By Kieron Gillen on March 12th, 2008 at 9:02 pm.
I exaggerate only slightly.
Since Soulstorm is out and it looks like Dawn of War 2′s announcement may be imminent, I thought it time to transcribe a passably memorable event that I had on tape. It occurred when Alec and I toddled over to visit Relic when they first debuted Soulstorm. To be precise, when Executive Producer Jonathan Dowdeswell stopped the video, and asked if there were any questions. And a Polish Journalist showed that, yes, he had.
This lead to fifteen minutes of intense wincing and turning “Your game is nothing compared to Starcraft 2! Nothing!” into a games journalist running joke.
The origin of which I now share.
To be fair, in a Play-it-again-Sam-esque fashion, that immortal line wasn’t actually uttered. But much else was. I’ve only transcribed the exchanges which our nameless journalist friend was actually involved with, and tidied up his somewhat curt syntax a little (Though I wish I could have found a way of writing his contemptuous tone of voice, which added a lot). Of course, some of what he asks is perfectly reasonable. Some of it is even completely true. And Dowdeswell is playing the PR role demanded of him – in fact, that he openly avoids telling the journalist to fuck right off is actually testament to his diplomacy. But as the fanboyism rises, you can hear the recording punctuated by the sound of me clicking my pen tip in and out with a frequency in direct relation to how much I hope he shuts up.
[The scene. A relic board room. Present are about thirty Relic, Iron Lore and THQ staff, PRs and assorted journalists. The first public footage of the game stops, revealing that the first of Soulstorm's two races are Dark Eldar. And...]
Dowdeswell: So… Any questions?
Polish Journalist: Second Race?
Dowdeswell:[laughs] We’re not talking about that.
PJ: We are all waiting for Genestealers!
[Some boring questions]
PJ: How do you balance the units since you have nine races right now? How do you balance new races? Do you just take a basic race which you balance the others? Or…
Dowdeswell: Um… I’m not exactly sure what you’re asking.
PJ: Do you have more people who do it? How do you, you as a company do it? You have seven races and it’s kind of hard to balance them if there’s seven different races.
Dowdeswell: First thing is we have a balance team – which I don’t know if were mentioned but…
PJ: Then!
Dowdeswell: They’re all pro players, or have been pro players, and they have an intuitive awareness of a game being exploitable. They get in a room and work with each other and they isolate the problems. They spend all their time doing that. They have different ways to fix it. They can buff a unit. They can remove exploits by changing the time it takes to build or the strength on the battlefield, the money it takes from your economy. They isolate a problem , and go “Let’s try this, this and this” and see if it fixes it. They tend to start balancing against each other, by focusing against the first five minutes of play, then working on tier one. If they can get all nine races balanced against each other on tier one, they’ll move onto the second tier, knowing the first is okay. In terms of the intent behind the balance, they focus no the original gameplay intent of the race, and make sure they’re being true to its spirit. It wouldn’t make sense to take the Orks and turn them into a fast, jumping race. Really, it’s about building up bunches of guys and rolling in. They work a lot with the designers – both current ones and ones in the past – to make sure they understand the spirit of the race… and by that, they understand the spirit of the units. They also aim to create interesting ways for pockets of units that are really good for taking out heavy infantry or vehicles or jumping or whatever it is. Isolating and heightening the strengths and weaknesses of those races. One of the comparisons you get into when you get into games with more than four races… most of them aren’t very unique races. There’s RTS which have thirty units, and there’s a colour change on 15 of the units and one of them has ten percent faster resourcing and this one has ten percent better armour. They’re variations. The reason they can have so many races is because they don’t make them that distinct. Dawn of War and 40K is so distinct we always try to keep pushing that uniqueness right down through all of the units.
[Which is a reasonable answer and question, and things wander until we head back. Dowdeswell is talking about how much they listen to the vocal core fans versus the millions of ones who aren't the forum...]
Dowdeswell: We try and listen and take as much of the feedback. Most of them when we were doing a closed beta with this game were the most outspoken advocates or anti-advocates in the community… but we had to take it all with a grain of salt. What we try to do, and why we try to have a balance team is to create gameplay that we think is excellent and cross our fingers and hope people agree.
