Command & Conquer: Generals Q&A

This year's E3 was widely regarded as the best one in recent years and was arguably the best one ever. The big three--Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft--all had a great showing for their respective consoles, and the PC game publishers had an equally impressive lineup of future blockbusters the likes of Age of Mythology, Warcraft III, and, of course, Doom III. Adding to that list was Electronic Arts' latest addition to the venerable Command & Conquer series: Generals. The game was announced earlier in the year and had its first public appearance at E3 in Los Angeles, where it was very well received, even in the face of other anticipated real-time strategy games from Blizzard and Ensemble Studios.

Now that the designers at EA Pacific have had their post-E3 rest, we caught up with studio head and executive producer Mark Skaggs to get his reactions to the show and to get a progress report on this anticipated game.

GameSpot: Welcome back from E3, Mark. How was Command & Conquer: Generals received at the show?

Mark Skaggs: The response to Generals at the show was incredible. I think we surprised a lot of people with the progress we've made on the product since we announced it earlier this year. The demo really reflected the hard work, dedication, and talent of the team, and it was a nice reward to see people leave the theater smiling and happy. The fun of the show was topped off when we won the Game Critics award for Best Strategy Game of E3. We know there were a number of other great strategy games at the show, and we feel lucky to have won.

GS: What kind of feedback have you heard from showgoers? Are you implementing any changes to the game based on this response?

MS: The feedback was mostly "hurry up and finish so I can play." One of the questions we faced quite often was whether the sequences were prerendered, or if the game engine was running in real time. Most people were surprised when we told them it was, in fact, the game engine, but this told us that at our next public showing we're going to have to give people some hands-on play time.

GS: Was the reception as good as you'd hoped?

MS: The reception caught us a bit by surprise. The team worked hard, and we had high hopes about how well it would be received, but we weren't certain. This might seem odd, but we know we're too close to the product to see it objectively. The show allowed us to see the product through other people's eyes for a few days, and we were reassured by the great reception. Of course, there are always things we think we could have done better, and we'll work on those.

GS: Warcraft III, Age of Mythology, and Rise of Nations also received their fair share of accolades at the show. Are you at all worried about competing with those games?

MS: They are all great-looking games. I'm actually really looking forward to playing all of them, as are most people in the studio. I think there's always room for great games, and that's what we're focused on for Generals--making it a great game that people want to play.

GS: Was there anything that you wanted to include in the demo that you couldn't because of time constraints?

MS: Ha! There are always things that you want to include in a product or demo that you don't get time to do. For the E3 demo though, we ran into a different issue. We had too much stuff to show and had to actually cut down the demo because the original version was running more than 20 minutes.

That being said, there were a couple of cool effects and situations that we would have liked to include but couldn't get polished well enough to show. Specifically, we wanted to have tanks on the bridge that get washed away in the wave from the broken dam at the end.

GS: You guys actually had a second demo that you were considering showing at E3, a Black Hawk Down scenario. Why did you opt to show the dam mission instead?

MS: The original plan was to take the Black Hawk scenario and spice it up with the dam break and other cool elements. An AVI of the Black Hawk demo was released to the Net in April, so it was then that we took up the challenge to revamp it into the scenario we showed at E3. Doing that exercise was great because it gave us the opportunity to test what we knew about making great demos and prove that the Black Hawk scenario wasn't just a stroke of luck. Overall I think the game really benefited by the change of plans.

Expanding Horizons

GS: When we last visited your team, you had moved into a brand-new building, and the entire third floor was empty. Have you since hired more team members?

MS: We have been adding to the staff for the past few months, but we're making a big push to hire more people in July. In fact, right now we're looking to grow the team even more to take on some of the opportunities that grew out of the great showing we had at E3. Specifically we're looking to hire a producer, a couple of senior engineers, and a few designers. It might seem a bit odd to look to grow the team in the middle of development, but we want to make sure this game is as good as it can be, so we're investing in the resources to make that happen.

We'll be building out the offices on the third floor this summer to accommodate the new employees we bring on and those that we hire in the future.

GS: Are all those new positions for the Generals team, or have you started development on another project?

MS: The first assignment for these people will actually be to help make sure Generals is as polished as possible. This will allow them to get to know the engine and integrate into the team before moving on to other projects. That being said, we are also preparing for the future.

GS: Electronic Arts spun you off into your own development studio after the success of Red Alert 2 and Command & Conquer: Yuri's Revenge. Do you ever wish you didn't have to deal with this responsibility and could simply focus your efforts on making games?

MS: Having our own studio gives us the independence and freedom to create the games we want. We're all gamers, and we're all focused on making great games, despite having the responsibility of managing our own studio. Yes, we're accountable for the success of the products and the studio as a whole, but I think that motivates us even more to succeed. Throughout the development of Red Alert 2, Yuri's Revenge, and now Generals, we've really developed a cool culture in the studio--it's a great group of friends who work hard (and play hard) to make incredible games.

GS: Ultimately, how large would you like EA Pacific to be? How many projects would you like to be working on at once?

MS: That's a tough question to answer. We don't have a specific number that we're striving for; we just want to maintain a balance. No matter how big EA Pacific gets, I want to always keep the cool gamer culture we've established but still stay productive and turn out quality games.

GS: You've already released the Generals level editor to a few key members of your community. Have you seen any of the user-created missions that these fans have designed yet?

MS: Normally, developers release level editors after the product ships, but we're trying something a little different with Generals. We really wanted to bring our fans into the game-making process and get their feedback on what essentially becomes their game--one that they'll play for years to come. Our goal is to incorporate their feedback on the engine, the graphics, even the level editor itself, so we can tweak and tune it to better suit them. We're really encouraged by the feedback we've received so far.

GS: When will you make the editor available to the public?

MS: We would like to release the editor a few months prior to ship, so fans should start looking around mid-fall.

GS: So is Generals still on schedule for release this year? Would you be willing to delay its release until 2003 for development reasons?

MS: We'll have more user testing and feedback for Generals than we've ever had in any other product we've done, which may (or may not) affect our schedule. We're really focused on developing an incredible RTS game, and we're fortunate in that EA has provided us with all the resources we could possibly need--especially recently with increased staff. But it really all comes down to the feedback we get from the community. They're our most important gauge on how the product is shaping up, and we'll continue to tweak it until it meets their standards.

GS: Can't wait to see it. Thanks for your time, Mark.