Quake Wars: Who else pre-ordered it?

quake wars interview:

Yahoo! Video Games: The two sides in Quake Wars are very different. Why is that an important part of the way the game was designed?

Kevin Cloud: When you're dealing with asymmetrical combat, whether it's defending a choke point on a map or how to use a tank against a walker, it creates more depth and more strategy. That type of thing has always interested me going way back to board games. I think of going back to Advance Squad Leader and those types of board games that I just loved playing as a kid. They took these combat scenarios and rather than trying to break them up as these even teams, you had a mission and the teams had their advantages and disadvantages. That created more complex strategy and depth of the gameplay.

YVG: How have these asymmetrical sides developed over the course of the design process?

KC: In terms of the actual character components, one of the issues we have to balance is familiarity with asymmetry, right? And so, when a player comes in and he's a constructor as opposed to an engineer, basically they have similar responsibilities. If they didn't, the players would get confused. "What does that guy do?" So we kept [the basic responsibilities] the same, and then we wrapped in the different types of tools and different ways of approaching things.

So let's say the constructor, if he plays a campaign and builds up his experience points, he can repair things by launching his repair drone, which will actually follow a vehicle and repair it. The GDI medic revives very quickly and he's very effective at that. The Strogg technician is slower at reviving, but then can create spawn hosts. So the basic jobs are there. They're the same. But [each side] approaches them in different ways.

YVG: How are you incorporating AI controlled bots into the game?

KC: The bots play. They do all the things they need to do. You can set up a game against bots and play it that way. The goal is to make those AI play just like the players, so that when I'm playing against them, I can't tell the difference between an AI and a player. We're not just trying to create soldiers, we're trying to create other player opponents. So in warmup, you'll notice everyone just shooting each other [instead of accomplishing map goals]. The bots will do that. The bots will taunt you. Sometimes you'll notice some guys might bunny hop to try to get a little speed. The bots might do that.

YVG: In the Battlefield games, the gameplay is wide-open, with non-linear maps. Quake Wars, on the other hand, has a very focused objective system for both teams. What are the advantages of that approach?

KC: When you actually end up spreading out the map, what you can have is a lot of people in the game, but not a lot of interaction. In a lot of cases, people will go to where there's nobody, because it's easier that way. But here, you're goal is to play against other people. Your goal is to mix it up. We're creating a gameplay where that's what you do. You don't have to figure out where the fight is. You know exactly where it is.

Also, it feels more like a military objective. And an important thing to remember is that when everybody is working towards that common goal, not everyone has to sit in the same place or do the same job. Everybody's doing different jobs in a lot of places to accomplish this objective.

YVG: How does experience work?

KC: The idea is that you join a campaign mode of three maps, played as a storyline. Aross that campaign you can build up experience points. Our goal is that you'll need to get the third map before you max out and unlock everything for your class. Once the campaign is over, the unlocks are gone. We don't want to disadvantage people that come into the game six months later.

Experience points are based on the class structure. You do get points for shooting and killing opponents, but you also get points for reviving and passing out health and for taking on targets other player identify. All of that is based around creating these 'carrots' to encourage people to work together as a team. If I want to pass out the best health packs, and have a better weapon, and run faster, as a medic on my third map, then I've got to go out there and help my team.

YVG: Each side has unique weapons, and they're available to multiple classes. Can you break down the weapons for us?

KC: The core weapon for the Strogg is the Lacerator and the core weapon for the GDF is the Assault Rifle. On a fundamental level, they're both just rapid fire weapons. But let's take a look at their differences. The GDF works with ammo and clips like people would expect. You run out of ammo, you have to reload. The Strogg work with energy called stroyent and weapons that overheat. They have a power bar that's shared between their different weapons, so they're basically pulling from a global pool.

You can also, as a Strogg, transfer health and ammo. There's a penalty to do it, you lose a little when you transfer over, but you're pulling from that stroyent pool. Then you move to the difference between the [Strogg] NailGun and the [GDF] Shotgun. They're very similar concepts, but in terms of damage and heat, they're different. But then you go out to something like a [GDF] Sniper Rifle and [Strogg] Railgun. Just the difference between the railgun having that visible ray, and the sniper rifle not having it, this is a huge difference for the tactics you're going to take. The sniper can kill someone and stay relatively hidden. You have to hunt him out. But the Strogg, they're supposed to be out there kicking butt. They're going to get in your face. If you shoot a Railgun, people are going to see where you are.

YVG: I presume this applies to vehicles. I got into a few shootouts between a tank and a walker. What are their differences?

KC: There are differences between their maneuverability. The Titan tank is a lot more maneuverable and has a lower profile. But the weapons on the walker, the Cyclops, are more powerful than the Titan, especially when you go into hunker down mode. It takes a position so it can't move around and it fires more rapidly. The walker also has no supporting machine gun. The tank has a driver who's also a gunner, and then you can have someone on a turret. But the walker trying to get players away from it can stomp. This sends out a shockwave.

YVG: With a few months before the release, you guys must be playing a lot.

KC: We play three times a day. We've got games with the UK [where Splash Damage is located] at 3 o' clock central time, then a 5:30 game, then a 10 o' clock game. We get the feedback, we monitor the outcome of the games, how fast the objectives are being met, who's playing what objectives, and we're balancing all that to the general skill level. It's more of a scientific approach. We're just trying to collect as much information as we can.

YVG: Do the Splash Damage guys have an advantage? Are they better than you guys at id since they made the game?

KC: No, no. Of course not. What are you talking about? That's terrible.

YVG: I would think they'd have an advantage.

KC: The thing is that they've really got some tremendous players over at Splash Damage, but, well, let's just say we've got some pretty good players at id.

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