PC Gamer: Do you have a good sense of piracy rates with Steam games?

Gabe Newell: They’re low enough that we don’t really spend any time [on it]. When you look at the things we sit around and talk about, as big picture cross game issues, we’re way more concerned about the stability of DirectX drivers or, you know, the erroneous banning of people. That’s way more of an issue for us than piracy. Once you create service value for customers, ongoing service value, piracy seems to disappear, right? It’s like “Oh, you’re still doing something for me? I don’t mind the fact that I paid for this.” Once you actually localise your product in Russia and ship it on the same day that you ship your English language versions, this theoretical hotbed of piracy becomes your second largest- third largest after Germany in continental Europe? Or third after UK?

Does that mean hardcore PC gamers can call it 'consolified'?

Absolutely not. I think PC is a great platform, but I think consoles are a great platform, too. Back in the '90s, games on the two platforms were very different, but I think these days it's all about bringing things together - movies, TV, music - they're all converging in the same places for everyone to access. I see it as convergence, and it's the same for games.
We didn't think, 'Oh, it's coming to console; it has to be easy'. We can have a very deep experience, but it's important that if you want to just jump in to it, you can jump in to it. It's not about removing complexity or cutting possibilities: it's about the way the complexity is introduced.

Deus Ex has been around for so long; why has nobody done a good job of imitating it until now?
Because... God... making a game like that is a great challenge. It's fantastic and exciting but it's a lot of work and you need a very dedicated team. You need so many systems and all of those systems need to talk together. You often have to produce maps before the systems are functional, so you'll have routes play-testers can't explore because they can't move boxes or something. And then you'll have to balance the augmentations so that every player gets to experiment and nobody ever gets stuck. You have to iterate and iterate and iterate. It's a challenge. It's a big challenge!

Here at PAX you are showing off Fallout: New Vegas how is it different from Fallout 3 or other post apocalyptic video games, especially in terms of style?

Pete Hines: Well I think from a style standpoint we want Fallout: New Vegas to feel like Fallout 3 which is to say a big open world where you can go where you want and do what you want. Where we give the player a ton of choices of how they want to play it and the things that they want to do. At the same time we want it to feel like a different location. Obviously setting it in the West, where Fallout 1 and 2 took place, gives us a chance to revisit some of that. Dramatically to change the color pallet, I think if you spent some time playing Fallout: New Vegas, it will feel both familiar and different.

The colors are a lot warmer than in DC, you are not talking about a destroyed world you are talking about one that has undergone some decay but it has also a city that is thriving and it is kind of rebuilding. You know, power works and the Vegas strip lights up at night. So it feels both familiar and very different and Fallout on its own feels different than anything else post apocalyptic because its got that 1950's pop Americana vibe to it that makes Fallout, Fallout.

In previous gameplay footage we've glimpses of new shooting mechanics like iron sights and modifications, are there any other new elaborate or streamline combat features?

Pete Hines: I don't think there is anything you would call elaborate, there has been a lot of stuff done where the sum total is greater than the parts. On its own, being able to modify weapons is not a huge change, being able to make your own chems and stimpacks, being able to use iron sights, adding the fast replay mechanic to real time combat earned for kill shots and such. None of those things on their own are very dramatic, but put them all together on top of what was already there and then it starts to feel both familiar but very new and different. So I think our focus has been on going through and trying to add and implement changes that make sense. Where all of them combined has had a big impact on how the game feels.

It's not going to feel dramatically different, if you've played Fallout 3 the combat will feel familiar when you play Fallout: New Vegas. But there is a lot of new stuff to uncover and play with like adding new melee attacks for VATS, so that there are special moves you can do with melee weapons to guys that you weren't able to do in Fallout 3. All those things combine adding up to bigger and better changes.

RPS: Can you elaborate on your vision of zombies? What are you trying to evoke in the game? What kind of things have influenced you?

