THQ前两天宣布了英雄连系列作品的最新资料片《COH:Tales of Valor》(以下简称TOV),但并未提及细节。于是EDGE的记者采访了Relic及该系列的资深制作人Tim Holman,请他谈谈TOV的具体内容。
Tim Holman将TOV描述为“小品集”而非过去COH所惯用的长篇剧情:
“我们已抛离那种建基地、造军队,然后出去找人拼命的模式”——就像作品名所提示的那样(Tales of Valor),TOV将更注重单个角色的表现,展现那“功勋彪炳的一刻”。
英文原文:
When Company of Heroes arrived in 2006, it swept away many preconceptions and standards established by previous real-time strategy games. The game played more like an RTS injected with DNA from board games and squad-based first-person shooters.
Even more than the first expansion, Opposing Fronts, CoH house Relic Entertainment will evolve the WWII franchise with the upcoming standalone add-on, Tales of Valor for PC, due in spring 2009.
Tim Holman, senior producer for Relic and the CoH franchise, describes Valor as a "series of short stories" as opposed to the "one big novel" format adopted by previous entries in the Company of Heroes franchise.
"We moved away from the mechanic of building a base, building a large army and going out and finding the enemy," he said. Instead, Valor, staying true to its title, will highlight more personal, "heroic moments."
Holman described the first tale, called "Tiger Ace," which he said is based on an actual event during WWII: British were advancing on a town, when a German tank commander sent his division back, along with his formidable but greatly outnumbered King Tiger tank. "He destroyed 10 tanks and 20 armored cars, just with that single tank. The tank was disabled, the guys escaped back to their division, grabbed another Tiger, and drove the British from the town."
Valor will have three "mini-campaigns" with new multiplayer content to be revealed soon.
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当英雄连在2006年来到的时候,他扫除了以前即时战略游戏建立的很多标准和偏见,他更像是一个从棋盘游戏和第一人称小队射击游戏那里注射了DNA的游戏
作为在原有的第一个扩展版本,《 英雄连:抵抗前线》的增加,英雄连的发行机构Relic Entertainment将给这个二战游戏增加新的即将到来的独立扩展包-------针对PC平台并在2009年春季发行的《 Tales of Valor》
Tim Holman,Relic和COH系列的高级开发人员,把Tales of Valor描述为一个“短篇系列”,而不是以前被英雄连系列采用的“长篇故事”的模式。
“我们将去除那种机械的修建筑,造军队,然后出去和敌人大干一场的模式。”在Tales of Valor中取而代之的是更切合它的标题的将更展现个人的“英雄时刻”。
Holman讲述了第一个战役叫做“Tiger Ace(王牌虎式)”,基于一个真实的二战事件:“英军进攻1个小镇(应该是波卡基村)的同时一个德军指挥官和它威力巨大但数量远不及人的虎王坦克部队杀了个回马枪。”他以一坦之力就摧毁了10辆坦克和20辆装甲车,自己的坦克也被瘫痪,他和车组们逃回了他们的部队,并且用另一辆虎式坦克将英军赶出了小镇”
Tales of Valor将包含有三个“小型战役”和即将放出的新多人游戏模式。
Direct-fire
Valor's original announcement came with only a brief mention of a new "direct-fire" feature, which promises to give players more control over units.
The feature, which should change up the play style of CoH considerably, came about as it fit perfectly with the new, more individualized "heroic moments" idea, according to Holman.
For instance, putting players in the role of a single tank commander as in the "Tiger Ace" tale meant that the game would have to adopt a more responsive means of firing on enemies, or at least make combat less randomized. In previous Company of Heroes, players had limited control over tanks and their turrets, but Valor hopes to address that.
Direct-fire will be a "toggle-able" mode in which a tank's turret, for example, will follow the player's mouse cursor, allowing a tank's turret to move and control independently from the vehicle's path.
Holman explained, "If I'm coming around the edge of a building and I know there's an enemy there, I can enter my move order and swivel my turret around. As soon as I come around the corner--boom. I fire and the guy's gone. When you press your mouse button you are firing. But it still uses a ratio of hit or miss."
In Valor, units will be upgradable with new attributes like faster reloads and greater accuracy.
Avid Company of Heroes multiplayer users may be wondering just how direct-fire could throw off the balance of the game when playing others. But the feature is being kept out of regular multiplayer, although Relic is "experimenting with several direct-fire multiplayer modes."
Valor will bring new regular multiplayer maps as well. "We've got quite a few in the bank that we've been playing with, and we're going to cherry pick the ones we really like."
New units will be introduced in the single player campaigns and the studio is working on how they fit into multiplayer. Relic's goal for Valor is to add one new unit per faction, all of which will be vehicles.
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伴随着《勇气传说》的最初发布而来的是一个叫做“direct-fire(直接开火)”的新特性,它允许玩家更多的操作单位。
这个特性将很大程度上的改变英雄连的游戏方式,就像Holman说的那样,因为完美体现了新的个性化的“英雄时刻”概念而发生改变。
举例说明,在“Tiger Ace”战役当中,将玩家置身于单坦克指挥官的角色将意味着游戏将朝着成需要对敌开火做出更多反应的方向改变,至少也能减少战斗的随机化(在原版当中近在咫尺都射飞的“特色”终于能改变了{biggrin:] )。在过去的英雄连当中,玩家被限制于控制他们的坦克和炮塔,不过勇气传说将致力于改变这方面。
Direct-fire在坦克的炮塔当中将会是一个“准心控制”模式,例如,可以随着玩家的鼠标光标移动允许控制坦克的炮塔移动并且和车辆的运行路径独立开来。
Holman解释说,“假如我来到一栋建筑的边上,我知道有一辆敌军坦克在那里,我将输入我的移动命令并且转动我的炮塔,一旦我拐过拐角,我就可以把那家伙轰上天。当你按下鼠标左键的时候就可以开火,不过依然受到一个命中概率的影响。”
在《勇气传说》当中,单位将可以升级许多新的特性例如“快速装填”和“最佳准确性”
渴望英雄连多人模式的玩家将对 Direct-fire能对对战模式的平衡性产生多大的影响感到好奇,不过这个Direct-fire模式将暂时不引入到对战当中,尽管Relic正在“体验几种Direct-fire多人对战模式。”
《勇气传说》将带来更多的多人对战地图:“我们已经从地图库中得到了不少我们一直在玩的,并且我们将收录一些我们真正喜欢的地图。”
新的单位将会被在单人模式中引入,并且工作室也正在努力将他们加入到多人对战模式当中,Relic的目标是争取给每一个阵营增加一个新的单位,这些单位都是车辆单位。