Codex Interview Another War 2 interview

[Ausir]

Tags: Mirage Interactive; Weird Wars: The Unknown Episode of World War II

An interview with Pawel Smyla and Lukasz Gorny of Mirage Interactive about Another War 2 a sequel to their first World War 2 cRPG. Here's a bit about some changes from AW1:

10.) What other changes in the game can we expect?

The biggest change is in the advancement of the joinable NPCs - in AW the player's influence on their advancement was very limited - they couldn't use new weapon classes, and the Armor Class was artificially increased, because they couldn't change their clothes. Now we have introduced an entirely new NPC advancement system, limited only in using the special abilities (we need to work more on AI to add it) - we hope we'll be able to add this element.
Additionally, new weapon classes and special abilities will appear.​

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(This is where Ausir forgot to add teh funneh)

 

[Markman]

Haha, you can have a goat as an NPC.
Way cool interview, with no bullshit or fuzzy stuff at all. 8)

It looks like combat system will be similar as seen in GROM, pause, rotate, pick weapon, stance, target, then unpause....please, please, please make your next game turnbased then.
Theres one cool thing that nobody uses except Spellbound in their games, called Quick actions, ie. ability to record moves before entering combat, and just by pressing SPACE your PC will preform those moves.
Or maybe as used in Age of Mythology, ability to queue(how the hell do you spell this) commands, ie. 1. shoot the dog, 2.move left and shoot the sniper, 3. go hide behind the bush...etc,etc and your PC will do those things in that order.

RT combat can be good, if done right.

And another thing that bothered me in the original is inability to lower my PC's starting points....if I want my thief to have 2 strength then damnit let me.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Haha, you can have a goat as an NPC.

I think that's a camel if you're refering to the screenshots.

Way cool interview, with no bullshit or fuzzy stuff at all. 8)

I dig Mirage because of their honesty. After Another War, they posted a review of the game on their site about it which was a hell of a lot more honest than most of the reviews you see from gaming sites. That impressed the hell out of me because it actually listed the weaknesses of the game itself. Not only does it show integrity, but also demondstrates they can acknowledge mistakes made.

It looks like combat system will be similar as seen in GROM, pause, rotate, pick weapon, stance, target, then unpause....please, please, please make your next game turnbased then.

I'd much rather see turn based as well. I played the GROM demo, and frankly, hated it.

Theres one cool thing that nobody uses except Spellbound in their games, called Quick actions, ie. ability to record moves before entering combat, and just by pressing SPACE your PC will preform those moves.

Wasteland had recordable macros. However, in real time, macroing is just another way of removing interaction from the combat system.

Or maybe as used in Age of Mythology, ability to queue(how the hell do you spell this) commands, ie. 1. shoot the dog, 2.move left and shoot the sniper, 3. go hide behind the bush...etc,etc and your PC will do those things in that order.

Which makes the combat feel more like an RTS than an RPG.

RT combat can be good, if done right.

Syndicate was the only ranged combat game that was real time that I liked up to the point where you were forced in to automating your guys.

And another thing that bothered me in the original is inability to lower my PC's starting points....if I want my thief to have 2 strength then damnit let me.

I agree. This is one of the problems I had with Another War. Instead of having the classes with attribute min/max limits, just ditch the classes entirely. Let me build my own character.

 

[Markman]

I think that's a camel if you're refering to the screenshots

It was 5 AM when I posted this...

Which makes the combat feel more like an RTS than an RPG.

Maybe, but it gives more control and it isnt as tedious....ie. in Baldurs Gate you can pause, tell your guy to move left, pause again, cast a spell, pause again, switch to bows, unpause....
But in AoM you can do that in 3 clicks while holding Shift.
I think this is an excelent feature and Im suprised that no one except Ensemble adapted this feature.It makes the game faster and more enjoyable.And it stops people to hit the damn pause button 100 times a fight.

 

[Section8]

But you're still only actually playing (ie interacting with) the game for a brief period and then sitting back and watching. You could say the same thing about turn-based, but turn based allows you to actually view and consider what the (visible) enemy is doing and use tactics to account for those enemy actions as opposed to watching characters trade blows and hoping for the best. The whole idea of queuing macro actions is that you're doing a series of actions that don't need to be considered on an individual basis, and that is bad for interactivity.

In an RTS, using macro queues to tell a unit to build this, then that, and then another of those is done because while that is happening there are other more important things to be paying attention to. It's reducing the level of interaction out of necessity, since the player not only has dozens of units to care about, they also have strategy to care about. In the context of games such as Baldur's Gate and Another War, you only need to care about your character (and/or party) so queuing macro actions just detracts from the interactivity.

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

hey

With realtime games involving micro, they need very little strategy after awhile. Basically you just dance the characters taking advantage of the AI and pathfinding.