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** WOLFENSTEIN **

polycounter lvl 18
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Jesse Moody polycounter lvl 18
It's out. Go pick it up. Quite a few polycounters worked on this bad boy.

Cojax, Slum, General Vivi, Konstruct... Can't remember everyone else here at Raven that worked on it.

Congrats Fellas!!

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  • Lee3dee
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    Lee3dee polycounter lvl 18
    congrats guys! Played it at Quakecon, graphics looked amazing!
  • Jeremy Lindstrom
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    Jeremy Lindstrom polycounter lvl 18
    Yup, saw it at QCon as well, looked purdy.
  • odium
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    odium polycounter lvl 18
    After... Erm, how should I put it... *playing* The Multiplayer, I can only hope the SP game is as good as the few reviews make it out to be. From what I've seen, yes, the SP *DOES* look a bit generic, but that seems to be Ravens style. However as long as it plays like RtCW, but in HD with Achievments, I'll be golden.

    Still a crying shame the MP is so poor :( But I expected that as soon as they said the Veil was in it :(
  • Paul Pepera
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    Paul Pepera polycounter lvl 9
    Got my free copy from work, gunna play through it tonight.
  • Jeremy Lindstrom
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    Jeremy Lindstrom polycounter lvl 18
    Where's all the reviews? Oh and I heard the multiplayer portion of the game folks got laid off today too.. :(
  • adam
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    adam polycounter lvl 20
    I worked on the game as well when I was at Threewave, before the MP was moved over to Endrant.

    Endrant had lay offs today, on its release.
  • RazorBladder
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    RazorBladder polycounter lvl 18
    Good thing I have no interest in the MP anyway.
    Will probably pick this up eventually.
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    Yeah, I heard about End Rant tonight, it's a shame, was their first project too :/
    http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/wolfenstein-multiplayer-team-axed-on-release-day

    I may pick it up on Steam if it's available, and depending on how the SP reviews. I liked RTCW so if it's anything like that then I'll probably enjoy it!
  • odium
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    odium polycounter lvl 18
    I also heard about the layoffs, on the day of release...

    Adam, you worked with Threewave which I presume was with the awesome sounding old MP they had planned (I read about the classes and stuff). The maps in the MP are spot on. I noticed one single tiny brush work error in the entire collection, and thats something to be proud of. They are also really well planned out, really cool.

    I hope some awesome team steps up and makes a "classic" mode for it that gives me back my damn Thompson... Part of knowing what team is what is the gun sounds the MP4) and Thompson make...
  • adam
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    adam polycounter lvl 20
    I can't get in to details over past & present design chases, but most of those maps are Threewave's design which Endrant made some changes to when they had taken it over. For the tech we had to use, the maps are decent. Glad you liked em.
  • Cojax
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    Cojax polycounter lvl 10
    Yarp. My first shipped title. Was very fun to work on. Walked into the local EB Games and they were sold out :D

    Still waiting for our copies to come in. Can't wait to play it on my 360 at home, and not at work haha.
  • spacemonkey
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    spacemonkey polycounter lvl 18
    MoP wrote: »
    Yeah, I heard about End Rant tonight, it's a shame, was their first project too :/
    http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/wolfenstein-multiplayer-team-axed-on-release-day

    I may pick it up on Steam if it's available, and depending on how the SP reviews. I liked RTCW so if it's anything like that then I'll probably enjoy it!

    Yeah shame for Endrant, I'll pick this up if it seems like a good single player romp ;)
  • Ark
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    Ark polycounter lvl 11
    Not really interested in the MP, although the SP looks good. Will be picking this up when it gets released here on thursday.
  • Shogun3d
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    Shogun3d polycounter lvl 12
    Cojax wrote: »
    Yarp. My first shipped title. Was very fun to work on. Walked into the local EB Games and they were sold out :D

    Still waiting for our copies to come in. Can't wait to play it on my 360 at home, and not at work haha.


    Congrats :)

    Gotta get my hands on this.
  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    rented this tonight. singleplayer seems pretty straightforward so far, will try multiplayer later. the sound is pretty awesome. the 1st time i picked up the mp40 i had a nice "i said.....dont call me junior" moment unleashing it on the enemies. nice chunky sound to it. ill post more once im done the game but so far it seems pretty good.
  • Thegodzero
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    Thegodzero polycounter lvl 18
    When MP gets put as a side project for games it will always suck balls. Just how it works. It's better to not have a MP then to have a bad one. Its just the same as food its better to not get your food then to get food that is covered in mold. Players will remember a bad MP, but not the lack of it.

    As for the Game congrats! Looks good!
  • odium
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    odium polycounter lvl 18
    Its actually not half bad. The single player game is funner than I thought it would be, and the visuals in motion are top notch. The lighting and effects are superb, it doesnt look like an id tech 4 game at all, in fact it looks damn good. I just beat the first level which is an assault on a train station to destroy an experimental train, and it was really intense. Great fire fights, awesome weapons, and because its Raven let me just say the gibbing is spot on. I found all the Gold and Intel, but it took me two tries at the level. The next level seems to be the "hub" level, where you can buy all your upgrades and stuff.

