StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty Live Chat Session - Transcript

Transcript for "StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty Developer Chat", Thurs July 15 2010 (Part I)
Aaron-GS: Good evening and welcome to our StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty developer chat!
Aaron-GS: Chris Sigaty from Blizzard Entertainment is currently online with us and he's here to answer your questions about the game! Dustin Browder will be joining us shortly.
ChrisSi: Hello everyone!
Aaron-GS: This chat is queued and moderated, so please allow the developers some time to review and respond to your questions.
Aaron-GS: Please also refrain from asking complex, multi-part questions to be fair to other participants.
Aaron-GS: The queue is now open, so ask away!
sillyup20: Regarding future balance changes, will you guys continue to patch SC2 after release to ensure balance of all 3 races?
ChrisSi: Yes, it's definitely important to us to ensure that the game remains balanced after launch. We will make patches as needed to address balance issues after launch
Guest-16: For the Campaign experience, will there be variation for future play throughs?
ChrisSi: Yes, one of the things we're really excited about with the campaign of Wings of Liberty is that players can make choices as to which missions to do next, what technologies they want to upgrade their army with, and so on. We think there's a lot of replayability in this huge campaign (29 missions) and players will get a ton of play time just with the campaign and some replayability
Guest-46: What is the devs' relationship with the Battle.net 2.0 team?
ChrisSi: We work very closely and we're in constant contact with the Battle.net team. The launch of StarCraft II and Battle.net is very much a team effort at Blizzard.
Guest-81: Will Kerrigan have a large role in Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty?
Lamonte: How many 1v1 multiplayer maps will be available for launch? And how will user created maps get put into the 1v1 map pool?
ChrisSi: yes she definitely plays a large role in the story. but how exactly that plays out, you'll have to play to see
DustinB: I think it's about 10 maps in the 1v1 queue. As we see great community maps we will take them internally, fix them up to match our map making standards (if necessary) and add them to the pool.
Guest-19: Will you be doing an overhaul of some of the SC2 sounds, in particular, the siege tank and the hydra death and the marine death sound? Many of the fans are concerned that the audio side of Starcraft 2 will not be up-to-date and on-par with the graphics, animations and multiplayer experience
Aaron-GS: The queue has been temporarily closed to allow Chris and Dustin some time to answer questions that have already been submitted.
Aaron-GS: Thank you for your patience.
DustinB: The sounds you hear in the beta are largely final. We will continue to update sounds in patches and of course in our two expansion products, Heart of the Swarm and Wings of Liberty.
Guest-73: Will you please stop nerfing Protoss? Much love from Aiur.
DustinB: The Protoss are now only slightly ahead of the other two races according to our numbers. But I think the nerfs for the Protoss are done for now. However the community continues to learn and we will buff and nerf as needed.=)
pureWasted: Do you have any plans to make units such as Reapers and Zerglings more viable in the late game?
DustinB: We continue to watch the balance in the game. Zerglings and Reapers do have some uses in the late game in some match ups, and we are waiting to see if they have more use once the community learns more about the game or if they fall off user build orders all together. We will not be doing any more patches in beta and we will be waiting at least several weeks after launch before we do any additional balance patch work (unless we see something really broken). In many ways the balance is in the hands of the community now for a while. We will see what kinds of strategies people come up with, what they learn to do with what they have and we will make decisions only after we learn a lot more about how the game plays with ALL of our fans playing.=)
Guest-64: Could you go into more detail on the Zerg campaign for Heart of the Swarm? What new features can we expect?
Guest-82: Hello, do you plan any new changes with the mothership? Alot of people feel that it's price is not worth it. Also, how about the ultralisk? I think the ultralisk should be able to at least walk over the zerglings. Thoughts?
DustinB: We are not going to any changes on the Mothership in the near future. Internal debate rages about this unit, I have been told by several people both inside and outside of blizzard that the unit is far too powerful. The Ultralisk needs a lot more testing before we know how good he is or is not in his current state. I have heard complaints both ways on this unit, that he is way too powerful (mostly against Protoss) and way too weak (mostly against Terrans). But we shall have to wait and see.
Guest-93: Will there be any significant changes between phase 2 beta and the launched version?
DustinB: We are not going to make major changes to game balance bewteen beta and launch. We will be fixing bugs and improving game perfomance and stability.
Guest-29: With certain maps being biased to certain races, are you planning on remaking the maps or just releasing other maps to play ladder matches that are balanced?
DustinB: There are always going to be maps that favor one race over another. We try to strike a good balance between these maps. If there is a map that is VERY unbalanced we will pull it from the match making pool (like Incineration Zone in Beta 1). If a map needs small fixes to make it better we will make those, though in most cases I think we would just put new maps into the mix.
Guest-89: QXC wants to know if you have plans to tweak Reapers and Battlecruisers so that we see them more in competitive play
DustinB: We do not have plans on Reapers or Battlecruisers at the moment. That may change after the game goes live and as the community gets more time with the game. I think Battlecruisers are fundamentally vulnerable in PvT and TvT (Void Rays and Vikings) though they could be tweaked to have use in TvZ.
Guest-104: Dustin, is this really you?! http://beta-us.battle.net/sc2/en/media/artwork#/po​rtrait_goliath_mercenary ^^
Guest-80: With respect to Battle.Net, will there be automated tournaments a la Warcraft 3 and if so will they have rewards such as portraits or decals?
ChrisSi: that is a mysterious resemblance, Guest 104!
DustinB: We do have plans for automated tournaments, but they are a little ways off. Look for these in the future. We are pretty geeked up about getting to put them in (and play them ourselves). =)
Guest-85: What classic/new units will we play with in the campaign that didnt make the cut in the Multiplayer game? Eg; firebat, medic, what others?
DustinB: I don't know that I remember the full list. Here is what comes to mind.=) Medic, Firebat, Vulture, Wraith, Science Vessel, Goliath.
Guest-70: regarding balance changes, how are you basing your balance changes? do you look at the diamond league statistics in a certain region, base them off tournament play, or what? do you guys at blizzard follow the competative tournament scene and base some balance changes of tham?
Guest-88: Do you plan to add any new units in future expansions that would be available to use online/multilayer?
DustinB: We look at stats on all regions and all leagues. We emphasize the importance of balance in the Diamond League as well as pulling stats from our top 1% of players. These are the numbers that need to be as close to 50/50 as we can get them. We do try to make sure that Bronze players don't get much worse than 55/45 in any matchup. In addition we look at tournament play and study those games to see what we can learn about how people are playing the game now as well as how they may play it in the future. David Kim and Matt Cooper (our balance designers) spend pretty much their entire day playing games and watching others play games.=)
Guest-122: Cross realm play.. Why did you not include it? There has virtually been no lag.
DustinB: That's something we want to get to in the future. There are some technical and business challenges for us. We do offer our players different ways to buy and play StarCraft 2 in different areas of the world and we need to work out cross realm play so it is fair to all of our fans around the world.
sillyup20: Will future expansions of SC2 lead to new units in the Mutliplayer?
DustinB: Yes.=) We will add more units. How we will deal with the games growing complexity is the really interesting challenge that we don't yet have the great answer for. We don't want to have 15+ units per race in the game, so we need to think of something clever that will allow us to add new strategies to the game without making the game too complicated.
Denthar: are the stats on the units in the campaign going to have the same stats as those in muliplayer?
DustinB: Mostly yes, but there are some exceptions. We do have some of the units that start weaker in the campaign and get stronger as you buy upgrades for them or gain additional abilities through researching alien organisms and artefacts. In general though there are so many new and crazy units in the campaign that you will find it a very different experience from multiplayer combat.
Guest-151: Are there any features where you won't need a persistent internet connection such as editors or campaign?
Guest-41: Do you feel there is room for new units to come (or come back) in the future ?
ChrisSi: There is an offline mode where you can play the campaign, skirmish against AI or challenge mode w/o needing to be connected to Battle.net (Guest 151)
DustinB: Yes, we will be dealing with the issue of new units in the expansions. I doubt we will add new units or bring back old units in patches, but anything is possible.
Guest-166: Can we expect significant changes for each "episode" gameplay wise? (I.E. radical new unit functions, gametypes or innovative maps?)
DustinB: We are going to do more in the expansions to add new strategies for the fans. I don't know what those will be yet.=)
Lamonte: You said your map making standards, what are blizzards map making standards?
DustinB: It is a long and complicated list. In many cases it comes down to simple bugs. In user made maps there are often many small mistakes like areas of the map where units can get easily stuck or trapped, or mistakes in mineral and gas placement, that sort of thing. Generally when we put a map into the matchmaking pool we clean up a few of these bugs before publishing it to Battle.Net
Guest-124: Can we expect new Blizzard maps as well as user-submitted (turned official) maps? If you could ballpark it, how long should we expect new features & additions from Blizzard for SC2?
DustinB: yes, we will add user made maps. I expect we will be adding features and custom maps in many of our patches between expansions and obviously we will be adding lots of stuff in the expansions themselves.
Guest-70: as you may know, there are no 1 supply units in the zerg race at the moment and the zerg is lacking their "swarm" aspect. what are you guys looking into to bring the "swarm" back to the zerg?
DustinB: Well the Zerglings are .5 supply.=) I know many of our Zerg players were annoyed that we made Roaches 2 supply. We just couldn't justify a 1 supply Roach when we took a look at his stats and we watched and played a ton of Beta games. It was not balanced. We really think the "swarm" aspect of the Zerg comes not from the supply cost of some of their units but from the vast amount of resources they often have at their disposal because they find it so easy to expand. In addition with Spawn Larva the Zerg can easily save up a large amount of production, allowing Zerg forces to attack with a large army, lose that army and then rebuild it very quickly and attack again with a similar force. It feels very "swarmy."
Guest-172: Can you give us any info about Blizzards plan for E-Sports in the west?
Guest-190: Will there be a snow tileset in the campaign?
DustinB: No. We will be doing snow in the future. Sorry. =(
Scytone: What is your take on EMP? Do you feel it is to strong? are there any plans to change it?
ChrisSi: esports is very important to us at Blizzard and especially for SC2.We do plan on releasing a patch in the months after launch to address the needs of pro tournaments and eSports, so as we get closer to that we'll have more news to share about our plans for eSports overall (Guest 172)
DustinB: EMP is necessary for Terrans right to defend against Protoss. I also think it might have more use that we are currently seeing against Zerg (but I could be wrong about that). We have nerfed its radius in the past and we can do so again if necessary. We don't believe (currently) that it is a problem.
