[Xfire] Chatteox: Hello Everyone! Sorry for the Delay! We had a bit of a mix-up with the clock here at Xfire, but we're back on track!

[Xfire] Chatteox: We are very pleased to welcome everyone to the live chat with Splash Damage! Please

welcome our special guests, who will now introduce themselves and start taking your questions!

 

[SD] badman: Hey guys, I'm Steve Hessel, Community Relations Manager at Splash Damage.

{SD]MoP: Hey folks, I'm Paul Greveson, I'm an Artist at Splash Damage.

[SD] jRAD: Hi, I'm Jared Hefty, a programmer at Splash Damage.

[SD]Locki: Hi everyone... I'm Paul 'Locki' Wedgwood, the Owner of Splash Damage, and Lead Game Designer on Enemy Territory Quake Wars (and Wolfenstein Enemy Territory before that).

[SD]Locki: We're hoping a couple of other SD guys will make it soon too, including Matt 'Wils' Wilson (one of our two Lead Level Designers) and Ed 'Bongoboy' Sterm, Senior Game Designer at Splash Damage.

 

[Xfire] Chatteox: So many questions! They're sorting them out and answering them now!

 

 

Question: [SOS] Ta10n: What kind of qualities do you value in a Splash Damage team member?

Answer: [SD] Locki: For a long time we focused almost exclusively on recruiting from the online mod-making community (and still now, the majority of the team at Splash Damage had not worked as game developers before), but now that we've grown a little, we're starting to focus on experienced staff too - the ones that can teach us to be a little more efficient :)

 

Question: †KOB†Šñîpëž½®︻┳═一™{AWBO}: Why do you guys always make fps games?

Answer: [SD]MoP: Because we love playing FPS games! :)

 

Question: Pazy: Was creating a Linux client a hindrance to the project or was it more 'natural'?

Answer: [SD]jRAD: idTech 4 is already setup to insulate most of the game from what OS it's running on, so overall the process is fairly straightforward (TTimo at id is in charge of handling the Linux versions of the game.) The overall quality of everything is usually improved because it's run through several different compilers and build processes.

 

Question: Br4ndm0n: The Quake series has been known for the blood and gore in the games, from Quake 1 till 4. And same goes for the rest of the iD Software titles. But ET:QW doesn't include even a drop of blood. What has led to your Decision to not include blood and gore to the game?

Answer: [SD]Locki: It's nor really a case of cutting, but we never added it in. The character models (up close) are pretty gruesome, but the focus has really always been on the satisfaction we wanted to have from coordinated teamplay (and incapacitating the enemy), rather than outright kills - if you focus too much on rewarding players for kills rather than teamplay (with lots of gore and so on) it becomes a distraction from the team play goal. We really believe that once a player gets to grips with teamplay, they will definitely have a much better time than simply deathmatching or capturing flags.

 

Question: ßÇ»§héèñ: Can we expect to see regular updates or the release of map packs?

Answer: [SD]badman: Now that Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars is done and on the way to stores around the world, we're turning our attention towards post-release support. id Software and Splash Damage are most definitely committed to on-going support for ETQW, be in the shape of game updates or things like the mod making toolkit.

 

Question: CaLiLaTiN: The cover for Quake Wars Enemy Territory is awesome. Who designed it?

Answer: [SD]MoP: The covers for Quake Wars were a collaboration between our in-house Media Artists and the Hamagami Carroll design company (who also did the Quake 4 box)

 

[sd]digibob: Hi Folks, I'm Gordon Biggans, a programmer at Splash Damage

 

Question: 'Frosty-: How did you decide what the Strogg characters should look like, is it based off of any of the original quakes in the series?

Answer: [SD]Locki: We started with the story that Kevin Cloud (co-Owner of id Software and Creative Director on Enemy Territory Quake Wars) had written for Quake 2. Our Senior Game Designer Ed 'Bongoboy' Stern then wrote backstory (literally hundreds of pages) for all of the games characters, weapons, items, tools, deployables and vehicles. In the case of the Strogg, this prompted around 50 revisions of the main character concept (many very different ideas) before we settled on the base character idea that id Software and Splash Damage were happy with aesthetically, but also served all the gameplay needs (for bolt-on weapons and tools for example).

