By Jim Rossignol on August 6th, 2011 at 3:04 pm.
Game Informer are doing one of their big, slow reveals for Borderlands 2, and some details have already begun to trickle out. The characters from the first game are apparently now NPCs in this game, and robo-host Claptrap will also be making an appearance. The new game will have a currency and resource system, based on an element called “Eridium”, and there will apparently be a big overhaul of the weapons. These will now be customisable and more visually distinct. There’s also going to be wider range of vehicles.
The biggest improvement, however, seems to be in the NPCs, who will be more dynamic in combat, interacting with each other and so on, and also moving about and interacting with characters in the world, which they entirely failed to do in the first game. It’s looking intriguing.
06/08/2011 at 15:10 Xocrates says:
I wonder how the customizable weapons will work along the “phat lewts” system. Do they mean a way to improve “old” weapons, or ways to personalize them?
Because honestly, I don’t see the point of personalizing a gun if I’m going to replace it a couple hours down the line.
06/08/2011 at 16:11 Flint says:
The same way runes/enchantments/socket gems/etc work in ordinary loot-heavy games, I’d suspect.
06/08/2011 at 21:47 dustygator says:
Could simply be stuff like scopes, extended mags and whatever else attaches to guns IRL.
06/08/2011 at 15:14 yurusei says:
needs more mullets
06/08/2011 at 15:14 Max says:
… Elerium? :\
06/08/2011 at 15:30 cowthief skank says:
I thought… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhOxA8l5wrk
06/08/2011 at 15:41 Mr_Day says:
If it is Elerium 115, we might be in trouble. Borderlands new enemies will be Ethereals.
That would be awesome, actually.
EDIT: Yes, I do know it is Eridium, just joining in the jokes time.
06/08/2011 at 20:29 Jackablade says:
Eludium Phosdex
06/08/2011 at 15:29 Jumwa says:
That new character looks rather punkish. Grizzled punk. He’s moshed a few too many times, me thinks.
But quite excited for this game. The first Borderland’s was terrific, and I only hope they improve upon it from there.
06/08/2011 at 16:08 Bostec says:
Maybe it will have a semi decent ending too, it has the worst ending in any game I have ever played so much so that I uninstalled it with disgust.
06/08/2011 at 16:18 westyfield says:
Yeah, the ending was piss. Apparently one of the DLCs fixed the ending, like Fallout 3, but by the time the DLCs were out I’d moved on to other games.
06/08/2011 at 16:44 Xocrates says:
The ending was never changed or “fixed”, the DLC just continued the story from that point onwards. The only way you could say that the original ending was fixed, was that it was no longer the ending.
08/08/2011 at 23:24 gummybearsliveonthemoon says:
You didn’t like the Hey Look The Final Boss From Opposing Forces Worm?
06/08/2011 at 16:08 Tei says:
Borderlands 1 was perfect in almost every way, except that the level scaling sometimes failed, and that a lot of things of the game where withouth purpose. The npc’s on the towns where silent. Less than decorative, almost a prop. Also doors and other elements. Was creepy weird. But I never cared much.
This game needs some very hard modes, maybe “hardcore mode” and another “superhardcore mode with permadead”. If you have amazing weapons, you need really amazing stuff to shot at, hordes and hordes of monsters… serius-sam like.
06/08/2011 at 18:02 LuNatic says:
And the netcode sucked. And the server browser sucked. And the menus didn’t work very well with a mouse and keyboard. And the narrow FoV that kept reverting, even with the script to change it. And the headache inducing dynamic depth of field adjustments. And the pointless ending to the story. And the repetitive fights. And the way the higher difficulty just meant more hp and damage for monsters. And the mindless bring a-to-b quests. And how 60% of the game was spent travelling the vast distances between the scattered pockets of action. And the way that no matter how many times you visited an area, you had to kill all the same monsters, all over again to get there. But apart from that it was pretty much perfect, yeah.
06/08/2011 at 19:37 Nick says:
the netcode itself was fine it was just gamespy that sucked..