Brian Mitsoda: On paper, our zombies are really not supposed to be threatening. They're dumb, they're slow, they're unorganized - your very basic shambling corpse. They're only dangerous when you forget about them. Make too much noise, get cornered, ignore them - that's when they get dangerous. Most games deal with a Night of the Living Dead scenario where you have to survive one night, one wave, one map. We're dealing with a long-term zombie threat, where you have to worry about keeping people fed, friends getting bit and infected while scavenging, and the desperation of other human beings. Honestly, the game is not about the zombies, but about how people react to a crisis and what they are willing to do to other human beings and even members of their group to stay alive or protect their own. The zombies are just a cause, like economic collapse or a massive earthquake, and it's really the human self-preservation instinct and the survivor mentality that we're interested in portraying.

I think the interesting thing about a disaster is this mentality that everything is going to be okay - that 'someone' is going to come in and save me, of course. This idea that as long as you aren't in immediate danger, you can keep your head down and hope the problem will go away. We're short-term thinking creatures and we don't like to think of the big picture implications of our actions - global warming, borrowing money, cutting education/space spending. I think rationally we want to believe the governments of the world would mobilize quick enough to stop a zombie plague (only infected people rise from the dead in our game) but I think that generally we're only mobilized when we are directly threatened. By the time people start to notice the dead walking in their neck of the woods, the problem has spread beyond containment. The zombies in Dead State are a faceless (sometimes literally) force and dealing with the zombie problem is a lot like waging a war on an ideal.

RPS: The Combat system will be turn-based, without full party control - though with room for you to equip characters - and heavy on psychological modelling. What are you trying to evoke with the system?

Brian Mitsoda: As I was mentioning earlier, we wanted to make our allies feel as though they were individuals rather than extensions of the player. They can be ordered around by the player, but as to whether they will follow that order or not depends on their ability, their aversion to the task, and their respect for the player's commands. That might make it sound like they will NEVER do anything you say, but really what it means is if your ally is scared of zombies and you tell him to run into a pack of zombies, he's most likely going to ignore the order or do it and possibly start panicking as the zombies start to mob him. Each ally has different perks and personalities, and most of these can be altered by your interaction with them. Through dialogue/time they might grow to respect you and be more likely to put themselves in danger to protect you or your encouragement might make them fearlessly aggressive - there's quite a few ways you can shape their behavior, and not always in healthy, feel-good back-patting.

The big difference in our group and something like Jagged Alliance is these are normal people with little to no combat experience, not a veteran squad of commandos, so they handle like you'd expect them to. It's best to think of them as intelligent Gradius options - they're there to assist and absorb damage. They make combat much easier than going it alone, but they can die and you're really going to have to work at it to bring everyone home all the time. Sometimes you may have to let someone go to get the rest of your group out safely. If everyone else is at the rally point and one ally is still in that house surrounded by ten zombies, let 'em go, 'cause they're gone.

GameSpot: Give us an overview of Neverwinter. What is the game and how will people play it? Will it be a full-on massively multiplayer online role-playing game, like City of Heroes or Champions Online?

Jack Emmert: I wouldn't say MMORPG at all--Neverwinter is a cooperative RPG. You can play with a bunch of friends and experience Neverwinter and D&D in a brand-new way. We're trying to create new sorts of games that we call "OMGs" (online multiplayer games).
In terms of Neverwinter itself, players will find it's a brand-new Forgotten Realms. Years and years have passed, and Neverwinter has fallen into ruins. A brave few are trying to eke out their lives and to rebuild the once great metropolis, but many threats stand in the way. And this is where the players come in...

PC Gamer: Why Orks?

Jeff Lydell: We've wanted to do an Ork campaign for a long time, and they bring a whole lot to the table in terms of tone and humor. On top of that, they’re one of the iconic 40k races, and we are thrilled to have given them a chance in the sun. More of this man’s words, many of which reveal exciting information about the angry green people we adore, inside.

