Tag Archives: rod Fergusson

Epic’s raised $150,000 for Penny Arcade charity Child’s Play following it’s save or die Carmine campaign for Gears of War 3.

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Microsoft’s a whole list of panels and games that will be at ComicCon a week-and-a-half from now, including Halo: Reach, Fable III, Gears of War 3 and Kinect.

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Epic’s Rod Fergusson has said that when one thinks of the Gears of War franchise, one automatically thinks of co-op.

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Epic showed off Gears of War 3 in a big way during the Microsoft press conference at E3 this week by debuting the game’s new co-op mode, Beast, and a more open-air feel that contrasts greatly when compared to Gears 2.

With a new look thanks to an upgraded Unreal Engine 3, and new ways to fight for your survival against the Horde and a new imposing threat, Epic is confident that Gears 3 will be a satisfactory conclusion a storyline that started back in 2006 with the original Gears of War.

During a Microsoft party last evening, VG247 had a chance to sit down and talk to the game’s executive producer Rod Fergusson, who shared with us the developmental thinking behind adding four-player co-op to series already renown for cooperative experiences.

[Interview by Patrick Garratt]

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Gears of War 3 executive producer Rod Fergusson and design director Cliff Bleszinski have provided an audio tour of Gears of War 3 in video form.

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Gears 2 executive producer Rod Fergusson has listed the patch notes for the game’s sixth title update over on the official forums.

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This thread over on the Epic forums is claiming that IP boss Rod Fergusson has confirmed the newly-announced Gears of War 3 will contain four-player co-op.

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Last Month over Memorial Day weekend, Epic ran an “Old School” event for Gears of War 2, which saw some users having matchmaking issues.

The problems were reminiscent of matchmaking snafus right after the game launched, but according to Rod Fergusson, it wasn’t Epic’s fault this time.

“Our investigations have shown that the reported issue has to do with a very small minority of players with very poor network connections,” he told TeamXbox in a statement. “When they attempt to host a matchmaking party, they are not able to find matches due to their high network latency.

“We could increase the ping threshold to allow these players to host but it would have an overall negative effect on the global Gears 2 community as they would begin finding games with greater latency. So while this isn’t ideal for a tiny minority of players, it is much better overall for the majority of players. For the players that have this issue, the easiest answer is simply to join another player’s matchmaking party instead of trying to host one themselves.

“In terms of when this began, we’ve been making continuous optimizations to the matchmaking experience, and the perceived timing of recent changes with the “Old School” weekend is purely coincidental.”

So there ya go.

Epic’s Rod Fergusson has said that Title Update 4 for Gears of War 2 has not passed certification yet so there is no release date to announce at this time.

However, he did provide a list of all the improvements, fixes, new achievements, and more.

The list also includes how much experience you will gain during Horde mode.

Full thing over on the official forums.

Microsoft has cut the price of Gears of War 2 expansion pack Dark Corners from 1600 to 1200 MS Points. That’s £10.20 or €14.40.

That’s not all, as the All Fronts Collection, which features the aforementioned Dark Corners, Flashback, Combustible and Snowblind will be made available as a digital download from Xbox Live for a mere 15 quid.

Why the price cut? “Because it felt like the right thing to do,” said Epic’s Rod Fegusson to IGN. That’s why.

Gears of War 2 executive producer Rod Fergusson has told VG247 that innovations in both games software and Microsoft services mean we’ve yet to see the limit of what can be achieved with Xbox 360.

Fergusson was quoted previously as saying the box had been maxed out, a comment he told us was taken out of context.

“I think there’s still more it can do,” the developer said, talking at GDC.

“Hardware, in some regards, always has limits, but it’s the software that takes advantage of that.

“The [Unreal] engine is evolving – it evolved dramatically from Gears 1 to Gears 2 – and I think you’ll see people continue to push that envelope about how they use the memory, and how they use the hard drive, and all those sort of things.”

He added: “I think you’re always going to see improvements for specific games and the way they can architect the technology to take advantage of the hardware in the best way possible.”

“I think there’s still lots of room to grow.”

Fergusson said that developments in 360 UI software and Live functionality would also help keep the platform fresh.

