Strategy Informer: Firstly, could you introduce yourself to our readers?
SHADOW: Hello, I'm SHADOW from the Cold War Crisis Team. I'm the Webmaster and also responsible for public relations and voice editing.
Skleni: Hi, I'm Sgt.Skleni and my job is to create the maps and
AI scripts for CWC as well as the ingame videos and various promotional
screenshots.
2312222: Hey, my name is just that stupid
number. I’m responsible for everything the others won’t do, including
coding, particle effects, minor model and skin work.
Widowmaker: Hi, I’m Widowmaker Skinner/2D
Artist. I’m responsible for almost every skin we use and any other
graphics we need for the mod or our website.
Strategy Informer: Does Cold War Crisis stand as your first attempt at a mod?
SHADOW: My first
mod-project was "The Finest Hour" (also a C&C Generals Mod) where I
worked as historical advisor. I worked together with Widowmaker, SFC,
2312222 and darky and we soon found out that we all are a pretty good
team. That's why we decided to start our own project, Cold War Crisis.
Skleni: Yes, I joined the team about half a year after the project was started.
2312222: It’s
not my first attempt, but it’s probably the most ambitious. I’ve been
working on a smaller mod before joining TFH. Soon thereafter, TFH
turned out to be not what I was looking for and CWC was founded.
Strategy Informer: By which aspect of the C&C Generals engine are you the most admirative?
2312222: It would be easier to answer the other way around, what’s most annoying in the SAGE engine. Nevertheless, it’s easy to work with thanks to its open file structure. And, to be honest, it’s a pretty powerful engine (even with all its flaws).
Strategy Informer: When can we expect to see a full release for Cold War Crisis?
SHADOW: When it's done.
Seriously it's hard to tell since it all depends on how much time we
can put into CWC besides our university studies and exams. I might say
though that a beta-release with multiplayer support could be possible
this year.
2312222: We’re all in semester break at the
moment so some serious progress could be possible. We’ll see what we’ve
achieved once university starts again.
Strategy Informer: Are there any features we don't currently know about which you guys will be adding?
2312222: I’ve
been working on the infantry system that will allow the player a more
interesting gameplay than we know from Zero Hour. Soldiers can take
cover and reduce visibility by going prone. They feature several
weapons like e.g. the anti tank soldier that is equipped with M16 /
AK74 and LAW / RPG respectively. Besides that there’s a wide variety of
available soldiers to select from, each one equipped for their special
mission requirements.
There’s been some work to get realism into CWC as good
as possible while maintaining a good play. For example, we’ve added
artillery fire finder radar to allow for “realistic” artillery ranges
while allowing the attacked player a chance to destroy the artillery in
time.
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Strategy Informer: Could you tell us a bit about some of the upcoming unit's that people don't know about yet?
2312222: There’s not that much to tell about, the upcoming units, infantry, M-48 Chaparral (US anti-air system) and the B-1B bomber are, well, pretty straightforward. However I think people will enjoy the way infantry is modelled in CWC. It’s not comparable to ZH, it is useful now.
Strategy Informer: Could you also tell us about some of the structures which you plan to add?
Widowmaker: I can’t tell you too much about it. But you won’t see any huge concrete buildings in CWC. We will use a different building style. To make it more realistic we will try to create some kind of a „mobile field look“. I guess we will show you how this will look like as soon as the infantry is done.
Strategy Informer: What makes this mod better than the many other projects which are currently going on in the C&C community?
2312222: That
question is best answered by those that are not on the team. Personally
I’m really looking forward to Vietnam: Glory Obscured, which looks very
well done, so there are other projects that are definitely very
promising. And there’s Halogen, these guys have great graphics and
effects.
Widowmaker: Well I don’t think that we can say that are better than other ZH mods, because we are just too different to compare.
Strategy Informer: How has community support been so far for the Cold War Crisis team, are you pleased with the communities’ reaction to your project?
SHADOW: Yes
we are. We get a lot of support from the community. People are helping
us to improve CWC with their own suggestions; a lot of them have been
included in the demo (or the current unreleased internal alpha). The
community is helping us make CWC better, without their suggestions CWC
would be totally different today.
Skleni: We also found a lot of friends there we chat or even play games with often.
2312222: It’s a little sad that people have
lots of ideas but few actually want to work on something like a mod.
Modding is hard work and not play; I guess that’s what puts people off.
Strategy Informer: What has been the hardest part of development so far?
Skleni: Well,
we can't just write new code if we have an idea, we have to use the
stuff EA put in and try to combine it in new ways to get the results we
want. However, sometimes it just isn't possible, and most of the time
we only notice that after we already spent quite a lot of time. That's
a rather discouraging experience we had to make more than once.
2312222: Accepting that there are limits to
what you can achieve with engine, team strength and time. It’s a rough
landing after you realized that there are these restrictions.
Strategy Informer: Is there anything else you'd like to say to your fans before we wrap this up?
2312222: Stay with us and be patient, we think it’s worth it and we hope we’ll all enjoy a full version released eventually.
