Downloadable content

stats totals dont mean much as certain aspects are more improtant than others, speed for example generally outweighs shield in importance. For stats totals to have a proper meaning you have to weight the stats accordingly. Simply adding the figures does not give an accurate representation of a ships overall ability.

The dload ships have been given stats more in line with medievil, and zone ship. You wouldnt want to download a ship that was much of a muchness and of no real use would you ? So the dload ships will all be 'decent' without being 'super ships'.

well actually, yes, I would prefer downloading ships that are equal to the standard 8 teams! this way I can still enjoy my favorite team out of the standard 8 without having the feeling that it's crap compared to the new ones!
Don't you think it adds to the variety if all the ships are pretty equal in overall performance, instead of having 4 new ships that whoop on the old ones, so nobody will ever use the old ones anymore?

I agree - just means a multiplayer game will end up being eight folk choosing between the four download ships. Not to mention that my AG Sys is so **** in the first place when it comes to shields, that I've ended up as an Auricom man for the time being, so there's no chance of using an AG against the downloadables. :|

Yep, I have to say I also agree. Completely. The closer the ships are, the more the choice becomes simply a personal preference. I quite like it that way.

Oh, how about that night/day thing, Colin? Is that technically possible?

I must also put my banner with eLhabib, infox and Dogg Thang, while the stats aren't exactly equal I've found most of the stock ships to be roughly as good as each other, so much so I can use Feisar in everything except time-trial, though Rob's right the AG is really lame, not just shields but handling too.

Is there any possibility that the packs will be altered for the American and European release? And maybe a retroactive alteration for the folks with the Japanese version? Just maybe tone down the d/l ships a little so they're about even with the existing ships. For example Tigron had some of the crummiest handling imaginable in Fusion maybe a stat of 1 or 2 handling ad leave the rest as-is? I know some people like the teams that are going to be downloadable but I rather like racing Feisar and Qireж and stubborn idiots like me won't really be able to compete on a fair and even footing if the new teams are dominant.

I know you probably won't change it but if I don't ask, as they say...

Had a thought :idea: surely now that an extra track is available, how many medals would it be possible to obtain?

Can someone out there do the math :?:

:roll: wonders if 'Purist' title would change into 'even purer'? :D

that one's easy: 5 single race medals, 5 TT medals, 5 tournament medals (I'm guessing since this is called gamma pack 1, that there will be a total of 4 gamma packs, adding up to a gamma league+tournament). So 15 golds in total.

foxy: I thought you were involved in making the stats for the downloadable ships? Why didn't you suggest to have them equal to the existing ones?

I wasn't that involved.

I think I walked past Colins Desk one night while he was messing with figures for the Tigron and suggested that the handling should be lower and the shields should be higher, or something to that effect.

Besides, me getting involved seemed to end in odd results in some instances, so it was best I kept myself busy with what I was doing and let the pro's design the game. :)

From what I've read around the net I was led to beleive there was gonna be SIX gamma packs :D :D :D bring em' on baby!

How would the content be distribute in 6?

I know it is possible but there are 4 ships, possibly music 12 tracks and however many skins to be shipped also?

Time will probably tell.

Yeah, I love that the ships are balanced well and there's no uber-craft. While I almost always use the Zone ship for time trials, I can't imagine using it in multiplayer. I don't think it would last long. Anyway, I'm just happy that I can finally use Feisar in the speedier classes. I've always kinda picked my favorite teams by the ship design and color scheme :oops: , so Feisar and Piranha have always been my ships of choice...

A lot of things had to be considered with the downloadable ships and a lot of opinions from various sources had to be taken on board.
There were arguments for wanting super ships way above the standard ships
Others wanted them to only be slightly better
Others argued for them fitting in the same 'scale' as the standard ships.
We had to take into account what we wanted to do but also what other people were requesting.


The idea that everyone will simply choose the 'better' ships in multiplayer - I'm not convinced thats going to be true or at least it is down to the individual players.

When I play pro evo with friends we pick sides that will hopefully give a balanced match, this can mean one person playing as Brazil, another as Japan.

