However, sometimes the best ideas are born out of inner confusion and turmoil. Unsatisfied with the state of WAR, people have been setting their brains to the task of coming up with a number of interesting ideas to “fix” the game. Here are some of them I found particularly thought-provoking and worth a mention.

I’m not saying every one is a spot-on save the game idea… but they are very interesting concepts.

Via: http://potshot.wordpress.com/2008/11/17/can-rvr-ever-work/

I think that the war effort should be focused at all times, from all factions, to limited areas of the game. For example the NPC general of faction X says to you “Hey, we really need to go and cut off this supply train”. The opposing faction should be saying to its players “Hey, we really need to protect this important supply train”.

That’s not to say players can’t go and do whatever they want to do, but rewards would be greater for going to the directed areas. The key is definitely to direct both sides into conflict with each other. To help avoid overcrowding, you can make the number of rewarded goals at a given time proportional to the player population on the server.

Also, you should have a bunch of conceptually different tasks leading up to the player’s goal. For example, in WAR you can just run up to a keep and lay waste to it. In a more realistic world, you’d need to cut off supply lines, burn surrounding villages, maybe sneak in and assassinate some key personnel to lower morale, defend your siege weaponry from being raided, etc. In WAR it’s…. siege this keep and this keep and this keep and then unlock the zone to progress to the next area and siege some more keeps. The gameplay this way just feels too bland, keep sieging loses its special feeling.

———–

Taking the directed hot zone/objective idea further, include alternate goals that might also play to different play styles– interrupt supply lines, blow up bridges to slow down the influx of reinforcements, burn crops, sabotage/covert activities, etc. all that would aid the directed war effort.

If Karl Franz called for an offensive in Zone X and strategic objective quests were given out by a one of his generals in that zone…

———–

The problem with War is the limited amount in which guilds can gain recognition, there is no meta game to play for the natural born leaders (except petty intra guild drama and politics). Keeps just get flipped and flipped, and the rewards for claiming one are not enough for the guild leaders to convince their troops to prevent that from happening. There are not even ladder competitions to prove you are top dog.

[Ed. There are statues of the top individual players in the capital cities, but they are located in out-of-the-way places. It would be great to move these statues into the main hubs of activity. There is also a Realm War page located on WarhammerOnline.com, however, every time I have tried accessing it lately, it seems unresponsive to the point of making me not want to bother.]

———–

They have the cute trinket idea. How about expanding it so we get medals or something for every keep we capture. Perhaps the size, color and ornateness change based on the size or effort of the battle. Let me wear them as badges of honor that show how many successful sieges I’ve participated in or how many keeps my guild owns or something to show, “That’s right, I am RVR awesomeness.”

Via: http://wnw.blogwarhammer.net/2008/11/17/another-way-to-capture-zones/

So how about this idea? Holding an Objective or Keep in a zone gives Victory Points over time instead of instantly? Holding all Objectives and Keep for 24 hours give you enough points to capture the zone, and even if the other side recaptures things the points will still remain, they will just slowly go the other way.

As the zone gain VP over time all people in the zone will also gain renown and experience. This make people stay to defend and the battle and it’s just as important for others to take up the torch when you log off as when you captured the things in the first place. Killing enemies in range of Objectives and Keeps give extra renown and experience.

This also removes the possibility of capturing zone in the middle of the night. You could still do it and capture the objectives, but the zone still won’t be captured until the points have slowly trickled in.

[Ed. Patch 1.05 brought some improvements to the zone control mechanic, so we'll have to see how it pans out. If it doesn't get any better, I really suggest Mythic considers the above idea.]

———–

1) Add crafting vendors to keeps that improve over time. For every hour you hold a keep, the quality of the items will improve by 10-15 tradeskill, starting at a decent base (e.g., 50). Therefore, after holding a keep for 4 hours, your vendor will sell items up to level 110 (15/hour + base). By hour 8, 170 tradeskill. And so on… Give members of the guild/alliance who are holding the keep a discount on prices.2) Decrease the cost of claiming keeps. If the maintenance cost was 1 to 3 gold per hour, it would become much more affordable. At the moment, only the richest of the zerg guilds can afford it.