06/08/2011 at 19:51 Daryl says:
I liked Borderlands, but it was far from perfect. Hopefully they learned their lessons and can improve the game this time around. I’ll keep an eye on it.
07/08/2011 at 08:26 GallonOfAlan says:
I only played this on 360 but I assume the PC version had the same terrible autosave scheme, which I hope they rectify.
06/08/2011 at 16:13 Navagon says:
The NPCs in the first game might as well have been planks of wood with quests nailed to them for all the difference it would have made. The only ones with any actual character were the claptraps. That’s what the sequel needs. More claptraps. If they build the game around that basic premise it will be GOTY.
06/08/2011 at 21:54 dustygator says:
Scooter was awesome and funny. Also Tannis to a lesser extent.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XSzlV0JMmE
08/08/2011 at 10:20 ZephyrSB says:
Well, until they ruined her in the final DLC. Although they made it up with the Hyperion contact (forgot his name). And I really liked Moxxie too, even despite her obvious assets.
06/08/2011 at 16:21 Iskariot says:
The problems they are going to address in Borderlands 2 are exactly the ones that might have kept me from buying the successor. The lifeless prop-like npc’s really made the game feel unfinished and empty.
And adding a more interesting enemy AI is always a very positive thing.
The plans for Borderlands 2 start to sound very interesting now.
06/08/2011 at 16:28 Bobsy says:
All very nice, but what I really want to see are the classes. And to ensure there will be a super-sneaky-sneaky one.
06/08/2011 at 18:59 Vandelay says:
Exactly what I want to hear about. I wanted them to allow me to customize weapon, hopefully with some variant on a rune or gem system, so that seems to be covered, but I also want to see much more interesting character skills. The original mostly just had slight adjustments to damage, reloading, health or something similar, with a couple that actually added something different to your character, beyond the main ability. I would like to see something like each class having a choice of about three main abilities and then trees coming of that, or some other way of making a character a little more your own.
06/08/2011 at 16:35 bleeters says:
Please, please, please. I’m begging you. Don’t have my character respond to headshots by blurting out “critical, bi-yatch!” this time around. It made me die inside.
06/08/2011 at 16:38 AgamemnonV2 says:
“…and there will apparently be a big overhaul of the weapons. These will now be customisable and more visually distinct.”
I don’t want “more customizable and more visually distinct,” I just want a reason to use something other than revolvers and combat rifles.
This should be Gearbox’s mission statement for Borderlands 2: We will actually make every weapon in the game useful.
06/08/2011 at 21:01 mrpier says:
I thought combat rifles was the worst guns in the game :p
No wait, that was repeater pistols.
06/08/2011 at 21:44 Cradok says:
A friend played a Siren and his arsenal consisted of four different SMGs. Another would hunt high and low for Liquid sniper rifles. I adored repeater pistols and shotguns, but wouldn’t touch a revolver or launcher. It all depends on your class and build.
07/08/2011 at 02:30 Nick says:
SMGs, shotguns and revolvers all had some variations that were useful to every class, the other weapons generally needed a specific class to be worth using over the aforementioned.
a good 4x SMG and an accurate high damage revolver were all you really needed for most things though.
08/08/2011 at 10:15 Tatourmi says:
When you got a little bit into it you realised that pretty much every class of weapons had some really interesting variations, useful to anybody that cared to use them. All classes of weapons could also be used on their own as they pretty much housed every kind of gamestyle, even moreso with the extra manufacturer bonuses.
Frankly in my first walkthrough I did not care much about it, but when I sort of needed a decent and varied arsenal for the little moxxi challenge I realised how complete the system was. In my present saves I have dozens of sniper rifles, SMG’s, shotguns and pistols I sometimes use. The game still allows you to be less picky about your guns and just stick with one class, or even one gun actually, especially the Masher revolvers, but is less fun that way to me. I sort of love weighing one sniper against the other for a given situation.
06/08/2011 at 16:39 acidtestportfolio says:
bore-derlands
06/08/2011 at 16:43 Jim Rossignol says:
Ah, very clever.
