disassembling borderlands - final - harshal

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GDA | Analysis | Borderlands 1

SIGA2 ‘09 Harshal Chheda

Disassembling

BBBOOORRRDDDEEERRRLLL A A A NNNDDDSSS





CONTENTS Introduction................................................................................................................................................................................ 4

Borderlands the Game ......................................................................................................................................................... 4

This Document ....................................................................................................................................................................... 4

Formal Elements ........................................................................................................................................................................ 5

Player – Number, interaction patterns, roles, etc ............................................................................................................. 5

Interaction Patterns ........................................................................................................................................................... 5

Objectives .............................................................................................................................................................................. 6

Procedures ............................................................................................................................................................................. 7

Rules......................................................................................................................................................................................... 9

Resources ............................................................................................................................................................................ 11

Health ............................................................................................................................................................................... 11

Shield ................................................................................................................................................................................ 11

Money .............................................................................................................................................................................. 11

Gear .................................................................................................................................................................................. 12

Inventory Slots.................................................................................................................................................................. 13Ammunition ..................................................................................................................................................................... 13

Conflict ................................................................................................................................................................................. 14

Obstacles ......................................................................................................................................................................... 14

Opponents ....................................................................................................................................................................... 14

Boundaries ........................................................................................................................................................................... 15





Outcome ............................................................................................................................................................................. 15

Dramatic Elements................................................................................................................................................................. 16

Challenges .......................................................................................................................................................................... 16

Premise ................................................................................................................................................................................. 16

Character ............................................................................................................................................................................ 17

Story ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 18

Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................................................... 19





INTRODUCTION

BORDERLANDS THE GAME

Borderlands is a science-fiction role-playing shooter (a first-

person shooter with RPG elements) that was developed by

Gearbox Software for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360 and

PlayStation 3.

Genre FPS, RPG (Role Playing Shooter)

Modes Single player, co-op & multiplayer

Developer Gearbox Software

Publisher 2K GamesRating Mature

Engine Unreal Engine 3

Platforms Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3

Release Year 2009

- Wikipedia

THIS DOCUMENT

This is an analysis of the game in terms of it’s formal and

dramatic elements. Because the scope of this game is very

large, this document will only give examples instead of listing

every single item.





FORMAL ELEMENTS

PLAYER – NUMBER, INTERACTION PATTERNS, ROLES, ETC

As the genre suggests, this game is played in first-person view

(except while driving, which is in third person). This game is

tailor-made for co-operative multiplayer. I have personally

only tried out this mode, having played the single player

mode more. From reviews, comments by players on forums

and my own experience, the PvP in the game seems lacking.

Interaction Patterns

Single Player vs Game

Player vs Player

Free-for-All2 Player Co-operative (Split

Screen)

Multiplayer Co-operative





OBJECTIVES

The overall objective of the game is to find a secret place called The Vault , which contains alien

technology of high militaristic and monetary value, and can be accessed only once every 200

years.

There are a chain of core quests that players must complete in order to proceed further. Players

also need to gain levels by collecting experience, allocate their skill points into their class-based

specialization trees and finally, they need to continually upgrade their gear in order to make

themselves strong enough to tackle higher level areas.

When players complete the core quest chain, they finish the game and can either continue

roaming the world, or start another playthrough, with harder enemies, who give more experience,

loot and money.





PROCEDURES

At the outset, players get to pick from 4 character classes. Each class has it’s strengths and weaknesses,

as well as one unique ability. All classes use guns, but certain weapons are more suited to particular

classes because of synergy with their skills.

Borderlands is a pretty linear game in terms of what you have to do, but as you unlock more areas, it

becomes increasingly free-roaming. Players complete the game when they finish the core quest chain,

culminating in their finding the vault. Other quests are optional.

One of the most important things that a player needs to collect is experience. It can be gained by

completing quests or by ‘grinding’ (repetitively killing enemies). Gaining experience increase s the

character’s level, which in turn increases damage and survivability while also providing skill points, which

can be spent in the character’s skill tree so that the character can specialize in certain areas over others,

depending on their class.

