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Rise & Fall: Civilisations at War - Developer Diary #1 Feature
Derek dela Fuente
01/11/2005
TVG teams up with Stainless Steel Studios to bring you a look at the development of a truly epic RTS...
Coming from the award-winning developer Stainless Steel Studios, Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War on the PC is looking like a true RTS epic in the making. The player is placed directly in the heart of combat as a heroic general fighting side-by-side with their troops as one of histories eight greatest heroes battling to bring victory to their nation on the battlefield.
TVG has teamed up with Midway and Stainless Steel Studios to bring you a three-part developer diary, chronicling the development of the title as it leads up to release during Q1 2006. For the first chapter Derek dela Fuente was able to get a full insight into the game as Rick Goodman, President at Stainless Steel Studios and also celebrated game designer, mulled over his thoughts and vision.
It all begins hereâ¦
I founded Stainless Steel Studios in 1997 with the explicit goal of creating a development studio that fostered creativity and innovation. There are currently 70 people at Stainless Steel Studios and Midway working full-time on Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War.
Everyone has input into the process. That philosophy was especially helpful when we sat down to begin work on Rise & Fall. We had just shipped Empires: Dawn of the Modern World, and we knew that we wanted our next game to really push the boundaries of what was possible in an RTS game. We wanted to create a totally new and exciting experience.
What really excited me was that our graphics engine was advancing by leaps and bounds, which meant that all of these great ideas that we had bouncing around could finally be realized. With the technology in place, it really unlocked our creative forces. And that's when Rise & Fall really began to come into focus.
A vision...
One of our biggest goals was to actually place the player in the game, let them actually experience what it's like to be down on the battlefield, fighting alongside their men. That's how we came up with Hero Command, which is the game's ultimate super weapon. For brief periods of time, you become Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar, and you're directly engaged in breath-taking combat. It's an exhilarating experience.
Another goal of ours was to introduce naval combat on a massive scale. For the first time in an RTS game, your navy is an important and vital part of your war efforts. You'll command gigantic Triremes, populate them with Onagers, and lay waste to enemy ships through boarding and ramming. It's truly awesome.
Our combat system offers you unprecedented control over hundreds of units. Use the unit-formation system to quickly and easily group your units, and the intelligent and reactive AI ensures that your formations line up in proper strategic depth. Unleash ancient super weapons, like the Fire Raiser, and decimate enemy troops.
Because our graphics are truly next-generation, we can offer battles on an unprecedented scale. You'll watch hundreds units scale an enemy city's walls, while your catapults bombard the city's defenses from both land and sea. On the other side, the Archimedes Claw, a defensive super weapon, pulverizes your siege equipment. No other RTS game has ever offered sieges of this scale and scope.
The RTS Innovation
In some ways RTS games are much more open to innovation than other genres because of the scale that you're working with. There are certainly conventions that gamers enjoy and expect, like economic management, but beyond that, the sky is truly the limit.
I've already touched on this a bit, but it's important to note that technology is finally reaching a point where the lines between RTS and FPS graphics are being forever blurred. That means that we can create these lush, vibrant, and living worlds and let you visit those worlds.
Specifically, in the case of Rise & Fall, we're transporting you back to the time of Alexander the Great and Cleopatra. And instead of simply viewing the world from a top-down, isometric view, you experience it from the ground level.
That is a real innovation in my mind, because it takes the game to an entirely new level emotionally. Instead of just sending faceless, nameless units off to die, Hero Command make them your army. When you're down there, fighting by their side, you suddenly care if they live or die. When Alexander runs low on stamina, and you have to retreat from battle, you feel bad about leaving your men like that.
The people who buy and play our games have always been a good lot to us, and we listen to all of their comments. In fact, features like Hero Command and thrilling naval combat are things that gamers have been asking me for. They've wanted to do those things for a long time, and we're going to deliver them.
One of the things I love about Stainless is that we're in a position to take that feedback and do something with it. We have an awful lot of freedom here to try new things, to nudge the genre forward. It's a truly unique position to be in--the only limit is our imagination.