Guest-48: Concerning the ladder promotions system, what further clarity can you provide to us on exactly how this works? I've heard that it works based on some sort of interval system, if so, what sort of intervals? I think many people feel left in the dark on how this works and might like a 'progress bar' for promotions or something similar.
DustinB: The Battle.Net team has been hard at work on this system throughout Beta-1 and Beta-2. It does currently check every so often to see that you are in the right league. I don't know what the current times are that it checks. I know they are talking about doing some updates to those checks so that they happen more often.
Guest-215: WIth the new expansions, will current units change in any way?
DustinB: Current units will change if we think of ways to make them more fun and they will change if we need to alter the balance to deal with anything new we add to those expansions.
Guest-93: Send: Some phase 2 patches took away some of the social features on battle net. Such as being able to join a friends game simply by right clicking and 'joining game'. Or being ablbe to see other peoples friends through your current friends. Making it easier to connect with friends is really important. Do you plan on brining back these features along with others (chat channels?)
Guest-81: Are you happy with the Ultralisk? Do you see it as a end game unit that the zerg can use effectively? Compared to the other races end-game units, does the big bug need another buff? Or do they neeed a super bug that's bigger?
DustinB: I have only had a few great Ultralisk experiences myself. I have seen some truly amazing Ultralisk games and I have seen some total disasters. We are going to "wait and see" on him and see how he does in the coming weeks before we do anything else to him. Remember that in many cases the players find lots of clever ways to use units that don't seem at all obvious to us inside the studio.
ChrisSi: We're goign to be watching closely how players use the social functionality in Battle.net and continue to refine the system and make it easier and more intuitive to do things like invite players to games and so on. As for chat channels, there'll be a post-launch patch that will include the ability to have private chat channels. Battle.net is very much a living service so you can expect that we'll constantly be making feature additions and improvements to meet the needs of players (Guest 93)
Guest-149: Do you anticipate further tweaking terran mech or the build time of barracks and gateways?
DustinB: If necessary. We don't have any plans today.
Guest-177: Do you plan to rotate the map pool for the ladder, if so will user made maps have a chance to be put in the ladder map pool?
DustinB: Yes.=) This is a popular question. We will add user maps as we become aware of them.
Guest-200: There are rumors that there is a LAN enabled professional edition available for professional tournaments to reduce latency... Is this true and will it be available for pro-teams to practice?
Guest-197: Will there be anymore Zerg soundscape changes before retail? – Wankey
DustinB: I don't believe there are any changes planned before we go live. Sorry. =(
Guest-102: Are there still plans to implement an invite only "pro" leauge above the diamond league after launch?
DustinB: Yes. I don't have all the details, but we do plan on having a "Pro League" that works a little differently from our regular leagues.
ChrisSi: any rumors you've heard about a "pro edition" are just rumors. We've made no official announcements about that. We will address the needs of pro tournaments and eSports in a patch in the months after the release of SC2. (Guest 200)
AVBenedetto: Zerg player here. I will gladly trade Roaches for Lurkers in multiplayer, any chance of seeing Lurkers before the expansions?
DustinB: Not likely, though anything is possible. It's not a Roach trade though. It's a Roach+Baneling trade. When we were testing the game with Lurkers we found that their splash and Baneling splash overlapped quite a bit. For sometime the Lurker was Tier 3 as a result (and siege range) but in that position he was easily spotted by detection (since it is so common in Tier 3) and he wasn't really a "Lurker." Also remember that without Dark Swarm, Lurkers don't have quite the same level of use that they did in SC1.
Guest-136: Do you believe that StarCraft 2 will be able to reach a similar eSports scene success in the US and/or Europe as Brood War has had in South Korea, including multiple multimillion dollar teams and games broadcasted live on tv daily?
DustinB: No idea. I hope so.=) It certainly is a fun game to watch (as I'm sure most of you know). What nations and communities will embrace it is largely up to our players and fans. We didn't create esports, our fans did that. =)
spychi: how many new units have been done for campaign only?
DustinB: I'm not sure on the exact number. I believe it's about a dozen?
Guest-153: With updated Terms of Use for new Bnet, it was mentioned you needed Blizzard permission for any type of Esports activity. This of course makes sense, but when I personally contacted support to get the needed paper complete through email or fax. I was told they had no information on this and was given Blizzards Corp. mailing address. Can you save people who are doing Esports Livestream / Ustream showmatches the trouble and let us know how to contact to get this permission Please?
Guest-275: Will there ever be a toggle function for Unit life bars?? Or a way to make Unit life bars smaller??
DustinB: There is a toggle for unit life bars. We don't have a way to make them smaller. That sounds like a good suggestion.
ChrisSi: If you're interested in setting up a tournament and getting appropriate licensing for SC2, contact [email protected]
Aaron|Social Media Specialist | Best Buy® Corporate
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Transcript for "StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty Developer Chat", Thurs July 15 2010 (Part III)
Guest-393: Do you have plans to change the custom game list? I ask this because sometimes I search for a game I like, but its not that popular. Therefore its on the bottom of the list and no one joins the game.
ChrisSi: I can't speak to that issue specifically but if there is a major problem there we will address it in due time. As you know we are committed to patching even older games like SC and Diablo when necessary. At the moment a lot of attention is focused on this launch, so pelase be patient =) (Guest 334)
DustinB: Again, this is an area that we will be working on in the coming months.=)
Guest-340: Would it be plausible to see a "StarCraft HD" in the next five years? We'd all love to see the original game "digitally remastered" along the same lines as timeless movies like "Gone with the Wind", "Cassablanca" or the "Wizard of Oz". We don't enjoy them' films on ol' projector reels these days, no sir! -- We've got VCR's now! *spits*.
DustinB: That would be pretty cool. Currently we have no plans for such a project. =(
Guest-281: Recently, StarCraft Legacy wrote a really great article regarding the community's concerns with the new Battle.net and we know that Battle.net is going to evolve - but what is the reason for some of the stuff the community thinks was so basic not being included in release? What's the best way to give you guys feedback? We the hardcore, are a highly underused resource!
DustinB: Oh, we are hearing you guys, don't worry about that.=) We are going to keep working on it as fast as we can. Stuff that isn't in there is stuff we just didn't get to. Keep sending your feedback though, and we'll try to address it as fast as we can.
Guest-294: Will there be seasonal SC2 ladder resets, similar to WC3 and WoW arena?
DustinB: That's the plan. Though I don't know yet when the first season is going to end.
Guest-400: Do you plan on including good and balanced fan made maps (if made) in some of the future ladder map pools?
DustinB: Yes. =) Also, I answered this one like ten times already.=)
DustinB: To Guest-156 That's the plan. I don't know exaxtly what new sorting methods will be used in the future, but it's an area we can work on.
Guest-337: Is Terrible Terrible Damage going to be a cheat code?
DustinB: Wait and see.=)
Guest-73: What is your favourite unit and race, and who would win in a 1v1 match between you two (directed to both)?
DustinB: As the Game Director I don't have the luxury of having a favorite. I play Random unless I am testing something specific. Chris Sigaty doesn't get quite the play time I do. I would totally pwn that noob.
ChrisSi: oh I think Dustin would have an advantage over me.
Guest-156: Do you have any information for us on the custom game selection menu? Will new ways to sort through games be made available Soon^TM? The popularity system has its drawbacks.
DustinB: That's the plan. I don't know exactly what new sorting methods will be used in the future, but it's an area we can work on.
Guest-389: How exactly does the current Galaxy Editor differ from the version at launch?
DustinB: We have made some UI improvements as well as stability improvements. More importantly you will have access to all the art in the campaign.=)
Guest-298: In multiplayer games, are there any plan to implement a counter that would show the supply and resources of your allies? This is something that the community has been asking for a while. It would be extremely useful when one of your ally leave. I remember reading an interview with Dustin that said that the team thought that such a counter would be used to flame your allies but have you considered the possibility of letting players chose if they want to show the counter or not (kinda like you can...
DustinB: It's certainly something we can talk about for a future patch. I do think there is going to be flaming no matter what we do, so maybe we can find a nice spot to put this info in the UI.
Guest-70: The Force Field spell seems to be an extremely strong spell and in the recent patch, they have been buffed by decreasing the amount of Force Fields needed to trap or block a unit. It is even possible to trap Roaches in between 2 Force Fields. What is the reasoning for this change?
Disease: Will the game ship with multiple languages on one DVD or at least with an option to switch the language?
DustinB: Yeah, that buff happened because we fixed a bug where Zerglings on creep could actually "run past" a line of Zealots that were blocking a choke point. We have a new fix that will come out in our first patch that will make Force Fields work like they did before AND zerglings will still not be able to run past Zealots. In other words, we didn't do it on purpose, it just happened when we fixed something else. Sorry. =(
Guest-284: Can we set difficulty of campaign? Or is there normal mode and then after we finish it we unlock other difficulties like Hard in WC3 if I remember correctly?
DustinB: You can change your difficulty on a per mission basis. So if you start on Casual and it seems to easy you can start the next mission on Normal or Hard. You can play any difficulty at any time without having to beat the campaign.
Guest-282: Will there be a way at release to customize your key binds, or at least move the F keys to a more convenient position?
DustinB: Yes, you can do some key rebinding.
Guest-346: I want to say a BIG "thank you" to you guys and everyone at Blizzard for making these games that millions and I want to play! And for a light-hearted question; What are we more likely to see first, the third expansion to Starcraft 2, or Diablo 3? =)
ChrisSi: Disease -- you should buy the language version and region that you want to play in. The ability to switch language and which language you want to switch to is going to vary from region to region.
Guest-419: Resend: Will you be conducting more chats like this one anytime soon, as it seems that direct, public communications between the devs and the community is sparse (reading our posts on the forums/fansites doesn't count, I'm referring to a two-way dialogue)
DustinB: Thanks dude.=) As far as the race between us and D3 goes who knows? If you are a fan of our games you know how we opperate. It will be done when it's done. Not the best answer for our fans, but the right answer for the games.
ChrisSi: Guest 419 - we do conduct Twitter chats with fans from time to time. Recommend you add yourself to the official StarCraft facebook and/or twitter accounts so you can be informed when the next one happens. Thanks!
Guest-29: What is the most popular race being played in the beta?
Guest-366: With regard to the Oceanic / Asia region, coming from the Philippines I am still contemplating which version to buy (right now I have better ping to LA servers). Has there been any update regarding the traceroutes on the forums, which version would Australian / Philippine players buy to experience better multiplayer experience (read: less lag). Thanks.
DustinB: Terran. That may be because they are the default race, or because they are the most "understandable" race (they look human) or it may be because people think they are the most powerful. Not sure why.=)