PCG: It’s tempting to think that the tone of the expansion will be more lighthearted than the previous, due to the way Orks are generally thought of as the reckless hooligans of 40k, but does that make it harder to write a compelling or dramatic plot for Orks?

Lydell: Some parts are easier, some are harder. Getting a motivation for Orks to go and fight is definitely easier, since they are always looking for an excuse. The Ork campaign is definitely a lot funnier than anything we’ve done in the past, I think the players are really going to like it. As for what’s more difficult, I know Ork characters are harder on our actors’ voices, and they need longer breaks between sessions after doing them.

PCG: They do scream more than Space Marines, yes. A little further–are Orks going to be portrayed as the “misunderstood good guys” or will the players be unabashedly be playing a ragtag team of villains?

Lydell: The Freebooterz are definitely not the good guys. Of course, since this is Warhammer 40,000, there aren’t really any good guys, there is just “your side.” The Freebooterz are in it for themselves, just like everyone else. That doesn’t mean they can’t be endearing though, I happen to be pretty attached to my Ork characters after playing with them this much, even though their primary motivations are murder, destruction and theft.

VG247: Last year, you said that Doom 4 would be here - at QuakeCon - this year. But it's not. In the words of black-and-white television, 'you've got some 'splainin' to do.'

I thought it would [be here]. I thought it would.

Well, during his keynote, John Carmack said we were supposed to bug you about Doom 4 not being here, so I'm only following orders.

[Laughs]. Well, he said I went up and took the arrows for him, which I figure is fair enough since I did say at [last year's] keynote that there'd be no Doom that year, but Doom the next year at QuakeCon. And I think we all thought we'd be showing it this year at QuakeCon at that time. But, you know, things sort of change. And really, we do really want to wait until we have something awesome to show that's gonna blow people away.
And the other thing is that, as amazing as the RAGE presentation was, we're focused on talking about that as opposed to something that's even further down the road. It's hard to complain though, because - I don't know of it being done, I haven't heard of it being done - the demo on three platforms. Our guys did an amazing job, I can honestly say. I've actually seen the presentation, like, 30 times before, but towards the end of it, I even got, like, some goosebumps. I think part of it was the audience being really into it and stuff like that too. Plus, it really did look good and we showed stuff that we have not shown before.

So, can you say that Doom 4 will be at QuakeCon next year for sure?

Ok, I've learned my lesson. [Laughs].

I'm gonna let the Doom team speak about when they're gonna show stuff. I'll take my arrows for last year, but I'm not gonna set myself up for next year. When they're ready, they'll be ready. And I don't want to speak for them.

First off, let's talk about the toolset issue. Obviously in this community there's going to be some concern that we wouldn't release a toolset, so let me clear the air a little: The tools we're using to make Dragon Age 2 are very, very close to the tools you guys have used to make your mods for DA:O. They're not identical, as we've made a few in-house improvements, but they're almost identical. As such, there isn't a new toolset to release, per se. While we won't be releasing a toolset update in tandem with Dragon Age 2, we ARE investigating what it would take to update the community toolset to match ours, along with providing DA2 content in the future.

As to the subject of tactical view, I can confirm that we will not be doing a tactical view on consoles, though we are looking into some expanded party control that I think will make console players quite happy. On the PC, however, we are still working with the camera to keep the key elements of the tactical experience there. I was actually playtesting some new camera code when Victor found me, in fact, so I can give you the latest news on that front.

While we likely won't pull as far up as we did in DA:O, I have always felt that the key to tactical play was actually freeing your camera from the character you're controlling to issue precise orders, which is what we're tuning now. So, this means you can still maneuver the camera around the battlefield and issue orders from a remote location, just as you could in Origins. As you can probably tell from my phrasing, all of this is a bit in-flux right now, so things may change between now and ship, but I wanted to update you guys on the current direction of things.

The Torchlight MMO -- you said you're still working on it alongside Torchlight II but why not just focus on the MMO first?

