|
|
|
  |
 Warhammer: Mark of Chaos
|
Chris Wren explains the Chaos that will comeSeeing that the game is perhaps more graphics intensive than other RTS games (with the customization of the characters and units etc.), what kinds of specs would you expect this game to demand from one's computer? Chris: We expect that anyone with a 128MB video card and a processor greater than 2 GHz should be fine playing this game. We have made many of the graphics settings scalable with the intent that a wide variety of systems out there can enjoy the same gameplay experience. Those with newer graphics cards will get to experience some of our higher end features like self shadowing and HD lighting, but the goal is to make the gameplay and framerate consistent across all machines. How does the terrain influence the battles? Do trees, hills and other objects influence line of sight? What about units running downhill or uphill? Any other advantages or disadvantages that really should be mentioned? Chris: The terrain influences everything from movement speed to tactical advantage. Ranged units on high ground will shoot farther, line of sight is in effect so positioning is important also. Heavier units and siege weaponry will move best when on roads, they get bogged down in the swamp or grassland. Some units will have a great advantage when moving across rugged terrain, like the High Elf Shadow Warrior, Empire Huntsmen, and Giant Rats of the Skaven, whereas others will become hindered Chaos Warriors crossing a river ford will be sink like rocks and move very slowly. One of my favorite effects of terrain is that when you are "fighting an uphill battle" you will actually see your troops taking more damage than if they have the high ground. Heroes evolve overtime, gaining experience from the battles that they fight. While it has been explained that you can use the experience to upgrade your heroes and that there are three skill trees (command, combat, dueling), we are interested to know more about these skill trees. Should we expect a system like Diablo or something deeper like Neverwinter Nights? Chris: The skill trees are unique for every Champion, while they all share the same 3 disciplines, each skill will reflect the nature of that Champion. Each Champion has roughly 25 skills that they can develop, each of these skills has five levels of achievement. Like many RPGs out there you will need to choose how you want to develop your Champion, you will never achieve enough skill points to unlock and master all of these skills, so you can either spread your points out for a Champion who is good at many things or you can focus their development to make them great at one or two things. You will be able to attach up to four heroes to each of your armies, so having specialists in various disciplines is easy to imagine. You might have your Hero killer to bring in to sack the quarterback, and you might also have a great commander inspiring and leading your forces while your combat master just runs ahead swatting enemy aside like flies. The skill tree lets you decide how you want your Champion to behave, and the armor and weaponry they wear can further customize their abilities on the battlefield. We expect that we will see some very unique strategies emerge from a system like this which allows for so much customization and specialization. Throughout the development of the game, what would you say was the most challenging hurdle you had to take? Chris: The biggest challenge was that we had an assumption that we could make a game focused on just battling and have it still be a full experience. While we knew it's what we wanted to do, we always had some reservations in the backs of our minds that we might actually put this thing together and we might feel like something is missing because we deviated from the norm so much. Through its development we kept adding pieces as we saw fit, the RPG elements and the dueling were results of looking for ways to enrich the battling experience. We really felt like the customization was big part of Warhammer and so we made every effort to allow you to call your army your own, whether in single or multi player, we wanted each army to be unique and customized to your preference and playstyle. I think when people play it, they will find that this team clearly has a lot of love for traditional RTS gaming, but this product is about taking a key element of that and making it as detailed as possible. Other than "It's a fantastic game!", what would you say is the most compelling reason for our readers to buy Warhammer: Mark of Chaos when it comes out later this year? Chris: If you like the idea of hurling body parts from your hellcannons to demoralize your enemy, if you think it would be cool to mow down a bunch of sniveling goblins with a full charge of your cavalry, if you think it wouldn't suck to have your Champion swoop in on Dragonback, breathing fire and picking up enemy units only to hurl them to their deaths, if you think that it might be fun to wheel a three story siege engine to an enemy keep, unleash a squad of your elite troops, take down some pesky archers and capture the walls, if you think that you might enjoy calling down meteors from the sky, catching your enemy on fire while you send them flying in all directions, if you think that doing this all online with an army that you customized from the color on their uniform to the banner that they wave against thousands of players who all think they can take you down, then this might be the game for you.    |
|
|
| Vitals |
    |