World In Conflict Q&A Feature

Pencilled in for a release on PC during the third quarter of 2007, Vivendi Games and Massive Entertainment's World in Conflict is an Action Real-Time Strategy title that details a Soviet invasion of North America at the end of the 1980s.

Forgoing the traditional resource gathering and micro-management for quick paced action that can potentially build up to devastating nuclear explosions in US towns and cities, the game is set to inject a strong, visceral gameplay experience both offline and online.

Recently, TVG spoke with Martin Walfisz, President and Founder of Massive Entertainment, about the action-RTS. Having been given the chance to play test the first mission of the game, which charts the first few days following the Soviet's invasion, we began by asking Walfisz how World in Conflict would appeal to both a hardcore RTS audience, and the general set of gamers:

TVG: Obviously there's a desire to create a game that appeals to as wide an audience as possible, but what is World in Conflict's appeal for some of the more dedicated RTS gamers used to traditional titles out there?

It's still, in very many ways, a traditional strategy game. You still buy units, though we call them 'reinforcements'; you still have resources, though you don't harvest; there is only a certain amount of resources to be had, and it's still very tactical - you need to use your combat units in the most efficient way. What we've done is remove the economic simulation from the equation. I'm sure there'll be some strategy gamers who'll miss that, but I also think that if they sit down and play this they'll realise that they'll have as much fun with this game.

TVG: World in Conflict in that respect joins what appears to be an increasing number of RTS games that implement new ways for resource management - like Star Wars: Empire at War and Company of Heroes. Do you think that this is a long-term direction for the genre to take, especially when other titles like Command & Conquer 3 utilise resource management in the more traditional sense?

I think there's definitely room for both, and I think that a lot of strategy developers have over the years tried to be breath some fresh air into a genre that is a lot of fun to play, but not very innovative. With World in Conflict I think we have something that is innovative, but not for the sake of innovation.

It actually works and is innovative enough - I'm obviously biased but I think we have the formula that people are going to feel is a new take on strategy games that really works. In a way I am both hoping, and not hoping, that there will be a bunch of World in Conflict clones in a couple of years after it's out.

TVG: The gameplay is much more focused on action and about getting into the battlefield rather than resource managements; do you feel that World in Conflict lends itself more easily for a release on consoles?

Well like you said, it's more action-orientated, more 'arcadey' in that sense, so yeah for being a strategy game it probably does fit better onto consoles than other strategy games. That's something that we'll have to decide in the future, right now we're focusing on making sure that the PC version is fantastic. If we can do a console version in the future, we'll see about it.

TVG: What would you say are the defining factors of World in Conflict?

Well that's quite an open question - there's a sound bite answer and a longer answer. Let me give you the sound bite answer first. World in Conflict is much more accessible and immediate than other strategy games, as I said before [in the presentation] it's easy to learn and difficult to master. In it's more true sense more than strategy games typically are - usually you have to learn a lot more in strategy games before you can enjoying your experience, but here all you have to do is learn how to select units and give them an order...that's it.

The longer answer is divided in two. One is the multiplayer aspect with the whole drop in multiplayer - you can join at any time and each match is twenty minutes long. The team-play aspect that we're offering is something that no strategy game has done before. We experimented with it a little in our previous titles but it's something that we identified two years ago; we wanted to explore it some more, and we're having a lot of fun playing it ourselves at the moment.

The other aspect of that answer is the single-player. We sat down and discussed how we give gamers a fun single-player experience. Again, we took a cue from other genres, with Medal of Honor and Call of Duty, their way of conveying that you're a part of a bigger war effort. Most strategy games, if not all, don't even try to achieve that, and that's where we thought there could be a new take on the single-player.

TVG: One of the things that really stands out in World in Conflict is the level of scale as players zoom above the battlefield, right down to a first-person view on the street. Can you elaborate on the visuals and the camera system in the game?

Well, some gamers don't care about the visuals at all; they like a nice screen shot but once they play it they don't care about it at all. But there are some gamers who, just by having nice visuals, their unconscious emotional tie to the game becomes so much stronger. That's the reason why we're putting so much effort into making the strong visuals we have where you can zoom in as far as you can in a first-person game, or zoom out and use the Megamap to have a very high up view of the battlefield.

TVG: Talking about the Megamap; in the multiplayer, do you see some players perhaps nominating a commander who will delegate orders to other players?

Well I don't think that that is a very optimal way of playing the game. I think that because you can bring up the Megamap up so quickly yourself, having one person on your team in that mode all the time, it doesn't make sense. But if a clan or a team finds it efficient, then absolutely. You can do almost everything in the Megamap that you can do in the standard view.