————

Put level 40’s in their own scenarios …Level 28-39s are competing for renown and xp. All level 40’s care about is renown.

Via: http://www.keenandgraev.com/?p=1653

If the enemy chooses not to defend then the fight should make it to their capital city.  A city siege has never once happened on Wolfenburg or Phoenix Throne (two “very populated” servers with supposedly active RvR).  If players are going to stay then they need to experience city sieges and be faced with a truly imminent realm war.  This is a realm war and players need to feel the pressure of losing territory to feel motivated.

————-

Warhammer Online, back in November 2007, was delayed in order to transform the game to align closer with DAOC’s RvR but it forgot that one crucial element… the PURPOSE.  Sure, city sieges are a purpose but let’s be realistic - a keep is under attack in Praag… why would I go defend if it poses no threat to our city?  It’s going to take like 8 keeps, 2 fortreses, and a TON of RvR to make our capital city vulnerable.  As of right now a city siege is not going to happen.  So, we come back to the PURPOSE.  I strongly feel that Darkness Falls provides that purpose.  Find out more about Darkness Falls here.

————

Let’s face it, WAR was designed in such a way that a lot of players participating in the realm war is mandatory.  Right now, especially in light of recent mmorpg competitions’ releases, we’re seeing the populations dwindle.  Merge the freaking servers and you will improve the enjoyment of the game globally for all players.

————

I honestly hate to admit it, but I fear the game’s core design can not have open world elements tacked on to it. Honestly, Mythic should just instance the keep sieges to 40 vs 40.

The city sieges are already instanced, there is no sense in having this tiny little stop gap of open world RvR that runs absolutely horribly when twenty players get on screen.

————

Introduce more siege pad items that can variety the strategy of keep battles. The single chokepoint to the 2nd level keep lord is so boring. Obviously don’t allow for zerg rushes but hell even adding an Orc Thrower siege weapon for getting people slowly up on a battlement would spice things up. Another idea could be a siege tunnel item that lets you tunnel to under an outer siege wall (again slow access thru it though to avoid zerg rushes). Again this eye is taken from Planetside with it’s deployable items.

————

Make BOs objective provide global buffs to the zone so everyone benefits from them immediately (no need to go to the Sergeant). Makes them more valuable to everyone (even those doing PVE), so hopefully more people will want to maintain them. Even if this isn’t done, the idea is to provide a very very strong LOCAL incentive to do RVR. As you said, cities are a distant thing that have no local meaning or incentive for people.

————

I think what’s truly needed is a solid LFG mechanism. I am a frequent organizer of outdoor RvR… and I’d LOVE to be able to browse a list of ALL the people on the server either DOING or LOOKING for outdoor RvR.

That seems like a no-brainer to me.

Via: http://waaagh.wordpress.com/2008/11/17/ai/

Apart from hero and lord mobs, we just don’t see a lot of special abilities popping out of these guys. A lot of my skills are set up to combat fairly complex player behavior in PvP, yet surprising few of these moves are necessary in PvE. Spell interruption? How often do these guys cast at me? Do I ever need to root a mob to prevent their escape?

[Ed. I really think this would make keep taking a lot more dynamic, especially undefended keeps. ATM you just zerg-rush the mobs. There is little to no strategy involved. It would be a lot more cool to see this take place more often in PvE too (e.g., knockbacks, knockdowns, disarms, roots, debuffs, etc.).]

Have you seen any others I might have missed? Have any of your own you’d like to contribute?

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This is just sad, sad garbage. Australia is to remain the only developed nation in the world without an 18+ age rating after proposals to lift the MA15+ cap have been soundly rejected by South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson.

Atkinson had agreed to debate the matter of an 18+ rating earlier this year, despite voicing strong misgivings against it. Australian Attorney-Generals opened discussion on this matter in March, but they have gone nowhere. Australia will continue to see videogames strongly edited or outright banned.

It would seem that Atkinson is the sole wrench in the works on this one. Despite wide support for a new rating from most Attorney-Generals, it can only happen with a unanimous vote, something that will not happen while Michael Atkinson continues to have his Draconian way.