Guest-82: I really miss "20 minute No Rush" titles on custom games, with this new battle.net you can't do that, is there anyway we can impliment that? Also, any news on clan chat and general chat?
DustinB: yeah, I hear you on the "no rush" games. I don't have a solve for you in the current UI. No news on Clan or General chat, but it is on the list of big important things we have to do, that is for sure.
Guest-314: There appears to be a significant input delay when using keyboard commands in custom maps that is (probably) unrelated to latency that has remained since Warcraft 3. Trying to play games on battle.net using arrow keys to move for example, is impossible. Is your team aware of this issue and are there plans to fix it?
ChrisSi: Guest 366 -- we are always trying to work with local ISPs to improve routing to Battle.net servers. I'd strongly encourage you to play in the SEA region as our goal is to build up strong regional communities of players. By putting down servers in the region, we are committing to providing the best play experience for you there.
DustinB: We are very aware. Last I heard they were working on it but it was a hard problem. I don't know if a fix is incoming or possible. We shall have to wait and see what the engineers come up with.
Guest-211: Have you watched any SC2 beta tournaments? If so, who is your favorite player?
DustinB: I have watched many. I don't know if it would be right for me to say my favorite.=) I like players who have good manners, play creatively and try new stuff a lot.
Guest-470: Dustin, when i first read about the new AI, which Sc2 would introduce, I thought you would be more inventive. I would love to recommend your AI-team some readings on planning AI... I see that you already read up on steering behavior for the zerglings (which results in poor movements by ultralists, but that's another story). (Master in AI @ university of Copenhagen, Denmark)
DustinB: Sorry if you don't like our AI. I think it's pretty challenging and does a really good job of being aggresive and keeping you on your toes. Try Insane if you have mastered Very Hard.=)
Guest-397: Is there going to be a single-player demo like there was for the original shortly before or after release?
DustinB: We are working on something, but it is still a little bit in the future to know exactly when we will have it ready.
Guest-258: Will there be a way to view replays with my friends within battle.net? Currently the only way (that I know) to view them concurrently is to send him the file, and we both click start at the same time =\. Its sort of a hassle.
DustinB: One day yes, not for launch.=( It is a good feature and we are going to try to get it as soon as we can.
Guest-364: It seems to be that in terran vs anything. terran is called the favored match up in polls and in major tournaments. even pro players changing to terran because of the imbalance. does blizzard feel there is an imbalance?
DustinB: I haven't seen numbers that prove this to me yet. I have also had players tell me that Protoss are the most imbalanced. Polls we don't really respond to, we don't know who is in them or if they are accurate. If we start to see a large number of terran players dominating the high end tournaments we will certainly do something. Currently I don't feel there is an imbalance, but as always we are open to new data.
Guest-173: Considering the limitation of 1 account per purchase of SCII, it makes it very difficult for players to play their 'off' races competitively without losing their rank for their 'best' race. If having multiple accounts is not possible because of spam, and repeatedly playing against bronze-level to feel 'pro', etc, etc, Could it be possible to implement 4 different placement match sets of 5 for each individual race? (P T Z and Random?) So we can play all of them and improve our entire SC play, sti...
Guest-194: how come the US didnt get an open beta? I cant wait 11 more days =(
DustinB: Yeah. I know exactly how you feel. I don't know what the fix is yet for this issue. We'll try to think of a good fix that makes everyone happy.
Guest-347: You mentioned, in relation to the balance of TvZ, that although you feel Siege tanks might be too powerful vs. Zerg generally, the "stats" don't back that up because the win rate is close to 50/50. Taken to the extreme, isn't it possible that, say, Baneling busts are OP vs Terran early and Siege tanks are OP vz Zerg in the mid-to-late game? Therefore Zerg would win 50% of the time on Baneling busts, and Terran would win the other 50% of games that make it to the mid-game. Obviously this is an ex...
ChrisSi: Guest 194 -- Hang in there! Sorry you didn't make it into beta but it won't be long before you can play. Hope to see you soon on Battle.net!
Guest-53: You said the campaign will be available offline and that campaign progress is kept serverside. Will users be able to earn Achievements while playing offline? Are game saves going to be saved locally or on the server?
DustinB: Yes, that is possible. But we don't just use the stats. When we are playing, we find that experienced Zerg players are doing well in both tournaments and in high end play. And our testers and balance guys are crushing with zerg. As far as ZvT is concerned we are waiting for more data. I feel like there is a problem but we haven't seen the proof yet. We need to know what to do before we make a fix. So we are going to keep watching it.
Guest-86: 1 ghost emp could possibly whipe out VERY MANY archons , and of all of their life but a puny 10 hitpoints, also with giving up psistorm do you even see archons as a useful unit , PvT anyways ? *P.S. how longs the Q+A gonna last ?*
DustinB: EMP does not do 100% damage to shields. Archons have some shields remaining when they get hit.
ChrisSi: Guest 53: If you're not connected to Battle.net you can't earn achievements. And obviously if you want to access cloud file storage to save your campaign progress you'll need to be connected online to do that as well.
Guest-363: Are there any plans to standardize the in game time with the actual game speed we play on? IE give us correct APM for the fastest setting and in game time regaurding unit build times, and other references to time that arent on the speed that is played on.
DustinB: Yeah, this is an issue we have to address. I'm not sure what fix we decided for this off the top of my head. Sorry.=(
Guest-454: What do you guys plan on doing about the exceeding number of smurf accounts currently occupying the Bronze league, I messed up my placement matches and now it seems like theres no way out. :[
DustinB: We will promote you out of Bronze if you win games. It takes 30+ games in the current version of the system. Also, I highly suggest to players in Beta-2 to NOT intentionally throw their first 5 games. I now some players who have done this and then been frustrated that they can't just win their way out quickly. The system is conservative right now (though we are talking about some changes) and it will only promote you after it is pretty sure it knows where you belong.
Guest-73: It seems that the new and improved AI heavily favours ranged units and in mid to late game, melee units become weak against them. Do you feel that this is the case and tweaking needs to be done?
DustinB: that is not feedback that I have heard. But we can certainly look at it.
Guest-283: Any plans to get group replay watching out in the near future? The community would love this and it would be great for team players. What about things like drawing across the replay screen, etc?
Guest-473: Is StarCraft 2 going to be pay to play on Latin America?. Game voices are on Latin Spanish like WoW?
DustinB: Not in the near future, but as soon as we can. That would be a ton of fun.
Guest-340: Relic's RTS 'Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor' allows you to swap out specific units in a melee game, allowing for some greater variety in a matchup. Could we see this feature in future expansions? If not the complexity of mix & match armies, perhaps simply custom unit artwork (earned through tournaments or other promotional elements)?
DustinB: It's a cool idea. If it makes sense we could do something like that. The most important thing for StarCraft is always going to be the game balance. That will help determine what we are and are not willing to do in the expansions.
Guest-303: Do you feel the ladder placement system is successful? I went 4-1 in my placement matches and was placed in silver. Also, will the magic number of placement matches still be 5 after release?
ChrisSi: Our players in Latin America still ahve the option of purchasing an unlimited play client directly from us. We do have the ADDITIONAL option (for players who want it) to buy a lower-cost box that has limited play time. You can then buy additional play time if you like. So it's up to you which way you want to go. And yes the game will be fully voiced and localized in Latin American Spanish (not Castellano).
DustinB: We have found that 5 matches is enough to place most players somewhat close to their correct league. If we want to be more precise we have to wait until almost 35 matches to know for sure where you belong (and that's too long). So we are going to keep it at 5 and then promote as necessary. The current system is a little bit conservative with promotions. We are looking at possibly making it a little bit more aggresive with promotions for launch. But that may or may not happen depending on the work involved.
Guest-199: Do we have to expect to servers to be laggy on the first day of release or are you guys REALLY ready for launch?
DustinB: I hope we are ready. We have certainly put in the work to BE ready. I THINK we are ready. OK, now you are making me nervous with this question.
Guest-397: A year or two back, I believe it was mentioned that we could mix and match tilesets (say, you could use the dirt or grass from Agria or Bel'Shir, but could also include terrain from a tileset such as Korhal or Shakuras). From what I've heard, this was not possible in the Beta. Is this one of the UI improvements you mentioned? If not, why was it removed?
Guest-167: How is the sp campaign replayability wise? Are there incentives for doing the missions/campaign again aside from collecting achievements? Maybe branching mission paths or choices in the campaign that affect how the rest of the campaign will play out?
DustinB: I don't think this feature was removed. But I haven't used the editor in some time. If it's out it may be a mistake.
Guest-446: Forgive me if this has already been addressed, but will there be a SINGLE top league? I love having multiple Bronze->Platinum, but we NEED to know who is the best. Either Diamond or a new bracket above diamond should exist as single top 100 league. Please?
DustinB: Eventually we are planning on a "Pro League" that will include the best players only.
Guest-419: Why are the patch notes always incomplete? Why not disclose all the changes up front? Also, will you host any tournaments at BlizzCon with well known commentators in the community DJing?
DustinB: Because we are making patches too quickly and we screwed up and forgot to put some stuff in. Sorry. =(
AVBenedetto: Can Void Rays lose their charge when they change targets like they did ages ago? Pretty please with spidermines on top?
ChrisSi: Guest 167: There will be some different mission branches throughout the campaign that tell the sidestories of certain characters like Tosh or Dr. Hanson. There will also be a couple opportunities there for your choices to affect the fate of certain sidestories. Between the branching mission paths and the ability to customize your army through single-player only units and tech and mercenaries, we think there's a good amount of replayability built-in to the game.
DustinB: I think Void Rays are doing pretty well in the balance of the game right now. No plans for such a change (which is a pretty big nerf).
Guest-132: You mentioned that larger/"pro" maps are for pro players and tournaments. Does that mean we won't be seeing any more maps the size of Lost Temple in the 1v1 ladder map pool?
Guest-449: Are you planning on having the servers live for midnight launches in the US?
DustinB: No, Lost Temple will be in that pool. Desert Oasis is in there too (and is pretty big). Some of the pro maps from Broodwar could almost be 3v3 maps. And they are often very technical maps with all kinds of height differences and complex layouts. They are AWESOME for pro play, but can be a little intimidating for many.
Guest-280: What are your plans for the 1st expansion in terms of campaign and how will it be different to the hyperion stuff and how missions work in SC2 WOL
ChrisSi: Guest 449: Yes, if you go and buy your box at midnight in the US, we're planning on the servers being ready for you to install and play when you bring that box home
Aaron|Social Media Specialist | Best Buy® Corporate
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  • UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves Live Chat Session - Transcript

