DigitalChumps上的《红色警戒3》开发者访谈（一）环球热讯

来源：哔哩哔哩　2023-06-04 06:28:52

译者按：本文译自游戏网站DigitalChumps之栏目《nuclear device》，原文于2008年7月19日发布，原文出处https://digitalchumps.com/2008/07/19/exclusive-interview-command-and-conquer-red-alert-3/ 。因本文篇幅较长，故分为三部分翻译，本篇是对《红警3》项目组首席平衡师Greg Black的采访。

Gentlemen, it’s a nuclear device.

兄弟们，欢迎来到《核反应》栏目。

(资料图)

Going into the show, my younger brother Greg Schardein and myself were quite excited about the prospect of playing the newest installment in the Command & Conquer: Red Alert series, Red Alert 3. Westwood Studios’ Red Alert 2 has always been at the top of our list of favorite real-time strategy games of all time, so you could probably imagine how thrilled we were when we were met with the opportunity to speak with three of the most influential names behind Electronic Arts’ RA3.

本期节目里，我和我的老弟Greg Schardein将带来令人兴奋的《命令与征服：红色警戒》系列最新一作——《红色警戒3》的前瞻。西木工作室出品的《红色警戒2》在我们最受欢迎的即时战略游戏排名里一直处于领先地位。因此您可以想象，当我们有机会和红警3背后最有影响力的三位大人物交流会有多高兴。

These names are Greg Black, Unit Designer; Amer Ajami, Senior Producer; and Chris Corry, Executive Producer. Let me tell you straight away that these three know the series like the collective backs of their hands—if ever you were concerned about how RA3 will turn out, this interview should help to set your mind at ease.

这些大佬分别是：单位设计师Greg Black；高级制作人Amer Ajami；还有执行制作人Chris Corry。我会跟大家讲讲他们对这个游戏系列有多了如指掌。如果您对红警3的成果还有什么担心的地方，本次采访定能解开您的心中疑虑。

The DigitalChumps staff member (Steve, Greg) dialogue is in bold to keep things from being confusing (seeing as there are two Gregs in the first part of the interview—one from DigitalChumps and the other from EA)

为避免混淆，DigitalChumps工作人员（Steve和Greg）的发言以粗体表示（因为本采访的第一个环节有两个Greg——一个来自DigitalChumps，另外一个来自EA）。

First, we sat down with Greg Black in an interview that was in planning for no longer than two minutes total; no prepared questions, no scripted topics—just dialogue about the C&C universe.

首先，我们与Greg Black坐下来，进行了一场计划不超过两分钟的采访。没有准备好的问题，也没有剧本安排——我们就是聊了聊关于C&C宇宙的东西。

Steve (DC): Greg, first off, thanks for sitting down with us. I know we don’t have a lot of time, but could you introduce yourself quickly for the record?

Steve（DC）：Greg，首先感谢您接受我们的采访。我知道我们没有太多的时间，但是，请问您能否简要介绍一下自己呢？

Greg: Sure; I’m Greg Black. I’m the, like, Lead Unit Balance, you know, Gameplay Guy.

Greg：当然可以，我叫Greg Black。我是……那个……单位首席平衡师，你懂的，就是搞游戏玩法的人。

Steve (DC): Awesome, I love the highly official title there. I’m actually going to call you that in the interview if you don’t mind.

Steve（DC）：牛逼，我喜欢这个官方化的头衔。如果您不介意的话，我就在采访里这么称呼您了。

Greg: Sure, no problem! If you play multiplayer, chances are I’m the one that screwed it up.

Greg：可以，没毛病！如果你是玩pvp的话，没准我也会搞砸的。

Steve (DC): Fantastic. Then I’ll be sure to yell at you.

Steve（DC）：太棒了，那到时候我肯定会喷您。

Greg: All right.