PJ: How many people are playing Dawn of War now? Generally.
Dowdeswell: I don’t know. We tend to have… well, in Company of Heroes we have better statistics. We know how many players are logged and active. In Dawn of War, as soon as a game starts, the players aren’t online anymore. They’re in a game. We’ve never had fully accurate numbers. I’ve ne…
PJ: I think that you can monitor how many people download the patch. How many people downloaded last patch for Dark Crusade.
Dowdeswell: [laughs] I don’t know those things anymore.
PJ: I think it’s useful to know how many people are playing the game if you’re releasing another part.
[Silence]
PJ: Yet you don’t.
Dowdeswell: As I said, I don’t tend to check that stuff myself anymore. The balance teams and lead designers do…
PJ: In terms of story, would it be like Dark Crusade? The storyline, would be developed like that?
Dowdeswell: Yes, it’ll play out like…
PJ: [Interrupting] I think – I’m sorry – but the thing I really loved about the first Dawn of War was the storyline and how it was developed throughout the game. In Dark Crusade, it’s really about playing the game and shooting monsters and getting new terrain. The storyline was kind of… Secondary.
Dowdeswell: Well, what we were trying to do was make a distributed narrative. Try to create gameplay which distributes choices in the campaign which are more interesting to the player, so they feel more involved and it’s not just being dragged along by the nose. In Dawn of War and Winter Assault – I like the stories as well – but they were sort of bookends at the end of the chapter. You start, get this sort of interesting talk of head, then you destroy a bunch of shit – did I say that?
[General Laughter. Polish Journalist interrupts]
PJ: The thing about Warhammer is the story. From my point of view, it really lacked. Dark Crusade lacked a storyline. A solid storyline. As you say, it was a distributed narrative. And Warhammer generally, the world, is created around the story. Don’t you think it would be cool if there was another installment with a storyline? Like a movie? A movielike storyline, like the first?
Dowdeswell: Erm… again, it’s a different kind of gameplay we’re going for with the Metagame. You wait, you wait for the future… but this time we’re advancing [Dark Crusade's metagame]. There are more details. It has… well, it has a similar starting point. Somehow you have to get nine races and have them all fighting each other – which is where the title comes from – the souls refer to the Dark Eldar ability. And the storm is a warpstorm which has hidden this one system off from the rest of the universe, and all nine races are behind the gates and now fight for survival. It’s really important for us to achieve a strong narrative, but the gameplay addition on the metagame has been a really compelling thing – probably the thing we received the best feedback on from Dark Crusade.
Alec Meer: Any changes in the tech? The engine?
Dowdeswell: No, we haven’t. Going back to the beginning, as we kept going, and the gameplay has matured, we’d like more and more people be able to play it. The nice thing about releasing this game now is a lot of the hardware has caught up with us – the hardware which can play Dawn of War now is just a lot more ubiquitous. Hopefully lots more people can enjoy it.
Alec Meer: It certainly worked for Starcraft, I guess.
Dowdeswell: I was stunned when SC got back in the top 10. Amazing.
PJ: But Starcraft is a different thing. Starcraft is Starcraft! Don’t you think that in 2008 you are going to make a game that’s 3 years old. Its engine is 3 years old. Compared to Company of Heroes, for example. When playing Dark Crusade, for example, I had this feeling there’s something lacking. Company of Heroes with all these ideas like hiding and deformation of terrain and destructible terrain… Dark Crusade lacked. I missed it. I wanted it. Don’t you think…
Dowdeswell: It’s interesting… when SC2 released their videos… Blizzard make these choices. They’ve always made choices. They’ve released every single game on a very low target spec. Including Starcraft 2. Starcraft 2 has a unique set of challenges as a product, because it’s a sport that entrenched in Korea. For them to change the gameplay significantly causes problems. Also, they choose to not include lots of technological advances, so they can hit low hardware. Which goes back to the Value proposition – it’s a gameplay orientated advancement. It’s not a technology advancement. The reason why people are attracted to Starcraft is because the gameplay is pure and the gameplay is fine. That’s exactly what we are trying to discover.
