Since 1995 the Command & Conquer has become one of the most famous RTS franchises with one of the most notable main characters in the whole video game industry… Kane. But after 15 years the tiberium story arc will finally come to an end… Kane's last battle will be called Command & Conquer 4: Tiberium Twilight.
So, we got Mike Glosecki, Senior Producer at EA LA to chat with us about pretty much everything related to the conclusion of tiberium saga.



UGDB.com: Could you please introduce yourself? What is your position at EA? How long have you been in the gaming industry, etc.?

Mike Glosecki: I’m Mike Glosecki, also known as Big Mike, Senior Producer for Electronic Arts Los Angeles. I got my start in business about 18 years ago, as a game tester in a small company called Virgin Interactive – this company owned Westwood. There I was a tester on Dune II, which is the granddaddy of RTS games. The interesting part of that to be a tester is that we knew that this will be a great game, we knew that it will change the way people played war games and strategy games. But every day I came in, would assign you to work on products, so you didn’t get to be on something for long term. So, the way it worked is that the guys who were there earliest got to pick on their own. So, I used to be there at 5 in the morning, so I can play Dune II. It is such a great game! I haven’t always worked on RTS games, I’ve moved around and worked on a bunch of different projects in my career like Disney's Aladdin, Medal of Honor: Rising Sun, Medal of Honor: European Assaut, etc. And I’ve done a lot of voice acting work, where there is a need of a deep voice. But I’ve been back on the RTS games for the last 5 years. I was the senior producer for Battle for Middle-Earth II on Xbox 360, the senior producer for Command & Conquer 3 on Xbox 360 and now I’m the lead for Command & Conquer 4 as a franchise overall.

UGDB: A couple of words about the already famous debut FMV trailer for Command & Conquer 4… There are rumors that Kane’s hand was actually done using CG. Is this the case and why have you done that?

MG: Well, the ball is CG and originally we were going to compose the ball inside his real hand, because it’s not there – it is a light bulb in the video. So, we cut out the light bulb and that worked fine, but we tried to get the ball and it wasn’t working because of the fingers… So, we just cut his hand off and did the hand with CG. And in the end you can’t even tell - it looks real, it moves real… And that was done in our studio too. We have a high quality video editing system and video editors as well.



UGDB: So, you are making the FMVs in your studio and they are not handled by an outside one?

MG: We do the filming with a Hollywood production company at stages, so we don’t film these at our studio. But the editing part is done in our own studio.

UGDB: What’s on Kane’s mind this time? Why does he go to his sworn enemy GDI? There are lots of mysteries that are supposed to be revealed this time and now this. We should expect more Command & Conquer games in the future, right?

MG: We called Command & Conquer 4 the end of the tiberium saga, the conclusion of the story that we started back in 1995. There have been a lot of mysteries about Kane, about tiberium, about our universe in general… Those mysteries are answered in Command & Conquer 4. And there is a new mystery: why is Kane working with GDI?! Kane has always led the Brotherhood of NOD and they always have been at war with GDI. They should not begin on loan and they really not – Kane is trying to get on loan with GDI. He is saying: “Hey, tiberium is going to destroy the Earth in 8 years” and GDI knows this as well from its own scientists, and they think “OK, he’s got a way to fix this, so lets work with him” – so, they do. But there are factions within GDI and within NOD saying that Kane must have some bigger purpose, there must be something wrong here. That mystery becomes apparent as you are playing the game and more about who Kane is and more about his real purpose that will be revealed in the end. It’s a really, really cool story. And you will notice the seriousness of the trailer – it’s not goofy, it is not campy… We typically have done more goofy and campy things. We are taking it very seriously because one way we want to increase the sense of drama in our product and it’s a serious story, it’s a serious thing that we are dealing with – this franchise is been running around for a long time. There will be more Command & Conquer games, but we are going to start at a different arc in the future.



UGDB: What can you tell us about the classes in the game? This is the first time that a mechanic like this is being introduced to the Command & Conquer series…

MG: You play as one of three classes in the game: the offense class, which deals with units and upgrading those units. The primary force here are all ground base units and you can upgrade them really quickly; the defense class is the only class that can place structures into the map, like defensive turrets, stealth-field generators or laser cannons and things like that. Its primary units are infantry in power armor. The last class is the support class and that deals with air units and buffing and healing other units. So, it follows behind – you can buff them up that will make them deal more damage, heal them up when it’s necessary. And this is the only class that uses Global Powers – ION Cannons and Nuclear Strikes are the primary force of this class.

