ESL Bogger interview with Relic.
ok, 1st off, welcome to the interview Jonny and Thunder. I can't imagine anyone who's reading this being unfamiliar with the 2 of you, so let's dive right in to the questions and an easy one 1st.
jager posted on com.dow2.com that the patch would be out in june, has he leaked the truth?
Jonny: no, I wouldn't expect the patch until late July or early August, but we're targeting July for the beta.
Thunder: Jager is a good guy, very active in the community. Don't be too hard on him for the mix-up
Jonny: keep in mind that dates can change, but those are the targets
Has there been any progress with DoW2 map editing tools?
Jonny: Thunder might have some amazing news on that front, so keep an eye on the community site
I'll take that as a yes. How are priorities for balance updates picked ?
Jonny: Firstly, we tried to fix the major imbalances
Secondly, we went through and looked at units with unclear/ineffective roles and tried to make them clear and effective units. The second one is the part that has us working til midnight.
Bogger: so you're trying to make the game more Ro sham bo like?
Jonny: I think everyone's a loser in Ro sham bo, so no
Bogger: except for rock, rock always wins
Jonny: hahah
Thunder: paper is overpowered
Obviously with map making tools, we can start pooping out a shitload of maps, but how many more maps can we expect from Relic before the next expansion?
Jonny: 1.4 will have new maps. We're also planning new maps for 1.5. As for how many, I have to give you something to look forward to
, but I think you'll be pleasantly surprised
Thunder: There are a lot of maps in the works! We'll go into numbers etc. closer to 1.4 release
There has been a noticable downgrade in the dow2 physics from Company Of heroes, why was this?
Jonny: CoH had 1 skeleton to animate. Dow2 had dozens
DoW II would have come out in 2013 if we'd put all of the animation detail into DoW II that we put into CoH
what's a skeleton?
Jonny: All units in CoH were the same size human, while DoW II had humanoids of all shapes and sizes.
with up to six limbs. This meant we had to spread our animation budget over a much larger area. It was a question of art time and animation time.
As for walls and that, we didn't have time to go through all of our world objects as meticulously and make sure they broke apart in as detailed a fashion as in CoH
Was dow2 made with a lower budget than CoH?
Jonny: they were in the same neighborhood. But DoW II was a much broader experience. 4 races instead of 2 and a much larger campaign.
Replay functionality could definitely do with improvement, I know you're working on this for the 1.4 patch are you able to give a short list of replay improvements?
Thunder: Retreat icons over retreating squads...
. We've been working on a lot of improvements for the replay system
along with observer mode?
Thunder: yes, we'll definitely be going into more detail on both very soon
1 suggestion for observer mode was hotkeys
Jonny: Hotkeys were out of the question because we didn't want people complaining that the observer system only favored people with r33t observer micro
Hotkeys won't make it in. but you will be able to see chat
Thunder: so jonny will have to watch what he says when he plays online now
Bogger: is that REALLY the reason for no hotkeys?
Jonny: hahah
Jonny: no
I presume observer mode, like in dow1, will be just a "live" version of replay mode?
Jonny: yes and no.
The functionality of observer mode will be similar to replay, but there is a lot of new functionality
will replays show lag messages as part of the chat?
Jonny: it may very well show it, I'm not sure. We never get lag when we observe internally since we're on a LAN.
Thunder: It's something to test, would you want to see them?
Jonny: I just haven't used it in a situation where lag messages would show up
definitely, from a competitive view, makes lag claims so much easier to judge on
Bogger is biased in that question, and apologises
Rumour has it that various "kinds" of observer will be included, what will the kinds be?
Jonny: I wouldn't describe it as different "kinds" of observer. The observer mode has a lot of cool new functionality that you can use while you observe.
And there are different filters you can apply.
You can apply a resource filter if you want to see a detailed comparison of the two player's resources.
Or you can apply a unit filter if you want to compare what units they have on the field and what they're training
These would show up as a box in the corner
Bogger: so a lot of stuff for livecasting, nice, these would be added to replays as well?
Jonny: yes
Bogger: and btw, I approve of poaching SC2's ideas
Jonny: I prefer the term "borrow"
Pathing has always been a problem in Relic games, how far have pathing improvements gotten?
Jonny: We've worked on pathing for the 1.4 patch, and some improvements have been made. But there are still things we'd like to improve, even with the fixes.
Units retreat more reliably now. You guys will really have to play with it and let us know
You should definitely notice improvements there, and guys should get stuck less often
Have you looked at units retreating forwards to a Techmarines' relay?
Jonny: we're looking at a fix for that, but I'm not sure it will make it into 1.4, it's doubtful we can get a quickfix for it either
Have you been working on a cede button?
Thunder: Yeah, that is something that is coming in 1.4
Task3r mentioned in the recent Xfire interview that stances might return (cease fire, ranged, CC)... is it being worked on currently?
Jonny: The only ones that would ever come back would be the toggle between melee and ranged. We're still debating it internally
I'm in favor of the toggle between ranged and melee, I see that cease fire can come in handy for labbing, but I'm not sure it's worth retooling the squad selection UI to make room for it. That's not a simple task
Bogger: what about adding it in as a hotkey, but not adding a button, seeing as labbing wouldn't be a common task as is
Jonny: yes
Bogger: and people who really want it could find the hotkey easily enough?
