The Western Armies are coming and Chris Capel gets the lowdown with Relic's Greg Wilson and Quinn Duffy
10 April 2014 | By Import
It's not often I get called to do an interview with a couple of guys from a popular developer with the intention of just asking them questions about a game that's been out for a year. Despite Company of Heroes 2 coming out in June 2013 to great acclaim (it got a 9.0 from ourselves) developer Relic have been hard at work tweaking and improving the game to keep the still-popular multiplayer fresh. Now they're about to drop a large standalone multiplayer update to the game titled The Western Front Armies and we got to chat with a couple of nice guys from Relic about it.
Strategy Informer: Okay, first could you introduce yourselves please!
Greg Wilson: I'm Greg Wilson and I am the Executive Producer on Company of Heroes.
Quinn Duffy: And I'm Quinn Duffy and I'm the Game Director for Company of Heroes.
Strategy Informer: What's changed about the game since the release of Company of Heroes 2? Bring us up to date!
Greg Wilson: A ton! I think we've updated the game nineteen times since release. We've added new features, new content, we've done a load of balance updates, it's been a great ten months for us. We've logged over 20 million hours of gameplay from our community in just ten months, so there's a lot of activity in the game since launch.
Quinn Duffy: A couple of things on top of that, some of which we'll talk about. The Battle Server was really big for us just in terms of the connectivity experience in allowing players to keep playing together, and that's some great infrastructure for the future for things like Observer Mode. We're building and planning things with a long-term road map in mind, and I think the recent balance patch has got the community really excited, which brings back a lot of the tactical combat back into the infantry experience and paces out that infantry combat just a bit longer. That one for me is a nice flavour adjustment.
Strategy Informer: So what's left that needed changing?
Quinn Duffy: We looked at the development of the game from a franchise level almost as a platform, we're talking about the transition of games to a service with long-term support of the game and the community. The original Company of Heroes people are still playing after seven years, so as mentioned we have a long-term plan for COH2 as well. I think every step along the way has been informed from our interactions with the community or our desire to set the foundation for future plans. When a game comes out there's always things we want to do, improve, change, keep it fresh and bring new content in, and the new armies we have are a great way to do that.
Greg Wilson: Basically COH2 is now back on the Western Front with the Western armies. We've got two new armies to play with, the US forces and the German Oberkommando West. These have new units, new vehicles, new abilities, new strategies and tactics. We're really excited about the future, and it's still early in the franchise's life cycle. We're ten months in, June will be the one year anniversary of the launch of COH2, and we're introducing these two new factions to the multiplayer as standalone entry points into the franchise. Even if you don't own the base game and you want to play the US forces you can buy just them and play them in multiplayer against the Eastern front armies on all the maps from the main game as well as the Western front maps. There's an extended progression system that we're introducing too, so there's just a ton of new stuff and we're really excited about it.
Strategy Informer: Just to confirm, you can play all that separate and standalone from the main game?
Greg Wilson: Yes, it's all standalone content. We'll be offering a bundle of both armies together, the Western Front Army Bundle, and you can buy individual armies if you want so if you're just a fan of the US forces and that's all you want to play, that's your entry point - great, come in and join us in this AAA franchise with just that army!
Strategy Informer: So it's like a proper, full expansion to the game then?
Greg Wilson: It's more of an entry point into the multiplayer experience. Expansions traditionally, at least from Relic's history, have included a bunch of different types of content including multiplayer and campaign content. This one is just multiplayer focused. As a player you'll be able to play against the AI in Comp Stomp and Skirmish modes, you can play custom games with your friends, but you can also play in our auto-match pool in the PVP modes. That's what this release is all about.
Strategy Informer: So this is a much bigger update than February's 'Aftermath' update then?
Quinn Duffy: Oh yes, definitely. Two fully fledged armies, start to finish, in units, audio, abilities, everything. These armies are the same size as the original COH armies! These are big pieces of content, and I think that being able to buy any one of the armies and play against all of the existing content from the game is really exciting. We did a standalone expansion with Opposing Fronts [for the original Company of Heroes] that allowed you to play with content even when you didn't own the original and this is continuing that a step further.