 

Question: Quake->TeMpEsT: do you think about modders when creating the game?

Answer: [SD]jRAD: With many of us coming from a modding background, we do our best to keep things open from coding and asset creation standpoints. We want you guys to have fun playing around and trying out your own ideas. :) We're putting a lot of effort into documenting the bigger systems, and some of the processes that we used to create assets, like models, vehicles, MegaTextures, etc.

 

Question: †KOB†Šñîpëž½®︻┳═一™{AWBO}: Why do you guys always make fps games?

Answer: [SD]Locki: I think I can speak for most of Splash Damage's team when I say that we've always been huge fans of id Software's games and technology, especially the multiplayer stuff, and so many of us at Splash Damage started out as Clan players back in Quake 1, moved on to making mods on Quake 3, and so that's really where we've gained all our experience. I'm sure we'd have a good crack at a single player game, but we couldn't start the project with the goal of really evolving the genre, which was the goal with ETQW.

 

Question: RobinReher: How many maps will you be making for the complete version of ETQW?

Answer: [SD]badman: There are 4 campaigns in the full game, each consisting of 3 maps and set in a different part of the world. Each map has a unique setting and set of objectives, so there's a lot of variety to be found there.

 

Question: mystycs: Was there any old concepts you had which had to go back to the drawing board due to things that couldn’t be done?

Answer: [SD]MoP: Yeah, we have a ton of old concepts lying around in the office and on our network. Sometimes we find out that ideas which look cool on paper just don't work when put into the game, either for technical or logistical reasons.

 

Question: ToW:FLH_DeathMark: Who was the lead weapons designer?

Answer: [SD] Locki: It's really been a team effort. Ed Stern and I wrote the original ideas out, but since then Matt Wilson has taken over the management of all the weapon balancing for the past year or more (which is considerably harder than simply having ideas!) . Everyone at SD and id will contribute ideas for improving things.

 

Question: godzillafire: Will Enemy Territories be released in any other platform?

Answer: [SD]jRAD: ET:QW will be released on PC, followed by Linux and OSX versions. The game will also be on the XBox 360 and PS3 consoles.

 

Question: [SOS] sjk: What are some tips or advices you can give to the people who look forward to working in the gaming industry?

Answer: [SD]MoP: Something I've learned is that you should never give up. Always keep trying to improve your work, whatever it is, and take an active interest in researching and learning more about development processes. Make positive contributions to online communities (forums or game modifications) and get a network of friends and contacts who can help you out with your projects and ideas.

 

Question: radu12345: Have you needed collaboration with others in order to add improvements to the game as of now?

Answer: [SD]badman: We've been working very close with id Software on ETQW - they are involved in every aspect of development. Nerve Software is handling the Xbox 360 version of the game and they've also contributed a few maps to the PC version. We also have Activision Foster City heading up ETQW PS3 development.

 

Question: [SOS] sjk: What are some tips or advices you can give to the people who look forward to working in the gaming industry?

Answer: [SD]Locki: The single biggest recommendation I can make is that you join a mod-team and get some experience under your belt in Art, Design, Programming, or Production. Many of the best game developers will look at mod-making experience in a light that competes with actual industry experience, providing you develop a good portfolio.

 

[SD]Locki: godzillafire: Will Enemy Territories be released in any other platform?

[SD]Locki: Oops - already answered

[SD]Locki: <-- noob

 

Question: Iи$диэ: Will it be so easy to make your own map as in Wolfenstein? If so, will splash damage develop a tool for making the map?

Answer: [SD]jRAD: The map making tool (call editWorld) will be familiar to you if you've used GTKRadiant to make maps for other id games. There are lots of new features, like grouping, terrain texture editing, and texture sheet support. You'll be able to use the same tools that we used to make the game when we release them in the SDK, which will be shortly after the full game is out.

 

Question: Ov3r: what was the most funny thing in the development on the game?

Answer: [SD]MoP: I can't recall the single most funny thing I've seen, but there have been a whole bunch of hilarious side-effects from the game's production and testing. Some of the un-cut audio and voice-chat bloopers are great, and sometimes when we've been testing the game internally there have been weird bugs which result in strange and amusing visual effects :)

 

Question: NACKFAYCEEEEE: What made you decide to stray away from the normal FPS genre and make a large scale vehicle and class based FPS?