PJ: I understand that, but Starcraft 2 looks way better than Dawn of War! From what we could have seen on what you’ve shown us. Still, it’s the same gameplay – and I understand that the core gameplay is the idea. I get it. But they’ve upped the graphics, and you are not doing it. You have the same engine, which is three years old. I like how the units move, but the terrain looks awful.
Dowdeswell: Yeah… but that’s a test map though. The first thing I said when I saw it, is that everyone always chooses….
PJ: And I think as you said it’s the same engine, the Dark Crusade Engine, I don’t think it would look way better than terrain in Dark Crusade…
THQ PR: I’d take it with a grain of salt. This really is very early code you’re showing, the whole point of a first look…
PJ: Still! I’m not talking about this particular footage. I know it’s just a preview, and a preview preview, but you told us it’ll be the same engine. It’s still the same problem. It’s not a new game. It’s the same game.
Another Polish Journalist: How can you attract new players that didn’t know Dawn of War? They just want bigger, faster game of Dawn of War. What’s for them?
Dowdeswell: I think it’s a significant attraction actually. One of the bad bits of not advancing the technology and not spending millions of dollars increasing the cost of development means we can put the game out for thirty bucks. It doesn’t require any of the original games, and you get a complete game experience. You don’t have to go and spend full PC premier titles prices. That’s thirty day one. It’s twenty after six months. It keeps dropping.
PJ: It’s a low budget game.
Dowdeswell: It’s not low budget. It’s high value.
[A big laugh]
PJ: Yes, but the…
THQ PR: [Cutting in] We’re going to cut it off there, so the guys can do one on ones…
[Ten minutes later, I almost coughed up half my digestion system and had to leave the room with tears in my eyes when I saw a fellow journalist had named the Company of Heroes game he'd just set up "YOU ARE NOTHING COMPARED TO STARCRAFT 2!". And then the Polish gent joined it. Of course, one thing I hadn't remembered at the time, which I transcribed - Soulstorm was originally planned to be a thirty dollar game. Upon release, it was actually forty.
Hmm.]
12/03/2008 at 21:23 Leeks! says:
Reading that was like watching The Office.
Marvelous.
12/03/2008 at 21:28 STiger says:
Outstanding, laughed my arse, quite literally, off.
NCTS2, though.
12/03/2008 at 21:30 Kieron Gillen says:
NCTS2?
KG
12/03/2008 at 21:39 Jim Rossignol says:
Nothing Compared To Starcraft 2!
12/03/2008 at 21:39 Kieron Gillen says:
MAN!
KG
12/03/2008 at 21:51 Miles says:
This was very funny. Good work, (robo)crazy journos.
12/03/2008 at 21:51 Aimless says:
Don’t worry, Mr. Gillen. We all know that, consummate professional that you are, you were actually pointing out that it should be ‘NCTSC2′ so as to be in line with the official spelling of StarCraft.
Are there any other RPS stories of presentation trolling? I want to vicariously live the sexy, danger-filled life of a videogames journalist.
12/03/2008 at 21:54 Kieron Gillen says:
Well, there’s the one of the Civ3 announcement at E3 one year. They’re going on and on about how they decided to get the band together, and do it to give back the love they got from the fans and all that.
At which point, at the back, an Editor said clearly “Bollocks! You’re doing it for the money”.
KG
12/03/2008 at 22:03 Reptil3 says:
On behalf of all Poles, I have to apologize. Not everyone here is stupid.
12/03/2008 at 22:04 James T says:
I bet Dowdeswell wanted to smoke that Pole!
12/03/2008 at 22:29 Richard says:
“Are there any other RPS stories of presentation trolling?”
Don’t forget the laughed-off-the-stage premiere of Cryo’s Hellboy game. That was pretty legendary for a long while.
12/03/2008 at 22:35 Acosta says:
I was there, one of my last travels for PC Gamer Spain before it closed and I passed to semi-unemployed state (yes, I have the honor of having shared a bus with Kieron and a taxi with Alec, you can be jealous). The transcription does not justice to the moment, it was so hilarious… I had to make a real effort trying to not laugh, but looking at everyone’s face at that moment was too much.
