Barking Dog Studios Interview

Homeworld Cataclysm: the awesome title in the making at Barking Dog Studios

Barking Dog Studios are the stellar developers of the amazing Counterstrike mod for Half-Life, and now an intense new title in the 3D realtime strategy genre, the first addition or "episode" for Relic's Homeworld universe - called Homeworld: Cataclysm. We caught up with them this week, and Chris Stewart, luminary designer with Barking Dog agreed to spill the beans on their latest project.

GS: Hi Chris, thanks for taking the time out to answer a few questions with Gamespot AU on your upcoming title!

CS: Good day, eh! That's Canadian for G'day. And we're happy to take time out to answer questions. We're always happy to chat.

GS: In your opinion, what are the major limitations of conventional Realtime Strategy games, and how do you see directions in strategy gaming evolving beyond Cataclysm?

CS: There aren't really any limitations to conventional RTS games, other than the usual technology ones (Homeworld and Cataclysm aren't games that could have been sold five years ago given the average gamer's computer, for example). The operative word is "game". How much do you put into an RTS before it starts to become a simulation? Where's the line between a fun game and an involved game? Every RTS has to answer this question. We asked it a lot on Cataclysm, since our goal was to deepen the tactical gameplay without requiring gamers to have a degree in astrogation. We wanted to deepen the strategy found in Homeworld, not bog it down with more realistic, micro-management elements (what is real in a sci-fi game anyhow?). Slowly but surely new RTS games will up the stakes, push a little bit more towards the simulation envelope, just to see what happens. That's what Homeworld did. Fighting on ground is cool, but what happens when you add full 3D? Who knows where the future is heading (well, we have some good guesses, but we're keeping mum), but it'll be wild for sure.

Zero-Gee Armadas race to engage in hectic interstellar dogfights...

GS: What kinds of unit tasks can be automated in Catacylsm, for example in regard to Support Frigates? Will you be able to assign a priority to tasks or targets?

CS: A lot of the automation in Cataclysm is designed to reduce micromanagement. Part of that was achieved by letting players give orders from the sensor manager. A lot work was also put into tweaking the AI of ships. You can now set the tactics of ships so that if you want they'll fight back when attacked, or turn and run. You can tell a worker to repair a group of ships and it will assess which ships is the most in need of repairs. You can even set repair priorities for the mothership modules.

GS: How are you balancing the new unit types and combinations in Homeworld: Cataclysm?

CS: You can't play with the original Homeworld fleets versus the two Cataclysm fleets. Four fleets is a lot of texture space. Rather than expand the Homeworld fleets, we opted to create our own, to try something different. What we have are two fleets that are very different from one another.

GS: What gameplay distinctions will separate the available races in Cataclysm? Will each race have a mirrored, or complementary array of units?

CS: They have similar ships with similar functions, but they climb two different tech trees in two different ways. The Somtaaw researches and develops its entire tree whereas the Beast captures and reverse-engineers part of its tree. Then we made it so that fleet ships can be upgraded. There is no easy, chess answer to Cataclysm. Cataclysm isn't an arms race to have the same ships as the other guy. Eight opponents in a multiplayer game can build up their fleets in eight very different ways, and no one way is better than the others. The tactical options are considerable.

GS: Tell us about the "Beast" race. Is their spacecraft biological, or is it their technology that is capable of Borg-like Assimilation techniques?

CS: There's not a lot Borg-like about it. The Beast is a techno-organic intelligence that takes over and rewrites any bio-matter it encounters (which in space ships are the pilots and crews) to become an extension of the Beast mind. Pilots are typically used like gory wiring throughout a ship, allowing the beast to control it. Ships become shells for the resulting beast organism inside, like a twisted hermit crab. The Beast can then use these ships to travel around in search of new ships to take over. Nobody knows what happens if beast organism makes it planetside, but it would definitely not be a good thing.

... -which are ineveitably harsh

GS: How much use of cut-scenes and scripted sequences will you make to continue the story of Homeworld? Will your game have the same majestic feel and motivations for the player (e.g. preventing the genocide of your race), or a different feel?

CS: It has a different feel. We do use the same storytelling structure as Homeworld, with cut-scene animatics and scripted sequences. Marcus Skyler, who wrote the singleplayer storyline and background history for Homeworld did the same for us, and there's a lot of story to tell. Cataclysm has a darker tone to it. Whereas Homeworld was about one people united together to find their home planet, Cataclysm looks at the political reality of holding that planet. There is political sturggles among the Kiiths and the Turanic raiders has grown strong while the Taiidan empire fragments and weakens. All this is a backdrop for Kiith Somtaaw's encounter with a horrifying and ancient evil.

GS: Concerning the external ship construction: what kind of eye-candy animations will we get to see during the stages of a ship being built?

CS: External construction is one part eye-candy and one part visual information. A ship being built externally is created at the same rate as the build timer, so a player knows exactly how much building is left just by looking at it.

GS: What is your favourite new visual effect in Cataclysm?

CS: They're all pretty hot. People really respond to the mimics turning into other ships or the Multi Beam Frigate in a heated fire-fight. Personally I just love the look of an Acolyte firing its missile payload. We've all seen Homeworld missiles in action, but when they launch from an Acolyte, it just looks deadly.

A missile salvo is unleashed upon a large frigate class vessel

GS: Are you at all surprised by the runaway success of your titles? With your ultra-popular Half-Life mod: Counterstrike, and now with the heavily anticipated Homeworld: Cataclysm, would you say you've had a rapid rise to the mass-market big league?

CS: The team that worked with Gooseman was very pleased with the attention CS beta 5 got and the Cataclysm team is thrilled with all the attention Cataclysm is getting. I don't know if we'd call it a rapid rise. For us it's been two and a half years of hard work. But it's nice to be appreciated all the same.

GS: Is there much personnel overlap between Counterstrike and Cataclysm? Are there separate teams for each title, or people multitasking between both?

CS: The couple of earliest members of the CS team did work on Cataclysm. Team members at Barking Dog are dedicated to one project at a time, so the Pop Dog team (that's the Counterstrike team's name around the office) has their project and the Cataclysm team has been working entirely on Cataclysm. While there's no multi-tasking between teams there's still a lot of inter-team support though. When we have time we show them how real men act as a fire squad and when they have time they teach us the deadly price one pays if they don't pay attention to enemy fleet positions.

GS: Would you consider building a first-person shooter in the Homeworld universe, X:COM Alliance style?

CS: Sounds great. Have your people call our people and we'll work out a deal.

GS: Is Barking Dog's mission: "To take the industry's best games, mess around with them, and add stuff until they're infinitely cooler"? Seriously though, do you have a mission statement or motto?

CS: Taking a top industry game, messing around with it, and adding stuff until it was infinitely cooler was a happy coincidence for Barking Dog, it was an opportunity that presented itself just when the company was just getting started. We're looking forward to showing fans some cool stuff of our own devising in the future.

GS: The next few amazing game engines that come out may feel somehow "wrong" without a Barking Dog Mod to complement them. Looking past Homeworld: Cataclysm, which gaming genre are you going to tackle next?

CS: Right now we're pretty busy finishing work on Cataclysm, but occasionally we stop to look into the future. We're a strong strategy team with strong ideas about what we'd like to do next. We could tell you all about it, but that would spoil the surprise.

GS: Thanks for your time Chris, we're looking forward to playing Cataclysm (dribbling with anticipation, in fact) when its released!

CS: Anytime. We'll see you online soon enough for a proper Cataclysm dust-up!

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