21 replies to this topic

[Kris]

..Me and Aaron Kaufman AKA EA_Apoc..

Quote

Kris: A widescreen and Win 7 patch for ZH would be neat

Apoc: So would Generals 2...lol

Kris: OMG, You breached your NDA! *sues* lol haha

Kris: If you guys do bother making Generals 2. Please, for the love of god, keep the original gameplay designed by Westwood! Lol


Apoc: oy vey...u guys and Westwood..all i can tell u is, whatever we do next, u guys will be involved


Apoc: u do know westwood made critically worse games than we did....aside from C&C 4

Kris: tell that to Generals


Apoc: Westwood did not make Generals! that was EA Games son...maybe 1/4 of that team was former Westwood people


Kris: Westwood made Generals in 2002


Apoc: u guys no nothing when u speak of westwood 

Apoc: no, they did not


Kris: *gets article*

Aaron: EA bought Westwood


Kris:....In 1997

Apoc: call it what u want, but it was pretty much "EA"


Apoc: i get it though

Kris: Westwood existed 'till 2004...i think


Apoc: RA2 was much more a Westwood game than EA

Kris: Remember Earth and Beyond?


Apoc: mmmm, not really

Apoc: of course


Kris: Last westwood game ever made


Apoc: i started at EA in February 2004


Kris: before EALA completely shut it down


Apoc: there was no Westwood then

Apoc: thats bullshit...we did not do that. Westwood abandoned itself, When the founders left, it wasn't Westwood any more.

Apoc: RA2 was the last dominant Westwood game that was half Westwood, half EA


Kris: http://pc.ign.com/ar...5/355458p1.html here ya go


Kris: it clearly mentions "Westwood"....I actually talked to Mr Skaggs to


Apoc: Generals was comprised of a lot of people not from Westwood


Apoc: 
Skaggs never worked for Westwood

anyways, its a flawed argument

when EA bought Westwood is when the hardcore fans say C&C jumped the shark

EA helped Westwood make better C&C titles

RA2, Generals, best selling C&C of all time alongside C&C 3

either way, the Westwood spirit is in every C&C game

its the core mechanics people want left alone

but u cant make the same C&C every year with new graphics

u follow?


Apoc: but like i said, my quote about the pendulum swinging too far rings true for C&C 4

Apoc: gotta go my friend


Kris: okay

Quote

Apoc: 
Skaggs never worked for Westwood

All i can say about that is this:



and this:

Edited by Kris, 04 April 2010 - 22:27.

[Pav:3d]

Why on earth didnt you grill him more about Gens 2 instead of arguing whats westwood or not!

[Ion Cannon!]

Pav3d, on 4 Apr 2010, 23:27, said:

Why on earth didnt you grill him more about Gens 2 instead of arguing whats westwood or not!

Because he's silly.

[Kris]

Apoc raged at me so i never had the chance to grill him about Generals 2

Edited by Kris, 04 April 2010 - 22:47.

[Hobbesy]

Didn't Apoc leave EA a few months back?

[Kris]

He still post in the C&C forum as a support and community manager guy

[Sgt. Rho]

Hobbesy, on 5 Apr 2010, 0:54, said:

Didn't Apoc leave EA a few months back?

That was 2_Poc

[Kris]

Haha, I told this "denial" of Apoc to Mark Skaggs himself and he facepalmed too

[Ion Cannon!]

Kris, on 5 Apr 2010, 1:05, said:

Haha, I told this "denial" of Apoc to Mark Skaggs himself and he facepalmed too

Yeah, I saw a member of that name reading the thread ^

[Kris]

Because i linked him to this thread

[Libains]

*Knew before either of you because I had to approve him*

And tbh, I'd say that no matter the influence of Westwood or not, games with the Westwood label, or heavy input (Generals) were good. When they got rid of it, the games dropped off quite quickly, becoming the disasterous game that was C&C4.

