Interview with Henrik Sebring of Massive Entertainment on the game Ground Control 2.
Read More for a log of the Chat session.
Topic for #fragzone: FZ is hosting a developer chat with Henrik Sebring of Massive Entertainment. Submit your questions to Henrik in #fzgcii and cross your fingers! Channel is in auditorium mode.
Ok, seems like it's time to start. Let me first say welcome to Henrik Sebring from Massive Entertainment, glad to have you here.
Thank you... and hello everyone!!!
And also welcome to all our participants glad to have you here as well.
well, let me start with the questions immediately then
Not everybody made it into the beta, when will we see a demo? And will it be single or multiplayer?
There will be a singleplayer demo close to relase (i can't be more specific with the dates)... shortly thereafter we'll probably release a multiplayer demo as well..
As the game is drawing closer to release, can you name one part of the game you are most proud of?
Actually I am really proud of the ENTIRE game ;) but to a little more specific... it would be the cooperative mode. It is extremely fun
Why did you choose to leave the squadsystem we saw in GC?
Several reasons actually... with the more dynamic unit allocation in GCII it made more sense to have units be treated as individuals.
In other strategy titles you have heroes and the like, will there be heroes or special characters in the game that are controllable?
In the singleplayer missions there will be times where you will be able to control individual heroes... such as Sergeant Rho... a stealthy souvenier hunter...
The first Ground Control was met well by the press, but didn't sell extremly well, what is changed in GC2 that will make it a commercial success?
I think there were alot of things that made GC sell poorly... it was ahead of its time, released two weeks before Diablo II ( :)) and it was a very hardcore title. We've really tried to make GCII a game that is easy to get into.
How have you managed to optimize the engine, judging from the visuals it's beautiful and judging from system requirements, it's not
that heavy on the computer. How did you do this?
Actually the work on the new engine begun almost a year before we started to work on GCII. So we've had plenty of time to tailor it for GCII. It is also much easier to develop an engine these days with fewer 3D cards out on the market... or at least they are much more similar today than it was around 2000.
Do you consider releasing the game with Linux binaries?
There are no plans at the moment that I am aware of.... :/
Will you be able to see if a building is occupied by enemy forces? Or can you hide them in the buildings until they start firing, creating
ambushes and killzones?
You will not be able to see buildings occupied by enemies unless you have them within your view range... also putting infantry inside buildings make them much harder to detect.. this also goes for forests.. so it is a very sound tactics to have your untis hold fire until the right moment...
Before I will ask Henrik the next question I would like to tell you all that information and images of Ground Control II can be found at: http://www.groundcontrol2.com/
Will GC2 be released on DVD? Installs spanned over multiple disks can be annoying :)
It will be released on multiple CDs.. but there might be a separate version on DVD.. sort of "Special Edition"
How many levels will the singleplayer campaign have?
There are two campaigns... each campaign features 12 missions. There are also two tutorial missions... so a total of 26 missions.
How many different types of terrain will there be?
There are five different environments... but each environment also have a multitude of variations..
(Sithy) How is the balance of general game strategy as opposed to micromanagement going to sway, in relevance to Ground Control 1 and other RTS titles such as Warcraft III ?
I would say that the focus is definately more on general tactics... but at the same time it requires more micromanagement than the original GC.. this goes especially for the Viron faction.
(HetzY) Is it true that the famous Warcraft III player Madfrog came back home from korea to try out GCII and if yes do you know if he did like it?
Yes that true.. we had Madfrog play GCII for a couple of days.. and we recieved a lot of good feedback from him!! It was amazing to see him play a WCIII match...
What is your goal with the multiplayer part of the game? Will it just be a supplement to the singleplayer part or do you want it to go
all the way (WCG, CPL etc.)?
We want it to go all the way... and we are making the proper preparations...
({[zepp]}away) Will the artillery-firepower be as impressive in both visual and sound as it was in the first Ground Control?
I think you will be more than blown away by the artillery in GCII... =)
How many players will be able to play at the same time in multiplayer/coop etc? Also how many different modes of multiplayer will there be? Also, tell us something about your online service, "Massgate"
Oki.. first of all Massgate is our online service - when you play a game on the internet you play over Massgate. It allows you to keep track of your ranking, experience and friends. Very handy. Up to 8 players can play at the same time. In cooperative mode up to three players can play. We will release the game with two modes (not counting the "drop-in" feature) but we are likely to add more after realease.
To confirm on the question of linux binaries, this also includes no server binaries? Most games which have been release to be run on Windows server basically have failed in the game market as not many companies are willing to pay for a windows licence which they wont get back on the revenue of renting servers to clans/teams
There are currently no plans for linux binaries... but with enough requests...;)
This question and one more: Do any members of the team have strange habits? ;)
haha... well I would say that there isn't anyone on the team who doesn't have strange habits...
So.. short answer YES..
=)
ok last one
Will game development get you rich?
;)
hehe unfortunately no.. it might be possible in the States.. but not here in sweden...
I'd love to have a fancy car though... say a F-40... but it isn't likely to happen.. unless I play the lotto
Ok, FZ.se wishes to thank Henrik Sebring for the chat. Thank you for your time.
Thank you very much for the questions!
Now its back to working with the game.. we're getting really close now =)
Ok and thank you
No, game development wont get you rich unless you'r name happens to be CliffyB. ;P
Read More for a log of the Chat session.
