it's a unified Korea.
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germany didnt have to cross the Pacific in a time of high tech surveliance either...
 
dajet24 said:
the game does look interestign but the sheer impossibility of NK invading anything let alone crossing the ocean and hitting the US coast is kind of a turn off. I mean to think it is even possible for NK to invade the US is insulting frankly to the US.
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Read the interview I posted. They explain why.
 
My buddies and I played the Fuels of War demo with the City and Oil Field map and we loved it. We thought it had such potential to hold us till the next Battlefield game. Then the full game was released and we were like what happen nothing worked, it was very buggy and felt rushed and not finished and within a month the game was dead.

We are going to sit this one out and see what public opinion is on Homefront. But from what I have read in articles it sounds like they are more focused on single player and talk very little about multiplayer.
 
looking forward to this game. I think they were originally going to use china, but they had a branch in china, and they essentially said something like are guys fucking nuts? they will ban all of you forever from china..... anyway its nice seeing some americana in the game.
 
Some details about SP length and system requirements:

Bluesnews said:
THQ reveals the minimum and recommended system specifications for Homefront, KAOS Studios' upcoming military shooter set during an invasion of the USA. On a related note, Computer and Video Games has word from KAOS that the game should offer about an eight-hour solo campaign. "Some of them will get through it in eight hours, some of them will take longer than eight hours. There's a varying level of challenge depending on the skill of the player," designer Zach Wilson told them. "We've honestly seen players take more than an entire day play through the single-player campaign, sitting down and not doing anything else." Both sets of system specs follow.

Minimum Specification

Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7
Intel Pentium Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz or AMD Athlon X2 2.8GHz.
2 GB RAM
Shader Model 3.0 graphics card with 256MB of memory
NVIDIA GeForce 7900GS or ATI Radeon 1900XT
10GB of free hard drive space
Recommended

Windows Vista or Windows 7
Quad Core 2 GHz+ CPU
2 GB RAM
NVidia GeForce 260 or ATI Radeon 4850
10 GB of free hard drive space
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Curious to how far they are going to push DX11 features.
 
The game is still based on the Unreal engine right? ...I know its an older engine so just how much more can they get out of it, how flexible is it.
 
QcGuy said:
The game is still based on the Unreal engine right? ...I know its an older engine so just how much more can they get out of it, how flexible is it.
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I don't think so. As far as I know, there hasn't been any kind of DX11 addition to the U3 engine, and Homefront will support DX11 in some form on the PcC. If it's a completely built up from scratch engine, it would explain why we haven't heard anything from Kaos since Frontlines was released.
 
SicKlown42012 said:
I don't think so. As far as I know, there hasn't been any kind of DX11 addition to the U3 engine, and Homefront will support DX11 in some form on the PcC. If it's a completely built up from scratch engine, it would explain why we haven't heard anything from Kaos since Frontlines was released.
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UE3 is heavily customizable. DX11 was built on DX10 technology and enhanced beyond that. It wouldn't be a huge challenge to toss some DX11 features into the engine. Digital Extremes (the people handling the PC version) is a pretty good developer so that wouldn't be outside of their skill set.
 
If they were updating U3 with DX11 features, you would think there would be a lot more press about it. Adding proper DX11 isn't trivial and if it was done the developers would be talking it up since it would endear them to the PC gamers.. Looking at screenshots doesn't help, as some of it looks like it could be U3 and some of it looks more like Gamebryo(which was just updated DX11 capability but I seriously doubt they're using it). I just hope they make better use of DX11 than Dice did iwth Frostbite 1.5. It added absolutely nothing.
 
bleh only a 8 hour single player campaign announced today hope thats being conservative
 
SicKlown42012 said:
If they were updating U3 with DX11 features, you would think there would be a lot more press about it. Adding proper DX11 isn't trivial and if it was done the developers would be talking it up since it would endear them to the PC gamers.. Looking at screenshots doesn't help, as some of it looks like it could be U3 and some of it looks more like Gamebryo(which was just updated DX11 capability but I seriously doubt they're using it). I just hope they make better use of DX11 than Dice did iwth Frostbite 1.5. It added absolutely nothing.
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They've mentioned DX11 features in interviews before, but all the interviews are done with THQ or Kaos. I don't think anyone has ever really talked to Digital Extremes about what they're doing.
 
Derangel said:
IGN of all places put up a pretty interesting interview with one of the devs: http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/114/1142893p1.html and apparently most of the IGN community is incredibly dumb.
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Really good signs from the developer in there.

