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You
said it was nine months dev time for COD3.
How did you use the extra year for this title? How did you spread your time?
NH: I think it's been about iteration. This has been a
game where we can get things wrong and then figure out how to get them right. I
wasn't around with the company for Call
of Duty 3, but I've heard, for instance, the quick actions during melee
fights is something the team wished they had been able to spend a little bit
more time on.
In this game, for instance, the dogs in multiplayer:
that took many iterations to get right, to feel right. Early on it was
terrible. It was very hard to make the dogs pathfind correctly or feel brutal
and vicious. Some people just didn't like the idea, but it takes a good
designer and a good programmer sitting in a room together iterating to make a
great game.
We have a fun little bonus level that unlocks at
the end of the game, that I can't say any more about. But again, that was the
result of a designer and a programmer sitting down iterating and artists
contributing until the idea took hold. The entire team was able to contribute
on it.
That, to me, is the hallmark of good game
development, and when you have a shortened cycle you never have that luxury.
Over
the past 12 months COD4's multiplayer
has been gigantically popular. You're introducing things like the dogs and
vehicles into a finely tuned framework. How have avoided upsetting the balance?
NH: We've got the multiplayer team helmed by David
Vonderhaar, who's our online creative director. They are a cutthroat group of
guys that spend every waking hour playing multiplayer.
Every balance issue is
put in, taken out, and the game is iterated on.
We'd sometimes see six or seven builds in a
single day when it came to multiplayer as that team would iterate. And then we
brought in lots of focus testing and just tried to see what would feel right.
Tanks are another great example. When we first
built the tanks, they weren't controlling right, and then they were too
powerful, and then they were too weak. And then the team came up with the
system of putting the armor together, and it balanced itself.
It all comes down
to iteration. I think what's interesting about Call of Duty: World at War is the
addition of the war game type and Capture the Flag. Those are much more
strategic and much more slower paced than Team Deathmatch, and so the balance
for them has also been very important.
What
do you think your game is going to be remembered for in six months' time?
NH: Six months' time from now? I think it's going to
be two things. From the single player/cooperative side it's going to be the
game that took war to a level of realism that was exciting and yet a little bit
disturbing. If we get that kind of reaction, I think that's a really good
thing.
I
think also it's really going to be showing people the way cooperative play is
done. Co-op needs to be about a team working together, not special game modes,
not special scripting. It's about a shared experience, and I think we're really
going to deliver on that.
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I can just see Leiberman having a field day with this quote. Hey Call of Duty guy, you just did the industry a great service stating the obvious. Spoken by a man who probably thinks a pixel shader is a cardboard screen placed around your plasma TV to keep it cool. I wish tools like him would keep their traps shut.
burning flesh=yes.
yay!
Six months' time from now, you think YOUR game is going to be viewed as the one that brought realism to a war game? Uh...maybe you're not familiar with the Ghost Recon series. That series has been incredibly realistic since the first one came out in 2001. You missed the boat, buddy.
"I think also it's really going to be showing people the way cooperative play is done. Co-op needs to be about a team working together, not special game modes, not special scripting. It's about a shared experience, and I think we're really going to deliver on that."
Right, because Gears of War doesn't do that already. Resistance (1) certainly didn't do that. MMOs don't do it. And just to bring up Tom Clancy again, even the OLD Rainbow Six games do it. You know what, let's go back even further. We'll ignore DOOM's coop in the early 1990s for the moment, but Hexen did an astonishing good job of cooperative play.
Seriously, CoD guy. How much crap that you didn't invent are you going to take credit for? Your game isn't new and revolutionary and groundbreaking. I'm not saying it sucks, but don't go claiming that your game is the one that brings "realism" to the table when seriously realistic, hardcore, team-based, tactical shooters have been around since 1998.
Maybe I'm being too harsh. Maybe the guy just doesn't hasn't looked on store shelves for tactical shooters recently. And by "recently," I mean "in the last ten years."
There are improvements that can be made in co-op play and realism, and I hope this title delivers. Personally I thought this was a great interview and gave some insight as to how 2 seperate developers work on the same title. The press has a general (albiet unfair) bias that Infinity Ward are the top developer and these guys are second string. Hopefully this title will change this attitude.
What... do you resent him being honest? I'm sure it would make for fascinating interviews if everyone kept a weather eye on how their remarks would look on the 10 o'clock news.
