Articles

Is Halo Wars gonna suck now that ES is getting closed after Halo Wars is released?

SOLUS — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 22:53:00 GMT

Is Halo Wars gonna suck now that ES is getting closed after Halo Wars is released?

That’s a totally fair question. The Ensemble Studios’ closure announcement certainly affects the perception of Halo Wars. Despite that risk, we put our people first. Telling our employees ASAP was the right thing to do. I give Microsoft quite a bit of credit for letting us do that.

We’ve worked with Microsoft to create the best set of options for every employee’s future. For example, there is a deal in place for a new company that will employ some people from Ensemble. It’s premature to announce much about that venture, but it is definite that the new company will pickup and support Halo Wars going forward.

That said, I’m sure some folks will leave before Halo Wars ships. I’ll applaud them for doing what is right for their happiness. Ensemble has always been about our commitment to employees. We’re not going to forget that at the last minute.

We’ve done everything possible to retain everyone through the end of Halo Wars. Any reports about people already being laid off are 100% false. Full timers are still employed and have a job until well after Halo Wars. Contractors still have their contracts. Our goal is to keep everyone here until the game is done.

Halo Wars is going to ship. We want Halo Wars to be awesome. If you’ve read any of the E3 or Leipzig press coverage, you know the game is good. Plus, the new company will support Halo Wars via title updates and DLC.

Finishing the game will be harder now, but it will get done and be great.

Dave Pottinger
Halo Wars Lead Designer

Graeme Devine - Halo Wars at PAX

SOLUS — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 19:57:00 GMT

PAX 2008 was my very first PAX. I’ve been on the road for a while, E3, ComicCon, Leipzig, and now PAX so I was ready for another round of industry demos and press interviews. But that’s not PAX, not at all.

First of all, it’s in Seattle. And I love Seattle. The Convention Center is downtown, a short walk from the hotel and right near Pike Place, fabled location of the first Starbucks (BTW, I stood in line with Felicia Day at Starbucks!)

But PAX. PAX is special because it’s the people who go to the event that made my PAX experience totally unique. It was filled with gamers, people anxious to see and touch the games they were passionate about, get a sneak peek into the upcoming releases, and show their passion for their favorite pastime.

I had two morning demos to do at 10am for Halo Wars, the doors coincidently opened up at that time, and as 10am approached on the first day I could see the crowd outside the exhibition hall gathering, it was noisy, they were counting down, it was a lot of people. When the doors opened the fans RAN into the show, off to see all sorts of games and quite a few of them headed for the Microsoft stand and the small demo area we had setup. Very quickly the area filled up, all the seats were gone, and people were standing three deep behind the seats to see the demo.

Jim Ying and I ran through the demo, he was driving the game as I talked so I could actually see the crowd. And here’s where PAX got REALLY special for me. Those fans were EXCITED. They cheered when the Spartans jacked the Wraiths. They clapped when the shortsword carpet bombed the troops, and many of them came up afterwards telling me how awesome the game looked and how much they were looking forward to Halo Wars coming out.

Seeing the fans respond to the game was better than any other demo I’ve given, worth the trip to Seattle just to feel that excitement for the game from the fans, and made me extremely proud to be part of this product.

Graeme

Monthly Update

SOLUS — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:52:00 GMT

Milestones Coming and Going
The milestones are coming hard and fast for Halo Wars. We are going to be putting in a lot of late hours to make sure that all of the t’s have been crossed and the i’s dotted and making sure that we make you a great game. The Single Player campaign and AI is getting a lot of tweaks right now as well as art and other assets.

This is a very exciting time to be working here, because this is the magic hour of making games, when everything comes together. Playing the game is very important here at the office and everyone gives input on the game during our playtests, so every one of our employee’s opinions matters. It is awesome to come to work and see a unit get a fresh coat of paint or a level get that small tweak you asked for.

Site Changes
We are going to be making some more changes on HaloWars.com in the coming months. Some will be very easy to notice other will be more subtle. We will be upgrading the servers and software that runs the site as well as the look and feel of the site. You will notice more content in the UNSC Field Manual and new information about the Covenant as well.

There will be new forums added as we get closer to launch and there will be new email addresses for directing your questions to. We will be disabling the Private Message feature from the site in the near future as well.

I know it sounds like a big laundry list of things to do, and it is. However we hope to keep working on the site and building the community for what will be a great game.

Leipzig and More
The PR wagons are rolling for Halo Wars and you should be hearing more about Halo Wars in the coming months. Leipzig was a great way to get Halo Wars out infront of our European fans and they seemed to really enjoy it. We had positive reports from our most skeptical fans who were saying that console RTS’s never work. Here is a quote from our latest developer diary. Definitely check them out if you have not already.

