Battlefield 1942, developed for the PC by Sweden-based Digital Illusions, is reaching cult status in on-line multiplayer circles, and The Road To Rome expansion pack released a few months ago only has fans clamouring for more.
The next expansion pack, Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons of WWII, has been in development for months, spearheaded by Digital Illusions' Canadian team. @Play tore Armando "AJ" Marini, creative lead for the expansion pack project, away from the game for a quick chat about what fans can expect from the expansion pack, how the game is being developed, and where the Battlefield 1942 franchise goes from here.
@Play: The game was originally developed in Europe. What unique qualities or perspectives does the Canadian team bring to the Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons of WWII expansion project, and why was the Canadian office chosen to build it?
Marini: London is the newest of the three offices, and we felt that wanted to make ourselves a part of the whole in a meaningful way. We here played BF1942 while it was in development and had we kept talking about what choices we would have made. When the opportunity came up for this expansion pack, we let Stockholm know that we were very interested in putting our spin on it. They had a lot of work on their plate so it was decided that we should give it a shot.
Each of our three offices (Stockholm, Gothenburg, and London) has a unique character. As an office, we tend to be very competitive. We tend to have some sort of daily death-match at lunch and we even get together for paintball from time to time. That insatiable appetite for destruction and our natural competitive spirit has come together to make SWWW2 the most action packed iteration of BF1942 to date.
@Play: Some powerful new weapons are slated to appear in the expansion pack, such as the Sturmtiger (a Tiger tank with a naval gun mounted on it) and the T95/T28 Super Heavy Tank. A standard tank is already a fair handful for an infantry soldier with grenades or even a bazooka, taking numerous direct hits to knock out. How will you balance things so that a player who gets their hands on one of these new advanced weapons won't completely outmatch players who are on foot or in lesser vehicles like an APC?
Marini: BF1942 was designed with a Rock/Paper/Scissors philosophy - in other words everything has a counter.
With SWWW2 we took the approach of Harder Rock/Tougher Paper/Sharper Scissors which means that although a weapon is powerful, there is still a counter and, in many cases, a devastating counter at that. These new tanks are immensely destructive but they have an inherent Achilles heal. Find it and Bob's your uncle.
@Play: British Commando and German Elite troops are reportedly being added to the game. Will they have any new abilities and/or weapons beyond the standard infantryman, anti-tank, sniper, medic and engineer that people can play in the first two installments of the game?
Marini: The new forces will not have any new abilities but they will have new weapons. We seized the opportunity with the new forces and introduced weapons that are geared toward encouraging more action.
For instance, the Commando engineer is equipped with a shotgun. That transforms the engineer from a sort of support character into a more proactive member of the team.
@Play: The German jetpack sounds like a great addition. How long will people be able to fly with it - just a short hop, or can they cross a battlefield - and how do you think it will affect the dynamics of battle?
Marini: As with any vehicle in BF1942, the jetpack is what you, the player, make of it. If you are skilled enough, you will be able to cross a battlefield with it. If you are foolhardy, your trip will be quite short.
Of course, we play test every new feature to make sure it is a worthy addition to the game. What we've found with the jetpack is that players can really exploit the environment. Rather than always running along the ground, players can now take to the rooftops to traverse the battlefield. The jetpack allows a player to infiltrate a control point in unexpected ways leaving the other team guessing. The drawbacks are that you're pretty much on your own and your weapon is not as powerful as those which others tend to have. Of course, being an airborne soldier is rather conspicuous and tends to draw enemy fire your way …
@Play: Electronic Arts has already started promoting the expansion pack as an add-on that will "enhance the gamer's experience." Is this mainly with regard to new weapons and battles, or will there be some changes to the fundamentals of the game play and graphics engine as well?
Marini: There aren't any fundamental changes to the basic game or game engine. Players who know BF1942 will be able to get up and go immediately. What has changed is the way in which player must approach the game. It is much more imperative for participants to play as a team with focused goals. The new maps, weapons, and vehicles will cause problems for those who decide to play as an army of one.
The C-47 is a great example of this. Taking this new airplane without a load of troops is OK, but it's pretty much just basic transportation. Once you realize the immense benefits of team play, the C-47 becomes one of the most dangerous vehicles in the game because it unleashes wave after wave of the most unpredictable weapon known, the soldier. Let me tell you, it's quite intimidating to be an axis and watch the C-47 drop six paratroopers onto one of your most important control points.
@Play: Battlefield 1942 has become a cult phenomenon in on-line gaming circles, but most games seem to average fewer than 30 players at any given time, even though some servers can handle more than 60. Are there any plans to take Battlefield into the massively multiplayer arena, where hundreds or even thousands of players could take part in a battle simultaneously? What are the pros and cons of going "massively multiplayer"?