UGDB: The MCV now has a brand new name, new look, new functions and it seems that it’s the ultimate starting unit. Can you share some more information on this particular unit?

MG: The Crawler - this is your MCV advanced. The MCV from our previous games is a mobile construction vehicle, which you were able unpack then it becomes a hub and you can build your base around that. The Crawler is one unit that everything is built into. So, as I upgrade a War Factory is now part of that unit, your Tech Center is part of that unit too and that thing can pack up at any time and move somewhere else and it can build even while it’s moving. It has a cargo area that can hold up to 4 units that can be constructed while it moves. The Crawler can gain weapons on its own towards the end of a mission. So, you can end up with a cannon or an anti-personnel machine gun and it’s pretty cool.
Repairing bots will repair your units when they are close to the Crawler because of its repair ring. The repair rings will be only available when the Crawler is unpacked. So, this is another reason not to stay mobile through the whole game.

We’ve been playing the game in multiplayer for over a year now and we noticed a big problem there. We have a specific spawn zone for each side – what was happening was that the other team put units in there and blocked the zone so you were not able to spawn there. So we fixed that, we said “OK, the Crawler can come down anyhow”, but all those units were there and they attacked the Crawler and killed it. And our final idea about the Crawler was - if it’s coming down, you better not be around, because it will kill everything with a huge blast wave. And if you are playing multiplayer - trust me, you will make that mistake one time.



UGDB: How is the singleplayer campaign going to be structured? What are we going to do in the beginning of a mission? Can you tell us more about the essential features of this mode?

MG: The career is kind of a loose sea - it is actually a player progression based on earning experience points. So, as you are playing the game, you will earn XP for killing units, for completing objectives, for buffing and healing - pretty much everything related to your army. That XP allows you to level up and when this happens you will gain access to a bunch of new units, abilities, upgrades that I can bring back to the game. The cool thing about our progression system is that it’s not singleplayer only - it is global. When you earn level in singleplayer the same levels will carry over to multiplayer and vise versa. So, no matter how you play the game you are always leveling up.

UGDB: What can you do with all those experience points?

MG: When you reach certain points, you’ll gain a new level. And when you are at that level, you can choose new technologies, new units, powers and upgrades. But in the end, experience is just the measure of how close are you to leveling up. It’s just like playing World of WarCraft, experience bar fills and you have a new level, unlocking new stuff.

UGDB: What about the multiplayer mode of Command & Conquer 4? We are looking for some cool new additions there, you know?

MG: In the beginning of every mission, you choose which class to play as. If you die, you can respawn and come back as a different class if you want to. If your class isn’t working for you, you can respawn and come back as a different class too. In multiplayer, when you die, you are not out of the game you can respawn and you come back. So, the multiplayer is about goals… for example, one of our modes has 5 points in the map, and the first team of up to 5 players that controls all 5 points on the map wins. But again, everyone can respawn, because usually in other games a group of guys is going around the map and destroys the first one on their way. That player is out in the beginning of the game and usually he must wait the other players to finish the game, so that he can play with them again. I thought Counter-Strike was bad with the 3 minute spawn time – here we are talking about 15-20 minutes spawn time. So, what we have done here is that anyone can come back and stay playing with his friends. The other thing that we are doing for friends are the parties – you can form a party and play with this group of people through all of the missions.



UGDB: What is exactly the punishment for dying in both multiplayer and singleplayer?

MG: It is respawn time. We have a one minute timer between respawns. Also, if you change classes on a respawn, you will lose your units. And you are also put back on your edge of the map and there are only specific spots that you can spawn in singleplayer. So, yes, there are some penalties, but they are not overwhelming.

UGDB: We recognized some familiar units when we saw the recently released screenshots, so we are going to see the return of some well known units from the previous series, right? What about some completely new units?

