Timeline confusion...

[miufs]

Hi friends!

Today i bought Pulse and im amazed. The game is awsome.

But i have a question:

In this game we play in the FX400 league while in Pure we played in FX300 but i read in Wipeout HD site that this game is a training ground for Pulse and its based on league FX350.

So my doubt is: Pulse happens after WO HD right? So WO HD will be released after Pulse and it happens before? I think this makes no sense. But thats just my opinion. ;)

[BARTgai]

yes, it goes Pure (fx300), HD (fx350), and Pulse (fx400)


why pulse is first, i have no idea lol, most likely because HD requires a lot more work

[Mad-Ice]

I think it is because HD will have tracks from Pure and from Pulse, only made in HD. So it is in between!!!

[Sausehuhn]

Bacause WOHD was planned to be released before WOPulse but needed more time than expected.
I've no problem with that as long as the game gets better this way :)

[Colin Berry]

WOHD was always intended to come out after Pulse, but it is set between Pure and Pulse in regards the timeline.

[Hail Seizure]

That makes Wipeout HD the first instance of Wipeout going backwards in its own timeline then. :D
I know there isn't a cat in hell's chance of this happening, but I'd love to revisit the F3600 league in a future WO (complete with unbalanced ships, crazy skiddy bouncy handling and unforgiving collisions). One can but dream...

[infoxicated]

When I was originally writing the copy for Pulse & HD, Pulse was the FX400 League and HD was the FX450. Then I discovered that HD would contain more Pure tracks than Pulse tracks, so it seemed daft to distance it so far from the FX300.

So what we have is mostly FX300 League tracks, but using the rules of the FX400 league... FX350 seemed like a safe choice. The FX350 would be a sort of bridge between the FX300 and the FX400, where pilots could make the transition from the traditional tracks found on Makana to those MagLock technology on the FX400 League circuits.

No, it's not perfect, but I figured it was the neatest way to fit it into the structure of the league. It actually has no reflection on the timeline - it's not as if the FX300 League downed tools the moment the FX400 began - racing takes place concurrently in each league, although the elite pilots would naturally end up competing in the global, FX400 League.

I did intend to declare the FX400 an "open" league, whereby independant teams could lease a ship from one of the AG Racing teams and run it under their own colours (similar to how rallying. This was alluding to the ship skin editor and explained away why you'd see an AG Systems running with a different skin. However, when we had to cut the word count for the official website I just left that out. It felt clumsy to explain - it could be I'm just not that good a writer. :)

[miufs]

Thanks for the explanation friends infoxicated. :)

Pulse is a great great game but i still think that the ship´s handling could me more loose just like WO2097 and W3O.
But thats just a minor complaint when the game is so good. ;)

Oh, and i still need to learn to enjoy those mag-strips...:?

So WO HD will only feature tracks from Pulse and Pure? ;)

:)

[RJ O'Connell]

it's not as if the FX300 League downed tools the moment the FX400 began - racing takes place concurrently in each league, although the elite pilots would naturally end up competing in the global, FX400 League.
So what would become of the FX300 in time? Would it morph into a Formula Two-esque entity as the last step before the big show (FX400)?

[infoxicated]

I imagine that FX300 rules and regulations could well stand alongside the other leagues - the number does not denote grandness, just a "class" of anti-gravity racing.

You have to remember that this stuff was all written long before the events of reality came to bear on each of the games related to the FX350 and FX400 leagues. Due to that, it doesn't bear too much scrutiny when you try and match up what I thought was going to happen with what has happened. To quote a good friend; don't confuse what happened with what I intended! :D

It's possible that the story would be well served with an overhaul to try and cover the way things went, I think. However, from my standpoint I've always maintained that the story is AG racing mythology - the future history of the sport, while the games are just that - games based on a certain era of the sport and, as such, aren't necessarily accurate.

With hindsight, I know what I'd like to do with it the back story to tidy it up, but that particular horse has bolted and I don't believe I'll get the chance to touch it again in an "official" capacity.

[rdmx]

If you felt passionate enough, you could do it pro bono ;)

[infoxicated]

Hey, I'd let The Edge and the rest of U2 help if I thought it would make any difference! ;)

[Lance]

lol. Good one. :)


I wonder what Bono would do for Rob, perhaps arrange a loan from the IMF? Start a foundation for retired game developers? Visit Bangladesh and distribute copies of the new revised WipEout manual?

Heeey, maybe we could get Bob Geldof in on this. ;)

[infoxicated]

He'd just sit around with his shades on, singing that Vertigo* song!

Like so; 8)

While The Edge rocked out in agreement.

Like so; :guitar

*the above comment has no basis in fact, nor is it a commentary on any rumoured seizures that might result in playing any game. Ever.

[Lance]

Oh, well, we can just get in our racecraft and bullet the blue sky.

Self-absorbed rock stars. Fooey.

