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[Shoogoo]

I really don't understand why the preorder bonuses in Europe are hidden behind a so-called "special edition" although the RRP for the normal edition is exactly the same (£49)

They're trying to pull this as a DLC or something?

 

[SenorDingDong]

To those preloading, how big is the download?

5.5 gigs.

 

[Proven]

The ranks and abilities are somewhat explained in the interview I posted, but I'll try to summarize:

Characters in Brink start at level 0. Max level is 20, and at each level you gain 1 ability point.

Every ability in the game costs only 1 ability point, so you can have a maximum of 20 different abilities. For balance purposes, they're grouped into tiers. Until your level reaches a certain tier, you can't purchase abilities labeled for that tier.

R1 is for levels 0-4
R2 for 5-9
R3 for 10-14
R4 for 15-19
R5 for level 20.

With matchmaking, the default is that only players of the same rank play against each other. Any bots you end up playing against (offline, co-op, and even online) will also only be given abilities up to the current rank you're at.

You can spend ability points on as many passive and active abilities as you want. There's only one limitation: You can only take 3 active abilities with you into any particular match.

 

[Sanic]

5.5 gigs.

Thanks, not too bad.

 

[commish]

The ranks and abilities are somewhat explained in the interview I posted, but I'll try to summarize:

Characters in Brink start at level 0. Max level is 20, and at each level you gain 1 ability point.

Every ability in the game costs only 1 ability point, so you can have a maximum of 20 different abilities. For balance purposes, they're grouped into tiers. Until your level reaches a certain tier, you can't purchase abilities labeled for that tier.

R1 is for levels 0-4
R2 for 5-9
R3 for 10-14
R4 for 15-19
R5 for level 20.

With matchmaking, the default is that only players of the same rank play against each other. Any bots you end up playing against (offline, co-op, and even online) will also only be given abilities up to the current rank you're at.

You can spend ability points on as many passive and active abilities as you want. There's only one limitation: You can only take 3 active abilities with you into any particular match.

You play against bots online?

 

[thelurkinghorror]

You play against bots online?

Only if there's no human players

 

[abundant]

You play against bots online?

It's like Left 4 Dead - if someone quits, they will be replaced by a bot until someone new joins.

 

[X-Frame]

Wow, I really like the Operative and Medic.

I can't see myself ever being a Solder though unless it is required -- they look to have a boring skillset in comparison.

 

[DEO3]

These videos are doing a better job at selling the game than Bethesda.

Quick Bethesda, better take 'em down!

 

[AtomHeart]

Quick Bethesda, better take 'em down!

Videos like this one are probably the reason why they take videos down.

This is game is not what I expected it to be, it has horrible graphics and the weapon damage is horrible. If I was the game designer, I would have made this 10x better, and more more fun. My rating is a 2 out of 10.

Rage building.

 

[thelurkinghorror]

Videos like this one are probably the reason why they take videos down.



Rage building.

They must take this videos down. This is trolling.
Actually the latest build (the one everyone can buy in stores in a few days) need a day 1 patch to resolve some texture problem (like the Unreal Engine), but the game can't run so laggy because is actually impossibile to play online.

 

[syoaran]

Wait I just checked steam - Doesnt the EU version of brink unlock the same time as the US version? Or do we have to wait 3 more days?

 

[Genesis Knight]

Videos like this one are probably the reason why they take videos down.

Rage building.

Guessing the ramping lag is due to the fact that there are probably fewer than 100 players online right now and he's in an online multiplayer match with someone with a huge ping.

 

[harrytang]

So once you're level 20 can you "prestige" or anything like that? Sounds like you cannot unlock all abilities through one go round. Some in the Q&A said if you purchases 3 turret abilities that reduces the amount of abilities from like 19 to 17 for you. Don't want to fret about purchases locking me out of other content.

 

[Proven]

So once you're level 20 can you "prestige" or anything like that? Sounds like you cannot unlock all abilities through one go round. Some in the Q&A said if you purchases 3 turret abilities that reduces the amount of abilities from like 19 to 17 for you. Don't want to fret about purchases locking me out of other content.

There doesn't seem to be a prestige as the only other things to unlock (weapons and attachments) are gained independent of levels. What you can instead do is just start a new character.

