Activision’s Blur Offers Double XP All Halloweekend, Developer Play Session

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Dan Amrich Community Manager, Ubisoft
14 Author Replies

I am about to become a legend.

No, really: In Blur, when you hit level 50 in the multiplayer system, you have opened up all the cars (oh, Koenigsegg CCX, how I love thee), activated all the mods (Mastermine – which fragments other people’s mines and gives you the points for it – is my favorite), unlocked all the game modes (including Motor Mash and the fan-driven Community Event playlist), and hopefully have a decent strategy for all the tracks, from the tight turns of Hackney to the one-way trip down Mount Haruna. And when you reach level 50, well, there’s nowhere else to go. Except around the track, of course. Preferably very quickly.

Blur PS3

And then, much like Modern Warfare 2, you face a decision: Do you keep playing with all the big toys, or do you challenge yourself by hitting a Legend rank and building up your reputation and garage again, based on pure skill?

As I write this, I’m level 40 or so. I’m going to get some more racing time in this week. And this weekend, the Blur developers at Bizarre Creations are offering a little Halloween treat – double XP from Friday the 29th through Sunday the 31st. (These are the perks when your studio’s logo is a jack-o-lantern.) That means for every race, you get twice as many fans, which means ranking up twice as fast, filling your garage with gorgeous Corvettes and Elises and Vipers in record time.

Blur PS3Blur PS3

My mind is made up. I’m not wasting a weekend of double XP to just sit on my level-50 throne – as soon as I can hit Legend status, I’m going for it. Of course, it does not hurt that, by doing so, I will also unlock an exclusive car as well as a Gold Trophy. Plus, I get to use all the cars I earned in the single-player career mode in my online races, too. Armed with that, I’m willing to put my rank on the line.

The double XP goodness flows all weekend, but if you race Saturday, October 30th from 11am to 2pm, you might find yourself trading paint with the Bizarre Creations developers themselves. And of course, look for me too – my PSN ID is OneOfSwords. With any luck, I’ll be at the front of the pack!

bizarre creationsblurplaystation games

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40 Comments

14 Author Replies

  • XxDeathDoctorxX
    October 29, 2010 at 7:35 am PDT

    off topic but why aint cod on ps3 gettin 2nd sign in id support like 360 but anyways on topic this game is a great game worth playing

  • FATKEV_
    October 29, 2010 at 7:46 am PDT

    SWEEEET!

  • MonkeyGibber
    October 29, 2010 at 7:55 am PDT

    @1 It is: http://bit.ly/azSweN

  • Voodoo_Lou
    October 29, 2010 at 7:58 am PDT

    Double XP in Red Dead. Double XP in Mod Nation. Double Cash in UC2 Lab. And now this! I need more time!!!

  • jimmyfoxhound
    October 29, 2010 at 8:01 am PDT

    Cool, I really enjoy Blur. Very underrated game the online racing is dang fun!

    • Dan Amrich
      October 29, 2010 at 11:21 am PDT

      Not sure I agree with the “dead” thing. Every time I log on, I have no trouble finding a 20-person race. If I was alone, it’d be dead — but there’s always enough people to play.

  • ElektroDragon
    October 29, 2010 at 8:09 am PDT

    Great, but I have to travel this weekend! :( Could you please do this another weekend as well? Thanksgiving Weekend would be PERFECT! Or even Christmas or New Year’s! Please!

  • GT-SHERIF
    October 29, 2010 at 8:10 am PDT

    I will start playing as soon as I finish eating my breakfast! I will not waste double XP weekend! :)

  • Glacier928
    October 29, 2010 at 8:23 am PDT

    Double XP is always good, but the thing that prevents me from playing this game is that it can NEVER connect to the “blur” servers, my ethernet wire is plugged into the console so it’s not like I have a weak connection either…

  • siriusbee
    October 29, 2010 at 8:32 am PDT

    I really enjoyed this game when it first came out. It even had a very active initial community at its official forums.

    The problem is that nothing was done during those critical first weeks to manage or sustain the community. For weeks, posts by gamers with questions about the game, with issue reports, and so on were completely ignored. It’s like they released the game then split to Cancun to partay or something, never to return. It’s no surprise that enthusiasm faded so quickly for this.