06/08/2011 at 20:59 pipman3000 says:
Bor-derrrr-lands.
07/08/2011 at 01:09 JackShandy says:
Bore-Derr-Lames!!
06/08/2011 at 16:45 Spoon says:
I just hope they aren’t so restrictive with the special properties in this one. Uniques aside, most guns in a certain gun type were one of three styles that were then modified by maker, level, and a tiny bit of RNG. For a game that had “millions of guns”, I sure did get bored of them fast.
08/08/2011 at 10:03 Tatourmi says:
Actually the system was pretty interesting when you really got into it. It was far more than just three variations per type of weapons. Only in the shotguns for exemples had ten different and useful variations.
Also: The uniques were subject to a bit of randomness. And you sometimes would fall on very unusual uniques, for example the shotgun that realoaded itself could arrive with a rocket modifier, stuff like that which made “classes” in every unique.
06/08/2011 at 16:50 int says:
You gotta have blue hair… And beard.
06/08/2011 at 19:02 Burning Man says:
No you don’t. Even Brick’s face looked less like it recently met-a-wall-head-on. This guy looks terrible.
06/08/2011 at 19:13 Keymonk says:
Dear god, yes, he’s hideous. The characters in Borderlands looked good. So far this doesn’t have me convinced.
06/08/2011 at 17:10 Josh W says:
Jim, any chance you could just clump this stuff together? Like just wait until they’ve released a proper chunk of borderlands info and go with that?
I know I’ve stopped watching all the TOR stuff because it’s too bitty, would be nice to get more substance with this one.
06/08/2011 at 17:36 Baines says:
Will there be actual variety amongst the weapons this time? The “millions of combinations” and “even we are surprised by what the system creates” claims were complete BS in the first game. The hype and early claims made it sound like all the properties of the guns were determined by combining its component parts, but in the end it was just minor number shifts, and all the non-standard features were hardcoded special cases.
“It shoots rockets”? Don’t act surprised about when promoting the game in an interview. Of course it shoots rockets, you made “It shoots rockets” a special case. It isn’t like you made the “Ammo” component of a gun random, so that you could theoretically get any gun firing any gun-type’s ammo.
Triple Rocket isn’t special. Triple rocket is nothing but a hardcoded special case rocket launcher that fires in 3-round bursts. Special would be giving every gun the chance to be single shot, 2-round burst, 3-round burst, or fully automatic. Special would be being able to find a sniper rifle that only fires in 2-round bursts or a fully automatic rocket launcher not because they are hardcoded into the game to guarantee their existence, but because the weapon generation code is so general and applied to everything that they can and eventually will appear.
All the fancy effects get restricted to unique weapons? That’s not special. That is just more cases of restrictive hardcoding of ideas. Why can the only shotgun that fires in a wave pattern be a unique weapon?
Then go a bit further with ideas. Some guns have more than one barrel, so make barrel count a random value for all guns. Real shotguns can fire shot or slugs, and you can get shot ammo for rifles, so make the type of the type of ammo itself random. Then you can have revolver shot ammo, shotgun slug ammo, and rocket “shot” would be several smaller rockets fired in a spread. Have the barrel length affect the spread of shot while you are at it. Etc.
Then when you find a fully automatic revolver that fires shotgun pellets that richochet, then you can act surprised. Not because someone hard coded it as a unique weapon, but simply because you didn’t sit down and consider that all those separate components would combine in your random generation system.
There are plenty of ways Borderlands weapon system could have went, but they chose to go about the blandest and most boring way possible.
06/08/2011 at 19:43 Sassenach says:
I remember using a savegame modifiers to look at how the weapon generation system built things, and one of the only ranges of values was level. Most other elements were tied to discrete components that gave a set modifier. Here is a list as an example:
http://blmodding.wikidot.com/combat-shotgun
The problem with such a system is that it imposes caps on what is possible and weapons tend to adhere to one of a set of attribute ratios. While this is perhaps good for balance, it becomes a little tedious and counterintuitive when the system has been promoted as capable of throwing out insane compositions. If you, say, tied damage and rate of fire together in a certain ratio and plotted the value of that ratio against probability so as to create a bell curve I think you’d have greater variation without having pure chaos.