[RJ O'Connell]

Thank you Rob, for all the info - I'd figure I'd go ahead and ask. Maybe one day there'll be a huge sitdown and a huge timeline of AG Racing history will be drawn up.

(I can no longer envision U2 playing in any venue smaller than Azteca Stadium thanks to the 3D IMAX movie.)

[Xavier]

Were the years 2097 (in WOXL) and 2207 (in Pulse) chosen specifically ebcause they're exactly one and two centuries, respectively, from the years that the games were made in our world?

Just wondering, as it seemed a little weird to jump from 2097 all the way to 2160 in Fusion, then from Pure's 2197 ahead only ten years to 2207.

I love the copious background stories in these games. The "future history" stuff really is a lot of fun to read.

[infoxicated]

From 2097 it went to the mid 2120's with WipEout 3, which shows the jump to the Fusion era in a better light.

The 2197 date for Pure was indeed an acknowledgement of 2097. I figured it'd be a good gag, and at the time of writing it Pulse was due out in mid 2007, so I figured that 2107 would be the perfect date to set that game - ten years after Pure was set and 200 years from present day. Unfortunately with it slipping until the end of the year it was kind of lost.

I actually did mess a little with the time lines between Pure and Pulse, because I mentioned stuff like Icaras entering the FX300 league a few years after it had started. Kind of playing to the fact they'd been a download team and had come later. It made good sense at the time, I thought!

To quote myself...


Rising from the ashes after a near sixty year hiatus, the Icaras team was reformed in the late 2190’s by the great, great, great grandson of Burnston Burns, the wealthy eccentric who founded the original team.

“When people think about the great anti-gravity racing nations, Britain was never the first that sprang to mind, despite the efforts of my ancestors.” Connor Burns, Icaras’ Director of Operations lamented in a recent interview. “I wanted to change that. I wanted to put together a hard working, focused team of talented people and give this sport a damn good go.”

Gaining valuable experience by entering numerous FX150 class events in their first year, Burns demonstrated the same bullish determination that fuelled his great, great, great grandfather’s desire to create the original Icaras team in 2109.

“People wrote Burnston off as a mad British eccentric. Which he was, I suppose. But what they didn’t count on was him being stubborn enough to actually get the team off the ground and into the professional leagues.” Burns smiled, “there’s a fine line between madness and genius, and I like to think that there was much more to Burnston than lunacy.”

After winning the prestigious Le Havre endurance event towards the end of 2199, the team was able to secure the funding necessary to make the jump to the FX300 league for the 2200 season. Burns wistfully recalls what it was like to arrive on Makana and compete against the elite;

“That first race we entered at Sebenco Climb – it’s a moment I’ll never forget. We ended up at the back of the grid after suffering an engine failure, and our lone entry is sitting behind teams like Auricom and AG Systems – the giants of AG racing. As I stood on the team gantry the wind was howling, the sleet stung my skin, and it just felt like the most miserable circumstances for our debut. Yet in the crowd I could see these Union flags waving defiantly for us, and hear the fans chanting ‘Icaras, Icaras, Icaras!’” Burns laughs, “I thought to myself ‘How very British!’”

The unlikely third place finish that followed ensured that news of the team’s success flooded the AG Racing datacast feeds around the world, bringing a welcome wave of publicity and, more importantly, sponsorship for the team.

That financial injection could so easily have been squandered in a hasty attempt to further match the established AG Racing incumbents. Burns, however, spent wisely, investing in the future of Icaras by hiring the best minds in the business and developing the facilities at their North Weald headquarters.

As they ramp up production in readiness to compete when AG Racing re-enters the global stage, the Icaras team clings firmly to its roots with a distinctly British flavour. Asked what it means to take the team to a global stage and Burns is hard pressed to contain his excitement.

“I believe this kind of challenge is why Burnston originally created the Icaras team. I’m sure I speak for everyone at Icaras when I say that we cannot wait to be competing on the fastest tracks in the world and racing against the top teams.”
There's so much in there that's loaded in some way, I tell you.

For example, the "Le Havre endurance event" was a shout out to Arnaud's crazy band of pilots who hit the tracks like the fist of an angry god for an entire weekend, and then some.

Then there's a mention of the FX150, because I wanted to show that the ammateur league events were still running.

There's also talk of a base at North Weald (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=north+weald+england&ie=UTF8&ll=51.719904,0.154839&spn=0.050089,0.11055&t=h&z=13), which is an airfield I "knew of" and found using Google Earth, because I wanted Icaras to be based in a place that was historically associated with flight. I also wanted them to have an air of independance, which is why I wanted to use this obscure air field.

Actually, anyone who knows of this show is going to hate me now, but I deliberately picked this place as the Icaras base because it's the aircraft hanger where they filmed the television series The Crystal Maze (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crystal_Maze), and I thought that show was kind of fun and I had a soft spot for it.