Greg：骂，都可以骂。

Steve (DC): Okay, Greg… I don’t really have any questions prepared here, so I figured we’d start with your specialty. Could you tell us a little bit about your philosophy on the balancing for the super-powerful-type stuff we’re going to see in the game for multiplayer?

Steve（DC）：好的，Greg。老实说我今天没准备任何问题，所以我们就从您最擅长的地方开始吧，您能跟我们讲讲您对未来在对战中会遇到的超强单位有什么平衡上的思路吗？

Greg: Yeah, so, we’re basically trying to continue the trend from Red Alert 2, which is the feeling that, you know, everything is sort of overpowered. For example, “Oh my God, this Kirov (blimp) or this Apocalypse tank is way too powerful,” but in context, it just sort of works out. We’ve carried that over into the Japanese faction. The big gameplay change this time is that this is the first time in a Command & Conquer game that every unit has its own special ability. So there aren’t any caster units like in a game that just has a bunch of them, but every single unit has just one. There are three types: there’s instantaneous abilities, which—you remember the spy from Red Alert 2? It does the same thing it did before, being that it can disguise itself as anything, go infiltrate buildings… but it’s got this secondary ability now which is Bribe, which costs money to use; it’s like $1,000… it’s like one of two powers in the game that actually costs money. And so you can disguise yourself as whatever, sneak up to the enemy units, hit the Bribe button, and everything within a radius is basically going to transfer over to your side.

Greg：可以，我们基本上是在尝试延续《红色警戒2》的风格，就是那种感觉，你懂的，压倒一切的气场。比如说“我超，这个基洛夫（飞艇）或者这个天启太牛逼了”，但在大环境里，它只是有点强而已，我们已经引入了日本阵营。这次最大的游戏玩法变化是，每个单位都有了自己的特殊能力，这在《命令与征服》系列中还是头一次。所以（红警3）并没有学其他游戏那样整了一堆法师型单位，而是给每个单位整了一个（特殊能力）。这种（能力）一共有三个类型：首先是瞬发能力——还记得红警2里的间谍吗？他做的事情和以前一样：伪装成任何东西，然后潜入建筑物......但他现在有了第二种能力，也就是「贿赂」，使用它是需要花钱的，大概是一千块来着.....就像游戏中另外两种需要花钱的元素那样。所以你可以伪装成任何东西，潜入敌方单位，按下贿赂按钮，半径内的所有玩意基本上都会归你控制。

Greg (DC): Nice.

Greg (DC)：不错嘛。

Greg: So, it costs $1,000, right? So if you get a conscript, you got ripped off. But if you manage to get three Apocalypse tanks, you’re pretty stoked.

Greg：那么，这东西要花一千块，对吧？所以如果你偷到了动员兵，那就亏了。但是如果你想办法偷到了三辆天启坦克，那您就偷着乐吧。

Also, one of the things that I really wanted to do was give the units abilities to help them deal with things that are normally their hard counters in the combat chain—help units do what they normally do better. So an example of that is the Japanese cruiser, it’s just this torpedo boat… but if you hit the secondary ability, it fires off this spread of like five dumb-fire torpedoes that go in every direction, and they just keep going until they hit the shore, or a boat, or whatever.

还有就是，我非常希望通过赋予单位技能，帮助他们处理打硬仗的状况——让单位超常发挥。日本的巡洋舰就是这样一个例子，它只是一艘鱼雷舰......但如果你启用它的第二种模式，它就会向四周发射五枚鱼雷，它们会持续前进，直到命中岸边或一条船，或者别的什么玩意。

And then there are abilities that help the player maneuver around in the combat chain a little bit. So normally, this thing would kill me, but if I’m smart and I use my special ability, maybe I’ll have a chance to escape or counterattack or something of that nature. The Japanese have a couple of those units—you were playing with them. When they’re on the ground, they’re going to murder infantry, but the second a tank rolls up, you want to transform those bad boys into their airborne form to either get away or to fight back.

