Borderlands 2

[Shepard]

Το νέο trailer του Borderlands 2


H Take Two μόλις έδωσε στη κυκλοφορία ένα καινούριο trailer για το Borderlands 2. Υπό την μουσική υπόκρουση του Wimoweh (The Lion Sleeps Tonight), το σκηνικό μεταφέρεται στη ζούγκλα και η δράση αναμένεται καταιγιστική. Το Borderlands 2 θα κυκλοφορήσει στις 21 Σεπτεμβρίου για Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 και PC.

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Borderlands 2 Producer Discusses Handsome Jack And Pandora’s New Look
Gearbox describes Borderlands 2 as a “role-playing shooter”. The game takes place five years after the first Borderlands, during a time when a man named Handsome Jack has taken over Pandora. Borderlands 2 adds new features like four-man vehicles, better weapons customization, and more, but when we spoke to producer, Matthew Charles, our talk was more about the game’s story and world. Read on for details of where Borderlands 2’s story picks up.



http://www.siliconera.com/2012/07/06/borderlands-2/

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Gearbox doesn't know what it wants to do for Borderlands 2 DLC
Speaking to Strategy Informer, Vice-President Steve Gibson said that a lot of the DLC from the first game arose out of the studios desire to alter certain things about the base game – a sentiment they’re not feeling about the second:

"I don't know what the heck we would do. I mean last time there were things where we were like ‘man, I wish we could have done some things differently in like the story telling' which lead to some of the original DLCs... I know that if/when we evaluate that possibility (the team) will want to push boundaries, but I have no idea what those boundaries will be."
The only confirmed DLC at the moment is the series' first character DLC, where a fifth character class called the 'Mechromancer' will be added to the game.

“The response we got back was crazy,” Gibson said. “We didn’t think it would be as big as it was. So no pressure!”

Does this mean more character DLC for the game?

“The idea of doing more characters? We wish we could have done that with the first one, but the technology wasn’t there to support it. Now it is. That’s how the whole Mechromancer thing turned out in the first place, we were like 'We want the possibility to support it', and that's where we're at now.”

“It’s possible now for Borderlands 2 to have more than one character DLC. But we have to see how it turns out.”

Borderlands 2 is due out on PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 on September 18th in the US, and September 21st in the UK and Europe.

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*Share weapons and loot with all your characters in Borderlands 2

Borderlands 2 is one of the year's most-anticipated titles, so it's no surprise that Gearbox Software is aiming high to please fans with its latest release. At a recent press event, I got to see in action one prime example of this dedication, as one of the game's most-requested features will soon become reality.
To solve the problem of finding excellent loot that isn't necessarily compatible with your character, Borderlands 2 will introduce the Stash, a profile-wide storage locker for sharing any weapons, equipment, or skins you find on Pandora with all of your characters. No longer will you be unable to put that hella sweet SMG or rocket launcher to good use. Now, you can twink your low-level characters with gear they wouldn't find so early or may not ever find through random loot drops.


*Borderlands 2 will have no required installation on PS3
If there's one thing that PlayStation 3 gamers don't enjoy, it's the mandatory installation tied to many of our favorite games. The upside is generally reduced load times and better performance, but the window of waiting is still a right pain.

Enter Borderlands 2, Gearbox Software's sequel to the FPS/RPG hybrid that rocked the industry with intense co-op action and a gun-crazed lootfest back in 2009. We can't wait for Borderlands 2 to hit shelves and deliver more of the goods on September 18, and we're quite happy to report that the game will have no required installation on PS3. At a recent press event, Gearbox President and CEO Randy Pitchford confirmed that PS3 gamers will be able to simply pop the disc in and play, although no comment was given on whether an installation would be optional for the purposes of improving load times and/or performance.

