It's a 1 hour video so I included a table of contents so you can skip the bit you are interested in
Link to video:
Table of contents:
Q. Bill?
Bill worked on inFAMOUS, inFAMOUS 2, Dead Island: Riptide, other cancelled games
Bill led the writing on Mafia III, to huge critical acclaim
Bill wrote some Marvel comics including Avengers etc
Bill worked for a PC Gamer magazine
0:03:46:07
Q. Supcom?
Bill started at Supcom by lying about being in town to get a meeting
Bill came after project was started so campaign and factions were already established
Bill worked on characters and dialogue, voice overs (VO), wrote the cinematics
Once they acted out the entire script of the whole game
Bill helped on the GPG store, posters
You used to get a letter from the faction leader
0:07:13:10
Q. Forged Alliance?
Bill & two others wrote story for Forged Alliance
They already knew what the story was going to be about Sera because they had baked that into Supcom end scenes
Each faction had a end video alluding that something big and bad was coming
Spent ages testing the game so that audio played at the right time
0:08:42:17
Q. As a gamer?
Was the RTS reviewer guy at PC Gamer - loved RTS
Might come and play with us on FAF
Interested to play next Total War, C&C remaster
Alpha Centauri most fav game ever
Not sure if magazines are interested in RTS now, but they used to
0:11:34:10
Q. Supcom Story?
Was about Black Sun project, UEF was making it to blow up other factions
In the end of the game the VO gets more panicked and dramatic
The last mission is crazy, so many units
Supcom was underrated technology wise, the tech at the time was amazing eg strategic zoom
In the story they invested quantum gates, then colonized space.
UEF wanted to keep control
Aeon founded The Way, a religion based on Seraphim
Cybran just want to stop being oppressed
Bill doesn't know about the earlier plans for Cybran which may have been quite different
<Mike rants about how factions can't be very different to each other because it would screw Supcom style balance>
0:16:16:17
FA Story Process?
Production for Supcom went amazing, one of the best production processes ever
There were critical questions, could you play as Sera? Will there be a Sera campaign?
How do you talk to an alien faction? A: You get a translator in the game
The game starts with the Rift invasion, evacuating
Some wanted to welcome Sera, you had to fight a Commander on your side
Dostya was an important Supcom character who died early on in FA. They actually killed her to save time - Mary was the amazing voice actress and wasn't Russian - she faked it and it was hard. Americans think a real Russian accent sounds fake so they have to use a fake russian accent
These days they would have a professional dialect expert to coach voice artists
It worked out story-wise because it showed how touch Sera were to take out a main character straight away
Production went so well they were done early
0:22:29:18
Q. Critical decisions?
Unit count and faction count were limited for technical reasons
It was hard to represent Sera as ultra-tough in the story but keep the game balanced
The campaign had different balance to multiplayer
Bill doesn't remember the C&C campaign focus debate
VO was important for Supcom because otherwise you forget they are people
Without the campaign you wouldn't understand the flavour and personality of the factions
Faction personality is important
Each game has to balance how much plot flavour to add
<Mike rants you need campaign to be gateway for beginners>
Campaign is also a tutorial, pacing the introduction of units
The campaign is a simultaneously tutorial, plot development, exciting - Brad managed the vying concerns
0:30:38:16
Q. Other stuff Bill worked on?
Bill wrote the manual was the hardest part of working on the game
He had to explain instructions in a tiny amount of space
The publisher limited manual size due to cost but also due to fitting it in the box
Bill also worked on website, propaganda, other GPG games like Space Siege, pitches for new games
0:33:40:11
Q. Seraphim Language?
Based on H. P. Lovecraft, like Cthulhu
Other people have been inventing grammar rules about the language
Challenge was to make an alien language weird but not incomprehensible
It was challenging to work with an alien faction
The Sera VO was hard
Normally voice actors have time to get into it, define the character
When voice actor comes in, Bill has to explain the game, faction, character in 15 minutes
0:36:46:22
Q. Sera Pronunciation?
Some letters were silent
Pronounces the Zthuee, Othuum, Athanah, Sinntha, Ahwassa, Selen, Iya-istle, Thaam, Ilshavoh, Yenzyne, Usha-Ah, Athanah, Yolona Oss, Ythotha
Pronounces our T3MAA name Uyanah, and says its done really well
<Maybe we didnt get Sera campaign because the player couldn't understand the mission instructions?>
0:41:50:19
Q. Was the HARMS (T3 Cybran Torp) was named after Bill?
Yes - lots of units are named after people
Bill got a good unit
0:42:29:05
Q. Did you consider having a campaign in a timer?
Not sure - ask Chris
0:43:33:01
Q.Did the story writing influence units?