Max Schaefer: There are a couple reasons. I think that we were overwhelmed by the response after Torchlight came out. Everyone said they loved it, and there were generally good reviews, and I think that literally every comment in every review said it would've been better with co-op. The more we thought about it, we could give people what they're asking for, and give them a nice, co-op Torchlight experience a lot faster than we could do an MMO. So it felt like there was a vacuum there. We decided to do it, because it'd make the MMO better in the long run because we'll have a little more experience with making a multiplayer Torchlight, and it'll give people what they want in the meantime. We kind of ran out of reasons not to do it.

You were talking this morning about how frustratingly long it takes to push a patch out on 360 or PS3, yet you guys have been a little bit more resitant to PC of late – a platform where your hands are totally untied in that regard.

No. Not at all resistant. We’ve released an update to the Unreal Development Kit every single month, with huge amounts of changes and improvements which are obviously going into our engine and making them available to customers, we’ve tested them on PC.

If you look at all the UDK games they’re PC only at this point, and we will eventually see them on other devices. But I think that’s a myth that we’ve abandoned the PC, it’s just not true. I mean, Bulletstorm is coming out on three platforms; we’ve just been in this situation where our biggest franchise has been published by a console-holder, and was a very console designed-IP.

I wouldn’t want people to mistake that for our intentions or our interests, because we’re very much into the PC game business. In fact, when we stop this, I will show you a video from a whole bunch a PC-specific features in our engine [unfortunately his iPad's battery died at some point during the interview, so he couldn't make good on this - but he really did try], really high end stuff that we’re going to do.

Is it more, though, that it’s the engine and the UDK that you’re pushing to PC, but your own games will remain much more console focused?

[Forcefully] Don’t confuse Gears of War with everything we do. There’s a tendency to think that because we wanna do one thing really, really well and not a hundred things really poorly or just okay that we’re less committed. Bulletstorm is PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 and you’ll see when it comes out, it will be a full-blown, oh-my-god amazing PC game. I wouldn’t draw the comparisons there.

When Battle.Net servers go live, will Singapore players be given a choice to play with their friends in the US, and local buddies at the same time?

Kevin Yu: Currently we're building up in Singapore, or South East Asia , it kind of works in a step by step process. We're getting out here, creating our offices, working with IAH, localising customer support, have local servers with lower latency, clearing out all of those issues, all in the process of creating higher levels of support for the players here. And we will continue to move down that direction. While right now, you probably wont be able to connect with players there[US Servers] on day one, but historically, if you look at World of Warcraft, people wanted to be able to connect to different realms and we found different ways to allow players to be able to connect with other people different battlegrounds and such. I can't say specifically what we will do in Starcraft 2, but we definately listen to our player's demands. We will see whats the most logical way to give players the best possible experience. But thats a step-by-step process. We want to start with first making the game a great experience within South East Asia, before moving on to expanding that. We will add on more features, as we see the demand for it. We don't want players to wait another 6 more months for the game, while we add stuff.

Will the best case scenario be that I buy both the US and Asian versions, just to be able to play on both servers?

Mark Yu: Yes, when it releases on day one, if you want to connect with your friends in the US, get the US box or if you want to play with Koreans, then get the Korean box. However if you want to get the best experience out of your game here in South East Asia, you should get the local boxset. The latency, the community, those are the things are going to really define the experience, and you don’t want to miss out on that.

"It'll be structured very similarly to World of Warcraft, where you've got the European region and players matched against the other players within their region,"

"if you're a European player and you've got friends that are in another region that you want to be able to connect with, we definitely want to support that," although "it might mean that you have to access it through the US client."

It's Call of Duty, so of course it looks beautiful, no matter who is developing it. But is it a bit late for this now – with things like the new Medal of Honour and Six Days in Fallujah coming out? Is this really going to offer something different or is it just Call of Duty with a different skin?

