Playtester Interviews: Echomanhce

Q: What is your name?

A: Adam Morris

Q: What is your online handle?

A: echomanhce

Q: How long have you been playtesting Empire Earth? How did you find out about playtesting?

A: About 1 year 3 months. I found about playtesting when one of my co-workers (who was dating and is now engaged to EE sound designer Scott Haraldsen) told me that her boyfriend was interviewing at Stainless Steel, and asked if I knew anything about the company. We checked out the website, and when I saw that Stainless was looking for playtesters, I leapt at the chance to playtest - something I had always wanted to do ever since I first read about playtesters in a commodore-64 magazine in the 80s.

Q: How good would you say you are compared to the other playtesters?

A: Well, not so good actually - I'm probably one of the weaker players in the group, but I consider myself an average player overall. We've got some really talented testers in the group - which keeps multiplayer VERY interesting!

Q: What is your favorite epoch(s)?

A: WW II - I love the prop planes and the tanks - And the chance to upgrade to nukes . . . the dropping of the first nuke in the game is always occasion for great emotion - triumph or despair - depending on whehter you're doing the dropping - or being dropped upon!

Q: Which unit is the best looking/animated?

A: Good question - I think my personal favorite is the WW II battleship modelled on the Bismarck. It reminds me of this plastic boat that I had when I was a kid - kind of a model but built to play with rather than just place on the shelf. I like this unit because it looks extremely faithful to the original, and just like that toy I had it feels MASSIVE - something you can send out there and really do some damage...I like the scale of it as well as the look.

Q: What are some features that make EE different from other RTS's?

A: I'd say the distinguishing features here are:

Scope - you've got a scope of time and change over time equivalent to that very very famous turn-based strategy game (that everyone but me has played).

Custom Civs - building a civ, or even selecting one of the pre-fab civs, is unique since they are not only based on geographic location, but on time-period.

Unit Upgrades - I don't think I've seen EE's system of custom unit upgrades (or anything similar) in any other RTS.

More succinctly, what sets EE apart is that EE really allows players to adapt the game to their playing style, rather than adapting their playing style to match the game. One could argue that this encourages players to mind the ancient martial philosophy of Sun Zu's Art of War - know thy enemy; know thyself.

Q: How long does a typical multiplayer game last?

A: Usually between one and two hours.

Q: you prefer land, sea, or air combat, and why? Do you think there is enough diversity in each of those categories in EE?

I enjoy air combat from an aesthetic standpoint - it's just really cool to watch your planes fly off and mix it up in a giant furball with the enemy, and good coordination of fighters and bombers, especially nukes, can be a powerful offensive weapon. It is very costly though, and from what we've been seeing in multiplayer games, it's almost always the ground troops that carry the victory.

I'm not sure what you mean by diversity in these categories - Definitely, in each category there are plenty of units to choose from, and each type of combat has its strengths and weaknesses. One of the great challenges in learning EE is learning to choose which approach to take and when.

Q: Have you ever flooded your opponent with one unit, and did it work well?

A: Flooding really only works if you've got the resources to hit your enemy hard with several waves, or your enemy doesn't know the proper counter-unit. Example - in a recent game I got attacked by a massive onslaught of tanks, that I held off fairly well with a lesser number of anti-tank guns. My economy was hurt, and I was unable to rebound in time to counter a second onslaught.

-If you were a beginner, which epoch do you think it would be the best to start off with?

I forget the name, but whatever the first epoch that has farms...this allows for constant supply of food (an essential commodity throughout the game), and makes it easier to build up an army and start learning the different units. The first few epochs don't have farming, and hunting and gathering can be a bit slow.

Q: What is the first thing you are going to do when you get the retail version?

A: Challenge my wife to a marathon multiplayer game in which we try to span all the epochs...after that I'm going to start working on the Great Pumpkin mod in the scenario editor...that is, if it will let me create killer pumpkin patches!

Q: Can you think of any funny bugs that you've caught during testing?

A: There was the ghost elephant - Strongbow killed an elephant and it kept walking around with zero hit points. Another amusing bug was the brief period in which the seas had turned to psychadelic colors - red, purple, orange - EE on acid! This wasn't exactly a bug, but I was always amused by the placeholder art that got added when some new units got put in the future epochs - like the Epoch 12 Test Gun that was this HUGE 19th century cannon.

Q: Have you played a multiplayer game that was particularly memorable? Care to share a warstory?

A: The most memorable multiplayer game was one in which we ALL lost to GJ - I forget his handle [ed note: GJ is Max Power on Sierra.com] - this is actually something that's been changed, I guess you could call it a bug - anyway, many many builds ago, morale was displayed by showing a number of shields over units - one shield for the number of morale points. Well, GJ got the bright idea to use multiple heroes - at the time, morale was cumulative - I think he had something like 5 or 6 heroes - and so this huge army with something like a dozen shields over the heads just marched all over the map slaughtering everything in its path! It was like watching a wave of units mirrored by a wave of shields...we all had a good laugh at that one when the slaughter was over.

Naturally, you can't do that anymore!