Borderlands DLC Mad Moxxi Will Kick Your Ass

John Funk

U.N. Owen Was Him?
Dec 20, 2005
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Borderlands DLC Mad Moxxi Will Kick Your Ass



If you've finished Borderlands and have been waiting on a real challenge to put your shiny guns to good use, then Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/96805-New-Borderlands-DLC-Channels-Mad-Max] should have what you need in spades, says the DLC pack's lead designer.

One of the most common criticisms levied at DLC packs for games is that some gamers believe that they're content that should have been included on the original retail disc in the first place, since clearly it was developed and finished alongside the game and had just been held back for the sake of a few extra bucks. Though most people who know game development can look at that sentiment and go "Hey, that's not really how it works," it's certainly not the case with the two DLC packs for Borderlands, game designer Jonathan Hemingway told The Escapist.

"Our whole approach to DLC is trying to respond to what our community wanted. With Zombie Island, after the game came out, the big cry on forums was, 'It was a great game, but we want more narrative and more story - we want to know more!' I think we succeeded in that, and what our communtiy was asking for now was... well, they've hit level 50, they've got all these great guns, and they wanted to know, 'Now what do we do? I want something to push me, something to reach for - a real challenge.' So that's where Mad Moxxi came from: We will give you a challenge, a place to use all this gear and the skills you've learned." (And yes, this is why there's a bank now).

When he says challenge, he does mean challenge: Mad Moxxi comes in two flavors, a small tournament and a big tournament. While Hemingway thinks that most players will be able to beat the small tournament - and earn an extra skill point for their troubles - the big tournament will be the "crazy challenges" that players have been asking for, where they'll "get to show how off much of a badass [they] actually are."

With 20 rounds consisting of 5 waves of baddies per round, Hemingway compared Mad Moxxi's underground coliseum to a finite Horde Mode in Gears of War 2, only "Borderlands'ed up." This Borderlands flavor comes in the forum of Mad Moxxi herself, who will be dancing atop a big pole and occasionally throwing down rule changes that will affect how the players have to approach the fight.

"Some rules are desired to alter the gameplay, and alter the way that the players approach the game - you'll need to use different tactics, strategy, or just different guns," he explained. But then again, there's a sadistic side to Mad Moxxi, too. "Other rules are just because she thinks you're doing too well, and she'll throw it out to make it harder. With the Vampire Rule, you're slowly losing health every second, but every time you get a kill, you get a huge chunk of health back. So it puts you in this mindset of 'I've got to get a lot of kills, and be really aggressive, or I'm going to die.'

For snipers, there's a rule called Headshot: Body shots do reduced damage - so everything that isn't a crit is less damage - but critical hits do even more damage. So if you're playing as Mordecai, specced for sniping, you just go 'Yes, this is the best thing ever!'"

While the term "underground coliseum" is literal in the case of the very first Underdome arena, there are three other coliseums for players to try their hand: Hellburbia, an urban area (much like New or Old Haven) focused on close-quarter city fighting, the Gully, where the more open terrain and rolling hills encourage long-range combat, and the Angelic Ruins (similar to the alien ruins near the end of the game) striking a middle ground between the two. Hemingway was quick to point out that these wouldn't be small areas like the arenas that already exist in Borderlands, but rather larger zones that encouraged movement and exploration to find a good place to regroup.

Though some of the tilesets (Angelic Ruins and Hellburbia, to be precise) are from later in the game, players can Fast Travel to Mad Moxxi's Underdome as early as level 10, which was a choice made to ensure that a new player would at least have a passing familiarity with the game before taking on these challenges. The DLC will scale to one's level, which was something that the Borderlands team learned from some of the shortcomings of the first DLC, Zombie Island of Dr. Ned:

We picked levels for Zombie Island where we thought most players - if not all players - would be able to jump in and find it level appropriate. But some players were left out, and it was unfortunate because it was good content. We wanted to do something for DLC2 where you can enjoy it no matter where you are in the game, no matter how far you've been."