    No DLC has emerged for the game. None of the player suggestions have been brought in. Nada. What a waste of a good game.

    • Dan Amrich
      October 29, 2010 at 11:40 am PDT

      I would have liked to see some DLC too, but I still log on and have fun racing. And I never have any trouble finding opponents. So…I guess the main thing that has changed between launch and now is that you left!

  • Floppa21
    October 29, 2010 at 8:40 am PDT

    Agreed with a couple others. TOO LITTLE TOO LATE. I liked Blur so much, I bought a second copy at full retail of $60 for a friend. We played a lot, but no double xp weekends, no new tracks or cars or anything for dlc… Meh. This attention is too late. Again I say, Meh.

    • Dan Amrich
      October 29, 2010 at 11:39 am PDT

      That doesn’t make any sense. You have the game; your friend has the game; the double XP is on right now. There’s no logic to wasting it — you already made the investment, so go get some more fun out of it.

      Personaly, I’m more happy when I’m playing games, not when I’m refusing to play them. I just don’t get your logic on this one at all.

  • ArcaneAltair
    October 29, 2010 at 12:18 pm PDT

    Good stuff. Thanks for this.

  • rmartinez10
    October 29, 2010 at 12:23 pm PDT

    Dan, I think the reason you’re not getting the “logic” from these people is because you’ve got time and money invested in this game as you work for Activision. From some of these gamers’ standpoints, this game has been out for a while and hasn’t really had much, if any, support. The “fun” factor has worn off for many so just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean it applies to all. I’m sure there will be people playing this weekend but there will also be many that will be playing other games instead. If everyone were into the same things, with no variety, we’d all be purchasing games published by Activision. ;)

    • Dan Amrich
      October 29, 2010 at 12:34 pm PDT

      I have no problem with people playing different games — I mean, I play more than just Activision games, too. That’s not what I’m expecting, and to be fair, I never said anything of that nature.

      What makes no sense is seeing people respond like they are not going to join out of…what, spite? That’s what strikes me as weird. Even if you’re checking out newer games, it doesn’t mean you can’t also jump on for a little Blur time, too.

  • jefXfree
    October 29, 2010 at 2:33 pm PDT

    @Dan:

    1) I’ll probably get on and get my XP!
    2) Can you get me a job as a tester? ;)

    • Dan Amrich
      October 29, 2010 at 2:48 pm PDT

      Alas, getting people jobs as testers is not in my power. But when Quality Assurance teams at Activision staff up, they do list the jobs publicly — just check out Careers at activision.com.

  • awsome_robot
    October 29, 2010 at 2:54 pm PDT

    activision has no love for ps3… always plays favorites with the 360. I have to be honest, i didn’t buy blur because i felt that it wouldn’t get much support on the ps3.

    • Dan Amrich
      October 29, 2010 at 3:56 pm PDT

      Blur came out on PS3 and 360 the same day. Both consoles are getting double XP (along with PC).

      So…what about Blur has been “no love”? I mean, I posted this specifically to SHOW love!

  • siriusbee
    October 29, 2010 at 3:22 pm PDT

    @Dan My comment wasn’t intended to be spiteful, & I may well throw the game in for a few bouts of XP*2 this weekend. I do think it’s a good game.

    I just wanted to express my reaction to this news, & express my overall disappointment with how Blur has been handled.

    Sure, you might find a 20 person race, but can you reliably find decent games in all race modes? How many racers are new faces? This is not a healthy state for an MP community.

    I’m not trying to be negative, only clear. Hope the XP*2 wknd goes some way to revive excitement abt the game, but I fear it will be a temporary wave. Doubt it will shift many more units of Blur. To do that, you have to keep the community always interested, & the best way to do that is a steady stream of content, features and updates.

  • siriusbee
    October 29, 2010 at 3:23 pm PDT

    I decided to check the official forums for a fair perspective & it doesn’t look like much has changed. Seems to be more feedback from developers – nice – but why did that take so long to happen?

    Something I couldn’t add on my last comment due to character limit not working properly: T

    To help you understand the chagrin, here’s an easy exercise:

    1) Google “Blur DLC” and you’ll find tons of articles like this:
    http://aol.it/9knjS4 [joystiq]

    2) Then check this post by a dev on the forums:
    http://bit.ly/aecmEb [bizzarecreations forum]

    You can see what a downer this sort of thing is.

