Ever wondered why the Eternal Silence mod for Half-Life 2 is so succesful? Why fighting opponents in the far outreaches of space is so appealing to gamers? Well Part 1 of this Post Mortem see's the mod's developers discussing where it all went right.
You can read the full background to the Eternal Silence mod here.
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Eternal Silence centers around two battling capital ships. Players are marines stationed on these ships and fight each other inside and in space. Our main goal with the design was to create a cinematic feel: A game where you could play with ten or twelve friends and feel like you’re in a huge Hollywood-style space battle. This meant many things for us. We wanted to prioritize players in active roles, so no player-controller turrets or AA guns, we left this for AI. It also meant that the more explosions, lasers and bombs Action Shots going off we could cram into the game, the better. Players would bomb capital ships then land on them and rush vital systems.
<center><a href="http://images.totalgamingnetwork.com/images/3695403697_bb29de0992_b.1250863405.jpg"><img src="http://images.totalgamingnetwork.com/images/thumb_3695403697_bb29de0992_b.1250863405.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a> <a href="http://images.totalgamingnetwork.com/images/3695405473_4347ff7e5f_b.jpg"><img src="http://images.totalgamingnetwork.com/images/thumb_3695405473_4347ff7e5f_b.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a> <a href="http://images.totalgamingnetwork.com/images/3696213316_dea556afc9_b.jpg"><img src="http://images.totalgamingnetwork.com/images/thumb_3696213316_dea556afc9_b.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></center>
Another design goal was teamwork. We wanted to make sure the best organized team would win, not necessarily the most skilled players. As a result, Eternal Silence features a lot of high-level strategy in its gameplay. Do you capture shields or weapons first? How can we prevent enemy bombers from attacking the hull while we are defending? Who takes care of destroying incoming Action Shotsnukes? These are questions we wanted people to think about, and they would ultimately change the outcome of games.
Eternal Silence centers around two battling capital ships. Players are marines stationed on these ships and fight each other inside and in space. Our main goal with the design was to create a cinematic feel: A game where you could play with ten or twelve friends and feel like you’re in a huge Hollywood-style space battle. This meant many things for us. We wanted to prioritize players in active roles, so no player-controller turrets or AA guns, we left this for AI. It also meant that the more explosions, lasers and bombs Action Shots going off we could cram into the game, the better. Players would bomb capital ships then land on them and rush vital systems.
<center><a href="http://images.totalgamingnetwork.com/images/3695403697_bb29de0992_b.1250863405.jpg"><img src="http://images.totalgamingnetwork.com/images/thumb_3695403697_bb29de0992_b.1250863405.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a> <a href="http://images.totalgamingnetwork.com/images/3695405473_4347ff7e5f_b.jpg"><img src="http://images.totalgamingnetwork.com/images/thumb_3695405473_4347ff7e5f_b.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a> <a href="http://images.totalgamingnetwork.com/images/3696213316_dea556afc9_b.jpg"><img src="http://images.totalgamingnetwork.com/images/thumb_3696213316_dea556afc9_b.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></center>
Another design goal was teamwork. We wanted to make sure the best organized team would win, not necessarily the most skilled players. As a result, Eternal Silence features a lot of high-level strategy in its gameplay. Do you capture shields or weapons first? How can we prevent enemy bombers from attacking the hull while we are defending? Who takes care of destroying incoming Action Shotsnukes? These are questions we wanted people to think about, and they would ultimately change the outcome of games.
You can read the full background to the Eternal Silence mod here.
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