Most quests are missions given to the player by friendly NPCs. They usually involve killing enemies, finding

or collecting objects, pressing buttons located in hard-to-reach areas, etc. Completing a quest usually

results in a reward of experience, money or an item.

There are two other useful by-products of questing and grinding – money and equipment. Better

equipment helps you kill things faster and helps you take down harder opponents. Money gets you better

equipment.

When players kill an enemy, the enemy has a (pretty good) chance of dropping money or items.

Enemies killed in higher level areas drop better quality items and more money.

Borderlands has a huge number of different types of guns, shields, class mods, grenades and artifacts,

and optimizing the gear on your character is a big part of gameplay.





Combat in Borderlands is like most FPS

games, except you aim down your

weapon’s sights instead of having the

usual crosshairs. You can also throw

different types of grenades. Headshots

cause critical hits that do a lot more

damage than normal. You can also

do melee attacks, but these are

usually a lot less effective and too

risky, except in the case of the

berserker class. The player loses shield

strength and then health when they

take damage. Shield strength can be

regained by avoiding damage (by taking cover) for some time, whereupon the shields start recharging.

Most classes have some form of self-healing or shield recharge skills, and some can even heal other team

members.

Players can also man vehicles, sitting in the driver or gunner’s seat. In single player mode, drivers can still

position and shoot their main gun while driving, or stop the vehicle and get into the gunner’s seat.





RULES

Players have two vital attributes that they need to monitor – shield strength and health. Player’s shields

absorb damage and player health only starts getting depleted when the shields have run out.

When their health is fully depleted, they must either wait to be revived by another player,

attempt to kill an enemy to achieve a "second wind", or otherwise be regenerated back at

the last "New-U" station (checkpoint) that they passed, losing some of their money in the

process.

- Wikipedia

When a player loses health, it can be regained through medical supplies (via drops or purchase) or

healing abilities gained through skill specializations.

Players use weapons such as guns and grenades. The different types of

guns are shotgun, sniper rifle, rocket launcher, pistol, revolver, combat

rifle and SMG. Each type uses its own ammunition and the player can

only carry a certain amount of each type in their backpacks. Spreading

ammo consumption by using different guns is another aspect that the

player has to manage.

Littered all over the game world are barrels that explode when damaged, causing different types ofdamage to everything within a short radius, like grenades. Players also suffer fall damage depending on

the height of the fall, which can be absorbed by the shield before it affects player health.





The types of damage in this game are shown below. This applies to damage done by guns, grenades,

barrels and even enemies:

TYPE GOOD FOR

Bullet/Melee Overall

Fire Flesh (Unshielded enemies)

Corrosive Armoured enemies

Electric Shielded enemies

Explosive Area of effect

There are strategically placed checkpoint markers throughout the game world, where the player can

resurrect upon death and that saves the player’s progress. Some of these, usually found in towns and

other safe locations, let the player teleport to all other such markers that the player has discovered.

Players can also reset their skill points here.





RESOURCES

Health

The primary resource, health steadily increases with the player’s level and can be boosted via certainclass skills and certain shields which boost max health %. When players lose all health, they become

crippled (rooted to one spot with severely blacked out vision, wobbliness, etc) and have a short amount

of time to kill an enemy, which will give the player a second wind that restores full shield strength and a

small amount of health. The time available to try and kill an enemy is lower with each successive time the

player is crippled.

Shield

Forms a protective barrier around the player that absorbs a set amount of damage – although electrical

damage melts down shields like there’s no tomorrow. Shield ‘hit points’ can surpass player health and

can also be boosted by class skills.

Shields are very useful in that they start recharging, rather sluggishly overall, after x seconds. X is about 10

seconds (estimate) and can – you guessed it – be boosted by certain class skills.

This ability reduces player downtime between fights and is a very nice mechanic, seen in games like Halo

as well. Also, when your shields get low in a fight, you can always take cover and wait for them to

recharge before re-engaging.

Money

Money is primarily useful to buy equipment from shops. The game word contains shops that sell randomly

generated guns, shields, grenades, class mods and health packs. Shop inventories are on a universal 20

min reset timer.

Also, a percentage of player money is deducted every time the player dies and is resurrected at the last

checkpoint.