Greg Wilson: Absolutely, and it's on the Western Front and the community has been asking to go back there for a long time so we're responding to that request. We've got new seasonal maps too, it's a big addition to the franchise.
Strategy Informer: Has the community been very supportive of all the previous changes?
Greg Wilson: We've talked about this internally a few times but are happy to share it, Company of Heroes 2 is outperforming Company of Heroes over the same time frame. The fans have responded by purchasing and engagement and we work with them regularly. We've got forums and fan-sites, and we're collecting telemetry as Quinn mentioned regarding games as a service. We're using a combination of all these pieces to make informed decisions about where we're heading for the franchise, what content we're adding and why we're adding it, and how it's going to help empower the community to really get engaged. Our ultimate goal with COH is to provide the ultimate WW2 experience. That's what the franchise is all about and that's what we're aiming to deliver.
Quinn Duffy: I think a perfect example of that engagement is the Steam Workshop. We put out the World Builder map editor tool and now we have a thousand plus maps in the Steam Workshop already. We've included the top community maps back into the auto-match pool so that's a way for us to identify really talented people building really great content and feature it to the rest of the world. That's a really exciting issue and we'll see a lot more of that.
Strategy Informer: Do you dip into the community a lot and take them on in multiplayer matches?
Greg Wilson: Without them knowing about it, yeah! [all laugh]
Quinn Duffy: Yeah, we have a dedicated balance team, and they're in regular contact with a group that are helping us beta test new little features and stuff. But just playing the game myself I've got 915 hours on my Steam account. Did you ask if they beat us or we beat them?
Strategy Informer: No, but go ahead!
Greg Wilson: Yes! [all laugh again]
Quinn Duffy: I lose all the time, around 50% of the time. Which is perfect for our automatcher thinking about it actually!
Greg Wilson: Exactly, that's how the automatcher is supposed to work! The automatcher algorithm is intended to match you up against like-skill, and when you're doing well it tries to match you up with someone to challenge you so it pits you against someone who's a bit better than you. Conversely when you're doing poorly it looks for someone for you to beat up a little!
Quinn Duffy: Yep, it builds you up and it tears you down!
Strategy Informer: Players beating the people who actually built the game, that's pretty hardcore.
Greg Wilson: We've got some real pros on the team definitely in terms of the calibre of gameplay, but you have to remember we have a team of people ranging from testers right through to artists and producers so there's a broad skill set that's exposed in that range. We've got some world-class players and we've got some casual players, it's a great mix and it actually helps us deliver a experience that's going to appeal to a broader audience.
Strategy Informer: Is there more single-player campaign content on the horizon?
Greg Wilson: We're starting with the Western Front Armies, and everything in our game starts with the core experience of the armies and we build everything from the ground up with that in mind. Right now we're focusing on the multiplayer audience with this new release, but as you'll remember I said we wanted to create the complete World War Two experience with Company of Heroes 2 so the future will hold lots of interesting things for our fans!
Strategy Informer: So you haven't got anything ready for Company of Heroes 3 yet? Not holding anything back?
Greg Wilson: Not holding back anything, no! We're focused right now on building out the experience for our COH2 fans, and we think that there's a lot of content and a lot of stories still to tell within that period of time.
Strategy Informer: Hypothetically then, where would the franchise go with a '3'?
Quinn Duffy: With a '3'? I don't think there's any limit as to where it could go. We talked about this last year. We sat down to look at COH2 and we re-envisioned the guiding principles and the vision statement for the game, and one of the reasons for doing that was to make it setting-agnostic. It doesn't matter where we set the game we want to be able to identify it as a Company of Heroes game regardless of the time, place or whatever. Company of Heroes is associated with WW2 because of that history but it's not confined to that period, I think we could do anything we wanted to.
Strategy Informer: Okay, my editor insisted I ask this question: will we ever see another Dawn of War game?
Greg Wilson: Dawn of what? all laugh I started on Relic working on Dawn of War 2 so that franchise holds a great deal of pride and respect for me. I'm excited about the future of that franchise. I'm hope that it's a bright one.
Strategy Informer: When's COH2 going to be on Mac, specifically with multiplayer support because I know that's a bit tricky?