Then again, I'm not very familiar with CoD, so I don't know if prestige does anything other than bragging rights, giving something to do, and adding extra weapon loadout slots.

The abilities don't have to be unlocked. Once you reach the prerequisite rank, you can purchase any ability in any class that's at that rank. That's the only real prerequisite.

The thing about the 17 vs. 19 ability thing was essentially saying you can either take turret 1, and then have 19 other unique abilities, or take turret 1, then 2, then 3, but only have 17 other unique abilities.

Including the different levels of turrets, there are 50 abilities in the game, 10 general abilities and then 10 abilities specific to each class. This however means that the Engineer has only 8 unique abilities since two slots are used for the upgraded turrets.

 

[clip]

I caved and bought it on steam. Please be good, please be good.

 

[zorbsie]

So once you're level 20 can you "prestige" or anything like that? Sounds like you cannot unlock all abilities through one go round. Some in the Q&A said if you purchases 3 turret abilities that reduces the amount of abilities from like 19 to 17 for you. Don't want to fret about purchases locking me out of other content.

The game also allows you to sell all of your current abilities and respec your character. There is an XP penalty for doing this. So if you think you picked the wrong ability you do have the option of switching it up.

 

[SenorDingDong]

Assuming I'm correct in my interpretation of the description of the Operative's EMP grenade found on the Something Awful forum, it would appear the ability seems amazingly powerful for defending teams.

EMP Grenade (R5)
Allows you to throw a grenade that effectively disables any enemy turrets, mines, and player radars within its radius. It will also slow the progress of enemy hacks and HE Charges (by 50 percent). It will even disable the team-wide bonuses an enemy-held command post is giving. It has a cooldown of 30 seconds between uses, and its duration depends on what is being EMP'd.
Sticky Grenades will be delayed by 1 second.
Turrets, Command Posts, Cortex Bombs, mines, Satchel Charges, PDAs (for any sort of hacking), Hack Boxes, and radars will all be disabled for 10 seconds
Soldier's HE Charges will be delayed by 30 seconds.
It will also slow down maintenance bots for a short time.

The delaying of the Soldier's HE charge by 30 seconds in particular sounds a bit much, especially when you consider the grenade itself has a 30 second theoretically you could delay an explosive indefinitely.

Of course I could be completely off in my interpretation, but I must admit I'm excited at the prospect of working out all the ins and outs of a new game. Hopefully it takes off.

 

[harrytang]

There doesn't seem to be a prestige as the only other things to unlock (weapons and attachments) are gained independent of levels. What you can instead do is just start a new character.

Ok cool, thats all I need to know. As long as we can start over once hit 20. I think I read you can only play against others in similar level ranges if not the exact same level. That also worried me as I didnt want to get stuck with all 20's after a week of playing. Speaking of witch does anyone know estimates on how long it may take to reach 20?

The game also allows you to sell all of your current abilities and respec your character. There is an XP penalty for doing this. So if you think you picked the wrong ability you do have the option of switching it up.

Roger that. Sounds promising.

 

[zorbsie]

I think I read you can only play against others in similar level ranges if not the exact same level. That also worried me as I didnt want to get stuck with all 20's after a week of playing. Speaking of witch does anyone know estimates on how long it may take to reach 20?

There is an option to only play with your level but you can change it.

 

[BloodySinner]

I caved and bought it on steam. Please be good, please be good.

You could have bought it from D2D for $37.49 and then activated it on Steam...

 

[harrytang]

There is an option to only play with your level but you can change it.

Sweet! I'd rather mix it up.

 

[Proven]

Assuming I'm correct in my interpretation of the description of the Operative's EMP grenade found on the Something Awful forum, it would appear the ability seems amazingly powerful for defending teams.



The delaying of the Soldier's HE charge by 30 seconds in particular sounds a bit much, especially when you consider the grenade itself has a 30 second theoretically you could delay an explosive indefinitely.

Of course I could be completely off in my interpretation, but I must admit I'm excited at the prospect of working out all the ins and outs of a new game. Hopefully it takes off.

It says a few sentences before that it slows the progress of HE charges by 50%, so it seems like that 50% progress reduction lasts for 30 seconds. But yeah, since the cooldown is 30 seconds you can potentially force the timer to last twice as long. But offense usually has an advantage in these sorts of games, right?

