Armored Assault

by James Sterrett

Article Type: Interview
Article Date: October 09, 2002

Product Info

Product Name: Armored Assault
Category: Massively Multiplayer Armor
Developer: iEntertainment
Publisher: iEntertainment
Release Date: Released
Sys. Spec: Click Here
Files & Links: Click Here




A long, long time ago, there was Air Warrior. Then came WarBirds. Both worked on the same basic premise: pilots from around the world logged onto central servers, hopped into virtual cockpits, and headed forth to blow each other away in the skies. Eventually, Air Warrior was discontinued, but WarBirds continues to thrive. Now iEntertainment is adding tanks to Warbirds.

Once known under the working title of “K.I.C. A.S.S.”, Armored Assault is on the way, bringing a combined-arms experience to Warbirds. We sent signals from our tank with an Aldis lamp to Wild Bill Stealey and Jay Littman circling overhead, and they dropped responses back down on fragments of silk scarf. Wild Bill Stealey has a huge list of credits in the game industry and is now running iEntertainment; Jay Littman has been involved in massively multiplayer for nearly ten years and is now the producer for Armored Assault.

James Sterrett (J.S.) What tanks can we expect to see? What other armored vehicles? What maps can we expect to play on?

Jay Littman (J.L.) Game Features Include:

50 aircraft, 11 bombers, 4 tanks, 4 ground vehicles and 4 ships

TANKS:
    - M4A1
    - Pzkpfw IVAusf D
    - Pzkpfw IVAusf H
    - Pzkpfw IVAusf G

GROUND VEHICLES:
    - M16
    - M3 GMC
    - M5
    - Opel Truck

TERRAIN (maps):
    - Malta
    - Tunisia
    - European Theater of Command

Battles for Ground Vehicles and ground attack aircraft:

• Leningrad: Hunker down in the city as the Panzers start rolling in. Take out as many of the enemy as you can and hold your sector.
  
• Kasserine Pass: Attack the entrenched Allied lines. (Mk V)
  
• Patton in Lorraine: Arracourt - US armor comes of age against a panther brigade.
  
• Bridge at Remagan: Race to capture a bridge and hold against counterattack
  
• D-Day: U.S. armor has just landed on the Normandy beachhead. Panzers are called up to attack the advancing army.
  
• Malta air ground attack: A German Panzer division is on the run. Fly over with your wingmen and take out the retreating armor.

Where the German Panzer Stands, the German Panzer Crew Tries to Fix the Transmission!

J.S. Will players be organized into platoons (companies, battalions) by the game, or will players need to organize by themselves?

Wild Bill Stealey (W.B.) Players manage our simulations online. They actually assigns squads and simulation entry times to re-create major battles as faithfully as they can. We provide the tools and they provide the planning, timing, and implementation!

J.L. We redesigned the UI (User Interface) that allow players to send requests to tank commander and bomber pilots to crew gunner positions. The new design is very easy and straightforward. We also allow the gunner to join the crew of a tank or bomber even while the tank or aircraft is in battle. Most new players will volunteer to crew as a gunner just to get the feel of the game. It a very good way for new players to participate in and meet up with some of the veterans of the game while they are learning the ropes.

We have several online squadrons. Most of the squadrons are organized on very specific aircraft, flight tactics or historic persistence. For example some squadrons will only fly B17G while other will only fly Fw190 it just depends on the players' tastes.

Note the detailing on the sides of this Panther

J.S. Can players play any tank at any time, or do players have to join a relevant side for a given country’s tanks? What’s to keep everybody from driving around in KVs in 1941 or King Tigers in 1945?

W.B. We have rolling plane sets that gradually moves the time frame on from early war to late war. We have been doing this in Warbirds for five years! Players can only have the weapons that were available at the time specified by the RPS.

In some battle re-creations, the players set the weapons systems based on the historical facts of a particular battle they are trying to re-create.

J.L. We use Rolling Tank/Plane Sets with early tanks and aircraft at the start of a Tour of Duty and later tanks and aircraft added over three weeks. The RPS will be based on "In Service Date", using Delivery 3 months if Service Date NA. RPS will be 21 days long, as close to true linear as practical. Starting from July 1940 (BOB) to Sept 1945 (VP Day) a total of 63 months.

J.S. Can players in Armored Assault play in the same “arena” as players of Warbirds III for combined air-land operations?

W.B. For this initial version of Armored Assault we will use special offline terrains to produce historical engagements and campaigns for offline practice and mission accomplishment.