    Transcript for "UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves Developer Chat", Thurs Oct 8 2009 (Part I)
    Aaron-GS: Welcome to the UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves developer chat! In place of Evan Wells and Christophe Balestra, we currently have Neil Druckmann and Travis Mcintosh from Naughty Dog online with us this evening.
    Aaron-GS: You may start to ask questions now.
    Dorothy-BBY: YAY!
    NeilD-Dev: What's up everyone?
    Guest-4: woo hoo
    DarkTower805: First, congrats on all the acclaim and success you guys are recieving, you deserve it. My question is, how many multiplayer maps will the game ship with and is it possible that future DLC might include maps based on Drake's Fortune?
    NeilD-Dev: Thanks for coming to chat with us!
    Guest-2: Are there any other ways to win the awsome looking Fortune Hunters Edition?
    Aaron-GS: It may take a few minutes for the developers to answer your questions. To help them out, please ask short, concise questions and try to refrain from asking multiple part questions to be fair to the other participants.
    NeilD-Dev: Thanks, dude. We're pretty excited about all the reviews. The game is gonna ship with 7 maps and we're definitely going to include more maps in the upcoming DLC - can't say more thant that right now... stay tuned.
    NeilD-Dev: Check out the Playstation blog for more ways to win.
    DarkTower805: Will there be any community "play with the devs" coming up?
    TravisM-Dev: Just stay tuned to the playstation blog, we'll have all the info up for you soon.
    TravisM-Dev: Definately there will be something, although I don't know any specifics right now. I'll definately be there when it happens.
    TravisM-Dev: Although I tend to be one of the lower ranked dogs when it comes to multiplayer .
    Dorothy-BBY: It happens
    NeilD-Dev: Whereas I kick all sorts of **bleep**.
    Guest-4: Will there be any dowloadable content coming?
    NeilD-Dev: Yes, we're working right now on downloadable content. All I can say right now is that it'll be multiplayer orientated.
    Guest-12: will you be able set the controls to what ever buttons you want?
    TravisM-Dev: You can't remap every button, but we do have a bunch of options, including inverting axis and swapping a number of buttons. Not everything, since we tend to feel our controls work well for our game, but still a lot.
    Guest-2: Is the warzone co-op map longer in the complete game than in the demo?
    TravisM-Dev: The warzone map is about twice as long in the final demo, of course the last half is harder than the first, so it might take you a little longer to complete.
    Guest-3: What is your favorite improvement in Uncharted 2 to elemtents that were present in the first one?
    NeilD-Dev: Well besides improving everything... We did a much better job of integrating our story and gameplay together. There's much more storytelling done in-game this time around.
    DarkTower805: Word is, is that players who have played and completed Uncharted: Drake's Fortune will be rewarded with extra spending cash in Uncharted 2's store. Will this extra cash be activated through gamesaves or trophies? The reason I ask is because my old PS3 broke and I lost my gamesaves, but I still have my Uncharted: Drake's Fortune trophies (including platinum ).
    TravisM-Dev: The bonus comes from reading the Uncharted I save games. Unfortunately just having the trophies isn't enough for the game to award you the extra cash. Don't worry though, there's plenty of cash available from both the single player and multiplayer modes.
    Guest-17: is this really the developers?
    NeilD-Dev: Yes! I'm the co-lead designer and Travis is one of our lead programmers.
    bnogradi28: Is there mutated humans again???
    NeilD-Dev: Hey... no story spoilers. You'll just have to play to find out.
    Guest-14: why is the release date for the UK and Ireland different to that of NA and Europe?
    TravisM-Dev: There's a lot of stuff that goes into getting a game from our hands into the store. Unfortunately going through all the quality assurance and approval stuff is long, and different in different countries. We'd love to get it out all at the same time, but language issues and the like tie our hands a lot of the time.
    Guest-20: I would just like to say you guys made one heck of a game. Congrats!
    NeilD-Dev: Thanks, dude... appreciate it.
    Guest-2: Is there any interest in bringing this franchise to PSP or PSP-GO?
    TravisM-Dev: We're definately interested in a PSP Uncharted, but for now we're still just focused on PS3 Development.
    Guest-22: How long does it take to beat the single story mode?
    NeilD-Dev: The single player campaign lasts between 10 - 15 hours... but then there's the multiplayer which it'll eat up a lot more of your time.
    Guest-14: will the MP have an option to play against those who are at the same level as you? also, will it expand to more than just 5v5?
    TravisM-Dev: We aren't going to have more than 5v5, but in the final game we do have a special ranked playlist where every game, and every player is ranked based on skill. Check it out when the game is live.
    Guest-27: Do you guys have any new concepts for a new IP for the future?
    NeilD-Dev: Right now we're just focusing on DLC for Uncharted 2. We don't know what we're working on yet as far as the next game is concerned.
    Guest-17: wow thats frkn awesome, i just woke up from bed and here i am talking to the guys at naughty dog lol, anyway how come u guys added the Revenge perk (drop a live nade when u die) a lot of people rkn its gona ruin it like how it ruined cod4
    TravisM-Dev: We've playtested this game a lot, we feel that the revenge perk won't have the problems it had in call of duty because of the very different way Uncharted plays. But don't worry, we play the game as much as anybody, if there's a problem, we will fix it, whatever it takes.
    ILoveNaughtyGod: Will DLC feature the usual extra maps, skins, modes, etc? Since you aren't sure what to include, do u look at threads?
    NeilD-Dev: Oh we know what we're including... we're just not telling yet. Stay tuned, it'll be cool.
    NeilD-Dev: Since a bunch of new people just logged in... you're speaking with me (co-lead designer) and Travis, lead programmer from Naughty Dog.
    Guest-18: In competitive multiplayer, often when you melee someone, even if you get the first hit off, they'll melee you back right after and both players will die during the second melee. It happens more than often. In real life fights, how often do you see both fighters K/O each other at the same time? Is there any way you guys can fix this issue? Love the game btw.
    TravisM-Dev: The issue with melee is fundamentally a issue with lag. What happens is both players on thier respective machines have punched the other player first. Rather than flip a coin to decide who dies, we decided both players should get the kill.
    Guest-25: Have you guys considered a map pack with Uncharted 1 places? Such as maybe the drowned city map or Navaro's boat?
    NeilD-Dev: Playing in Uncharted 1 areas would be pretty awesome... that's a good idea.
    Aaron-GS: Thank you for all your questions! We are temporarily freezing the queue to give the developers time to answer quesitons that have already been submitted.
    Guest-2: Love the demo, I can't wait until midnight Monday!
    TravisM-Dev: I'm glad you like the demo, the final game has a ton more though. You can still pre-order...
    Guest-22: Have you guys made it where other people can't cheat in the multiplayer online mode. That really annoys me when people cheat and you don't even stand a chance.
    TravisM-Dev: We're constantly monitoring the online looking for cheaters, If we find anyone or any technique that might be a problem, rest assure we'll fix it.
    Guest-4: i already preordered at BB... are there any midnight launches?
    NeilD-Dev: We're looking into a midnight launch... but make sure to pre-order and get the exclusive golden guns. Kill people in style in the multiplayer.
    Guest-38: Is there going to be any significant changes from the open beta to the final version of the muliplayer mode in terms of tweaks made?
    TravisM-Dev: Definately there will be changes. One significant change we're working on right now is punishing players for quitting a number of games in a row to prevent too many people dropping. There's a bunch more fixes and tweaks comming though.
    Guest-34: Will there be female villain skins in the final releae of Uncharted 2?
    NeilD-Dev: More female skins, eh? Check the credits in Uncharted 2 for a hint...
    DarkTower805: The climbing and cover system in Uncharted 2 multiplayer is so unique and works so well. Do you think this will revolutionize the multiplayer genre?
    NeilD-Dev: Thanks DarkTower805... We were hoping that our unique traversal gameplay would make our game feel unique. We really hope that more developers will follow suit and make the environments much more traversable.
    Guest-44: Hello, in the beta when aim and shooting while the target moves, the bullets seems to be inches behind the target. Some kind of bullet lag. I forgot the proper word for it. Is that fixed in the full released?
    TravisM-Dev: What your seeing that looks like bullet lag is really just a visual artifact. In the real game all damage is applied by the client, so you should always hit what your aiming at.
    Guest-18: Are you guys planning on releasing a Jak And Daxter game for the PS3?
    NeilD-Dev: Jak and Daxter... the million dollar question. We would love to what a next-gen Jak game would look and play like. But we haven't decided what we're doing for our next game yet.
    Guest-33: What is the deal with headshots in the MP demo? Does lag make the headshots not register or did you guys not make headshots one shot kills?
    TravisM-Dev: Headshots in MP do significantly more damage than normal hits, but they are not one hit kills except for the sniper rifle. But definately aim for the head, it makes a big difference.
    Aaron-GS: Thank you for your patience! The queue is now open for questions again.
    Guest-44: Is there any more details about the Uncharted Movie from Colombia pictures?
    NeilD-Dev: The last update we have for the Uncharted movie is that the studio is working on adapting the script.
    Aaron-GS: We are currently freezing the queue to allow the developers time to answer questions that have already been submitted. Thank you for your patience.
    Guest-40: Will there be custom soundtracks?
    TravisM-Dev: We have no plans for custom soundtracks, but Greg did an amazing job with the U2 soundtrack, I think you guys will like it.
    Guest-70: Were there any concerns over adding multiplayer in the game because you guys wanted to make the Campaign perfect (which it probably is)?
    NeilD-Dev: As far as Multiplayer, we wanted to make sure that it felt unique and fun... We hired new designers and artists to make sure that the MP didn't affect the single player in any way. Although, a lot of the gameplay tweaks we applied to MP also helped SP.
    Guest-52: Is there cheats like the last game had? After you get so many point you unlock different things such as mirror worlds?
    NeilD-Dev: There are lots of unlockable for the single player and the multiplayer modes (along with several cheats for the SP mode).
    Guest-34: My friend would like to know if there will be more propane tanks in the final game. He's a bit obsessed with them when we play.
    NeilD-Dev: Well there will be more maps with propane tanks in the final game, so yes it will have more propane tanks.
    Guest-48: Are there any plans for destructible environments? As well, will you guys be fixing up some MP problems like long wait times and the lack of aility to jump in and play in a aldready started game? Thanks. P.S. Your game is awesome. Never played Uncharted 1, and I must say, you guys have made one of the best games EVER! I'v preordered aldready!
    TravisM-Dev: Uncharted has a lot of destructable cover/environments etc. so I guess yes, we do have destructable environments. Also, many of our MP maps have environmental hazards like takes, helicopters, exploding train cars. There's a lot there. We are also monitoring MP and matchingmaking and making tweaks and fixes as we go. As I said before, we play a lot!
    ILoveNaughtyGod: the way it is now, people simply press l2 and drop a live grenade which gets an easy kill. holding l2 and having the arch is ok, but pressing l2 should make grenades take time to drop. this way people cant chicken out and drop grenades to get a "manual revenge" booster kill
    Aaron-GS: Thank you for your patience. The queue will be open again shortly.
    NeilD-Dev: Blindfiring the grenade is part of the strategy and risk of getting close to other players.
    Guest-61: I love Elimination, so will there be another game mode that there isnt respawn? like Search and destroy
    DarkTower805: If you guys get a chance, drop by the Playstation boards, we haven't heard from you guys in a while and I'm sure everyone is eager to congratulate you on a job well done.
    TravisM-Dev: Elimination is the only no respawn mode we have. But the final game does have a lot more modes than the demo, and we think you'll like them, you'll definately want to check it out.
    NeilD-Dev: You got it... I'll make sure to drop by the boards soon.
    Aaron-GS: Thank you for your continued patience. The queue is now open again.
    Guest-27: How many staff members worked on the game in total?
    TravisM-Dev: We started out around 80, but for most of production we had well over a hundred, actually a big step up from Unchared 1.
    Matthew-GS: Thank you everyone for your patience as we get to questions already submitted. We will allow more questions in just a little while.
    Guest-56: Are there any plans to increase damage done by head shots, maybe just a slight percentage?
    Guest-41: Hey guys great game! I've been enjoying the demo quite thoroughly. I was wondering if you sort out some confusion about the Revenge Attribute. I've heard from some people that it takes up two booster slots and then I hear some people saw in the 1up.com video that it only took up one slot. So which is it? Does it take up one or two booster slots?
    Aaron-GS: The queue has been frozen momentarily to allow the developers time to answer questions that have already been submitted. Thank you for your patience.
    NeilD-Dev: The Revenge Booster only takes up one slot.
    Aaron-GS: It may take a few minutes for the developers to answer your questions. To help them out, please ask short, concise questions and try to refrain from asking multiple part questions to be fair to the other participants.
    TravisM-Dev: We have the ability to tweak of lot of stuff on the fly, including weapon damage, weapon placement, ammo, etc. So I've no doubt we will be tweaking a lot of different things in the future. I can't gaurentee anything though, we'll be playing and watching and trying balance the game to be the best it can be.
    Guest-18: Hey Naughty Dog, I'm really happy for you and I'm gonna let you finish... but Super Mario Bros 3 had one of the best single player modes of all time!
    NeilD-Dev: Well Mario 3 was the best Mario game... but c'mon, we're talking Uncharted 2 here.
    Guest-38: What was the most challenging aspect in developing Uncharted 2 compared to Uncharted 1?
    Guest-26: i saw in youtube videos some maps that didnt have snow on them in multiplayer in the demo/beta had snow on them, you can change the layouts like that?
    NeilD-Dev: I'm not sure what videos you've seen, but we do have dynamic weather in some of our levels.
    Aaron|Social Media Specialist | Best Buy® Corporate
     Private Message