“The demos have been rolling along. For each group we do a quick control overview and then give as many people as possible a chance to play against the AI. We actually had to bump the difficulty up for a few of our groups. Some people need almost no instruction on how to attack this game. It was fun to just sit back and watch them play.”
People are able to pick up the game and just start playing after a short time. It is a great thing to see.

We have some other events that are coming up soon to show off Halo Wars. I can’t talk about them yet but you should be seeing more of Halo Wars in the media soon.

Graham “Thunder” Somers has left the building.
He made me promised not to put this in the monthly update, but seeing he does not work here anymore he has little say it what goes on (sorry Thunder). Thunder has returned to the loving embrace of his home country and city of Vancouver. There he entered a magical cocoon and will one day emerge as a giant moth defending his home city from massive radioactive lizards to the cheer of tens of thousands.

In all honesty, Thunder is a great guy and worked with Ensemble Studios first as a fan himself running a fan site and then later as our community manager for Age of Empires 3 and Halo Wars. He was homesick for Canada so he decided to take his dog and pony show home. Thunder will be missed here at Ensemble.

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Halo Wars: Spartans in a Strategy Game

SOLUS — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 22:40:00 GMT

Admit it. You love being Master Chief.

What’s not to love? You get this swank, indestructo suit of armor. Sure, it may chafe a smidge here and there, but it sure is shiny.

Then there are those catchy little taglines. Who hasn’t found an extremely inopportune moment to say “I need a weapon” in a husky man growl? All members of the opposite sex surely scattered to the four winds at that point, but you felt *** cool.

And, to top it off, you jaunt around and save the galaxy’s collective ass on more than one occasion. Spartan work is definitely good work if you can get it. Assuming you aren’t horribly maimed or disemboweled by the training…

Yet, how is that relevant for Halo Wars? We’ve already disclosed that Master Chief isn’t even in Halo Wars. Halo Wars is set 20 years before the events Halo: Combat Evolved FTLOG! Heck, at this point in the Halo Timeline, Master Chief is probably off leveling up in WOW XXIII or sniping pigeons in New Liberty City.

Funny geek jokes aside, Master Chief lords over Halo Wars even though he’s not in the game. His eyes, his character have provided the only perspective players have ever had on the Halo Universe. There’s no way anyone can ponder doing a Halo game without thinking about how Master Chief has skewed the perception for approximately 14.9 bajillion players.

People expect Spartans to kick serious ass. The Halo FPS games have trained folks to believe Spartans are uber. There’s nothing wrong with that per se, but it does create some issues when you think about a strategy game setting.

Typically, strategy games feature a rock/paper/scissors relationship system (“RPS” for those hardcore strategy game fans) of some form between the types of units in the game. No matter what type of units I choose to create, there’s always at least one way to do something to counteract my strategy and turn the tables. The best strategy games have really good balance between the units and winning is a blend of dexterous skill (how I use my units) and intelligent strategies (which units I bring to the fight).

Halo Wars is no different. We have a pretty clear punch/counter-punch game play at work. We want a lot of back and forth in the game. No one wants a strategy game where there’s a single big battle. Well, we don’t at least. We want a lot of smaller skirmishes that lead into big battles that lead into huge wars that eventually end in the eradication of all known life for one team. In 15 to 20 minutes.

Earlier on, I mentioned that people have expectations about Spartans being excellent units. Implicit in that statement is the simpler expectation of players just wanting Spartans in the game in the first place (note the plural there; we’ll come back to that). Turning that expectation into a reality is part of what will make Halo Wars great.

That goal has actually made the problem a bit harder, though. Not only do we have to deliver on the actual quality of Spartans in combat, but we’ve got to make them show up quite a bit. Fans familiar with strategy games can probably recognize the issue with giving players access to uber units early on in the game. They’ll wreak havoc on the fun/pace of the campaign and be a total screw in multiplayer skirmishes.

The traditional balance tack of reducing the combat quality of the unit in the early phases of the game doesn’t work because then it’s not a Spartan that meets player expectations. No one wants to see their Spartans wasted in the first 5 seconds of a firefight. Yet, if we move the Spartan to the end of the game where he can be uber, then we risk him not showing up in enough games. It’s not really a Halo game if you hardly ever see Spartans.

So, what have we done?

(Editor Note: Dave is actually not invisible in this picture. He is lurking behind the camera person, ready to strike. The editor also likes Full Metal Jacket.)

Multiple Spartans. Earlier on, we talked about Halo Wars being a prequel to the previous Halo games. If you’re a fan, you know this means that multiple Spartans were alive and kicking in our timeframe. That’s a huge advantage for us. Fictionally, we can tell a story with multiple Spartans now, something gamers haven’t had a chance to experience yet. Design-wise, we can actually use this to help address the quality expectations people have. Individually, our Spartans are very good. But, together they’re great. If you want that “Spartans kick ass” vibe, you can get it as long as you train a few Spartans.

