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Homeworld: Cataclysm
Warrior speaks with Chris Stewart, Designer at Barking Dog Studios, about Homeworld: Cataclysm
By - John "Warrior" Keefer
The worker is an interesting ship as well, as it serves three functions in the game; harvesting, repairing, and salvaging. Every ship is at least two or three ships when you factor in upgrades to armor, weapons, and technology. There's a lot of variety available to players
with a carefully considered research approach. Because the two fleets available for multiplayer (Somtaaw and Beast) are quite different, balancing took more work than it did for Homeworld. We had to ensure that the superior technology of the Somtaaw and the ability to take-over ships by the Beast balanced each other. We are very happy with the results and feel that people will love the variety available between the two fleets.
GameSpy: This game isn't an expansion, but it's own stand-alone game. Was the game ever planned to be an expansion? What makes it different from an expansion pack and why isn't it considered Homeworld 2?
Chris Stewart: A traditional sequel is something we felt was Relic's prerogative, not ours. Our approach to the story was different enough that we decided to treat it as a spin off. We focus on a new Kiith, a new clan, with new ships and technology, which the game would follow over period of a couple of weeks, unlike Homeworld which was a long trek played out over a number of months. Our story is a lot darker. Rather than Homeworld's story about finding the truth, finding the Homeworld, we wanted to tell a story about keeping it, and things aren't always black and white in our game. By doing a spin-off, we have a lot more room to tell our story without having to worry as much about interfering with any possible future plans Sierra and Relic have for the Homeworld saga. Initially, our game was going to be an expansion pack for Homeworld, but Sierra liked our early work so much they gave us the funding to make it a stand-alone product.
GameSpy: Talk about multiplayer for a moment. How will players find this better than Homeworld? What new features are available?
Chris Stewart: Most of the differences players will notice in multiplayer are from the changes we've made the gameplay in its entirety. The new tactical considerations we've added, like modular research trees, ship upgrades, support unit limits, and the Beast, with it's reverse engineering approach to research, will make multiplayer brand new. We've also made some changes to streamline map creation and we've added some new terrain (texture? topography?) to the game. Players will now have to deal with slipgates, meteor belts, crystals, and mines. Straight-line warfare is going to get ships into trouble.
GameSpy: How many teams worked on the game and what were the goals of each of those teams in development? Did all of the goals for the game get accomplished?
Chris Stewart: We have 3 full game teams at Barking Dog Studios. The Cataclysm team was comprised of artists, programmers and designers that all worked together to make Cataclysm. Being ambitious in our goals for Cataclysm, there were a few features that we were unable to add due to time or technical considerations. We really wanted to enable players to not only play as Somtaaw or Beast in multiplayer, but also Taiidan and Kushan. Unfortunately, texture memory restrictions prevented us from adding this feature.
Next: On A Personal Note...
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