A talk about Warships
I sat down with Danny Volkov, Development Director of the highly awaited game “World Of Warships” for an interview.
With a rich background in film industry, Danny Volkov joined Lesta Studio in 2006 as a lead of a small team responsible for development of downloadable console titles. It was Danny who facilitated the growth and eventual evolvement of his team into a Casual Games Department that delivered a number of high quality titles and Best Adventure Game of The Year nomination.
In 2012, Lesta Studio joined Wargaming in a quest to deliver legendary naval MMO game and Danny accepted an offer to become World of Warships Development Director.
In his current position Danny is in charge of all the production processes in Lesta Studio and synchronizes the work of all the departments to deliver high quality gameplay experience to World of Warships players.
Ilosz: First of all can you please tell us about the developer team? I see that WG is co-operating with Lesta Studio on the project this time.
Danny Volkov: That’s correct. Lesta Studio from Saint Petersburg, Russia has over 20 years of experience in video production and visual/sound effects. For the last 14 years it has been focusing mainly on game development and already succeeded in creating naval battles in “Pacific Storm”.
I: What were the main inspirations, when developing this episode of the “World Of” franchise?
D.V.: World of Warships is the next logical step after World of Tanks and World of Warplanes to round out the concept of the trilogy of combat action games set on land, in the skies, and at sea. With the third MMO title, we continue to build the gaming universe having enough depth and variety to attract a massive audience and keep it engaged for years.
Besides, the new game will stay in line with Wargaming long-standing care for national specifics and players’ personal preferences. Tanks are popular in CIS countries, Americans are passionate about warplanes, the Asian gaming community in general has a weak spot for naval combat games. That is, each of the games will cater for a particular market better than for the others.
World of Warships will also satisfy the players’ demand for a medium-paced gameplay heavy on strategy. With dynamic World of Warplanes and World of Tanks that lays somewhere in the middle between the two, any player will now be able to find the project that suits him and switch to another within Wargaming universe, if he ever gets a bit bored with his favorite one.
We develop World of Warships in a way that makes most players feel comfortable — no matter what their favorite play style is.
I: Which version of the BigWorld engine does the game use? Will the performance be somewhat similar to WoWP?
D.V.: We use the same BigWorld engine for all three projects. Even though technology is similar, the World of Warships team has to adjust it for the needs of the project. For example, warplanes need high-definition clouds to fly into. Tanks need trees that are able to fall. Warships need neither of the two, but water. So even if the technology is similar all around, it may look different.
As for the performance, it’s too early to compare or make inferences, but we are working on it.
I: What kind of gameplay would you like to achieve by the public release? A basically slower, more tactic consuming or a faster, more intense one?
D.V.: We develop World of Warships in a way that makes most players feel comfortable — no matter what their favorite play style is. So battleships provide quite slow and contemplative gameplay on mid-to-further distances. Destroyers are far faster, providing grounds for instant maneuvering, attacking enemies from rearward areas and conducting swift torpedo attacks.
I: Can you please draw up an average battle in the game?
D.V.: At the moment, the average battle time in closed alpha test averages between 10 and 14 minutes, but we are still experimenting with the game modes and gameplay tempo in our search for balance.
I: How will the planes on the carriers function? Will they be coordinated by the player or sent out by the artificial intelligence?
D.V.: Carriers add up one more gameplay dimension for the players. And it’s a special one: it’s the first time Wargaming tries to dovetail two game genres within one project. If playing for artillery is more or less action gameplay, carriers are nothing else but real time strategy gameplay, where players manage both the vessel and the warplane squadrons.
I: If you ram a ship is it possible that your ship does not get destroyed by the impact?
D.V.: The ship may survive for sure. If a battleship rams a destroyer, it may simply cut it in half and proceed without getting any damage.
I: How will be the crew portrayed, since some ships had crews of more than 2.5k people?
D.V.: The concept of the crew is currently in development, so we’d prefer not to comment on it — at least, until the process is over.
I: What is the main decision behind not implementing the submarine class?
D.V.: Submarines have never correlated with the initial concept of artillery-warships clashes. Historically, submarines were basically used for ambush, “guerilla” attacks, not face-to-face confrontation.
I: Will there only be ships from the WWII period or are you planning to add additional ones from later times like Cold War?
D.V.: There will be only ships from the World War Two period and earlier times, as we plan to stick to the historical concept of all our MMO action games.
Our primary goal is to make a top-notch project to be enjoyed by our players, so it’s “quality before speed”
I: Are you going to balance teams according to number of ship classes? For example: 4 carriers, 3 battleships, 5 cruisers vs 4 carries, 3 battleships and 5 cruisers.
D.V.: We are still carrying out a lot of experiments to come up with really special and thrilling skirmish modes and vessel combinations. We also consider the concept of “asymmetrical battles”, seeing, for instance, the team of four battleships oppose 10 to 12 destroyers. We still need to see where this approach takes us, but we retain our main goal to make the most interesting and balanced game that will be played comfortably by any vessel on the map.
I really loved this question, but we will be able to update you on the details after we get the feedback of our community.
I: Can you tell us when can we expect the game to hit the closed beta stage?
D.V.: We plan to approach closed beta testing in winter, but our primary goal is to make a top-notch project to be enjoyed by our players, so it’s “quality before speed” principle that we use.
I: This is a very touchy point (I understand, if you don’t want to answer it), but how did you feel about the recent leaks that were published on FTR? Did it influence the dev team’s overall mood towards the development or the gamers?
D.V.: The leaks didn’t change our plans — not even for an iota. It’s not the first project we work on, so we have clear understanding that things like that may happen once in a while and we are ready for them.
Anyway, the vast majority of players reacted positively on the contents of this leak, despite its poor quality, so we consider it an additional motivation and cheer-up for the team.
Thanks goes to Danny Volkov, who kindly answered all of my questions!
