Final Words

The idea of terrain control has been implemented in Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. Field Ops and Engineers, and their Strogg equivalents, can only deploy their structures on ground that has been captured by their side. With each objective gained or lost, control of a certain part of a map is handed over to the attacking team. There the two deployable classes can place their structures at will.

It should be noted that only one deployable is available per person. While the deployable classes do have a choice of three each, only one can be placed at any single time. An engineer must then decide whether anti-infantry, anti-vehicle, or anti-artillery turrets are going to be most valuable. Similarly, Field Ops and Oppressors need to choose the kind of artillery best suited to the task. These are divided into fast-reloading standard artillery, slightly slower rocket/plasma barrages, and finally the big, one-shot Hammer missile/Dark Matter cannon.

One significant change from earlier plans is that turrets can no longer be manned. Previously, id and Splash Damage had it so that players could build a turret and jump into it. However, due to balance issues, this idea has been since shelved.

Also new are forward spawning areas. Attacking teams can capture closer spawn locations to their objective, saving movement time and possibly bringing the attack from a different direction. Defenders will thus be pressured to leave their safe ground and meet the attackers in the middle, should they want to relieve the pressure and recapture the forward spawn.

Though it will have only 12 maps, from what we've seen, these are really outstanding maps. Both Valley and Sewer resulted in heated, close matches by the end of the day. Early on there were a few blowouts, but by the end of the day, on both maps the games ended in last-second saves and victories. In Sewer, the explosive charge on the final objective was disarmed with only six seconds to go! When we replayed Valley, a similar result was achieved.