Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight Interview

Command & Conquer is changing. Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight, described by developer EA Los Angeles as the final chapter in the Tiberium saga, will be a very different RTS. It’s got classes, mobile bases, respawning and… Wait for it… Capture the flag mechanics. So, will C&C4 send series veterans running for the hills? No, assistant producer Matt Ott told VideoGamer.com at EA’s recent Winter Showcase event in London. Quite the opposite, in fact.

VideoGamer.com: You’re taking Command & Conquer in a different direction. Have you been keeping an eye on feedback from the community?

Matt Ott: Absolutely. It’s interesting you bring that up because the software you were playing on today is actually our closed beta. We’ve got a thousand of our core community members playing in there. They’ve been in there for about six weeks now. They’re playing with us constantly, and the developers are in there. We have a private beta forum where they’re able to post all their feedback and suggestions. I don’t know how far you got to play. Did you get to experience the Tiberium capture mechanic?

VideoGamer.com: No. I made a few units and then the computer crashed.

MO: I’ll be sure to show you around a little bit later on if you like. One of the pieces of feedback they had was resource harvesting was important to them. We didn’t want to go the route we had done in C&C3, with build a harvester and gather Tiberium. We wanted to go with something more fast-paced and mobile, which is a theme of our multiplayer. So, based on their feedback and with some help from our design team, we created this Tiberium crystal capture mechanic. Throughout the map, Tiberium crystals will be deposited onto the map, and you can fight for them. If you’re able to control one, you can bring it back to your spawn zone. It’s a capture the flag type thing combined with a resource gathering mechanic. It’s a hybrid. When you bring it back to your spawn zone you’re able to get upgrade points which you can spend to reach tier two or to upgrade your units. That’s some feedback we got directly from the community.

That’s an example of a big piece of feedback, but certainly on a daily basis, they’re giving us the minute numerical data we need: This unit is five per cent too powerful against this unit, and such. The balance is constantly being iterated on and refined. We’re so far out right now that this data is meaningful and has an impact on our development process. This is the earliest-starting and longest-running beta test we’ve ever done.

VideoGamer.com: Are the changes you’re making an attempt to expand the audience of Command & Conquer and the RTS genre, one you have to admit is one of the more hardcore genres?

MO: We certainly hope that it will draw in a broader audience. Personally, the people I’ve seen playing it who are not hardcore RTS fans, have enjoyed it a lot. But a lot of the hardcore RTS fans who have been playing it have enjoyed it a lot, too. Some of the things, like being able to redeploy at any time, our respawn mechanic that makes it so you’re never out of the game once you’re destroyed, that’s different from previous RTS games, but in a lot of ways it’s better. In the past, if your base was destroyed and you were playing in a two versus two for instance, you were out. You just had to watch and hope that your team wins. Now, you’re still controlling an army, choosing which units you build, sending them out on the battlefield and attacking, it’s just that if you’re destroyed, sure you give the other team an advantage, but you’re able to redeploy and get back in there. We made our game so you can build up an army quickly and get right back into the action. And with our objective-based multiplayer, instead of just destroying an enemy’s base, a single target, there is lots of split focus all over the map. So even for the more traditional players who like what we call micromanagement, just focusing on individual battles and units, there’s lots of opportunity for that with map control and specific objectives and all the different things going on.

But you’re right. For the people who are more casual or don’t have as much experience with RTS, they’ll be able to deploy, make some mistakes, redeploy, find one particular thing they can do to help out their team and focus on it, and it won’t bring the entire team down because they’re not able to play at that level.

VideoGamer.com: I’m an RTS fan, but I normally stick to the single-player experiences because I get destroyed in online competitive multiplayer. What are you doing to try and break down that barrier?

MO: One of the best ways we’re doing that is through our persistent player progression. You will be levelling up in our game as you start playing. You will start with a limited amount of units, and the more you play, the more units you will unlock until you reach the maximum level of 20. Those experience points can be earned through playing the single-player campaign, skirmishes against the AI, Comp Stomp, multiplayer with your friends against the computer or against other players. It’s all persistent across the board. So if you choose to play only multiplayer, only single-player, anything, you’ll be levelling up as you go. In terms of getting people online and playing, you can play the campaign first, and then have a huge advantage when you finally get into multiplayer, because you’ve unlocked all these units. Or, if you just want to play multiplayer straight out, the basic units you start out with do have all the weapon and armour types you’ll need to be successful. So you’ll be able to play, but with a more restricted subset.

VideoGamer.com: What will you unlock as you level up?

MO: You’ll unlock more nuanced things, things that allow different strategies and team mechanics. The game gets more complicated. In our previous games, when you’ve reached tier three, when you get the most advanced units in the game, they’re so much more powerful they just annihilate all the tier one units. In our game, the tier three units, while they are more powerful, they’re also more expensive, they’re oftentimes slower, and you can’t have as many on the battlefield. And they can be combated by tier one units, so if you have a limited subset, that works too.

