Interview avec NoGamer

[Stilgar]

We speak to the The Creative Assembly's Mark O' Connell about the art of war.
It’s been ten years since the original Shogun was released. In what ways do you feel technology has caught up with Creative Assembly’s original vision for the first game? What key technical advancements of the last decade have allowed you to make this game the way you wanted?
Technology has come a long way in the ten years since Shogun: Total War was released. In fact, this is one of the main factors in wanting to return to the period. We had a lot of ideas that simply weren’t possible a decade ago, and now we are able to go back and make the game we originally wanted to. Naval battles started life as auto-resolvable affairs, rather than the fully 3D real-time battles that debuted in Empire: Total War.


After a successful Beta, Napoleon: Total War introduced the much requested co-op multiplayer Campaign mode, a feature which will be making a return for Shogun 2. Of course, since our last release, our technology has continued to evolve, promising to make Shogun 2 the most polished, visually stunning and well-rounded game to date.

The Total War series is steeped in history and legend. To what extent did the Creative Assembly research 16th Century Japan before development started? Is this research an ongoing process?
It’s fair to say our team is massively interested in history. A lot of the guys spend half of their time buried in books or watching cool samurai films. We’re always looking ahead to our next titles, so we’re always thinking about which period or style we should adopt for future games. In that respect, there’s a lot of background general historical research that goes on.
“We've never, ever ruled out bringing the Total War series to consoles.”


In terms of specific research for Shogun 2, our designers and artists have absolutely thrown themselves into the history books head-first. For these guys it’s a passion. We have also been consulting extensively with Professor Stephen Turnbull, Britain’s foremost expert on the time period and worked with us on the original Shogun: Total War.
Are the nine available fiefdoms historically accurate? Can we expect key figures from the era such as Nobunaga to appear? In what ways do each of the nine fiefdoms differ in terms of battle tactics and strengths.
Everything in the game is as historically accurate as we can make it and as great to play as we can make it. We can’t say just yet exactly who from history might be appearing in the game – we’ll have to leave that to the guys on our forums to speculate on for the time being. Regarding the fiefdoms, they’ll each be distinct in some way from the other.


The Total War series features a superb grasp of real warfare tactics that span several centuries. Did the Creative Assembly confer with any military tacticians or historians to capture these strategies? How does the team ensure such tactics remain balanced across all fiefdoms?
As well as consulting with Professor Stephen Turnbull, who I mentioned earlier, we’ve spent a lot of time looking at the historical tactics of the time.

The AI has to be believable, engaging and make the best use possible of the weaponry it has – just like these great warriors did historically. Balancing tactics is something that really comes with iteration and careful play testing. We iterate and iterate and iterate tactically until we’re absolutely sure something matches up as closely as possible with history – and is also being great fun to play.

We understand that players will be able to make use of hero troops such as the warrior monk Saitō Benkei. How will these individuals affect the field and will they level up as the campaign progresses?
Hero troops will represent a great source of power on the battlefield. We’re not saying they’re going to be able to win battles single-handedly, but careful use of them could be enough to swing a battle – or even a war - in your favour. Saitō Benkei really existed, and he was an inspiration to us when researching the game.


Over time, the man and the legend have become one as his deeds have been retold time and again. We want people playing Shogun 2 to feel connected to that intense feeling of honour and loyalty. We want them to bond with these guys. As a result, leveling your hero units up will be important. We can’t say too much about that right now, but rest assured it’s a big part of our plans.
Shogun 2 will allow for a reported 56,000 troops on the field at any one time. Where do you draw the line between the quality of the visuals and the sheer quantity? Is there ever a temptation to swing further one way?
I don’t think there is. It’s all about what feels right and accurate when we’re making the game. For Shogun 2, it was important that we had that feeling of huge waves of men cascading down a hillside. In a game like Empire: Total War, the focus was more on tightly-organised, slow-moving lines of units.
To an extent, battles in the Sengoku jidai period were skilled battles of attrition, where numbers could win out – but only if they were highly skilled, disciplined and honourable. As such, it wasn’t uncommon for battles to feature thousands of men.
There might be a time where we decide we want more people on screen. We’ve done tech demos internally where we’ve had more people than that on screen, but it always comes down to a case of what’s the best fit for the game.




The Onin war of the 16th Century was a time of betrayal and mass conflict. How large will the Shogun 2 campaign be and how deep is the lore concerning your re-telling of these years? Will betrayal play a part in the campaign or multiplayer?
Betrayal, mass conflict… we love this stuff. You can safely bet that any dastardly deeds that may have been carried out during the Sengoku jidai have been looked at hard by our designers and artists.We definitely aim to capture that feel in spades and integrate it into the mechanics of the game. We want the campaign to be absolutely absorbing and engaging. If people aren’t spending hours and hours playing our games, we’re doing something wrong.

Considering multiplayer, what can players expect from Shogun 2 in terms of competitive skirmishes and co-op? We’re not really talking about multiplayer at the moment – but we are really excited about it in-house. What I can tell you is that we’re aiming to make multiplayer in Shogun 2 better than any multiplayer experience we’ve ever created before.
There are thousands and thousands of people out there who play Total War multiplayer hours and hours a week. We’re grateful for that, but we think we can offer them more still. We’re doing this for those guys, and I think they’re going to love it.

Shogun 2 will mark another PC-only entry to the Total War series. Isn't it about time we had the Total War experience on consoles?
We’ve never, ever ruled out bringing the Total War series to consoles. But what we have always said is that the timing has to be right, the platform has to be right, the controls have to be spot-on and we have to offer the full Total War experience, not a watered down one. If it doesn’t feel right, it’s not worth making. But if we crack the problem of the control system, the way the game plays out, there’s nothing to say we’re not going to release a console Total War.