    Transcript for "UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves Developer Chat", Thurs Oct 8 2009 (Part II)
    Guest-91: What is your favorite game mode?
    NeilD-Dev: My favorite game mode is Chain Reaction. It really requires all the players to work together as a team.
    TravisM-Dev: There were a lot of really tough things about making Uncharted 2. Really, the hardest part was making a bigger game (the single player alone is significantly bigger than Uncharted 1) and then adding multiplayer on top of that. We basically had to make more than twice the content of Uncharted 1 is less time!
    Guest-65: How long will you guys plan to support this game with DLC?
    Guest-67: It would be cool if we could upload our MP videos to our computers, any chance of this happening?..btw it's a different aiming bug there's a video in the U2 beta forums.
    NeilD-Dev: We have several DLC's planned... stay tuned for more info.
    Guest-69: does ReklissAbandon work for you guys?
    NeilD-Dev: Rekliss is a tester for Uncharted 2 and a sick MP player... watch out for him.
    Guest-29: any more uncharted 2 tourneys? i won the won here in washington
    NeilD-Dev: We definitely have more tourneys coming up. Congrats on winning yours.
    Aaron-GS: Thank you all for your patience. The queue will be open again momentarily.
    TravisM-Dev: We looked into adding youtube capture support to U2. We actually had it implemented in debug mode, but in the end we had to take it out because of the large memory footprint compressing video on the fly added. We literally used all but maybe 20k of the PS3's memory when we shipped, and the 13-14 mb needed just weren't available.
    bnogradi28: Is there a way you pick he teams in MP. Are they at random because some times they seem lopsided.
    Guest-83: Will Canada ever get a chance to see the Fortune Hunter Edition?
    NeilD-Dev: Yes! Canada will be getting the Fortune Hunter Edition.
    Guest-103: I love the "Massive Attack" trailer for Uncharted: Drake's Fortune; I still have it on my 60GB PS3, and a copy of it on my netbook just in case I want to watch it at work. Is there any chance that we'll get to see a trailer like this for Uncharted 2: Among Thieves?
    TravisM-Dev: The teams are balanced based on a skill ranking system we have implemented. We try to balance teams to make the best possible match. Of course, we don't want to wait around too long waiting for a good match, and with the large numbers of brand new players currently a lot of matches may seem unbalanced, hopefully as people get to play for longer once the game ships things will settle down. As always, we're playing and watching, and we'll make sure to fix any problems we see.
    Guest-44: You guys like to watch movies right? What movies have you watched that inspired you to make the Uncharted games. Also, are there any scenes from movies that you have taken and tried to copy it in Uncharted 1/2?
    NeilD-Dev: Thanks for the commets about our Massive Attack trailer... Taylor (our in-house editor) did an amazing job on that one. We will have at least one more trailer for Uncharted 2 and the awesome TV commercials start hitting the tubes this Friday.
    Aaron-GS: We've reached the half-way point of the chat! The queue is open again for questions, but please remember to keep your questions as short and concise as possible! =D
    TravisM-Dev: We love lots of movies, but you can probably guess all the ones I'm going to mention. Indiana Jones, Die hard, old adventure serials. Honestly, we watch so many films it's hard to pick just a few.
    ILoveNaughtyGod: Any chance at all for split screen? I can sacrifice graphics for split screen modes-- its a much beloved feature that developers are sadly denying. Hopefully it wouldnt be too complicated to put in. I wish u guys the best of luck, u have truly been the gem of Playstation and I admire the diversity u put into each generation and the risk of making new IPs.
    Guest-40: How will you guys support PS@Home ?
    NeilD-Dev: We have a brand new Uncharted 2 space coming to Home pretty soon.
    Guest-3: You mentioned implementing punishment for players who drop out too often. Care to elaborate what kind of punishment this may be?
    TravisM-Dev: We really wish we could have done split screen, we totally get why everybody wants it. Honestly though, we just had too much on our plate to tackle that this game. It's not a trivial features, requires we redesign almost every map and level. Many times it means you need to make two medals one for single player, one for split screen.
    Aaron-GS: Thank you for all your questions! The queue is temporarily closed to allow the developers a chance to answer questions that have already been submitted.
    NeilD-Dev: As far as punishing players who drop early, we're going to do two things. 1) we're going to delay their ability to log into the game again and 2) subtract a $100,000 from their profile.
    Guest-87: You guys has developed one of the most beautiful game engines this generation, is it going to be used for any future Sony titles? Also, are we going to see an Uncharted 3 this generation?
    TravisM-Dev: We will definately making another game this generation, but honestly, most of us aren't even back from vacation yet, so we'll have to see what that game is.
    NeilD-Dev: Hey guys, so I just got word that we're going to announce more ways to earn the Fortune Hunter edition on the playstation blog TOMORROW. Make sure to check it out.
    Guest-56: Being able to fine tune what game modes i would like to search for in matchmaking would be helpful, any plans for this? (ie instead of just mp objectives, choose plunder OR chain reaction)
    TravisM-Dev: As for our engine, like the first Uncharted, we share all of our tech with any team that wants it. We got a lot of help our selves from other studios. Especially Guerilla.
    Guest-14: will you add a rewind button in the cinema mode??
    NeilD-Dev: We're going to include more game modes so that you can fine-tune your game search (e.g. pure deathmatch).
    Guest-38: What are the names of the other 3 unknown multiplayer maps in the final version? Spill the beans!
    TravisM-Dev: Because we are basically replaying a match from the beginning by just reinterpreting packets in the cinema mode, rewind is really tough and we just didn't have time to do it this game.
    Guest-44: Travis. So you guys can basically patch the multiplayer on the fly, without a downloadable update? I heard something about that. Details?
    NeilD-Dev: The three maps not included in the demo are: Train Wreck, The Lost City, and the Monastery.
    Guest-102: Will you take part in multiplayer matches in the future?
    NeilD-Dev: You bet we're going to be in MP matches!
    NeilD-Dev: You can tell you're playing with Naughty Dogs when you see a red paw next to their name.
    TravisM-Dev: We can patch some things, like weapon damage, placement, text, and a ton of other settings/tweaks/scripted events. We can't patch everything unfortunately, but we feel we've got enough that we can touch a majority of what we'd want to play with on a regular basis.
    EliteHitokiri: why so few mp trophies?
    NeilD-Dev: We wanted to make sure that everyone, with enough work, can reach the Platinum trophy.
    Guest-81: Can we use Best Buy gold guns in all multiplayer modes (competivie and co-op)? Are those guns are unloced by just playing the game as well? Great game
    Guest-76: Any chance of adding more then 5 players to each side? Maybe 8v8 or 10v10?
    Guest-86: how many MP maps are going to be in the final product
    NeilD-Dev: There are going to be 7 MP maps in the final games... that is until DLC hits.
    TravisM-Dev: You can't get the gold guns any way other than a Best Buy pre-order. And yes, you can use them in any mode, including all competitive and multiplayer. If you want those guns, you've got a few days left.
    Guest-88: How did Infinity Ward, bungie, and guerilla games help you guys in Uncharted 2?
    NeilD-Dev: Those are great developers that swap technical knowledge with us.
    Guest-79: Out of curiousity, how many staffed writers did you have working on the single player story? The first game was told well and I would assume that the second could only be better.
    Guest-48: Kinda redundant, but when you say Canada will get Fortune Hunter, could you expand? Man I'd do anything for it!
    NeilD-Dev: Although many of the team members contribute to the story, there are three main writers for Uncharted 2.
    TravisM-Dev: We can't really give more details yet.
    Guest-10: My friends and I have been experiencing problems in the demo. Often, certain people can't join when certain others are party leader, and certain people can't hear each other, even though everyone else can hear them both. What causes this, and can you fix it?
    Guest-61: How many skins are there in MP? and it seems like most people vote for deathmatch when elimination comes up is there a chance putting up a new playlist for elimination only?
    TravisM-Dev: We're aware of this problem. It's a NAT version issue we're having, and we're working on it right now.
    Guest-83: I saw how you're going to drop $100,000 if a person leaves early, what is a person suppose to do if he/she has an emergency he/she must take care of. $100,000 alot of money to take off of someone who spends a lot of his time on this game. Can you lessen the amount of money taken away?
    NeilD-Dev: There are at least 25 skins in MP, and we are going to update the playlists real soon to seperate certain modes out.
    TravisM-Dev: You only loose the money if you leave multiple times in a row in a short period of time. Leaving the game a single time will not take any money away.
    bnogradi28: Is there any bonus if you have a platinum in Uncharted: Drake's Fourtune?
    NeilD-Dev: If you've finished Uncharted 1 you'll get $100,000 to start out with for Uncharted 2.
    Guest-27: How many Naughty Gods are on the ICE Team?
    Guest-40: Do I need to "Install" the game?
    NeilD-Dev: No, there's no install for Uncharted 2... or load screens for the SP once your start playing the game.
    Guest-46: Is there any super crazy twist like in Uncharted 1 with the cursed spanish people in Uncharted 2 don't spoil it though
    NeilD-Dev: I can't answer that question without spoiling the story.
    TravisM-Dev: The ice team typically has 12-15 members. They're not the biggest team, but we try to be very picky about the talent we hire here, so they're all pretty awsome guys who know the PS3 pretty much better than anyone.
    Guest-47: Will there be weapons added into this game with DLC?
    EliteHitokiri: Will future mp trohies be added with dlc like ranking ones?
    NeilD-Dev: We're looking into all sorts of additions for the DLC... that's all I can say right now.
    Guest-44: Will there ever be a Uncharted 2 Among Thieves bundle? Anytime soon? Im sure Uncharted 2 has the potential to be a system seller.
    Matthew-GS: Thank you all for your questions! The queue is temporarily closed to allow the Developers a chance to answer already submitted questions. We will allow more in a few minutes.
    Guest-114: Hi guys, I happen to have a clan that really loves your games and I just wonder if you guys will happen to have any clan support in the final release of the game?
    TravisM-Dev: There is no hardware bundle in the US, but there are in Europe.
    Guest-80: How are you going to handle the ranking up system, are you going to do prestige modes?, what is the maximum rank?
    NeilD-Dev: While we don't have a dedicated clan system, we've made a party system really easy to use so that you can team-up with your friends and take them to matches with you.
    TravisM-Dev: You rank up through getting cash. The last ten ranks 50-60, are significantly harder than the other levels. You can recognize someone with the high ranks as they show up as roman numerals. We don't have prestige modes per say, but what we do have is special boosters than hadicap you, but provide a significant multiplier to the cash you earn. The best players are going to want to play with these handicaps in order to reach the top levels.
    Guest-83: What if I deleted my Uncharted: Drakes Fortune save, by accident. But I still have the Platinum Trophy. Will I still get the $100,000 or will I have to replay the whole story again keeping the save?
    TravisM-Dev: we answered this above, just scroll up.
    Guest-80: Are we going to get to see more skins of the previous game on DLC or unlockables?
    NeilD-Dev: There will be DLC skins, some of which will be from Uncharted 1 (we've already shown Navarro).
    Guest-152: What is the most fun level you played in single player?Also any multiplayer tips?
    Guest-69: What inspired you to create the uncharted series?
    NeilD-Dev: We were mainly inspired by old Pulp comics, novels, and movies.
    TravisM-Dev: My favorite single player level is definately the train, but maybe because I spent so much time on it. A good tip for multi - you can pick up weapons while rolling, and you can blindfire while jumping.
    Guest-103: Sorry for my silly question, but how are the office dogs Pogo and Trumpet doing?
    NeilD-Dev: They're doing great... and as a bonus, they didn't leave any present under my desk today.
    Guest-159: HEY GUYS IS THIS GAME AWESOME ?
    NeilD-Dev: YES!
    NeilD-Dev: that was a really hard question.
    Guest-160: Will there be any Jak and daxter, or previous Naughty Dog game cameos located in the game?
    Guest-107: How long can we expect to wait to get downloadable content or map packs?
    NeilD-Dev: Not very long.
    TravisM-Dev: There is one minor Jak reference, but I'm not going to spoil it. A hint, it's a treasure.
    bnogradi28: What type of environments will be in Uncharted 2 besides urban, snowy, and train/jungle?
    NeilD-Dev: You get to rob a museum.
    Guest-148: Why do the bullets in Uncharted 2 take more time to travel than in Uncharted: Drake's Fortune? Thanks.
    Guest-46: Does the co-op story mode with the cutscenes tie in with the story in the single player?
    TravisM-Dev: They don't actually, but they may look like it. We tweaked our tracer effect, though the actual bullets will get there slightly ahead of when it looks like the tracer hit (usually only an issue when you shoot a very long distance.)
    NeilD-Dev: The co-op stories are not related to the single player campaign.
    Guest-48: Anything notable/special/cool happen during the development process?
    NeilD-Dev: Somewhere along the way we came up with a prequel story to Uncharted 1... while it didn't end up in the game, you will experience the story in some other way.
    Guest-168: Is Eddie Raja going to be a multiplayer skin ? He was awesome so funny plus he had the golden gun. Buka pintu !
    NeilD-Dev: We love Eddy! It would be a shame we didn't see more of him.
    Guest-152: Send: thanks guys looking forward to the game. how long it take to make?
    bnogradi28: Can you give examples of the boosters that make you worse?
    NeilD-Dev: One booster allows the enemies to see YOU through the wall.
    TravisM-Dev: The game took about 18 months in all to make, which is *significantly* shorter than Uncharted 1. Let's just say it was no picnic.
    Aaron|Social Media Specialist | Best Buy® Corporate
     Private Message

