Tacitus Thursday - Interview with Sam Bass

[Sonic 295]

The latest Tacitus Thursday feature has be posted on the Official C&C 3 Site. This week its an interview with the Lead Designer for Kane's Wrath, Sam Bass. In this interview he explains what it takes to make a great single player mission, you will also get a peek at some design documents. Overall its an interesting look at the development process. Here is a couple of samples.

 

When designing a campaign mission for Kane's Wrath, what key learning's from Command & Conquer 3 did you takeaway to best design missions for Kane's Wrath?

 

The levels I responded to most strongly in CNC3 were ones that demonstrated roughly a 1:3 balance between traditional scripted content and more dynamic AI driven encounters. Consequently, when I started putting together the Kane’s Wrath campaign, I decided to lean relatively heavily on our AI system, allowing for both a more focused scripting effort and greater responsiveness from our NPC Players. This resulted in some strong, flexible missions allowing for a variety of tactical approaches. Oddly enough, many reviews have mistaken AI behaviour for purely scripted content, which speaks to the quality of our underlying systems in replicating a "hand built" Player experience.

 

Do you design the mission first, or do you write the script for the movies in the game first and build the missions off of that? How do you go back and forth?

 

In general, we take a two pronged approach - coming up with both the story we want to tell and a list of potential mission designs we'd like to explore. The places where those dovetail became the basis of our campaign design. That said, in the case of Kane's Wrath the story came first, primarily because we were on a shorter schedule run a lot smoother.

Click here for the full interview.

[Luk3us 63]

Why can't they interview someone interesting? Whilst I'm sure its very interesting to some how they made the lacklustre SP missions that they did, I'd rather hear stuff on RA3.

[recover 2]

Pretty nice.

I can imagine this is something new mappers and modders could value, a nice walkthrough of how to create a decent level.

[Saracen 16]

Whilst I'm sure its very interesting to some how they made the lacklustre SP missions that they did

 

They weren't lacklustre... just still too god damn symmetrical.

 

I'm gonna put on my critical shoes here. But EA seem to be so damn afraid of grabbing map balance by the balls! While the Kane's Wrath maps were more varied and such, they were still way too predictable and boring. I mean that in the sense of scouting the landscape, finding choke points and ambush areas, and finding out what are the best strategical points, like a hill or valley or something that isn't mirrored on the other side of the map!

 

Also what happened to varied interesting map Single Player map designs like those found in the BfME games? Or what about some of those really great single player maps in the original C&C games... Those are what I miss. Sure, it may be great to try and close the gap between Multiplayer/Singleplayer but people want some damn variety to their battlefields.

 

I sure hope Red Alert 3 doesn't take the symmetrical map path. I'm all for a great deal of polish, but the map makers seem to be leaning on the heavy side of pure laziness. Sure it takes time to test and balance maps and such, but we've got a Beta around the corner.... so for god's sake EA let us see some map makers that aren't afraid to give us some kick-ass maps that require an extra layer of decent strategical thought.

 

And to finish this off... We need back an option to enable black shroud so we don't see the entire map when the mission starts. Fog of war is great and all, but from an Old School RTS perspective, temporary black shroud was perfect! It also ties heavily into the strategy required while playing on real, decent, classic asymmetrical maps!

[Luk3us 63]

You see, when they go and use Skirmish maps that tells me they were too LAZY to bother making proper maps. Sure, they could do it for maybe one map, but when they do it for more than 3 missions, Which factors into the lacklustre SP experience as a whole.

 

Also not that much thought went into the design of missions. I mean an example is the steel Talons mission, where your meant to defend against attacks... Guess what happens if you smash the base before capping the building? NOTHING.... And then you have that lame Kane vid at the end, pointless much? Yes.

 

Another example, Second to last mission, same deal again.

 

Another example, mission with temple prime. Green bases overwhelm Temple prime and attacks it with 3897328947 units, which lags the game to a damn halt.

 

So yes, lacklustre missions.