Activision have released an Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Fact Sheet, officially announcing some spicy information about this upcoming cross-brand shooter.

With "asymmetric gameplay," the characters of both the GDF and the Strogg look, move, and behave uniquely. Bases, characters, vehicles and weapons demonstrate the different technologies and behavior of each side and require distinctive approaches to combat from each player. For example, a GDF Medic can heal and quickly revive injured or fallen soldiers on the field, while the Strogg Meditek may use a GDF corpse as a "host" body for a waiting Strogg reinforcement. Similarly, the GDF Field Ops will deploy and call-in a laser-guided strategic strike missile, while the Strogg Opressor peppers a GDF convoy with his Plasma Mortar. Players can choose one of five character classes unique to each force, including the GDF's Soldier, Field Ops, Engineer, Ranger and Medic, or the Strogg's Tank, Opressor, Constructor, Infiltrator, and Meditek.

Also, confirmation about the number of supported players is in there (released officially for the first time, as far as I'm aware):

Advanced real-time physics, and all new network code support large-scale military combat for up to 24 players through real-world locations, including deserts, glaciers, mountains, and countryside.

Throughout development Splash Damage have said that their target size was 24-32 players, but in a recent interview they also mentioned that server administrators will be able to run larger (eg, 64 player) servers if they want to.

My graphics card has a heart attack everytime it hears about this game.

To add, I found some more screenshots a couple of days ago (but forgot to post them). Seriously, this games looks absolutely fantastic so far. Here is one of the pics:

http://images.ausimages.com/upload/2006-02-20/etqw05.jpg

(More Screenshots)

omfg

I'm giving it Game of the Year already :P

Whats the bet people will still play CS even though this looks a million times better!

8-)

It'll need serious hardware behind it though, whereas you can still play CS on an older PC fairly respectably. I hope this comes out later rather than sooner (which is opposite to what I'd normally like) so everyone has a chance to let their hardware catch up!

is there any talk of the system specs required yet?

t'll need serious hardware behind it though, whereas you can still play CS on an older PC fairly respectably. I hope this comes out later rather than sooner (which is opposite to what I'd normally like) so everyone has a chance to let their hardware catch up!

Bring it on Splash Damage!! :P

I love the idea of this game immensely. A pretty old 'hands on' preview I read by some IGN guy gave me a good impression that the differences in either sides technology and the way they do battle will hopefully set it apart from just being a BF2 clone etc. The reporter mentioned that the Strogg medic guy could posess a dead marine (ala spy class) and could only be distinguished up close as the marines skin is paler. He can also re-animate dead strogg in the field etc..

Also he noted that unlike such games as BF2, your team just can't go off and do you own thing trying to capture multiple map areas at once. There will apparently be a defined order in which you can capture points, thus making the game have an actual battlefront where players will focus their efforts, resources and 'TEAMWORK'. I hope they have kept such features in the final build. I'm really looking forward to this one.

teamwork? these games are about pwning noobs

im so fuggin excited about this game. its the last hope for the d3/q4 engine (since its really clunky for multiplayer, hopefully SD can remedy the physics of the engine)

Wasn't there talk of insane system scalability with this game, to the tune of having it running on GF2 level cards?

Wasn't there talk of insane system scalability with this game, to the tune of having it running on GF2 level cards?

Not that I recall - its essentially Doom 3 engine though, I don't recall that scaling backwards particularly well, though I never tried personally.

I don't recall that scaling backwards particularly well

A while ago I put Doom3 on a T-Bird 1200MHz with a Radeon 9250.

Let's just say that it ... 'ran'.

Well I knew I future proofed my machine for a reason!

Maybe a feature they could incorporate might be something like they did in COD2. I know I installed it on my sons machine (2.8ghz P4 and 128meg 9600 extreme vid card) and it sort of scuked a bit ...but they have a option to run the game using directx 7, did that and it runs and looks pretty bloody good. Not sure if that is possible with the D3 engine but I know the producers of STALKER are going to offer the same thing, two Dx versions of the game.

Then again ALL iD engines have pushed the envelope for hardware...remember they are basically the reason we have all this great hardware these days anyhow. Sell a kidney and upgrade.

:P

Doom 3 engine is OpenGL, like all of id's stuff.

yeah if u run cod2 with direct7 it cains, graphics are a bit pov but when you've gotten used to lego cod this was ok and gave the old system a bit of extra life.

it looks rad, but so did doom3, but doom3 just ended up being a tech demo with s*** gameplay.

yeah, but this is Splash Damage, who did the multiplayer component of Return to Castle Wolfenstein, which was the best multiplayer experience ever :)

Actually the multiplayer component of Return to Castle Wolfenstein was developed by Nerve Software. Splash Damage was the developer of RTCW: Enemy Territory.

Although i still enjoyed Enemy Territory, i wouldn't rate it compared to RTCW. Splash Damage nerfed ET by making it much more spammy and not as finely balanced. I'm particularly wary of Quake Wars as the asymmetric classes and inclusion of more vehicles will more than likely see the continuation of this trend.

Insolence knows the score

nerve > splash damage

Whats the bet people will still play CS even though this looks a million times better!

well, best that those players stay in cs and keep out of this game :)

IGN preview which has some more cool pics and a bit more detail about the role various classess in the game can do..all sounds very tasty.

Splash Damage nerfed ET by making it much more spammy and not as finely balanced. I'm particularly wary of Quake Wars as the asymmetric classes and inclusion of more vehicles will more than likely see the continuation of this trend.

I think ET is one of, if not the, best pub server games I've played.

I can see why RTCW guys don't like it as much, particularly for competitive play, but in terms of pub server action I think the default gameplay and stock maps are simply awesome.

im looking forward to ET:QW looks fkn awsome and sounds greate.
OH GOD I CANT WAIT!!!!

unbalanced team features ruins a game i think because it is hard to get things "just right". i don't think the market would be disappointed if booth teams had identical classes/weapons.

i personally like the idea of totally different classes on both teams. nearly all the previous team based fps have tried for 'balanced' teams & gameplay & it never really works... there is always an advantage that can be exploited. the different classes & weapons makes it more unpredictable.

And for serious tournament play unbalanced means 2 rounds ... 1 in each team. In case of a draw, add scores from both rounds.

Actually the multiplayer component of Return to Castle Wolfenstein was developed by Nerve Software. Splash Damage was the developer of RTCW: Enemy Territory.

oh yeah, you're quite right. RTCW MP was better than ET, although to be fair ET is still one of the best multiplayer games around.

last edited by orbitor at 15:35:46 21/Feb/06

Yea agreed. Credit where credit is due. though even today I still have fun on ET. It was a good move in the late nineties to keep the fracnhise going

24 players is a bit of a let down. If it's any good how are there going to be suffiicent servers? The Internode BF2 64 players servers (8-10 of them?) are completely full in peak, and i imagine its the same with most other providers in Australia.

If everyone moves to this because it's as good as the hype, it's going to be very crammed on-line.

24 players is a bit of a let down.

I guess that's really up to one's opinion.

Personally I don't like 32+ player servers in any game really. I prefer medium sized maps that let you interact with your enemies on a smaller and more personal scale. I'm not fond of randomly getting killed from all angles.

Like I said, opinion =)