Online we will put the tanks into the Warbirds simulation for combined arms campaigns.

Later we will come up with our own tank arenas that will be smaller. In those we will only put a few aircraft used in Close Air Support during WW II! We will still keep the tanks and armored vehicles in the larger terrains of the Warbirds simulations.

J.L. That is up to the players, we introduced a terrain and community management tool that will allow players to design, create and test scenarios for Warbirds III. However scenarios will be much improved with the new systems, which will allow terrain and ground objects to be developed very quick. Players will be able to create new scenarios and play them offline. The player can then submit the scenario to us for review and if we approve the scenario we can deploy it online for the whole community to enjoy. Please remember that Warbirds III will be an air, land and sea combat.

Nothing says 'air superiority' like a tank on the runway

J.S. Describe a player’s “typical” game experience. You have a few hours to spare, so you log onto Armored Assault, and…

W.B. You go kill some AI enemies in either "Instant Action" missions, (Random craft against random craft for continued variation of the play experience), or you take one of our longer AI "Campaigns" with specific assigned vehicles, weapons systems, and objectives, or you go online to attack airfields, outposts, and towns while the air battle is raging above you, or you can sign up and participate in specific battle re-creations organized by the players!

When you go online, you get to choose your starting point, your weapon system. In the general arena, the player goes where the battle is. The players are on their own to organize attacks, defense, or general exploring.

In the tank game, it will be important to manage distances. In the Warbirds online game, the terrain is sized for aircraft. There are outposts and towns that will serve at Tank beginning points but not for aircraft.

In the online historical simulations, the players actually script missions, assign targets, weapons systems, and objectives to mirror real battles. The players are highly organized and run over 30 mini and maxi events per month with specific groups of players. If you go to this URL you will see many of the events that are organized by players for players.

Many of the players go on our Bulletin Boards to discuss and organize events.

The chat is very active in our simulation. You can see the guys grabbing new players, announcing objectives, and generally harassing each other in real time! It is a hoot watching all of that!

We usually have at least 12 arenas running for practice, training, easy flight, main, historical, specific missions, etc.

J.S. Please explain your philosophy in the never-ending realism vs gameplay debate. How is this reflected in design decisions for Armored Assault?

W.B. We are still on the realism kick for our current players. We will have two versions of Armored Assault. One will be the full realism settings where one well-placed shell will destroy your whole day! Two will be a relaxed realism scenario where you get to drive around and shoot at things while the battle is going on around you and you will not get killed on the first lucky shot. We want to appeal to both the sim players and the larger, more active group of "Shooter" fans.

In the offline section, the player will get to set his skill level, enemy level, so he can adjust to his or her own liking!

A Mk IVF prepares to offend somebody

J.S. Will infantry, artillery, or engineering be represented? How, or why not?

W.B. Artillery works in the game. Infantry are used to capture towns. There are no infantry charges. The player can choose to be the gunner on any vehicle. The ships’ guns can be controlled by the players. Regular mobile artillery pieces are not modeled that I know.

Players can use ground vehicles and move them any way they want.

Players cannot order infantry anywhere except to carry them in troop trucks and dismount them to attack any targets in the area. They can also be dropped from aircraft to join the attack.

We don't have artillery that we can place as some of the war sims that are more turn based do. We are a mobile fluid sim that continues to improve with every update. These updates add features, vehicles, special missions, etc.

We added AI drones recently that can fly along with the player on missions and actually participate in the attack per player orders!

One Mk IVH, with buildings

J.L. Warbirds III is a Massively Multiplayer game. A Massively Multiplayer game allows hundreds of players in the same continuous world at the same time. Please remember that Warbirds III is far from being completed. Even though the development of Warbirds III will continue for years it is not feature complete. Everything in the Warbirds III persistent digital world has a strategy to the simulation and much more is to come in the next few months.

In the next few weeks you’ll see major changes to Warbirds III as we add new features. The Warbirds III development team is working very closely with Apple, NVidia and ATI all of which are very impress with Warbirds III potential.

To capture an airfield the anti-aircraft (AA) guns are to be taken out first, all of the building must be destroyed and then you must drop paratroopers on the field.

Very soon each field and town will only have a limited number for aircraft and vehicles (half-tracks, trucks and tanks). Once they have been destroyed someone will have to re-supply the airfield or town via train, truck or aircraft. This will also affect rebuild times in towns or airfields if the fuel, ammo and radar have been destroyed.

