Kotaku
I got a chance to sneak over to Ubisoft's San Francisco office during the Game Developers Conference and sit down with Michael de Plater, creative director Tom Clancy's EndWar, to talk about the upcoming voice-command strategy game. Better still, I also got a chance to actually play it—and what I saw impressed me.
De Plater said that part of the impetus for the game was the fact that, as real-time strategies have evolved, the genre has left a lot of people behind. People like my dad, even people, in some cases, like me. People, basically, who aren't interested in dealing with a Zerg rush five minutes into the game and instead want to play something a bit closer to, say, a detailed and realistic game of chess.
"One of the things we hear a lot of us is 'I used to love real time strategies, but it's gotten too complex'," he said. "So we decided to make a tactical game, slow the pace down. We call this game strategy at the speed of thought."
While the developers put a lot of effort into both the game design and user interface to make it pick-up and play, that doesn't mean it doesn't have depth.
For instance, the game, due out on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 this fall, only has seven unit types, such as anti-tank, tank, light infantry and helicopters. But there are about 300 upgrades for the units. And the units, which gain experience during combat, keep both their experience and upgrades from battle to battle on the game's more than two dozen maps. With that in mind, the game has the ability to evacuate units in the middle of battle. If you get them out before they die you can still use them in the next match.
All of the buildings in the maps are destructible. Nothing new, but EndWar has a fairly sophisticated MMO-ish online component that looks at the game's 40 territories at the end of each day and averages out the outcome of all the matches to decide which of the three factions won which territory.
So the pick-up-and-play isn't really about the game being easy as much as it is about it being accessible. A key component of that, of course, is the voice commands which allow someone to play an RTS on large maps on a console without getting frustrated. The voice commands let you manage the battlefield from any location on the map.
"One of the fundamental differences between a mouse and keyboard and this is the level of precision," de Plater said. "So a big part of the AI is that you give commands like a general.
"War should be a series of intelligence decisions."
In other words, you can't tell your units to take cover behind a building during an attack, only that they should attack, the rest is up to them.
Verbal commands are typically broken down into three steps. First you say the unit's name, then the order and finally the goal. For instance, to move a unit you just say "Unit three move to Yankee"
To create a group you say "Calling all gunships create team, red team."
To order a group to attack you say "Red team attack hostile one."
The game is surprisingly good at recognizing not just when you get it right, but even when you say it wrong. The main problem, De Plater said, is where people put the microphone. Too close and it can cause some major distortion issues.
The game starts off with a simple voice tutorial that teaches you, not the game. This way gamers' are taught what to say instead of teaching the game to learn a bunch of different ways to do the same thing.
After talking with De Plater a bit about the game, he handed over an Xbox 360 controller and headset to let me give it a go. Within minutes I was ordering troops around the battlefield mostly flawlessly. In fact, the few times I misspoke and used the wrong command, the game still knew what I was getting at.
The game felt an awful lot like a one-player version of World in Conflict to me. You don't have to construct units or bases, instead, you spend all of your times issuing commands and keeping an eye on the battlefield. The fact that you don't really use the controller for much more than moving around on the map or holding a button so you can talk to your online opponents, the game felt much more immersive than your typical strategy title. I felt as if I was viewing a battlefield from a far, issuing commands to my troops and watching, like one might a chess match, as my tactics and the tactics of my opponent unfolded.
Having said that, there are some potentially game-killing stumbling blocks. I didn't see any issues with the friendly AI while playing around with the game, but when you have zero direct control over your units if they get that wrong then the game is dead in the water.
I also really didn't play enough to get a sense of how challenging the game would be to play. A big issue, I think, is that Ubisoft can't make your units too smart. As many of you pointed out, you don't really want to play a game that essentially has you saying into a microphone "Get out there and kick some ass for me."
Finding the correct balance between no-neck, brainless AI and a self-reliant army of ass-kicking automatons has got to be tricky—and it's where this game will live or die, I suspect.
What does surprise me is that, at least based on my time with it, the unusual interface, using mostly your voice to control the game, won't be an issue at all. It seems both seamless and a function that actually adds quite a bit to the experience.
Comments
Had almost zero interest in this before reading the above. Now I am leaning towards at least a rental. If they can balance this right it could be a lot of fun.
Even if Ubisoft doesn't perfect the technology or AI this time around, this is a pretty big step up for an RTS and game controls in general. I remember the old days of Bridge Commander where it was a big deal that you could speak into a microphone, "Red alert!" and the Enterprise would go into red alert.
The MMO component intrigues me as well. Chromehounds did something similar, but they made the mistake that beating an AI was faster and counted for just as many points as beating a human, so everybody just went one-on-one matches against AIs to earn "points" for the territory because that was the most efficient way to do it. Hopefully Ubisoft know this and plan to counter it.