I don't know why IGN keeps asking them "why don't you dumb it down to make it feel like this? Why can't you dumb it down because of that?" etc. But it's nice that the dev keeps saying they won't dumb it down and they're finding other ways to achieve the feel that they want.

Kinda gross that a review website would want a game dumbed down.

It's also good that they're mad at THQ for wanting them to be like CoD, with unique cutscene type "moments" every 30 sec.

Overall I'm impressed by their attitude and I hope the game lives up to expectations. I just hope there's a way around THQ's online pass system(maybe buying it through steam or something) so I don't have to support a stupid publisher but can still support a good dev.
 
Andrew_Carr said:
Really good signs from the developer in there.

I don't know why IGN keeps asking them "why don't you dumb it down to make it feel like this? Why can't you dumb it down because of that?" etc. But it's nice that the dev keeps saying they won't dumb it down and they're finding other ways to achieve the feel that they want.

Kinda gross that a review website would want a game dumbed down.
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It's IGN. That really should be all the explanation required. ;)


It's also good that they're mad at THQ for wanting them to be like CoD, with unique cutscene type "moments" every 30 sec.

Overall I'm impressed by their attitude and I hope the game lives up to expectations. I just hope there's a way around THQ's online pass system(maybe buying it through steam or something) so I don't have to support a stupid publisher but can still support a good dev.
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Agreed. I'm cautiously optimistic about this one.
 
Andrew_Carr said:
Really good signs from the developer in there.

I don't know why IGN keeps asking them "why don't you dumb it down to make it feel like this? Why can't you dumb it down because of that?" etc. But it's nice that the dev keeps saying they won't dumb it down and they're finding other ways to achieve the feel that they want.

Kinda gross that a review website would want a game dumbed down.

It's also good that they're mad at THQ for wanting them to be like CoD, with unique cutscene type "moments" every 30 sec.

Overall I'm impressed by their attitude and I hope the game lives up to expectations. I just hope there's a way around THQ's online pass system(maybe buying it through steam or something) so I don't have to support a stupid publisher but can still support a good dev.
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I believe the PC version uses Steamworks so we should not have to deal with the online pas stuff.
 
I saw this speech in a game video, it was disturbing:

See, we got a lot of crazy stuff going on in this country today. We're out there dying in the streets EVERYDAY!! YOU DIG!! Hit me!

OH, THUNDERBIRD SPIRIT!!! I see old glory over on the horizon!! I see the tattered standard of an invading army and their numbers ARE LEGION!!!
 
Got this off the Homefront home page, this was released today


HOMEFRONT PC

Hey guys,

As promised, here’s your first in-depth look at Homefront’s PC specific features which should hopefully answer a bunch of questions on the MP side. The team at Digital Extremes has been working hard with Kaos Studios in order to deliver the best possible experience and tailor many aspects of Multiplayer specifically to the core PC audience.

THE HEADLINES:

We can officially confirm that Homefront will be a Steamworks title making good use of Valve’s excellent toolsets. Steam was simply the best choice to deliver the features we needed on PC. Shameless plug – Homefront is now available to pre-order on Steam right here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/55100/

We also confirm the Official Recommended Specs for the game. A few websites this week released what they claimed to be the official specs, most weren’t. Read on for the final word from Kaos and Digital Extremes.

Finally, we wanted to confirm that you’ll be able to enjoy Homefront in glorious 3D on PC thanks to full NVidia 3D Vision support. We showed it off at CES earlier this year, it looked rad.

The guys at Bash & Slash will be posting a podcast with Digital Extremes & KAOS Studios that covers a load more detail, so hit the link at the bottom of the article for even more info when it goes live later tomorrow!

PC SPECIFIC FEATURES

We thought long and hard about the additional features the PC community would appreciate and expect.

From a gameplay standpoint, we’ve done some additional work on the vehicles. On PC, you’ll be able to control all vehicles from the 1st person cockpit viewpoint as well as 3rd person. We also added additional control options for helicopters, to give those players looking for more sim-like controls something to get their teeth round. There are three settings:

o Ace: Allows for the best maneuverability, but takes the most practice to master.
o Veteran: Balanced difficulty and maneuverability.
o Rookie: Pick-up-and-play level of difficulty, least maneuverable.

We’ve included a Practice Mode so you can get to grips with vehicle controls outside the pressures of a live match. No need in wasting your hard earned Battle Points!

Lastly, we added some extra vehicle abilities for co-pilots, such as a Recon function to the Scout heli, and we obviously support joystick control for all vehicles.