  • Why won't Verizon email transcripts of live chat sessions?

    Could it be to make promises and not keep them?
    BINGO.
    You just lost another loyal customer.

    I'm pretty sure that there's a small icon of an Envelope toward the top of the chat window that you can click to have a transcript sent to you.

  • Firefox 4.0 will not allow live chat in Win 7

    When trying to enter a Live Chat session I get a message "Cannot continue live chat because your browser is not supported " that pops up in a separate FF window. I'm running FF 4.0 and Windows 7. All works well in FF 3.6.16 and Win XP.

    Try to start windows in safe-mode [http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/boot_failsafe.mspx?mfr=true Windows in safe-mode]. Also see [[Firefox won't start - find solutions]]

  • O2 Live Chat- waste of time and full of empty promises and lies.

    I just wanted to share with you my experience of 'problem resolution / customer care' with o2. This post is directly linked with my as yet unresolved previous post titled 'lack of support from o2 when things go wrong.' Although this is shown as resolved, trust me, it is not !! Below are exerts from the 'Live Chat' sessions that I have had with o2. For fun, you could play spot the offer of a promise, and then try to find where this has been upheld by o2. (to save you wasting your time looking, I'll tell you now, there are none) Thought the matter had been resolved, it looks good, but looks can be deceiving……….o2: I've arranged the credit amount for you.o2: I've forwarded your details to our Support team and filled the Consumer credit request form for you nowo2: And I'm waiving off the amount of cancellation fee £104 for you now.o2: Please be with me while I do this for you now.Me: ??? that is great. I really do appreciate your help. I'll stay connected.o2: Thanks.o2: Thanks for your patience and I'm sorry for the delay in getting back to you.o2: I can appreciate how frustrating this may be for you.o2: I've done this for you now.02: This will be processed for you in next 3 days and You'll receive the credit in the next bill .o2: Yes, be assured and you can trust me. I've personally arranged this for you now. I hope I've resolved your query to your satisfaction. After seeing that the money has NOT been refunded onto my bill as of yet……………………. o2: Thanks for waiting.o2: You'll receive the refund in next bill.Me: So what does this mean, that you will take 105 from my account on 2nd May and then refund it a month later?o2: Yes.Me: But that is crazy, you have not claimed the money yet, so still have time to apply the credit and thus cancel the bill. Why should you have 105 pounds of my money for one month, when you have already agreed to refund it? This just does not make sense.o2: It's already generated and the request is also been made.o2: I'll request you to call our customer service number for the same. The next month and the next bill, and ………………………… still no refund……….. o2: I'm sorry the refund isn't showing on your account. I understand that this has been stressful for you. Don't worry, I'll ensure that after today, this is sorted for you once and for all.O2: Ken, your details on the previous contract were with phones4u and I'm not able to refund it on that account at the moment. I can see the bill for the termination charge though.o2: Now, would it be fine, if I put the credit on your current account that you've signed up the new contract for?o2: This credit balance can be adjusted with your future bills or I can transfer it to your bank account directly from my end.Me: can you please transfer it directly to my bank from your end please, as it has been outstanding now for over a month, and I don't want it outstanding for longer.o2: Yes, absolutely. I'll do this for you.Me: Thanks, and out of interest why did (previous o2 customer care employee) not do this at the start. Either this or just cancelled the bill that had been created for this amount. This would have saved a lot of time and stress on my behalf in having to chase this now for the third time-albeit I will state again (third customer care employee who I am talking with today) that I know this is not your fault- but I am sure you can understand me being unhappy about this.o2: What I'll do for you is keep an eye on your account from my end and ensure that the credit balance is in your bank account immediately after the next bill is adjusted.o2: Yes, I can understand that this has been stressful for you Ken and I'm sorry that (previous o2 customer care employee) didn't do this for you.o2: I'll try my best to get this transferred to your bank account as soon as possible. I'm sorry for the trouble you've had to go through to get this sorted. Please give me a chance Ken and I won't let you down.Me: Okay, I'm happy to do that, but do you have a time frame for this being sorted. I appreciate that you are doing your best, but the phrase 'as soon as possible' is rather open ended.o2: I'll email you by the end of day to tell you when the amount will be in your bank account. Would that be fine? Despite the ‘Please give me a chance Ken and I won't let you down,’ no e-mail and no refund to my bank account so here we go again……………………………… o2: I've checked and can see that we have already credited the £105.50 to your O2 account which is still in the recent charges section of your bill and will reflect on your next bill.Me: okay, but as per my chat with ??? , that will be another month and ??? said that he could / would arrange to have the money paid back into my bank accountMe: He also said that he would send me an e-mail later that day re when the money would be paid back. However, by the looks of it this has not be done, because I certainly have not received any e-mails from ???.o2: I'm sorry, you'll have to call us on 202 free from your phone to get the amount transferred onto your bank account as due to the security reasons, the bank account details can't be shared online.Me: Can you provide me with details as to who I should further my complaint to, and do you have a legal department that I should contact if I proceed with this to the small claims courto2: I'm really sorry ken.o2: I can understand now what you are feeling.o2: But please don't take us wrong. I'll definitely add a note to your account and will see that your complaint is soon resolved.o2: You can email our complaints team [email protected]: Will someone from your complaints dept be able to call me tomorrow. If they can then I will happily speak with them. But I feel that I would be wasting my time to contact / e-mail them.o2: As I'm from an online chat team, I won't be able to arrange a callback from them.o2: But I'll request you to call us on 202 free from your phone and you can speak to a manager and resolve your complaint. The above are exerts only from the live chat sessions thus far, as I would not want to post the whole sessions for fear of crashing the system. I have also removed employee names, as I believe that o2 do this anyway when they edit these posts. Please let me know if you have received poor service also, as I am currently seeking to take this further and one option could be to contact someone such as Watchdog from the BBC, thus others may not end up with o2 and this level of poor service. 

    Couldn't have put it better myself.  I have a 24 month contract with O2, £37 a month for the iPhone 4s. My iPhone 4s was faulty, Apple advised me it was a common hardware problem they were aware of and that I should contact O2. The first advisor I spoke to was very helpful. Agreed to swap my phone for a reconditioned 4s free of charge. I asked if I could pay extra for the iPhone 5 and he agreed to sell me a reconditioned handset for £75 and a doorstep swap for my old phone. At first I thought this was fantastic and said yes. Later on, my partner reminded me that I'm paying £900 for a 2 year contract, and for a phone that is supposed to remain fit for purpose for that period (as per the Sales of Goods Act). I started to think they should have provided me with a brand new phone as the fault was not due to me, but due to a common hardware issue. I became even more annoyed when I realised £75 for a second hand phone on top of what I'm paying in my contract was crazy. I contact O2 and explained this matter at length. No joy. Now - that problem might be a matter of opinion, but what happened next was disasterous. The following day I met with the delivery driver, who handed me a grubby iPhone 5 - no case, no box, not so much as a plastic bag. It was covered in some kind of white dust/powder and dirty with fingerprints. The more I looked at the phone the more I felt I'd been dooped. When I went to charge the phone, I realised my old iphone 4s charger didn't fit. I had no idea I needed a new charger and nobody advised me. When I went to insert my sim card, I realised that wasn't going to fit either. No one had advised me. I didn't even get the fork to open the sim card slide. So there I was, stuck without a phone. I opened the live chat. After explaining myself at length, I got a series of "Please hold while I do my best to try to sort this problem for you now" and loads of other cheesey meaningless lines. By this stage I was furious. When the person came back to talk to me, he advised I borrow a friend's charger to use my phone. I explained there was no one and I needed to use my phone that night. I also explained about the sim card, and the dirty phone and lack of box etc. They kept fobbing me off and telling me they would send me a charger, totally ignoring the fact this transaction was unacceptable. I got nowhere, so I hung up.  