12/03/2008 at 22:45 King Pod says:
How come you didn’t just stick up the recording? That way you wouldn’t have had to transcribe his contemptuous polish voice. Or does that break all sorts of HM Secret’s Acts and so on?
12/03/2008 at 23:16 dartt says:
NCTSC2 is my new favourite acronym!
12/03/2008 at 23:23 Nick says:
He did have something of a good point under all that..
12/03/2008 at 23:23 TychoCelchuuu says:
What’s funny is that you fast forward to today, where we have Soulstorm which is released with a gamebreaking bug that lets Sisters of Battle win every game they play no matter what. Among other issues. Many other issues.
13/03/2008 at 00:02 Solrax says:
Yeah, agree with Nick, he sounded like someone who really loved the WH40K games and wanted them truly updated. I kind of agree, so I’m hoping the Dawn of War 2 rumors are true!
But I bought Soulstorm anyway because it’s still better than nothing!
13/03/2008 at 00:16 Alec Meer says:
His argument, such as it is, comes over a little better in text than in snarling, desk-thumping speech.
“I wanted to rip his larynx out” is the kind of thing I say about a lot of people. But in this case, I genuinely worried I was going to do it.
13/03/2008 at 00:27 James Lyon says:
Was that this New Games Journalism everybody’s talking about, then?
13/03/2008 at 00:28 Kieron Gillen says:
I might put a snippet up tomorrow, if I can work out how to do it.
Oh – the Hellboy Premier:
Cryo, ECTS. We’re being shown around the Cryo stand by their long suffering and lovely PR. They show us Hellboy. At which point Gamer’s editor has a laughing fit at the that-looks-like-Peter’s-liter-isms, and has to excuse himself.
“Yes – we’ve been very disappointed in Hellboy,” says the PR, forlornly.
KG
13/03/2008 at 00:45 Alex says:
The bit that made me laugh the most was that sudden (it seems sudden when you read it) outburst of “Then!”..
13/03/2008 at 00:49 drunkymonkey says:
“Yet you don’t” and “It’s a low budget game” had me chucking at the cheek of it.
13/03/2008 at 01:25 Alex says:
How dare they make a sequel without knowing exactly how many people are still playing the original games..!
The logical next question is ofcourse how we can best monetize this new internet meme of the NCTS2.
13/03/2008 at 01:33 Garth says:
I agree with a lot of what the guy says, though. And frankly, the game has nothing on Starcraft 2. It doesn’t look better, or play better, or have better balance (I’m making a supposition, but it is a blizzard RTS, which means ridiculous balance.)
I liked the first Dawn of War a bit. After that though, it’s the exact same thing for almost every single race: build a scout to cap, build a builder, build a scout to cap, build a builder. Cap cap cap, build next units, attack.
Hell, the Orks were only different from other races in the original in that they weren’t as good.
13/03/2008 at 01:36 Cruz says:
Funny stuff. Thanks for the read.
I feel that I should buy Soulstorm just to spite the Pole (I’m actually buying it anyway).
13/03/2008 at 01:52 Andrew Armstrong says:
What a cool producer, really kept his head through the rather funny questions :) a bit full of himself, that journalist. I suppose that’s what NGJ is right? :D
I liked the Civ3 ministory too actually, ahaha :D
13/03/2008 at 01:55 James Lyon says:
I bet he still helped himself to the buffet, though.
13/03/2008 at 05:43 Alex says:
Personally, I just love the W40K universe.
A lot more than I love Starcraft‘s.
13/03/2008 at 06:00 Leeks! says:
Uh oh, it seems a WH4K/SC hurley-burley bubbles just beneath the tranquil facade of the RPS comment threads.
13/03/2008 at 06:12 Alex says:
.. this thread IS the DAWN OF WAR!!
13/03/2008 at 07:40 Fuggles says:
Lol. This game has nothing on starcraft 2? Well, it’s out and I’m playing it.
Take that ethereal game!