All hardness (what it takes to destroy an object, tanks, small hangar, large hangar, etc…) on objects is configurable via host by our Community Managers, Trainers and us. This allows Warbirds III to have easy arenas as well as expert arenas. Nothing is hard coded and everything is configurable in the Warbirds III persistent digital world.

Towns and villages act as launch points for vehicles, and provide artillery support for other parts of the terrain. All objects within a town are bombable including trees and fences. To capture a town the players must fly paratroopers in a Ju52 aircraft. The paratroopers are not that smart, but we have plans to improve their AI (Artificial Intelligence). At that point the player will be able to drive troops to the towns using trucks and the troops will be smart enough to move around things in the terrain to capture the town.

I’m not going to have ground troops in Warbirds III (except for paratroopers). The problem I’m having with ground troops comes from an ethical question; do our players want to see people shot? I don’t want Warbirds players to shoot or kill any human figures. There will never be any blood or gore in Warbirds either. Call me old fashion but Warbirds is a game of ability and history not about blowing stuff up.

Artillery will be a big part of the strategy system. Towns and villages act as launch points for vehicles, and provide artillery support for other parts of the terrain. Any player can call in an [artillery strike].

Towns and villages provide artillery support. The artillery batteries have a maximum range of 20 miles. It takes about 60 seconds for a round to land from the time it is fired at maximum range. The town or village nearest to your position fires the round.

Firing Artillery:

• Fly over, or drive to the target.
  
  
• Open the radio bar and fire a spotting round using the “.spot” command. This round is aimed at your position plus D2 in the direction you are heading. You are notified of how long the round will take to hit.
  
  
• Adjust the firing aim from a spotting round impact with the “.correct xxx yyyy” command, where xxx is the compass bearing from the previous impact in degrees from north, not from your heading and yyyy is the range from previous impact in yards up to a maximum of 1000. Continue adjusting .correct xxx yyyy after each impact, as necessary. When the spotting artillery hits the target, call in a barrage with the .barrage command.
  
  
• For Example: Flying a B25 over a town, I open the Radio bar and type .spot. The "Artillery spotting round will hit in 35 seconds" message appears. The round hits about 900 yards southwest of the target. I then type .correct 45 900 (as the round has hit to the southwest, I need it to move to the northeast, which is 45 degrees). The next round hits the target, so I call in a barrage with “.barrage”.

Firing a barrage clears all spotting and adjustment targeting. Firing a spotting round clears all spotting and adjustments. If you become confused during adjustment, simply fire another spotting round .spot and begin adjusting from there.

A Panther-G shows off its spangly new paint job

J.S. Obviously, you’ve got a great deal of experience with massively multiplayer Internet simulations. What are the keys to launching and sustaining these games?

W.B. Keys are getting the word out, getting enough client software in the hands of potential customers, getting enough players to make the online experience fun, giving new players a chance to try things without much commitment, helping these new players have fun quickly.

The most important thing is enough mass of players so a real community can spring up with squads, regiments, etc!

J.L. Creating multiple products leveraged on the same technology is an easy way to make a product attractive to a person though its sister product might not be (i.e., someone who's into jets, but not props). More jewel cases on retail shelves is way more effective at bringing people in than any sort of online marketing and promotion — it's been proven over and over again.

J.S. What notable challenges do you face in developing Armored Assault for PC, X-Box, and PS2 systems?

W.B. We are working on our systems to make them X-Box and eventually PS 2 compatible. We think we have most of the X-Box issues under control We have recently made a significant memory management improvement in the Sim and we think this will assist us greatly with the X-Box development.

We have a lot of work to do to accomplish a PS 2 version including doing a new graphics terrain system. We are doing some things to the code that will make that a lot easier.

We are looking for a partner/publisher to help us with the X-Box which we could finish in less than 6 months!

This is a high priority for us!

J.S. If you could change one thing about the game industry, what would it be, and why?

W.B. There are some many things right about our industry. Some of the wrong is the lack of cash flow and investment for the smaller companies. The large publishers have the marketing muscle and distribution clout to dominate the landscape.

You have to be very nimble, pick your niche, be great in your niche, and be a bit lucky to make it in the market today!

An ugly old fighter pilot like me married my SweetP (my wife) so you know I am lucky! We are working on everything else!

Wild Bill shows off iEntertainment's corporate fighter plane

J.S. Thanks for you time, guys! We're looking forward to getting our grubby paws on this one when it comes out.

Resources

Articles:

• 2002/10/09: Armored Assault (Interview)
• 2003/01/07: Armored Assault (Review)

Files:

• None yet.

Official Sites:

• Official Armored Assault Site

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