Also, in most vids I've never seen the timer for an HE charge be longer than a few minutes.

 

[Genesis Knight]

It says a few sentences before that it slows the progress of HE charges by 50%, so it seems like that 50% progress reduction lasts for 30 seconds. But yeah, since the cooldown is 30 seconds you can potentially force the timer to last twice as long. But offense usually has an advantage in these sorts of games, right?

Also, in most vids I've never seen the timer for an HE charge be longer than a few minutes.

In Wolf:ET I always felt like Defense had the edge on a balanced server.

 

[clip]

You could have bought it from D2D for $37.49 and then activated it on Steam...

No biggie.

 

[harrytang]

Q&A - sorry if already posted.

http://bethblog.com/index.php/2011/05/06/brink-community-qa-part-1-stats-site-revealed/


wow, nothing new and a day old.

 

[Death Dealer]

In Wolf:ET I always felt like Defense had the edge on a balanced server.

With a good defense some maps could be held at the first objective. Like Battery, many times the allies never got off the beach. And Fuel Depot, with enough artillery, it was hard to get the bridge constructed and to get the tank across the frozen river.

 

[Rahk]

Are there any kind people in the US willing to gift me a pre-order of Brink on D2D before the sale ends? It's region locked so I can't buy it myself. I'll pay first via PayPal. Or if anyone is still after Portal 2 I'm willing to trade a copy of that instead and I'll also throw in some other Valve games if needed.

The Steam gifting thread appears to be dead.

 

[Genesis Knight]

With a good defense some maps could be held at the first objective. Like Battery, many times the allies never got off the beach. And Fuel Depot, with enough artillery, it was hard to get the bridge constructed and to get the tank across the frozen river.

Yup. I played mostly on the BuffaloBadAsses servers and they ran a ton of custom maps that were equally difficult for the attackers to make any headway.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

The ranks and abilities are somewhat explained in the interview I posted, but I'll try to summarize:

Characters in Brink start at level 0. Max level is 20, and at each level you gain 1 ability point.

Every ability in the game costs only 1 ability point, so you can have a maximum of 20 different abilities. For balance purposes, they're grouped into tiers. Until your level reaches a certain tier, you can't purchase abilities labeled for that tier.

R1 is for levels 0-4
R2 for 5-9
R3 for 10-14
R4 for 15-19
R5 for level 20.

With matchmaking, the default is that only players of the same rank play against each other. Any bots you end up playing against (offline, co-op, and even online) will also only be given abilities up to the current rank you're at.

You can spend ability points on as many passive and active abilities as you want. There's only one limitation: You can only take 3 active abilities with you into any particular match.

Hmm.

Can you have multiple characters? How long does it take to rank a character up to level 20? It sounds like you're going to get really invested in a given level path without really knowing what it is you're buying into; I'm not quite sure how I feel about that. It's really much more of an MMO style of leveling system than the CoD system (unlock everything at max level, build any number of different classes out of perks). It really feels like that system would discourage experimentation...

 

[Reckless Onion]

You can always respec you character at the cost of 1 level.

 

[bluesmuse]

I've had Brink on order for forever. I'm optimistic it will be good. Love the art work

 

[BigBlackGamer]

BTV is streaming Brink. Full Game for 360.

http://bigevents.tv/?p=1371

 

[Ultratech]

With a good defense some maps could be held at the first objective. Like Battery, many times the allies never got off the beach. And Fuel Depot, with enough artillery, it was hard to get the bridge constructed and to get the tank across the frozen river.

Damn, now you're making want to play some W:ET now...

 

[SenorDingDong]

It says a few sentences before that it slows the progress of HE charges by 50%, so it seems like that 50% progress reduction lasts for 30 seconds. But yeah, since the cooldown is 30 seconds you can potentially force the timer to last twice as long. But offense usually has an advantage in these sorts of games, right?

Also, in most vids I've never seen the timer for an HE charge be longer than a few minutes.

It's dependant on map design so I couldn't say at this stage for Brink. Most of the base (Splash Damage made) ET maps were fairly defensively biased, which is why only one out of the 6 base maps ended up being played with any regularity in competition when custom maps were made available. A couple of the others were modified into becoming more playable at a later stage.