Answer: [SD]Locki: We've always been obsessed with advancing multiplayer combat as a genre, while wanting to create a valid spiritual successor to Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. The goals were pretty straightforward: you should be able to choose to fight as a human with conventional weapons, or the bio-mechanically augmented Strogg with their advanced alien weaponry, then take on a combat role that suits your preferred playing style making use of really balanced weapons, items, tools, deployables and vehicles to pursue tactical objectives as part of a coordinated team in really unique and distinct battlegrounds. (Cont...)

[SD]Locki: We wanted to encourage team-play with upgrades, unlockables, and persistent character status; generatively evolve multiplayer combat with a focus on tactics and strategy (rather than deathmatching and capturing flags), while maintaining the intensity that has won Enemy Territory so many fans already.

 

Question: [SOS] HeatDrive: To programmers: For how long do you code in a day on average?

Answer: [SD]jRAD: We usually work 8 to 10 hour days. The majority of the day is spent programming, though we also have short discussions with other team members (other programmers, artists, level designers, designers) throughout the day.

 

Question: radu12345: Did the community help you with anything in order to help you create the game?

Answer: [SD] Locki: Yes! Tons! We've had absolutely loads and loads of amazing feedback from the initial closed-beta tests, and subsequent public beta tests on balancing, bugs, and even feature requests and improvements. A lot of the players have commented on how much they've seen the game improve as a result of their feedback. We always credit them whenever we post Blogs on the community site (http://community.enemyterritory.com) about anything related to testing.

 

Question [SOS] HeatDrive: How do you plan on preventing cheating in the game? (i.e. hacking, and especially STAT-PADDLING)

Answer: [sd]digibob: We use punkbuster as an anti-cheat solution. As for stat padding, we will be monitoring trends in the stats data that demonware collect to spot any annomilies and take care of them. We can also roll back stats for players that have exploited things, as we tested in the beta process.

 

Question: [GR-OF]Baldrick`QuadV: How do you see the competitive future of ET:QW over the future months and years. We can see the large number of official beta / demo competitions online and offline (QuakeCon, TGL), but are there plans to support more events , especially offline, for the fullgame? Will any of these events online or offline be focused on Europe rather than North America?

Answer: [SD]badman: id Software, Splash Damage, and Activision definitely plan to support more tournaments all around the world. The TGL Scorched Earth tournament just kicked off in North America and QuakeWarsLeague.com is doing a demo cup in Europe. On top of that, we are already working with sites like ClanBase to put together tournaments and leagues for the full version of ETQW.

 

Question: Ex1le: Will we see VOIP support anytime in the near future?

Answer:[sd]digibob:: I'm currently working on revising the VoIP system that we use in the engine. This has been going well, we've been testing this week, and it sounds cool. Still have some more things to polish here and there, but we hope to get it out in a patch in the near future.

 

Question: Quake->TeMpEsT: what’s your best tip for playing the game and improving?

Answer: [SD]Locki: The first thing I'd recommend is just playing offline against Bots. You can set their skill to custom (so their aim skill is low, but their tatical skill is high). You'll see them employing lots of cool tactics and strategies, but they won't keep hitting you with headshots. One of the community members (Ilfurita) has also written a fantastic guide for newbies. You can find it by Goggling 'ETQW For Newbies'

 

Question: NACKFAYCEEEEE: What do you guys see as being the most popular team/class? What do the SD guys like to use?

[SD]Mop: From what I've seen online, there's actually a pretty fair balance of all the classes being used. It's not often that we see a huge over-abundance of the wrong class (since it's only to be expected that a lot of people want to the class that completes the current objective). I wish there were more good GDF Medics though, a lot of people don't realize how helpful a good Medic can be!

As for SD guys, a lot of us have a "favourite" class - personally I enjoy Covert Ops, I love getting into disguise and staying hidden for as long as possible, stabbing Strogg in the back! There are some SD players who will always choose the class needed to complete the current objective, while everyone else goes support. BongoBoy plays as Soldier a lot and frequently gets highest XP!