还有一些技能可以帮助玩家在战斗中进行一些微操。一般来说，这个单位可以干掉我，但如果我明智地使用了我的特殊技能，那我也就有了逃脱或者反击的可能。日本就有几个这样的单位——你可以玩玩看。当他们在地面上的时候，他们会屠杀步兵，但如果坦克一出现，你就可以让这些小鬼变成空中形态，然后逃离或者反击。

So there’s lots of skill differential in the game. Players that can really use their special abilities and micromanage really well, they’re going to be able to stomp players that can’t. And we’ve gone with a lot of hard counters and specialized units, so there’s a lot of unit mixing. One of the design problems we had in C&C 3 is that there is a lot of single-unit spam, but there’ll be none of that in Red Alert 3. If you’re spamming nothing but tanks, the other player’s gonna scout it, he’s gonna see it, and he’s gonna murder you hard.

游戏中（玩家之间）的水平差异是很大的，真正精通使用技能和微操的玩家能够击败那些不善运用的玩家。而且我们也做了很多硬相克和特殊单位的机制，能够带来多种多样的单位搭配组合。我们在《命令与征服3》中就遇到过只暴一种单位的设计问题，但在《红警3》里不会有（这样的事），如果你只暴坦克的话，其他玩家侦察到，就会狠狠地吊打你。

Greg (DC): That’s exactly how Red Alert 2 was. If you’re just pumping out Kirovs, you’re going to get destroyed.

Greg (DC)：红警2里就是这样的，如果你只出基洛夫的话，你肯定会输。

Steve (DC): And people did that, too. And they did indeed get destroyed.

Steve (DC)：很多人也是这样做的，他们也真的输得很惨。

Greg: Yeah.

Greg：对啊。

Steve (DC): So all the other stuff’s still intact, then? For instance, units can still gain levels/ranks (veterancy)?

Steve (DC)：那其他方面还是老样子吗？比如说，单位还能升星吗？

Greg: Yeah, the veterancy’s still there, and we’ve incorporated a sort of player power system that you’ve seen in other games like C&C Generals, Company of Heroes, etc., where you gain points, and as the battle becomes more intense, you gain them more quickly. But what we’re doing that’s interesting and unique is that we’ve built in this negative feedback loop on the player power points, so that if you’re losing the battle, you’re actually going to gain powers a little bit faster than the guy who’s winning the battle. That’s to help counter the slippery slope problem. So, you know, “I’m losing, I’m losing… but oh, I’m starting to get my powers a little bit faster!”, so if I use it just right, maybe I can come back.

Greg：对，老兵机制还在的。我们还整合了一种你在其他游戏里也能见到的玩家能力机制，比如说《命令与征服将军》、《英雄连》之类的。你可以在这里获得点数，而且随着战斗越来越激烈的时候，你就能更快地获得它们（译者注：这里是指游戏中左下角机密协议按钮旁的威胁计量器，威胁指数越高，你获得协议点数及单位升级的速度就会越快）。但我们在这里做的最有趣而且最独特的设计是，我们在这个玩家能力点数上建立了负反馈的循环，所以如果你输掉了一次战斗，实际上你就会比以前更快地获得战胜对手的力量。这有助于解决滑坡的问题。所以，你懂的，“我输了，但是，哦，我获取能力的速度比以前快了一点！”所以如果我利用得当的话，也许我能够翻盘。

Steve (DC): So that doesn’t translate into cheapness over the internet then, does it?

Steve (DC)：所以这些东西也不是从网上找来的廉价点子，对吧？

Greg: We haven’t seen anything like that yet.

Greg：我们还没看到过类似的东西。

Steve (DC): Okay, good; so you can still destroy people if you’re really good then?

Steve (DC)：那好吧，所以说如果你真的厉害的话，还是能打赢别人的吧？

Greg: Oh, yeah, absolutely. The delta between the guy who is losing and winning is not that wide; it’s just a little bit. And in the powers, something that we’ve tried to do is to give players powers that you can, you know, use against yourself or the enemy. For instance, the Iron Curtain’s really cool, because, you know—“Oh, I’ve got a commando in my base, I’m going to use the Iron Curtain to kill it.” But other times you are going to use it on your own stuff to make it invulnerable.