  • Dan Amrich
    October 29, 2010 at 3:58 pm PDT

    I think the event is less about “shifting units” and more about giving gamers something fun.

    I do see more racers in the Powered-Up and Skirmish lobbies more often, but it is not that unusual to hear someone say “Hey, wanna go do Motor Mash?” and everybody migrates over.

    Every game has a natural life cycle. People are going to be more interested in it when it first comes out, and then they will move on. That’s honestly the same with every game I’ve ever seen. I keep playing Blur because I like it a lot, and I’m guessing that’s how the other people who are playing it regularly online feel too.

  • krae_man
    October 29, 2010 at 5:07 pm PDT

    Can we have a double Brains weekend next week with Blood Drive?

  • KIT-_-KAT
    October 29, 2010 at 5:32 pm PDT

    i enjoyed beta and been wanting to pick it up. Hopefully will in a week or 2.

  • El_Hoardo
    October 29, 2010 at 6:30 pm PDT

    It’s sad to see so much negativity over nothing. Blur was a fantastic game. It is one of the best racers I’ve ever played, and I’m a big arcade racing fan. If that didn’t build up a community, nothing would have. A lot of racing games have small online communities. I’ve had trouble finding games in MotorStorm: Pacific Rift, Split/Second, and Midnight Club LA, yet those are some of the biggest and best arcade racing franchises out there. Online numbers are not an issue with Blur, they’re an issue with the arcade racing genre as a whole. To point to the developers as if the lack of DLC or double XP events are to blame seems a little unfair when even games that do all that stuff have the same problem.

  • DNAgent
    October 29, 2010 at 7:04 pm PDT

    “Dan Amrich | October 29th, 2010 at 3:56 pm

    Blur came out on PS3 and 360 the same day. Both consoles are getting double XP (along with PC).

    So…what about Blur has been “no love”? I mean, I posted this specifically to SHOW love!”

    The fact that the 360 was the only console to have the Blur beta AND they had a demo for the game LONG before the PS3 did. Not that it matters or anything because I never cared enough about this game to even give it a rental. I was too busy with better racing games such as ModNation Racers & Split/Second. Even the ad for Blur focused more on bashing games like Mario Kart rather than showing off the game itself. Activision’s “support” and the companies under it are ALWAYS terrible at supporting the PS3 especially when it comes to Call of Duty. Not only do we see the 360 getting timed exclusive content (that they have the “privilege” of PAYING for first) but the developers come to the PLAYSTATION BLOG to post screenshots of the 360 version. When they get called out on it, all they do is resize the screenshot to take the d-pad out of it.

  • siriusbee
    October 29, 2010 at 7:19 pm PDT

    @Dan Well, I played a couple of hours of Blur, and it was awsm! I really had fun. Fab game. Which makes it all the more worse to see it go to a waste.

    Ok, maybe this XP*2 thing was just for kicks (though I’m not 12, & know that is kinda unrealistic). & that’s gr8! But gvn my ++ experience these last hours, I’m driven to push for more.

    @El: Whatcha do, pull those names from a hat? Those aren’t ‘le creme’ of PS3 arcade racers. I’ll be easy on you and not include Wipeout (since they’re planes, not cars), whose community only fell with rumors that the core team was dismantled. No, I’ll (pretty justly) take Burnout Paradise as the meter. You want to say ‘games have a natural life cycle’, just look at what that game did in terms of community, & how long it lived.

    I’m not pointing fingers at devs – their hands are prolly tied. In fact the devs did an amazing job. The gameplay/mechanics are spot on in this game. Hell, Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit is totally riffing on what you guys did in Blur with the Autolog, guys! You going to sit down and take that? [cont …]

  • siriusbee
    October 29, 2010 at 7:21 pm PDT

    [cont …]
    I’m pointing at whoever the guy was that decided “no it wouldn’t be worth it to build on this further.”

