GameSpy: You've been hinting for some time that your next project would be an RTS with tanks and planes, reviving the spirit of the Total Annihilation series that you spearheaded. So what is the plan and how will it bring the TA-style excitement into the existing RTS environment of Warcraft III and Command & Conquer: Generals?
 
    Chris Taylor: We have been talking here at Gas Powered Games about our next big RTS game for quite some time, and now that Dungeon Siege is complete, it's time to start this next big project.
 
    For us, RTS games have always meant a game experience that is visually fantastic and way over the top. To us, more than ever, an RTS game should put the player in charge of a non-stop Hollywood action movie… huge explosions, and diabolical plots to overthrow your opponent. To us it means surprising your opponent and the implementation of new ideas and strategies each time you play. Player's need the tools to be creative and to fabricate both solid military strategies and far-fetched strategic maneuvers that work in spite of overwhelming odds. It's about rubbing your hands together maniacally and wondering what the other player is going to say when they finally understand what you have been up to, and the war machine that you have built.  
 
GameSpy: Infogrames still owns the Total Annihilation IP, although Phantagram has the one-shot rights to make Total Annihilation 2. How difficult will it be to bring your vision of a TA sequel to life without being a Total Annihilation game? Have you approached Infogrames about getting the TA name?
 
    Chris Taylor: Many people have asked us if acquiring the TA name was an instrumental part of the new game's design, and although we think it's a nice to have, it's certainly not necessary. There is no denying the sentimental value of releasing it under the TA name, but we are completely comfortable building a brand-new game under a brand-new name.  
 
GameSpy: How easy/difficult will it be to do a "tanks and planes" RTS with all the ex-Cavedoggies on your staff?
 
    Chris Taylor: Most of what we will be focusing on is stuff that has never been done before, innovative new interface designs, "Turing Test" AI, and a game that has been designed from the ground up to be modable.  
 
GameSpy: One of the best parts of TA was the ability to feel as if you were in a 3D environment while playing in a top-down 2D game. I assume you plan to go full 3D this time around. Will you be building a new engine from the ground up or will there be things you can cannibalize from the Dungeon Siege engine?
 
    Chris Taylor: We'll take a lot of lessons that we learned while creating the Dungeon Siege engine, but for this game a new engine will be required. The interesting thing to note about the TA engine is that it was 3D, but you couldn't adjust the camera, which meant we got a lot of performance optimizations by pre-rendering the terrain, and not having to sort all the units and objects, which takes up a lot of CPU time.  
 
 
GameSpy: TA was very successful in getting the fan community involved. They took the source code, tore it apart and built their own mods, units, and maps. And that was without help from Cavedog. What are your plans for enabling the fan community to feel more apart of this RTS endeavor?
 
    Chris Taylor: The key to the design of this new game is to take everything that we learned about "modding" in the past five years and applying that from day one. This will radically change the architecture and make it possible to do things that were not even conceived of in the past.
 
    For example, a couple of years ago it was possible to "swap out" an existing interface, now it's possible to completely replace it with a brand-new design. We will be taking that sort of philosophy and applying it across the board in every aspect of the games core architecture and design.
 
GameSpy: On a related note, two words: downloadable units. Cavedog did it really well and virtually modified gameplay strategies with every new unit released. No one has done that since. Is it something you are considering?
 
    Chris Taylor: The engine will support this completely, and in many ways, will support much more than that. What we have learned, and this was a very valuable lesson, is that you don't make too many promises too early on about delivering this kind of stuff … it's much better to surprise everyone.  
 
GameSpy: Have you given any thought to a storyline? If there was one weakness in the TA game, it was a so-so story. What can we expect this time around?
 
    Chris Taylor: Well, this is a good question, because as many people know, I focus on the gameplay first and the story second. What you can expect is that we'll deliver a much tighter and cohesive story, but we aren't going to make it our first priority, it will always come second to gameplay.
 
 
GameSpy: Where are you in the concept and design and how much preproduction is planned?
 
    Chris Taylor: We are in the very early design stages. We plan on having at least a year of pre-production, and even this won't start until spring next year. Once a game goes into full-blown production it is very expensive. This makes it more important than ever that we have all our ducks in a row before production starts.
 
GameSpy: How many people do you plan on devoting to the project once it gets going full-speed … and will this essentially make Gas Powered Games a two-team development house?
 
    Chris Taylor: RTS games are generally not as content heavy as an RPG, so the team will be smaller than the Dungeon Siege team. We will indeed be a two team development house, but we'll alternate the cycles to allow people to work on both titles.  
 
GameSpy: Thinking much further ahead … Is this a project you want to have a long lifespan AFTER the game is finally released, or are you thinking this could be a "one game plus expansion" type deal?
 
    Chris Taylor: This is most definitely not a one game deal. We are not motivated by anything other than our love for RTS games, and we will be doing this for a very long time. Our one single goal is to create the largest and most fantastic RTS experience ever.
 
 
GameSpy: Finally, why did you go RPG before RTS? I know this has been something you have wanted to do since your TA days.
 
    Chris Taylor: There were several reasons, but one of the biggest was to see if we could do something completely different. We all knew that if we could make an RPG, we would round-out our skill sets and learn more lessons about game development than almost any other genre. And now, we can take a lot of the design philosophies and development practices and put them to work … it has been an ideal sequence of events.•