OPS: SSX is the kind of one of those games that's all about the attitude of the player. Will we be able to craft our own replays as well just for the hell of it, or show it off to friends?

TB: Unfortunately we didn't end up doing that in this version of the game, but it's certainly something we're looking at doing in the future, because especially now with how much physics we have going on in the game - some really ridiculous stuff happens and happens only once. EVER.

OPS: We heard way back at E3 that we'll be able to play against thousands of other people on the same mountain. How does that work?

TB: ...we built our online with the goal of having on ongoing time-box tournament on every single drop in the game, and that tournament starts the day we ship the game. Consider one single isolated drop that we say is a really good racetrack. On that drop, we're going to run a race and we call them global events, and the event will be 'who can set the fastest time on this track in one hour?' And once we ship the game, the timer starts at one hour whether there's anyone there or not and when it hits zero, anyone who is close to the timer in speed gets ranked on the leaderboard...
(friends have a preference to get shown online)...Other than that we try to look for people who are around you and if people come close to you, we have a really cool effect where they fade in around you and become a solid form if you can see them and then as they get far away we fade them out and fade new people in around you.

OPS: What if you aren't connected online, whats the incentive to keep replaying?

TB: You can play the campaign mode and there's also a mode called Explore. In Explore, at every drop in the game we post three AI riders on every on of those drops that represent a bronze medal, a silver medal and a gold medal. You can jump onto any one of those drops in any point in time, and if you beat the bronze medal AI you earn a bronze medal which earns you some in-game currency that you can use to buy some cooler gear. You can beat the silver medal, you can beat the gold medal, and you go through the whole game trying to compete and beat all those individual tracks or you can use that as kind of quick play.
If you are online...(goes into having a friends ghost alongside AI as well)

OPS: This is the first time we've heard about in-game currency, you mentioned that the drop-cost before and you just mentioned the in-game currency there. How does that work?

TB: Everything you do in the game earns you credits just as nearly everything you do in the game costs you credits. We also have little drop bonuses at the end of every run, depending on how you did, we have this whole badge system.
If you did a 720, you get a small bonus and if you happen to pull off a 1440 you'll get a bigger bonus, if you pull off a 2880 you can get an even bigger track bonus. If you exceed a speed of 175 km/h you get a small bonus, if you exceed a speed of 200 km/h you get a bigger bonus. Then you use that currency in explore to unlock drops, and you use it in global events to enter those and compete.

OPS: Tell us more about the badge system!

TB: There are, at last count, well over 200-300 badges in the game. For example, if you, at some point, can ever pull off a 1080, you get a bronze badge for the spin trick badge. If you can pull off a 2150 you get a silver badge, and if you can pull off a 4320 you get the gold badge and then if you can do a total 50,000 degrees of rotation over the lifetime of playing the game you'll get a bronze badge, if you can do 100,000 degrees you get a silver and if you can do 500,000 degrees you can get a gold badge.
All those badges feed up into [trophies] and there are [trophies] for doing things like earning all the gold badges and earning all the silver badges. It's a really cool layered system that goes beyond just racing, tricks and survival, it always gives you different things to do. We also have a challenge
for beating the Descents without the basic required gear, so trying to beat darkness without a headlamp, which is difficult (laughs).

Shit nigga, I like the idea of tackling the Daddy Descents without gear. The badges sound wicked crunchy too.

this.

I can't wait to see what some of those badges are. Looks like it might need a list.

There will be a Master FAQ, right?

So now its confirmed we have to "unlock" drop points? I hope there are other ways to unlock the drop points for those of us that aren't a trick master.

EDIT: except for whooz, who is right as always.

OPS: SSX is the kind of one of those games that's all about the attitude of the player. Will we be able to craft our own replays as well just for the hell of it, or show it off to friends?

TB: Unfortunately we didn't end up doing that in this version of the game, but it's certainly something we're looking at doing in the future, because especially now with how much physics we have going on in the game - some really ridiculous stuff happens and happens only once. EVER.

You agree with this because he was talking like Gangsta Tunes.

If you did a 720, you get a small bonus and if you happen to pull off a 1440 you'll get a bigger bonus, if you pull off a 2880 you can get an even bigger track bonus

There will be a Master FAQ, right?