Australian gamers who have to put up with all sorts of BS at least know who to blame now. It is thanks to Atkinson that videogames and their consumers are being treated with such disrespect. Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia went as far as to accuse Atkinson of "censoring the debate on censorship," with regards to his refusal to discuss the matter any further. Reports also suggest that the lack of an 18+ rating is actually embarrassing Australian politicians.

Atkinson is clearly unpopular and a source of national humiliation. He is making countless people upset for the sake of his misguided viewpoint and I think that's rather pitiful indeed. Doesn't sound like the man's fit for his position.

This is just sad, sad garbage. Australia is to remain the only developed nation in the world without an 18+ age rating after proposals to lift the MA15+ cap have been soundly rejected by South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson.

Atkinson had agreed to debate the matter of an 18+ rating earlier this year, despite voicing strong misgivings against it. Australian Attorney-Generals opened discussion on this matter in March, but they have gone nowhere. Australia will continue to see videogames strongly edited or outright banned.

It would seem that Atkinson is the sole wrench in the works on this one. Despite wide support for a new rating from most Attorney-Generals, it can only happen with a unanimous vote, something that will not happen while Michael Atkinson continues to have his Draconian way.

Australian gamers who have to put up with all sorts of BS at least know who to blame now. It is thanks to Atkinson that videogames and their consumers are being treated with such disrespect. Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia went as far as to accuse Atkinson of "censoring the debate on censorship," with regards to his refusal to discuss the matter any further. Reports also suggest that the lack of an 18+ rating is actually embarrassing Australian politicians.

Atkinson is clearly unpopular and a source of national humiliation. He is making countless people upset for the sake of his misguided viewpoint and I think that's rather pitiful indeed. Doesn't sound like the man's fit for his position.

This is just sad, sad garbage. Australia is to remain the only developed nation in the world without an 18+ age rating after proposals to lift the MA15+ cap have been soundly rejected by South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson.

Atkinson had agreed to debate the matter of an 18+ rating earlier this year, despite voicing strong misgivings against it. Australian Attorney-Generals opened discussion on this matter in March, but they have gone nowhere. Australia will continue to see videogames strongly edited or outright banned.

It would seem that Atkinson is the sole wrench in the works on this one. Despite wide support for a new rating from most Attorney-Generals, it can only happen with a unanimous vote, something that will not happen while Michael Atkinson continues to have his Draconian way.

Australian gamers who have to put up with all sorts of BS at least know who to blame now. It is thanks to Atkinson that videogames and their consumers are being treated with such disrespect. Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia went as far as to accuse Atkinson of "censoring the debate on censorship," with regards to his refusal to discuss the matter any further. Reports also suggest that the lack of an 18+ rating is actually embarrassing Australian politicians.

Atkinson is clearly unpopular and a source of national humiliation. He is making countless people upset for the sake of his misguided viewpoint and I think that's rather pitiful indeed. Doesn't sound like the man's fit for his position.

This is just sad, sad garbage. Australia is to remain the only developed nation in the world without an 18+ age rating after proposals to lift the MA15+ cap have been soundly rejected by South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson.

Atkinson had agreed to debate the matter of an 18+ rating earlier this year, despite voicing strong misgivings against it. Australian Attorney-Generals opened discussion on this matter in March, but they have gone nowhere. Australia will continue to see videogames strongly edited or outright banned.

It would seem that Atkinson is the sole wrench in the works on this one. Despite wide support for a new rating from most Attorney-Generals, it can only happen with a unanimous vote, something that will not happen while Michael Atkinson continues to have his Draconian way.

Australian gamers who have to put up with all sorts of BS at least know who to blame now. It is thanks to Atkinson that videogames and their consumers are being treated with such disrespect. Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia went as far as to accuse Atkinson of "censoring the debate on censorship," with regards to his refusal to discuss the matter any further. Reports also suggest that the lack of an 18+ rating is actually embarrassing Australian politicians.

Atkinson is clearly unpopular and a source of national humiliation. He is making countless people upset for the sake of his misguided viewpoint and I think that's rather pitiful indeed. Doesn't sound like the man's fit for his position.

