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Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars Preview |
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| Author: Roger LaMarca Published: 2007-04-02 |
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This past week I had the opportunity to preview the latest build of Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars, the upcoming game by Splash Damage and id Software. In attendance at the showing were Paul Wedgwood, the owner and creative designer of Splash Damage, Marty Stratton and Steve Nix of id Software, and various members of Activision, the game's publisher.
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Sewer Overview |
The first new level shown at the event was Sewer, one of three maps along with Canyon and Volcano that make up the Pacific Campaign. The premise of the level is that the Strogg have setup a base in the sewer for launching an underground assault into a nearby city. The GDF's objective is to infiltrate the sewer compound and hack the sewer controls, flushing the Strogg out before they can overrun the city.
This was the first time anyone not under a nondisclosure agreement has seen the level. Paul explained that the game was designed so that each level is a beat in the story line of the Strogg invasion. The plot drives each level in ETQW, determining its geographical location, look, feel, and tactical objectives. These are the qualities that give each level a uniqueness that the developers hope will help give gamers a memorable experience while playing the game.
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Ark Overview |
The second new level shown was Ark, which along with Quarry and Salvage make up the Northern European Campaign. These levels explore some of the key turning points in the battles occurring in the North European Theatre of Operations. In this level, which is named after the GDF research lab found inside, the GDF have made a breakthrough in reverse-engineering Strogg biotechnology. It is the Strogg's main objective to destroy the lab equipment in the underground laboratory before their secrets are made public. This level along with Sewer, features large in-door combat areas. The in-door atmosphere gives the game a much different feel compared to the wide open terrain predominately featured in the most publicized level Valley.
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Besides showing the group gathered what new content has been added to the game, the current state of ETQW and what is left to be done was discussed. Currently, the developers are focusing on optimizing the game's performance. The gameplay is pretty well worked out, but balance is still being determined per map. Currently, the game is being tested by a closed beta group, but the testing audience will be expanding soon. Sometime in mid-April they hope to open testing to a much larger group. The larger beta testing group would get one map made available to them and the focus of this round of testing would be statistics tracking, hardware performance, and server stability.
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Other parts of the game discussed were Experience Points (XP) and the reward system. Experience Points are still being balance out, but they want more points to be rewarded for team oriented play. For example, medics which are very important to the team will be rewarded equally as those players who are in battle killing their opponent. As for in-game hacks, code will be going into the game for stopping general hacks that people will try to preform. Along with the quality assurance testers at Activision, Splash Damage has hired it's own testers, mostly former competitive Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory players to play the game full time looking for possible exploits and to give the production team their feedback. A running list of game exploits has been collected all during the the game's development which will make it easier to track down what needs to be fixed.
Concerning the reward system inside ETQW, those rewards a player receives during the course of each campaign will be reset once finished. This is done so that the playing field is evenly set. The persistent part of the game will be your military rank and achievements earned such as medals. While rewards and skill will effect your gameplay, nothing persistent in the game will effect how you play.
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Along with journalists from other gaming sites, members of top Battlefield 2142 gaming organizations were on-hand to preview the game. This decision is another sign that the developers really hope that Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars will be accepted warmly by gaming organizations as their tournament game of choice. It's also an indication that they hope to woo players from games that mirror their own in many ways.
The Battlefield players on-hand seemed very impressed and anticipated the transition over to ETQW for their organizations and tournaments. id Software's Marty Stratton also added that they are in negotiations with organizations such as the World Series of Video Games and the World Cyber Games to include Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars in their tournament roster. Splash Damage is also looking into adding features found in Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory competition modifications such as ETPro that would for example allow surrenders, but they are not sure a fully featured set of options will ship with the game. The game will include a stopwatch mode though, which has been thoroughly tested by the closed beta community
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In addition to the in-game features that ETQW will contain, Splash Damage will be launching a community website that along with posting news from around the community will feature player statistics. There will be no global ranking system, but rather ways to compare your statistics to friends or fellow clan mates.
Since the last chance I had to play Enemy Territory: QUAKE wars this past summer at QuakeCon, the game in my eyes has progressed tremendously. It has a much more polished feel when playing. I did not experience any gameplay performance issues during my hours of testing. No physics bugs or gameplay anomalies were noticed. The game's GUI was noticeably revamped since my last encounter, in the past not predominately featuring the game's build in statistics tracking system. Having the opportunity the play ETQW at this stage of development was surely a treat. It is great knowing that all the details needed to produce successful game are being implemented. Between the massive quality assurance both professional gamers and casual players, the focus on community, game longevity, and top-notch gameplay, Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars should be a very polished title off the shelf.
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