To my mind the system has too much pick and mixing of components, not enough maths.
06/08/2011 at 18:52 hocevar says:
Please don’t use gamespy. Please don’t use gamespy. Please don’t use gamespy. Please don’t use gamespy. Please don’t use gamespy. Please don’t use gamespy. Please don’t use gamespy. Please don’t use gamespy. Please don’t use gamespy. Please don’t use gamespy. Please don’t use gamespy. Please don’t use gamespy. Please don’t use gamespy. Please don’t use gamespy. Please don’t use gamespy. Please don’t use gamespy. Please don’t use gamespy. Please don’t use gamespy. Please don’t use gamespy. Please don’t use gamespy. Please don’t use gamespy. Please don’t use gamespy. Please don’t use gamespy. Please don’t use gamespy. Please don’t use gamespy. Please don’t use gamespy. Please don’t use gamespy. Please don’t use gamespy. Please don’t use gamespy.
06/08/2011 at 18:58 LazerBeast says:
I second not using Gamespy.
Otherwise, looking forward to this.
06/08/2011 at 19:15 Kez says:
PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE DON’T USE GAMESPY!
06/08/2011 at 19:21 JKjoker says:
i cant say im very excited about this game, borderlands was pretty boring playing solo, the char customization was pointless fluff, the driving was boring and unnecesary, the autoleveling just made the already lackluster gameplay even duller, and after a few levels only 1 in 500 items was worth the time of looking at its proprieties
but considering it is one of the few alternatives to the diablo 3 shipwreck ill keep my hopes up if they at least promise to fix one of those points i didnt like about the first game
06/08/2011 at 19:34 DarkNoghri says:
More vehicles is all well and good, but can they make the vehicle controls not utter trash? Whoever came up with the idea of driving where you’re looking should have his developing license revoked.
07/08/2011 at 01:30 Chaz says:
Urm… Halo.
07/08/2011 at 03:11 Thants says:
It does kinda makes sense to use the one analog control on the PC for steering.
07/08/2011 at 01:39 Tei says:
Poor, poor moxxxi. She don’t have all the love that deserve.
07/08/2011 at 03:21 shagen454 says:
Borderlands was one of the most mind-numbing experiences I’ve ever had which is strange because it had it all. Most of the thousands of weapons handled nicely, the world was psuedo-open/non-linear, the vehicle moved well and the graphics were dope. I don’t know.
After having played a lot of multiplayer FPS games I’m beginning to come back to the realization that QUAKE 1 is the shit and will always be the shit. I’m just going to go back to playing Quake. I love the shadows, I love how the weapons have huge area of effect which makes the gameplay super quick, telefrags, gore, did I mention it’s very smooth & fast & grappling hooks, commit suicide and kill 5 other people i the water with the lightning gun? The game looks good with modern resolutions, the textures are dope and I love the blockiness of the entire design. I’m just going to start ignoring all FPS’s until someone redevelops the original Quake, with the original engine, gives it better net code and does something cool with it’s primitive awesomeness.
I loved that game so much that when I was in eighth grade, I used to buy a lot of 7″s, LPs, cds… I happened to have bought a couple of hardcore / doom / thrash / grind cds. I had a hard time getting into them. UNTIL I PUT IT ON WHILE PLAYING QUAKE. HOLY SHIT!
07/08/2011 at 18:19 RegisteredUser says:
Maybe this time they could make it have a singleplayer game outside of all the respawning crapfest maps and classes with whole skilltrees that are pointless without another person playing along.
(How can Stalker: SOC in so many components be similiar, yet feel galaxies different? However they – SoC – did it, BE MORE LIKE THEM!!!!!!!)
08/08/2011 at 15:49 Dhatz says:
desperately needs char customization.