For the most part, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 delivers the same sort of campy, alternate-universe take on real-time strategic warfare that the series' fans have grown to love. But this latest skirmish in the perennial war between the Allies and the Soviet forces lets you bring a friend to the battle.

The ability to engage in a cooperative campaign gives the game's hectic combat a welcome twist. For the first time in any strategy game, two players will have a chance to tackle a campaign side by side. This means constructing complementary armies, coordinating tactical strikes and fighting difficult computer enemies while working their way through the game's three campaigns and 27 missions.

And it works -- provided you have friends. Playing the game's campaign mode solo can be an exercise in frustration for all but the savviest armchair generals.

(Red Alert 3 is available this week for PC, the version we reviewed. An Xbox 360 version is scheduled for release next month.)

During my recent hands-on with Red Alert 3's campaign, I got a good feel for how the whole co-op idea is supposed to work. When you're teamed up with a human partner, there's a far greater level of strategic freedom -- plan pincer attacks, beg for help or get advice on what troops to build next.

If you don't have any friends to play with (or don't want to be matched up with a stranger), you'll be paired up with a computer-controlled buddy who is fairly competent at keeping himself alive ... but not really much of a team player.

There is no way to directly control how your computerized co-commander governs his army or builds his base. What you can do is assign commands that will guide his behavior. Issue a command to attack a particular target, and he'll send forces until the enemy unit or building has fallen. Tell him to take a particular position, and he'll send some forces, clear out any opposition and stand guard till the area is clear, or you cancel the command. My personal favorite is the Plan Attack option: Pick a spot, and your teammate will begin constructing troops to clear out any opposition along the way, before finally plowing through and taking over the targeted location.

These functions work well, but the Red Alert series isn't exactly renowned for its strategic depth. Combat often consists of swarming your enemy with the right mix of troops. And when you're playing with an AI partner, you lose a lot of flexibility.

When playing with another person, for example, I could choose to focus on constructing ranged support units, while my partner swarmed with tanks and infantry. But when you have no direct control over what your computer-controlled partner is doing, or how they're balancing their forces, your best bet is often letting them head the assault, and sending in your own calculated attack once they've charged in.

The problem seems to lie with the game's scale. You can build bases on the open sea, in addition to land, and you'll encounter many amphibious units that will cross both with ease. Toss in some air units, and units that can only attack ground or air units but not both, and that means you've got three theaters of war to keep an eye on at all times. While the game provides plenty of auditory and visual cues, a good partner will make all the difference.

That said, the campaign mode is a fun, lengthy, well-polished experience. But the reason most people pick up a strategy game in the first place is to meet new and interesting people and crush them mercilessly.

Red Alert 3 also features the series' bread and butter: A competitive multiplayer mode in which players square off. The focus on naval combat adds a new layer of strategy, and developing strategies to counter the new units is a blast, but things haven't really changed much from previous versions.

Every unit has a secondary firing mode that you can toggle, a feature that micromanagement junkies will adore. Beyond that, or garrisoning the occasional building, victory has more to do with memorizing hotkeys and cranking out more troops than the other guy.

There's a lot to love in Red Alert 3. The campy videos and eclectic story that made the series so popular are alive and well -- this time, the Soviets have built a time machine to kill Einstein, which leads to the rise of the Japanese Empire of the Rising Sun, an Emperor-worshiping technological superpower.

Red Alert fans are sure to love it -- but if you've passed on the series before, and aren't enamored by the idea of cooperative combat, there really isn't anything new to see here.

Images courtesy Electronic Arts

WIRED Fun campaign, brilliant co-op mechanic, attack dolphins 

TIRED Lackluster co-op AI, gameplay hasn't changed much   

$50, Electronic Arts

Rating:

Read Game|Life's game ratings guide.

See Also:

• Hands-On: Red Alert 3's Co-Op Campaign Mode
• Five More Red Alert 3 Screens Released
• PlayStation 3 Red Alert 3 'Put on Hold'
• Red Alert 3 Revealed, Has Soviets

After lying dormant for several years, the long-running Command & Conquer real-time strategy franchise got a revival from EALA's RTS team with the high-profile and well-received Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars.

