Jeremy: When we’re thinking about upgrades and really the whole of game play for Command And Conquer four, we knew we want to introduce something a little bit different but also very interesting and it fit into the game play of Command And Conquer Four.
Raj: You know now, Tiberians are controlled resource no longer do you have these huge expansive fields of Tiberia where you have to go and harvest them anymore.
Jeremy: So when you take Command And Conquer Four as game play, from a really base level in term of multiplayer, what we had in place at first was this domination mechanic, where you take control of specific areas in Tiberian control network and this gains you points over time.
Raj: There is this huge network that’s kind of controlling Tiberians. No longer ravishing the earth.
Chris: The Tiberian control network allows us to represent that. you’ll see a variety cables, pipes emerged from cliffs, dive into the ground, emerge up into other different – structures in it. This, what’s something I think give Command and Conquer a look that’s different from previous tittles and franchise.
Jeremy: And we realized that, we wanted to add a couple of things to the formula in order to make it feel a little bit more C And C but also to add more points of interest to the map and to add more interesting game play.
Raj: So you know how to integrate it in the C And C Four, our community loves harvesting Tiberian. I mean they are crazy about Tiberian one, we figured out a way to get it into the game but haven’t make sense with – as well add a new strategic layer to the game play.
Jeremy: So we took this idea of having a high level of mobility in term – in action in terms of the game play and we thought “how can we absolutely double on this, but also give fans some of what they want in terms of the Tiberian harvesting mechanic.”
Chris: One of the most interesting visual challenge is I feel we had was to represent kind of an – event in the Command And Conquer universe and that is the fact that humanity has gotten a leg up on Tiberia.
Jeremy: That’s how we got where we are now and what we ultimately decided was that having playing players put down refineries in these particulate areas, and having large spread out Tiberian fields, not only no longer play into the fiction anymore but it also didn’t play into the game play as well anymore. So what we did is, we had this crystal capture mechanic, where these Tiberian crystals are regularly deposited into four different zones on the map and then you can go and capture those crystal with one of vehicles and move it back to your deploy zone or one of -- deploy zones the you can capture.
Chris: We created a number of different concepts, play with a bunch of different looks, until we settled upon one that we felt that was going to be visually recognizable to the player. So we settled the find the idea of it being a large crystal shard with a mechanical ring around it.
Jeremy: Another thing that we wanted to do was really bring back new Tiberian and make it very interesting, so you’ll also find blue Tiberian crystals which gives you twice as many upgrade points in more contestant part of the map, where you’re going to see a lot more combat occur.
Same general principle, it’s very high volatility Tiberian spit out from the network and then needs to be collected or else it’s going o continue accumulating at the surface.
Raj: So you can use them to your benefit. You can use them to your enemy’s dismay but it’s a really cool way to get Tiberian integrated to the game. You know, it’s very fast, your trying to capture these control notes, you try to keep the enemy a bay but at the same time you got to out, have these units you know risk themselves, go grab of these Tiberian crystals but then everybody on your team obviously benefits by being able to get those upgrade points.
Jeremy: Again, because they are so volatile it’s exactly why destroying these things are going to spawn one of the eye on storm that you’ve seen in previous games and do a significant amount of damage.
Raj: But it’s really allot of fun and it’s cool when you think “okay, I got my enemy on the road, I ‘m about to grab this crystal” and boom he detonates that thing and everybody’s dead.
Jeremy: So, detonate at your own risk.
Raj: We’ve been having a lot of fun with it. it allow you to keep in the fast game play of capturing those Tiberian control notes, fighting with your enemies, but then also being able to really help your team out, grab those upgrade points and those crystals and you know hey, it’s great having that roving bomb.
Jeremy: I’m very excited to throw this new mechanic into sort of the old – mechanics. We feel that in a lot of the players that we’ve had the game filed it, it play very interestingly into the new mechanics of Command and Conquer and really shift in – that we’ve taken into a much stronger focus on action, on game play, on what you’re doing with each individual unit.
Chris: I was really impressed with everyone who worked on it.
Raj: I’m really exited to see it on the community’s hands, have everybody play with it because it think they’re really going to really enjoy it.
Jeremy: And I can wait for you to play the game. It comes March 16.
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