IGN: Online fight camps are the one thing you really haven't gone super-in-depth about. What exactly are these?
UFC Undisputed Dev Team: Online fight camps are a lot like your traditional guild or clan structure found in other games. Fighters align themselves under the same camp name and camp banner, assign leaders, trainers, and members, and train and compete together to raise the stature of their camp as a whole. This is one of the most important additions to Undisputed 2010, as it really raises the level of camaraderie and team competition amongst players.
IGN: Why was this something you wanted in UFC Undisputed 2010?
UFC Undisputed Dev Team: Fight Camps was one of the first ideas we came up with after finishing UFC Undisputed 2009. The online fight camp feature puts the emphasis on the team, not the individual. While we've seen this sort of clan support in other genres, such as first person shooters and MMOs, UFC Undisputed 2010's fight camp feature adds a huge level of authenticity to an MMA game and will ultimately be a big step forward for online play in the fighting genre.
Throughout our work on the game, it was very common to hear UFC fighters say that the single most important element when preparing for a fight is proper training, specifically who you choose to train with for a fight. We've captured this in UFC Undisputed 2010 with online fight camps, allowing gamers to train, fight and progress as a team. Our goal is to continually create the most robust and authentic online experience in the genre, and we feel we've accomplished that with this year's game while also laying the groundwork for innovation on future UFC Undisputed titles. The concept of training camps and progressing as a mixed martial artist with a group of fighters is something that permeates both the real UFC and the Undisputed community, and implementing a tool to make this easier for players was very important to us.
IGN: How many people can be in your camp?
UFC Undisputed Dev Team: Fight camps can have up to 40 members each. We bounced around a few numbers in development and decided on a number that most closely represented a large class in a real fight camp or dojo. We want Fight Camps to foster a community so we kept the number in a range where a player could know most everyone's name and not feel isolated in their own group. The technical side of that number is it made balancing and tuning our different milestones easier with a maximum number in mind. Some milestones are easy and others will test the collective endurance of your camp.
IGN: Can you toss people out if they're annoying or suck?
UFC Undisputed Dev Team: Absolutely! Fight Camps have a lot of the same features that you'd find in your typical clan or guild management system. Fight Camp leaders can promote, demote, and kick members at will but the aim of Fight Camps is to help everyone at the camp get better. The management system is important because when players first join a camp they're labeled a "Recruit" and their privileges are restricted. Recruits can fight under the camp banner but it's a trial period so their wins don't count and, more importantly, their losses don't either. When the higher ranking members see that they're fighting well they can be promoted to a "Member" and start representing the camp on the leaderboards.
IGN: Talk a little bit about fight camp sparring works -- is this just two guys in the Octagon for as long as they want or is something setup so you can roll around on the ground and try out moves?
UFC Undisputed Dev Team: Fight Camp Sparring closely mirrors that of offline practice sparring, complete with options for displaying control inputs, damage output, and more. It's basically a really long, risk-free training session for fight camp members. Between fighting on your feet and fighting on the ground, Undisputed is a complex game and we improved a number of the striking and grappling systems as well as adding cage interaction. Discovering the best uses for each attack and for each position no longer has to be a solo experience. By giving players the ability to roll with each other in a pressure free environment we hope it will encourage them to educate each other as to the finer nuances of Undisputed's gameplay and improvise new strategies.
IGN: What will it take to be the No. 1 camp? Just wins?
UFC Undisputed Dev Team: Winning is the way to raise the stature of you and your camp. We do have other means of progression, like camp Trainer levels and Camp milestones, but just like in the UFC, winning is where it's at when it comes to leaderboards.
IGN: Is the camp represented whenever you fight online, or only when you're fighting online as your created character through the fight camp option?
UFC Undisputed Dev Team: Your fight camp is represented any time you fight in Camp Exhibition or in Ranked Matches with Camp Fighting set to "on." The best camps get shown on the leaderboards so remember to promote your Recruits when they're battle-ready!
IGN: Camp Milestones, eh? What are these?
UFC Undisputed Dev Team: Camp Milestones are basically mini achievements or trophies that players can acquire through representing their camps. An example of a Camp Milestone would be to have 10 members of your camp that are also level 10 trainers. It encourages a bit of alternative accomplishment in your fight camps. You know, when you're twisting people's arms off!
IGN: Will participating in the camp increase my created fighter's stats and/or attributes?
UFC Undisputed Dev Team: Yes! Participating in your camp's training sessions will afford you the ability to gain additional CRED for you fighter's Career, which will work to accelerate your progress. We allow training online with your camp to be completely free to the player; it doesn't increase your fatigue, decrease your condition, or take a week out of your schedule. As such we've limited training with your campmates to once between your Career Mode fights.
IGN: What Fight Camp is the real Brock Lesnar going to be in and can I join it?
UFC Undisputed Dev Team: I can't speaks specifically as to Brock's plans for Fight Camp affiliation, but rest assured that many real fighters as well as members of the Undisputed development team will be a part of the Fight Camp landscape.
