Auto Assault Q&A: Part 1
The first of two Q&As with Auto Assault developer NetDevil
Tags: Auto Assault Categories: Features, PC Features
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Nov 11th, 2004
We were able to pose a few questions to Scott Brown, the Project Lead at NetDevil regarding its upcoming titel Auto Assault being published next year by NCSoft. This is part one, with part two coming in next week.
Tell us about Auto Assault.
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Auto Assault is a Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) that combines vehicular combat with role-playing elements. You explore a post-apocalyptic future in customizable cars, motorcycles, semis, and even tanks. Three surviving factions — Humans, Mutants, and Biomeks — battle each other for control of the world, using tricked out vehicles. While playing through our hand crafted missions, you can blow tons of stuff up, buildings, bases, radar towers…you name it! Plus Auto Assault has a very competitive arena system that gives you and your clanmates a chance to compete for awesome rewards and total glory!
There is an obvious influence with Auto Assault and the old Steve Jackson game Car Wars (along with films such as Deathrace 2000). What have you drawn from the various influences and what have you changed for the game?
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We have drawn inspiration from several movies, books and games to create the universe of Auto Assault. We are really staying true to the spirit of several vehicle combat games that players have seen in the past. We do feel, though, that our game is unique and that players will have a very different experience in Auto Assault than in past car combat games. The combination of fast action and destructible environments – plus the fact that it is a massively multiplayer role playing game – will provide a completely new experience.
What can you say about the weaponry in Auto Assault?
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There are a variety of weapons available to the player in Auto Assault, including machine guns, flame throwers, cannons, missile launchers, and more. The type of weapon and its features determines where they can be equipped on your character’s vehicle and what type of damage they do (physical or fire damage, for instance). Since all items can be randomly generated, each time a player receives a weapon from a store, mission or a drop, the stats of most weapons vary. Weapons may also have a number of enhancements that improve the large variety of stats, making each weapon truly unique in our world. Choosing the correct weapons for a region or arena battle will be the difference between life and death in Auto Assault.
What about the various vehicles?
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Each of the player’s characters will own many vehicles through their life in Auto Assault. Characters can either buy chassis or find them. Chassis can be customized to fit the player’s desires using our Tricks and Trims system, available at various body shops in the game. Tricks are accessories that the player places on the vehicle like skulls, cattle guards or wings. Trims are custom paint jobs allowing the player to choose both the style and color of their particular chassis. There are several vehicle chassis available in the game including cars, semis, vans, buggies and motorcycles. Since even vehicles can be randomly generated, each chassis will have unique stats so the player can collect a number of chassis with different advantages depending on the situation. One chassis variant might be able to carry more cargo, while another variant of the same chassis would be able to mount heavier weapons.
How will upgrading work in the game?
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Players can upgrade a number of items in the game including weapons, vehicle chassis, armor, power plant and wheels. Players will be able to make choices on their upgrades according to their own preferences like more damage, greater range, speed, ramming/melee capabilities, and cargo space. Our vehicle customization allows for multiple powerful combinations so that there will not be one “right” way to set up vehicles at the high levels of game play. Instead, players will be forced to decide if they want a specialized vehicle that excels in a few tasks or a general vehicle good at a little bit of everything.
Tell me about the world the game is set in. There are three factions vying for control – so each has to have a decent base of operations. How big are the world and the various levels?
We are not releasing world size at this time but I can tell you that Auto Assault takes place on a variety of terrain types. The types of tires a player equips for example will affect the driving performance of the vehicle on different terrain.
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The game seems to have a rich world – how much of that will be played offline?
Yes, the world is rich; since Auto Assault is a massively multiplayer game played online, only subscribers will have access to all it has to offer.
Look for the second part to run next week.
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Tags: Auto Assault
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Nov 11th, 2004 and is filed under Features, PC Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