[n5p29]

Kris, on 5 Apr 2010, 5:43, said:

Apoc raged at me so i never had the chance to grill him about Generals 2

I think he's tired of fans on the official forum who cries for westwood return, so he raged at you.
and yeah, too bad you didn't grill him for Generals 2.

[Mark Skaggs]

To set the record straight....

I was hired by Brett Sperry in 1997 to run the Virgin (Irvine) studio. Virgin owned Westwood at the time, but Brett and Lou were running world wide product development for Virgin.

EA bought Westwood in 1998 and we renamed the Irvine studio to Westwood Pacific. I was was on the Westwood exec team and traveled to Westwood in Las Vegas about once a week (for many many months) to participate in various things going on and to learn about making RTS games from Brett.

Westwood Pacific was a "child studio" of Westwood Las Vegas. We reported to Westwood Las Vegas who then reported to EA.

There was one person from Westwood Las Vegas who joined our team in Irvine. His name was Jeff Brown and he joined us as a network engineer, quick moving to be technical leader and then development director. He's a rock star.

Westwood Pacific created Red Alert 2 and Yuri's Revenge. We also released Nox and helped on C&C N64 and Dune Emperor. We also released a Racing game.

During the development of Generals, we changed our name to EA Pacific. We released Generals in 2003 just before EA combined Las Vegas, Irvine and EA LA into a single studio in LA.


At EALA, we created Battle for Middle-earth. It shipped in late 2004. I left EA in early 2005.

From what I remember Apoc was working in Marketing for Craig Owens and I asked him to join the RTS team as community manager.

Think you guys can look up the rest of the history from there.

My time at Westwood, in particular, working with Brett, Lou, Steve Wetherill and Laura Miele were some of my best memories of my career in games. Westwood was one of those rare combinations of talent at a moment in time that I'm not sure could ever be recreated.

And to be clear, I have no comments about the C&C titles that were created after I left EA. I wasn't there so even if I did have comments, they wouldn't be relevant.

Cheers!
Mark Skaggs

[Kris]

Welcome my brother! That was a nice post and that should clear apoc's confusion

[deltaepsilon]

Whoa man, it's really him...

[BeefJeRKy]

Well I know that the Generals that Westwood originally had in mind still had an element of camp in it, so I'm glad it was done as it is now whether by Westwood or EA. Does it matter who makes the game if it's good? It was cool to see Mark Skaggs pass by btw. I hope that C&C4 will be the last iteration of C&C or any RTS type game developed in its fashion. C&C3 and RA3 while mediocre were still playable and the campaigns were decent enough fun. I feel no compulsion at all for C&C4 on the other hand.

[Lizzie]

Scope, on 5 Apr 2010, 2:22, said:

Well I know that the Generals that Westwood originally had in mind still had an element of camp in it, so I'm glad it was done as it is now whether by Westwood or EA.

You're saying it doesn't have camp now?

[BeefJeRKy]

Well far less than the Red Alert series that's for sure, and also less than those older concepts seem to indicate. The current Generals feels like a heavy exercise in stereotypes tbh. Red Alert was a "what if" speculation about all kinds of older sci-fi themes.

[Pav:3d]

Heh that was pretty cool of skaggs to drop on by

[Golan]

Don't you think the poor guy is being mauled by the community enough already?

[Hottwire]

Major CnC fan here, and tbh i enjoyed all of them still prefer the originals but was MAJORLY let down by CnC4 ,i bought it played it got to the end in a day and that's it normally would take me a good few days and i would enjoy them, but put that aside i tried playing it just for the story and still i personally feel that i want my money back.

[Shirou]

I think Apoc is on the brink of losing his Sanity to the loads and loads of criticism he has to endure as EA's messenger, actively trying to deny most of what Kris is saying there. He should be more informed about the Westwood pacific and Las Vegas differences which could cause confusion..

Edited by Trivmvirate, 12 April 2010 - 21:06.