 

[BurningNad]

I want this game to be awesome. I'm not sure yet though, I'll probably wait until some reviews are up and the masses get to it before dropping any money on it. Keeping my fingers crossed though.

 

[Raide]

From the interview posted earlier...

Can you change body-types in game or between matches? – Matt

Once you unlock the heavy body type at level 5 and the light body type at level 7, you can switch body types at any time in the appearance customization menu in between matches. It’s an important decision with fairly wide-ranging consequences, so choose wisely!

So you have to actually achieve a set level to unlock a body type? With everyone starting medium build, it will be interesting to see the shift at lvl 5 and lvl 7. Damn, I have to quickly get to lvl 7 so I can build my Ninja Medic.

 

[Teknoman]

So thats why no one running off walls yet.

 

[Old Gimlet Eyes]

From the interview posted earlier...



So you have to actually achieve a set level to unlock a body type? With everyone starting medium build, it will be interesting to see the shift at lvl 5 and lvl 7. Damn, I have to quickly get to lvl 7 so I can build my Ninja Medic.

Yeah, I think that is pretty lame. Let me choose my body type right away, don't hide it behind unlocks. I want to play as a light body and having to level up to 7 first is disappointing. I might just lower my standards and play with easy mode bots to get quick levels....

I really like the music in Brink by the way. Reminds me of Splinter Cell Chaos Theory's music for some reason. Gonna be watching this live stream for a while I think...

 

[derFeef]

Wha, you have to unlock body types? That is kind of stupid.
fedit: watching that dude in the ustream vid gaining level 3 by doing the tutorial challanges makes me guess it does not take that long, but still...

 

[Genesis Knight]

No wonder it's looked like a slow COD so far.

 

[Raide]

Wha, you have to unlock body types? That is kind of stupid.

On one hand it will stop people ninja running all over the place, so it puts everyone on a level playing field when it comes to SMART use. It gives people a chance to learn the abilities, weapons etc. I find it odd how Fat Body comes at lvl 5.

On the other hand, I now have to wait to get to lvl 7, just to remake my Medic again.

 

[Teknoman]

On one hand it will stop people ninja running all over the place, so it puts everyone on a level playing field when it comes to SMART use. It gives people a chance to learn the abilities, weapons etc. I find it odd how Fat Body comes at lvl 5.

On the other hand, I now have to wait to get to lvl 7, just to remake my Medic again.

I dont think you'd have to remake it entirely. Cant you just change the body type once unlocked, and everything else remains the same?

 

[Old Gimlet Eyes]

The bot AI looks so terrible in this livestream. Just standing there and shooting at each other civil war style. Hilarious.

 

[JonCha]

BTV is streaming Brink. Full Game for 360.

http://bigevents.tv/?p=1371

Watching now. Thanks.

 

[Raide]

I dont think you'd have to remake it entirely. Cant you just change the body type once unlocked, and everything else remains the same?

Phew, that sounds about right. Seems odd to introduce something like the SMART system but only for the Middle Body group at the start. You have more agility as Light Body, so people will have to wait til lvl 7 just to re-learn the more complex side of the system again.

Hopefully you level up fairly quickly at the start, so it won't be long before the Ninja Medics arrive on the scene.

 

[derFeef]

I dont think you'd have to remake it entirely. Cant you just change the body type once unlocked, and everything else remains the same?

Yeah thats what they said in the interview as posted above. Change bodytype between matches.

 

[Proven]

They probably lock body types so that people can get used to the game before trying to do crazy stuff and failing spectacularly. Learn the layouts, learn simple vaults and slides, and then bring in the harder stuff.

Hmm.

Can you have multiple characters? How long does it take to rank a character up to level 20? It sounds like you're going to get really invested in a given level path without really knowing what it is you're buying into; I'm not quite sure how I feel about that. It's really much more of an MMO style of leveling system than the CoD system (unlock everything at max level, build any number of different classes out of perks). It really feels like that system would discourage experimentation...

You have eight character slots and I don't believe you have to unlock them.

 

[Uno Venova]

BTV is streaming Brink. Full Game for 360.

http://bigevents.tv/?p=1371

This site is awesome, it has high quality streams for everything, the game is looking great as well.

 

[Genesis Knight]

Wish they'd play it with bots on hard.