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I Have Four Important Things To Tell You About Borderlands 2
http://kotaku.com/5925601/i-have-four-important-things-to-tell-you-about-borderlands-2



Borderlands 2 Preview


All new gameplay: Sanctuary, more Claptrap and Tiny Tina


Borderlands 2 Preview: Badass Ranks, Sanctuary, and More

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Borderlands 2 Interview with Brian Martel
During our hands on time with Borderlands 2 recently, we also managed to catch up with GearBox Executive Vice President, Brian Martel for a quick chat about all things sequel.

This chat included learning more about the story, game world, the characters and the other new features which will keep people hooked as they play through this highly anticipated game.

Check out what Mr Martel had to say below.

STN: Where does Borderlands 2 take place from the first game?

BM: Well it takes place a number of years after Borderlands 1 and after the vault was opened Handsome Jack, who is the head of the Hyperion corporation who came in and took credit for the actions of the avengers from the first game. He’s trying to make the planet somewhere people would want to go to and live and in his mind make it better, but instead he’s really utilizing all this iridium that came to the surface of the planet after the vault and he’s using that to make money and get extremely wealthy.

He is really trying to clean up the bandits and considers the vault hunters that you play as this time around as bandits. Meanwhile Roland who was in the first game as a playable character comes back as the head of a insurgent group trying who are trying stop Jack.

Basically, Jack thinks he’s discovered a new vault and it’s up to you to stop him.

STN: In Borderlands 2 you’ve introduced 3 new character classes and kept one from the previous game in (the Siren), how does that change the whole game in perspective?

BM: So in many ways this is kind of indicative of what we did with a lot of other elements from the previous game. So what we tried to do what think of every feature, every character, every location and think of how we can make it 2.0, how we can improve it in some way and you can see that the characters are reminiscent of the past characters in some way, so obviously with the Siren, we wanted to change what she does and give her some new talents, her action abilities do certain things, her skill trees are different. The Gunzerker on the other hand, which is a natural progression from the bezerker, utilizes the weapons that you are finding all the time, that’s his action ability. Each one of the characters compliment one another through their skill trees.

STN: With the skill tree in Borderlands 2 does it have a bigger emphasis on the character class that you choose?

BM: Yes, Definitely. The skill tree is applied to whichever character you choose and we have some game changers that kind of twist and turn as you get into higher levels. But we have less of the statistical changes that we had from the first game for action abilities, we’ve kind of moved those off to the badass points, so with the badass system there’s more leveling up for the player, the character and their skill trees, you play through that and it carries over.

STN: With the type of enemies within the game i.e. huge enemies with big shields with midgets strapped onto them, where do you get your inspiration to create them?

BM: We have this guy, his name is Ruben Cabrera he is sort of the head of the creatures for our game. He has a few other guys working with him and as a team they’re really innovative and creative. What Ruben did at the beginning of Borderlands 2 is he knew what he had done on Borderlands 1 and how he wanted to adjust those things so he came out with this idea that you have a list and say okay, this is what I want to do. So he went over it with me and we pulled some of them out that were a little bit too complicated or didn’t fit in the universe and he worked with the creative director, the level designers, the art director and pulled out a few more and we ended up with this really nice list and then it becomes a game of onemanship, you’re always wanting to make them more wacky and more interesting.

STN: How does the game world change as you progress?

BM: It’s a story driven game at its highest level, you work your way through the story of trying to defeat Jack. The world isn’t necessarily changing except for where the story is making that happen. As you go you’ll see certain things that happen but they’re pre-planned in some ways, but they’re still exciting and interesting and sometimes when you’re doing certain missions it’s up to player to choose who they want to give them back to because maybe they can get a different item from a different character or it will lead them onto a new path to make the mission even longer.

STN: Borderlands 1 had a whole arsenal of weapon choice and variety, how did you take it to another level in Borderlands 2?

BM: What we wanted to do obviously was improve on what we did before, the core of the game is about weapons and of course the RPG element which is why we put up all the different skills. But with the weapons themselves what we wanted to do was to make sure that you could really tell what manufacturer was what and the desire of the head of the weapons division, if you will, was that you love or hated a particular weapon so you would look out for that weapon from that maker. Each manufacturer has their pros and cons and so we put a lot of work there and you end up with some really cool weapons.

