This week a new shooter, Brink, will be hitting store shelves. In the past year there have been many FPS games released but none had in it in them to be played as an eSport. Call of Duty players stuck with edition 4 despite the gigantic mainstream BLOPS love fest, the Counter-Strike crowd didn’t move an inch when another half-baked release of CSPromod hit, and none of the new franchises made an effort.
But Brink, Brink could be different. Brink is developed by Splash Damage, who have a pretty good track record consisting of Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Enemy Territory, DOOM 3 and ET Quake Wars. That’s 3 out of 4 games that are or were played competitively.
Despite their reputation, Splash Damage has not released much information yet regarding the competitive aspects of Brink. That’s why we will take it upon ourselves to find out what Brink really has to offer.
Legenda: Answers in green are good, answers in blue are decent and answers in red are bad.
So what makes an FPS viable as an eSport? What is absolutely essential?
General essential questions.
Are there dedicated servers? For which OS’s?
Yes. The Windows dedicated server is already available through Steam, the Linux server however is confirmed but will be released later on.
Do dedicated servers have enough settings to build a competitive rule set with?
Very likely. Some great config settings we found are ready-up percentage, bots, map duration, VOIP, command post buffs and friendly fire. At first glance the entire list looks great but we will only really know after the first competitions have been held and players and admins will know if they are sufficient.
Can dedicated servers record a demo/replay of an entire match?
No. However past games have proven the game engine can provide this feature, so it can surely be patched in.
Can players record a match demo/replay?
Yes, but according to our panel these files cannot be played back yet, which makes it useless at the moment.
What server commands are there to support match play such as ‘restart match’ or ‘ready up’?
The game has a ‘ready up’ feature built in. Advanced server management can be done via remote console (rcon), which looks promising. Our panel was not yet knowledgeable of all commands, but those are likely easy to Google.
Can the game be played on LAN without internet access?
Yes. The option to play on LAN is available in the menu, but we have not tested it.
Essential questions for broadcasting.
Is there a spectator mode?
Yes. In Brink you can spectate in 3rd person (over the shoulder) by default. By adjusting the server config a free camera view can also be used. A 1st person view is still absent, our panel has heard this has to do with the way the weapons are rendered as a player, which the developers could not copy over to spectators. We hope this will be added in a patch.
Other questions for broadcasting.
Can the interface be customized?
At the time of writing we don’t know, but it doesn’t look like it.
Can players be bound to keys in spectator mode as we have come to love from COD Promod?
Yes! To our surprise our panel had heard of this feature. We have not yet tested this yet, but we trust our panelists.
Can spectators use team based custom/colored player models?
At the time of writing we don’t know, but it doesn’t look like it.
Can match statistics be seen live for spectators?
No. Brink’s scoreboard shows a surprisingly small amount of information, not event a kill & death count.
Can match statistics be saved for analysis post-match?
No. Besides, there is not much to save.
Is there an in-game TV client?
No.
And least important for an eSport, but still great to have..
Other questions for players.
Is there a console for easy changing of settings?
Yes.
Is there any form of built in team/clan support?
No. We do want to encourage teams to customize their characters in the same style for easier team recognition on broadcasts. (And be honest, it’s looks very cool!)
Can the gameplay be modified? Are ‘total conversions’ possible?
At the moment we think this is not possible. When an SDK is released this will become more clear.
Can players change their in-game name?
Yes but no. While the game should have full Steamworks support when we tested this we did find that your name does not update when you change it in-game. You will need to restart the game for your new Steam Friends name to be used.
Is there an anti-cheat system in place?
Yes. Brink servers can be VAC (Valve Anti-Cheat) secured.
Is there a windowed fullscreen mode?
No.
So if you are as curious to the answers to these questions as we are, or you just want to play some Brink with our crew live on the stream, mark your calendar and join us for this launch event.
- H2kTV’s Brink launch event
- Friday, May 13th, 20:00 CEST (Central Europe)
- H2kTV.com/live
- #H2kTV on QuakeNet
More information
» Brink
» Splash Damage