I resent that the industry can be perceived as juvenile, which is exactly what this "senior" producer is guilty of in this interview. Face facts, the lowest common denominator for flash in the pan games is violence. Sex will never be a factor, because mom and pop turn a blind eye to violence. Head shots are where they draw their parental line in the sand. I, for one, do NOT want Lieberman and the rest of the government using such quotes in some senate committee as a means of censoring my industry.
Regarding COD World at War, they could have taken that franchise in so many directions, but instead they went backwards. Time to pick apart the game...
Tanks. I've played COD4 regularly for a year, the most consecutive kills I racked up were 16, and that was mostly luck. On a good day, I call in a chopper, but mostly I am happy if I get a UAV (3 consecutive kills, for the uninformed). World at War beta? 22 consecutive kills with the tank. Less then 5 games in, 22. They set the game right back to wonky unbalanced COD3 multiplayer of getting pinned behind the house while you get shelled to death. Only now, it's worse, because they have omnipotent dogs.
Don't get me wrong, I love COD3, it used to be my favorite game. COD4 just did multiplayer better. It has the right balance. It doesn't have the Clancy TMI HUD, with drop down menus in the middle of the game, and too realistic bullet mechanics. COD4 is successful for a reason, they properly balanced frustration with fun. World at War missed the mark, and this idiot producer is probably the one to blame, since he's the one with the job title (and yeah, if I resent anything, it's how this 31 year old schmuck became a senior producer).
Are you listening Infinity Ward? Do you want to take COD5 to the next level? Persistent statistics and clan based gameplay, first. Nothing says random more then interchangeable clan names that don't even have a bearing on which team you're on. The winning dominant clan names can be spray painted on the walls instead of random (albiet authentic and atmospheric) graffiti. This gives players not only the initiative to join a clan, but also a purpose beyond prestige icons. For the record, as fun as it is to tally head shots, some of us do have lives, to get a gold AK47 taken away for a lobby icon is really demoralizing.
I would like nothing more then to pick a side, marines or russians, goto multiplayer, see a world map of which clan holds what territories, and see how much I can influence the outcome of a war. This is not far reaching. It's just keeping track of a clan name, kills for the clan in a given map, then applying that number to an overall world map. Isn't that what the icon in prestige mode is all about? Reward for your time and effort?
So Rob, this is why this Heller character rubs me the wrong way. As technically savvy as the flamethrower is, it's a gimmick. It's a gun with a chainsaw. At the end of the day, I would like my kill to death ratio to be some sort of contribution to my teammates win or loss. Statistics plays into all other sorts of successful real life games, and it could play into a fun FPS game without becoming a Second Life, or World of Warcraft, look at me I unlocked the velvet boots of Saddam. Just make my persistence into racking up head shots persistent beyond a stat I can share with my friends.
A flamethrower does not make a game nearly as well as it does a flame war between IW and Treyarch.
But no.
Instead they talk crap like this guy Heller does. Agreed that the game may be okay, but the fact is that they're taking credit for things that have already been done.
What's next? Treyarch claims to have invented the internet???
So my suggestion is to vote with your dollar. Buy or don't buy.
P.S. I've had the luxury of working with a number of publishers and devs and can say that Treyarch is on par with IW in a number of instances...it's just bigger...
And why are they obligated to thank Infinity Ward in every interview. I'm sure the engine is great, but they've also added on to it. IW will no doubt be able to use Treyarch's improvements as the two studios cooperate back and forth as I understand it. Should IW thank Treyarch for their additions in every COD6 interview?
As for not developing the franchise... IW has done COD, COD2, and COD4, Treyarch has done United Offensive (if you count Grey Matter as Treyarch), Big Red One, COD3, and now World at War. It's unfair and inaccurate to say that Treyarch hasn't "developed the franchise" in important ways, though IW obviously created it.
Criticize people for valid reasons. That's all.
He may be wrong, in our opinion, but I'd be much more worried if he WASN'T excited about the game.
Regardless, we all get to have our opinions. I don't find anything wrong with the interview.
Sounds great!
Can you get the AI to behave like "Vietcong's Fist Alpha" AI does...then you will definately have a hit...
otherwise im not interested...not other game has beaten Vietcongs Fist Alpha AI...hands down!!! Those sneaky VC make you jump off your seat while playing. To me, that is entertainment!!!
And guess what...Vietcong FA comes with an editor and and SDK. Does this game come with that?
Rick Copeland (aka Chavez_US - Co-founder www.freewebs.com/VietnamEliteTeamwork/ , pursuing bachelors degree in Game and Simulation Programming - 2nd year)
Female FPS gamers are on the rise...provide characters for them to choose from...