The two play styles interlink, a little like EVE Online's relationship with Dust 514 . As a General, you're creating the battle parameters for troops on the ground, including stuff like reinforcements and how many tanks either side has. It's actually pretty clever, which is why we caught up with Peter Fleckenstein, co-founder and Managing Director of developer Reto-Moto to talk stamping out cheats, balancing strategy, and Nazis on bicycles.
You're attempting to blend strategy and action. How do you intend to compete with best-in-genre games on two fronts?
Our very first idea was to create an action shooter where you were part of something bigger. Where the battles you fought were crucial for the overall outcome. We all wanted something more than just a character shooting up another character in an endless map cycle, we wanted each player to feel ownership for the battles they were fighting in – and for every battle to be unique and have a unique position on the campaign map. So we knew we wanted to promote interaction between the campaign map and the individual battles - and so we created the Campaign layer. The Campaign layer is where the Generals manoeuvre their Assault Teams around the campaign map in order to capture battlefields. As soon as two or more opposing Assault Teams meet on the campaign map, a first-person mission is created [for the Heroes part of the game]. The type and size of the Assault Teams sets the framing for the battle - sometimes you might be a foot soldier fighting against mechanized infantry and tanks and the next time it might be you sitting in that tank.
During a battle the Generals can send in reinforcements; launch air strikes or drop paratroopers into the on-going battle. A new aspect we've introduced to blend strategy and action in Heroes & Generals is something we call 'social F2P', where you can upgrade your Assault Team with larger weapons or vehicles. In doing this, you are giving the players joining your Assault Team a better chance to succeed - and thereby you also have better chance of success yourself as a General.
Many games are going modern / future warfare. Why did you decide to go back to World War 2?
We decided to go for WW2 for a number of reasons. First of all it's a classic, conventional war with many parties involved and many territories to explore, plus there was also a lot of war technology evolving during the war. To us, the interest in World War 2 never ends. We don't go historical in terms of battles and precise locations since it's a game, not a Discovery Channel programme, so we balance all gameplay in terms of the 'fun-factor'.
Now, serious question: are you the only game to offer Nazis on bicycles?
We are proud to announce that we are the first and only WW2 game that supports bicycles with luggage rack passengers! Besides bicycles we have motorcycles, jeeps, half-tracks, fighter planes and tanks. Right now we have three types of tanks on both sides - light, medium and heavy tanks. Over time you can upgrade your Armour Assault Team, as mentioned before, so the Generals give benefits to the players that join his Assault Team. We are also trying to get some less 'game famous' vehicles into play, which make it a fun and new experience. We are making a game with different layers and depth, so we can get the core players involved. For instance the armour thickness and armour models combined with different types of ammo are well discussed topics on the forum of our beloved community.
How do you balance the interaction between strategy and on-the-ground action?
Our ambition is that players will have a fun experience regardless of what and how they choose to play. We believe that allowing the Generals to create their own strategies will create 'living games' and the most dynamic experience. The Generals choose which types of Assault Teams are attacking where and when, and as one of the Heroes players you will have a lot of variety, so two battles will never be the same. The battlefields hold up to five access-points, all leading into the objectives. Each route has different challenges and the attackers can choose to attack from multiple access-points (if they succeed in conquering the adjacent battlefields in their advance). If you want to play with only your own friends you can get your own Assault Team and join only those battles you start yourself.
How challenging was it to implement the cross-platform support between PC and iPad?
Our first goal for cross-platform functionality is to release our Mobile Command app, where all the players at anytime and anywhere can log in to see how the campaign map and war is evolving, and chat with other players. The first version of Mobile Command is currently being wrapped up and will soon be ready for our community on iOS and Android. The plan is to expand this app with many more features and we have a lot of ideas for more interaction with the game.