Given that Wipeout multiplayer is ad hoc and as such will predominantly be played by people in the same room, ergo friends, it has to be assumed some sort of understanding will be reached between them.
An experienced player could pick the feisar for example and allow their less experienced friend to choose the Tigron in order that the race be relevant for both players.

There is also the option in multiplayer for the host to switch off downloadable ships, so if people have that much of a concern they can set the game up that way.

People playing in multiplayer have control over the situation, you can reach an understanding pre race with your friends and opt for 'any ships goes' or everyone in an Auricom etc.

In short people will be able to choose how and when they use which ships and I dont think that this extra choice can be deemed a problem given that players have the control to dictate the rules.


As for one or two teams dominating the time trial tables, this is something that is largely unavoidable unless all ships were made identical which would be pointless. We think we have achieved a balance that goes someway to minimising this, so that some ships are better for some tracks, however only time will tell if it proves to be the case.


As for the night and Day thing - it was considered however given what would be required time wise to do it, its not really viable.

Colin, I think you guys did a great job balancing the teams. I think it's kinda cool that if faced with a particularly grueling track (Citta Nuova springs to mind 8O ) I'll just try each team to find the best match. Or I'll just keep grinding with say Feisar until I get it right...

Actually I was doing that a few nights ago (trying to get gold on Citta Nuova in the Rapier league with a Feisar) and my wife came in after hearing me quietly cursing for thirty minutes. She stood there watching me wrestle with the PSP [not a euphemism], said "I thought video games were a relaxing hobby", rolled her eyes and sighed... Ten minutes after that exchange I came bolting into the living room screaming "HA! I DID IT!" At which point I'm sure she was silently musing over how she could have unwittingly married somene who is so clearly crazy...

That last paragraph is basically the routine for me playing the game, it's incredibly frustrating at times.

@ Colin Berry, I wasn't so much referring to the mutliplayer, as you said people can simply choose not to fly with the d/l ships so as to avoid the unfair advantage. But, already I've unlocked the Medievil ship and it already dominates every race I do now - the Flash tournaments have become annoying. I can only imagine how badly the download ships will dominate the single player game.

Well, IMO, you should complete the singleplayer before downloading anyway. Given that the Tigron is better than the standard ships, using it would make the singleplayer easier than it was supposed to be, and flying against it would be harder. So just download AFTER you have finished the game.

@Colin: thanks for your word on this. Very good point you stated, I totally agree, in multiplayer it won't cause any problems. And since TT is gonna be dominated by the Zone ship anyway, I don't really care about an overpowerd downloadable ship there either. In my perfect world, however, all the teams would be balanced to have the same overall performance, so that I can choose my favorite team (guess :wink: ) in TT and still be competitive with it...

I do understand though that there have to be stronger and weaker ships for balancing issues between players in multiplayer.

Oh, and you play Pro Evo (4)? Yeah, that game must be the only one game I love almost equally to wipEout. 8) rocks

@Dogg Thang: the day-to-night thing is do-able, but time consuming. It would be like doubling the work on every track, and not all the tracks are suited to both.

Chenghou at noon? Not as nice.

It would be a relatively cheap way to extend the appeal of each track, though.

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i would have thought that on-the-fly changes could be done by the lighting efx processor of the console. is it not powerful enough to do this? it would certainly be an even cheaper way to extend appeal [although standard conditions should apply during time trials]
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It would be a cheap way to extend appeal and be fanservice at the same time, which is always good.

Ah, but you have other changes to consider, which would require much coding: Lights coming on in the buildings, streetlights, the sun going down, the whole sky changing . . .

It's done pretty convincingly in GTA and Zelda, but in those games it's an important element of the gameplay. In WipEout it would be another layer of set-dressing, and therefore something that would have to be weighed against more important things.

But it would look nice, if you could suspend disbelief at the speed of the change!

I don't think any of us want the tracks to change during racing, that'd just be silly as a race only lasts a few minutes anyway. Rather the idea is to have tracks like in wipEout 1 where the Venom version had one time of day and weather pattern, and the Rapier version had another time of day or weather. This wouldn't need to be implemented through classes in pure, just as separate versions of the tracks, say a night time version of Vineta K with the lights on in the buildings and the underwater sections would be very dark as the sea would be black in the night, with the underwater lighting being the only illumination there. Just an example.