Now, the team is days away from shipping Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, the latest entry in the series' zanier alternate history spinoff line -- which hasn't seen a new title since 2001's Red Alert 2 and its expansion.

C&C3 re-established the franchise's trademark live-action full motion video cutscenes, which we recently quizzed the developers about, and for Red Alert 3 EA has built a rather insane marketing campaign around them.

We sat down with EALA senior producer Amer Ajami and producer Greg Kasavin to discuss Red Alert 3's development, including the series' heritage, challenges in simultaneously creating PC and Xbox 360 versions, the history of the RTS dev team, and why the game is influenced by Red Alert 2 more than the first game.

Did you develop the PC and Xbox 360 versions in parallel?

Amer Ajami: Yeah, and by the same team.

Greg Kasavin: This is the fourth game that we [the RTS team] have released on the 360. In the 360 market for RTS, we've been growing, and not just because of the work that this team has been doing, but you look at what else is out there with what Ubisoft is doing, what Microsoft is doing. Clearly that market is... it is certainly not as big, but it's constantly growing year on year.

How these games generally perform at retail?

GK: They do well. We're not supposed to quote our internal sales figures, but the NPD data is out there. Certainly, we wouldn't be working on them if they didn't do well. And EA holds higher standards, a different definition of what successful sales are than most other companies. So, they do very well.

And it bears mentioning that in Europe, and in Germany in particular, the C&C series is huge. I don't know that the average Command & Conquer developer can readily articulate why.

I suspect that it has a lot to do with the PC platform remaining so strong there.

AA: Correct. And, interesting enough, Russia is now a big emerging market for C&C. I was there earlier this year and the following that we had was kind of surreal.

GK: They knew the most about the game. At the [press] event they would follow up and know all the details and everything.

So they still sell better on PC then?

AA: Again, without quoting actual data, we do sell -- I don't want to say significantly better on PC, but -- well, certainly with every release, the 360 catches up with the PC, but the PC is still the lead platform from the sales perspective.

What about as a development platform?

AA: Yeah, also from a development perspective. Although this is the first time that we actually took on the development of the 360 internally. When I say internally I mean the actual PC team. All 360 SKUs that we've done for our previous RTS games were also developed by an internal team, but one that worked alongside us. This is the first time that the PC team was responsible for both platforms. Greg, was essentially the producer in charge of the 360 SKU.

It seems like there'd be two challenges. One is that the series goes back so far on the PC as compared to the console; does that create marketing or awareness issues? Then there's interface -- I've played recent C&C games on console at press events, but when I buy my own copy, it's the one with the mouse. Do you battle with that?

GK: With regard to the game itself, we think it stands on its own, even though there's a "3" in the title. Basically, the setup is that it wipes the slate clean, and it's this new world that the characters enter into. We think it's a pretty fun, weird, and crazy place. It's a deeply strategic game. You are not going to win just by throwing one type of tank at the enemy; you have to think about what you are doing.

But at the same time it's got, we think, a really appealing premise to it. There is nothing that necessarily feels PC about it. It seems like it's just as accessible of a concept to whichever audience enter.

So as a player, if you are amenable to the control, you are not going to have some weird historical barrier.

GK: Right. And as for the controls, that was our big goal with the 360 version of the game, to come up with a control scheme that lets you accomplish the things that we wanted to accomplish on the PC front.

This was to be able to micro-manage battles effectively and to be able to pull different types of forces into and out of battle and switch their weapon types, and be able to do all these types of things quickly without struggling.

We came up with a variety of ways to make that happen in a way that the average player is going to be able to execute on the 360 just as well as on the PC. I think the high-end tournament-quality player is still going to be superior with PC controls. But for someone like me -- I've been playing RTSs for years and I consider myself an intermediate player -- I am not going to win any tournaments, but I can hold my own. I am basically as proficient on the 360 controls as I am with PC.

Hopefully, people will find that these controls deliver on that. The controls that we released in [Command & Conquer 3:] Kane's Wrath for 360 were sort of a step in the direction the RA3 controls were taking.