13/03/2008 at 07:42 nihohit says:
But seriously – a game with nine diffrent races simply can’t offer the same storytelling expirience like a game with three races (unless the campaign follows only one race, as in the original DoW) – so why bother with more than just saying “y’all fellahs are here, duke it out to find who’ll git out”? why not say out front that this game is not about the story and WILL YOU PLEASE SHUT UP NOW, thankyouverymuch?
13/03/2008 at 08:32 sigma83 says:
40K has a great universe, no doubt, and obviously some starcraft elements have been taken from the pages thereof. There’s no crime in preferring one or the other tho; Imperium of Man > Terrans, but Protoss > Eldar/Tau/whatever. That’s just me of course.
p.s. in before ‘Zerg totally ripped off Tyranids wtf blizzzz’
13/03/2008 at 08:54 Tim Stone says:
In the interests of solidarnosc, I feel duty-bound to point out that most of us have messed-up in press conferences and interviews at some point or another.
I still wince remembering an interview I conducted with Novalogic’s musical maestro many years ago. At the end of a gruelling day I was shown into his instrument-strewn office. We shook hands and I got the ball rolling with…
“Is it possible to turn the music off in the game?”
13/03/2008 at 08:55 Staff Sergeant XO says:
I’m with the Polish camp.
It makes me wonder about what these journalism demos are really like. Are they just stroke fests? Yeah, the dev kept his head, but that’s his job– that’s what they stuck him out there for. PJ at least wasn’t asking, “What’s your favorite flavor of Mountain Dew?”
I can imagine the next press conference with George Bush: “Will the next war be in FMV, or will it be an interactive cutscene? Will there be bump-mapping?”
13/03/2008 at 09:22 Babs says:
I don’t know, but it’ll definitely have Quick-Time Events!
13/03/2008 at 11:54 Acosta says:
I think some people are not having the proper background of the situation.
The matter is, press was not there for Soulstorm, was there for Company of Heroes expansion, which is the game we played and the one we had the facts, enough for throwing hard balls if desired.
Soulstorm was a surprise and we had absolutely nothing to judge it, it was too early and we just watched some models of Dark Eldars and a brief description of what to expect. So hardballs were a bit off the situation. Then we have the fact is an expansion based on the same engine, comparing it (again, with no real element to judge anything) with Company of Heroes or Starcraft 2 (both new games with new engines) was absurd and unpolite.
You are allowed to throw hardballs, with a minimum sense of courtesy and respect, and many people do it if they feel they have elements, but saying “new game not released looks better than your 4 year old game” is not tough journalism.
I don’t remember any epic mess up from my part, maybe in a interview years ago with a guy from Jaleco as I had no experience at that time doing personal interviews and I had nothing prepared or a recorder or notepad, so I felt pretty lost and the interview was far from great (since then I always remember to have all that stuff with me and to prepare some safe question for safety net).
But hey, now that you say, “biggest gaming journalist mess up” would make an excellent feature (and probably generate some bad blood between collegues).
13/03/2008 at 12:00 Alec Meer says:
Perhaps my most humiliating cock-up (apart from ones in print) was at a press event for some hardware company. At the end of chatting to the PR, I put my notepad down on the table to pick my bag up off the floor and head home. When I looked up again, I saw the PR was holding the notepad, so I smiled and took it from her hands.
It wasn’t my notepad.
I suspect I’ll take the expression on her face, the sheer disbelief that a journo would try to steal her briefing notes about speakers and keyboards, to my grave.
Oh, and hi Acosta – hadn’t realised you were you. Quite a press trip that, eh?
13/03/2008 at 12:17 Kieron Gillen says:
Staff: It’s more the fanboyish angle than the content, really (There was far less openly contemptuous ways of asking the stuff). And the extent. He’s interviewing 1 on 1 the Devs later – as expressed by the end of the transcript – and dragging out his personal bugbears in public was wasting everyone’s time. Anyone with a brain knew the answers to his questions already.
EDIT: Biggest journalist fuck up strikes me as a great idea. I know mine already.
KG
13/03/2008 at 12:41 Nallen says:
Lets hear it.