 

Question: aceofspadescard: Im and artist...Who came up with the character designs and how long did it take to come up with final drafts of the GDF characters and the Strogg?

Answer: [SD]MoP: The majority of the character designs were done by Peter "peppi" Boehme. It took a long time to get to the final drafts - the initial designs were really extreme and would have been quite hard to implement in-game, so they were refined and developed with input from id software, and improved to work better in the game.

 

Question: [SOS] HeatDrive: Do you have the fastest gaming machine possible in your office for testing, or do you have machines with different CPU clocks and GPU to test the game's performance in various environments?

Answer: [SD]Locki: We have a really wide range of hardware in the office for testing. We try to make sure that all staff have the latest stuff (so their work is easier) but we play-test on everything that's supported - for example, our Graphics Programmer Mike Armstrong plays regularly on a minimum system specification machine. My own machine in the office is a 7-series NVIDIA (so I can see what the average player sees), but of course at home I have an uber-system :) :) :) (cause I just want to have fun!)

 

Question: CaLiLaTiN: I know the sound affects and music for the original Quake game was composed by Trent Reznor, of Nine Inch Nails. Did any special guests help composed the sound affects for Quake Wars Enemy Territory?

Answer: [SD]badman: Bill Brown, who also composed the music for Return to Castle Wolfenstein and C&C Generals among many other games, did all the music for Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars. You can read more about the create process in this dev blog entry: http://community.enemyterritory.com/index.php?q=node/126

 

Question: aceofspadescard: What game engine did you use for this game?

Answer: [SD]jRAD: We use an enhanced version of the id Software's idTech4. The engine has gained several enhancements since the original version idTech4, including the MegaTexture rendering technology, enhanced networking code, and optimized rendering of massive outdoor areas. The tools used to create the game have also been enhanced from their idTech4 roots.

 

Question: ToW:FLH_DeathMark: Is this game based in the Current Time or in a More Distant time? Such as the Anasasi withe the Fan Tunnel?

Answer: [SD]Locki: Enemy Territory Quake Wars charts the initial invasion of Earth by the Strogg as a prequel to the Quake series of games (when you're leading a retaliation against Stroggos). It takes place around 2065. The humans (the Global Defense Force, or GDF) are a paramilitary organization, so while they feature some advanced weapons, tools, and propulsion for their vehicles, in general they haven't advanced quite as much as you might have expected in the coming 57 years.

[SD]Locki: This provides a niuce distinction between the contemporary weapons of the humans, and the advanced alien technology of the bio-mechanically augmented Strogg.

 

Question: PantsAreForLosers: Many people were concerned that they would have to spend extra money to upgrade their systems just to run QW. How did Splash Damage and ID Software make it so that this will be playable without having compromise the awesomeness of the graphics?

Answer: [SD]MoP: On the programming side of things, our coders spent a lot of time optimizing and improving code for loading and compressing models and maps, to take up less memory. In addition to this, our level designers and art team went through every single map and edited the models and textures to make sure they were used in the most efficient and performance-friendly manner.

 

Question: NACKFAYCEEEEE: Does the map Valley in the demo feature all the vehicles that will be in the game or are there more?

Answer: [SD]badman: Valley features all of the vehicles we currently have in ETQW, though the other maps in the game obviously offer different tactical options from what you're seeing in the demo.

 

Question: [SOS] sjk: Will there be a clan system featured in ET:QW?

Answer: [SD]Locki: There is support for starting, and administering a clan in the front-end user interface (that lets you maintain a separate list from your buddy list, so you can find and join clan mates on servers, promote administrators, and so on, and message everyone). We also have tournament support in the game for competitive play - this game mode is called Stopwatch.

 

Question: Rough*: Will there be future developments that will incorporate 'clan' or 'team' stats pages to group together teams??

Answer: [SD]Locki: You can do that now at http://stats.enemyterritory.com - you can see how it works by looking at the stats we collected from the Betas (that data is not from the demo). If a player is in a clan, you can click his clan tag on the leaderboards and see stats for the entire clan.

 

Question: CaLiLaTiN: Some game developers have only tested there products on Windows XP. Do you test it on Windows Vista to ensure compatibility?