    All in all, so far at least, solid. Very solid, and ery nice looking, at least in motion. I would say its up there with Doom 3 easily, if not more so.

    Multiplayer... Well, its the exact same thing as the Beta... So in other words, its shite, to the nth degree... But playing the SP, I notice that some things are from RtCW, which are different in the MP. Its almost like they made the MP worse just to be different? Its a strange feeling, but the SP game is classic RtCW, but the MP is just something bad, very bad... I dunno if its possible to mod all the classic stuff back in but I sure hope so because it could be a very intense game...

    Oh yeah, and the MP uses a different engine, too. It uses the "ugly as fuck compared to the single player" build, I'm sure... Because the shadowing and lighting in the single player is sex.

    All in all, give it a go, at least for the SP game. Its worth it for that alone. Just a shame the MP wasn't like the classic RtCW :(
  • Jeremy Lindstrom
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    Jeremy Lindstrom polycounter lvl 18
    Why no Wolfy on Steam?
  • Slum
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    Slum polycounter lvl 18
    odium wrote: »
    Its actually not half bad. The single player game is funner than I thought it would be, and the visuals in motion are top notch. The lighting and effects are superb, it doesnt look like an id tech 4 game at all, in fact it looks damn good. I just beat the first level which is an assault on a train station to destroy an experimental train, and it was really intense. Great fire fights, awesome weapons, and because its Raven let me just say the gibbing is spot on. I found all the Gold and Intel, but it took me two tries at the level. The next level seems to be the "hub" level, where you can buy all your upgrades and stuff.

    All in all, so far at least, solid. Very solid, and ery nice looking, at least in motion. I would say its up there with Doom 3 easily, if not more so.

    After all the Wolf hating you've done on here and other places, I'm surprised to see this comment out of you. I appreciate that you gave it an honest look and put your perceptions of the fantastic marketing aside.

    It was a long road, but I had a good time working on this game. I can't say enough about the team over at Raven who put this together, fine bunch of folks.

    The reviews are pretty decent so far. Metacritic is sitting around 80 for all the consoles. Mostly bad points for the multiplayer. :\
  • AstroZombie
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    AstroZombie polycounter lvl 18
    odium wrote: »
    Oh yeah, and the MP uses a different engine, too. It uses the "ugly as fuck compared to the single player" build, I'm sure... Because the shadowing and lighting in the single player is sex.

    Or maybe they had to make some concessions with lighting and FX in MP in order to have decent frame rate for multiple players on screen ...
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    Doubt it AstroZombie, you have tons of enemies on-screen in the SP, why would it be different in the MP? It's not like the MP player models are ten times as poly-heavy as a regular enemy.
    It's true that the MP uses a different engine, and I believe the lighting solution was different (ie. no shadow maps or baked lightmaps), so it's understandable that it wouldn't look as good, even without accounting for any performance requirements.
  • Slum
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    Slum polycounter lvl 18
    Singleplayer doesn't have shadow maps or lightmaps either. 100% pure dynamic lighting. :)
  • odium
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    odium polycounter lvl 18
    Single player is pure sex on the eyes.

    I just beat The Church level, and I think its fair to say that every game from now on should have a Particle Cannon. Its the new Railgun.

    EDIT: Oh and as for the "need to tone the graphics down" thing in MP, of course there is always that, its a lag thing more than anything... But the SP has a LOT going on.
  • JDinges
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    JDinges polycounter lvl 18
    The lack-luster multiplayer is a real pitty. Probably a bi-product of having so many cooks in the kitchen, each with their own recipe for success.

    Luckily Raven was able to save grace with the single player :) My hat goes off to that team.
  • odium
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    odium polycounter lvl 18
    Well, I'm now pissed... I've played Church twice and cant find SIX of the missing Gold... That takes the mick :(
  • adam
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    adam polycounter lvl 20
    SP is
    Quake 4
    , MP is
    ETQW
    .

    Make sense now? :)
  • ebagg
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    ebagg polycounter lvl 17
    I'll check this one out soon, congrats to those who work on it, its getting good reviews. It's kinda crazy how much they're promoting the crap out this game on all the video sites I goto, so far I've seen the same trailer on collegehumor.com, break.com, hulu.com, gametrailers.com, and youtube.com. I'm getting too used to hearing that overdone German accent saying "we have found ze key to anahva voirld, who would try and stop us!?"
  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    after 2 nights of playing it I can say I'm enjoying it but not blown away. the lighintg in most areas looks pretty pimp and the textures are a lot better than all the online pics and vids lead you to believe. the voice acing like ebagg said is a bit took hokey "Zis is vat you vant?" but meh whatever. nice work duders, post some assests!

    on teh subject of multiplayer. ugh totally different. choppy, the weapons take a million hits to killsomeone and the animations seem really jerky. I tried to play for more than 20 mins but after playing world at war recently where everything is smooth and polished I just couldnt do it.
  • MikeF
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    MikeF polycounter lvl 20
    just wanted to chime in and say great job to everyone that worked on this. Just beat it a few minutes ago, and i gotta say the sound of the final boss walking around gave me shivers and a nice flashback to one of my favorite games growing up, Thanks!
  • kat
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    kat polycounter lvl 17
    I've been having a hell of a time trying to get the game to run without crashing.. the gods of irony are smiling on/at me, the one game I've been looking forward to for years, and I can't even get it to play properly :(
  • Ark
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    Ark polycounter lvl 11
    My copies stuck in the post thanks to the Royal Mail strike. :(
  • Ark
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    Ark polycounter lvl 11
    Ok so my copy finally arrived, just finished the church level and I'm really liking it.