No More Nerfing. It’s really easy to work on a strategy game and balance everything by reducing the stats of too-popular units until people begin to use other units. The problem is that nerfing makes for boring games. No one wants units that only do a bit of damage. They sure don’t want Spartans to just plink away at Wraith tanks forever. They want their Spartans to beat the living hell out of those evil mothers on the other side and tear them to pieces. So, for all the whining I’ve done about the potential for overly strong units, we actually just decided to embrace that for Halo Wars. Every unit is a screw Spartans can deal massive damage and, left unchecked, tear through an army really quickly. But, with the right counter units and focus from a player, Spartans can be killed in some spectacularly gratifying ways.

Jacking. So, a band of Spartans can belt out some mega damage. That’s cool, but if you’ve followed Halo Wars at all, you know that we’ve got a system where each unit gets a special ability. That’s another golden chance for us to live up to the Halo lore and get Spartans to stand out more as fun units. Simply put, we decided early on to ensure that the Spartans had the coolest unit ability of them all.

But which ability? We could have gone the whole upgradeable hero route with the ability and let it get better over time. But, that didn’t really feel “Halo” nor was it a simple fit for the quicker, more adrenaline-soaked game play we wanted. We needed something more visceral and immediate. Looking at the “in the moment” choices that happened during combat, we came up with two obvious ideas: picking up enemy weapons and vehicle jacking. Those both felt really Halo to us and were certainly something players would expect to be able to do.

We seriously thought about both and even did a little test work before making our decision. In the end, the weapon thing never really got past the “What’s that tiny little thing on the TV over there?” problem. We didn’t want to overdo the cheese factor by having Manga-sized weapons bouncing up and down on the screen, so that meant you just couldn’t see the weapons once they dropped. Plus, while the eventual act of wielding a Fuel Rod Cannon is very impressive, the act of picking one up doesn’t make anyone say “Holy Crap! Did you see that?” It just wasn’t exciting enough.

Cue up the Jacking. There was never any doubt that it was cool, but it took a long time to get right and really become the “money shot” we needed it to be. Sadly, any Halo Wars team member can probably relate “fond” memories of the countless times I’ve pantomimed the whole Spartan Jacking sequence in front of the team in our theater to help communicate what I wanted it to be. I even got excited enough to start doing sound effects a few times. I hope there aren’t any pictures of that anywhere…

Anyhow, I’m actually very, very happy with how the Spartan jacking turned out. Seeing a Spartan jack a Wraith or Locust is kinda like the first time we showed off the Age of Mythology and had a Cyclops pick up an unlucky spearman and huck him across the screen. You don’t have to say anything; that little moment is a perfect demo of why the game is cool all by itself.

Jacking a vehicle is as easy as selecting a Spartan and tapping Y on top of that Wraith. We definitely exaggerate the running and jumping animations of the jacking maneuver to make it larger than life. Strategy games do need to exaggerate key actions to make sure they “read” as more important than the general battle action when you’ve got a ton of troops that you’re looking down over... Your Spartan might even do a back flip en route to his perch atop the tank. Anyone who’s watched a fragged Spartan go flying off into the abyss with his arms flailing away will feel right at home watching the jack sequences.

Back to the details… Once atop the enemy vehicle, a bevy of heavy Spartan punches beats the living crap out of the Wraith. The hatch is eventually chucked out of the way followed closely by the former tank occupant. The Spartan jumps in the seat and now the Wraith is yours. Throw in some amped up effects and sounds and this sequence becomes a showpiece for the entire game. Jack a few vehicles at the same time with multiple Spartans and people will grab their buddies and literally drag them over to see it again (if the E3 reception is any indication).

But looking cool and achieving that “Whoa” factor isn’t really enough. We needed to make Spartan Jacking matter from a game play standpoint for folks to really want to do it a lot. In Halo Wars, each unit has a Level. This is the simple sum of his upgrades (technologies that you can spend resources on to improve a unit) and his veterancy (combat bonuses that are layered onto units that survive a lot of battles). The higher your level, the larger your swagger on the battlefield. When a Spartan is inside a vehicle, he adds his level to that vehicle’s level. So, that Level 4 Wraith tank can suddenly become a Level 10 Wraith tank, something that’s well beyond what a normal Wraith can achieve.

Now, we’ve got something that looks badass but also is badass from a game play standpoint. Spartans have become a true ‘kingmaker’ unit, which gives them an interesting, unique role inside Halo Wars. Spartans and Spartan-manned vehicles are something every UNSC player wants in his army because they strike some serious fear into the opponents. The fact that some of those vehicles might also be originally built by the enemy is just icing on the proverbial cake.

Oh, and in case it’s not obvious, Spartans can commandeer your own vehicles, too. This makes them useful in more ways, which is great. Plus, who hasn’t ejected some lowly, faceless UNSC goob from a Warthog driver’s seat? So, when Halo Wars ships, watch out for the Level 14 Spartan-controlled Grizzly tanks. They’re pretty darn good.

