Happy 10th Birthday, Return to Castle Wolfenstein!

(badman) #1

A new blog entry has been added:

[drupal=898]Happy 10th Birthday, Return to Castle Wolfenstein![/drupal]


The first game Splash Damage ever officially contributed to, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, is 10 years old! Following our success with the Operation Marketgarden map, Splash Damage crafted three all-new multiplayer maps for the RtCW Game of the Year edition: The Damned, Rocket, and Tram Siege (still one of this humble editor’s favorite maps of all time) took that game’s objective mode to new environments and laid the foundation for Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory.
As a small birthday treat from us, we dug out the original whiteboard topdown for The Damned, which you can find at the top of this post (click it for maximum bigness).
Here’s to you, Return to Castle Wolfenstein!

(ronboy) #2

Happy Birthday to my favorite game! :cool:

(TheSgtBilko) #3

10 years, a game with a lot of brilliant ideas that you hardly ever see in the current batch of games.

Happy Birthday!

(tokamak) #4

Happy Birthday! Still deserves the QuakeLive treatment one day.

(kat) #5

And a special 4th wish for Single Player!

(light_sh4v0r) #6

Congrats :slight_smile:
Never played it but it’s been the basis of some other games I happen to have enjoyed lately.

(Locki) #7

Since Richard Jolly is quick to claim credit for everything we ever made :slight_smile: I want to be quick to point out that Tram Siege was my idea!

It was part of my obsession to add Moving Things to every multiplayer map that I could :slight_smile:

That said, Jolly probably helped make it a bit… :stuck_out_tongue:

(DarkangelUK) #8

Still my fave team based MP game to date \o/

(G0atL0rd) #9

The best game ever,our clan played it non-stop for 5-6 years until QW. Hopefully WET re-incarnates again in a new engine.

(TheSgtBilko) #10

Pics or it never happened :slight_smile:

(tokamak) #11

Glad you stuck with it :frowning:

(Kendle) #12

The game that got me into gaming in the 1st place.

I was bought RTCW and Q3 Arena for xmas 2001, tried Q3, didn’t like it, a friend at work described it as “run around, shoot everything that isn’t you, and the guy with the fastest 'net connection wins”, turned out that was pretty much it. So tried RTCW and found I could play as a Medic or an Engineer and contribute to the team effort without needing to be a great shot (which I wasn’t, and still ain’t).

Joined my 1st RTCW clan within weeks of going online, discovered the wonderful world of “talking to the other people you’re playing with” and haven’t looked back since.

Whilst I was one of the 1st to switch to ET (mainly due to boredom with the 6 standard war maps that everyone insisted on playing in RTCW) I still feel RTCW got pretty much everything right, whereas everything that’s come after it has got something or other wrong to a greater or lesser degree.

If there had only been some quality custom (competition) maps for RTCW, or the clan scene at the time had been less intransigent, I can’t help feeling it would’ve lasted longer, or if with ET SD had produced what ET was originally supposed to be, an expansion pack for RTCW rather than a new, and inferior, game … ah well we can all dream :wink:

(Dormamu) #13

RTCW, was light years ahead of its time.
10 years, and still, i can remember everything that happen in that moment when i first heard the Intro and the Main Theme,
[video=youtube_share;tPG1zSHS2cM]http://youtu.be/tPG1zSHS2cM[/video]
… awesome game, a mesmerizing experience.

I hope to see the day when SD would surpass their masterpiece W:ET (free or not free). A simple gesture, to small to go unnoticed, so powerful in his meaning. To give your hard work, for free, so that others can see what you can offer to this world, it is truly, a moment in time when you, SD can say that you have given everything that you had, and expected nothing in return. m(_ _)m

PS. RTCW and W:ET can have this effect on me :smiley:

(Miki) #14

With brink out the front door, they’ll probably be looking at some new title to make. As many people here may wish - I’m afraid there won’t be an ET2. But hopefully they look back at what ‘made’ them, 10 years ago.

No offence to Brink, but personally I don’t need any character customization or weapon customization. Just connect to a server & start playing. I can have the worst aim but still supply, mortar or whatever my team to victory! Keep it simple SD!

Any chance on a birthday party? :wink:

(Scrupus) #15

Congrats with 10 years, RTCW! :smiley:

Never got the chance to play the MP more than a few times, but played the SP a few years after release - and once again a few years ago!

The SP was great, and the MP in W:ET close enough that I’m sure it must have been a great MP as well :slight_smile:

Cool whiteboard drawing, nice to see the initial drafts of those maps :slight_smile:

(Englander) #16

Before RTCW I just never got the futility of FPS games, just running around shooting people for me was mind numbing. Then RTCW came out and with its team based objectives and one of the best maps of all time MP Beach, all of a sudden shooting the other team interested me! I’ve always found WWII very interesting and this game even had that element. Even though at the time I only had dial up lol I still was playing the game constantly and have very fond memories! Sad to think 10 years on that the mechanics of this game IMO have not been bettered, and with the console port era I can’t see that changing!

Thanks for the memories…

(Loffy) #17

RtCW, a truly great game, happy 10th birthday.

(Ruben0s) #18

steam action :wink:

(JinxterX) #19

Happy Birthday to the best game ever made, and yes, people still play it :smiley:

(Evil-Doer) #20

Literally the BEST game EVER made! Nothing like the stories and fun this game has created! The PUBS, the CAL-i competitions, the tournaments, the ABSOLUTE amazingness of this game will never be forgotten. ONLY If this game was REMADE with maybe slightly better graphics for the many that care, even with the same maps, with a few added, I truely believe this game would hit off big. Hate to bring up CS but look what they keep doing, release the same game, SLIGHTLY improved!