    First thing i noticed where the stencil shadows had gone and have been replaced with lovely soft shadows.

    Did you guys re-write the renderer? It doesn't look like a Idtech4 game. Looks great.

    Also is the AO realtime or is it baked?
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    Slum wrote: »
    Singleplayer doesn't have shadow maps or lightmaps either. 100% pure dynamic lighting. :)

    Are you saying that the singleplayer uses stencil shadows? That these are stencil shadows? Not shadow maps?
  • konstruct
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    konstruct polycounter lvl 18
    nothing is baked, and I`m not 100% positive on the specifics, but theres been a ton of work done to the engine since quake 4, so expect to see lots of new stuff to the rendering tech.
  • Slum
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    Slum polycounter lvl 18
    MoP wrote: »
    Are you saying that the singleplayer uses stencil shadows? That these are stencil shadows? Not shadow maps?

    Yes sir! Those are soft stencil shadows.

    The renderer was practically rewritten entirely from what was seen on Doom3/Quake4/ETQW

    In fact, the Multiplayer is using the ETQW engine which is dramatically different in terms of rendering.

    Most notable difference is the use of a deferred rendering system, which allows for insane amounts of dynamic lights. You can have a few hundred lights with the only real concern being light overdraw (number of pixels on screen being lit by multiple lights)

    Other stuff like realtime lofted splines (I used these on the particle cannon and tesla gun) as well as a really fast GPU particle system (allowing for assloads of particles on screen). Also you'll notice Havok running, and running well. Every explosion in the game has a havok impulse which moves/breaks props.

    Here's a pretty cool article about the Wolf engine:

    http://software.intel.com/sites/billboard/game-gallery/wolfenstein.php#/featured-article
  • JasonLavoie
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    JasonLavoie polycounter lvl 18
    Wow great article, I love when studios give some of their time to explain the tech, really interesting. I wish they went into stencil shadows just a bit more, I understand that they give a nice "soft shadow" feel, but what IS IT exactly, why is it different from dynamically casted shadows (UT3 for example).

    And none of the lighting was baked-in using lightmaps? So all lighting is dynamic?

    I really have to check out this game :P
  • Isaiah Sherman
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    Isaiah Sherman polycounter lvl 14
    I didn't even know it was coming out and I got excited when I saw it :)! There hasn't been a Wolfenstein game in YEARS.

    I remember in Wofleinstein 3D a friend of my fell back out of his chair from getting so scared. He quit playing it after that (he's a pansy :p)
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    Hm, fair enough. I guess there's not much foliage in Wolf? Stencil shadows don't do alpha...
  • Slum
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    Slum polycounter lvl 18
    I don't know any specifics since it was not really what I did, but there was a solution for alpha-tested geometry. There are a handful of trees in the city, as well as an entire farm area with lots of foliage which all use some solution for shadowing.
  • ScoobyDoofus
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    ScoobyDoofus polycounter lvl 20
    I dunno. I hate to say it but I picked this up thinking it would be awesome..and I'm pretty disappointed really.

    The graphics aren't nearly as good, IMO as people seem to be exclaiming. The gameplay feels very samey. One of the main NPC's you encounter obviously has something done differently or incorrectly in the creation of his face/head asset since it reads totally differently than every other one in the game(its like his spec map is way overbright or something so he's perma-shiny). The bad disembodied FPS floaty feel, DESPITE the obtrusively overdone viewbob.

    I suppose I got this initial rush of "awww man...this isn't nearly as cool as I thought it would be" and spent the remaining time pouring over it with a critical eye, rather than just enjoying myself and thinking critically after the fact.

    I'm going to give it another few hours soon and give it another chance to change my mind.

    I guess the worst insult I can hurl is: intensely pedestrian.
    For a title with its legacy, expectations were high and were not met.

    And I havent even played or factored in the Multiplayer (and dont care about it. I dont play MP)
  • Jeremy Lindstrom
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    Jeremy Lindstrom polycounter lvl 18
    Still not on Steam. :(
  • Lee3dee
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    Lee3dee polycounter lvl 18
    played it on a friends computer, looks great! shame they didn't include the editor :(
  • danshewan
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    danshewan polycounter lvl 8
    Best. Flamethrower. Ever.

    Just finished it yesterday, after playing nearly non-stop for two days. I loved the chaotic, almost Call of Duty 2 feel to the action, and thought that overall there was a strong Indiana Jones-type vibe to it.

    Not revolutionary, but really good fun and some of the death animations (and gruesomely bubbly accompanying sound effects) were top notch. Congrats to everyone that worked on it.
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