So, kudos if you’ve waded through this whole thing to make it this far. Hopefully it’s been useful or at least mildly bemusing. I’m sure you’ll let us know what you think in the forums.

Dave Pottinger
Lead Designer, Halo Wars

Leipzig Day 2 and 3

SOLUS — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 22:12:00 GMT

Leipzig Day 2

8:00 am

(Live band at the Volkspalatz in Leipzig)

What would a convention be without a party?
Before we could even answer our own rhetorical question we are once again whisked away in our XBOX 360 party van. Before long we are back in our small room at the convention center that has become our home for the past couple of days.

9:00 am

(Wake up time…)

We are just about to kick off another marathon session of demos. If it’s anything like yesterday then we are going to need our strength. So it’s time for our pre-show ritual of great espresso on our favorite patio.

12:00 pm

(Graeme talking about the controls)

We have been going strong for a few hours now and finding that today is equally as demanding as yesterday. We have standing room only in several sessions and are actually having to tell some people that they won’t get hands on time with the game but can watch if they really want to see it. That seems just fine for some and we continue to see smiling faces leaving our demo. The word is that we are looking good and people are “getting” Halo Wars in Germany.

12:30pm Lunch

(Graeme Devine, Stephen Rippy, Jason Pace)

It’s just enough time for a quick break for lunch and time for another coffee. Perhaps that party wasn’t the best idea we had last night?

The demos have been rolling along. For each group we do a quick control overview and then give as many people as possible a chance to play against the AI. We actually had to bump the difficulty up for a few of our groups. Some people need almost no instruction on how to attack this game. It was fun to just sit back and watch them play.

I am a bit worried about Graeme’s voice holding out for the whole show. Not only is he doing the full intro presentation but he’s also handling all the television and radio interviews. I bring this up and he looks at me like I am worried about nothing.

2:00 pm

(convention floor)
We had a scheduled break this afternoon and I took some time to actually walk the show floor. They really do put on a great conference here and the show floor was full of excitement and buzz. The closest thing I have seen to this is the old E3 format. This show seems even bigger and its definitely cool to see the looks on the fans as I walk around with my Halo Wars shirt. I think most of them just wonder where they can get one of these.

(XBOX 360 Live)

I also took a moment to check out the XBOX stage. This place was pretty insane, and the crowd was really into the proceedings. It just goes to show that people will do absolutely anything for a free faceplate.

6:30 pm

(Here we are … perhaps a little tired)

The final demos were packed and we had standing room only for the rest of the afternoon. This was great and we knew that it was our last chance to get Halo Wars in front of these people before our long journey back to Texas.

My worries about Graeme’s voice were mostly unfounded. Although he did have me do the final two control overviews so that he would still be able to talk at dinner. He’s a real pro at this and was a great sport about everything we asked him to do during the show.

Now, about those beers…

7:00 pm

Leaving the show the plan is to have one final night of celebrating and see if we can keep up with our friends from Rare and Lionhead. It’s been a whirlwind show and our Halo Wars build performed like a champ. By my calculations we showed the game to over 130 members of the media during this event.

We packed up our stuff and left the show with our hard drives in tow. Halo Wars has left the building.

Leipzig Day 3 – Prologue

(Auerbach’s Celler)

Last night we did indeed head out and celebrate. We had one great German meal at the famous Auerbach’s Keller (Celler) restaurant. This restaurant has been going since 1538 and is the setting for the play Faust. I don’t know what type of Faustian bargain the chef’s have made, but the food was just as delicious as the flowing German biers.

A couple of us are actually heading to Berlin for a day of sightseeing, but this seems like a perfect place to bid farewell to Germany on behalf of the Halo Wars team.

Germany has been a great place to show off Halo Wars. The German fans really seem to understand what makes a strategy game like Halo Wars so fun to play. After this trip it’s even easier for us to remember why these games are so much fun to make. We can’t wait to get this out in front of our fans all over the world.

auf Wiedersehen!

Leipzig Day 1

SOLUS — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 22:05:00 GMT

Leipzig Update – Day 1

We're all tired and heading to bed (it'a almost 1am here), but I wanted to give a quick update about how the day was going.

8:00 am
We started this morning with a quick ride to the conference center the swanky XBOX360 van. The Leipziger Messe is pretty close and really an amazing sight to behold. Here is a picture:

8:30 am
We set up the room and checked all the connections one more time. Everything seems in order and we had 10 minutes to spare so we decide to have a quick shot of espresso before the fun begins. We took that coffee on the outdoor patio:

9:00 am
Our first demo started promptly at 9:00 and we did 4.5 hours back to back (4 people at 30 minutes each) and finally got 20 minutes for a lunch break. Honestly it went by so quickly that nobody was that hungry or realized how long we had been going. The feedback was amazing and the strategy-crazy German press was being convinced one by one that a strategy game could work on the console. Time will tell, but the feedback was consistent and clear. We want/need Halo Wars now!