  • El_Hoardo
    October 29, 2010 at 8:12 pm PDT

    @siriusbee

    Yeah, Burnout is fantastic, but it’s also quite different from a more traditional racer. Online wasn’t entirely focused on racing like those other games are so it opened the game up to a much wider audience. The biggest focus for online was the co-op freeburn challenges, not competition. I put at least 100 hours into it, and earned every trophy yet I think I’ve only played two or three online races. Not to mention, when it released, there were very few racers available for PS3 (MotorStorm 1 is the only one that comes to mind) and it received an unusually high amount of free DLC. While Burnout may be at the top of the pile, comparing every other racer to it as a way of judging how good it is seems a little unfair.

    As for MotorStorm, Midnight Club, and Split/Second, despite what you may think, they all received positive reviews as well as significant paid DLC (except for Split/Second, which still has DLC in the works) and their Metacritic review scores are also very close to Blur’s.

  • siriusbee
    October 29, 2010 at 9:49 pm PDT

    (Note: It’s late on Friday) I don’t care about trophies – that’s not what Burnout is about. Also your claim that Burnout had multiple online modes that succeeded actually only helps my argument.

    Maybe Burnout was one of the first only option for PS3, but lemme tell ya – if they’d done what Blur did (ignore fans), they sure wouldn’t be where they are now.

    As for touting Metacritic, that’s ridiculous, to talk about game scores of the past when the present is being discussed. Split/Second? Sure, they were ‘rivals’ in the past, but only in terms of marketing. I mean, what true arcade racing enthusiast even brings that into the conversation? It was fun, but if I was you, I’d be talking about Pure or MTX V.S. ATV.

  • El_Hoardo
    October 29, 2010 at 11:33 pm PDT

    You are clearly missing my point.

    Blur, Split/Second, MotorStorm: Pacific Rift, and Midnight Club are all great games for their time. They all have similar positive reviews. Everyone here likes to say community support and DLC would have kept Blur’s community alive, but it didn’t work for MotorStorm, Midnight Club, or Split/Second. Their communities all shrunk to the point where games were hard to find despite them all being quality games. The only one it did work for was Burnout but that game was more popular than any other racing game to begin with, largely due to the online mode that made racing secondary to freeburn challenges, and the offered huge content updates entirely free, something only a handful of devs do.

    The simple fact is that arcade racing isn’t a big genre. Blur’s community died just like MotorStorm’s, Split/Second’s, and Midnight Club’s. Racing game communities die because they never have huge numbers to begin with, not because of a lack of support from devs so to blame Bizarre for dwindling online numbers is ridiculous.

    • Dan Amrich
      October 31, 2010 at 12:54 pm PDT

      My stance on this is simple: If you log on and find other people to play, the online community is not dead. There’s really nothing more to it.

      I think part of the problem is that people often look to fluke or unique examples when they set up their expectations. MW2, for instance — tens if not hundreds of thousands of people play it, but it’s the exception, not the rule. Every game cannot sustain a massive community the way that a few games do, and it’s unrealistic and simplistic to think they can. I really want gamers to get over this binary fallacy that a game is either a crushing megahit or an abject failure. In that massive gray area in-between, I have had some great multiplayer matches with Guitar Hero, Buzz, and tons of other games.

      The point is to have fun playing the game with other like-minded people; I’m not gauging my fun based on how many people are sitting in other lobbies. Plus, I think a lot of people log on once and say “it’s dead” — maybe they need to stagger when you go on to catch some of the European or Japanese players who log in at different times, too. This gaming thing, it’s gone global.

  • siriusbee
    October 30, 2010 at 2:49 am PDT

    Why would EA release NFS Hot Pursuit if arcade racing was not a big genre?

  • siriusbee
    October 30, 2010 at 2:55 am PDT

    I mean, honestly, how is bizarrecreations going to move on? Make ‘Blur 2’ (with all the new features and patches and fixes that we didn’t care to give you in the first game!)?

    That would be a damn slap in the face. I would purposely not buy that.

    • Dan Amrich
      October 31, 2010 at 12:57 pm PDT

      How are they going to move on? James Bond 007: Blood Stone ships for PS3 Tuesday. They, you know, made that.

      Nobody’s said anything about Blur 2 but I would absolutely welcome that game. I’m sure they had lots of ideas that they wanted to try but could not realistically work into the first title. That makes them…exactly like every other developer. Odd grudge you have there.

