Speculation on: Police in WO

[Fasckira]

The NFS series that WO follows has featured police in varying forms. The recurring theme is that they get progressively harder depending on the heat level, deploying spike traps and the like.

My question is how will they work in an MMO environment? Are we going to have scenes where players are idling about on a junction somewhere and generates a mass police raid or will they drop the police completely in the free-roam section to avoid complication? On that subject, will we even still see heat levels in WO? Considering how long players will potentially be playing, people are going to have to be changing their visual style an awful lot if it still increments at the same rate as it does in other NFS games!

I personally think it would be kind of cool to keep the AI police out of the free-roam environment and only use them in set race modes but have the moderators have police cars (purely for aesthetics).

[Dr Houbenheimer]

Well in the WO gameplay videos, all the cars don't physically interact with each other - you can drive through another racer. I think the same would apply to cop chases, the cops physical interaction would only be with applicable racers, whether this means we could not have pursuits with 2 or more racers I don't know,(which in my opinion would be bad if we didn't, because it defeats the perporse of the game being a"MMO") but I would assume that they would do something along those lines to reduce clogged up roadways. They probably haven't put much thought into it yet, as in the BETA there was no police, and there's still another year until the games release.

[Racemaniac]

Here's a little something I found out about the police of WO. The image link below shows a lot and was found on the World Online page at NFS.com.
http://www.needforspeed.com/data/assets ... shot-1.jpg

By looking at the chat box, you can see that only the user who violated the law (LAMBOLVR) is the one in a pursuit and not the other user who he was chatting with (AWOL). By looking at this we can say that the pursuits will (in true Need For Speed fashion) be only with those who will have broken the law. We could continue speculating as to whether clans or groups are exempted from this and are included as a whole (which would be a lot of fun!) or as single racers which would make no sense whatsoever.

Apart from that, the Charger looks good in that new police livery.

[ElvenAvenger]

Here's a little something I found out about the police of WO. The image link below shows a lot and was found on the World Online page at NFS.com.
http://www.needforspeed.com/data/assets ... shot-1.jpg

By looking at the chat box, you can see that only the user who violated the law (LAMBOLVR) is the one in a pursuit and not the other user who he was chatting with (AWOL). By looking at this we can say that the pursuits will (in true Need For Speed fashion) be only with those who will have broken the law. We could continue speculating as to whether clans or groups are exempted from this and are included as a whole (which would be a lot of fun!) or as single racers which would make no sense whatsoever.

Apart from that, the Charger looks good in that new police livery.

it would be great if that clan/group idea would end up in the game.
imagine this, a cop sees you and then your whole clan is getting pwned by cops because of you

[Nitrodemon McLaren]

it would be great if that clan/group idea would end up in the game.
imagine this, a cop sees you and then your whole clan is getting pwned by cops because of you

That sounds pretty intense, actually. =D

[Racemaniac]

It could become an idea with great potential if actually used properly although it would mean that something like 1 cop unit per racer would work and that the Heat Level would have to increase for all of them at the same time.

Or they could just send a group of cops after your clan.

[Dr Houbenheimer]

Yeah well they've already worked on that idea I think, it's not in the beta but clans/groups will be included in the final game. I think that the group chases could work but only if several people are driving in the same area.

[Racemaniac]

Clans/groups will definitely be included in the final game and like you said, group chases would definitely have to have several people driving in the same area otherwise it would not be possible.

[ElvenAvenger]

Clans/groups will definitely be included in the final game and like you said, group chases would definitely have to have several people driving in the same area otherwise it would not be possible.

in Carbon the cops would follow other racers too, although i haven't seen if they actually tried to ram them or something, but according to the map they did follow someone else ignoring you sometimes. if they could do that, then maybe it is possible for group pursuits to be done. maybe limited to one city?
i wonder if there will be any "new" police cars. i mean, some IS300 cop instead of the civic cruiser imaginary car? im getting curious about the game, seems like at this point EA changed their tactics a bit...for some time atleast.

[Racemaniac]

Well there is a Charger which could be a Level 1 or a Level 3 cop.

[Dr Houbenheimer]

Just putting up this pic as verification that the Dodge Charger will be a cop car in the game. I'd assume that it would be used in a higher heat level, but in this screenie you can tell quite clearly that this is a level 2 chase, by looking at the HUD in the bottom-right.

[Racemaniac]

I had put up that picture earlier too a couple of posts up which confirms that a Charger will be in the game as a police car.

[Dr Houbenheimer]

Yeah sorry about that, I just read the top of your post regarding the chat box, didn't realise you pointed that out

[Racemaniac]

No problem

[carbon13]

We are having a great time playing with the cops as we work on the next milestone for the game. I think we are all excited to talk about what we are building, so stay tuned.

-John

[Dr Houbenheimer]

Thanks for popping into the forums again John ( I read your other posts, including the one where you said you were one of the producers for Prostreet )

Anyway if your still reading, I'd just like to say that you've been doing a great job on the game so far, it's looking great from most of our perspectives. So have you just started on the cops or has this been an ongoing thing for some time? And is there going to be much tweaking from the Most Wanted and Carbon police chase system, either for gameplay purposes, or simply to help adapt it into MMO format? And just one last query, are there going to be group chases (where multiple players are being chased in the one pursuit)

I guess you won't be able to give away much, but there's no harm in asking, hey?

Oh yeah, and any idea when the beta comes up for us?

[carbon13]

I like talking about the game, so I appreciate the questions. We've being working on pursuits for about 8 months now. A lot of the initial work involved overcoming the challenges surrounding bringing them online. You will certainly see some new pursuit mechanics, though the core should feel familiar if you've played Most Wanted or Carbon. We thought we'd be done with the pursuit modes just before Christmas, but as we played a bunch just before break we decided that we'd like to continue to polish for a couple more months. That work is underway now. We are also working on some new ways to interact with the cops that better fit an online game. I'll leave it at that right now, but I'm very excited for you guys to try out the features.

As for beta, we'll be announcing something in the next few weeks. The build we'll be using for the first beta phases is complete and in testing. The studio is a very busy place as we get ready to open the doors, so it won't be long now.

-John

[Dr Houbenheimer]

That's great, can't wait to try out the beta. Will it be open to anyone, or will you have to be extra lucky to get a key?

Oh and it's nice to hear you're taking your time to polish up the game, unfinished games are one of my pet hates, and it can be an even more fatal flaw for an online game such as World Online.

Oh yes, and I love that your getting feedback from your players, not just from the official NFS site but site like this as well, I'm not active at the forums over at EA, so it's nice for my opinions to be heard on here as well.

[ElvenAvenger]

Good question, i'm sure more people would like to know whether will it be open to anyone or to select people.
Anyway, when will more information about the carlist be revealed?

[Racemaniac]

I would just like to ask, who is John?

[Dr Houbenheimer]

John is one of the heads guys working on World Online, he was also one of the devs for Prostreet.

And just to answer my own question up the top there, I had a look (which I hardly ever do) on the official WO forums on the EA site, and the beta looks like it will be open to anybody to sign up. We'll just have to wait out until it's open for sign up, and then I'll surely be jumping to the site to give the game a go.