AA: It was a test bed for the RA3 controls. It was developed by the team largely through the feedback through Greg that we essentially gave to the team developing Kane's Wrath to see if it was viable.

It's interesting that you chose to call it Red Alert 3. It's similar to Bethesda with Fallout 3. Red Alert 2 came out seven years ago. You've got to assume a sizable chunk of the players may not have played the previous ones. And yet you still have the confidence to say, "It's that series and I am going to put a number on it, and that's it."

GK: I know what you mean. There's an interesting phenomenon with that. It happens with movies also sometimes, like Spider-Man 2. It has a much bigger day at the box office than Spider-Man 1. Intuitively, it doesn't make sense. You'd think that the audience would be limited to whoever saw the first one, but there is some kind of groupthink around it and even people who haven't played Red Alert might talk to their friends.

AA: They know somebody who has played Red Alert. Conversely, if you had played the first two there is a lot there to appreciate.

GK: Yeah, as long as there is the impression that it's not going to be this continuation of some complicated story that you have to have played the other two games to even understand. We definitely didn't want to that going into it, especially since Red Alert 2, is, what, seven years old now?

But a lot of people on the team hold Red Alert 2 to be pretty sacred among real-time strategy games. So we definitely wanted to live up to a lot of the cool ideas in that game.

You were telling me before that Red Alert 3 derives more from RA2 than RA1. Can you elaborate on that?

GK: From my point of view, I think Red Alert 2 had a more defined tone, period. Red Alert 1 took itself pretty seriously compared to Red Alert 2. Red Alert 2 had something really, really special about it. You can go back and watch the cinematics right now and there are still just as great today, apart from the compression quality.

AA: Even fictionally, it didn't seem like Red Alert 1 knew what kind of game it wanted to be. In one cinematic, they had Kane, who is a staple of the [main] Tiberium franchise of the C&C games.

Yeah, I remember that.

AA: Red Alert 2 was the game that said, "You know what? This is our own branch. It's not related to Tiberium or C&C except in name." In that sense, Red Alert 3 is a continuation of that tone, rather than of RA1.

GK: And it lends itself overall a feeling to the game that is pretty unique. There are plenty of serious war games out there that are heavy, whereas something like this has much more of that graphic novel, over-the-top action feel to it that pokes a little bit of fun at itself, but in hopefully a pretty clever way. It's just more distinctive, and hopefully will be more memorable to players than another serious World War thing that weighs on them.

It's almost hilarious the extent to which you guys have been highlighting the insanity of the game world in the marketing. When you're conceiving the fiction, do you ask yourselves, "God, how do we top this last ridiculous thing?"

AA: It's not so much pressure, it's just not putting... Often times, when we worked on previous games, especially the Lord of the Rings games, there are a lot of limitations that you have to stay within. Working on this one, it was the first game in a long time where, really, that limitation wasn't there. Those handcuffs were off. It was more a sense of, "What can we do?" rather than pressure that we have to make this as crazy as possible.

GK: At the same time, you'd be surprised from seeing the end result how conservative we can be in terms of the internal logic of the world -- just making sure that within this everything is sensible.

So you ask yourself, "Would somebody really need war dolphins with sonic disruptors [an Allied unit]?"

GK: Yeah, exactly. It was really important to us to make at least the three factions feel very cohesive so that they don't seem random. All the units in the faction feel like they belong to some particular ideology that's interesting and at least vaguely plausible and likable. Depending on which side you're playing, the other two guys are the bad guys, but we wanted players to be able to feel good about all three of these sides. They all have cool characters.

Was that a challenge with the Japanese faction, since there was no existing Red Alert faction to draw from?

GK: Yes, though with that faction, we had so many cool places to dig into, so many pop culture allusions. And we have a lot of people on the team who love giant robots or anime. Those influences all went into a big melting pot and hopefully we came up with something that doesn't feel slapdash. It still feels very cohesive, but it's pop-culture inspired.

AA: At the same time, if you look at the history that the Red Alert franchise concerns itself with -- alternate versions of World War II -- the only major world player that Red Alert 1 and Red Alert 2 didn't explore was Japan. Of course, Japan was a huge part of World War II.