1:40 pm - Lunch time
We had a quick lunch at the kitchen (Spatzel and soup I think) and during that lunch Graeme got pulled away for his first TV interview with MTV. We are still trying to track down when and where this will be aired in Europe. However, the interview went awesome and it was great to see them come to the MS booth just to see Halo Wars.

2:00 pm
The rest of us went back to doing non-stop demos until 5:30 pm (Graeme rejoined us after 30 minutes.) The feedback was once again consistent and we heard some great feedback.

The controls were extremely well, received with everyone that played having a great time.

5:30 pm
Here we had the second of our specialty interviews. This time we let Graeme loose on the European XBOX insider guys. A nice video interview ensued with Graeme knocking questions out of the park. This stuff should show up on XBOX live in both Europe and the States sometime soon.

6:00 pm
Here we had our final demo of the day and a chance for the PR team to come tell us that we were the most requested game at the front desk (we are behind closed doors at Leipzig so you need an appointment.) That was pretty cool to know and so we headed back to the XBOX van with smiles on our faces and German biers on our minds.

Halo Wars Monthly Update 07.31.08

Thunder — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 19:45:00 GMT

It's been a busy month for us! Please excuse me for sneaking this update in here on the last day...

E3 Awards

We were all pretty excited by the response of those who sat down to play Halo Wars at E3. Our demonstration of the game involved a brief talk on what the game was all about, a look at the Five Long Years movie, and then the press sat down with a buddy to play against two AI players. The controller was placed in their hands and away they went in their co-op 2v2 game. It was very encouraging to see how many of these folks got the hang of playing the game with our control scheme. They got it and beat down their AI opponents! Getting the controls right is such a huge part of making an RTS game work on the console and it looks like we’ve cracked that part of the equation.

It was really cool to watch the game being demonstrated on G4, especially with the enthusiasm of the hosts. They seemed honestly impressed with the game and even nominated Halo Wars for the best Xbox 360 game of E3! Not bad for our first console game. The nominees for the Game Critic Awards have also just been announced and we're up for Best Strategy game there as well.

Legendary

We had to make sure the game was solid for E3, so we spent a lot of time playing the co-op 2v2 part of the demo against the AI to check for bugs, and difficulty level. Most of the games would be played on the easier or normal difficulty levels at E3 so we played a lot of games on those settings, but for those of us who have played the game for a number of years against each other this wasn’t much of a challenge. It became a bit of a contest to ratchet up the difficulty level to see if you could beat the two AI players on legendary, where the enemy was made especially difficult in a number of ways.

One evening late in the process of getting the E3 build ready, I was paired up in the playtest lab with Jerome Jones, the designer who is in charge of the scenarios for the campaign. I wasn’t too sure how good Jerome was at the game since I hadn’t played him in a multiplayer match, so when I noticed he was taking his sweet time getting a second base going in our game on heroic difficulty I wasn’t sure if he was just messing around or not. We beat the heck out of the AI players, despite Jerome’s slow start, and then he suggested we take things up to legendary, which is quite a jump in difficulty right now.

As we got underway on our second game on the harder difficulty, Duane “Saint” Santos and Brad Robnett were in the middle of a legendary game. Duane was having a rough time of it and by the time Jerome and I were mopping up our two AI players after double teaming them one at a time, he was declaring that the legendary AI could not be beaten, which was followed by plenty of laughter and jabs from our side of the lab. Great game Jerome, you can be my wingman any day.

With the rules and units of the game getting fleshed out and finalized, work on polishing, refining, and balancing the AI for the various difficulty levels is fully underway. These E3 AI opponents were just the beginning. Legendary will be a challenge that will be worthy for the most experienced players.

Leaders

Those of you who watched the E3 coverage on Halo Wars closely probably picked up on the mention of Leaders and unique units in the game. Dave Pottinger mentions Captain Cutter and the Prophet of Regret in this 1UP.com demo: http://www.gamevideos.com/video/id/20150

Leaders give you access to some unique abilities, units, and bonuses, depending on which one you choose. As mentioned, the Elephant is unique for players who choose Captain Cutter as their leader, giving them a mobile barracks to train units out of and also potentially saving you a building site if you choose not a construct a barracks at your base. The Cyclops is another unique unit that will only be available to a specific leader, and the MAC Blast and Carpet Bombing abilities that you saw are usually divided up between two leaders. For the purpose of the demo at E3, we wanted to show them both so our leader had two abilities. In a normal game that wouldn’t be the case.

Which leader you choose will influence what strategies you might want to try during a game, and various combinations of leaders can compliment each other well in team games. They are a pretty cool part of the game that we’ll discuss in much more detail in the future.