13/03/2008 at 12:51 Grill says:
I’m with PJ here, I have to say. His conversational style reminds me vaguely of that German journalist who looked like Mr Bean, but he does have a good point – it’s fecking cheeky of Relic to keep drip-feeding genericised versions of our fave 40k races in these expansions to generate “high value” profits.
(Also, controversially, I never thought DoW was all that – worse than the original Space Hulk video game anyway – and the deadly dull plot was a travesty, as were the flat lazily-designed levels. We’ll forgive anything for 40K though, won’t we?)
Big mess-ups I remember: Sitting waiting for an Atari press-conference about Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure to start, laughing with three fellow hacks about crap Mark Ecko was, how rubbish the game looked and how terrible his clothing was. Then a little lady say right in front of us turns around and says “Don’t you have any respect?”, and we notice the chubby, over-dressed chap himself is sat next to her…
13/03/2008 at 12:53 Kieron Gillen says:
Gril: But you’re a famous sociopath!
KG
13/03/2008 at 13:13 Grill says:
KG: I’m a troll, apparently. :P Just like you’re an emo-whore…
13/03/2008 at 13:14 Kieron Gillen says:
I’m a camwhore!
(Did you finish Forumwarz, btw?)
We should take this to MSN.
KG
13/03/2008 at 13:16 Grill says:
No, not finished it – didn’t know you could :-o. Troll you in a minute…
13/03/2008 at 13:32 LongFred says:
No really, why do Poles apologize for that guy. As a German, I can really relate to his insensitive rudeness xD
No really, I just spent 30€ on Soulstorm and it was kind of a letdown. While the new races are ok, I totally agree with that reporter when he says that the metagame is just an excuse for lining up skirmishes. There is also a distinct lack of polish and one or two game breaking bugs. I’m a big fan of the DoW franchise, aaaand that guy pretty much nailed the flaws of the DoW distribution model.
13/03/2008 at 14:07 Darius K. says:
Ugh. Yes, I’ve been in meetings like that before. How awkward.
13/03/2008 at 15:09 Alex says:
You say that as if it’s a bad thing.
If I want a good story, I tend not to think “RTS!”.
13/03/2008 at 20:14 terry says:
Next time someone says something that I do not like to hear I will shriek “Then!” at them until they say something preferable.
13/03/2008 at 21:57 TheDiscordian says:
terry, I tried that, and my boss still didn’t give me my raise.
Or 6 new playable races.
Bastard.
13/03/2008 at 23:21 Piratepete says:
Why do I wish I could photoshop a picture of sinead o’connor singing
Nothing compares to Starcraft 2
14/03/2008 at 14:50 Martin says:
@TheDiscordian: Fnord!
14/03/2008 at 14:55 robinho says:
sorry guys but you are NOTHING compared to starcraft 2…
anyone cares to put it in the urban dictionary?
14/03/2008 at 15:32 PJ says:
Wall of text is about to crit you for 1billion damage.
Hi
Feeling somwhat offended by Kieron making a complete arse out of me, let me explain a bit about meeting in Vancouver
We went there to see CoH expansion pack and get a glimspe of Soulstorm. While im a big fan of Warhammer universe myself, I was pretty shocked to see 20 min presentation of something that looked exactly like 3 previous installments of the game, which is now 4 years old. And whatmore – game that looked exactly like the last one (Dark Crudsade) only with bigger metagame.
Presentation itself was composed of 5 min long movie showing some dark eldars fighting, few screenies mixed up with short animations of unit movement, and some PR talk about how the game is going to be a secondeth comingth of RTS Jesus to earth. When it was over, most of people there were like “why the hell they showed us that for?”, while the rest was completely bored and generally more interested in finishing their snacks (presentation was kinda attached to lunch) than asking questions. I wont say that Kieron was amongst them, coz, as opposite to him, I didn’t record that meeting, but since, as you can see from transcript, I was virtually only person asking questions, I reckon he was finishing his Salty Delice, or chicken wrap, or whatever.
I’m a journalist. I was sent there to gather info about the game, and to ask difficult and annoying questions to the devs. I’m also a gamer, and I hate when somebody is trying to make a fool out of me by selling me same product all over again. My questions may sounded rude, but they are quite obvious for everybody playing games – how do you balance 9 races? Why haven’t you change a darn thing in your game during last 4 years? How are you going to compete on ever-shrinking PC market with SC2 coming out, and games like CoH, or SupCom already on sale?