Mark Lamia: This Call of Duty will be different than all the other experiences out there and all the other Call of Duty games. What's important to us when we are developing a CoD game is to ensure that we have retained that ‘essence' of Call of Duty, why people love to play Call of Duty. And it is that cinematic intensity that only Call of Duty delivers and that people expect. With this game we are also introducing new gameplay mechanics, new weapons, new things to do.

In the Russian mission which we just shared with you, we open it up so you start off the mission by approaching and flying the SR71 – taking off in it, taking control of it, taking control of the groups on the ground and providing them with the intel that they need. Then transitioning within the same level back to the on-the-ground operations with the Black Ops forces. Introducing rappel gameplay, doing a rappel breach, approaching a situation in either an action fashion or a stealth fashion. In the case of the level that you just saw, we started out ‘stealth' and then we went ‘hot' for you. And you also saw the high altitude jumping mechanic [abseiling down a cliff face] – so all those new gameplay mechanics you saw were introduced in that small section of that one level. Which is a good example of what we wanted to do, in terms of variety of gameplay and keeping it fresh.

I haven't seen those other games that are coming out later this year, but I do know that we are doing our own thing and it is certainly new and fresh for Call of Duty. We believe we are going to provide a lot of new gameplay for people and a lot of new places to go in the game.

Josh Olin: We are making a strong focus on deep narrative, and with that comes strong, complicated characters and character arcs, so they are going to progress through the game as you play through it. You know, for the first time in CoD you have a character voice, you are a player, you will have your own identifiable voice. You have your own identify in the game. You are the one who is taking control of the battlefield, and as such you can really effect change and take the direction of the battle one way or the other.
It's more than just a compelling single-player game of course. We want to tell this great story, this great narrative, but we also have the option of the dedicated [offline] four-player co-op split screen mode. But it was a creative choice in this game to really focus on the character and story and drive that as deep as we can for the single-player game.

Mark Lamia: Yeah, and we also wanted to do co-op, and we feel like what we wanted to do was to create our own co-op mode that is just a lot of fun to play. But we're not saying too much more right now about what that is.
Josh Olin: And of course, it's Call of Duty, so there is a deep and replayable aspect to it. And we are having a strong focus this time around on personalisation and customisation for the player, as well as socialisation, extending the game beyond just the match that you are playing in multiplayer at any given time. It's the first time Treyarch has had this dedicated multiplayer team since day one on a project.

The player controls the camera and directs the soldiers via a mini-RTS interface, having the men take up positions and hide from Russian patrols. When the danger has passed, the game shifts to the perspective of one of the foot soldiers on the fly.

The mission continues in classic Call of Duty fashion--up in the snowy mountains and very reminiscent of Modern Warfare 2. What begins as a stealth infiltration quickly turns into a frantic firefight leading to a quick escape from Russian reinforcements. The set pieces are great and the environments look fantastic, if not better than what you've seen in MW2. Treyarch has really stepped up its game.

MMORPG.com: For those who may not be familiar with it, can you summarize the dynamic event system?

Colin Johanson:  The dynamic event system in Guild Wars 2 replaces the old concept of the static quest you find in a traditional MMO. We want to get rid of the old MMO paradigm where players run around looking for NPCs with bangs or question marks over their heads. You run up, talk to this character, receive paragraphs of text that few people bother to read describing something you need to do, and then you run off and do it. When you’re done, you return and speak to the NPC who gave you the quest, the quest ends, you get a reward… and the world never changes.

In the Guild Wars 2 dynamic event system, an event will kick off in the world and players will see things in their environment – like smoke from a burning caravan - and hear NPCs shouting about what is happening. You’ll never have to read a big chunk of quest text to find out what’s going on; you’ll actively see and hear about it. Based on what happens in that event, the world will change and the event will chain out into other events that cascade across the map, creating a truly dynamic and ever-changing world.
Players can choose to participate in events that occur all over the map, which have a cascading cause-and-effect in the game world based on player participation and the outcome of the event chain. Events exist in a persistent world; they are content shared between all the players who choose to participate in them. They can even be triggered by actions the players take as they explore and play in the game.

