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Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends Q&A Feature
Derek dela Fuente
03/08/2005
TVG tracks down the facts on the forthcoming fantastical expansion...
Rise of the Nations, another of the RTS games from Microsoft on PC, has a number of innovative feature; aside from its rich graphical style featuring an immerse amount of environmental detail and oozing the kind of atmosphere and ambiance that strategy gamers require, this fantasy RTS has a wealth of innovations to boot and an advanced physics engine that will impress even the most passionate of gamers. Rise of Nations comes with an intriguing storyline and some uniquely inspired ideas fused together to make a game set to move the genre forward.
Derek dela Fuente spoke with BigHugeGames's Tim Train, Vice President of Operations and Development, about some of the technical and mainstream forces behind Rise of Nations.
What were some of the reasons or inspirations to go the fantasy root with the brand; does this give you further scope for new ideas and creativity?
We started the project with a lot of excitement for a fantasy game. Part of our excitement came from getting free from some of the constraints of reality and giving our imagination free reign. Having done a lot of history titles, we were also psyched to move on to something different! The inspiration for the races came from a variety of sources. Doug Kaufman has long wanted to design a game based on the legends of the Arabian Nights and Brian was excited to do an Italian Renaissance game. Those inspirations resulted in the Alim and the Vinci, respectively.
Can you tell the readers about the four nations within the game and the significant differences between them?
The Alim are all about the magic of fire, the desert, and the spirit world. Their soaring architecture is very informed by classic Arabic buildings, and they draw on many of the archetypes found in the Arabian Nights. From a gameplay perspective, the Alim are all about the incorporeal. When summoned from a military building, their units can appear anywhere on the map where you have line-of-sight. Their National Spell allows you to summon even more units from thin air, which can be quite a surprise for an enemy. They can teleport units and vaporize enemies with fire and brimstone.
The Vinci are the inventors and tinkers of this world - the nation that worships science and technology as much as the Alim revere the spirit world. Their crazy inventions and callous disregard for the natural world make them the perfect counter to the Alim. For example, the Vinci can create a plethora of single-use, purpose-built, inventions that can be put to use in a variety of ways. Build the Telescope to divine the intentions of an enemy and watch chokepoint approaches. Construct the Repair Yard for super-healing. For overwhelming (but expensive!) firepower, invent the Doge's Hammer and choose what kind of death you want to rain down on an opponent.
At this time the Vinci and Alim are the only two races we're allowed to talk about!
Rise of Legends has a new 3D engine, so firstly can you tell us about some of the interesting features pertaining to it and are you trying to create a slightly different graphical feel to give an ambient difference from previous Rise games?
When we set out to design Rise of Legends, we had one overriding goal: make the great gameplay from Rise of Nations 'look' as fantastic as anything ever seen in the PC world. For starters, this involved a complete rewrite of the Rise of Nations engine. We wanted giant cities that looked important, which was also important to the gameplay. We put together massive units whose size accurately reflected their extreme destructive power. And we crammed the special effects full of all kinds of lighting, environment, and interactive goodness, so when a Sonic Blast puts blowback on all the foot soldiers on the screen, it's obvious to your enemy where his hurt comes from.
Please can you give the readers the background story to the game, tell us what some of the initial requirements for the player will be and the first major adversary you'll face?
At its heart, this is a story about a world torn apart by the battle between Magic and Technology. The game opens as our hero Giacomo, a young Vinci inventor, is thrust into leadership when his brother is assassinated by a powerful and mysterious technology. Giacomo's first task is to uncover the murderer within his own nation and learn the secret behind the technology.
What kind of resource and city building system is on offer and have you changed the mechanics in any way that Rise fans will not be familiar with?
The city building system is one of the most noticeable differences in Rise of Legends. In most RTS games, you build random buildings in a sprawl near your town centre. With Rise of Legends, you add districts right on to your city centre. Each district you add customises that city in a different way. Do you want a defensive 'redoubt'? Build a bunch of military districts to make a city impregnable to all but the most determined onslaught. If you want a lot of border push at a frontier town, construct palace districts.
There are two kinds of resources in Rise of Legends. Timonium is mined at Timonium patches, which you must keep inside your borders and defend from attack. Gold is earned by constructing caravans who form trade routes. The trick is to keep those trade routes safe from raiders - the caravans are vulnerable to hostile incursions, and every destroyed caravan gives your enemy points towards Tactical Dominance, which gives him or her access to a powerful Cease Fire spell.
Big Huge Games is using the Novadex physics engine; why have you selected this engine and what does it bring to the game?
We think anything that immerses the player in a world will become increasingly important. Physics adds another layer of believability and realism. We chose the Novadex engine because we loved the ease with which we could implement our physics system, and because we're excited by their vision of a card for PCs that can handle the chores of a physics sim.
With the game's focus on magic and technology can you tell us a few interesting facts about some of the units on offer such as the aerial and super units?
We definitely want the units to be a big part of a player's focus in Rise of Legends, and we want every unit to have a variety of interesting tactics. There are air and ground units with very specific roles, to be sure. However, the real stars of the show are the super-units on each side. Every nation has at least one giant unit that can single-handedly do a tremendous amount of damage to an enemy army. For example, the Vinci can construct a Land Leviathan, a giant, spidery tank with multiple independent turrets and a penchant for knocking down cities. The Alim have the Glass Dragon, a massive flying beast that draws power from the sun and can destroy almost any unit on the battlefield with a single cast of its 'Glass Prism' spell.
What would you say is the biggest innovative/creative idea on offer within Rise of Legends?
Wow - that's a tough one! Big Huge Games is heavily focused on iterative design, meaning we rapidly prototype as many cool ideas as we can think of. Then we play the game, preferably every single day, and discuss what was fun and what wasn't, which results in even more prototyping. The result is at the end of a project, we've tried literally thousands of innovations and ideas; some have been kept and many rejected. So to pick one out of the pack is hard. I guess when pressed, I'd have to say the concept of Dominance powers have the biggest effect on gameplay.
Dominance powers are a new concept in Rise of Legends, where players can compete in a variety of ways that are not strictly about building up a giant army and bashing your opponent. There are four dominances in the game, which you can earn by completing a different set of goals. For example, you acquire territory dominance at the beginning of the game by being the first player to control three neutral locations on the map. You retain that dominance until another player acquires six neutral locations (or you can keep it by being the first to acquire six), and you can be leapfrogged again at 9 and 12 locations, which is progressively harder to achieve. So long as you hold the dominance, you are granted a special spell to reflect your diplomatic mastery.
Can you tell us about the multiplay focus/aspect of the game?
Sorry - at this time we are not talking about multiplay!
TVG would like to thank Tim Train for taking the time to answer our questions; we'll have further coverage of Rise of Legends soon.
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Date Added:Sun 22nd Apr 2007 06:41