XFire Dev Chat

Heute früh lief per XFire ein weiterer Entwicklerchat. Insgesamt wurden 42 neue Fragen beantwortet. Es waren zwar ein paar weniger sinnvolle Fragen dabei, alles in allem aber ein sehr interessanter Chat. So wurde unter anderem gleich mehrmals die Collector’s Edition erwähnt. Auch sehr interessant: Nachdem man einen Planeten mit dem Todesstern zerstört hat, entsteht ein Asteroidenfeld und man kann dort noch seine Raumstation bauen.

Teilgenommen haben:
Chris Rubyor (Delphi-PG) – Game Designer
Mike Legg (petroglyphmike) – Hauptprogrammierer und Präsident von Petroglyph
Joe Bostic (joebwan123) – Petroglyph Design Director

Hier nun das komplette Chat Log:

The list will be very similar to BF2/Generals.
[mehr]
petroglyphmike: What game engine was used in the making of the game and did you make a custom engine?

We wrote the engine and tools all from scratch – including the Alamo rendering engine. We started in November of 2003.

Players will be able to capture unique points on the battlefield giving access to cool unique units. There will also be multiplayer specific heroes for teams. In addition, we also have a wide array of options to play around with and customize.

We wanted to capture the ‚you are part of the action‘ experience that was in the movies. The models were not originally designed for viewing up close, but we were surprised, that many of them worked well. Of course, we made many adjustments to bring up the close-up quality of many of the units.

As you can tell by all the fun mods to the demo, the game engine is very mod-able and data driven. When the final version of the game ships, you will see how fully mod-able it is. We tried to make it as data driven as possible.

We had to work within the Star Wars universe and this provided many of the resources (vehicles and ships) we needed, but LucasFilm was very cooperative when we needed to add more units to fit in places where we needed specific kinds of units to fill specific roles. For example, the T4-B tank was not strictly part of Star Wars lore, but is now.

Yes, infantry have been tuned and tweaked since the release of the demo. Like most RTS games post launch we will be watching the online community closely and tweaking the game as needed.

The story starts a few years before the beginning of Episode IV, but it does continue into and through that movie a bit. You get to participate in a bit of the back story of the famous characters as well such as „what was Han Solo doing before all that trouble with Jabba the Hutt?“ You’ll find out.

Yes EAW will have a ladder for Land, Space tactical and MP campaigns.

petroglyphmike: Was it difficult to stay within the confines of the current technology in use by a lot of people, and not go overboard with the graphics and game AI?

Since we wrote everything from scratch, it was not very difficult. We made the engine to work well on the min-spec but look amazing on the high-end systems. There is a ton of AI in the game, especially in the strategic Galactic level, which required a lot of profiling and optimizing. The graphics were pushed to the max in land and space.

It took about 2 years to develop. All things considered, I’m a bit surprised we were able to accomplish so much in so short a time. The three areas of gameplay combined with starting a company (and even having to move offices three times) were quite a challenge. One could say that LucasArts was very easy to work with and made our job much easier than it could have been.

Yes, LucasArts has been very helpful. We even got movie and assets for Episode III units before the movie was released! Of course the Star Wars database LucasFilm maintains was invaluable to reference.

With LucasArts, we wanted to have really great space and land battles, so we needed to bridge them together. Strategic galactic mode was created out of this, and made for a great top-level real-time (not turn-based) strategic component. The persistence of units between the battles, combined with the fact that units can be on land or in space was a lot of fun to us.

Yes, Red Squadron is the counter to the Death, but it requires long and intense tactical battle to achieve victory. The Death Star is immune to Ion Cannons.

„Pads“ (the spots where you can build any number of defensive turrets or tactical combat affecting structures) are on most planets. The number and placement are governed by the type of planet. Example: A swamp planet might not have as many since there is the water/mud issue.

We started in November of 2003, with just a couple of people. For the first 18 months, we developed design, assets, code and tools until the engine was mostly complete. We then locked in on implementing the game play for the next 6 months. By the end, the team size was up to the low-mid 30’s. We’re about to move to our 4th office location that is being built now.

Capital ships are considered destroyed when all hard points have been eliminated.

Most RTS’s take a while to load, especially the really detailed ones. We put the loading code in its own „thread“, which runs simultaneously with other code. Space maps load faster since there is no terrain map to load. Land maps are a little slower to load. With the map size, load speed decreases a bit. We also keep the persistent galactic mode in RAM at all times (even on min-spec).

Of course. Until you play Palpatine, that is. Then once you play Boba Fett, you may change your mind as the seismic charge Slave I drops is devastating. Each hero has powers and abilities. In the right place and right time, each one can dominate the situation. The trick is knowing when it is time to bring in a particular hero into battle.

EAW Does not have direct IP connect at this time; all custom and quick matching are done

We never expected anyone to mod the demo – but thought it was great. When the real mod support is enabled, there will not be restrictions on file sizes. It will be quite easy to mod and expand.