What is your view on motion control methods in bringing this type of game to the home console space?
Our main view is that it needs to feel right. It’s relatively easy for us to knock together a prototype version of one of our games running on console, but whether it plays well or not is the clincher. It’s all about finding that sweet spot between complexity and simplicity. When we find it, we’ll let you know.


Lien original : http://www.nowgamer.com/features/916...ew?o=0#listing

[smackdekelloggs]

Pas mal, mais on n'apprend rien de nouveau sauf que TW sur console n'est pas à l'ordre du jour pour le moment, c'est en soi une bonne nouvelle.

[Ullric]

Ne crions pas victoire trop vite, il reste l'option facebook.

[Le-Nain]

Ils oseraient quand même pas faire ça ? Ce serait revenir 20 ans en arrière

[Faras]

Encore une fois, je vous invite à lire l'excellent ( et long) article du Magazine Canard PC ( c'était le double numéro de l'été, mais je pense qu'il sera peut-être bientôt disponible sur le site), à propos des jeux dit sociaux, dit " facebook". C'est juste absolument hallucinant comment un jeu développé avec les pieds en quelques mois peut engranger jusqu'a 66 millions d'euros par mois, grâce aux pubs, aux ventes d'informations à d'autres entreprises, et ainsi qu'a l'achat de "bonus" dans le jeu.
Vous appuyez tout cela par un jeu basé sur une lenteur et des mécanismes de frustration ( comme " hé merde tu peux pas récolter ta tomate, tu as dépensé tes points d'action pour ce jour! mais tu peux en avoir 6 points de plus en raquant avec ta Carte Bleue!") pour inciter les personnes à payer, et surtout à chercher à avoir le plus de clients possibles en insistant auprès des clients à inviter ses amis dans le jeu.Maintenant, tu y ajoutes une masse de gens tellement débiles que ca en devient un crime contre l'humanité, et tu obtiens près de 200 millions de joueurs pour un jeu que j'aurais pu faire avec Paint et RPG maker, et parmi cette bande d'abrutis, tu retrouves la lie de l'humanité,soit 10% d'idiots qui PAYENT jusqu'a 3-5 $ par mois ( en moyenne, l'idée même que des gens puissent payer pour ca dépasse largement les cadres de la logique humaine) pour cette espèce de chose informe dont la seule mention de ressemblance à un jeu serait une affreuse insulte odieuse à l'idée ludique depuis les osselets, et je te laisse faire le calcul, 20x3=60 millions par mois au minimun.
Je doute fortement que par exemple Napoléon Total War rapportera autant dans toute sa vie.
Donc tu comprends , je l'espère, pourquoi CA à envie de se lancer dans ce genre de jeu facebook. Vu le nombre de gens dont la seule utilité qu'on pourrait leur trouver pour le bien de l'humanité serait d'en faire du compost pour planter des arbres, ils n'auraient pas tort de se priver de ces mougeons ( affreuse race hybride entre l'humain, le pigeon et le mouton), qui bèlent affectueusement pour se faire tondre et s*d*miser profondément avec du gravier et sans vaseline.

Désolé pour l'énervement.

[Nirnaeth Arnoediad]

Je n'achèterai pas Shogun 2 car:

1) j'aime pôh le Japon médiéval

2) j'ai eu la sensation de m'être fait ***uler après avoir acheté Empire donc pas question que ça se reproduise.

[Faras]

2) j'ai eu la sensation de m'être fait ***uler après avoir acheté Empire donc pas question que ça se reproduise.

Rien que d'y repenser, j'ai encore des douleurs anales.

[Empnicolas]

Faras, trop fort ton post, mais j'ajouterai un truc de l'interet d'un jeu facebook (lit la suite avant de me tuer ): cela pourrai permettre a CA d'avoir une rente mensuelle afin de pouvoir nous sortir de vraix TW avec des possiblité de modding plus importante que dans M2TW , je sais c'est beau de rever eveiller

Sinon comme Nirnaeth Arnoediad pour S2TW

[Faras]

Empnicolas, CA fait pas des jeux par pure philanthropie, mais pour le fric. Et si faire du jeu sur facebook ca rapporte BEAUCOUP plus que faire un jeu dont le modding est très possible, tu crois vraiment, que dans un geste de bisounourserie , ils vont, soudain, sortir un vrai tw?

[Zamensis]

Je ne comprends pas le rapport entre vos 3 messages à propos de Facebook et l'interview...?

Sinon, rien de bien prometteur dedans. Quelques nouveautés "gadget" mais pas grand chose sur le fond même de la série, qu'on attend de voir évoluer depuis la sortie de M2TW... Il va falloir faire beaucoup pour me convaincre que ce sera un TW à ce point révolutionnaire.

[F-Ake]

J'ai pensé à la même chose que toi Empnicolas

[Le-Nain]

Je suis complètement d'accord avec toi Faras, je sais que CA ferait uniquement ça pour le fric mais ce serait désolant, même eux d'un côté ça les emmerderait de faire un jeu aussi basique après ce qu'ils ont déjà fait...

[Clemci]

Nous avons été en***és par ETW?

A ce stade là, çà a remonté jusqu'à l'estomac.

[Stilgar]

Revenons au sujet sur l'interview en elle même

[smackdekelloggs]

Je trouve qu'au niveau communication on a beaucoup perdu avec le temps, on a beaucoup plus de news qu'avant et paradoxalement on en apprend un petit peu moins à chaque fois. Je veux bien que le jeu en soit encore au stade developement mais là à part essayer de nous en mettre plein la vue avec les videos de gameplay c'est plutôt creux. Enfin, moins ils se vantent moins on risque d'être déçu et si pour eux les batailles navales sont reprsentative de l'avancée technique on est assez mal embarqué (sans jeu de mot).