Upcoming Milestones

There really aren’t that many milestones left, so they are all monumental from here on out. We’ll have another situation report for you next month with what is going on with the project and how we’re progressing.

Halo Wars Monthly Update 06.20.08

Thunder — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 19:58:00 GMT

E3 Beckons

Probably not many of you reading this have ever been to an Electronic Entertainment Expo, which is now called something like the business and media summit, more commonly referred to as just E3. These shows have been around for quite a few years, originally starting in the 90s in Los Angeles. E3 migrated over to Atlanta for a little while but eventually found its way back to LA where it has stayed ever since. They used to include a day for the public to come in and check out the games, but the show has been gradually becoming more of the closed door, press pass, VIPs only type of affairs. Last year it still had the big announcements but was lower key overall, with pretty much press and buyers the only folks allowed to get in and see the wares. So although we’re going to be showing Halo Wars there, you’re likely going to have to live vicariously through second hand accounts from members of the press.

We will certainly update our website, as we did last year, with some E3 materials, links to announcements, articles, and any other information that comes from the show.

What are we going to be showing? We’re going to be showing a recent build of the game. We have a milestone that is shortly before E3, so we’re going to take a few days to test it and make sure it’s running well, then take it to LA. A lot more of the game will be visible and hopefully we will be able to hand over the controller to let people try it for themselves. We’ve come a long way in the last year, so get ready for a new look under the hood.

The Cyclops

One of the new units that was revealed in the recent GamePro feature on Halo Wars was the UNSC Cyclops. People who’ve played our games may remember Age of Mythology, which allowed players to use the mythological Cyclops unit. The unit name is a nod to that game, and the fun we had with that unit. The GamePro article described the Cyclops in Halo Wars as a “gigantic bipedal mech”, which is something of a hyperbole. This naturally brought on nightmare-ish imagery to some Halo fans of a MechWarrior style machine of war with missile and guns on it. That’s really not the case.

The idea of the Cyclops is simply a repurposed piece of equipment. It’s not a giant fighting machine, it’s not actually not much larger than your average Spartan, and certainly smaller than something like a Scorpion. These mechanical suits house a man who operates it, and they would normally be put to work moving around supplies, ammunition, or doing the heavy lifting on construction projects. When the Covenant come knocking though, you’ve got to fend them off with whatever you have at your disposal, including these awkward looking things. We don’t feel that a guy in a mechanical suit (Spartan anyone? Mark I?) is a big stretch for the UNSC.

The UNSC Arsenal

With UNSC vehicles and weapons in mind, we’re going to be rolling out some general information on the forces that they can wield here on the site. This will include some possible renders, concepts, or maybe some animations as well. In addition, we’re going to be revealing the structures that you can build at your base. Many of you will remember that we have previously talked about a socketed base system, where you construct buildings in predefined locations. A large part of the strategy in the game is not only based around what units you build and field, but what buildings you decide to set down and when. We’re sure you’ll hear about this during E3, and over the summer we’ll be providing more on how that all fits together to create the UNSC in Halo Wars.

Screenshots

A gaming news site that some of us visit recently posted some screen captures from our 2007 E3 demo and proclaimed them as new. Things like that really make you realize just how far the game has come. Even screenshots in our gallery from a few months ago really don’t do the current game justice. With that in mind, our screenshot gallery is going to undergo a few updates in the near future to feature some more recent images from the game. Some new, some from magazine articles etc which you may have seen before. So watch for that as well!

Halo Wars Monthly Update 05.20.08

Thunder — Tue, 20 May 2008 19:29:00 GMT

Alpha Alpha Alpha

If you haven’t seen enough love from Ensemble Studios moderator Paragon lately, you’re right. He, along with most of the company, has been spreading his love around by visiting a private set of forums that was set up for the Halo Wars Alpha. The Alpha has come to a close, so he’s all yours once again.

The Alpha included several thousand Microsoft employees and a solid version of the game that allowed them to get online and play in multiplayer matches. This version of the game was limited to a brief tutorial and multiplayer. It was also limited to a specific set of units but it did give folks an idea of what we have in mind. The feedback that we got has given us a good idea of what was fun and where we need to spend our time in the months ahead to get things right. We’re pretty happy that we did this now, as opposed to later in the project, so we still have time to make changes.

The highlight of the Alpha for me was playing the game with people outside of Ensemble Studios over Xbox Live and then reading their feedback in the forum. The team here at Ensemble was also jumping online to play with the Alpha testers, and we generally tried to take it easy on the new players since we’ve definitely played the game a lot more than anyone else. If they had a mic hooked up we’d ask them what they thought of the game or answer any questions they might have. I’d generally run a Warthog over to scout out my opponent’s base to see what they were building so I could gauge their skill level. In some games my Warthog would get tagged by a rather impressive army of Scorpions and Marines, revealing someone who had certainly been playing a lot. At that point the gloves were off!