In terms of other gameplay changes - we introduced a Squad Management system for PC, with Squad based VOIP. We also offer Clan Support on PC, and we’ll be tracking more post-match statistics on the PC platform. As stated above, we’re a Steamworks title and we use Valve Anti-Cheat to counter cheaters.

We also feature Multiplayer Match Recording (check out the podcast for more info), and we’ll be releasing a Dedicated Server Browser Executable to allow you set your own private Homefront servers within 2 weeks of launch. LAN support in there as well!

Finally, a few tweaks you’d expect as standard - we optimized the UI to make it more PC / Mouse friendly. We support SLI / Crossfire configurations for extra performance, and we support 3D through NVidia’s 3D Vision if you have the appropriate hardware.

FAQ

Will there be a PC Beta/Demo?
Right now the teams at Kaos Studios & Digital Extremes are working hard on finishing the game at the highest level of quality possible. Of course we’d love to release a public Demo, but this would detract efforts from the main game.

Rest assured, we have conducted a lengthy private Beta on the PC to help us fine tune the game, so any Demo would be for promotional purposes only.

Will a Dedicated Server Executable be provided?
Definitely, we’ve been listening to what the PC audience is looking for and that file will be provided for use. We know it’s been disappearing from the FPS space and want to support the core PC gamer where we can. We need to test the dedicated server infrastructure at ship with the influx of traffic and bug reporting, so we plan to release this within two weeks of the PC title hitting shelves.

Will there be Mod Tools?
Not at launch, no. Right now the team is hammering away at the game, building those tools for Community use would take away resources that are needed on the final game. The good thing is: Mod Tools don’t need to be in a box, so if the PC Community is supporting Homefront, we have the option post-ship to provide the Community with something like that.

What’s with the Microsoft deal, why are they getting the extra map and DLC first? What happened to PC?
We’re trying to release a brand new IP in a really competitive space, and we need as much help as we can get to drive awareness for this game. Microsoft came to us early on, loved what they saw, and offered a ton of marketing support. That support will help lift the profile of all three formats. Having them say; We love the game, it looks great & we want to support it – is also a great morale boost for the studio, and really validates all the effort going into the project.

But this is a business right, and you never get something for nothing! Given the fantastic level of support we’re getting from them, offering an extra map and an exclusive window on DLC in return seemed like the best thing for Homefront

How many players in Multiplayer on PC?
Homefront will support 32 player servers on PC when the game ships. Our large maps actually play best with that number. We found that the critical factor in delivering ‘Large Scale Warfare’ is less to do with having hundreds of players, and more to do with the density of players in each game.
That said, maximum player count on PC is something we can look at and potentially change if the demand is there for it!

Is there environmental destruction?
Only low-level, mostly superficial destruction – why you ask? Our Creative Director, Dave Votypka has this to say about environmental destruction:

In pre-production we experimented with dynamic destruction, but found that this actually detracted from the experience. We use what we call ‘environmental narrative’ throughout our level design to tell the story of occupied USA, and allowing this environment to be destroyed takes away a lot of what we achieve with this. In multiplayer, because of our focus on lots of vehicles with heavy firepower on the map at all times, destruction would remove a lot of the structures we placed there to support the infantry game and help balance that infantry versus vehicle mechanic. For example, in our map ‘Farm’ there’s a wooden church with a belfry that’s perfect for sniping. If we allowed this to be destroyed early in the game, it would remove that tactical option from the map for the rest of the match.

What are the server requirements?
Server requirements are actually pretty low, such that more processing power simply yields the ability to run more servers concurrently.

Will there be Linux Support?
No dice, sorry guys.

What anti-cheat measures are you utilizing?
Valve Anti-cheat is included, as well as a number of other techniques for protecting content, executable code, and game memory.

Will there be any kind of tournament support?
Demo recording support will be available on dedicated and listen servers. Also, automated demo recording upload is possible with some simple scripting. There’s Steam-Group based Clan Support, Player Stats, & Leaderboards.

Will there be Spectator mode?
Yup, via the admin commands.

Are there server admin tools?
Yes, dedicated server tools and RCON.

Will there be Eyefinity Support?
Not initially, but this is something we could add if there is strong demand for it.

Steamworks seems to be the mostly-likely DRM solution for the PC release. Will this mean that Online Pass will not be implemented for the Steam versions of the game?
There will be no online pass for PC Homefront. DRM is something we take very seriously from the end user point of view. While some form of DRM is vital, we want it to affect the user experience as little as possible. Our DRM is Steamworks based, and will require the user to have a Steam client (to which they need to log in during the installation process). Steamworks DRM is the least intrusive that we have seen, and it does not require the user to keep original disks. Since we are also distributing the game via Steam, it is the obvious choice.