Starcraft thread was a margin in whole conversation, but still, I think it’s a valid question – Blizz is making a total makeover of its old blockbuster. Why can’t relic/ironlore do the same thing instead of selling us same thing all over again? I’m not a SC fanboi as Kieron wanted to present me – Relic meeting was shortly after Blizz released first info about SC, and we were all excited about it. When I saw some other company doing same thing, only in a worse way, I felt obligated to ask what I asked about.
As for my grammar massacre:
Transcripts are always funny – try recording any of your conversations and then listening to it. You will be surprised about how utterly stupid you sound, how many mistakes you make, and how incoherent you are. BTW Kieron forgot to add some didascalia in his text, not mentioning, that many of my questions were posed after long breaks of silence, when you could only hear crunching sounds, and some tongue clicking mixed with soda slurping.
I don’t care if what I said sounded funny to all of grammar police fellas out there (tho I must say, that reading it now, I’m ashamed of how sucky my English was. I can only blame stage fear :] ), what I care about, is gaming companies not making fool out of us, gamers.
From what I can see now – I was 100% right. What we get in Soulstorm is Dark Crusade campaign enlarged by number of four. Same gameplay, same graphics, more planets, full price. Quoting Achmed the Dead Terrorist – “it’s a jokhr”. Right now we can all say in united voice – it’s nothing compared to SC2 :) it’s also nothing compared to last three versions of it.
And as I see from what Kieron’s is doing here – there is also nothing better to laugh at your own jokes, eh?
14/03/2008 at 15:52 Jim Rossignol says:
Perhaps pointing out that no one from RPS, Kieron in particular, is in a position to mock anyone’s grammar. We leave that to our Comment Squad.
As for the other stuff? Well, folks will make their own mind up.
14/03/2008 at 16:11 PJ says:
Oh. I just noticed the motto on RPS. How ironic :D
14/03/2008 at 16:32 Steve says:
Good questions. It has nice punch to it.
14/03/2008 at 16:48 Will P says:
If we’re talking place-fist-in-mouth squirm-horror in a game demonstration, absolutely nothing can compare to the French journalist on the first hands-on STALKER event in Kiev.
If I recall correctly GSC’s lovely, lovely Oleg asked the crowd of assembled journalists for any initial questions and a man (who I remember having a moustache, but might not have) stood up and started ranting in broken english in true outrage at the game – saying stuff like “There is a doll in that level! My daughter has a doll!”
What he was getting at was certainly worth debate, after all there’s a question as to whether a game should be based around the area of a disaster like Chernobyl. Thing is, there was so much ‘look at me!’ bravado about his tirade – which he then followed with storming out of the presentation and refusing to come back.
His outrage did not, however, prevent him from enjoying THQ’s hospitality for the next two or three days – taking his journo freebies, eating at great Ukrainian restaurants, drinking too much vodka and basically acting like a freeloading arse. All after storming out of a game presentation that he’d never, ever write about.
14/03/2008 at 16:59 vrok says:
Thank you PJ for being one of the few respectable gaming journalists out there that care about gamers enough to put devs and PR people on the spot like that with hard and relevant questions.
And yes, you were right. The joke’s on them.
14/03/2008 at 17:50 Kieron Gillen says:
Hi PJ. Hope you’re well.
As Jim says: Really, the joke wasn’t anything about your grammar. I tried to keep your phrasing, just because it was your phrasing, but I did try and keep things clear. I didn’t want to stack the deck unfairly. And worth noting that I did say that much of what you said was actually right*. While I personally found your approach profoundly embarrassing, as the thread shows, others actively applaud it.
The point of the post is that there’s something for everyone here. The real thing isn’t whether you were right or wrong – it’s that were relentlessly having a go and the Producer had to try and dodge it. It’s an amusing exchange, no matter who you support. Or, in fact, even if you don’t support either of you.