In addition to the Alpha testers, it was also exciting to get some more feedback from the gang at Bungie. Showing them a build is one thing but having them jump on Xbox Live to play is another.

While we definitely found plenty of things to improve, we were very encouraged to see how well the control scheme was received by players. Everyone seemed to pick it up in short order and had units fighting across the map in no time, and we feel like we’ve got the game pointed in a great direction. The Alpha definitely confirmed a lot of the high level gameplay choices and design decisions that we have made to make an RTS game rock on the console.

GamePro

Look for some Halo Wars love in the July issue of GamePro Magazine. Some of you have already seen that they mentioned they were going to include some information on the game in an upcoming issue. The writer for the piece was here on Friday, May 2, and got to talk at length about the game with the designers, sound team, and producers. He also got to see a build of Halo Wars first hand. So keep an eye out for the July issue, it should be tough to miss with the trio of Spartans on the cover.

The Campaign

Outside of our multiplayer playtesting sessions here at ES, designer Jerome Jones has been organizing open playtest sessions for the single player campaign. Lately these have been taking place at about 6:30 in the evening, right after crunch dinners when we’re working a late night. Jerome makes the call inviting employees who have a bit of time or want to give their input to head to the 15th playtest lab. Each evening we play through a set of three scenarios, one to three or four to six, and give input as we play through them. Are the objectives clear? Is it fun? Bugs and suggestions are logged by Jerome or other designers who take our feedback.

These tests occurred every evening during our last couple weeks of crunching on this latest milestone. The campaign has come a long way since earlier this year, but scenarios are still being reworked based on feedback from these sessions. I played through scenarios four through six on two consecutive evenings, and each of the scenarios had a number of changes made to the timing of events, objectives, and language used in the voice prompts. The voice overs during the scenarios are often temporary recordings of Ensemble Studios employees reading lines, which can be a little funny when you’re sitting next to the person who’s annoying voice is telling you you’re failing an objective, but these can be easily changed to refine the language used to keep the player informed of what they need to do. Once the wording is finalized, a professional voice actor with them be used to record the final dialogue.

The story for the campaign is not something that we’ll be discussing in any depth, probably until the game hits the shelves, but we hope to introduce you to the characters involved and give you some idea of how everything gets to where you find yourself in scenario one.

On Demand...

Some of you noticed a screenshot of Halo Wars floating around the web that wasn't in our gallery. I believe it was from the OXM Australia feature earlier this year, and it has just been added to the screenshots section as ya'll have requested. It's available in a bit of a higher resolution than is available on some of the other sites out there. We hope you enjoy it!

That's all for the moment. Those of you who will be enjoying a long weekend later this week, have a good one!

Halo Wars Monthly Update 4.28.08

Thunder — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 21:53:00 GMT

April Madness Halo Wars Tournament (of destruction) Destructed

It always sucks to start off with bad news, but better to give it to you straight. I’m sorry to say that the April Madness Tournament (of destruction) has been postponed, probably until later in the development schedule. I know you were all set to cheer for “Team Who is Chris Stark” and “Team Swanges”, so this is going to come as a major disappointment to you. We have some really cool stuff that will soon be added to the game so we’re going to hold off for now. It only makes sense to have a tournament (of destruction) when we can unleash the game’s full arsenal upon each other right?

As it was, our practice rounds were a lot of fun and teams were using somewhat different strategies which is encouraging. Scorpion tanks were proving to be very strong in the build we were using, mostly due to a bug with an anti-vehicle unit doing less damage than it was supposed to. Air units were also pretty popular, but because of their fantastic hit and run capabilities that could cripple a player’s Command Center, their power has been nerfed somewhat. A small group of these units was able to destroy a key building or two in a poorly defended base and then flee. It’s a good strategy that should be viable, but it was just a little too effective.

Of the strategies that I had been trying I had two that were working out pretty well for me. The first was a delayed rush with infantry. The real strength of this strategy is that it was generally unexpected, unless my opponent(s) were scouting well, because Scorpions were so popular. It takes time to get Scorpions on the field though, and infantry are relatively easy to start training. I’d concentrate on Marines but hold them back and try to time it so that they’d attack while my enemy was happily booming towards Scorpions or whatnot. By holding them back I make sure that I’ve got enough units to really do some damage when I do attack, and if all goes well the other team will hopefully be lulled into thinking that I’m busy booming my economy like they are. I want my opponent to invest in a long term strategy instead of defenses.

I’d have to be doing a good job of scouting so I’d know when to attack. Attack too late and he’s got high end units that will be tough for my infantry to take out, too early and he might be able to recover and fend me off if I don’t have enough units. When my infantry arrive at his base I’d try and kill a key structure, like a Supply Pad or Vehicle Depot, while continuing to stream in more reinforcements and booming in my unmolested part of the map. There’s a little more to the attack than I can safely say, generally revolving around an ability that Marines have, but that’s the gist of it.