Let me give you an example of the Guild Wars 2 dynamic event system in action. Players can gain access to the home city of the skritt -a bunch of rat people- but first, they need to progress an event chain in order to win over their trust. The event chain begins with skritt outside the closed city being kidnapped by members of the Nightmare Court - evil sylvari. Players can join in the event chain and attempt to stop the skritt from being kidnapped.

If the Nightmare Court succeeds in kidnapping the skritt, they take their captives back to a prison, where they prepare to torture and brainwash them. A new event will kick off to rescue the skritt from their captors before they become brainwashed. If the players don’t save the skritt prisoners, the Nightmare Court will drive them insane, and these brainwashed skritt will launch an attack on their brethren back at the home city - which will kick off a new event to help defend the skritt city from the insane ones!

On the other hand, should the players save the skritt from their kidnappers, the event chain will alter dramatically. The skritt will become more trusting towards the players and open the front gate of their home city, allowing players inside. From there, events will cascade out into further chains that kick off as a result of the skritt city being opened. Eventually the chains will reach a point where the players can complete events that open up an audience with the king of the skritt, which will in turn launch an entire new set of events. Should the skritt king ever be slain in the ensuing chains of events that follow, the event chain cycles back around as the skritt throw the players out of the city and turn their backs on the “untrustworthy” outsiders. Players will then need to complete different event chains in order to win back the trust of the skritt and get invited into their city once again, where they will access different event chains. The particular events in this area involve dozens of different events, all contained within various chains involving the skritt city.

Event chains like the ones I’ve described with the skritt make exploring our game world a new and exciting experience every time. The world won’t feel like a static place where what you do doesn’t make a difference; your actions will directly affect the game world.

We've got to ask how you've managed to get Rage running so well on the consoles. What kind of trickery did you have to employ?

Well, the short answer is that John (Carmack) is so freakin' smart. The long answer is the advantages that we have with id Tech 5 meant that when the guys set out to make it as a reboot, they could start from the ground up. They were able to look at PS3, 360 and PC and leverage that hardware to build it from the ground up.

Now, if you take pre-existing technology and try shoving it into another console, it's always a mess. There are trade-offs that we have taken with the Xbox 360. It doesn't have every graphical feature you have in the other games. We can do any graphic thing, but just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should do it. There are trade-offs, but it's still really a fresh start and we have great artists. Rage is truly art.

OK. Now this is the part where I have to ask the obligatory Doom 4 question.

Oh yes. Still working on it! It's gonna be cool. It's gonna be awesome.

Hopefully, it'll be even more awesome than Rage. For us as a company, every game needs to be better than the last. I truly believe that Rage is the best game we've ever made. When we made Doom 3 I said, Doom 3 is the best game we've ever made and Rage will be better. Hopefully. Doom 4 needs to be even more awesome than Rage.

GameSpot AU: When GameSpot spoke to you last year, you mentioned that Crytek had done three years of research and development into consoles before work on Crysis 2 started. What sorts of things were you looking at?

Cevat Yerli: If I wanted to make a linear experience in New York, where I break certain things at a certain time, then that's easy. But if I wanted it to be systemic experience, where it's a sandbox and the game reacts and ties things together like physics, AI, graphics, and animations in a systemic way so they can interact with one another in an unpredictable fashion in the game, then it puts a much bigger burden on technical requirements. That can cause a huge demand on processing and memory, especially with new kinds of geometry formations. If I break a wall, it creates new geometry. If I deform a car, it creates unique deformation. All those things occupy more memory as we go.

If you're on a console with limited memory, then you have to deal with optimisations that allow you to make these kinds of games. On a PC, what do you do if you need more memory? Well, you just ask for more memory. Memory is not an issue on a PC. For me, I wanted to translate that type of interactivity in a live world with a sandbox nature before I could commit to a game on the console. Our console research has shown more and more progress with systems that can interact with each other. Those systems were getting more and more optimised, and we even optimised the PC version, so ultimately we were able to pull it off.