So, Mad Moxxi adds a real challenge to kick your ass, is available to anyone who's put two or so hours into the game to reach level 10, is sure to offer some brand new awesome loot - and gives you a bank to actually store said awesome loot for later. Sounds like it'll be a fine post-holiday present for many a gamer, hitting Xbox Live on December 29th and PSN on January 7th.

(For a full transcript of our interview with Jonathan Hemingway - including Kevin Costner, the evil Claptrap, and Hemingway's own troubles with the Crimson Lance, check out our sister site WarCry [http://www.warcry.com/articles/view/interviews/6924-Borderlands-Beyond-Underdome]!)

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Donrad

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Aug 21, 2008
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sounds like a solid DLC
i will check it out once i have completed the other games on my list
 

The DSM

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Apr 18, 2009
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Kick my ass you say?

Well theres a challenge right there, time to get praticing...
 

Teh_Doomage

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Jan 11, 2009
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The hype around this one is great.

Having read everything about it...I'm sold on it as Zombie Island was just excellent...This is quality DLC.
 

Distorted Stu

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Sep 22, 2009
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I thought Zombie island was too short, i enjoyed it though. I hope this new DLC is good, i will wait and see what peopel say about it first before i go and download it.
 

Onyx Oblivion

Borderlands Addict. Again.
Sep 9, 2008
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I need to get back on Xbox Live to download this. This is the kinda shit that'll motivate me to upgrade to a wireless router.
 

Flamezdudes

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Aug 27, 2009
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DeadlyGlitch said:
-_- I haven't touched borderlands since i realized it wasn't multilayer
I don't even have Borderlands and i know that it has multiplayer. What are you on about?
 

ZeroDotZero

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Sep 18, 2009
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Flamezdudes said:
DeadlyGlitch said:
-_- I haven't touched borderlands since i realized it wasn't multilayer
I don't even have Borderlands and i know that it has multiplayer. What are you on about?
I think he means the deathmatch style multiplayer - which you can get from any other FPS nowadays. A great co-op mode is a rarity.

OT: Looking forward to mu ass kicking. Luckily I have enough money left from the PSN card I bought to get zombie island.
 

Shenanigans176

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Dec 2, 2009
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DeadlyGlitch said:
Flamezdudes said:
DeadlyGlitch said:
-_- I haven't touched borderlands since i realized it wasn't multilayer
I don't even have Borderlands and i know that it has multiplayer. What are you on about?
that crap for a port pc version of borderlands require you to open your ports to host a server that can have people join it, you can still start it, and it shows up on the list, but nobody can join it. nobody does this and as a result there are hundreds of servers that you can't join, and about 3 that you can, it takes HOURS to find a decent server and when you do since there is no lvl restriction, a lvl 50 will come and take all the kills and items, leaving you at a low lvl really far into the game in single player.
I AM SO BUTHURT FOR PAYING FULL PRICE FOR A PILE OF SHIT.
Xbox FTW... It's so easy to join or host a game for you and your friends to play on...

OT: I am so pumped for this. I loved Horde in Gears, and then Firefight in ODST was amazing, so I'm hoping Borderlands can come through yet again. I thought Zombie Island was awesome. I wonder if they'll include more achieveables?
 

WhiteTigerShiro

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Sep 26, 2008
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CantFaketheFunk said:
"Our whole approach to DLC is trying to respond to what our X-Box Live and PSN community wanted."
There ya go, I fixed it for ya. Whether it was a slip of his tongue or you editing it out for his sake, let's not have him lying by pretending they care about their whole community.
 

KDR_11k

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Feb 10, 2009
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So they made the main game ridiculously easy on purpose to sell us DLC or what?
 

TsunamiWombat

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Sep 6, 2008
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Our whole approach to DLC is trying to respond to what our community wanted. With Zombie Island, after the game came out, the big cry on forums was, 'It was a great game, but we want more narrative and more story - we want to know more!' I think we succeeded in that
...Narrative?

They call Zombie Island narrative, and story? Shit, there wasn't any narrative or story in the original game, and it put me to SLEEP and I loved Diablo 2.