I think the real reason I had success with this strategy was the popularity of Scorpions, which take a solid investment of time and resources to field. It was generally a safe bet that’s exactly what the other side was doing, so I could get away with this. When I failed with this strategy it was a glorious fiery end to a short game. Failure usually meant that I was behind economically and would soon get rolled unless my ally carried me on his/her back.

The other strategy that I used is growing in popularity, as it’s a pretty obvious counter to a Scorpion heavy force. I’ll have to leave that for a later time as it makes use of a new unit that I can’t mention.

Halo Wars Alpha

Yup, as you may have seen mentioned on a couple of sites, we are doing an alpha test with some internal Microsoft folks. I’m afraid I can’t talk about it at this time.

Big Al Czechs In

Stephen “Big Al” Rippy, Ensemble Studios Music and Sound Director, is back from his travels to distant lands where he was recording the music for a little game called Halo Wars. Stephen has been making music for a great many years, and has done all of the tunes for our Age of Empires series of games. That makes him an old man, since we’ve been doing those games for over ten years. I jumped into his sound proof booth with him so I could ask him a few questions about he quest for the music…

So I hear you are strong with the music-fu. When did you start creating music?

Big Al: I started messing around with a keyboard when I was 11 or 12; piano lessons, songwriting, and a top-notch pre-teen garage band followed pretty quickly!

What was the name of your first band? If you started a band today, what would you call it?

Big Al: The name of my first band was “Front Page.” If I started a band today…well, I wouldn’t because I’d have to think of a name!

Cop-out! Well how are things in the music department right now? Are you working at a fevered pitch or are you pretty relaxed with the amount of work you still have to do on the game?

Big Al: Things have started to slow down after a pretty busy year and an especially hectic three months. Barring any major changes, all the tracks are now recorded and mixed. The rest of my time on the project will be spent getting everything to play correctly in the game.

The music for the Halo games is some pretty amazing stuff. The Bungie folks may have one of the most recognizable theme songs in gaming, with the monks and the mood setting orchestral tunes. What has been your take on what Halo Wars should sound like?

Big Al: Making sure that the Halo Wars soundtrack fit comfortably into Bungie’s established world was important to me; it would feel wrong to play a game with Spartans, Warthogs, and Elites, and not hear that choral theme. That being said, I did want to expand the edges a bit. It’s kind of hard to describe the difference - maybe Halo Wars sounds a little more tech-y in some places, maybe a little more ambient in others?

We mentioned last month that you were taking off to Prague to do the bulk of the recording for the music for Halo Wars. Why Prague?

Big Al: More and more film and game soundtracks are being recorded in Prague; my first experience with it was attending the sessions for Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties last summer. The city has a rich musical history - there seems to be some kind of orchestral performance happening round the clock, so there are lots of good players there. It’s also very cost-effective, at least for the time being!

What is your role during the recording session with the orchestra?

Big Al: Once the orchestra is running through a piece, I’ll listen to make sure everything sounds like what I had in mind, then try to push for a perfect take…and then hopefully have the sense to know when to stop :)

Then it was off to Seattle for some additional recording and the final mix, correct? When you got to this point, how many minutes of music did you have to mix?

Big Al: Yes – all of the piano parts were recorded at Studio X in Seattle. Then it was off to Microsoft’s Soundlab for a week of editing, and finally back to Studio X for the final mixing. We mixed right at 75 minutes’ worth of music, in both stereo and surround.

You’ve been very open to feedback on your tunes for the game, asking folks here at Ensemble to come up listen to what you had cooking. What kinds of feedback did you get?

Big Al: They helped me make sure that the music was “Halo enough” - though there was at least one instance where I made something “too Halo” :) Graeme Devine, who wrote the story for the campaign, got very involved with the music I wrote for the cinematics. Just about every day, I’d call him in to hear some sketched-out ideas. We’d discuss whether they met his expectations for whichever scene they went with, and I’d make changes based on that. It may be subtle, but I think that kind of involvement gives some sense of unity to the finished product.

Have the folks at Bungie had a chance to listen to the stuff you’ve been working on or offered any thoughts?

Big Al: Marty O’Donnell, the composer on the Halo FPS games, actually stopped by the studio for a listen as we were mixing. He was very encouraging and, happily, seemed to like everything that we pulled up.

While we play on a skirmish map in Halo Wars, the music is going to be changing while we play the game in relation to what’s going on, correct? IE, it will get faster paced as we head into a battle or come under attack. Are there new tricks up your sleeve to help immerse the player or convey some emotion?

Big Al: Yeah, there will be some of that for sure. The different worlds in the game get their own themes and playlists, and there will be “battle tracks” for when the player is in some kind of significant fight.

Cool stuff, thanks Stephen! I’ll let you get back at it.

That is all from us for this for the April update. We'll have something timely and new for you all in May.