Kevin Cloud sounds off on Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
by: Steven Hopper

id Software's Co-owner/ Creative Director shines some more light on their upcoming online FPS tour de force.

Ever since Doom pioneered the term “deathmatch”, id Software has been on the forefront of the multiplayer shootout genre. Now the company is preparing to release their next online-centric FPS, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. The game offers unique mission-based gameplay while still accentuating the necessity for teamwork and using your specific class for the most benefit.

However, while it may be in many ways a thinking man’s online shooter, the game is anything but light on action. The frenzied 24-player matches are frenzied and intense, with tons of vehicles and weaponry at your disposal at any given time.

GameZone recently had the opportunity to sit down with Kevin Cloud, co-owner and creative director of id Software, to find out a bit more on their upcoming online FPS frenzy.

Question: What will the single-player mode entail?

Kevin: The game will have bots for the single-player mode. Our goal when creating the bots is for players to not be able to tell the difference between the bots and human players. Bots will taunt you, go after you in Warm-up, basically they’ll do all the things that a human player will do. They’re at a point where they can do anything.

Q: What can you tell us about the game’s graphics? Will it use the Doom 3 Engine?

Kevin: We started with the Doom Engine because it brought a lot to the table. We added megatexturing, where the terrain is mapped to one texture, which streams it based on where the player is. This way the game won’t use up a lot of the computer’s resources rendering things that aren’t on the screen. The system specs that we are shooting for are Quake 4 system specs.

Q: What kind of gameplay modes will be implemented in the game?

Kevin: All of the game modes are objective-based. You have one map and go through all of the objectives in that map. Stopwatches take goals that one group performs in a certain timeframe and he the other group trying to complete them faster. The campaign mode lets players get XP and go up in ranking. XP is determined by how well a player utilizes their class. For example, a medic will get XP for healing his teammates.

Q: How does XP affect a player in the long term?

Kevin: XP is not cumulative in the Campaign mode, but we have persistent stats and there will be recognitions for being a good player.

Q: What can you tell us about the storyline in the game?

Kevin: The game is a predecessor to the Quake 2 storyline. Centuries of in-fighting has destroyed the Strogg race, who have altered their bodies solely for the purpose of fighting. They don’t even have the ability to reproduce anymore, forcing them to become this vampiric race moving from civilization to civilization to stay alive. In 2065, they arrive on Earth to enslave humanity. The Quake universe brings these two races together, making it a great fit for enemy territory.

Q: What can you tell us about the weaponry? Will it all be things familiar to Quake players?

Kevin: We pulled some elements from the Quake universe like the nail gun. Other things like the oppressor’s shield are not pulled from other games.

Q: What can you say about the recently announced console versions of the game?

Kevin: For the console experience what we want to do is bring it up to speed with the PC version. We may do some adjustments to bots, but we want the experience to be the same on PC and consoles. We’ve had the 360 controller working in the game for a year.

Q: Any chance for interplay between the console and PC versions of the game?

Kevin: Console players will not play against PC players. Consoles require a certain [adaptation], and that wasn’t something that we wanted to take on.

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