Coming Soon To Need for Speed World: A Gamescom Report

I was attending Gamescom last week and we had a long presentation on Need for Speed World where we got an insight of what we can expect in the game.

First off, me and and NFS Torque got a chance to do a video interview with Need for Speed World Senior Producer John Doyle.

[embed vars=allowfullscreen=true]http://www.youtube.com/v/-AU86G-8qYM?fs=1&hl=en_GB[/embed]

[b]New mode: Team Escape[/b]
A new game mode will be available soon in Need for Speed World called the Team Escape. It's the first co-op mode int the game with the main objective being that all the racers involved (2-4) successfully escape from the cops. Racers race on a set path, like a rather long sprint race, and try to avoid the cops all the way to the end. Cops will start at heat level one with the heat level increasing as you continue racing. Racers can get busted, but only for a limited amount of times - when the limit is reached, game over. New team powerups can help a lot getting away from the cops. Cop actions are scripted so you can expect strong opposition in forms of road blocks, spike strips, charging rhinos and more.

Gameplay video featuring the new game mode.
[embed vars=allowfullscreen=true]http://www.youtube.com/v/FlS2qFZhyco?fs=1&hl=en_GB[/embed]

[b]New locations: Canyons, Downtown Rockport, Night[/b]
Canyons are planned for World and should not be that far off getting into the game. We can expect 6 canyons connected seamlessly into the world giving you the ability to drive uphill on one and then downhill on the other. Downtown Rockport area is also planned to become active in the game soon. Expect also up to 15 new photoshooting locations throughout the world.
We have also seen the game at night in the new downtown Rockport area. It looks very impressive!

[b]Performance and Visual Customization[/b]
A new more complex performance customization is also planned with the key feature being separate parts. Instead of getting a "Pro package", you will now have a choice of several parts broken down into different categories with difference performance improvements. The trick is that you'll only be able to apply a limited amount of parts on to your car. That should require players to do a lot of testing to find out the best combinations.
We heard an interesting bit of information regarding the vinyl layers: the game allows thousands of vinyl layers to be applied to cars, but that feature is currently disabled. It is possible for a limited amount of players to have that vinyl limit raised, so be sure to [url=http://forum.nfsunlimited.net/viewforum.php?f=141]let us know in our forums[/url] - the more people request this feature, the more likely they will implement it.

[b]New Cars[/b]
Several new cars are in the works, the current talk is in the range of 30. They should start rolling them out, including the community made Porsche 959, throughout the year. We can also expect tier 4 cars.

[b]Leaderboards[/b]
Those of you who are interested in best lap times - the leaderboards are coming! Best thing is we'll have access to them directly, so expect [url=http://www.nfsunlimited.net/shift/leaderboards]SHIFT like[/url] leaderboards right here on NFSUnlimited.net soon. We will start collecting your driver profile names within a week so don't go far :)


With that being the main features in Need for Speed World planned for the coming months, we did hear that EA has a lot more in store for us in the future. The important thing to know is that a lot of decisions on content updates will be based on what the community desires. So be sure to [url=http://forum.nfsunlimited.net/viewforum.php?f=141]talk about it in our forums[/url].


And now we have a special bonus for those of you who managed to read through this long article: a free Starter Pack code with 1500 SpeedBoost is available to the first users who sends me a PM with the name of the car the second player drives in the Team Escape gameplay video. Update: congrats to _BLAHHEAD_ for being the first!

Also check out the previews from other community websites:
[url=http://www.nfscars.net/game/preview/worldonline/632.aspx]NFS Cars[/url]
[url=http://www.nfsplanet.com/nfsworld_featurepreview.php?lang=eng]NFS Planet[/url]
[url=http://www.racerplanet.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18018]Racerplanet[/url]
[url=http://www.world-garage.com/index.php?/topic/1497-top-secret-world-info/]World Garage[/url]