TVG: You've mentioned clans in your answer, so clan support will be a feature in World in Conflict?

Absolutely, we have our proprietary online community system that we call MassGate, which is similar to Battle.Net or GameSpy, but we built it ourselves from the ground up and made it completely support what we want to - and clan support will be one of the unique features that will be there.

TVG: Presumably this will launch with a fully-fledged community site with Leaderboards, Stat-Tracking, etc...

Yup. We're not talking much about MassGate at the moment, but once we do later in the spring, you'll be happy. I'm pretty sure that we're taking the online community aspects and the matchmaking services a lot further than anybody before.

TVG: You said that World in Conflict is to multiplayer RTS what Counter-Strike is to multiplayer FPS; in a nut-shell, what does that mean?

Well those games are for one, team play orientated - in the sense that if you want to play in a team the game really supports that and you'll have a lot of fun. You can jump in and have fun without knowing your team-mates, but that's one of the aspects. The other one is the immediacy.

Counter-Strike was the first game to take team-play to its heart and make it one team against another; before that, Deathmatch mode was the typical way to play - which is how its been in strategy game to date. Either it's everyone versus everyone or it's mostly one versus one, whereas we're making it a team versus a team, and that is a whole new aspect and perspective to have.

TVG: And you can have one human player against another human and fill up the rest of the team spaces with bots?

Yes, absolutely.

TVG: During your presentation of World in Conflict, it was confirmed that it will support DX10 and Vista; is this something that's being aggressively pursued so that the game will be part of the Games for Windows brand?

We're part of Games for Windows, we already have that status.

TVG: Will it offer support for the Xbox 360 Controller too?

I would say that it would definitely be interesting to implement for the Xbox 360 Controller control, but our effort is not to...how many gamers are going to play a strategy game with a gamepad? 0.0001%, so I'd rather spend the time that we have polishing the control system on a keyboard and mouse, and that's exactly what we're doing.

TVG: Moving slightly away from World in Conflict, but what do personally think of the Games for Windows brand, and Microsoft's plan for PC gaming?

I know that there's a lot of discussion in the industry and amongst gamers as to whether Microsoft is doing it in the short term to sell Vista, and frankly, I don't care. Games for Windows is good for PC gaming because Microsoft is pushing PC gaming. If they're just in it for the short term, then it was good in the short term; if it's for the long term, then it's good in the long term - I don't see a conflict or a problem. Of course Microsoft is doing for the money, they're a Corporation - who doesn't think that one of the main objectives for Microsoft is to make money? I think that Games for Windows is a great effort, I hope that Microsoft keep doing it, but if they don't, then it was still a good effort.

TVG: Looking ahead to the future where the release of World in Conflict is a success, where does the team at Massive go to develop it into a franchise? Would you look to developing this specific storyline, or would you look at other 'What If?' scenarios like a nuclear-weaponised Cuba following a change in the Cuban Missile Crisis?

That's an interesting idea; I'd say that it's a little premature to talk about that. The only answer that I can give is that the future is wide open. We don't need to make any decisions about the future right now. The Cold War conflict in the late 1980s or the 1960s was interesting as well - but there's a bunch of other conflicts in human conflicts that are interesting as well, so I wouldn't rule out a more historical take if we decide not to continue on the same storyline that we're on right now.

TVG: So far World in Conflict is pencilled in for a late 2007 release? Right now we're saying Fall 2007, not late - depending on what you mean by 'late'. We're very confident that we'll hit our date, and fairly soon we'll be more specific about that date.

TVG: We can also assume that there'll be support for the game post-release too?

Oh yes, through the MassGate we'll have a lot of support and release new multiplayer maps. There'll be Community Managers interfacing with the community and supporting everyone making maps for themselves.

TVG: So there'll be a mod community?

Absolutely, absolutely.

TVG: Will that extend beyond maps?

We'll have a lot of mod support in the sense that a lot of the game is scripted in Python, which we're exposing to the community. We're extremely looking forward to seeing what the community does with that; it's something that we dabbled with a little bit with our previous games, but with World in Conflict, we're taking that ten times further than we have.

I think that any successful developer that sees a community build upon what you've built yourself is extremely exciting.

Thanks Martin, best of luck with the rest of development.

TVG would like to thank Vivendi Games and Massive Entertainment President Martin Walfisz for speaking with us. World in Conflict will be invading PCs during the Autumn.