Interviews// Enemy Territory: Quake Wars - Paul Wedgwood Part 3

SPOnG: Presumably, on PC, ETQW is going to be a game released under Microsoft’s new ‘Games for Windows’ brand?

Paul Wedgwood: Well, that’s more of a marketing question to direct towards Activision. We’re under NDA wthl a whole range of vendors we work with – such as Intel, NVidia and so on – but I can tell you that we currently have the game running on Vista.


SPOnG: And the console versions of ETQW are the same game, other than the control methods?

Paul Wedgwood: Oh, yeah, we’re not ‘nerfing’ the gameplay or anything like that to make it easier for console gamers. Console gamers have the advantage over [keyboard and mouse] vehicle control and keyboard and mouse probably have the advantage with the first person shooter controls. So as long as those two groups of people are not playing against each other on the same server then that’s not a problem Right now. And I know that Shadowrun and games like that are thinking about that, that [cross-platform play] is a big feature for them but that’s not something that we have been focused on or concerned about.


SPOnG: In terms of looking towards the future of these types of game, it seems that previously different and ‘discrete’ genres are gradually merging into each other…is this an fps? A strategy game? A ‘strategic shooter’?

Paul Wedgwood: Well, we probably have the one with the most depth, and our hope is that will result in really good longevity for the game, with people still playing it years down the line, just as they are with Wolfenstein Enemy Territory.

What’s really different, and something that most people have overlooked in the past, is that we are doing everything we can to make the game far more accessible. I’ve jumped into multiplayer combat games before and had no idea what I was doing and just having that, “Oh I can’t be arsed” feeling about not knowing how to get going and wanting to learn more about how to play the game.

So, we did two types of things with ETQW. Firstly, it’s a very satisfying visual experience. There are a lot of big explosions. Players see lots of cool things happen and it’s kind of like being in an action movie war, as opposed to a realistic war. So for new people getting into the game, there is this ‘sandbox’ nature to it. You can just run around, blow stuff up, not give a crap what anyone else is doing, shoot the bad guys… just have fun with it and it will be a kind of action-experience…So I guess in that respect it’s kind of like playing a Medal of Honour-type game, with really big orchestrated scripted events… except it’s humans you are playing with not AI’s generated by your computer.

If we can take those people who are enjoying playing the game that way, as a ‘sandbox’, who would otherwise get fed up after a couple of weeks of playing (just like, as a kid, you get bored with the same toy after a couple of weeks), and we can ‘hook’ them by getting them to successfully build or complete one of the objectives… and the game tells them, “so-and-so built the objective” then they get a very cool feeling and they go “oh-my-god, everybody knows I did that.” Then they get to the end of that match and they see their name on the board. That is what gets people co-ordinating and trying to do other stuff together.

You know, there is something really heroic in the character of the multiplayer gamer who chooses to play ‘medic’ – as he is running around giving people health and reviving them. And he’s proud of the fact that he gets ‘best support class’ as an award, which seems quite a modest thing to achieve.