Marini: BF1942 is limited by available technology. With other massive multiplayer games, there may be thousands of people in the world, but your computer only has to worry about the few that are on your screen. With BF, it's possible to have 10, 20, even 30 players on screen along with their vehicles, the inevitable explosions that follow, and the physics to handle all the flying bodies and debris. That's a lot of computational power. As time marches on and technology gets faster and faster, I'm sure we'll explore the possibilities of having larger battles. The more, the merrier, right?
@Play: Many on-line games charge a monthly fee for people who want to play on-line. At the moment, Battlefield's on-line play is free for anyone who buys the game, and it's one of the things that has made the title so popular. Will this free on-line play continue with the expansion pack, and given the economics of operating and maintaining gaming servers, is it realistic to expect it to stay free indefinitely?
Marini: I think it is very realistic expect it to remain free indefinitely. When customers buy the game, part of that cost goes towards maintaining servers. As long as the game remains reasonably popular, there are funds to sustain servers. This does not just apply to the original BF1942, but the entire BF franchise now and into the future. Our goal is to make BF the single most popular on-line action game and it would be counterproductive for us to close off avenues of accessibility. The best way for us to be number one is to be as accessible as possible.
@Play: The Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons of WWII expansion pack reportedly upgrades the game engine with a mode where teams have to complete a specific series of objectives to win, rather than just eliminating the enemy or capturing all their flags. But this is still based on Battlefield's traditional single-battle setup, where the outcome of one scenario doesn't affect the next battle teams decide to play. Have the developers given any thought to a campaign mode where teams or clans can match up in a series of battles and the outcome affects what happens to the setting of the next battle and the course of the campaign?
Marini: We have given it some thought. The premise of having one battle affect the next is interesting but again, it goes against the accessibility goals that we have planned.
Implementing a feature such as this, in the end, requires a lot of time devoted to the game by the user. As it stands now, players can join and play for five minutes or five hours, it is completely open to them.
I've heard so many people say "I love BF, but my wife doesn't". I live BF, so how do you think my wife feels? I'll tell you that she hardly even knows when I'm playing because I choose times, when she and the kids are occupied. The flexibility of the game is one of its strengths, as is its balance and fairness. As it stands, every battle begins with a fair, fresh start and that helps to make it so much fun for the player.
@Play: In the (many, many, many) hours I've spent playing the original game and the first Road to Rome expansion, one of recurring issues has been "spawn camping" where people hide near the enemy's spawn points and kill them in the second or two between when they appear and when the player gets control of the character. In the expansion, you're introducing a mobile spawn point on a plane that could ease the problem. Is there any plan to boost the number of spawn points as well, build "enemy detection" into the game engine so that people only spawn in areas where they won't be immediately killed by someone lurking nearby, or add a few seconds of invulnerability to characters when they spawn?
Marini: Video games have been around so long that we've become used to playing against artificial opponents who, for the most part, play fair or at least predictably. With BF1942, you often play against humans and we should accept that humans will exploit situations if they can. No one likes dying, but in any battle someone has to be on the losing end.
We like to laugh and refer to spawn camping as "tactical suppression". With each occurrence you have to ask yourself "who let that guy get in there?" The problem is also a matter of perspective from the player who is spawning. The complaints only revolve around areas that cannot be captured. The player feels that these areas should be safe havens.
The reality of the matter is that this is war and everywhere is hostile territory. Rather than introducing new features that artificially protect the player, we looked at the root of the problem. People want to be in on the action as soon as possible and if they get bored, they'll go looking for people to shoot. The new maps get players into the action very quickly and as a player, keeping yourself in the heart of the battle rather than camping is to your and your team's advantage.
@Play: Are there any new battle scenarios that Battlefield fans should look forward to? Why?
Marini: We've made more maps with the "Hybrid Conquest" scenario where all control points can be seized. We've found that this all out approach to battle worked well and often leads to forces swapping ends of the map thereby changing the dynamics of the battle on the fly.
@Play: What's your favourite feature of the Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons of WWII expansion pack and why?
Marini: I would have to say that my favourite feature of this expansion is the way we set up the maps. Control points are close enough so that at any one control point, the player can see at least one other control point.
This approach has players constantly embroiled in the heat of battle. I tend to be a very impatient player so having instant access to the action is very important to me.
12. What's your favourite Battlefield 1942 map, and how many hours do you figure you've logged on the game?
Marini: Of all the maps we've created so far, I would have to say that my favourite is Essen which we will be showing at E3 this year. It is a map based on an airborne assault of the German city of Essen. It's unlike any BF map to date and the insane things that I've seen people do on that map definitely make it one of my favourites.
How many hours have I logged? Gee, I never counted. At work, I've played for at least an hour a day, everyday for the last year and a half. Since we started development of Secret Weapons in the fall, I play at least three to four hours a day. Add to that the time I log at home on-line or with my son and the number gets pretty high. If I had to guess, I would say somewhere over a thousand hours.
My son hasn't seen any of the new maps yet so I imagine we'll play a lot more when he gets his hands on them.