Topic for #fragzone: FZ is hosting a developer chat with Henrik Sebring of Massive Entertainment. Submit your questions to Henrik in #fzgcii and cross your fingers! Channel is in auditorium mode.
Ok, seems like it's time to start. Let me first say welcome to Henrik Sebring from Massive Entertainment, glad to have you here.
Thank you... and hello everyone!!!
And also welcome to all our participants glad to have you here as well.
well, let me start with the questions immediately then
Not everybody made it into the beta, when will we see a demo? And will it be single or multiplayer?
There will be a singleplayer demo close to relase (i can't be more specific with the dates)... shortly thereafter we'll probably release a multiplayer demo as well..
As the game is drawing closer to release, can you name one part of the game you are most proud of?
Actually I am really proud of the ENTIRE game ;) but to a little more specific... it would be the cooperative mode. It is extremely fun
Why did you choose to leave the squadsystem we saw in GC?
Several reasons actually... with the more dynamic unit allocation in GCII it made more sense to have units be treated as individuals.
In other strategy titles you have heroes and the like, will there be heroes or special characters in the game that are controllable?
In the singleplayer missions there will be times where you will be able to control individual heroes... such as Sergeant Rho... a stealthy souvenier hunter...
The first Ground Control was met well by the press, but didn't sell extremly well, what is changed in GC2 that will make it a commercial success?
I think there were alot of things that made GC sell poorly... it was ahead of its time, released two weeks before Diablo II ( :)) and it was a very hardcore title. We've really tried to make GCII a game that is easy to get into.
How have you managed to optimize the engine, judging from the visuals it's beautiful and judging from system requirements, it's not
that heavy on the computer. How did you do this?
Actually the work on the new engine begun almost a year before we started to work on GCII. So we've had plenty of time to tailor it for GCII. It is also much easier to develop an engine these days with fewer 3D cards out on the market... or at least they are much more similar today than it was around 2000.
Do you consider releasing the game with Linux binaries?
There are no plans at the moment that I am aware of.... :/
Will you be able to see if a building is occupied by enemy forces? Or can you hide them in the buildings until they start firing, creating
ambushes and killzones?
You will not be able to see buildings occupied by enemies unless you have them within your view range... also putting infantry inside buildings make them much harder to detect.. this also goes for forests.. so it is a very sound tactics to have your untis hold fire until the right moment...
Before I will ask Henrik the next question I would like to tell you all that information and images of Ground Control II can be found at: http://www.groundcontrol2.com/
Will GC2 be released on DVD? Installs spanned over multiple disks can be annoying :)
It will be released on multiple CDs.. but there might be a separate version on DVD.. sort of "Special Edition"
How many levels will the singleplayer campaign have?
There are two campaigns... each campaign features 12 missions. There are also two tutorial missions... so a total of 26 missions.
How many different types of terrain will there be?
There are five different environments... but each environment also have a multitude of variations..
(Sithy) How is the balance of general game strategy as opposed to micromanagement going to sway, in relevance to Ground Control 1 and other RTS titles such as Warcraft III ?
I would say that the focus is definately more on general tactics... but at the same time it requires more micromanagement than the original GC.. this goes especially for the Viron faction.
(HetzY) Is it true that the famous Warcraft III player Madfrog came back home from korea to try out GCII and if yes do you know if he did like it?
Yes that true.. we had Madfrog play GCII for a couple of days.. and we recieved a lot of good feedback from him!! It was amazing to see him play a WCIII match...
What is your goal with the multiplayer part of the game? Will it just be a supplement to the singleplayer part or do you want it to go
all the way (WCG, CPL etc.)?
We want it to go all the way... and we are making the proper preparations...
({[zepp]}away) Will the artillery-firepower be as impressive in both visual and sound as it was in the first Ground Control?
I think you will be more than blown away by the artillery in GCII... =)
How many players will be able to play at the same time in multiplayer/coop etc? Also how many different modes of multiplayer will there be? Also, tell us something about your online service, "Massgate"
Oki.. first of all Massgate is our online service - when you play a game on the internet you play over Massgate. It allows you to keep track of your ranking, experience and friends. Very handy. Up to 8 players can play at the same time. In cooperative mode up to three players can play. We will release the game with two modes (not counting the "drop-in" feature) but we are likely to add more after realease.
To confirm on the question of linux binaries, this also includes no server binaries? Most games which have been release to be run on Windows server basically have failed in the game market as not many companies are willing to pay for a windows licence which they wont get back on the revenue of renting servers to clans/teams
There are currently no plans for linux binaries... but with enough requests...;)
This question and one more: Do any members of the team have strange habits? ;)
haha... well I would say that there isn't anyone on the team who doesn't have strange habits...
So.. short answer YES..
=)
ok last one
Will game development get you rich?
;)
hehe unfortunately no.. it might be possible in the States.. but not here in sweden...
I'd love to have a fancy car though... say a F-40... but it isn't likely to happen.. unless I play the lotto
Ok, FZ.se wishes to thank Henrik Sebring for the chat. Thank you for your time.
Thank you very much for the questions!
Now its back to working with the game.. we're getting really close now =)
Ok and thank you
No, game development wont get you rich unless you'r name happens to be CliffyB. ;P