If I wanted to create an explosion in a game in New York where it's just linear, we could do it--every game engine can. It's just a matter of quality difference. But in our case, it's not just a quality bar, but the unpredictable nature of our sandbox gameplay. You may actually cause 10, or 15, or 20 of those explosions, or none at all, and the technology has to cope with it.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 developer DICE has pledged that it will never charge for downloadable map packs.

The news comes after Infinity Ward put a pricetag of 1200 Microsoft Points on its Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Map Pack.

IW's pack went on sale yesterday - with some complications. DICE's own VIP 2 map pack became available on the same day - without cost.

"We don't ever want to charge for our maps and insisted to EA that this attitude was crucial when it came to keeping our community happy and playing together," DICE senior producer Patrick Bach told Xbox World 360 magazine. Bach commented that DICE had "generous" amounts of DLC planned for Battlefield: Bad Company 2's future.

He added: "We're owned by EA but we're still very much DICE."

1UP: Was Portal 2 from the beginning always going to be a full price game?
Gabe Newell: "One of the nice things about The Orange Box was it allowed us to try out a couple of different things, and Portal really seemed to resonate. We got the signals that we wanted -- this is what people liked; this is what people didn't like. And to us, it was like, 'OK now we know how to take this big,' so that's what we're going to do with Portal 2."

1UP: Are you worried about people expecting it to be a smaller game, and now it's hard to overcome that?
GN: "Well, I think that in any game... fans are super passionate, right? When we shipped Left 4 Dead and then came out with Left 4 Dead 2 a year later, you know a lot of people were excited, and then there were the people who decided, 'Something must be wrong; Valve must be turning to the dark side.' So I think you always have that challenge on your new games, explaining 'Why is it worth their time? Why is it worth their money? Why is it worth their passion?' And that's a case you have to make with every release you do."

1UP: What's the big answer you give for Portal 2?
GN: "Oh Portal 2's great. It's the best game we've ever done."

1UP: And it's not even done yet.
GN: "It's pretty clear, just internally."

Are there any specific reasons for the delay? What needed to be polished?

Technically there are a few things: the framerate isn't quite on the money yet. It's just the whole experience. One of the things we're spending a lot of time doing is focus testing. We're testing about twenty people a week. And it's getting that difficulty curve right. We want it to be hard, but we don't want it to be impossible like Mafia I. I don't know if you played the first game, but there was one mission when we shipped the game. Literally everyone failed until we released a patch. So we're really, really conscious about delivering a really balanced, proper difficulty curve. And then it's just bugs. It's an open world: ten square miles, fifty vehicles, a hundred environments. There were quite a lot of bugs in it!
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We only got to see a very small amount of police confrontation in the demo. How far does it escalate? What are some successful strategies for eluding the coppers?

If you go into an arrest status, that might trigger two or three cops to chase you. "Shoot to kill" status will go up to four, fix, six. When you're getting towards the end, the police are using tommy guns, leaning out of their vehicles to try and shoot you, there are stingers across roads, roadblocks across bridges, that sort of stuff is what you can expect. Obviously, there are no helicopters and stuff like that.

The system is based on line of sight. You have an immediate chase, but if you duck out of sight the cop doesn't know where you are and you lose your wanted status. But if the cop sees you at a close proximity, then he's going to fictionally radio in what you look like. So at that point, you're wanted by the entire force of Empire Bay, whether they see you or not. If you stay out of sight, then they're not going to be immediately chasing you. But if you come back into sight, then they're going to know what you look like and they're going to chase you. At that point, you'll have to change your clothes, or cleanse your car. There's different ways you can do that: you can change the license plate of your car, respray it, that sort of stuff.

A good strategy to use is -- if the cops are in cars, their cars are often faster than yours, especially in the '40s. One of the best things you can do is stop your car, jump out, and go jump over fences, stuff like that. They're not so hot on foot.