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Interview du 30 aout 2002 par Planet CnC
This interview is part of the C&C Generals Boot Camp. It features both
questions from a personal sit down interview with Mark Skaggs and a general
press Q&A at the Boot Camp.
Q: What prompted the usage of the 'Command & Conquer' name for Generals?
A: The type of RTS we make has a 'Command & Conquer' feel to it,
you command your forces and you conquer the enemy. It's the type of gameplay;
it's the speed and the pacing of it. It's sort of like saying, what makes an
Arnold Shcwarzenegger movie an Arnold Shcwarzenegger movie? It's the people
doing it, his movies have changed over time, but you can expect action, you
can expect cool cinematic moments, general entertainment value. We've seen stuff
like "Well you moved the sidebar to the bottom, it's not C&C anymore!"
Really though, if we kept it like that, then we should just make C&C with
new graphics and that's no fun. It's been our goal to have a modern warfare
title. We started of C&C, then we got into sci-fi. Then we tried it with
Red Alert, then that got sort of like, comic book action. Generals is our game
to stay in the modern warfare part. That's why we think it is C&C, makes
a lot of sense to us.
Q: What has been the biggest challenge so far in making Generals?
A: The biggest challenge? I'd say it's the following. We start out with
a good-looking engine, we make a lot of maps, we get a great looking target,
this is what we want to try to get as a target with respect to quality graphics,
liveliness of the world. Then we sit down and find out, for example, in Red
Alert 2 you could have 200, maybe 300 if you were really good objects on the
map. In Generals, we have 3,000 objects; it's quite a giant scope. So some people
would say 'well just limit it down then.' What happens with though is that with
a 3D engine, people expect more, they want a type of realism. Like, say you
have a certain type of building that you want to place, but it just doesn't
look right without certain trees, or bushes, or other elements around them,
you have to add those in. We have to put a lot of realism in it and need to
watch out so that we don't put too much realism in it, we don't' want it to
be a simulation. So we want to be thorough with respect to realism in the game,
but we do have limits on the number of objects we can put in so we don't mess
up the frame rate.
Q: Has the game reached alpha stage yet?
A: We are still pre-alpha.
Q: In the video made in Germany, 'Generals Online' was mentioned. Is this
a new matchmaking service?
A: It's a new online component, but, it's something we are going to talk
about later. There are still some things we need to get together and collaborate
on before we can talk about it.
Q: Can you shed any light on the mod support for the game?
A: Our goal is to do really heavy duty mod support, to open up as much
as we can to the people. We want people to look at Generals and say "this
is really easy to modify, I can do this, change the INI files, head models,
change some art work, and can build great scenarios." Not just regular
maps, we want them to be able to build fully scripted scenarios. We saw what
people did with Red Alert 2, and we didn't help them at all. If we made some
good tools for them, that should open everything up.
Q: What's happening at ECTS?
A: We aren't actually going, but we have a booth called 'EA Play.' There
will be booths for Generals where people can see a preview of it; also there
will be little kiosks where people can get some actual hands-on time with the
game.
Q: What are you plans for the beta?
A: We're looking at the scope right now; we want it to be worldwide.
As for closed or open beta, we're going to have a limited number. We are going
to get the discs in the hands of people to actually play. We don't have a time
yet, definitely more in the next 45 days. We've actually hired on extra people
to ensure that the beta happens.
Q: Why is Generals not using FMV video sequences, why the CGI movies?
A: Well, 5 years ago, they actually added value to the gameplay, but
as we kept going, even in Red Alert 2, we felt they were cool, but we felt they
were staying at a minimum of people's expectations. It's gotten to the point
that people are expecting, or nearly expecting in a game what they see on the
big screen in a movie and people want that. We were thinking of doing a combination
of people and computer graphics but then in April, we saw that the engine was
so good and that the video problem was taking us away from the game so we decided
to put everything we had into the game engine. This is our first step to what
we think is going to be even better C&C cinematic sequences.
Q: Would you say the other branches of the C&C universe, the Tiberian
and Red Alert series are still alive?
A: Yeah, there is something in the future, and I can't talk about those.
If we had enough people to have multiple games going on, we would be doing more
of them at one time, but games are getting so big, and we want to do a good
job, we can only do so much with so many people.
Q: Is it safe to say that EAP is the new C&C headquarters?
A: Actually no, it's not, what you can say is that EAP is the Generals
headquarters. Westwood is the headquarters for the Red Alert and Tiberian series.
Q: In the earlier C&C games you had a mission selections where if you
took a certain branch, or did a certain mission one way, it would impact later
missions. Is Generals going to follow this or is it just a straight mission-to-mission
type of thing?
A: It's just straight mission-to-mission in this one.
Q: Is the full editor going to be included with the game?
A: Yeah, we call it World Builder, it's actually a scenario editor, and
so you can make a full single player scenario if you want. We want to build
a tutorial on it; it's not going to be something we are supporting as a finished
product. You might get support for it, we are going to have people answer things
on the message boards for it, but it's not going to be something like, a 1-800
number where we will answer your questions if you are having a problem.
Q: Will it have a map generator?
A: No, no map generator, the worlds are pretty complex for random generation.
But as we said before, this engine is the starting block for all the next generation
C&C titles. So as we work on newer titles with the engine, we may put it
in for later games as we discover more things about this engine.
Q: Who is doing the in-game music?
A: What you heard was from a composer named Bill Brown, he's done a large
number of games.
Q: Have you been talking to Hollywood types about a movie for Command and
Conquer?
A: Every year or two years it kind of surges up and then goes low, I
think right now, we are in a low. We are pretty protective about the brand;
we want anyone who does do it, to do it right. We are also about making games
and not movies. I don't know how many bad video game movies there have been;
three words 'Super Mario Brothers.' We don't want to damage the brand with a
bad movie.
Q: Will Generals continue the C&C and Westwood Studios tradition of
no built in cheat codes of any kind, bar easter eggs?
A: No cheat codes, but who knows what those wacky designers will do for
Easter eggs.
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