We'd all love to see every game innovate, but we know that the game industry can be extremely competitive. It's a tough to strike that balance between a commercially-successful game and one that also innovates. Weâve played special attention, over the last 2 years on this in striking just the right balance between tradition and innovation in RTS gameplay.
What Goes Into The Designâ¦
There is always a natural evolution of how a game is designed. Thatâs a good thing, because, a designer can have the most amazing sounding feature in his design document, but he puts it into the game and it's not fun or exciting, it has to change.
The bottom line is that everything in the game has to offer something to player--be it a new experience or a new gameplay wrinkle. It can be painful to cut things that don't meet those criteria, but itâs a necessary part of development. And in the end, you have a much better game.
Story, Presentation In An RTS???
The story for the game was finished before the actual level creation began. So, the story writing process starts early in the process and is completed by the half way point. This allows us to start mission creation. Motion Capture and cinematics are done almost at the very-end of the process. Motion Capture shoot took place at the Midway Mo-Cap studio in San Diego. This will be the first time Stainless Steel Studios has used motion capture in any of RTS games and we are very excited about it. The story, for Rise & Fall, will unfold during the 40, or so, minutes of in-game cinematics.
Meticulous Research
Research is one of the things I enjoy most when it comes time to planning a new game. I love reading about ancient kings and warriors and delving into what made them tick. One of the things that really struck me while reading about Alexander the Great is how he came to counter the Persian elephants. Because his horses, which were from Greece, had never seen an elephant before, they would bolt as soon as they saw one. The solution he came up with was to smear pitch on pigs, light them on fire, and send them charging toward the Persian elephants, which routed in panic.
What kind of a person thinks up something like that? To me, that question is the crux of Rise & Fall. Itâs a story-driven adventure that truly lets you get a glimpse of what it must have been like to be Alexander the Great: leading your men into battle; formulating cunning strategies; and conquering your foes.
And that is all supported by Hero Command, the epic sieges, and the thrilling naval combat. Those are all things that Alexander did, and you'll live those moments. You'll fight the Persians on the dusty plains of Asia Minor, you'll lay siege to the city of Tyre. You'll sail on a Trireme, you'll unleash the terrifying Fire Raiser.
In short, you will be Alexander the Great.
Structure and game modesâ¦
There will be two story-driven, single-player campaigns in Rise & Fall. The first begins shortly after the assassination of Macedonia's King Philip, and sees his son, Alexander the Great, ascending to the throne. Naturally, Alexander has his mind on global conquest, and standing in his way are the hated Persians. The campaign follows Alexander from Greece into Asia Minor.
The second campaign centers on Egypt's Cleopatra. While visiting southern Egypt, the Roman General Octavian launches an all-out attack on Egypt. Cleopatra must fight her way north, down the Nile, and eliminate the Roman threat once and for all.
In addition to the single-player game, Rise & Fall will have full skirmish and multiplayer modes. Skirmish modes offer both Conquest and a new Capture the Flag victory condition which is even more fun than Conquest. With this Victory condition, you goal is to capture a specific number of territories, say, 7 of 10, and hold them for a proscribed period of time.
Important featuresâ¦
Every aspects of a game is equally important. Thatâs because I believe âAAAâ game is only as good as its weakest link. If you imagine a game as an engine, every part in that engine is essential to it running smoothly. In the case of Rise & Fall, if we didn't have stunning, next-generation graphics, would Hero Command be as intense and rewarding? If we didn't have AI and level designs that fully support naval combat, would that part of the game be as thrilling as it is?
Stainless and Midwayâs goal is to make the best possible game we can. Beyond that, Iâll let the results speak for itself.
TVG would like to thank Rick Goodman for taking the time to provide an insight into the preliminary stages of designing a videogame and what Rise & Fall will have to offer.
We will have more from the team at Stainless Steel Studios in a few weeks, where the second chapter will focus upon the technology behind the gameâ¦
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