“I think a lot of it too comes from the services side, and knowing what’s coming to Xbox Live in the next couple of years,” he said.

Roll on Gears 3, is all we have to say.

Both having Microsoft as a publisher and concentrating on 360 as a single format has aided the Gears of War IP, executive producer Rod Fergusson has told VG247.

“Yeah,” said the developer when asked if keeping the franchise exclusive to 360 had been a benefit.

“Microsoft is just an awesome publisher. They’re a great partner for us. They help us in so many ways, both in terms of the obvious with marketing support, and also in terms of usability, tested, play-testing, design reviews, support on the art side and a whole bunch of different things.”

Fergusson described the restriction of having to keep Gear on 360 as a “tax” for working with Microsoft, but explained that the set-up allowed Epic to attempt to make the best possible title for one format.

“We benefit a lot by having Microsoft as a publisher, and one of the ‘taxes,’ if you will, of working with them is that we’re only on one platform, but also it allows us to focus our efforts in terms of development,” he said.

“UE3 runs great on PC, it runs great on PS3 and 360 as well, but for us as a team it allows us to focus and make the best game we can for that one particular platform, which has been great. I think it has helped the IP from that perspective as we’ve been focused on creating the best game possible.”

Gears of War 2 has sold around 4 million units so far.

Fergusson was talking at GDC.

Gears of War 2 executive producer Rod Fergusson has told VG247 that match-making issues with the title’s multiplayer – which initially saw game-breaking waits to access games on Live – were the result of “growing pains” and treading new ground in terms of scale.

“The match-making problems we had at the beginning of Gears 2 were really just growing pains,” he said.

“It was the first time we’d ever done non-server-browser match-making… We could test to a certain scale up to 1,000 players or so, but when [we went] up to a million players, with hundreds of thousands of players match-making all at the same time, certain things didn’t work in the way they were expected to.”

Fergusson told us that problems with match-making at this level are not unusual.

“Bungie, with Halo 2, had a similar thing,” he said. “Going into that kind of match-making system just has inherent problems that you have to go through yourself and experience before you can fix it and get it right.”

A first title update became a priority when problems arose. Once the match-making service stabilized, the game’s team went on to fix multiplayer exploits.

A third update introduced a new levelling system and new additions for online play, as opposed to fixes.

Yes, it’s true. Rod Fergusson, executive producer of Gears of War 2, is a Killzone 2 player. We know because he told us.

“I play a lot of things,” he said, talking at GDC last week. “I play World of Warcraft. Most recently I finished 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, which was a lot of fun. I’ve been playing some Killzone, I’ve been playing some RE5.

“I got through all 55 doors of Peggle on Xbox Live… I’m kind of all over the place in terms of games.”

Fergusson’s not a big horror game fan, though.

“I struggle with horror games like Dead Space. I can’t distance myself from things I’m watching, so I don’t keep a professional distance,” he said.

“I’m the guy that cries in Bambi and jumps in thriller movies.”

So there you have it. You reckon Guerrilla’s finished Gears 2 on Insane?

Epic’s Rod Fergusson has put a lengthy post up on the firms forums admitting there’s a time issue with matchmaking in Gears of War 2 game and suggesting ways to get round it.

He said the long waits some players are experiencing to get into games are being addressed with Microsoft, but there’s no confirmation of a patch as yet.

Says Rod:

If you’re experiencing long delays (longer than 2 minutes) or you’re seeing your matchmaking search restarting over and over again, please try a different playlist as that indicates a possible population issue with the currently selected one.

The problem seems to be heightened for parties of 1 and parties of 4 so please try to invite at least one friend into your party before matchmaking. And of course the fastest way to play is to have a full 5 person party before looking for a match since you won’t have to find any teammates beforehand. Fortunately our new “What’s Up” feature makes finding Friends who’re playing Gears 2 online easier.

Also, after a match, if you’d like to continue to play with the 9 people you just played with, simply press Y to look at the previous match stats and press X to invite them all to your party so you can continue to play in a Private match if they accept. Private matches, while not arbitrated, gives you the flexibility to set exactly which map and mode you want to play along with customizing other aspects of the game.

More through there.