I know this has been touched on briefly in another thread,but since E3 is coming and theres supposed to be more announcements on this,thought id make it own thread,as it does look pretty good.
In that span of time the art style has been completely redone and the
weapon count has grown to well over half a million. At E3 2009, we will
finally get to see the new look of Borderlands in action. To prep us
for the big unveiling, we spoke with Randy Pitchford, co-founder of Gearbox Software.
IGN: What lead to the decision to alter the art style and what how much did that delay the release of Borderlands?
Randy Pitchford: Borderlands is a big, huge game and it was
decided earlier that it would be best for the game to move it into
later in 2009. With the time, the artists had been itching for awhile
to see if they could render their concept art style in real-time. So a
bunch of them got together and put a prototype together. When they
scheduled a meeting to let me see it, I went in there thinking I was
going to have to shut it down for being too risky. But when I saw it on
screen, I was blown away. They did it! Quickly, I shared what we had
done with our amazing publishing partner, 2K Games,
who found a lot of value with the creative risks that were taken with
BioShock, and I was excited that they saw the same value that we did
and supported us. In fact, the art direction turned out to be bonus
value that came from artists effectively using time that the project
needed anyway.
IGN: This is a game built for co-op. But a lot of people who buy
Borderlands will end up playing the single-player mode. How do the two
experiences differ?
Randy Pitchford: The single player experience and the
cooperative experience are very similar, except that with cooperative
play friends can work together to fight and win. Single player and
cooperative play mingle seamlessly and your character is totally
persistent, so you can get some way through and invite a friend or you
can join a friend and bring everything you've earned along with you.
It's amazing technology and there isn't a single other game on the
consoles that offers the kind of persistent character development in
cooperative gaming that Borderlands does.
IGN:
One of the biggest challenges for co-op games is telling a compelling
story to multiple people. What are you doing to make the story elements
work for multiple people?
Randy Pitchford: It works fine when you play alone or with friends. I think you're going to have to play the game to see what we've done there.
IGN: You can choose from four different characters, correct? Tell us
about them and the advantages and disadvantages that come with each.
Randy Pitchford: You can pick from one of four different
character classes and each personalized character will grow as you play
the game to have different skills and capabilities from others of the
same class. There is Roland, the soldier. He's an expert with all
weapons, though he prefers shotguns and assault rifles. He can deploy a
shield turret that can be upgraded throughout the game. He can also buy
other skills and augmentations that befit the soldier class. Mordecai
is the hunter. He's agile and is equipped with a sword as a melee
weapon. He's expert with sniper rifles. He has a pet Bloodwing, which
is, like, a hundred times more deadly than even the best trained
falcon. He can send that thing at enemies to rend them apart. The
Bloodwing can get tougher and grow in skill too as you play the game.
Lilith is a Siren, which is a mysterious, mystical type that has been
touched by alien technology. She has strange powers such as the ability
to Phase Walk, which is kind of like when Frodo puts on the ring,
except that when she takes it off she can kill everything around her
with a shock-wave like nova effect. She's awesome. Finally there is
Brick, who is the tank bruiser of the group. He's just as comfortable
smashing you to a pulp with his fists as he is blowing you to bits with
a heavy rocket launcher. Among other traits he can improve and grow, he
has the ability to go into a berserker blood rage which makes him super
powerful at close range with his meaty fists.
IGN: As for the RPG elements, how deep is the character upgrade system? What sorts of things can you improve?
Randy Pitchford: We've linked the characters in the game to
the classes because the characters are really cool, but you'll name
your own character and pick your favorite colors for them and all that.
As you play, your character will get tougher and more skilled. You'll
level up and get stronger in the usual ways and in some ways that are
unique to Borderlands. Each character also has a skill tree where you
can develop your character in unique ways to make them more powerful
with the play style you prefer. It astonishingly robust for a first
person shooter, but we've made sure to make it super accessible and not
too complicated. It won't slow anyone down – just add value to the
growth experience.
IGN: What are some of the co-op skills you can learn and how are they used?