VideoGamer.com: What about matchmaking? Eventually most players will hit the level cap, but what about skill level? Will you be able to matchmake according to skill level as well as player level?

MO: Yeah. Our auto match system will go based on skill level. We’ll prioritise people who are level 20 against each other, and people who are still levelling up against each other, and try and get that as evenly matched as possible. But in our custom match mode, it’s five on five multiplayer, although it can be launched with fewer people if you’re interested. We’ve done a lot of subtle things to make the experience more seamless. For example, there is no ready check in our game. Getting ten people to click ready is going to take a long time, so when the tenth person joins the host can just start the match right away. When a match finishes, you’ll automatically be put in a new game with the other ten players, in the lobby ready to hit the start button and start the next game, if you want to keep playing with the same guys. So, just a lot of things to keep the game moving and keep people playing.

Obviously there’s an opportunity for people to go AFK in that scenario. Since we have experience we have some things to combat that as well. So if you’re inactive for a period of time, you will be dropped from your team, and your command points, the number of units you’re allowed to build, will be evenly distributed among the rest of the team. So even if it becomes four on five, those four will be able to build the same number of units as those five. So it’s always balanced on a team level, not by an individual player level. There are lots of things to make it convenient and easy to play multiplayer. We’ve done a lot to take the frustration out of it.

VideoGamer.com: Is there a feeling among the RTS development community that the RTS genre has to evolve or die?

MO: That’s an interesting question. Games are constantly evolving. I agree that we’ve done a lot more innovation in this game than we have in the past games. Honestly, we were deliberating with these ideas for a long time. They’ve probably been in our DNA for about three years now. Not that we’ve been developing the game for that long, but just ideas that we’ve been bouncing around within our development team and our studio: Class-based gameplay, persistent experience akin to what you might see in an MMO where you’re levelling up as you go, the crawler mobile base instead of traditional base building. I wouldn’t say any of these are reactionary. I wouldn’t say they’re based on trends in the gaming market. Obviously other games affect us and we take all that into consideration. But these are some ideas we’ve been playing with for a while, and we’re finally able to put them into a game and show them to people.

VideoGamer.com: My question was more related to the feeling that if the RTS genre didn’t see any innovation, it would become more and more niche, perhaps so niche it would become even less of a priority for publishers. Was there ever a danger of that happening?

MO: That’s an interesting point. I certainly hope that this game blows it up and breaks out of that niche, and more casual people are able to join. But I wouldn’t say we’re turning our back on our roots, either. We do have a lot of the same gameplay. When you break it down to a unit on unit basis, you’re building a custom army and you’re attacking your opponent. So I don’t know about that to be honest. I think we’re doing our best to stay true to our roots here. That probably wasn’t a factor in our development.

VideoGamer.com: Relic has made some big changes to Dawn of War with Dawn of War II. A lot of them incorporate elements from the MMO genre. You mentioned you’ve had these ideas for a few years know. When Dawn of War II was released, did you think, oh shit, they’re first!

MO: [Laughs] I don’t know to be honest! Our game still feels pretty different. I do agree. Obviously they’ve got a lot of similar innovations. But we have a lot else going for us as well. I don’t know. They play differently to me. You have much more unit control in our game. In our game you’re controlling an entire army and dozens of units at a time, a very diverse group. Most units only have one to two abilities, so it’s much more of a collective thing. It’s not focused on heroes. There are no heroes in our game or anything like that. The levelling up, there’s obviously a parallel, although you don’t level up your units. As a commander you level up and you get access to a more unique army. They feel pretty different to me.

VideoGamer.com: What’s your assessment of brand Command & Conquer? Is it as powerful now as it was in the Nineties? Are people as aware of it as they used to be? Are you trying to address a decline with the release of this game?

MO: That’s a tough question; I’ve got to compose myself. We’re taking this game seriously. We’re doubling down on the conclusion of the Tiberium saga. A lot of the gameplay mechanics are a diversion from our previous games, but a lot of the story elements and the basic struggle between GDI and NOD is a return to our roots. We’re focusing on Kane. GDI, NOD, their struggle, Tiberium, the planet. So in that sense we’re trying to make more of an impact with this game. We’re trying to make it more pronounced. But at the same time, we’ve had a number of other successful games in the Tiberium franchise, and in the other Command & Conquer universes, with Red Alert 3, Command & Conquer 3 and Kane’s Wrath, in recent times. And there’s a lot of buzz around our game right now. We’ve got a lot of people anxious to get into our beta when it opens up. We’ve got a great community. They’re so passionate. It’s one of the most inspiring and in some ways frightening parts of my job. These guys love the franchise, the characters and the story so much; we’ve got this great power and responsibility to take care of it. We’re trying to make a big impact with this game. I hope it’s one of the most successful and memorable games in recent memory in our franchise.

Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight will be released across Europe on March 19, 2010 only on PC.