(Worth stressing: I edited the conversation out of all bar your stuff because it was so boring. I completely agree the silence upon the close of a demo is terrible. I’d asked two or three questions, but got such pointless answers I’d realised that there was nothing else to gain in that particular Q&A. The questions I’m interested in asking don’t really play well in front of a room of 30 people, being normally a little more theoretical.)
Oh – I’d recommend coming back in a week or two when we do our RPS verdict on Soulstorm. I suspect there may be giggles.
KG
*The story stuff is the major point where I divulge. I wish the developer stated his case more strongly: Frankly, linear RTS campaigns are development dead ends and are plain rubbish.
14/03/2008 at 17:53 WarhammerFan from Poland says:
“In the interests of solidarnosc” ?
You’re Polish? If not I’m really impress with the “posiitive obsession” of American and English about knowing new words.
I was surprised when I’ve seen words of “pierogi”, “pogrom” or “grom’ in quite common use.
P.S. Solidarność have now english version – solidarity.
15/03/2008 at 00:35 Jimi Hendrix says:
“I’m a journalist. I was sent there to gather info about the game, and to ask difficult and annoying questions to the devs. I’m also a gamer, and I hate when somebody is trying to make a fool out of me by selling me same product all over again. My questions may sounded rude, but they are quite obvious for everybody playing games – how do you balance 9 races? Why haven’t you change a darn thing in your game during last 4 years? How are you going to compete on ever-shrinking PC market with SC2 coming out, and games like CoH, or SupCom already on sale?
”
Completely agree , soul storm, 6/10.
16/03/2008 at 02:35 NCTCommonSense says:
Some of you guys just do not get it. SS is trash in my eyes, yet it’s an expansion not a new game. If SC2 had 3 expansions in 4 years I’m sure it would not be that much different in terms of game-play and looks. Comparing SS and SC2 is like comparing DoW and CoH, different games.
SS was a mistake, yet DoW and CoH has brought new game-play mechanics to the RTS genre more so than SC2 ever has or most likely will. Not to say SC2 won’t be a blast to play, it will, and I look forward to playing it.
Interviews should be hard hitting, yet with common sense, a thing this PJ lacks. Letting one’s emotions and likes/dislikes get in the way of true journalism is exactly what’s wrong with the news today.
16/03/2008 at 23:43 Krupo says:
PJ – you rock!
Nobody’s perfect, but that was a GREAT interview!
17/03/2008 at 16:02 have a snack mate says:
http://grafika.redakcja.pl/ArtykulyFotografie.FotografiaPrzeglad.aspx/160/0/play/1205724023753.jpg
PJ says: Kieron is NOTHING compared to StarCraft 2!
18/03/2008 at 19:26 Zooltar rocks! says:
@Mr. Kieron
PJ was forthright. He had say, what everyone knew. He had 100% right. Maybe you’re like when somebody make U fool by selling U the same product second time?
I’m not expect high-end graphic. It make me sick because I dont have highend PC :P, but that game looks like an game on old PS2.
18/03/2008 at 22:43 Cubituss says:
As PJ’s boss I may only applaud his approach. That’s what she said.
19/03/2008 at 19:51 Emerican says:
I thnik this PJ guy is right. He just nailed them. GJ;]
15/04/2008 at 03:39 dhdh says:
kieron loves pierogi ;) Peace&Love guys :)
15/05/2008 at 11:12 pepe says:
geeez… when do ppl realize that grammar or pronunciation are not the most important things – the meaning of the words is. During such events there are ppl from all over the world and not every one of them is perfect in english – and imho they don’t heve to be. I know that most of americans and british think “eeeeeverybody should speak my language and if they don’t they are stupid” – but maybe stupid are those who think in such a way?
As far as I understand PJ was the only man interested in a topic and asking the right questions. He had a courage to say his doubts loud and not to hide behind his snacks.
(sorry for my poor english but as i said – meaning is important, not grammar)
14/10/2009 at 14:36 Emexy says:
which should i get the iphone or the ipod touch? I really like all the stuff on the iphone like the internet and the apps and everything but i don’t ever hardly call anybody. would the ipod touch be better for me? what all stuff is on the ipod touch? Thanks.
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