Randy Pitchford: There are a lot of complimentary cooperative
skills. The classes themselves complement each other well and within
each character, there are ways to get unique and distinctive for
particular play styles. I don't want to spoil anything here because a
lot of this stuff is really fun to discover.
IGN: Last I remember hearing there was a claim that Borderlands features more than 650,000 unique weapons. Are you sticking to that statement? And if so, how is that even remotely possible?
Randy Pitchford: Actually, 650,000 guns is the safe number.
We've now got some other new types of weapon classes and a lot of
different weapon manufacturers and we have created a bunch of super
rare and unique epic weapons and other gear, so the actual number of
different weapons in the game is quite a bit higher than that. There
are more weapons in Borderlands than in every shooter on both the 360
and PS3 added together. It's an absurd number of guns to the point
where talking about it isn't really relevant any more. What's relevant
is to realize that you'll be able to find lots of varied and better
weapons and gear as you play to become more and more powerful.
Theoretically there is a "best" weapon in every class and type, but
some of that will be up to taste as some traits are mutually exclusive
with others. Some players will get there and find some of those "best"
weapons, though. It feels pretty good to go back through and just
completely own some bosses that were tough when you were weaker.
How is it possible that we've created so many guns? We've created
technology, as sort of AI for all of the different weapon's
manufacturers that we've created, that uses all kinds of different raw
materials and components and parts and other content to procedurally
generate the weapons for us within the styles of each manufacturer and
the nature and general specifications of each class of weapon. It's
amazing stuff. I'm still being surprised by it!
I guess as a follow up, why do you feel the need to have such an
astronomically wide array of guns that no one gamer could possibly
experience? Do you worry at all that having too many options might
actually be overwhelming to gamers?
Randy Pitchford: The game is about discovery and choice and
achievement and growth. At any given moment when you're playing the
game, you're not thinking about half a million guns. You're thinking,
"That bandit has a badass shotgun. I want that. I'm going to get him
and take it from him." You're thinking, "Oh man - that assault rifle
that's for sale in that vending machine is awesome! It's got an
incendiary tech effect, too! I'm going to go do some missions and earn
some more credits so I can buy that thing!" You're thinking, "Let's see
what's in this locker… Okay, a repeater, mine's better, but that one
has a huge magazine... I guess I'll just take it and if I don't want it
I'll just sell it later. But whoa!!! There's also a double thunder
shotgun in there with a freaking scope on it! A scope! Yeah, I'll take
that!"
When you join in with friends, it's fun to see what kind of
equipment they've found. It's fun to discover new varieties you didn't
know could exist. There are surprises to find, too.
IGN: How big of a role do vehicles play in Borderlands?
Randy Pitchford: The runner vehicle is your mount. Some of
the bad guys have them too. They're a great way to go from point A to
point B more quickly and since the world is so big, you'll want to use
them whenever you can. You can also get runners with weapons and nitro
boost on them – lots of fun!
IGN: Can you customizes vehicles or is it a pretty much a what you see is what you get sort of tool?
Randy Pitchford: There are some customization options with the runners and other surprises too, but I don't want to spoil it.
IGN: The world is said to be pretty massive. Is this a completely
open-world game then and if so how are you going to be pointing players
in the right direction?
Randy Pitchford: It's a big, seamless and really interesting
and exciting world to explore. I haven't quite seen it all yet, but
that's because it's getting bigger and better and more rich all the
time. There's a narrative that drives you when you want to stay on
track, but you can consume that at your own pace. You can take odd
jobs, get core missions or just go off track and see what you can find.
When you want to follow a path, the game does a great job of showing
you the path. You can also just go off about your business. If you want
to grind for loot and experience, you can do that too. When you want to
just explore and discover, the Borderlands are a great place to be.
gavsta72 wrote:Pity there's no gameplay video....looks like Mad Max + freakish dudes and animals...lol
I'm curious about this game now, will be keeping an eye on it. Thanx agunzi
Your welcome 
I can already hear the comparisons to Fallout 3..........
gameplay footage here.
and more here.
Although the 2nd one is a bit dark,still looking pretty good 
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