January 28, 2009

Explosive Interview with Codename: Panzers Cold War's Peter Nyester
By Louis Bedigian

"We used all our previous experience to provide a polished multiplayer, and we enjoy this part of the game the most."

Codename: Panzers Cold War, the next chapter in the Codename: Panzers saga, is set for release this February. To gear up for its imminent launch, we spoke with Peter Nyester, Lead Designer of Codename: Panzers Phase 2, Project Manager of Codename: Panzers Cold War at developer Stormregion, and most recently the Managing Director of InnoGlow, the developer responsible for finalizing the game.

"We created a full sequel building on the strengths of the series, but also had all possibilities like huge and professional team and many years for development to bring it to the next level," he said. "As we have already presented the best of WWII warfare, we moved to the cold war era continuing the storyline and presenting a more modern setting and military doctrines. APCs, helicopters, jet fighters, prototype tanks of the early 60s, napalm, and the mighty nuke are also represented. The result of our efforts is an authentic 'what if' scenario, that doesn't sacrifice gameplay over realism, and brings different layers that can serve our hardcore fanbase and also masses new to the series."

One of the interesting things about the Codename Panzers series is that it doesn't want to box the player into a particular strategy. How is this open-ended aspect being taken to a new level with Codename Panzers: Cold War?

Peter Nyester: Keeping the best traditions of the series, providing wide range of diverse possibilities for the players were always in focus during design of missions and game mechanics. One of the most interesting new features to help that is the Upgrade System. Beside having many different units, now we can customize all of them with special upgrades differing from unit to unit changing their abilities and skills. You can have more armor, better or different gun, greater speed, longer firing range, specialties like repairing or mine detection just to name some. It's a useful feature on the battlefield for reacting quickly to various situations and enemy strategies. As infantry squads can also be equipped with many different weapons, the variation of units is huge, and really can support players shaping their army and strategies matching their taste. And as an open game, many of the combinations will work fine, and some of them can fail, just like in real warfare.

Give us the story on the new campaign: mission types, locations, objectives, etc.

PN: Without spoiling too much, the story starts dawn of 8th April 1949, during the Berlin Blockade, one of the most significant cold war crises in Europe. The airlift trying to supply the city surrounded by masses of the Red Army from the air is successful, but an accident, later known as the Tempelhof Incident brings the spark that makes world on fire. The conflict is now between former allies, between two superpowers, presenting various locations like Germany, France, The Netherlands, or even the vast deserts of Kazakhstan deep inside the Soviet Union, or snowy Finland. The storyline let you fight on both sides with a twist, accomplishing missions ranging from commando-styled covert actions and defensive bunker fights, to huge tank battles and storming a castle.

How are the battles being balanced so that they're realistic yet still fully playable and enjoyable?

PN: This is always a problem that is hard to solve, even with several years of RTS design experience.

Choosing an authentic but fictional conflict helped a lot in that. We chose real life units we liked, and modelled their behaviour on real technical data. We had the flexibility to select the proper units and combinations of upgrades to use in the game, balanced for playability in focus. We picked units in "light", "medium" and "heavy" categories so NATO and Soviet Union are equivalent in terms of power. Each weapon has it's counter.

We also reworked completely the path finding so it is still much more realistic than any game in the market, but still fun and enjoyable. You won't see units stepping on each other or turn with unrealistic angles like in other games. However you will still feel you are controlling what they do, and when.

At least in terms of difficulty tuning we spent a lot of time play-testing each map with gamers. Each map was designed as scaleable so we fine-tuned each single and multiplayer map so they are playable and fun at each difficulty level. We also had to reword some objectives so they are clearer.

Everything can still be considered realistic, as everything is similar to what could have happened in a real conflict of that time. It's also worth mentioning amazing detail in visual presentation that adds to the realistic feeling.

In the last game, the environments were used to hinder or improve your success with varying degrees of terrain. How is this element being extrapolated for Cold War?]

PN: Wise usage of buildings and different covers are essential for the success of our infantry units in city warfare. We also have different types of terrain, from plains and highways to swamps, snow and fords, all having effect on your movement speed, and also define places where you can build strongpoints like bunkers, or repair stations.

Tell us about the Prestige Point system and how it's being utilized in Cold War.

PN: Prestige Point system brings resources to the game that you can collect controlling important POIs on the map or completing objectives. It can be used to call reinforcements in various ways like trains, helicopters, landing crafts, request external support like napalm strike, attack helicopter, artillery fire and supply box, or you can use prestige for producing or upgrading units.

In what ways will players be able to customize their units? Does this feature cut into your Prestige Point earnings?

PN: Beside the upgrade system and the huge variations of infantry weaponry already mentioned, you can also choose from several custom paintings that change the look of your units. You can upgrade your staring units before the mission or in the battlefield, both will cost you prestige to specialize your army.

How will weather effects come into play this time around?

PN: Weather changes and day night cycles result very spectacular visuals changing color and direction of lighting realistically, and turning on unit lights if necessary. Bad weather conditions and night has effect on your visibility conditions affecting gameplay.

In addition to the three play modes (co-op, deathmatch and domination), what can we expect from the multiplayer content?

PN: We used all our previous experience to provide a polished multiplayer, and we enjoy this part of the game the most. We included wide range of classic and fresh map designs, but to make multiplayer more fun, production of new units has more focus than in multiplayer. Many kind of POIs are motivating players for controlling different parts of the map, all of them provide some tactical or strategic advantages for its owner.

You can imagine warehouses of prototype weapons, or multiplayer exclusive things like nuke silos and chemical weapons. Of course AI is trained to bring players new challenges, but to serve hardcore minded players, we made coop missions extra challenging on harder difficulty levels.

With up to eight players going online simultaneously, things are bound to get intense – and very draining for hardware and Internet connections. Is it difficult trying to optimize this aspect so that the game plays smoothly at all times? Or has technology finally reached a place where that is no longer a worry?

PN: For RTS games where lots of units are under control, it's always difficult. It's getting even more complicated when you have a highly detailed ultra destructible environment, complex animations are played, and much more events are needed to be synchronized, than usual. Several games of today purely believe in broadband bandwidth, but sometimes it doesn't solve problems alone. It's not a secret that we had to experiment a lot in this field to get the proper results for an extra demanding game like CPCW, but finally we worked out solutions allowing proper multiplayer experience for players.

Thank you for your time.

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