I went to the O2 store to get a nano sim. I explained the situation to the advisor, and he told me to go home and use the Swap My Sim page. Given that I'd explained the entire situation to him, I expected everything would be ok. No. Turned out I needed my old phone and old sim to do this. Back to the live chat. I explained the whole situation to the new advisor and hoped for the best. I went round in circles with him for about half an hour before he got the gist of my issue.  That seems to be the general vibe from live chat - round and round in circles, nobody listenting properly and cheesy lines like "my heartiest thanks".  My whole situation has made me think I'll leave O2 when my contract expires. Better with a tin can and a string. 

  • Live Chat with Yvette Nicole Brown (Shirley) from NBC's Community

    Check out the live chat transcript here!
    Attention fans of NBC's Community TV series.
    Join us for a Live Chat with Actor Yvette Nicole Brown who plays the part of Shirley on NBC's Community TV series!
    The Chat will take place this Thursday, May 17th from 9:30 - 10:30 CST, the same day the season 3 finale airs!  This is your chance to ask Yvette all about her role in the show and get one last taste of Community as the season closes out.
    All questions are moderated and answered in a queued format on a first-in, first-out basis so be ready when the chat starts!
    Bookmark this page as we will update it with info on how to join the chat when it goes live on Thursday!
    http://www.nbc.com/community/
    Buy Community Season 1 & Season 2 on BestBuy.com
    Pre-order Community Season 3 on BestBuy.com
    Community synopsis
    From Dan Harmon ("The Sarah Silverman Program") and Emmy Award winners Joe and Anthony Russo ("Arrested Development") comes "Community," a smart comedy series about a band of misfits who attend Greendale Community College. At the center of the group is Jeff Winger (Joel McHale, "The Soup"), a fast-talking lawyer whose degree has been revoked. With some help from his fellow classmates, Winger forms a study group that eventually learns more about themselves than their course work.
    Also among the series stars who comprise the group are comedy legend Chevy Chase ("Chuck") as Pierce, a man whose life experience has brought him infinite wisdom; Gillian Jacobs ("The Book of Daniel") as Britta, the 20-something dropout with something to prove; Yvette Nicole Brown ("Rules of Engagement") as Shirley, a sassy middle-aged divorcée; Danny Pudi ("Greek") as Abed, a pop culture junkie; Alison Brie ("Mad Men") as Annie, a high-strung perfectionist; Donald Glover ("30 Rock") as Troy, a former high school football star trying to find his way, and Ken Jeong ("The Hangover") as Señor Chang.
    YVETTE NICOLE BROWN
    One word best describes the unfolding of
    Yvette Nicole Brown's career, and it is:
    serendipity (noun)
    1. an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident.
    2. good fortune; luck; blessing.
    Yvette landed her first television role - - a two-episode gig playing Toni Childs' sister, Sherri, on GIRLFRIENDS - - by chance. Casting director Robi Reed called her in to audition from a post card submission. Yvette had no credits and no agent. That stroke of serendipity at the beginning of her career, taught Yvette that you never know how God is going to move in your life and career. Booking a series regular role two months later, on the first pilot she auditioned for further proved the point. That show, ABC's THE BIG HOUSE, only lasted a few episodes; but that experience proved to be a blessing as well. Through it, Yvette learned the transient nature of the business and to always "travel light".
    Yvette has since appeared (and often recurred) on shows as varied as ENTOURAGE, CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM, THE OFFICE, THAT'S SO RAVEN, HALF & HALF, SLEEPER CELL, HOUSE, TWO AND A HALF MEN, THAT 70'S SHOW and BOSTON LEGAL - - where she got to perform "Big, Blonde & Beautiful" from Hairspray. It was a bit of a homecoming because Yvette is no stranger to singing. She was managed by Michael Bivins (of New Edition and BBD) and signed to Motown Records when she was just a teen.
    Younger viewers may know Yvette from her recurring role on Nickelodeon's "DRAKE & JOSH," where she played movie theater manager, Helen Ophelia Dubois.  Landing that role was another serendipitous experience. The role of Helen was to be a one-time role; one that Yvette auditioned for while on hiatus from THE BIG HOUSE. That one-time role turned into four years of employment and introduced Yvette and her silliness to the best group of fans in the world...kids!  The cast of DRAKE & JOSH recently reunited in 2008 for the holiday movie, "Merry Christmas: Drake & Josh," a film that broke Nickelodeon viewership records when it was seen by over 8 million viewers the night it debuted. It has since gone on to become an annual holiday favorite.
    Yvette is also the voice of the tough, sassy and smart Cookie on The HUB’s “Pound Puppies” which begins its second season in June, 2012.  The “Pound Puppies” are a team of fearless dogs whose sworn mission is to find homes for lonely puppies.  They only look like regular dogs.  In fact these pooches are dogs of action who match up pups with loving families while they keep the humans at Shelter 17 clueless.
    Yvette has also had a successful career in commercials. She's appeared in over 40 national spots. You may have seen her in ads for BIG LOTS, PINE SOL, CITIBANK, FIBER ONE YOGURT, DAIRY QUEEN, HAMBURGER HELPER, ARROWHEAD WATER, HOME DEPOT, COMCAST, LG and DiGIORNO'S PIZZA to name a few.  Yvette has also been immortalized in puppet form as "Mrs. Lewis, from downstairs" in a series of NIKE spots alongside puppet versions of Kobe Bryant and LeBron James.
    In addition to her commercial and television work, Yvette also has a burgeoning film career. She made her film debut in the romantic comedy, "Little Black Book," working alongside Brittany Murphy and Oscar winners, Holly Hunter and Kathy Bates. Her next film, Michael Bay's futuristic thriller, "The Island" put her on the set with Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson. Supporting roles in other films including "Dreamgirls" and "The Kid and I," - - where she first met and worked with one of her childhood heroes, Henry Winkler - - soon followed.  In 2008, she was in the box office hit, "Tropic Thunder" (directed by Ben Stiller) where she worked with Matthew McConaughey; as well as the family film, "Meet Dave" where she realized a childhood dream by sharing the screen with Eddie Murphy.
    In 2009 and 2010, Yvette could be seen on the big screen again in the family film, "Hotel for Dogs" starring Emma Roberts and Don Cheadle, the romantic comedy, "The Ugly Truth" starring Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler, the indie hit, "(500) Days of Summer" starring Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt; as well as the action thriller, "Repo Men" where she played against type and shared the screen with Jude Law and Oscar winner, Forest Whitaker.
    Currently, you can catch Yvette every week on the single-camera comedy, COMMUNITY, which airs Thursdays at 8pm/7c on NBC. The same Thursday 8pm timeslot that was once home to the hit NBC comedies: FRIENDS and THE COSBY SHOW...how's that for blessed? 
    In addition to her work on Community, Yvette can also be heard as the voice of "Cookie" on the NEW animated series, POUND PUPPIES; which airs weekly on the HUB Network (formerly Discovery Kids).
    A proud native of East Cleveland Ohio, Yvette currently resides in Los Angeles California.