Greg Wilson: Good question! That's definitely a tough one because of the technology and the way the Mac networking layer works, not to mention our integration with Steam. That's a really complex undertaking for us to do. I don't have a good answer for you in terms of a time frame right now, but it's something we've talked about a lot. We've investigated a number of different options, and it's not a simple answer! It's a complicated transition unfortunately.
Strategy Informer: To finish up, anything else you'd like to tell the fans about the new content?
Greg Wilson: Yeah, something that we're actually excited about is our new vehicle sound recording! In Company of Heroes 2 we did live weapon recordings out in the field. We rented a bunch of different weapons, we had all these different setups all over the place, around on the weapon clips, on the bushes, on the people firing the weapons themselves, and we recorded every single aspect of that weapon. Then back at the studio our sound engineers combined it into creating this soundscape, making the weapons in COH2 really have this strong 3D presence in terms of echoes in the distance, understanding their impact in combat, and how effective they would be up close.
In the Western Front Armies update we've taken that to the next level with vehicles. We've done the same thing, we've rented a bunch of tanks [I laugh nervously] and put microphones on the intake manifolds, on the seats, on the tracks, on the door hinges, everything you could possibly imagine we recorded. Then our sound engineers take all these sounds, put them back into the engine and create this really dynamic soundscape for the vehicles so they have such a strong presence now. It's amazing, they are really imposing, loud and obnoxious, it's really fantastic.
Quinn Duffy: Yes, sound has always been such a vital part of Relic's games and it really does add immeasurably to the experience. I think there's a question about why there's a desire to do this, and the answer is that it just makes the battles and the soundscape feel so much more immersive. The tanks have that presence now that they just deserve to have!
Strategy Informer: Yes, I definitely feel that that's been one of the best things about the series, everything in it just feels right and believable, and it just pulls you more into the game. Okay, I'm happy to wrap it up there, thank you for your time!
Greg Wilson: No problem!
Despite some terribly worded questions from yours truly (I've cleaned them up immeasurably for ease of reading, whereas I was barely speaking English on the day) both Greg and Quinn were great sports and I want to thank both of them for taking the time out to chat with me, along with the nice people at SEGA for setting it up. Company of Heroes 2: The Western Front Armies will be available in June 2014, so there's still a little time left to get the practice in. Not me though, I'm already perfect. See you on the battlefields of Europe.
Strategy Informer: Okay, first could you introduce yourselves please!
Greg Wilson: I'm Greg Wilson and I am the Executive Producer on Company of Heroes.
Quinn Duffy: And I'm Quinn Duffy and I'm the Game Director for Company of Heroes.
Strategy Informer: What's changed about the game since the release of Company of Heroes 2? Bring us up to date!
Greg Wilson: A ton! I think we've updated the game nineteen times since release. We've added new features, new content, we've done a load of balance updates, it's been a great ten months for us. We've logged over 20 million hours of gameplay from our community in just ten months, so there's a lot of activity in the game since launch.
Quinn Duffy: A couple of things on top of that, some of which we'll talk about. The Battle Server was really big for us just in terms of the connectivity experience in allowing players to keep playing together, and that's some great infrastructure for the future for things like Observer Mode. We're building and planning things with a long-term road map in mind, and I think the recent balance patch has got the community really excited, which brings back a lot of the tactical combat back into the infantry experience and paces out that infantry combat just a bit longer. That one for me is a nice flavour adjustment.
 |
Strategy Informer: So what's left that needed changing?
Quinn Duffy: We looked at the development of the game from a franchise level almost as a platform, we're talking about the transition of games to a service with long-term support of the game and the community. The original Company of Heroes people are still playing after seven years, so as mentioned we have a long-term plan for COH2 as well. I think every step along the way has been informed from our interactions with the community or our desire to set the foundation for future plans. When a game comes out there's always things we want to do, improve, change, keep it fresh and bring new content in, and the new armies we have are a great way to do that.
