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Three Ways Borderlands Differentiates 1 Million Guns
Gearbox Software's title-in-development Borderlands has 1 million guns at the last count. Even the mathematically disinclined among us realize that is a helluvalot of firepower.
To put that number in perspective, Borderlands right now has well over 40,000 times more guns than the classic Halo 3. So how can Gearbox possibly make all these pieces unique? The three ways, after the jump.
1. APPEARANCE
The most visible way Gearbox differentiates the guns is appearance. Different colors, sizes, and materials.
These differences aren't just superficial. Gearbox is trying to create a game where you already have an idea how the gun handles itself just by looking at it on the ground.
Silver weapons have a better chance of inflicting an extreme critical hit. Black weapons fire more quickly. Colors can also signify bonus effects. Yellow is high explosive, green is acid, and blue is electrical.
The dimensions of the gun matter too. The gun length affects stability. Its weight affects how much the gun bounces around.
And, of course, the gun type matters. Don't expect your handgun to have the accuracy of a sniper rifle. Don't expect your sniper rifle to have the rate of fire of your handgun. This game has a science fiction setting. There's plenty of fiction and plenty of science.
2. The MANUFACTURERS
Each gun in Borderlands has a different manufacturer like Vladof, S & S, and Dahl. One of Dahl's creations is just below.
In the real world, different gun makers have different specialities like Smith & Wesson with its handguns. Same deal in the game. Each gun maker in Borderlands makes guns with similar characteristics and materials.
One brand might be a crack shot (pun intended) at making scoped guns. We already heard about one that makes its weapons with almost entirely wood. (I'm guessing they don't also specialize in making guns with incendiary bullets). There's even alien manufacturers whose guns are rumored to have awesome and mysterious abilities.
3. The NUMBERS
Although you can tell a lot about a gun from its appearance and maker, the gun's statistics will ultimately give you the best understanding of the weapon.
When you examine a gun, a box appears at the bottom of the screen with a list of rankings. They include information on gun's power, accuracy, rate of fire, reload time, ammo regeneration, and the gun's secondary effect. So if the gun data screen shows a lightning bolt with a 1 next to it, you've found a piece with that unleashed a low-level electrical shock with each bullet.
After you call up the gun data, it lines up with the gun data for your currently equipped gun. At a glance, you can tell how the gun you're holding now stacks up with one you just found.
SUMMARY
When I've mentioned Borderlands to some people, they've been dubious about the claim of 1 million unique guns. "But they'll all mostly be the same," they say. As you can see from above, we can politely tell them that they are WRONG!
It's best to think of the Borderlands guns like snowflakes. No two are the same. Except a snowflake never killed a sea-slug mouthed quadruped.
For more info on guns, check out the Borderlands Guide Wiki: Guns. Also check out Brig's excellent graph on the guns stats on the official Borderlands forums.
Thanks BO5, you might have to pick up the gun, but you definitely don't have to equip it.
where did you find all this info?
The E3 2008 Borderlands preview was particularly helpful. It's about 10 minutes long and it's just one of the developers giving a walkthrough of the game. If you watch closely, you can see the stats for a bunch of different guns at various points. Here's a link to it.
I also got a bunch of the info from various interviews given by Gearbox.
Nice. Very well done and thought out, as well as informative. I've watched that video a million times and I still learned some new things.
And welcome to the site. That E3 video is great. In ten minutes they give us more info about the game than all the previews from major gaming sites.
One thing that surprises me about that video is how complete the game looks. Borderlands will probably end up being released about a year after that demo. What exactly are they working on right now?
Hows it going everyone?
Just joined today.
But what worries me is the developers posting on the Gearbox forum, the way they talk about the focus testing its as if the game is far far far from being done.
Worries me a little.
Nice pic. It is odd how little we know about the state of the game. This is a game that was supposed to be released last year yet we don't have a release date.
I think there's a few things to keep in mind that could be stretching out the development process:
1) Gearbox wants to do this game right.
2) This is the first game in a new franchise. They're trying a lot of ambitious things (like the million guns). Of course, it's going to take longer.
3) There's been a bit of turmoil at Gearbox. They had to lay some people off and I've heard the latest Brothers In Arms game didn't sell as well as they hoped.
Ha thanks, its an energy drink, and it was delicious.
Brothers in Arms only sold maybe 200,000 copies in the US, thats not good for how long the game was in development and Im sure a huge moral killer in the Gearbox offices.
But just think about the logistics of the game, the million plus guns, the hundreds of thousands of armor and items, the tens of thousands of vehicle items, the vehicles themselves, not to mention the storyline!
Intertwining the three storylines, how the NPC's react to the player(s), how the game will run with one, two, three or four players. The constantly changing environments, how they will do everything without loading screens. Not to mention the backstory of a whole new universe and how that affects the way people dress, act, speak.
*Whew*
It's just a whole hell of a lot to handle and make sure everything works right, works right looks good, works right looks and is fun. I would hate to be Randy Pitchford when decisions have to be made.
Certainly one of the best I've ever seen for this game. Keep up the great work! I know this isn't really the place for asking this, but is there any way for users besides yourself to post topics. I fully understand if there isn't, I was just wondering if there is.
i didnt know when you come up to the gun that it will show you everything about it by just looking at the box on the bottom of your screen......thats really usefull instead of having to equip the gun and then go into the menu to check out its stats