MG: Well, the Stealth Tanks for example are making a return, but now they are upgraded, they are more powerful and very cool looking. The Flame Tank is making a return too, but now when it hits a unit, the area around that unit starts to burn and do DOT (Damage over Time). The Engineer is back again, it’s not really a fighting unit. It doesn’t have a real good weapon or a good armor, but it is the only unit that can bring a husk back to live. Husks are left behind when a large unit is killed, and if you remember Mammoth Tanks dying in Command & Conquer 3 – it’s the same type of play. We have a different unit now, which you can recognize from Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun – it’s the Mammouth Mk. II, but we call it the Mastodon now, because it has evolved even further. It has chin mounted cannons, surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles on the back, and if your favorite Jedi tries to run underneath it, the sides open up and death charges are dropped.

GDI has a really strange new unit called Pulverizer – it’s actually artillery which fires into the ground, the shell travels underground and comes up underneath enemy units. It’s a really interesting unit, because it’s hard to tell where the attackers come from, so you should look around for these guys.



UGDB: There are some stories around the web saying that in order to play Command & Conquer 4 you must be connected to Internet, even if you are playing the singleplayer campaign…

MG: Yes, and do you know why?

UGDB: Well… piracy?

MG: No. It’s because of the progression – as you playing the game and you are earning content, we want to make sure that everything is kept fair. So, the content you earn in singleplayer can be used in multiplayer, and we want to make sure that actually you earned that. The other reason for this is that you no longer need to have game’s disk into the drive. And of course, this allows us to understand how the matches are going, to see if there are any problems that we need to tune, etc. So, we are not trying to track piracy, to steal personal information or something like this – it’s for your own good.

UGDB: Will there be a population cap and how it will rise through both singleplayer and multiplayer?

MG: The cap rises as your level rises and there are a couple of reasons for that. We want to have the people actually engaged and playing, not just sitting back and building a sea of units. Also, the largest maps are for 5 vs. 5 players (10 players), and we don’t want a swarm of units… and of course enormous lag.



UGDB: Are there going to be any bonuses when you kill someone in multiplayer on top of experience points?

MG: Well… there might be… We are still playing with that part of the tuning right now. Those things are about testing, lots of additional testing.

UGDB: How many factions are there going to be in Command & Conquer 4?

MG: GDI and NOD are the factions that I can talk right now. But as far as any others, we will be talking about them maybe at a later point.

UGDB: We already know that for the first time in 15 years (since the 1995 release of the first game), there will be no more tiberium harvesting in Command & Conquer. Why did you get that decision and is there any replacement of that vital resource?

MG: One of the main reasons we did that is because there is lot of different mechanics going on now and having the harvesting as well was a little more complicated than we wanted. We also wanted to evolve and change the way our games were working and the harvesting mechanic has been here for a while. So, as game designers we don’t always just want to say “Here is a new story and new graphics”, we want to change things – it is really my job to do that. It’s my job to also listen to you guys and take your feedback on those changes too. We want to make games that you guys all want to play… We want to make sure that you will play our games for years, and years and years, and not moving on to something else.



UGDB: The interface of Command & Conquer is one of the key elements of the series since the beginning in 1995. Are there going to be some interface differences in this installment of the series?

MG: Yes, there are some differences… In Command & Conquer 4 the talking heads are now playing outside of the minimap. The reason for that was because we always had them and they were saying something like “You need to get to objective “A”!”. “I can’t get to objective “A” because your head is on top of it” – so we moved it… Especially in our game – we have a lot of objective “A”.

Another thing is that now you can see the groups over the right edge of the screen [with icons]. So, it’s no longer needed to remember all these numbers. This is actually something that we did on the console versions of the games 4 years ago.
The edge of the world is now different - we no longer have the big black wall there now, but instead there are some environments, structures, etc.

UGDB: You are obviously an industry veteran… What can you say about the state of the strategy games at this moment, do you like the present face of the industry? Where do you see the strategy genre in 5 or 10 years?

MG: I see it as a something that is going to have to evolve. Every genre must evolve and if it doesn’t there will be people still playing, but it will be a very small player base. So, we need to evolve or we’re going to be the next flight simulators. Do you remember the nineties? How big were flight simulators then? Name me one you play today! And the thing about that is not only a necessity – I want to make a game, I want to make something fun, I want to change things, and that’s inherent to being producers and designers. That’s what we do.