Gear

As in most RPGs and, indeed, FPSs, gear directly affects player

damage output and survivability, among other things. So,

maintaining a good set of gear is of high priority throughout the

game.

Players start the game with the ability to use two

weapons, but later gain up to four weapon slots, as well

as slots for an energy shield, a grenade modification, and

a class modification.

One of the key features of Borderlands is the randomly-

generated weapons and items created either as

dropped by foes, found in storage chests about the

game, sold at vendors in the game, or as quest reward

items. The game uses a "Procedural Content Creation

System" to create these weapons and items, which can

alter their firepower, rate of fire, and accuracy, add in

elemental effects such as a chance to set foes on fire,

and at rare times other special bonuses such as regenerating the player's ammo. A color-

coded scale is used to indicate the rarity of the weapon or item. It is estimated that the

random system can generate over 17 million variations of weapons.

Items collected but not used can be sold back at vendors for money that then can be used

to buy better items. Used items can also be sold.

- Wikipedia





A funky characteristic of weapons is that

the player has to look down their sights to

get the best aim, and different guns have

totally different styles of sights that really

give guns a varied feel. For example,

sniper scopes come in different shapes,

colour schemes and decals. Other guns can either have normal sights or scopes. Also, the sway, reload

speeds and other subtle characteristics (together with the more obvious ones like different gun models)

all contribute to an ever changing experience when using different guns –

after all, in a game like this, you gun is what you are always looking

at/through.

Class mods are a sort of equippable item that can only be used by a certainclass and provide additional points in certain sets of skills, as well as special

bonuses.

Inventory Slots

Players start off with a set amount of inventory slots, which

restricts how many items they can carry at any given time.

Inventory slots can be increased by completing a type of quest

available in most regions, where you have to repair and rescue

a claptrap robot.

Ammunition

Each type uses its own ammunition and the player can only

carry a certain amount of each type in their backpacks.

Spreading ammo consumption by using different guns is another

aspect that the player has to manage.





CONFLICT

Obstacles

Since a large chunk of the gameplay consists of completing quests, locating quest objectives and

neutralizing threats along the way and at the destination is the main challenge. Although there is a very

efficient map, quest log and quest objective location marker system; some quest objectives are

designed to be hard to find, while most are guarded by enemies. Also, the player has to traverse to the

objective, which can be quite time-consuming. However, the player can also drive or teleport to the

desired location.

Some parts of the map are also blocked off by terrain and the player has to find alternate routes around,

often on foot and through enemy-infested regions.

Opponents

Enemies are like the player in that they also have shields (or not) and health, and die when they have lost

all their health. Once they are alerted to the player’s presence, either by proximity (about 30 yards for

most enemies I’d guess), or when the player shoots at them, they

‘lock on’ to the player, calling their buddies in the vicinity and

trying to advance towards the player, seeking cover and strategic

positions, all the while shooting at the player. Some enemies are

melee-only and charge

towards the player, causing

massive damage on

contact. Enemies are of

many varieties – too many for the scope of this document, but a

typical example is the brute class of enemies, that have very high

health and cause moderate damage, but move very slowly and

are physically huge targets with no shield. Another enemy is the





soldier-trooper class that tosses grenades, shoots very accurately, seeks cover well and has a pretty

decent shield and moderate health – these usually require a bit more than a run-and-gun approach,

especially when you see a grenade sailing towards your face.

Borderlands has a Procedural Content Creation System, which is also used to create therandom characteristics of enemies that the player may face. This allows for enemies of the

same species to have widely-varying attacks: for example, variations of spiderants in the

game could leap around and would jump onto players' faces, while another variant can roll

up into a ball and attack people, depending on the content generator.

- Wikipedia

BOUNDARIES

Throughout the game, the player can only access higher level areas by either reaching a certain level or

that and completing a certain quest. This is why the game is fairly linear at the beginning, as the number

of areas you can explore is very restricted.

The same applies to all gear and quests – the player has to be above a certain level to use or obtain

them.

OUTCOMEWhen players complete the core quest chain, they finish the game and can either continue

roaming the world, or start another playthrough, with harder enemies, who give more experience,

loot and money.