Greg Wilson: Basically COH2 is now back on the Western Front with the Western armies. We've got two new armies to play with, the US forces and the German Oberkommando West. These have new units, new vehicles, new abilities, new strategies and tactics. We're really excited about the future, and it's still early in the franchise's life cycle. We're ten months in, June will be the one year anniversary of the launch of COH2, and we're introducing these two new factions to the multiplayer as standalone entry points into the franchise. Even if you don't own the base game and you want to play the US forces you can buy just them and play them in multiplayer against the Eastern front armies on all the maps from the main game as well as the Western front maps. There's an extended progression system that we're introducing too, so there's just a ton of new stuff and we're really excited about it.
Strategy Informer: Just to confirm, you can play all that separate and standalone from the main game?
Greg Wilson: Yes, it's all standalone content. We'll be offering a bundle of both armies together, the Western Front Army Bundle, and you can buy individual armies if you want so if you're just a fan of the US forces and that's all you want to play, that's your entry point - great, come in and join us in this AAA franchise with just that army!
Strategy Informer: So it's like a proper, full expansion to the game then?
Greg Wilson: It's more of an entry point into the multiplayer experience. Expansions traditionally, at least from Relic's history, have included a bunch of different types of content including multiplayer and campaign content. This one is just multiplayer focused. As a player you'll be able to play against the AI in Comp Stomp and Skirmish modes, you can play custom games with your friends, but you can also play in our auto-match pool in the PVP modes. That's what this release is all about.
Strategy Informer: So this is a much bigger update than February's 'Aftermath' update then?
Quinn Duffy: Oh yes, definitely. Two fully fledged armies, start to finish, in units, audio, abilities, everything. These armies are the same size as the original COH armies! These are big pieces of content, and I think that being able to buy any one of the armies and play against all of the existing content from the game is really exciting. We did a standalone expansion with Opposing Fronts [for the original Company of Heroes] that allowed you to play with content even when you didn't own the original and this is continuing that a step further.
Greg Wilson: Absolutely, and it's on the Western Front and the community has been asking to go back there for a long time so we're responding to that request. We've got new seasonal maps too, it's a big addition to the franchise.
Strategy Informer: Has the community been very supportive of all the previous changes?
Greg Wilson: We've talked about this internally a few times but are happy to share it, Company of Heroes 2 is outperforming Company of Heroes over the same time frame. The fans have responded by purchasing and engagement and we work with them regularly. We've got forums and fan-sites, and we're collecting telemetry as Quinn mentioned regarding games as a service. We're using a combination of all these pieces to make informed decisions about where we're heading for the franchise, what content we're adding and why we're adding it, and how it's going to help empower the community to really get engaged. Our ultimate goal with COH is to provide the ultimate WW2 experience. That's what the franchise is all about and that's what we're aiming to deliver.
Quinn Duffy: I think a perfect example of that engagement is the Steam Workshop. We put out the World Builder map editor tool and now we have a thousand plus maps in the Steam Workshop already. We've included the top community maps back into the auto-match pool so that's a way for us to identify really talented people building really great content and feature it to the rest of the world. That's a really exciting issue and we'll see a lot more of that.
 |
Strategy Informer: Do you dip into the community a lot and take them on in multiplayer matches?
Greg Wilson: Without them knowing about it, yeah! [all laugh]
Quinn Duffy: Yeah, we have a dedicated balance team, and they're in regular contact with a group that are helping us beta test new little features and stuff. But just playing the game myself I've got 915 hours on my Steam account. Did you ask if they beat us or we beat them?
Strategy Informer: No, but go ahead!
Greg Wilson: Yes! [all laugh again]
Quinn Duffy: I lose all the time, around 50% of the time. Which is perfect for our automatcher thinking about it actually!
Greg Wilson: Exactly, that's how the automatcher is supposed to work! The automatcher algorithm is intended to match you up against like-skill, and when you're doing well it tries to match you up with someone to challenge you so it pits you against someone who's a bit better than you. Conversely when you're doing poorly it looks for someone for you to beat up a little!
Quinn Duffy: Yep, it builds you up and it tears you down!
Strategy Informer: Players beating the people who actually built the game, that's pretty hardcore.
Greg Wilson: We've got some real pros on the team definitely in terms of the calibre of gameplay, but you have to remember we have a team of people ranging from testers right through to artists and producers so there's a broad skill set that's exposed in that range. We've got some world-class players and we've got some casual players, it's a great mix and it actually helps us deliver a experience that's going to appeal to a broader audience.
