Interview Chris Taylor interview at CVG

[Vault Dweller]

Tags: Chris Taylor (Gas Powered Games); Gas Powered Games

<a href=http://www.computerandvideogames.com>CVG</a> has asked Chris Taylor a <a href=http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=152622>few questions</a> about the state of the industry.
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<blockquote><b>In what areas do you think the PC gaming scene needs to develop, and as a developer what efforts are you making to move it in that direction?</b>
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That clear challenge for the PC (and honestly, for all platforms) is to come up with new and compelling designs which takes players to someplace new. <u>We can't just keep making the same old games with incremental improvements in the graphics. It's back to evolution vs. revolution, and we are either a) on the brink of a revolution, or b) need to start one.</u> As a developer we "chip away" on this challenge each time we develop a game. Our strategy is to develop something that is both exciting to the "gamer" and that also has financial viability to it on the business side. This is an ongoing challenge, but a challenge we are up to and are working to solve.</blockquote>Well, let's hope that Supreme Commander is a revolutionary game, because the shitload of crappy Dungeon Siege games that Chris had blessed us with left much to be desired.
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.rpgwatch.com">RPG Watch</A>

 

[FrancoTAU]

I was scared for a second, I thought this was a Dungeon Siege 3 launch press release.

 

[Kraszu]

You have to admit through that to make action rpg without action you need guts, and that it is something new in genre.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

And just a couple of minutes before I was going to post these.

I'm surprised he managed to take himself seriously when saying that.

 

[Rosh]

I bet selling the rights to make a Dungeon Shit movie to Uwe Boll was also "innovashun!"

 

[don_tomaso]

w00t??? is mr Boll making a dungeon shit movie? hoho merry christmas

 

[FrancoTAU]

I think he's actually got two Dungeon Siege movies lined up.

 

[aweigh]

I know one of them has Leelee Sobieski in a starring role. Yes, that Helen Hunt doppleganger.

 

[vazquez595654]

Is Total Annihilation any good? I mean is it timeless like Starcraft or did it age like Command and Conquer? I know I have it somewhere, but I've never been motivated to play it.

Dungeon Siege's were trash, Total Annihilation may potentially be trash, now, and Chris Taylor looks like a drunk.

 

[kingcomrade]

It didn't age that well, at least compared to Starcraft. It's worth giving it a try so you can see how very different from the Blizzard paradigm a real-time strategy game can be, and you might like it. There's a great site where you can download all of the expansion packs ( www.d-gun.com ) . For mods you should get an AI upgrade since the stock AI is crap (I use one called Mostly Harmless (which isn't)) and you should get a mod that removes the unit cap (it was only there for performance reasons on machines of the time).

TA's Big Flaws: Crappy stock AI, bad pathing, lack of unit balance, stupid-boring campaign

 

[vazquez595654]

Crappy stock AI

The reason I always stop playing Starcraft, after coming back to it every couple of months. Well not necessarily bad AI, but it's exploitable after you figure out all the routines.

lack of unit balance

That's like the most important part for me, so...

stupid-boring campaign

Irrelevant, since I only play skirmishes.

Space Rangers 2 had a pretty streamlined and fast RTS minigame, but the AI and path finding needed work. I would put it in the top five RTS games that I would actually want to play again. Very strategic in terms of creating proper custom units with the resources available. Also determining what parts of the map to conquer so you wouldn't get in the way of the other enemy AI's fighting each other.

 

[Ryuken]

Just give it a try again. TA was a revolution, despite those faults and is quite timeless as well, it's actually playable now on the big maps with lots of opponents. There haven't been many other RTS games that tried to mimick that simulation feel, enforce so many new logical control options or that could establish such a modscene around it. And unit balance in OTA isn't that shoddy at all, there are more than enough counters for Flashes and Brawlers, you just have to see them coming in time.

I don't know what happened with Dungeon Siege (which only provided a small technical revolution with that "no loading"-screens thing and a foolish attempt to create partybased hack&slash, which is a contradiction in its own) and its sequel but everyone makes shitty games, at least now it can't get much worse for GPG, I hope.

 

[SuAside]

i'd say TA didn't age that well, no.

i'd also say from a gameplay and atmosphere point of view, Dark Reign 1 was far superior to TA (they came out nearly together).

PS: DR2 sucked and has little to do with DR1.

 

[Ryuken]

Dark Reign 1 was brilliant, but I felt it was limited in scope, it had more of a next-gen C&C feel to it, rather than the all-out war sense of TA. It kills nearly every other RTS in terms of AI/complete AI-control but that multi-tabbing interface stuff just never seemed handy to me, especially not if you're talking about one of the fastest RTS games ever made. Terrain advantages also never were as clear as that of TA. Never saw a campaign that challenging though.

It's still playable under XP, the expansion unit/map data is also available for free.

 

[Kraszu]

Space Rangers 2 had a pretty streamlined and fast RTS minigame, but the AI and path finding needed work. I would put it in the top five RTS games that I would actually want to play again. Very strategic in terms of creating proper custom units with the resources available. Also determining what parts of the map to conquer so you wouldn't get in the way of the other enemy AI's fighting each other.

Have you played Z (only first is good), sr2 rts looks like it was inspired by it allot. In Z you take over factories and set they production it takes time (better = more time, through units have different use, like sniper that you can use to snap shot cannon user and take over it) maps are good, you have to put much more strategic through then into sr2 rts.

 

[RadioGnome Invisible]

Have you played Z (only first is good), sr2 rts looks like it was inspired by it allot. In Z you take over factories and set they production it takes time (better = more time, through units have different use, like sniper that you can use to snap shot cannon user and take over it) maps are good, you have to put much more strategic through then into sr2 rts.

Actually, SR2 RTS was inspired by ZX-Spectrum game "Nether Earth".