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

SPOnG: Yeah, my favourite part of playing the game earlier today was just mending a tank.

Paul Wedgwood: Right, that’s exactly it, you got the team going again! Most people don’t realise how satisfying that aspect of the game is. And that’s all we want to show them. If that’s the only thing that comes out of this game at all that’s it.

When we hear people talking about the experiences they had at the end of a map, it’s always stories like: “I was riding this Husky quad-bike and went hammering over the top of a mountain, then I jumped off and base-jumped down into the centre of the enemy base and, you wouldn’t believe it, but I backstabbed this guy straight away… stole his disguise… I was hiding there for two minutes…Then I managed to do this…”

It’s like they are describing a sequence from an action movie. The game is designed to make them feel like they really did contribute. And then they start to get this satisfaction, this buzz from co-ordination with other players.

That’s what I was saying earlier – back when I was in a clan, playing for two years competitively, I had this really cool feeling from having all these really good set-plays and a really good communication system. It was incomparable to the experience of playing on a public server, with everyone running around just aggressively trying to kill each other. And I wanted people when they played ETQW – and this is a real focus of Kevin at id’s as well - to get that ‘clan play’ experience, without knowing anybody on the server.

So if each person is just a bit like you and they go “I love that bit where I got the tank going” – and that’s the bit that they remember, then we are already achieving that.

And then just wait until you see it a couple of weeks in when you are far more experienced and far more confident about the tools and abilities of a particular class that you’re playing.


SPOnG: How does matching up different abilities work – in terms of finding other players? How can I find players who are as average at shooters as I am?

Paul Wedgwood: Well, firstly, you don’t have to be a good ‘twitch-shooter’ to be good at ETQW. There are loads of support roles in the game where you need never fire a single shot, and you could still end up on top of the scoreboard at the end of a match.

Taking ‘engineer’ as an example, you can lay down land-mines that defend your base or defend your advanced point. Then you could go outside and place a defence turret, then spend your time keeping that alive by repairing it, repairing other peoples vehicles and deployables as they request your help. Not fire a single shot at anybody else, yet finish the match with more medals and more XP than anybody else. The best thing for the team gets you more awards.

The game is designed to encourage this notion of public co-operation and co-ordination, not twitch-shooting.


SPOnG: What do you plan to do after the game’s shipped then, yourself?

Paul Wedgwood: Sleep! [laughs] No. I’m going to play lots of Quake Wars. One of the things about being a games designer is that you have tons of ideas – there’s a big melting pot of ideas between Splash Damage and with our collaboration with id Software and stuff – and you see it all brought to fruition and you are playtesting them all the time. But every time you’re playing, you have some objective in mind or problem to fix. So it’s technically always work, even though of course it’s often loads of fun! So to be completely free of that responsibility and play it is going to be a really interesting pursuit.

I’ve also not had much time to play anybody else’s games, so I’m looking forward to playing others’ games. Can’t wait for Team Fortress 2, I was a huge fan of the original.


SPOnG: Thanks again for your time, Paul.

Paul Wedgwood: No worries, thanks for coming and playing our game.

Read Part Two of our interview here.

Read Part One of our interview here.