OFFICIAL HOMEFRONT PC SPECS

Minimum Spec
· Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7
· Intel Pentium Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz or AMD Athlon X2 2.8GHz
· 2 GB RAM
· Shader Model 3.0 graphics card with 256MB of memory
· NVIDIA GeForce 7900GS or ATI Radeon 1900XT
· 10GB of free hard drive space

Recommended Spec
· Windows Vista or Windows 7
· Intel or AMD Quad Core 2 GHz+ CPU
· 2 GB RAM
· NVIDIA GeForce 260 or ATI Radeon 4850
· 10 GB of free hard drive space

NVIDIA 3D Vision Recommended Spec
· 3D Compatible NVIDIA GeForce 480/570 Series GPU
· NVIDIA 3D Vision Kit
· 3D Vision-Ready Display
· Intel Core i7 processor
· 2 GB RAM
· Windows Vista or Windows 7
· 10GB of free hard drive space
Need to know more?

Why not check out the Podcast with Bash & Slash featuring the following guys from KAOS / Digital Extremes:

LINK COMING SOON!!!

PODCAST PARTICIPANTS

Hayden Mulholland: Lead Programmer, Digital Extremes

Jeremy Greiner: Community Manager, KAOS Studios

Edmar Mendizabal: PC Producer/Business Relations, KAOS Studios

Simon King: PC Producer, Digital Extremes
 
what engine is the MP using? they typically use unreal garbage engines for SP's.... hopefully they dont for MP or this is an auto pass for me.
 
Rattle said:
what engine is the MP using? they typically use unreal garbage engines for SP's.... hopefully they dont for MP or this is an auto pass for me.
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Yes its UE3 and it really doesn't matter. Digital Extremes has used every version of UE that has come out on the PC and they have used it well. These are the people who helped make Unreal, UT, UT 2K3, and UT 2K4. They also developed Pariah, the PS3 port of Bioshock, and the the only good portion of Bioshock 2 (the MP). If anyone can make a good PC title using UE3 its Digital Extremes.
 
Rattle said:
meh if you say so
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If it was most studios I would be very skeptical. DE has earned my trust so far. We'll see if it pans out. Either way I'd say don't write it off completely. If you're skeptical, wait and see.
 
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/67331

Specs:

Minimum Spec
Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7
Intel Pentium Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz or AMD Athlon X2 2.8GHz
2 GB RAM
Shader Model 3.0 graphics card with 256MB of memory
NVIDIA GeForce 7900GS or ATI Radeon 1900XT
10GB of free hard drive space

Recommended Spec
Windows Vista or Windows 7
Intel or AMD Quad Core 2 GHz+ CPU
2 GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 260 or ATI Radeon 4850
10 GB of free hard drive space

NVIDIA 3D Vision Recommended Spec
3D Compatible NVIDIA GeForce 480/570 Series GPU
NVIDIA 3D Vision Kit
3D Vision-Ready Display
Intel Core i7 processor
2 GB RAM
Windows Vista or Windows 7
10GB of free hard drive space
Click to expand...

Has dedicated servers. :) This one might be good, folks. Hope so!
 
"The good thing is: Mod Tools don’t need to be in a box, so if the PC Community is supporting Homefront, we have the option post-ship to provide the Community with something like that."

That's when I stopped reading.
 
Homefront Devs said:
Will there be Eyefinity Support?
Not initially, but this is something we could add if there is strong demand for it.
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Won't get a sale from me then... :(
 
Remember their first game, Frontlines, was down to 90 players online during peak hours.... within a month. That game was a colossal failure. I anticipate as much fail with this one.
 
Dethred said:
Remember their first game, Frontlines, was down to 90 players online during peak hours.... within a month. That game was a colossal failure. I anticipate as much fail with this one.
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Not a good precedent.
 
Dethred said:
Remember their first game, Frontlines, was down to 90 players online during peak hours.... within a month. That game was a colossal failure. I anticipate as much fail with this one.
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Lets not forget, the PC version this time is NOT the same developers. Comparing it to Frontlines is not fair.
 
Vashypooh said:
Lets not forget, the PC version this time is NOT the same developers. Comparing it to Frontlines is not fair.
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I don't recall THQ heavily pushing Frontlines either. They seem to be trying to get people to notice Homefront a little more and are even thinking about sequels.
 
I am definitely considering the game after listening to the podcast on Bash n Slash. While the lack of a demo/MP beta is a turn off, the fact they aren't pushing the $59.99 pricepoint and support dedicated servers may be enough for me. COD: BO is starting to get a little old for me.
 
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