I'm looking forward to hearing more about this game as it's developed. Wiki says it's due out in the fall?
I am really looking forward to this title, so I hope Ubisoft is able to get it right.
Any word on what Ubisoft is doing for the PSP and DS versions that they mentioned previously?
Also, I think you meant "A big issue" and not "I big issue."
This game looks great, is it on the OC also?
Really interesting, thats exactly how it should be, feeling like a general observing over his troops
Can't wait to try it out! I can't believe no developers thought of voice control yet (or perhaps some have, and it was a flop every time.) Looks like theyre giving the player a much greater sense of power than usual in games.
Same here. I've been burning out on RTS games lately because I'm tired of the Zerg rush phenomenon; if Endwar can deliver good gameplay that isn't reliant on saturation attacks, then I'm interested. That the game uses voice commands only piques my interest further.
-- Steve
This game is going to look amazing, i've been wanting a smaller type of RTS like this for a long time. We'll see how it goes tho wit Ubisoft, they've brought out some good games before, but have also brought out some bad ones. Only time will tell as this game gets closer to it's release
I think they saw how well the DS used the microphone and said, "Why not on the console?" and we have a game for the consoles. I think this could be interesting, if not embarassing to play.
@Simv2.0:
I have almost zero interest in this...poor.
Very interesting.
My father is also a huge fan of RTSs and plays (usually) the original Command and Conquer often. I recently introduced him to StarCraft while he was back home on a Rest and Recuperation from Iraq, and I'm hoping he enjoys the campaigns as the 3 SC factions as well.
Hopefully EndWar is released on the PC platform so that he would be able to try this type of strategy on his laptop.
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I do think there is a problem developing in the RTS genre, and SC2 seems as though it will contribute to it. The idea of an RTS as an series of (intelligent) intelligence decisions, more specifically recreating the sense of playing chess, is being diminished by the amount of "micro-management" in so many of the troops.
Forgive me for using a Blitzkrieg that can be defeated ala strategy. Personally, not speaking generally here so note that, I've never seen a zerg rush tactic work unless a really really good player was doing it.
First Tom Clancy game I've been interested in for a few years now.
I like that we're burning out on RTS because of the zerg rush phenomenon of 10 YEARS AGO. Does that mean RTS (a genre I admit I don't usually play) has gotten even more hardcore (though in Starcraft's case I am not convinced "he who clicks fastest" is a complex, hardcore strategy) over the past 10 years, or has it been effectively dead in the water to new gamers since 1998?
I don't think any RTS could ever be compared to games like Chess, at least not in the sense that it would be turn-based and calmly giving everyone time to do what they want, because the very essence of it is that it happens in real-time; you MUST hurry. Even if there is no quick-to-develop zergling, the match is going to the person who makes use of effective strategies faster, not slower.
Anyway, I'm not convinced.
@Black-Dog-Howls: For example. A decent defense force composed of early build units can usually be built up with in the time frame of a zerg rush in most RTS' and set up at an ambush point.
@gsilverfish: Meh, strategies on beating the rush have been ironed out a long time ago. Utilizing a decent choke point and controlling the high ground near your base tends to nullify the rush in most cases. People also tend to forget that in a good deal of these games your resource gatherers can attack as well.
Watch a decent game of Starcraft and the guy that rushes tends to lose quickly. There are far more dangerous rushes than that of the zerg variety.
Back when I was a decent SC player, i had the art of dropping a speed-enhanced overlord carrying 2x lurkers down to a 7 minute science. Best part was when you'd drop on their drones (obviously),and kill all their drones. They'd sit there for a good 5 minutes with no ability to gather/build, then just leave.
If you want chess, play Supreme Commander/Total Annihilation. If you want Checkers, play C&C3/Starcraft, respectively.
There's nothing wrong with the genre. Not even a little bit. The only people that are being "left behind" are those with too little patience (or just time) to sit down and enjoy an RTS experience. Shouting commands into a microphone might be adding something new to the genre but it's not going to change the fact that many people simply don't have the patience for RTS games.
What I want to know is if you'd still be able to play basically private matches with just your friends if you don't really care about the world conquest stuff. Because so far they haven't really mentioned any multiplayer options other than the world conquest stuff.
This is the one game that makes my brother interested in playing RTS' on consoles. He's a huge strategy buff in all sorts of games (FFTactics, Master of Orion 3, Total War, StarCraft, Chess) and really thinks this could be something quite different. I'm typically useless at strategy titles, but this interests me too. Personally, the voice gimmick makes the game, and I can't wait to be talking to myself in a darkened room - just like old times!
@Pombar: Oh NOES! Please tell me he played MOO2, 3 was.... well, not so hot.
i wonder what other game types could benefit from voice commands? JRPGs maybe? "Cloud, attack orc!"
