Dave Pottingner about campaign covenant colors

by L0d3x on Mon Mar 09, 2009 12:43 pm

So I decided to PM our good friend Dave, and ask him about the unit colors in halowars. I thought some of you may be interested to read his response:

Hey,

You probably don't know me (unless you monitored the forums a while back as well), but I know you're the lead dev so I have one question
pertaining to a design decision you guys took.

Why did you guys choose to make all the Covenant units purple and all the UNSC units green in campaign? I understand this for skirmish and
multiplayer in general, but campaign should stay true to its source material. In the halo games, grunts are orange and red. Elites are blue and red, and other spec-ops variants. Hunters are blue as well.

I understand you probably won't reply to this, as it is critique on your game. But a man can dream right?

Regards,
L0d3x

And here's his response:

Why wouldn't I reply?

In any event, it's a fairly un-exciting answer: Ease of recognition.

When we had the "right" Halo colors in the campaign, it was confusing people. Some of them expected the minimap colors to match the color in the world, some didn't. Some expected all the enemies to be the same color, etc.

We did try to strike a balance between Halo expectations and the RTS issues, though. From an RTS standpoint, I would always choose to make the human player blue, but that's a Cov color (vs. the standard UNSC green). Ditto for red being the enemy, but purple is a much more dominant Cov color.

It was the best compromise we could strike.
Dave Pottinger
Lead Designer, Halo Wars

I still think a better solution could have been found, the minimap could just have a symbolic representation of enemies for example. Not that it matters. Anyways, hope some of you found this interesting.

by Ascendant Justice on Mon Mar 09, 2009 12:50 pm

Im astounded by the fact that he replied in the first place. Did you PM him on the official HWF?? If so I may have a few questions and issues that I would like to bring up as well...

by L0d3x on Mon Mar 09, 2009 1:51 pm

Yeah I PM'd him after I noticed he was replying on certain topics.
His username is "godgib"

http://www.halowars.com/members/godgib.aspx

by Cheese on Mon Mar 09, 2009 2:18 pm

Good of him to answer, and it was a pretty good answer. Did seem as though they had a legitimate problem as well as a good attempt of fixing it. Dave Pottinger gets a plus one in my books - where this leaves his total score I'm not sure...

by **Vigil** on Mon Mar 09, 2009 2:26 pm

Urge to send angry PM about Flood combat forms rising.....................

by **Vigil** on Mon Mar 09, 2009 3:58 pm

Well I asked him about the Jackal and Flood Combat forms and this is what he said:

'Why wouldn't I reply? Smile

Anyhow, I get what you're saying. The 'official' lore reason is actually internally debated somewhat. If those two races can't be infected by the Flood, it causes some other serious issues with the overall universe.

In any event, that aside, the main reason for us is gameplay. We simply could not make the game work w/o those races getting infected. We knew better than to cross the line with the Hunters, but we couldn't have the entire Cov infantry system be Flood-proof.'

by **Angatar** on Mon Mar 09, 2009 7:29 pm

They do get infected, but aren't combat forms, they become carriers.

by Felix on Mon Mar 09, 2009 7:57 pm

next question:

the plasma rhino, on the PoA, which was supposed to be in storage...

by **Vigil** on Mon Mar 09, 2009 9:05 pm

Angatar wrote:They do get infected, but aren't combat forms, they become carriers.

That's how I replied. Very Happy

by **Angatar** on Mon Mar 09, 2009 9:34 pm

Felix wrote:
the plasma rhino

What's that?

by **Archangel** on Mon Mar 09, 2009 9:55 pm

a rhino that fires plasma....

by Vtrooper on Mon Mar 09, 2009 9:57 pm

Archangel wrote:a rhino that fires plasma....

i think the UNSC didnt have enothe covie junk at that time for them to fire plasma

by **Archangel** on Mon Mar 09, 2009 9:59 pm

its a campaign unit

hell, you're the one with the game.

by Vtrooper on Mon Mar 09, 2009 10:02 pm

Archangel wrote:its a campaign unit

hell, you're the one with the game.

yes BUT anders said they knows covie shields are weakend by plasma but thats all that makes sence

by dragoon9105 on Mon Mar 09, 2009 10:05 pm

what the.... a unit that fires plasma... for the unsc.... WTF2?

and thats not a reasonable excuse for the crayon colors they were just being lazy, notice how forge has unique colors now they could do that with any other unsc unit.

For the minimap use halo motion tracker colors Red for enemies and yellow for allies, halo players would regonize it and RTS players would adapt. on the feild unit visibility should not be a problem, hell i can see enemy stealthed units in starcraft fine, is a winter camoflauge warthog to much to ask?

Dave Pottingner about campaign covenant colors

Dave Pottingner about campaign covenant colors

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