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GC 2007 - Day 2: Eve, Conan, Quake Wars and more

GC 2007 - Day 2: Eve, Conan, Quake Wars and more

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars

Paul 'Locki' Wedgwood, Owner and Creative Director of Splash Damage ran us a demo of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. The game was in near final shape, and a lot has changed since Beta 1. As our preview stated back then, the first beta looked a bit crummy and there were some gameplay issues as well. It turns out the beta was actually a beta, and not a marketing push. These days many betas are nothing but near-finished demos of the final that don't change much beyond fixing any crash bugs.

Not so with ET:QW - the first beta was a true beta, a stripped down build with the smallest map in the game, many unfinished bits and non-final graphics assets; the goal of Beta 1 was actually to test if everything worked, and to solicit early feedback. A lot has changed since then, and while ET:QW is not really pushing the outer edge of the envelope for PC graphics, it definitely looks a lot better now than it looked back then.

The demo ran on an  Intel Core 2 Quad 2.93GHz coupled with a  NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTX, so unsurprisingly it was very smooth even at 1920x1200 with 4xAA and 8xAF. Paul was quick to emphasize that the game won't need such hardware to run the game. Their minimum specification is set at "Quake 4 + one step higher gen GPU" and this is a system that actually runs the game, not something that just boots up the game without crashing. They actually playtest in-house with GeForce FX5700-grade systems to ensure that the game will run even on an older system.

Originally ET: QW wasn't supposed to have bots. iD helped out as they had hired a programmer specifically to program highly advanced bots, and that way they got included into ET: QW as well. You can play with bots offline, in a LAN with couple of players plus bots, or you can use them to fill up servers when needed.

Each of the twelve maps tells a part of the story of the Strogg invasion of earth. Each map has a specific flow of battle with military objectives to complete instead of just the usual capture-the-flag gameplay. Levels are designed with specific "front lines" in mind, with battle moving from one line to another as players capture objectives.

New players can also help the team by completing "canned" missions the game dishes out based on the situation on the field, but the same system can be used by experienced players to give out objectives to other players on the same team. You can use a radial menu or old fashioned multiple page menu, with the most important commands available in both, but the more in-depth ones included in the paged menu.

In summary, the game looked great and seemed to play well. I was impressed by the changes and those of you who know me - I'm definitely not easy to impress. If you have only tried the first Beta and were kinda bummed with the game, there is a reason to take another look as what you saw back then was far from final. The game is on track for release late September in Europe, 2nd of October in the US with a final demo coming out a few weeks before the full launch.

Warhammer Online

Jeff Hickman (Senior Producer) and Paul Barnett (Design Manager), from EA Mythic, were playing the crowd at the GOA booth. First we got a presentation that included the revelation of four new playable character classes - two for the High Elves, two for the Dark Elves. We got some fun verbal fencing as Paul Barnett played along as Dark Elf sympathizer, while Jeff Hickman favoured the High Elves. The crowd was definitely on Paul's side, favouring the Dark Elves.

Jeff Hickman giving a presentation and tossing out phat lewt.	The presentation introduced Dark Elves and High Elves.
Explaining the progression of the Dark and High Elf play areas.	Revealing four Warhammer Online character classes.
Dark Elf - Black Guard	High Elf - Archmage
Dark Elf - Witch Elf	High Elf - Swordmaster

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