Jonny: but if a less experienced player accidentally hit that key with their whole army selected
Bogger: hilarity would ensue
Jonny: exactly...
Bogger:something complicated might cover that. Like ctrl+shift + F6
Jonny: that could work. Let me think that one over
Bogger: It would be nice if you made your decision public once it was made
Jonny: definitely
Auto-cover finding is another thing whose removal would improve the versatility of the game, in the Xfire Interview, task3r said you're fixing it, and if it fails, you'll add a toggleable option. A lot of players want you to add the toggle no matter how good it is, is this possible?
Jonny: We'd have to assess how complicated it would be, and how risky it would be. It's pretty complicated code and it wasn't built with an on/off switch, so turning it off could lead to a lot of bizarre bugs and boundary cases
there's no talk of disabling it completely. it is a pretty major feature
I know it frustrates pro players, but a lot of players like the cinematic feel of squads that act like real soldiers
DoW2 has been cited by Relic numerous times as a competitive e-sport title. Numerous mechanics within the game are directly incompatible with this suggestion, so how does Relic intend to progress DoW2 further as an e-sport aside from fixing obvious bug and balance woes?
Thunder: We have discussed how to make the game e-sports friendlier and our work on observer mode is a step in the direction of making the game more e-sports friendly
Jonny: we're kind of pioneering a new style of RTS, and it presents some real challenges to make it e-sport ready. We're working hard to get it there...but we can't cut defining features of the franchise
Thunder: suggestions from the community specificlly how to make the game more e-sports friendly would be welcome I think
Jonny: we're working on the pathing, we're working on the squad responsiveness and the command latency. We're also trying to make the unit relationships more nuanced and exciting
So command lag and netcode fixes are being worked on for 1.4?
Jonny: yes. We've made some improvements there.
What does Relic intend to do to attempt to keep its competitive players when games like SC2 usurp that particular playerbase?
Jonny: Keep improving the game, and keep providing exciting content
do you know if THQ have any international E-sports plans for the game?
Jonny: I know Melanie in the German office is working with the E-Sports leagues. But I don't know if she's actually hosting any official THQ events
What percentage of the current dow2 community would you say are competitive players?
Jonny: around 5%, that's pretty close to most major RTS games
Personally I'd like to get it to 100%. But a lot of people are always going to be intimidated by online competition. The reason we're putting so much support into DoW II is because we do want to grow that number. That's also why we keep releasing new content.
We're trying to keep the players that play now excited and we're hoping to draw back players that may have left and draw players that may never come online to play,
So we watch that number closely and all of our efforts are aimed at seeing it grow.
do you feel you've lost a lot of players due to bad balance?
Jonny: yes and that's why we've been working so hard on this patch
DoW2's game mechanics are drastically different from DoW1. So much so that many DoW1 veterans are put off by all the differences. Was the differentiation a conscious risk, knowing that trying to lure in new players to the RTS genre might drive off some of the "old guard" RTS players?
Jonny: Most definitely. We knew a lot of people would be upset that we had changed some fundamental things, but we hoped to attract new players and sales indicate that we have attracted a lot of new players
What do relic intend to do about units becoming obsolete in later tiers?
Jonny: this upcoming patch will do a lot to combat unit obsolescence. We have some cool posts planned and I don't want to steal the thunder from the announcement of the changes we've made, so I'm not going to dive into the details
That said, we figured out the fundamental root of the problem and we made a change that fixed it so now you'll see Tier 1 units all throughout the game.
Players felt that T1 units were a bad investment and a "necessary evil" because vehicles could make them obsolete in a matter of a minute. So we've put changes in that will make T1 units viable the whole game.
We made several changes
when can we expect these newses to start popping out?
Jonny: having the meeting tomorrow to finalize the plan but you shouldn't have to wait too long.
Thunder: not likely to be this or next week.
I await that news with high hopes
do you have any improvements planned for 1.4 leaderboard wise, such as filter by faction?
Jonny: not at present. 1.4 has a lot of content packed into it and there was only so much we could do in the few months we had
Keep in mind, bogger, we love improving the game and we're planning to keep improving the game
Bogger: but there's limited money in it, I know
Jonny: there's money in it if we have satisfied players that keep playing our game. Our goal is to give this game top-notch support. I think you guys will be pretty excited about what you get in 1.4
if I've been a bit evasive and coy in the interview, it's because I don't want to pre-empt a lot of things
you've been straighter than I have any right to expect
The Lictorbug when he refuses all control, was mentioned as fixed in 1.3 patch notes, but it's still happening. have you fixed it for 1.4?
Jonny: we're trying to figure out why the fix didn't work. If we do...it will be fixed in 1.4
I have to run to my next meeting, but thanks for taking the time to do this and feel free to edit any bad grammer
ok, that was the last question I'll ask :-) thanks for giving up your lunch and thanks for being our surprise guest
I dont really get your first question.
May 20 2009, 10:55 PM
Quote
0.0513sec
0.58
7 queries
GZIP Disabled