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Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Interview
by Jonathan Trevisani, Computer Games Online

Jonathan Trevisani: What is the general storyline of the game? Have the Strogg just landed on Earth or is it a bit later in their invasion?" title="Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Interview"> Computer Games Online presents an interview with Paul Wedgewood, Owner and Lead Game Designer of Splash Damage Ltd, about the upcoming online first-person shooter; Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. Mr. Wedgewood has been at the forefront of the development for the Quake 3 Mod and Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, both of which lead directly into this latest title.

Jonathan Trevisani: What is the general storyline of the game? Have the Strogg just landed on Earth or is it a bit later in their invasion?

Paul Wedgewood: Enemy Territory Quake Wars (ETQW) is a multiplayer combat game set as a prequel to the Quake series and starts during the alien Strogg invasion of Earth in 2065. ETQW charts the turning points of the subsequent war, the crucial combat missions that lead to Earth's eventual retaliation against planet Stroggos, as seen in Quake II and IV.

As a player, you fight within a coordinated squad, choosing to play as either the Strogg (a biomechanically augmented alien race with advanced technology), or the Earth's Global Defense Force (a human paramilitary organization with conventional military weapons), making use of a wide range of items, tools, weapons, vehicles, defense turrets and artillery types. The two teams battle against each other in a series of campaigns that reflect the invasion, taking place in varied environments crossing several continents. However, rather than run around endlessly capturing flags, you take on a specific combat role such as assault, infiltration, or support, and then pursue military objectives with your team to secure victory. ETQW has a really strong focus on on-foot combat, as well as air and ground vehicles, artillery, mines and defense turrets.

Jonathan Trevisani: How did you come to the decision to make the game objective-driven? What game play elements are available with the team strategy opposed to the free-for-all method?

Paul Wedgewood: Objective-based gameplay in multiplayer combat was originated by id Software in Return to Castle Wolfenstein (RtCW), which we later helped evolve for Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (Wolf ET); ETQW's award-winning spiritual predecessor. Kevin Cloud (co-Owner of id Software and Executive Producer on ETQW, Wolf ET and RtCW) has always been keen on objective based combat because it leads to a much more intense and immersive combat experience. This asymmetry comes with its own unique set of huge challenges for designers, because with one team attacking and the other defending, the gameplay balance is much tougher to get right.

It's really worth the effort though, as the benefits to gameplay are immense. As a player, you don't disperse with your team across the map as you would do in flag-based capture-and-hold, finding yourself constantly hunting for someone to fight. Instead, in ETQW you head to the next objective where a front-line occurs naturally between the opposing teams. Even inexperienced players suddenly find themselves fighting as a coordinated team. It's our belief that this coordinated team effort is much more satisfying than simply capturing flags.

The other great benefit is that it allows the story to really drive the multiplayer experience with lots of unique gameplay around the objectives. As an example, fighting to get a bridge constructed so your team can get a mobile command post across a ravine using vehicles and artillery while Strogg defense turrets hammer on you from the other side is a very different experience from the pure interior infantry combat you get when you assault an industrial facility to destroy the Strogg Contaminator device lurking within.

Jonathan Trevisani: How many maps will be available upon the games release? Will players get the scope of the Strogg Invasion with important battles?

Paul Wedgewood: We're currently working on twelve maps that span four campaigns. In much the same way that our favourite World War 2 movies retell the story of important battles, each map in ETQW retells the story of a critical combat mission that lead to the retaliation against Stroggos. For example, in one map the GDF discover and then attempt to secure Slipgate technology (used by the human fleet during their retaliation against Stroggos in Quake 2), while in another map the GDF capture a prototype dropship, a technology they end up using for the transatmospheric assault on Stroggos in Quake II. ETQW has several homages to Quake weaponry too, with retro predecessors to weapons such as the Hyperblaster and Railgun.

In each map there is a sequence of objectives that are driven by the plot. Examples include attacking a remote GDF Bioresearch Facility in an Arctic fjord, constructing a bridge en-route to a Stroggification Plant in an arid canyon, or defending a Strogg Contaminator device by a temperate mountain reservoir. The maps feature a combination of vehicle, on-foot and artillery combat, with lots of variation between outdoor, urban and indoor battles.

We're really pleased that we're finally nearing beta as a large proportion of the maps are proving great fun to play. Our team of Production Testers at Splash Damage are playtesting ETQW full-time, helping fine-tune things like optimal cover points, concealment and fortification. My development staff and I join them for a playtest every day at 5.00pm; that playtest has really become the highlight of the day for me.

Jonathan Trevisani: Will the game have a ranking system in place? Will awards and unlocks be available?

Paul Wedgewood: Wolf ET originated the use of rewards and military ranking in multiplayer combat-shooters, and so it was very important to us that the ranking system in ETQW continued to reward players effectively for good teamplay, without unbalancing the gameplay itself. On that basis, Kevin Cloud and I decided early on that while player status should be reflected persistently, player rewards should and could affect gameplay but would be re-set at the start of each new campaign. That way you get the advantages of kudos ranking without unbalancing the game or penalizing players who've joined more recently.

ETQW evolves the ranking and reward system from its predecessor Wolf ET in several ways, while sticking to these fundamental basic philosophies that we believe account for some of Wolf ET's huge success. In ETQW players earn experience points for all actions that benefit the team. This includes killing enemy players, reviving your team-mates, successfully using vehicles, land-mines, defense turrets and artillery guns, and completing objectives for the team. There is definitely a great focus on rewarding players for team-play actions. For the duration of a campaign (three maps), these experience points contribute to un-lockable rewards and proficiency ratings in the combat roles that you're playing. However, a player's military rank and achievements are reflected persistently.