Sera units were affected by story but primary driver was balance
Supcom was pre-bill
0:44:04:06
Q. What was Chris's influence on your work?
Chris had great influence
Not too nitty gritty
Chris changed the original title which was going to be Forced Alliance
Chris didn't wasn't dropping workload bombs, was fair minded
0:45:34:21
Q. Were there last minute rewrites?
Once Bill got a call in the recording studio, Brad needed him to change something on the fly
Another time they couldn't do it because they had already recorded it
Bill ended up announcing which character was getting recorded to give them a last chance
0:47:09:16
Q. How can indie games have VO?
SAG is the expensive union. Get a non SAG actor
SAG 4 hours scale 1 = $1500
Some games have 50k lines and you can record 100 lines an hour
Find a college actor
Some people just starting out might do it for experience
Other costs are the audio engineer, studio, audio editor - find someone starting out at all of these things as well
The price for making an audio studio is cheaper, people are doing it because of covid
You can record voice over Zoom - they actor is record properly on their own machine and sends the good quality versions to you
You can use text+mumblers instead of voice
One downside to voice is it locks you in, can't change it easily
These days they use mocap when recording and it's crazy expensive to make changes, they have to allocate a budget at the start for redoing a % of mocap
0:52:24:22
Q. Were you satisfied with the result of Supcom?
Yes! Bill still plays it, has great memories
Really appreciates Chris which is why Bill is in the games industry now
Brad was great too
Supcom reviewed really well - they went up again with FA
Bill is really happy that we are still playing and working on it
Part of the reason why we still play is because of modding and that's how PC games were built back then
0:54:51:14
Q. Anything you would have changed?
Wish could have done more with Cybrans
Wish could have fleshed out the stories
Wish we could have released novels and comics
Richard Paul Russo is a real award winning sci fi writer - who wrote an unreleased Supcom prologue book - the art work was great, but the project fell through
The audience was the game but also wanted just a good book
Would need Square permission to release the book
0:58:16:14
Q. What was in the missing missions?
Not sure - ask Chris
0:59:05:19
Q. Was there more planned for faction campaigns in FA?
Not really, maybe more story stuff that wouldn't fit
0:59:58:18
Q. Is campaign expensive?
Yes, campaign designer, level editors, systems designers, engineering, art
Newer games have encounter designers, who design individual fights
Some campaign missions need special art and sound - there is stuff you don't see
1:01:55:00
Q. Did you consider adding choice?
No, that's not really how games worked back then
1:02:43:20
Q. Did you consider adding something like TA Battle Tactics?
No
1:03:15:15
Q. Interesting stories?
No
1:03:44:02
Q. What would be different with new tools?
Higher fidelity of storytelling
There would be more cinematics - it's much easier now, eg: Unreal does it
More interstitial cinematics - add more plot depth - see the characters
1:05:14:19
Q. Anything to add to an RTS?
Wants a zombie apocalypse RTS with huge unit counts
More genre blending RTS's - like Rise and Fall - which was half RTS, half 3D action game
<Mike goes on about Natural Selection which is part shooter part strategy?>
1:08:07:09
Q. What would you do with a mercenary campaign for Nomads?
Figure out why are they mercenaries? Oppressed by UEF?
Who are their leaders?
Go from there
What does it mean to be a mercenary in the Supcom universe? Does UEF hire them?
<Nomads has a campaign, custom maps, voice acting, a campaign that makes sense within the original Supcom campaign>
<FAF has Sera campaign and Nomads Campaign>
1:11:39:18
Q. Do you have more nostalgic items?
Bill has signed copies of the game, original posters, letters from faction leaders
Wishes he had the novel and the art
There's a box somewhere
1:13:13:21
Q. Quantum gates?
In video, the space ships go through the quantum gates but they discussed it for hours and were careful not to do anymore gates in space
<Nomads have a similar issue cos Nomads have quantum gates>
<It's hard to justify being able teleport only one little thing. Terminator has same issue>
ACU has a smaller footprint
Add questions for Bill in the comments