    Here ya go!
    http://bit.ly/CommChat
    If not try this link.

  • How do i get a live chat with apple support with no phone

    My phone is dead, how do I get to have a live chat with apple support online?

    You'll need to contact Apple support.
    Go to:
    http://www.apple.com/support/contact/
    and Navigate through the options.
    Eventually you 'll find you can setup a call to a landline if you wish, or get a chat session if a support person is available.

  • Live Chat not working

    Please can someone advise how I can actually speak to someone from Skype? I have tried to use the live chat feature a good dozen times and continually get a message saying that my chat session has opened in another window (which it has not). 
    I'm using a mac with chrome browser. 
    Thanks in advance

    This is really poor customer experience.
    I went to this Skype help support page - https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA297/how-do-i-request-a-refund?q=refund
    It asks me to go to https://support.skype.com/support_selection for live chat.
    When I open this page, it redirects me to http://support.microsoft.com/error?httpCode=403&errorCode=
    I have ensured the JavaScript is enabled, pop-up are enabled.
    Tried in 3 different browsers on 2 different machines.
    Still not working.
    Anyone can shed any light on this?

  • AIR app on Android for live chat crashes

    No matter which streaming server I use, I regularly have a crash. My scenario is:
    One side is on browser on PC, the other side is on android air app. Application is receiving a live stream and publishing a live stream at the same time, using two different Netstreams. Half of the time the application crashes. Crashes are rearly occuring during chat, but most of the time after a chat session is ended, and some time after netstreams are closed. There is no exceptions.
    If I run the same AIR application on Windows Desktop, no problem occurs.
    My application also records video and views recorded video. No problem occurs there. So, play("recorded.flv") and publish("someFLV", "record") has no problems.
    When it comes to live streaming, problem occurs.
    I use netstream.buffer = 0 for publishing live content, and netstream.buffer with its default value for playing live content.
    When chat ends, I detach camera and microphone from netstream, remove eventlisteners from netstream, remove camera from Video object, set microphone and camera to null.
    I tried closing and not closing netstreams, but nothing changed.
    I tried sound only and video only streams on both sides, but nothing changed.
    I compiled with AIR on Android 2.6 and 3.0, but nothing changed.
    I tried compiling with Flash Builder Burrito and Flash Builder 4.5, but nothing changed.
    I investigated Android adb logcats, but nothing useful is traced.
    Application just crashes without any message or warning.
    Is there a bug for playing and receiving live content at the same time on AIR on Android?

    For those who are interested in this crash, I'll give a few more experiments and hope for an answer.
    I investigated a few adb logcat deeper and noticed something about AIR runtime:
    1. The crash does not happen all time, but randomly. Followings will explain the reason.
    2. If I try sound-only streams, and if app crashes after disposing resources, logcat has messages related to Android microphone. After painful research, I found that logs mean: "someone requested microphone data, but it didn't consume microphone data fast enough."
    3. If I try video-only streams, and if app crashes after disposing resources, logcat has messages related to Android camera. After painful research, I found that logs mean: "someone requested camera data, but it didn't consume microphone data fast enough."
    So, maybe, only maybe, because AIR doesn not support multi-threading, when we dispose a microphone or a netstream, AIR stops receiving microphone data immediately, but until our calling function ends its execution, AIR does not notify Android OS about dispose. So, in Android's point of view, it sends microphone data but nobody consumes that data, thus nobody empties Android's buffer. Hence Android OS thinks that something is wrong and kills AIR application. That may explain why we get crash randomly: If Android's microphone, or camera, buffer is nearly empty when we dispose, buffer is not get filled until we fully dispose resources and everything is fine. But if the buffer is nearly full when we call dispose, buffer gets filled to its maximum until we finish our disposing and Android OS suspects about buffer and AIR app is killed with a signal 11, a segmentation fault.
    This is only a theory, and I found one evidence that supports the theory: Android developers are suggested not to use camera and microphone resources directly. Instead, they are advised to create another thread to consume camera and microphone and use that thread for their needs. That is impossible in AIR as AIR don't have multi-threading.
    Well, is there anybody now who has an idea?

  • Question about Cisco Tec support Rep Live chat issue .

    Hello guys, I recently just tried to do a session of live tech support on cisco web site about a issue trying to get my router to change the speed of the wireless connection from 54mbps to the potiental maxium of 300mbps. Well This is my second time using the live chat feature and the 2nd time, the guy was asking for my router name and passowrd. I didnt feel to comformtable doing that since my first time using the live chat , the tech guy didnt ask for my operating system, or my passowrds or anything of that nature? Is that normal for a live chat guy to do that? I figured hes was trying to do a remoate access to my computer and I was thinking, they probably dont do that for free especially over a live chat. Anyeone thoughts or am i being over crictical. thanks

    if you are not comfortable then dont give them the info.
    i have not had a reason to ask then to do this, however back in the day i had a sony live rep (we were on the phone too) remote into my router to allow me to setup my sony base station (think slingbox but its made by sony) so i could get it to work when away form the home. this was a few years ago so it happens today. some businesses/stores even offer it as a solution. so dont freak out that they asked you that. dell does this for example...
    give them a call and have them on the phone with you instead.just have them give you the directions on what to do.... if not, come here and ask the questions...

  • Can anyone help me find live chat??!

    I got an email saying I cancelled my subscrption, which I did not. Now I can't find a way to contact skype. Been going in circles! Can anyone send me the link to the live chat button?

    Hi, Loricovi, and welcome to the Community,
    There is not a specific link to reach Skype's customer service via instant message; we have to work through the various steps that are presented once we sign on to Skype's main web site.  Here is a link to the instruction on how to contact Skype Customer Service via their secure portal: Contact Customer Service
    Here are a few extra notes to guide you along the way ...
    You will need to proceed through each step, one at a time. Sign on to the Skype website as requested. Choose the subject and topic which most closely matches the item you need assistance with. Then, continue past Step 2 of the instruction where several articles from the FAQ library will appear for you to review, and proceed to Step 3, Continue Support Request (the blue "button" appears at the lower right corner of the website page). You may also skip through Step 4 where you will be referred back here to the Community; no need to do this as the Community is where you started. When you complete the web-form and click Submit, your information is relayed to Skype and you will receive a reply via e-mail unless you are transferred to start an instant message chat session with a Customer Service agent.
    If you experience difficulty reaching Skype Customer Service, try again using a different web browser. Also, look to approve a pop-up dialogue box which would connect you to start an instant message chat with a customer service agent. If you have pop-ups blocked in your browser settings, this will also impede reaching an agent.
    In the case of a Skype Number subscription, you may have received that e-mail if the payment method on file is no longer valid, or if there may not have been enough credit on account to process the renewal order.  This is what happened with me; the subscription cancelled at the end of its term, and I signed on to add credit.  When the credit purchase cleared, I was able to sign on again and click the Reactivate link to renew my Skype Number subscription.  Remember that the Skype Number is reserved for 90 days following cancellation of the subscription, so you have time to sign on and renew.
    Regards,
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