DRAMATIC ELEMENTS

CHALLENGES

Borderlands contains challenges of the FPS type as well as the RPG type. The FPS challenge is to position

yourself, aim and shoot well to kill your opponents while taking minimal damage. The RPG challenge is to

optimally manage your gear and skill points, and to obtain and complete quests.

The enemies are easy at the start of the game and get progressively harder, more numerous and with

better abilities.

PREMISE

Borderlands is set on the planet

of Pandora. Lured by its

apparent vast deposits of

minerals, several colonization

ships journey to the planet and

create a society there.

However, they soon discover that there is little else of value

on the planet save for the

presence of alien ruins. Those

who are rich enough to do so

left the planet, leaving the rest

of the population to scavenge





for themselves. While some isolated settlements were formed, much of the rest of the

colonists became bandits, living out in the barren wastelands or trashheaps across the

planet. Further investigation of the alien artifacts leads to the discovery of "The Vault". A

supposed treasure trove of alien artifacts, technology, and of insurmountable wealth. But

those that had discovered it were wiped out by a protective force, leaving few clues as to its

location or purpose but creating a myth of its marvelous treasures.

- Wikipedia

CHARACTER

There are four

playable characters

in the game; though

they are given

default names by the

game, the player

can opt to change

their names or

appearance of their

outfits at "New-U"

stations throughout

the game. Brick is a

Berserker, a tank that

is strong in melee

combat with the special ability of entering a berserker rage mode to rapidly punch through

the enemies. Lilith is one of only six known Sirens, beings with superhuman powers but with no

way of controlling them; Lilith's Phasewalk ability allows her to temporarily enter another





dimension and then exit within a group of foes, causing a shock-wave blast that harms them.

Mordecai, a Hunter, is aided by his pet bird Bloodwing which can be used to assist in his

long-range attack skills and scavenging. Roland, a former Crimson Lance Soldier, is able to

deploy a turret to help with close-range combat.

- Wikipedia

STORY

Borderlands begins approximately 200 years after the discovery of the Vault; seeking the

Vault, several fortune seekers, including the player, are drawn to Pandora. After arriving at

the town of Fyrestone, the player sees an image of a mysterious woman, the "Guardian

Angel", aware they are here to seek the Vault, and directs them to follow her instructions. The

Angel eventually leads them to collecting one of the several artifacts needed to open the

vault, causing Patricia Tannis, an archeologist/scientist, to contact the player and urging

them to collect the other two Vault keys, at the same time revealing that the Vault opens

every 200 years, and the time of the next opening is approaching. At the same time,

Commander Steele of the Crimson Lance, a well-outfitted force, threatens to declare martial

law over the planet and demands the vault keys.

While the player is able to secure the second and third Vault keys without incident, they find

that the final vault key is not where it is expected. Steele contacts the players, and revealsthat Tannis had betrayed them, that there are in fact only three keys, and proceeds to cut

off the planet's ECHO network, disabling further communication with the Guardian Angel.

The player infiltrates the Crimson Lance's headquarters and find Tannis locked up; she reveals

she had no choice but to betray the player under force, but urges him/her to restart the

ECHO network and to prevent Steele and the Crimson Lance from using the key. After

restoring the network, the Guardian Angel urges the players to hurry and stop Steele. The





player finds as they approach the Vault that the Crimson Lance are in combat with alien

Guardians; after bypassing both forces, the player finally arrives at the Vault, too late from

stopping Steele from using the key. However, when the Vault opens, Steele and her guard

are wiped out by a giant monster that is attempting to escape the vault. The Guardian

Angel explains that the monster is called the Destroyer, imprisoned in the Vault by the alien

Eridians long ago to prevent it from destroying the universe, with the Guardians present to

prevent anyone from opening it. The player is able to defeat the monster, sealing the Vault

for another 200 years.

- Wikipedia

CONCLUSION

Borderlands is an addictive game which I spent many hours playing – I took a soldier and hunter to the

20s and a siren to level 50, almost finishing the 2nd playthrough. The lack of endgame content is a huge

drawback, but the variety of equipment and class-specialization-gear combination really keeps you

going, along with the really well-conceived special effects, e.g. the crazy enemy screams as they burn to

death.

disassembling borderlands - final - harshal

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