Greg：对，当然是这样。其实输家与赢家之间的区别并不大，只有一点点而已。我们试着赋予玩家「能力」，把它用在自己或者敌人的身上。比如说，铁幕真的很酷，“哦，我基地里有一个英雄，我要用铁幕干掉她”，但有的时候你也会在自己的单位上面套上它变成无敌状态。

So, for instance, one of the Japanese superweapons is like that as well. It’s kind of hard to describe. You sort of just launch it down an area, so you could cast that on your own base right before a superweapon hits to protect a bunch of your own units.

还有比如说，日本的一种超级武器也是这样的，有点不太好描述。你只需要把它发射到一个区域，这样你就可以在（对面的）超级武器击中之前把它投放到自己的基地里，保护你自己的一堆单位。

One of the Allied units is called the Cryocopter, and it’s the only pure support unit in the game. Anywhere that I wanted something that, in the previous game, you would only be able to build one of them, I just made that a secondary ability on one of your normal units. So the Cryocopter is the only pure support unit, and its main weapon is this freeze beam. Thus, it’ll target a vehicle or an infantry or whatever, and it’ll basically just slow the thing down—you know, its rate of fire and all will slow—until it’s completely frozen. And then any unit, pretty much, can just run up to it and one-shot it. It’s like a big block of ice—boom, it explodes. And then its secondary ability is a shrink ray, so it will shrink a unit, and that unit now moves faster (you know, cartoon physics… and we pitch up their voice; it’s really funny… [laughs]).

盟军有一个单位叫冷冻直升机，它是游戏里唯一的纯支援型单位。如果我想要这种玩意的话，在以前的游戏里，你只能造一个。我所做的只是把它变成了普通单位的第二种能力。所以说冷冻直升机是唯一的纯支援单位，它的主要武器就是这个冻结光束。它能够瞄准车辆或者步兵以及其他的东西，但它基本上只会减慢速度——你知道的，它（目标单位）的射速和别的都会变慢——直到它完全冻结，然后几乎是个单位都可以跑到它面前一枪打爆它，就像一大块冰那样嘭的一声爆开。它的第二种能力是缩小光线，能够缩小一个单位，让这个单位跑得更快，你懂的，就是动画片里那种物理效果.....我们还提高了它们（被缩小单位）的语音音调，真的挺好玩的。（笑）

Steve, Greg (DC): [laughs]

Steve, Greg (DC): （笑出声）

They move faster, they shoot faster, but their damage is lower, so again, it’s the type of thing that—if you had an Apoc tank in your base, you could shrink ray it and then use one of your tanks to run over it. It’s awesome. So, you know, if you want to get your MCV all the way across the map really fast, you can shrink it, zip it across the map, and hopefully by the time it gets to where it wants to go it’ll wear off.

Greg：它们（被缩小单位）跑得更快了，射速也更快了，但它们的伤害降低了。所以说，它（缩小光线）是这种类型的玩意——比如说你的基地里有个（对面的）天启坦克，你可以把它缩小了，然后用自己坦克碾爆它，这非常炫酷。如果你想让你的MCV快速穿越地图的话，你可以把它缩小了（再跑路），祈祷它在花光作用时间之前就到达指定地点。

So we’ve tried to do a lot of that stuff, and have a lot of wacky, crazy unit interactions. [Greg then began to describe to us a maniacally brilliant analogy, but before he could finish explaining, Chris Corry came to retrieve him for booth work].

所以我们已经尝试过很多这样的事情，而且还有很多古怪、疯狂的单位交互设计。（然后Greg开始描述一个非常精彩的类似事情，但Chris Corry走过来打断了他，找他去展台干活）

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