Answer: [SD]jRAD: We test on Vista and XP (both 32 bit and 64 bit editions.) Many of the programmers develop on XP 64bit systems. Our dedicated server is also tested on Windows 2000.

 

Question: [SOS] sjk: What other video games are played in Splash Damage other than the games you have developed?

Answer: [SD]MoP: Well, while we all enjoy a good game of Wolf ET now and then, there's a wide range of stuff that people play in the office during lunch breaks or down-time. We've had some good matches of Call of Duty multiplayer and Quake 3, Team Arena. I've seen of Company of Heroes being played, and STALKER, along with Bookworm Adventures, oddly enough!

 

Question: =UD=Inkubus: Do you plan on watching the forums even after release to fix bugs players have found?

Answer: [sd]digibob: We keep an eye on the forums every day, and are very keen on fixing any bugs that people find. The feedback from the public beta forums and the fileplanet forums was great in giving us feedback on the game, as well as bug that needed fixing. Also, if you send any crash reports to microsoft, those are a excellent for helping find and fixing any crash issues.

 

Question: radu12345: Will you implement the option of creating a server with the ability to keep XP for a set amount of time? Some people want their XP to be kept.

Answer: [SD]Locki: Your experience points, achievements, and military ranks are kept persistently, but what I think you mean is the campaign-length (3 maps) XP and rewards. We allow server administrators on unranked servers in the retail release of the game to create their own campaigns featuring as many maps as they like - in Wolf ET this was called XP Save, and the servers might run for nine maps, or 18 for example... You'll see these starting up after release.

 

Question: [SOS] HeatDrive: Do the programmers or artists test the game, or are there a separate group of people who test the game?

Answer: [SD]Locki: The entire company at Splash Damage play-tests regularly (on many occasions, all day) throughout the development of the game. id Software have been the same too.

 

[SD]BongoBoy: *waves, late to the party as ever

 

Question: Pazy: Will the Linux/Mac versions have an on-disk installer or must it be downloaded?

Answer: [SD]jRAD: The Linux and Mac versions will be available for download, shortly after the release of the PC version.

 

Question: [666]Lukasz: will gravity have any affect on the track of bullet?

Answer: [sd]digibob: Nope, all of our bullet based weapons are purely hitscan, that is they are instant, and go in a straight line. We also work out where the player thought the player they were shooting at was when they fired their weapon, so that the impact of lag is greatly reduced.

 

Question: ßÇ»§héèñ: Will there be any ranking system that stays on your player across servers, and allows weapons to be permanently unlocked?

Answer: [SD]Locki: There are two systems we use. For the duration of a campaign (3 maps) you earn rewards for the XP you earn in different categories (there are 64 possible unlockable rewards, weapon modes, tool modes, etc), and these 'gameplay affecting' rewards are reset at the start of each new campaign (to ensure that someone that has been playing longer than you, isn't much more powerful by defaullt). We then persistently track your experience points, and all your stats, and award achievements based on you demonstrating your teamplay ability - this results in military promotions that really reflect your status (rather than simply how long you have been playing, or sniping, or if you bought an expansion pack :)

 

Question: ToW:FLH_DeathMark: In an Estimated count? What was the total amount of Designers Coders Level Designers Etc?

Answer: [SD]MoP: We have a couple of main game designers, a core team of 6 level designers, a core team of 6 programmers, an in-house team of 6 artists with a few freelance artists helping out. Then we've got the 4 guys on the testing team, and the production/business management team who are about 3 strong, by my reckoning.

[SD]Locki: Yep - we started out as a team of about 6 :)

 

Question: Rough*: Currently playing the demo, There is no ability to tab out of the game. Will this be added into the full version upon release? Or is there a reason for this, ie Instability?

Answer:[sd]digibob: The reason we don't allow players to alt-tab out of the game is due to combinations of some sets of hardware and drivers not being happy with jumping out of the game in fullscreen mode and going back. This can cause graphical corruption, crashes, or cause the entire system to hang. You can override this by setting win_notaskkeys to 0, but this is entirely unsupported due to the issues previously mentioned, and must be done via the console.