  • hellsfire532
    October 30, 2010 at 6:15 am PDT

    why do you guys act like such brats every time someone from a game studio posts something up? making all the ps3 owners look like pricks..

    • Dan Amrich
      October 31, 2010 at 1:01 pm PDT

      This always happens — don’t sweat it. I don’t assume that a few loudmouths are anyone’s elected representatives. :)

  • stlthriot
    October 30, 2010 at 8:06 am PDT

    It doesn’t appear to be doubling my XP on the PS3 ???

    • Dan Amrich
      October 31, 2010 at 12:58 pm PDT

      It is — I was playing during that dev session. If you watch during the end of a race, it counts up the points and it’s twice as much as you get during normal sessions. There’s no big “2X COMBO!” meter or anything — it’s just double the fans that you get from all the races up until now.

  • dlhdav7
    October 30, 2010 at 8:51 am PDT

    Dan !! there is no love !!LOL !

  • El_Hoardo
    October 30, 2010 at 12:05 pm PDT

    @siriusbee (27)

    Just because arcade racing isn’t a big genre, it doesn’t mean a game can’t be profitable.

  • krae_man
    October 30, 2010 at 1:52 pm PDT

    Blood Drive looks cool

  • Khrysller
    October 30, 2010 at 7:36 pm PDT

    It’s nice to have some activision staff talking about Blur… and my Blur disc come with an code, so… I couldn’t get it ’cause the tech staff said to me its over… it’s all described here in the activision’s support:

    Question Reference #101026-000326
    —————————————————————
    Summary: I got Blur region 2 for PS3… inside it has a
    redeem code. So it tells me to…
    Product Level 1: PlayStation 3
    Product Level 2: Blur
    Date Created: 10/26/2010 04:34 PM

    it’s sad to hear things like that ’cause i like the game SO MUCH, and i feel a lack of support from activision or..anyway, bizzare. Hope my feelings got to activision in a way the company can understand.

  • Dan Amrich
    October 31, 2010 at 1:06 pm PDT

    Okay, don’t know what you’re talking about or what happened to you, but I know this about the codes that came with Blur in the US: They were retailer pre-order perks that gave you early access to some cars, but they were all cars you could get just by playing the game anyway. Like, one gave you early access to the Ford Bronco, but the Bronco unlocks through normal game progression too. Someone else had the Viper in a similar early unlock deal. The only other code I heard about was to unlock the chrome BMW, and that is the game’s one and only “cheat code”: BMW Concept 1 car by selecting the regular Concept 1 and pressing L1, R2, L1, R2 at the garage menu. It’s then appears all the way to the left of the cars in that class — pretty sure it’s B class.

    There are no other codes for this game and there is no bonus content/DLC type stuff; all the content is on the disc. So whatever code you have — and again, this will likely depend on where you got it, and it’s region 2 so I have no direct knowledge about that — if it’s not working, I cannot think of anything you are actually missing.

  • linux731
    October 31, 2010 at 6:20 pm PDT

    I cant belive I missed the dev section. I marked my calendar and all, but then my parents had to go somewhere so i went, and missed it. I joined like in the last 10 seconds of the event until everyone was saying goodbye.

  • somethingatt
    October 31, 2010 at 10:28 pm PDT

    @Dan:
    I’ve just wanted to say I absolutely love and support your logic on gaming.
    Especially about games either being “dead” or “alive”.
    Fantastic mentality.

    Along with the post you’ve made defending your boss, you really are one man who speaks logic and sense.

    All those compliments might go out the window however when I saw I haven’t bought Blur :D
    I do have Shattered Dimensions (hidden gem!) and anything CoD from your company though :)

  • solace357
    October 31, 2010 at 10:48 pm PDT

    Dan was one of Activision’s biggest critics before getting the job. That’s why they hired him! Tells it like it is.
    Listen to the OneOfSwords podcast! great stuff. I unfortunately read this way to late, maybe next time I’ll get in on some of the action.

  • Voodoo_Lou
    November 1, 2010 at 5:55 am PDT

    Excellent weekend! Thanks Bizarre! Finally made it to level 50!!!

  • batmam101
    November 1, 2010 at 7:24 pm PDT

    it is awsome it has driving/blasthing/and cars

  • batmam101
    November 1, 2010 at 7:25 pm PDT

    awsome wakend

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