... You're saying Starcraft isn't "like a game of chess"?
And you write for Kotaku?
Probably the first rts that doesn't put consoles at a disadvantage, in some respects.
I just cant get into these kind of games.
@Black-Dog-Howls: Yes, "defense of any kind" usually works pretty well against an early rush. ;)
What I meant to say is that speed is a critical factor in any real-time game, not that the zerg rush was unbeatable, and like you say, it totally isn't, but all else being equal, the player who gets what he wants up and running faster is the player who wins.
The fact that you said that this was similar to World in Conflict has piqued my interest even more. Seeing this announced a few months back, I was definitely watching this game but over the past few weeks, the media dump has already sold me on this game.
Personally, I've always loved the persistent campaigns and the gaining and losing of territory. Not sure what it is that makes them so compelling, maybe just the feeling that you're making a difference, however small it may be. Hopefully Ubisoft is going to constantly tweak and adjust the map so that wars don't last a day or two but take a few weeks and require actual strategy on the part of the players.
This is the perfect type of RTS for me, though, and it also seems to be the perfect type of RTS for consoles as well. Constantly rushing or turtling gets tiresome in a game, so looking at EndWar where it looks like it's more squad based and has an emphasis on tactics is a breath of fresh air. Hopefully we'll get a demo or beta sometime over the summer so that we can get a taste of this or help iron out the last little kinks.
I am looking forward to this.
I do think RTS games need to be shaken up a bit ... making them more complex isn't the way to make a great game. Look at great board games -- the rules are relatively simple, yet allow for great depth.
I personally loved a game called Ground Control that took out all of the resource elements -- I guess World in Conflict is made by the same developer, right? I should try that out ...
I'm actually excited that this takes away the twitch aspect of those types. I'm definitely very interested in this now.
@jayntampa: I thought World in Conflict was awesome. The matches laster about 15-20 minutes and you were in the action as soon as your troops were dropped in. I fell in love with the Russian Artillery and would just bomb away at the battlezones until I had enough points to call in a tactical nuke. If your computer can run it, or you have a 360 and can wait a little bit, pick it up in a heart beat.
I'm a little sceptical, as the phrase "console rts" normally makes me shudder...
It does sound awesome though... I hope it is!
Personally, I didn't like World in Conflict very much, so for me I think this is probably a no buy. Plus there's the fact that AFAIK Ubisoft has no previous RTS experience, so I'm not sure they will be able to deliver a balanced game. I am however pretty intrigued by the voice recognition tech.
And FWIW, in Starcraft at least, once they increased the cost of the Spawning Pool, it made the 4 pool rush defendable for every race. You do however have to prepare for it in your build order. I think if you're looking for a more chess-like experience, turn-based 4x strategy games are a better bet.
@Atheist Jew: As much as I love TA and SupCom, it's not really like chess. You start with one unit, you build a massive war machine while capturing and securing more resources, and then you eventually conquer your opponent. There is a huge learning curve to that style of RTS. I keep trying to get my friends into it, but it's not a game that a noob can just pick up.
This one is developed specifically for RTS-noob-infested consoles. You start with all of your pieces for the map, nothing is built. So it's just that conquering part of the above formula. And you do it with an entirely new and intuitive interface. I think it'll breathe new life into the genre.
Think about it. Like shift-queuing up buildings was in TA, voice commands could be the next required feature in future RTS games if they do this right.
@jihadjoe343: I do think my computer could handle it, but I might wait for the 360 reviews to see how the controls work. I will pick it up, though ... thanks.
I can't wait until the day that this sort of game can get layed on top of a FPS ... where when a round begins, the objectives are set by the "general," and teams of players actually then compete to complete the goals. If it were seamless, it could be really fun. I know it was attempted in the Battlefield series to some extent, but ...
The problem I have with RTS games now is that strategies aren't varied enough to be like a 'game of chess'. You generally have one tried and proven way for an army to tech/build, and thats the only way to be the most effective. So you get two people going through the game almost on automation, sticking to a build list / tech order for that specific map. Nothing is very spontanious, and theres is very little 'real-time' tactics involved - players are encouraged to pick one certain overall strategy and stick to it to the end.. and the game degenerates into who can mass the most cost effective units the quickest and overwhelm the other guy.
Yes, there are exceptions, and when you get two 'thinker' type players together that abandon the build-lists and try new things the games can be extremely fun. But then those players get matched with the automated number-crunching stat junkies and get their ass handed to them because they didn't play their side in the same pre-programmed way.
This game sounds interesting because it seems to be taking micro-management out of the equasion for the most part. To me this can be a good and bad thing, but deffinitely a direction I'd like to see these games go. I don't want to have to babysit a unit to make it effective, but at the same time I would like the control to tell it exactly where to sit or take cover. I don't want a game that plays itself, but I also don't want to have to manually tell every tank how to back out of combat and every soldier which enemy to focus fire on.
