Key Feature - Open Mountain?

[Insistor]

Hey All,

Sorry to read all your attempts at feedback falling on deaf ears (and no, LevelUp, you're doing a sterling job, reassuring things'll be passed along), but coming here directly from the Volition forums where everyone's in direct communication with MP Testers / Programmers / Producers (?!), here just seems a little, well, lonely. I'd have thought for a new venture, a new IP in untested water for Ubi they'd be all ears and hands-on with us. All I see are a lot of great questions and suggestions here, and a lot of time passing...

Anyway. I'm here to ask another big question, which hopefully LevelUp will be able to answer for me and make me eat my dirty words.

Q. Open Mountain

Is this intended to be a genuine open mountain experience as billed, or is it (as with EVERY previous snowboarding game), going to just be an open ONE-SIDE of one mountain experience? What I mean is, the landscapes in-game look fantastic, will I be able to come down the valley, and up any of the other sides, or am I always stuck with the same view? Comprende?

Anyway, thanks for your ears guys. We live in hope.

[Insistor]

Hey All,

Sorry to read all your attempts at feedback falling on deaf ears (and no, LevelUp, you're doing a sterling job, reassuring things'll be passed along), but coming here directly from the Volition forums where everyone's in direct communication with MP Testers / Programmers / Producers (?!), here just seems a little, well, lonely. I'd have thought for a new venture, a new IP in untested water for Ubi they'd be all ears and hands-on with us. All I see are a lot of great questions and suggestions here, and a lot of time passing...

Anyway. I'm here to ask another big question, which hopefully LevelUp will be able to answer for me and make me eat my dirty words.

Q. Open Mountain

Is this intended to be a genuine open mountain experience as billed, or is it (as with EVERY previous snowboarding game), going to just be an open ONE-SIDE of one mountain experience? What I mean is, the landscapes in-game look fantastic, will I be able to come down the valley, and up any of the other sides, or am I always stuck with the same view? Comprende?

Anyway, thanks for your ears guys. We live in hope.

[Raide]

Welcome to the forums Insistor,

Game development is a very time consuming when projects start to get big. Development teams that are working on 1 project at a time can find it easy to spend time on the forums but since Ubisoft are actively developing a huge amount of games, it can be very difficult to take time to jump onto the forums and answer questions and interact with the community.

This the reason Forum Managers and Community Developers are around so much on the forums. LevelUp is actually in the development team, so anything that gets directed to him is seen by the development team. Also, the game has only recently been shown off, so it is still early days to go into full detail about the game. Information will be arriving, as you can see from the Questions for the Development Team (http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/8381081166/m/3571063576) thread. Add to that the recent Art of the Ride Competition (http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/8381081166/m/3531009776) too.

Ubisoft are aware of the interest around Shaun White Snowboarding and also the amount of real snowboarders that want a game that fills their desire for a realistic game.

As for your question...the mountain is a full mountain. The mountain will have designed piste's which will contain man made structures like rails, huts, steps etc but you're free to get off the board and walk around the mountain to find more interesting and dangerous paths. You can also set way-points on the map so you can quickly get back to certain points that you have managed to find, which is very useful for multiplayer. Also you can take the ski-lift back up the mountain if you really don't want to walk..or just take the helicopter. http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/16x16_smiley-wink.gif

[Insistor]

Hey Raide, I'm new here as you can see, and if I'd known you were about I'd have addressed to you to, but thanks pal. Very thorough and honest response appreciated. Foot heading mouthwards, but you know what I mean, there could be more interaction here. But as you say, it's early days, so things'll hot up. Well, early-ish, SWS is due for October release right? (Again, new here, so hope that's not a PR can-o-worms http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/winky.gif)

As for your answer, thanks for that. Not quite sure we're clarifying the exact point though, my language I'm sure. Put simply, will it be possible for you and your friends to be on opposite sides of the valley i.e. with the town/hub between you? I'm asking because the maps look built like a proper basin, with slopes on all sides, I'm just hoping you can exploit that.

Thanks Again Raide

[Raide]

I try my best to be on the forums and help out. It does happen to be my job, so feel free to post here if you have any questions.

There is plenty of info coming, so you hold on a little longer. As for the date, nothing 100% set in stone but several interviews have mentioned Oct, which would make sense for a snowboarding game to appear near to winter.

As an example, if you and I are on the mountain, we can meet up and go down the mountain together which is what most people will do since you can make up your own challenges for your friends. But you're free to go where you want and there is nothing that forces you to stay together, other than the need to smack your friends in the head with a snowball. http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/16x16_smiley-very-happy.gif

This works well because part of the fun is finding new spots that your friends may not have seen before and it also gives you a chance to see some of the best views in the game.

[Insistor]

Yeah, good work on your work pal. At least we share a time-zone.

So, I'm taking that there is just one side to the mountain, and you can't travel up the others. This doesn't turn me off any, I just wanted to clarify. It would have been incredible to pull out your binoculars and cycle through your friends gamertags to get a close-up of what they're up to at any point over on the opposite side.

Thanks Again

P.S. Where are Ubi based in the UK?

[CDA_RabidDog]

hello insistor and welcome, firstly thanks for keeping things positive coz thers been to much moaning about here latly, but yeah i think your right there tis only one massive slope. to me back country means back country, its up the chair lift as far as you can go then up and over the back of the mountain where ther are no lifts to tak you back up. but however we have only seen one part of the mountain and louis lamarche said in the e3 demo they were only showing off a small portion of that mountain, so i think we will be pleasently surprised

[Anon92]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by CDA_RabidDog:
hello insistor and welcome, firstly thanks for keeping things positive coz thers been to much moaning about here latly, but yeah i think your right there tis only one massive slope. to me back country means back country, its up the chair lift as far as you can go then up and over the back of the mountain where ther are no lifts to tak you back up. but however we have only seen one part of the mountain and louis lamarche said in the e3 demo they were only showing off a small portion of that mountain, so i think we will be pleasently surprised </div></BLOCKQUOTE>I second this motion! http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_mad.gif

[CDA_RabidDog]

lolyeah i apply logic to my posts

[Insistor]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">wever we have only seen one part of the mountain and louis lamarche said in the e3 demo they were only showing off a small portion of that mountain, so i think we will be pleasently surprised </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Sure, you could see the wall they hit when they got down into the first buildings. They were showing off only the peak area of that particular mountain. I was just hoping we'd get more of a mountain-range feel with our 'freedom', with friends up on all sides of the valley.