The Conduit online co-op being considered, sequel to be started right away, more

This information comes from the latest IGN Nintendo Voice chat. I don’t have enough time to complete the entire summary, but I thought you guys would be interested in hearing about The Conduit. In the podcast, the IGN Nintendo team were talking to a few of the developers from The Conduit.

– The Conduit is still at pre-alpha, working pretty heavily on multiplayer. About six months of development left to refine and polish. Single-player campaign has a lot done, you can play through the entire game right now. The core is done, working on details. Making sure everything looks and plays as good as it can.

– The Conduit has had full funding all the way through the project, thus High Voltage was not rushing to get a publisher. High Voltage is very close to announcing the publisher for The Conduit, should come in the next month.

– Eric Nofsinger says we should be very excited about their publisher, High Voltage weighed the decision heavily. It’s a “larger publisher.” Deal with the publisher included that, when the publisher is announced, High Voltage will still continue to provide the press with coverage concerning The Conduit, will push to start on the sequel right away. High Voltage was very choosey about the publisher for The Conduit.

– If High Voltage couldn’t do certain things right, they didn’t include them. Want everything to be high quality. For example, vehicles just couldn’t be done in the first game, will try to have it the second time around. High Voltage wants to make The Conduit as good an experience as the game can be.

– Pretty much everything is customizable in The Conduit. Movable UI interface should be up soon. Move grenade icons, weapon readouts to wherever you desire on the screen.

– High Voltage has upped the run speed, have been playing around with the analog stick from walk to run. Exploring the option of sprint. Land-locked on buttons, something on High Voltage’s to-do list.

– Since The Conduit, Eric Nofsinger has been getting a ton of fan email. Hand-written letters with envelope art, too.

– Have been working on LAN play with Nintendo. Haven’t gotten final approval yet, so nothing official. It is functioning in-house. High Voltage is excited about this as an option. High Voltage has had 12 player LAN play hooked up so far, will support 16 players on release.

– Online mode: Standard deathmatch, team deathmatch, CTF. Depending on how long some of these things take, but High Voltage is interested in adding more modes.

– So far, High Voltage has tested with about 13 people, hoping to test with 16 soon. Frame-rate held up really tightly during gameplay. No significant lag. Goal is to hit rock-solid 30 FPS, never dib. High Voltage is aware that there needs to be minimal lag for FPS titles.

– Even if you own a 360 or PS3, you should be excited about The Conduit about the controls. Obviously the team wants beautiful graphics and want to put out a core game for the Wii, but still want to deliver a different experience. It immediately feels like a new way to interact with a FPS. Closer to a PC experience, especially with customizable controls. Fixes the learning curve with dual analog setup.

– PAX build is 3-4 weeks old, AI has taken a step forward. People will be happy about the behaviors of the enemies.

– WiiSpeak and MotionPlus have NOT been confirmed. High Voltage is getting their development kits early in September. WiiSpeak seems like a more obvious fit, will try MotionPlus. If it’s a tack-on, High Voltage won’t use. It needs to add to the gameplay and make a better experience, but will make every effort to get it in there if it makes sense.

– High Voltage is even looking at things like the Wii balance board and determining if it makes sense. Joke about how sprint mode can be used by running on the balance board.

– WiiSpeak is pretty feasible for The Conduit. Again, High Voltage will have a better idea once the dev kits arrive. Seems like an obvious fit, especially with online.

– Art/tech over the past few months have been improved. A couple of more improvements are coming down the pipe. One of the big recent additions is depth of field (scope mode.) Put cursor over target will become focus, things in foreground/background will go out of focus. Dynamic lighting has been improved. Starting to look night and day.

– Splitscreen multiplayer mode probably not in this version (probably not enough time, other reasons), have been exploring some ideas of cooperative mode. High Voltage has been looking at other things that core gamers will appreciate.

– Developer blog for The Conduit launching on IGN soon.