 

Question: [SOS] HeatDrive: With ET:QW being one of the biggest projects that your team has completed, is your team proud and satisfied with the final product?

Answer: [SD]Locki: Yes!!!! ETQW represents Splash Damage's debut as a full retail game - to have achieved so many awards and nominations already (over 40 at a last count) and we're hearing that's it's reviewing really well, makes us really proud. The community behind the game is amazing too, and we actually have a good-sized independent development company now - that the industry calls Triple-A :) :) :) Most of us are still like 'Hmmm... I bet someone is gonna notice soon and kick us out!' :)

 

Question: ToW:FLH_DeathMark: What were the reasons for the naming of the Vehicles when there is absolute no relation to into RealLife CounterPart?

Answer: [SD]BongoBoy: Excellent question. Naming vehicles was one of the most frustrating aspects of the game's development, and I suspect it is for many other developers also. Publishers' legal departments are very very very very picky about what you can call things in a game, just in case someone with even a vaguely similar brandname feels like getting jiggy in court. Once things are in The Land Of The Lawyers, strange Quantum things occur. Some very obvious-sounding names are bafflingly available, but the cool ones you first thought of are invariably a trademarked brandname for enema nozzles or unicycle inner tubes or suchlike. So you end up with names which you can get the lawyers to admit won't burst into flames in court, not necessarily the most obvious ones.

 

Question: ToW:FLH_DeathMark: In an Estimated count? What was the total amount of Designers Coders Level Designers Etc?

Answer: [SD]Relaxer: Actually we have 6 Programmers, 9 Artists, 10 Designers and 9 Production/Business folk.

 

Question: slaz: is there a site where every weapon and tools are explained and how they work

Answer: [SD]jRAD: http://4newbies.planetwolfenstein.gamespy.com/ETQW/ is a great resource for learning about the in and outs of the game.

[SD]jRAD: make that "of the game" :)

 

Question: Ex1le: will there be multicore cpu support?

Answer: [sd]digibob: ET:QW runs a large number of threads other than the main game thread. The more expensive of these are the sound and megatexture streaming threads. Having multiple processors will improve the speed of the game by shifting these threads off onto other cores, letting the game run at full speed on its own.

 

Question: PantsAreForLosers: With the different responsibility in classes now, How does QW make teamwork more of a necessity than it has in ET. For exame ET engineers does the majority of the work for almost every map and we end up having Rambo Meds. Is QW supposed to force more teamplay?

Answer: [SD]Locki: I think you're going to see many of the other classes kills (and their rewards) become more and more important as players online learn some of the cool tactics and strategies that our Beta testers have discovered. As an example, if you play Covert Ops and (having already put up a radar, that is generating intel for your team) you then sneak into the enemy base and deploy a third-eye camera on their spawn, your team will see every time a wave comes in and be able to avoid contact if they're an objective completing class - there are hundreds of things like that you can do as different classes.

[SD]Locki: I meant 'other classes skills', not kills, sorry,

 

Question: NACKFAYCEEEEE: What was some of your real life inspiration for some of the weapons/vehicles if any?

Answer: [SD]BongoBoy: Must give props and respect to the awesome TJ Frame, who did a lot of the GDF concepts and style definitions. He's great at turning reference photos into concept studies. So the GDF Titan Tank is lots of the M1 Abrams with some Conqueror thrown in; the Armadillo is a hybrid of the HMMWV and ATF Dingo and Land Rover WMIK; the Trojan has bits of the Mowag Piranha/BTR, the Assault Rifle is bits of SA80 and SAR 21 etc etc

 

Question: *NOB*HalF-DeaD®: Does ETQW use compression of packets to reduce server usage?

Answer: [sd]digibob: ET:QW has multiple levels of compression in use in the networking system. The first of these is the delta compression of entity state, and relayed user command data. As well as this, there is huffman compression used on various other parts of the network stream. We also use Area of Relevance (AoR) to limit the amount of data that is sent out about entities which are far away from you. For the upcoming VoIP technology, we will be using Speex.

 

Question: sX//knN / #ONESTAR: Did you celebrate the finish of ETQW?