It felt logical as well to include them into the game and use them as the vehicle with which we drive a lot of our experimental gameplay, such as transforming units. It's stuff that we wanted to do in the game, but we really didn't want to affect the Soviets and Allies too much. Those are two factions where fans of the series would have felt disillusioned if we transformed them too much.

GK: They have really well-established gameplay.

So how long were you guys in development?

AA: Well, we officially started on Red Alert 3 about 18 months ago, about March or April of 2007, though a small group of the RTS team initially did a little bit of pre-production on RA3 back in late 2004, early 2005.

As the second team was working on Battle for Middle Earth II, they found out what they wanted to find out about RA3, and then they rolled on back into BFME2, and here we are years later.

We primarily have one main RTS team, and then we splinter off smaller groups of that to fulfill whatever needs the company asks from us [such as expansions].

It seems like the EALA RTS team has gained some prominence in the last couple years. When did it form?

GK: It was for [Command & Conquer:] Generals, right?

AA: Well, even before that, we have certain team members who have been around since Red Alert 2 [released in 2001], and even before that, with Nox [from 2000].

GK: Yeah, it's basically spun off. I don't know how best to put it, but some of those guys do hail back from the Westwood days. There are definitely connections. The guy who's our story and cinematics producer, Michael Pedriana, he hails back from those days. He worked on Red Alert 2, and it was very important to all of us to capture that same type of spirit and tone with the cinematics of this game. He came from those days and knew what that was like.

AA: The majority of the team's DNA comes from Westwood Pacific originally, and then it became EA Pacific. But, we do have some actual Westwood employees still working with us -- one of our senior modelers worked on Command & Conquer 1, back in '95.

GK: That's a guy who dates back to Dune II -- one of the six Dune II programmers. It's incredible.

It seems that EA is putting increasing focus on Command & Conquer as a franchise compared to how it was for a few years. A lot of the properties that EA picked up in the late 90s or early 2000s, especially the old school PC studios EA picked up, are not very prominent anymore. What gives you guys this kind of focus?

GK: What came to mind for me immediately is the success of Generals, although for a lot of hardcore C&C fans, the debates kind of rage on as to whether Command & Conquer: Generals is really a true C&C game or not, because it did a lot of things differently. But it was a successful game and many would hold that it's a really great game. And I think that kept Command & Conquer on people's minds.

AA: And I would argue the hardest core C&C fans hold Generals and Zero Hour to a much higher standard than all the other C&C games.

GK: That's true. Zero Hour is considered one of the best Command & Conquer games from a competitive standpoint and everything. Just gameplay-wise, it did a lot of cool things. So, I think, that helped make the reception of Command and Conquer three much more favorable up front. Because people were like, "Oh cool, it's the guys who did Generals, and Generals is awesome." Then, in the end, Command & Conquer 3 had to stand on its own legs now.

AA: I think the &C franchise would have been successful even had there not been this gap. If you look at the reasons why there was a gap between Generals and C&C3, we had this opportunity as a company to work on The Lord of the Rings movie license. We're all C&C fans, but a lot of us at the time were also hardcore Lord of the Rings fans, so we really jumped at the opportunity.

That took the team essentially offline for three-plus years from doing C&C games, because we did two mainline Lord of the Rings games. We did one for the Xbox 360. We did an expansion pack. So now, when we got those out of the way, it was time to kind of go back to our roots.

C&C: Generals was my first game in the industry. And the engine that was developed for that game was also co-developed by the guys at Westwood Pacific in Irvine, California and the original Westwood team in Vegas. And at the time that we were working on C&C: Generals, the Vegas team was working on the original iteration of Command & Conquer 3.

It's actually funny. If you look at all of the different iterations that C&C3 went through, it's like the third or fourth iteration of the game was the one that was finally released.

GK: If Lord of the Rings didn't exist, C&C3 would have probably come sooner.

Posted by rossignol. | 16 comments | Donate or subscribe to RPS | Post tags: Creative-Assembly, empire-total-war, interview, james russell, Total-War
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