Yes, and that is what makes each hero better than just „more powerful with more hit points“. The special abilities are what makes one hero more appropriate than another given a particular situation. For example, if you have lots of infantry (Ewoks, for example) that need frying, Emperor Palpatine is the best choice. Although, Boba Fett’s flame thrower also works efficiently.

I personally love that there is a real-time galactic (strategy) mode binding the tactical RTS battles together, with persistence of all the units and structures. I also think the Star Wars heroes are great, along with the tactical „hard points“ on the capital ships, that can be individually targeted based on your strategy (it’s fun to have big units composed of smaller hard point targets).

EAW will support 1vs1 for online campaign mode and 2-8 players for skirmish ground and space tactical games. For clarity, tactical games are one off maps similar to that of a traditional RTS, campaign follows in the footsteps of the single-player game.

We struggled quite a bit on the galactic UI. It went through MANY variations before we settled on the version you see. We were mindful of the console market as well, so if we do a console version of some kind, I’m sure we’ll build upon it.

Not at the same time, but during land battles you can call in attack forces from orbit if you have them there. Also, if you’ve built defenses on the ground of the planet and are having a space battle, you can call in attacks with those weapons from the surface. It’s all part of the persistence of structures and units between land and space. You’d better think twice about attacking a space station when they have an Ion Cannon down on the planet

All heroes can be ultimately defeated, and certain ones could trigger a game loss. Other heroes can be defeated and will leave the area, only to return later for more fun.

Oh yeah – gloriously so! It’s really cool that you can build storm trooper squads to vehicles to fighters to mid-size ships to star destroyers to the Death Star. It’s quite a feeling of empowerment to wipe a planet permanently off the galactic map – reducing it to an asteroid field.

Actually both. It really wasn’t a „one or the other“ decision since they play quite differently. For example, in early versions, we forced all tactical battles to be auto-resolved and the galactic game turned into a galactic ‚chess match‘ experience. It was quite fun. However, skirmish (aka „tactical mode“) is where the most man-hours were spent due to land & space modes.

EAW has code in place to detect altered files. If you try to connect to a player with a modified version of the game, the system will go “Out of Sync.” For tournament games, a players profile will track out of syncs allowing us to see which players are trying to exploit the system.

Wait until you see it – it looks SO COOL! I was really blown away. There are some other bonus goodies along with it, too.

Yes, there is the Rebel Infiltrator that is equipped with a sniper-type weapon. The Accuser Star Destroyer has a powerful beam weapon that can „snipe“ smaller ships effectively. Then, of course, the Imperial Hypervelocity Gun is the ultimate space „sniping“ weapon!

Yes, the area becomes a big asteroid field and you can still build your space station there. Oh yeah, did I say the special edition looks ABSOULTELY AWESOME? Wait until you see it.. Oh, and the Special Edition will also have extra content like maps, art, awesome screensavers, etc.

We wanted to break from the old-school RTS formula of „harvest harvet harvest build build build fight game-over. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. 10-15 times“. The RTS genre needed to stretch a bit and adding a strategic level of control was the area that made each battle have a larger meaning in the grand scheme, but in a way that was under player control.

Yep! This is all done through XML and Lua scripting system.

Some Jawa over in the corner of the cantina took a pot shot at Ben, which deflected off his light saber, and accidentally hit poor Greedo.

The AI is really amazing in my opinion. The tactical battle RTS AI will sometimes try to pull tricks on you, or even lure you. At the galactic level, it is very complex because it needs to think like a human player in a grand strategy game. Ultimately, we tried to make the AI so that it would not be impossible to beat, but rather provide and fun and challenging experience for everyone – casual to hard-core gamers.

We have not made any official announcement yet regarding the editor (but the odds are good), so keep checking the EAW web site for more info right after the game comes out.

Our team members got to take multiple trips to Skywalker ranch for lunches and research – that was amazing. With LucasArts moving to the Presidio with the other LucasFiim divisions, those have made for some really fun trips. The new LucasFilm campus is absolutely amazing! Our LucasArts friends work in an amazing environment!

We looked at games that were only 2d (armada) and fully 3D (homeworld) and decided to do half way since full 3D movement, although realistic, was very hard for average player to manage. We wanted it to be easy to understand, control, and plot strategy without the 3D element confusing the less experienced player.

Not really, for the demo we increased the build times to help speeds things up. In the full version, build times have been balanced out so they take longer based on the unit and its capabilities. This also applies to structures and super weapons.

Possibly. First, take a Rancor. Then using infantry, lure him near some Ewoks. Watch the fun ensue. Thanks guys, off to play some more tactical space multiplayer games with the design crew!

Delphi-PG: Thanks guys, off to play some more tactical space multiplayer games with the design crew!