No, looking back, I don't have a good excuse for why I did this, but I figured the chances of anyone working all this stuff out without me telling them would be exeptionally remote. :nod

I bet this **** comes under the NDA, too, but since it would have to be an NDA on how my own brain works and I'm pretty sure I didn't sign that over to Sony, I'm willing to risk it just this once. :)

[Hellfire_WZ]

Great, now I'm going to see Richard O'****ing Brien every time I see an Icaras craft now :P

(Actually, I loved The Crystal Maze too... ;) )

[RJ O'Connell]

You could have gone further and named the Icaras HQ "The Crystal Hangar" or something.

It's going to be different knowing the next manual writer probably only knows that FEISAR is blue and gold and goes slow in straight lines. I can see the intro pages of the manual now:

"This is Wipeout. These ships have weapons and go really fast, just as that Pedro Bolivar dude said back in 2097 when he invented the sport of super-wicked awesome floaty racing.

In the newest edition we've taken out all the needless noob ships like Firestar and replaced them with ten-ton solid steel DEATH MACHINES with SPIKES ALL OVER THEM and MACHINE GUNS strapped to the top to make this game more like SOCOM!"*

*at which point we'd all swear off any new Wipeout games as a collective. ;)

[Asayyeah]

the "Le Havre endurance event" was a shout out to Arnaud's crazy band of pilots who hit the tracks like the fist of an angry god for an entire weekend, and then some.

:guitar
To be associated with Icaras is a true honor

[GalacticSpartan]

Hey um I have another question. Wipeout Pure used to be the fx150 league...why`d it change to fx300 league all of a sudden? Just wondering.

[RJ O'Connell]

FX150 was an amateur-only league that pre-dated the 300. Meaning none of the big teams could enter unless it was by way of their ships being entered by privateers. It remained as such after the reformation of the pro circuit (FX300), but until then it was the only race in town.

[Sengoku]

This may sound like a tard of a question haha, but how do you know so much about the leagues Rob, were you apart of the Wipeout crew or something and thanks for the explanation :)

[infoxicated]

Yeah, I worked there from 2002-2008 and, Wipeout-wise I wrote the back stories for Pure, Pulse, and HD, plus all the content for Wipeout-Game.com and the front-end web development for it.

[Sengoku]

Thats awesome bro! Now I know who to show total respect to haha. :D

[haiku]

Yeah, I worked there from 2002-2008 and, Wipeout-wise I wrote the back stories for Pure, Pulse, and HD, plus all the content for Wipeout-Game.com and the front-end web development for it.


*STAR STRUCK*

I had no idea. I feel like you are the guy who had my dream job. I think you did a terrific job of bringing a realistic background to this terrific franchise. I love my company and career and there is nothing I would change about it, but everyone I know has heard me say the same thing "If there is any company I would ever work for if not my own, it would be Studio Liverpool working on Wipeout games".

In particular, doing graphic design/UI design on the games, or doing copy/historical work on the story.

Since you were there until 2008, did you happen to do the writing for all of the badges people get in online races? If you did not, do you have the contact of the person who did? I would also love to know who did the graphic design for the badge icons.

There is a new feature I am developing on speedtest.net that is actually inspired by my love for Wipeout and I would love to hire/contract them for this project. Drop me a private message if you are open to sharing that information with me.

[infoxicated]

I don't know who did the badge descriptions, I'm afraid - it was after my time, but I imagine the design for them was handled by Studio Liverpool's in-house graphic design team.

You're right about it being a dream job - for the most part I loved every moment of my six years there, but in the end I had to leave for family reasons.

To this day I'm still amazed I got the chance to work there - the studio manager during my time, Clemens Wangerin, took a chance on hiring me and once I had my foot in the door I just ended up doing lots of different things.

If I'm being honest, I was never really brave enough to push myself to the forefront while I was there. I think a lot of the time I was pretty star struck myself by all the awesome programmers and artists I was surrounded by.

For the first 18 months after I left I rued the day and wished so much that I could go back to a previous save-point in my life from before I chose to leave. When Clemens left at the end of 2009 and then nearly everybody I had worked with got made redundant earlier this year, the spell was broken and I knew there was no going back.

It was the best six years of my career, for sure - I don't think I'll ever have another job that lives up to it, but then how could I? Guy who runs a WipEout fan site lucks into a job at the place where it all started, then goes on to write the back story and join the WipEout development team.

It doesn't get any better than that, I don't think, which is why I'll always look back on my time there with such fondness. :)

[F.E.I.S.A.R]

Hm...With fan fiction,some things can be explained,but some will remain unknown.
I know this is rather late,but Challenger's Team Profiles said that some teams participated in the FX-200 League(I'm not sure if there is a FX-250).
And why do some say that HD Fury is the FX-450 Racing League?(Oops.Off-topic)
Rob,I know you have told me this already,but perhaps you could share how the ECS Cage that appeared in Pulse debutted.