Answer: [SD]badman: We had a great gold party at Locki's house with lots of booze, loud music, tons of fireworks (they came in ammo crates, strangely enough), and a Guitar Hero II tournament. That was a lot of fun - save for digibob trouncing me in Guitar Hero II (damn Jessica).

 

Question: [SOS] M2k3: Can you give us any information about concept units that never made it in the game?

Answer: [SD]Relaxer: Good question! We actually have a couple of walls at Splash Damage that are full of concepts that didn't quite make it. There were entire vehicles that we decided not to go forward with for gameplay reasons (the Strogg team had a DomiNode that would have acted like a mini-Slipgate and had 6 legs) to concepts for things that made it into the game but we went with a different direction. Peter, one of our Senior Artists went through about 50 revisions of the Strogg team members until we got to our final choice. We also originally had the Domination Hub and Command Centre with working insides (the CommanD Centre was in the 2005 E3 trailer) but we decided to remove those from the game

 

Question: PantsAreForLosers: With the in-house beta testing with friends and family and the open public beta testing is splash damage excited about the results of how the game finally turned out after months and months and months of testing?

Answer: [SD]Locki: Yes - we're really happy. Of course even now that we've gone GOLD, this is really just the start of the phase of the ongoing support of ETQW. But the Beta testers contributed massively to the final game.

 

Question: †KOB†Šñîpëž½®︻┳═一™{AWBO}: Is there going to be a clan roster tracker(a thing to track where your clan members are).

Answer: [SD]jRAD: The full game has a clan management system in the main menu. You can see if your clanmates and friends are playing on servers, and quickly follow them into the game. You can also invite your clanmates to a server.

 

Question: [SOS] M2k3: Was any of the design borrowed from Quake 2 or was it all based around Quake 4?

Answer: [SD]Mop: You’ll notice that one of the Strogg enemy monsters in Quake 2 was the Icarus soldier - that's something which we brought across for ETQW. However if you play through the Quake 4 single-player you will notice some cool touches such as wrecked ETQW vehicle models scattered around some of the war zones, which we gave Raven to use. You'll also find the Tormentor (Hornet) in Quake 4, that was from SD too.

[SD]MoP: I also kept the Quake 2 visual style in mind when designing some of the Strogg textures for ETQW :)

 

Question: Frosty-: With there being such a difference in the technologies used by both races how did you ensure there would be a good balance between the two sides?

Answer: [SD]Locki: It's interesting (to us at least) because in ETQW's spiritual predecessor, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, the teams were really just reskinned versions of each other (and so we could use a fairly straightforward 'damage over time' formula to balance things like weapons). With the assymmetry in ETQW, there's no synergy between for example, the Strogg Spawnhost and the GDF Supply Crate, so instead we simply argue a lot, and play-test for thousands of hours - we then itteratively revise everything (especially by the addition of counter-abilities on the opposing team) to end up with something balanced.

 

Question: Pazy: Will the AI of the bots be variable? and if so will the hardest difficulty provide a true challenge or is it more of a stepping stone to online play?

Answer: [SD]BongoBoy: The Bot's AI is variable in several ways. You can choose if you want them to complete objectives or not. You can set general difficulty level or specify their Weapon skill and Tactical skill levels separately. They certainly work very well as offline training to get players up to speed with the maps, objectives, classes, skills, weapons, vehicles, deployables etc, but they're also really decent online opponents. It's not uncommon for players to assume the bots are fellow "meat" players, and get irritated when they don't respond to typed messages. I probably exhibit more suspiciously botlike behaviour in games than they do, to be honest.

 

Question: CaLiLaTiN: Will there be any special editions of the game?

Answer: [SD]badman: We've got the Limited Collector's Edition that comes with 10 collector's cards featuring game vehicles and weapons, and an extra dvd chock full of goodies, including trailers, concept art, wallpapers, ringtones, and much more, all wrapped up in fancy fold-out packaging.

 

Question: ßÇ»§héèñ: In your opinion, what is the most enjoyable map in the full game? Can we get its name?

Answer: [SD]Wils: Map preference is a very subjective thing; it really depends what you like to play. Volcano and Salvage were very popular with some of the Wolf ET players on the closed beta, because of their infantry focus, for example. Area 22 is great if you like vehicle and aircraft combat, due to its open skies and wide landscape. I really like Island and Quarry for their item runs, which are always tense.

