Generals Evening

On 21 January 2003, the “Community Team” website announced that it was organising a convention on Command & Conquer™: Generals in Cologne on 5 February 2003. This event would give attendees the chance to attend a press conference given by the game’s producer, Harvard Bonin, as well as to try out the final version of the game in multiplayer mode.

Darklovis was very keen to go, and as he planned to drive there, Tchutch’ and Yarrick joined him on the trip. The first hurdle is securing tickets; Tchutch’ writes to the “Community Team” to find out the procedure. The website administrators and EA Germany reply that they are delighted to have French visitors at their convention and that three places will indeed be reserved.

The meeting point is set for Wednesday 5 February at 10.00 am at Strasbourg railway station. We’re all set for this event; we’ve brought with us digital cameras, a camcorder, a Zip drive, as well as our questions for the game’s development team.

Five and a half hours later, we arrive in Cologne and set off in search of ‘Future Point’, the internet café where the convention is being held. As we were early, Claudia from EA Germany kindly asked us to come back later… but Darklovis was keen to have a look around first. Just as he decides to head back towards the exit, Peter Larsen, Product Marketing Manager at EA Germany (our contact), arrives. He suggests we join him for a meal in town whilst we wait for the preparations to finish.

So, at 4.30 pm, we’re back at “Future Point” with Peter Larsen and Elmar Seeberger (the CnC Germany community manager), who hands us a welcome CnC Generals goody bag and an entry badge with our names on them. We explore the conference room, where more than 60 computers are displaying the CnC Generals menu. We quickly settled in, then asked Peter Larsen if we’d have the chance to interview Harvard Bonin. He seemed apologetic and told us that he already had a dozen interviews scheduled and that it was unlikely Harvard would have time to answer our questions.

But in a dramatic turn of events, half an hour before the press conference begins, he comes back to see us and delivers the good news: Harvard Bonin is now available for about ten minutes to answer our questions. And so we had the opportunity to chat with the producer for around twenty minutes in the end, focusing in particular on the questions the community had sent in.

Whilst waiting for the press conference to begin, the three of us had the chance to play the new version of the CnC Generals multiplayer mode, which is nothing like its previous version (Multiplayer Beta).

The press conference finally begins and Harvard Bonin shows us a replay for each faction, highlighting their main features and the changes compared to previous CnC games.

Shortly afterwards, Peter Larsen took us into the back room and gave us a large number of prizes for the French community (compared to what the German sites received), such as CDs from L’Officiel Club, very large posters (Generals, US, China and GLA) and CnC Generals mouse mats.

We then played several games amongst ourselves and against other players in the café, as well as against AI opponents in multiplayer mode. We also launched the level editor to see what it was like.

We finally decided to step away from our computers to grab a bite to eat, and then went to explore the campaign mode in another room of the internet café. We played the first three missions for each faction.

A round-table discussion organised for the fan sites took place, attended by Elmar Seeberger, Harvard Bonin and Peter Larsen (to discuss German translations and details regarding the game’s release in Germany). The other fan sites, which had barely had time to ask their questions earlier in the evening, could now try to get answers from the game’s producer. At Peter Larsen’s insistence, Harvard Bonin – who wasn’t particularly keen on the idea – eventually agreed to give a presentation on World Builder, the map editor.

For about ten minutes, Harvard Bonin gave an overview of some of the editor’s many features. The tool appears to be powerful, but the producer himself does not seem particularly skilled in this area. The resulting map bears no resemblance to the superb maps featured in the game. To our great surprise, we are the only ones showing any interest in this editor, so we ask Harvard Bonin a few more questions.

We followed this up with a few more multiplayer games, whilst taking a closer look at the editor. After an hour, Tchutch’ and Yarrick managed to get to grips with the software’s basic options and could see just how complex and powerful this tool is.

Finally, Elmar invites us to take part in a tournament. DarkKlovis competes in the one-on-one tournament and makes it through to the second round. Tchutch’ and Yarrick, keen to take part in a two-player team tournament, ultimately decided against it given the late hour at which the 2v2 tournament was due to start. So we set off, delighted with our day spent in the company of the German organisers and the game’s producer. We are more confident than ever in the success of CnC Generals.

A big thank you to the German organisers, the EAP team and, in particular, to Peter Larsen, Elmar Seeberger and Harvard Bonin.