Can't wait to yell and cuss at my units because I'll suck so bad at the game and will get my ass handed to me :P
Still have zero interest in the title. Generic looking military designs we keep seeing, and the whole voice control, no thanks. It's an interesting idea and pretty neat, but not something I want to play.
@Kyle81: Tom Clancy games are based on reality so I'm not really sure what you were expecting there in terms of designs. Everything they've implemented is supposedly in existence or being researched.
@Candlejack: Don't do that, they'll turn on you. They can hear you ya know.
I really have high hopes for this. I'm not much of an RTS fan, but this game somehow caught my interest when it was first announced, and it's done nothing but increase that interest since then. If this game ends up being as good as it should be, then perhaps it will pave the road for more console RTSes and spark a deeper interest in the genre for me.
@slikz21: Bah. Mind control ftw! :D
Really looking forward to this game. My 3v3 Warcraft3 team used to be in the top 5% percentile. Will be a blast for sure!
some people from the Total War series are working on this.
that automatically = must buy for me.
Total war is my favorite franchise, like you said, i hate 5 minute zerg rushes, total war is not like that, instead, again like you said, its a realistic version of chess, it is a perfect description.
if you actually play the campaign for total war it takes months to beat with at least 6 hours of playing time a day. and when i say beat is when you know you have won the campaign, after that its just cleaning up the barbarians.
i hope this game is just like that, instead of following a linear storyline(R6V, COD4, they are shooters but just keep reading)where they give you a specific path over a series of areas, they instead just tell you whats going on, brief you on extras, and stick you out there and let you do your stuff(like in R6 Raven Shield, SOCOM, and total war).
@Bael: Exactly, that's why I rarely play RTS in multiplayer; there's no longer any creativity involved. It's become a number game. The only inventiveness and cleverness involved is only at the top tier of players, and the barrier to entry to that level of gameplay is so high it's negligible.
The simpler the rules, the more creative strategy can be for a game.
If this game doesn't work then halo wars will being made by ensemble the AoE gods. lol But i like that I will be just putting units in the right place and not telling them where to aim, when to use grenades, and basically wiping their own butts. What i'm trying to say is that If I put Anti-tank unit here next to an enemy tank the enemy shouldn't rape my guys because he can move to point A activate an ability then click on the screen 50 times to kill my unit.
If they are worried about making the ally A.I. "too inteligent", why don't they just counter balance by making the enemy A.I. just as smart? I would think that by now we'd be able to make a game where you command units, that they automatically find cover and attack defensively rather than just standing there shooting up at the sky.
But this article increased my interest rate of this game by 10 melons. I just hope they release a demo before it ships or i'll just wait for reviews
@ArmyofJuan: I think the fear is that by making the AI in the game so smart that you and I are basically just saying "go find the enemy while I grab a beer" and the game plays itself.
So...what I gather is that they're tuning the game to a level where I can place my units and not have to micromanage each reload or shot, but when they get attacked, know how to react and defend themselves. It feels like, from what I've read, they're trying to find that sweet spot where we can be the generals and change the course of battle, but not have to worry about the nitty gritty stuff.
After reading an IGN article yesterday it seems like they might put out a beta which seems like it'd be one of the few that have an actual reason for existing. That way they could tune the voice commands and difficulty or autonomous level of our troops.
"We call this game strategy at the speed of thought." ouch that one hurt my ego
P.S. how fast would you think "speed of tought" is on Xbox Live? :D
Didn't care about this before, but am interested now. Good article, BC.
@Atheist Jew: The only thing wrong with the genre in my opinion is if your like me, who LOVES RTS games, you start to feel a little bored that there is little evolution in the game. Everything is too similar except a few little differences in how resources or build queue are handled. I still love playing every RTS just to experince those little differences, but this is the first step in hopefully a major change in RTS games. I dont mind its more casual, as long as it offers up RTS thats done differently and well. Heres hoping. I am dead excited for this one.
My interest has just peaked.
I can't wait to the moment when i finally can do it, a la BloodSport
I: Say it !!!
I: Say it grandma !!!
Grandma: G...
I: Say it !!!
Grandma: GeeeeGeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee !!!!
I think people who feel that RTS's have become too complex would enjoy solely tactical war games. Honestly, Supreme Commander is something I'd love to pour hours into learning, but I'd love playing general instead of beaurocrat a lot more.
If EndWar just cuts out all srategic elements (economy, base building) and sits you with a preset army and you have at it, the game will be boring. But, if the units act like intelligent soldiers, the customization is deep (300 for 7 units types? That sounds hopeful), and there are more micro-manage oriented game mechanics, I think this will bring people back in to war games.
I'd have to hear something p