Jonathan Trevisani: How many players can join a battle? What will be the benefits for players with higher rank?

Paul Wedgewood: There's no restriction on the maximum that a server administrator can set, beyond the physical hardware specification of the server itself. As with Wolf ET, we expect that people will run very large servers just for the lemming-like fun of it, but the sweet spot for coordinated teamplay is currently between 16 and 24 players.

This sweet spot exists because the players are not dispersing across the map, but are instead focused on a front-line surrounding the current objective. The level of intensity with just 24 players on the server, is significantly higher than having 64 players in a flag-based capture-and-hold game.

Campaign-length rewards allow you to play your combat roles more effectively with class-based rewards such as improved MedPacks or a reduction in the time it takes you to arm explosive charges, to class-independent rewards for prowess with light weapons, such as Akimbo Pistols or faster weapon reload times. At the end of each campaign these rewards are reset to ensure that each campaign starts with all players on a level playing field. A challenge for players is to unlock as many rewards as possible over the campaign, while getting the proficiency rating as high as they can.

For the persistent military ranking, and unlike other multiplayer combat games, you will not gain significant promotions without playing a combat role effectively with your team. The game doesn't reward playing XX hours, or endlessly 'griefing' the enemy: a higher military rank is a valid reflection of team-playing ability. A high military rank in ETQW is something a player can be really proud of, rather than a reward for bloody-minded persistence.

We're really happy with the balance between campaign length rewards/ratings and the persistent military rank/achievements system. Naturally the principle benefit of having a high military rank that reflects team-play expertise rather than play-time is the fear it instills in the enemy :)

Jonathan Trevisani: How will campaigns work in the game? Will the outcome of two of the three linked missions influence the outcome of the third?

Paul Wedgewood: In ETQW, three sequential maps constitute one campaign, and these are currently arranged by geographically, by continent. We looked at making previous results affect the teams' starting disposition in subsequent maps, but couldn't make it fun because the winning team just had an even easier time on the subsequent map. However, a player's unlocked rewards are maintained for the duration of a campaign, and so these can be a significant contributing factor to the way each new map starts.

Jonathan Trevisani: How many vehicles and deployables will be available in the game?

Paul Wedgewood: There are currently around twenty, with a balanced mix of ground, amphibious and air vehicles, and defense turrets and artillery deployables. At times during development we've had more, but we've always cut anything that didn't contribute something significant to gameplay. For example, at one point we had three different types of intelligence gathering deployable – Radars, AWACs and Satellite Uplinks and so on – but they didn't offer enough difference in gameplay so now each team just has one radar deployable (although the GDF Covert Ops' Third Eye Camera will function as a short-range radar, which is very handy for staking out objective rooms). Our focus has never been on realistically representing every type of military hardware unit available, but instead to focus on extending the combat roles of the character classes with vehicles that serve a specific purpose.

Perhaps most importantly, there's also a great level of asymmetry between the two team's vehicles. While the Strogg team have alien walkers, hover-tanks and anti-gravity personal hover packs, the GDF have much more conventional ground and air troop carriers, tanks, trucks, quad-bikes and attack 'copters. The differing vehicle propulsion and handling physics that gives us leads to some really interesting vehicle v. vehicle combat tactics.

Jonathan Trevisani: How important is teamwork in the game? Can players be a lone wolf in certain situations?

Paul Wedgewood: Kevin Cloud and I decided a year or more ago that we would never 'nerf' the gameplay simply to make the game more instantly accessible. That would sacrifice gameplay depth, which is critical to game longevity and really important to clan players competing in tournaments. Instead we'd focus our efforts on increasing accessibility by improving the user interface and communications.

Players can certainly jump into the game and treat it as a sandbox, choosing a straightforward assault class, and run around blowing stuff up and killing the enemy. Players with more experience that still prefer to 'fly solo' will find a wealth of unique items, tools and weapons available to each character class, which in combination with the game's vehicles and deployable defense turrets and artillery guns, allow for some really interesting solo tactics. Things like the Strogg Infiltrator pre-placing a teleport beacon so you can rapidly escape if attacked while you back-stab enemy snipers, to the GDF Soldier placing an Explosive Charge on the back of a Husky Quad Bike and rolling it down into the Strogg base.

Jonathan Trevisani: What do you want players to take away from playing Enemy Territory: Quake Wars? Are there any planned expansions of the game?

Paul Wedgewood: We want players to come away from ETQW wanting to play it again. And again.

We want players to have fun, and we're convinced that the most players have the most fun for longest when their teamplay is co-operative and coordinated around dynamic objectives. Once you start to coordinate with your team, deploying defense turrets, repairing someone else's artillery gun, reviving a team-mate, picking up a mission to destroy an enemy radar your team-mate has discovered while reconnoitering their base, providing vital ammunition, flying to a remote location to pick-up a Sniper who needs to escape in a hurry, deploying supplies in the field, defending, constructing, destroying, hacking and escorting the primary objectives while your team supports you…these are the 'HERO' elements of the game, and when your name is relayed in a big bold font to your entire team and you rack up promotions and rewards for your contribution to their success, that's a buzz you can only get from Enemy Territory teamplay.

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source :: computing news press service