Playtester Interviews: Obsidian

Q: What is your name?

A: John Campbell

Q: What is your online handle?

A: Obsidian

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

A: I've been playtesting the game since march of 2000. Seen it go through a lot of changes in that time. The story of my finding out about the playtesting actually goes all the way back to 1998 when Rick was first starting out with the new company. He was looking at office space in the Boston area where he ran into my father. I think Rick had locked himself out of the building, but I can't be entirely sure. The two of them got to talking and my father mentioned that I was graduating with a CS degree soon and was currently out in San Jose attending the annual Computer Game Developers Conference. When I got back I immediately put in an application to work for SSSI. To make a long story short, I didn't make the cut. After that happened I started doing a regular check every few weeks or so of the SSSI website to see if anything new was happening. One day I saw the application asking for people to playtest the game. I filled it out, and pretty soon after I was asked to start coming in on the weekends.

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

A: I would rate myself about 3rd or 4th in comparison with the other playtesters right now. I've primarily played RTSs in single player mode in the past so the concepts of what was important/emphasized in a multiplayer game was kind of new to me. I'm catching up though... =)

Q: What is your favorite epoch(s)?

A: Right now I would have to say World War 2. This is the period of time when tanks and airplanes really start coming out as the dominant players on the battlefield. Sure they are introduced in WW1, but they aren't quite as effective, nor do they look as good since the designs hadn't been fully thought out at that time. They, meaning the designers of the real vehicles, basically put a steel box on treads with a bunch of guns sticking out and called it a "tank". I much prefer the look of the later Panzers and Shermans.

Q: Which unit is the best looking/animated?

A: I would have to say the Ares. I don't think they have released a screen shot yet, but it is a robotic unit from the Digital age. It floats and has these two massive gattling guns for arms that rotate around when it fires. It, like a lot of the robotic units, just looks cool.

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

A: I think the biggest feature is the civilization builder. No longer are you forced to have bonuses you don't really want, or that aren't useful for your current situation. Bonuses for things like fishing and stronger ships are of no use on a map that has little or no water. Which was kind of the downfall for a lot of civs in AoE and AoK. Sometimes you picked a civ because they had one type of bonus you liked, but often their was some other bonus that you simply couldn't use and so it felt like you had really been given one less advantage than everyone else.

Q: How long does a typical multiplayer game last?

A: Typically they last about an hour. It really depends on the epoch you start in as well. In the later epochs where units like tanks move so fast and scout out so much territory it is easy to find your opponent and start hitting them real hard.

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

A: Of the three I prefer land combat. The objective in any war is to obtain and hold on to new territory. New territory means new resources, new resources means more troops which in turn leads to the acquisition of new territory. It takes ground troops to effectively take and hold a new portion of the map. Sure, airplanes can put a major dent in the defenses, but they'll need to land and refuel leaving that territory completely open for new troops to build up. Shore bombardments are effective but have a limited reach which makes them helpful but not always capable of dealing the finishing blow to an opponent.

There is a lot of diversity within each of the subgroups. Each group, when taken by itself, provides plenty of options for players to have a fun and enjoyable game. So if people felt like building multiplayer maps that focused on any one of them, they could.

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

A: I've had varying degrees of success with that tactic. It usually only works once since as soon as your opponent starts seeing something like that happen they build the counter unit and any future attack will be wiped out pretty quick. If you do it early in the game you can sometimes catch people off guard because they haven't built any military yet, but if they just so happen to have built that counter, you can kiss your force good bye. Classic example is building a tank first off and using it to find and harass your opponent's base. This works well only if the other player wasn't smart enough to build an Anti Tank Gun. If he has, then you're toast and should start worrying about that counter attack.

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

A: People new to the whole genre should definitely start in the prehistoric epoch. The game does a great job of introducing new aspects of game play gradually so that you feel like you have a base to work from as new things are introduced. Once you get one concept down, you have a little time to understand its effect in battle before the next innovation comes along.

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

A: Show it to my family so they can see what I've been doing every weekend for the past year and a half... ;-)

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

A: During one of the earlier builds of the game they had a unit that was capable of putting mines down on the battlefield. The concept was that you would pick where you wanted to plant mines and then the unit would go out and build them much like citizens build walls. The bug here was that the unit didn't have to build the mines, you just clicked on the ground and they were there, ready and waiting. All you needed was line of site (Which mines conveniently gave... MUHAHAHA). I was able to take one of these units and build a line of mines directly from my base into my opponent's base. From there I just littered the place with mines. Anytime he built a new unit it would walk out, step on the mine and go boom. On top of all this they were invisible, so he had no idea what was going on and was looking around frantically for the thing that was wiping him out. Its a good thing they caught that one in testing... =)

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

A: Two weeks ago I was in a 5 player game with AndrewK. We had decided to do a 3 on 2 with Andrew on the 2 player team since he had been dominating everyone in the first two games we had played that day. We set the game to run from the imperial epoch to World War 1. I started out by picking a civilization that had bonuses to its infantry and field guns as well as some farming bonuses. After a little economy build up, I built 2 musketeers and sent them off exploring. It wasn't long before they found an opponent's base and started to wreak havoc. I did a pretty good job of picking off a number of his citizens right away and I'm sure it crippled him for the rest of the game. While this is all going on I am also busily building up and advancing to the next epochs. In a pretty short time I have reached WW1 and I just start cranking out Doughboys (they're the guys with the flat helmets in the screen shots). I built about 30 of them and augmented it by adding a few anti tank guns and 2 heroes. As I get ready to march over with my army I get an urgent message that Andrew was starting to take down one of my teammates with a mass of tanks. Usually, a signal that the end is near. So I marched north to ward off the attack. Under normal circumstance, the tanks would have ripped through my army, but having the heroes there along with the AT gun allowed me to take the force down with ease. It is surprising how much of a difference they make in the game.

Once that threat was out of the way, I headed west to take out the base I had harassed earlier. I was able to use this group and just virtually wipe that player off the map. It was brutal. Meanwhile my two teammates were able to get themselves back together again and start an offensive on Andrew who by now was trying frantically to save his teammate. From their it was just a matter of time. The opposing team was able to hold on for a while and give us a few surprises, but in the end they just couldn't hold on.