STN: With the RPG elements of the game is there anything you tweaked or made better to benefit the player?

BM: We learned a lot more about what to do with skills and how to integrate those and the chance to really flush these out better than we were able to in the first game. I think the introduction of the badass points is a huge thing as far as the RPG elements are concerned. You as the player having an RPG side is really neat. Then I think what we did with some of the towns and the NPC’s and having that sense of how missions are delivered and variety of creatures and locations is really feeding into the RPG side of things.

STN: With Borderlands 1 you created a whole host of DLC with Mad Moxxi being one of them, can players and fans expect similar DLC for Borderlands 2?

BM: Yeah we’re just going into certification now, so the game is fundamentally done except for some small bugs or some things that Sony or Microsoft find. At this point this is when we start thinking what we want to do and start working on those because we’ve got a big team that can’t just sit around and we don’t want to lay people off, because that’s just not very cool.

I can assure you that there will be something like that coming down the road that will be really fun for players. I don’t know what we are going to do, as far as which ones will be more about creative style or which ones will be about gameplay elements like we did with Moxxi, but we will have some along those lines because it keeps the game fresh and keeps a long tail on the game.

We want people to keep playing as long as possible.

Thanks for your time Mr Martel.

[Shepard]

Borderlands DLC has “highest attach rate of anything this generation,” says Pitchford
Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford has told CVG Borderlands has the “highest attach rate of any DLC.” Matter of fact, he said it has the “highest attach rate of anything this generation.”



“The guys at Microsoft told us that the Borderlands had the highest attach rate of any DLC,” he reiterated. “When people love something, they tend to love it a lot. And I’m really gratified by that more than anything else. It’s what makes us fight the good fight. You kill yourself. You work day and night. You put your soul into something, and you hope that the outcome is that people will like what you’ve created.

“When you find out that happened, it makes you want to work harder. So with Borderlands 2 there was incredible passion and momentum behind it.”

Borderlands 2 is September 21 on PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.

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Borderlands 2 Randy Pitchford Walkthrough

[Shepard]

Borderlands 2 has a 58-hour campaign, says Gearbox
Don’t think you’re going to be rattling through Borderlands 2 in five minutes. The shooter sequel’s going to last nearly 60 hours on a single play-through, if Gearbox comments are to be believed.



“What we like to think about it is, Borderlands is a hobby. Some guide guys just did a playthrough of Borderlands 2 and they reported back to us that it takes 58 hours to play through the campaign – and that’s just one playthrough with one character,” Gearbox marketing VP Steve Gibson told.

“We look at it as a hobby, and that isn’t even counting the new Badass Points system and how that’ll affect every character you do. We want it to feel like you get more for your money. We’re happy for people to pay their money once and feel that they get ongoing value.”

Borderlands 2, which features four new characters and many new features of the shooter-RPG original, is emerging as one of the most anticipated games of 2012. It releases on September 18 in the US and September 21 in Europe.

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Borderlands 2 has twice the budget and manpower of the original, hopefully fewer bugs
Brian Martel, chief creative officer at Gearbox, has told IncGamers that the development of Borderlands 2 required double the money and double the number of people to create it in comparison to the first game.

Speaking in an interview that will be publish in full tomorrow, Martel tells us that the extra time and effort helped to produce a game that has far fewer flaws than Borderlands 1.

“It was probably double the total budget and double the number of people working on it, give or take,” said Martel.

“It also took longer to build the real core of the game. With the first game it was a very short time between us deciding to change the art style and then the game being finished, which is probably why there were some bugs in the game.

“With Borderlands 2 we had the time to look at those flaws and remove them or change them to something that works. We also wanted much more diversity with the creatures and the environments. Like I said before, it’s one of the best games we’ve ever made.”

Martel has also said that Borderlands 2 is a lot longer than the original, taking between 60 and 70 hours to complete.