 

Question: pookoluva4e: why did you choose to remove the command center and the Domination Hub?

Answer: [SD]Locki: For a while we allowed the Covert Ops and Infiltrator to break into the bases, and once inside the Command Centre or Domination Hub, they could choose one of three hacks (disable reinforcements, disable deployable drops, or disable vehicle drops). Back then players spawned and equipped in the Command Centre so you could change class without dying, and the Command Centre had this really detailed interior with lots of cool animations for when it arrived and deployed. (Cont...)

[SD]Locki: However, the game mechanic caused frustration – whenever you had to travel or spawn back at the base to kill the hacker, it felt like you’d had to stop playing the actual game and go do a chore - so we threw all the base structure interior art and animation work out and they’re unhackable now.

[SD]Locki: a

[SD]badman: :o

[SD]Locki: It always hurts to throw stuff out, particularly if you’ve already shed the sweat to get it in-game, but our golden rule of development (one that we learned from id Software) is that it doesn't matter how much effort we've put into something or how cool it looks - if it's not fun, we cut it.

 

Question: 'Frosty-: Which race did you have the most fun designing, GDF or Strogg?

Answer: [SD]Relaxer: The team was pretty split on their preference Frosty - I know Bongoboy preferred drawing from real world weaponry for the GDF team, while Locki had some pretty crazy ideas for the Strogg. When it came to testing, balancing and tweaking, I prefer playing Strogg, while some others on the team preferred using whatever weapon/vehicle was in need of some turning down in the balancing. I remember one test session with someone from id, where they found the Sniper Rifle was doing one shot kills on vehicles. They mentioned this after the playtest of course :)

 

Question: NACKFAYCEEEEE: What made you decide to make it so GDF can't use Strogg vehicles and vice versa?

Answer: [SD]BongoBoy: We started off letting players steal the other team's vehicles, but it wasn't nearly as much fun as we expected. It was confusing, irky, griefsome and frustrating and absolutely no one missed it when we took that functionality out. Much like being able to man the defense turrets - we were absolutely confident it would be cool, then found it was no fun, so we cut that too.

 

Question: [Xfire++] GODJonez: What do you think of a chat sessions like these where you get to directly answer lots of questions by players?

Answer [SD]Locki: We really like them - we always hang around afterwards to stay in the main chat room - last time we stayed another four hours :)

 

[Xfire] Chatteox: Alright Everyone,, that concludes the chat with Splash Damage! Thank You Very Much to our special guests and thanks everyone for participating. If you would like to keep chatting with the Splash Damage team, stay in the question room! They’ll be there answering your after-hours questions!

[Xfire] Chatteox: Now onto the prizes:

 

[SD]Locki: w00t prizes!!!!

[SD]Locki: What do I get?!?! :)

[SD]Locki: ok shutting up sorry :)

 

[Xfire] Chatteox: There will be 10 prize winners: (Excluding Splash Damage employees)

[Xfire] Chatteox: =oP

 

[SD]Locki: :(

[SD]badman: Would it help if I removed my tag?

[SD]BongoBoy: (quick guys, ditch the SD tags!)

[SD]MoP: Oh dear.

 

[Xfire] Chatteox: 5 Quake Wars Posters

[GR-OF] Baldrick`Quad V

Aceofspadescard

Colonel_Tempest

Thibi

Radu12345

 

3 Copies of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars

Br4ndm0n

aEku

Nackfayceeeee

 

2 Collector’s Editions Copies of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars

*Frosty

SoS M2K3

 

[SD]Relaxer: Thanks folks - it's been a blast, hope you enjoyed it. Thanks to the XFire guys. And don't forget - nothing says "I love you mum, Happy October 2nd" more than a copy of Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars

 

[Xfire] Chatteox: If you are one of the winners PM me for instructions on how to claim your prize!

 

[SD]BongoBoy: Cheers everyone, thanks for taking part : )

 

[SD]badman: Thanks guys!

 

[sd]digibob: *waves*

 

[SD]MoP: Yep, thanks! :)

 

[SD]jRAD: thank everyone! there were some great questions tonight