Strategy Informer: Is there more single-player campaign content on the horizon?
Greg Wilson: We're starting with the Western Front Armies, and everything in our game starts with the core experience of the armies and we build everything from the ground up with that in mind. Right now we're focusing on the multiplayer audience with this new release, but as you'll remember I said we wanted to create the complete World War Two experience with Company of Heroes 2 so the future will hold lots of interesting things for our fans!
Strategy Informer: So you haven't got anything ready for Company of Heroes 3 yet? Not holding anything back?
Greg Wilson: Not holding back anything, no! We're focused right now on building out the experience for our COH2 fans, and we think that there's a lot of content and a lot of stories still to tell within that period of time.
Strategy Informer: Hypothetically then, where would the franchise go with a '3'?
Quinn Duffy: With a '3'? I don't think there's any limit as to where it could go. We talked about this last year. We sat down to look at COH2 and we re-envisioned the guiding principles and the vision statement for the game, and one of the reasons for doing that was to make it setting-agnostic. It doesn't matter where we set the game we want to be able to identify it as a Company of Heroes game regardless of the time, place or whatever. Company of Heroes is associated with WW2 because of that history but it's not confined to that period, I think we could do anything we wanted to.
Strategy Informer: Okay, my editor insisted I ask this question: will we ever see another Dawn of War game?
Greg Wilson: Dawn of what? all laugh I started on Relic working on Dawn of War 2 so that franchise holds a great deal of pride and respect for me. I'm excited about the future of that franchise. I'm hope that it's a bright one.
Strategy Informer: When's COH2 going to be on Mac, specifically with multiplayer support because I know that's a bit tricky?
Greg Wilson: Good question! That's definitely a tough one because of the technology and the way the Mac networking layer works, not to mention our integration with Steam. That's a really complex undertaking for us to do. I don't have a good answer for you in terms of a time frame right now, but it's something we've talked about a lot. We've investigated a number of different options, and it's not a simple answer! It's a complicated transition unfortunately.
 |
Strategy Informer: To finish up, anything else you'd like to tell the fans about the new content?
Greg Wilson: Yeah, something that we're actually excited about is our new vehicle sound recording! In Company of Heroes 2 we did live weapon recordings out in the field. We rented a bunch of different weapons, we had all these different setups all over the place, around on the weapon clips, on the bushes, on the people firing the weapons themselves, and we recorded every single aspect of that weapon. Then back at the studio our sound engineers combined it into creating this soundscape, making the weapons in COH2 really have this strong 3D presence in terms of echoes in the distance, understanding their impact in combat, and how effective they would be up close.
In the Western Front Armies update we've taken that to the next level with vehicles. We've done the same thing, we've rented a bunch of tanks [I laugh nervously] and put microphones on the intake manifolds, on the seats, on the tracks, on the door hinges, everything you could possibly imagine we recorded. Then our sound engineers take all these sounds, put them back into the engine and create this really dynamic soundscape for the vehicles so they have such a strong presence now. It's amazing, they are really imposing, loud and obnoxious, it's really fantastic.
Quinn Duffy: Yes, sound has always been such a vital part of Relic's games and it really does add immeasurably to the experience. I think there's a question about why there's a desire to do this, and the answer is that it just makes the battles and the soundscape feel so much more immersive. The tanks have that presence now that they just deserve to have!
Strategy Informer: Yes, I definitely feel that that's been one of the best things about the series, everything in it just feels right and believable, and it just pulls you more into the game. Okay, I'm happy to wrap it up there, thank you for your time!
Greg Wilson: No problem!
Despite some terribly worded questions from yours truly (I've cleaned them up immeasurably for ease of reading, whereas I was barely speaking English on the day) both Greg and Quinn were great sports and I want to thank both of them for taking the time out to chat with me, along with the nice people at SEGA for setting it up. Company of Heroes 2: The Western Front Armies will be available in June 2014, so there's still a little time left to get the practice in. Not me though, I'm already perfect. See you on the battlefields of Europe.
