Unreal PS3 chat

Friday 25 August 2006
Unreal Tournament 2007 developer Epic Games wants to find out more about Sony's online system for PS3, and already has some ideas for Unreal's online ranking system on the next-gen system, according to producer Jeff Morris.

"We're really interested in learning more about Sony's network infrastructure for PS3 because on PlayStation 2 it was like the Wild West - you just plugged in and you were on the internet." Morris, who we spoke to at the Leipzig Game Convention, was happy to reveal some of the plans Epic has regarding Unreal Tournament 2007's online player stats.

After expressing his dismay of achieving a miserable ranking in Battlefield Modern Combat on Xbox Live (he thought he was "doing great"), Morris told us: "Stats should try to motivate you to make you play more. What we're going to do is have server-based stats where you're ranking on a server that you frequently play on and is reflected in, like, a one through 50 score, so you feel that you can actually get measurable position changes in it."

However, until Sony tells Epic - and presumably other developers - exactly how its Xbox Live rival is going to work, Morris and the Unreal development team can't begin implementing its ideas: "If Sony ends up having a very closed system, it may be more difficult to do that."

While on the subject of Sony's next-gen machine, Morris also informed us that Epic was currently playtesting UT 2007 at least once a week on PlayStation 3 and that, while it wasn't currently making use of the controller's tilt abilities, he did think that "it may compliment some of the vehicles - it might make sense for the air vehicles..."

We'll have more from our enjoyable encounter with Epic's Jeff Morris for you soon, including an extensive look at some of UT 2007's utterly fantastic vehicles.