Teut Weidemann and Heiko Schroeder founded Wings Simulations GmbH in 1996. Both have worked in various fields of the gaming industry for 11 years until the opportunity arose to gather the creative talent needed for work on high-level PC simulations.

Panzer Elite follows the initial skirmishes between the German and American forces through North Africa, moving on to Sicily, Italy and Normandy. As a Platoon Commander, your primary objective is assuring your own and your crew's battle performance. You must fulfil your mission goals using guile and tactics -- not by taking foolhardy risks to the detriment of your crew. You must also strategically limit the risks posed to your wingmen. Survival of the war is your primary objective.

Recently we talke to Teut and here is that interview...

Q: Panzer Elite pushes many boundaries for WWII armor combat on the PC. Which ones do you see as the most significant areas of advance for armor sims?

A: Well, we call Panzer Elite (PE for short) the first true armor sim because for the first time you got it all together: the terrain, the unit mix, the simulation. If one of these elements is missing a bit you can't really employ proper tactics, so the siulation aspect is mindered. If I would have to pick one from those three areas I would pick the terrain: No simulation offered the detail and usefulness of terrain we have.

Q: Through the long process and with a project this ambitious you must have learned a few lessons. Which ones stand out for you?

A: Reduce ambition. We had far too much on our list what we wanted to do. Of course the customer will love this, but our schedule and finances didnt like it. I would have reduced the scope of the project to maybe one campaign and expand it later. We had to research not only all vehicles from 1942 to 44, no we had to map the regions in an incredible small scale, research the tactics, weapons, and doctrine....a lot if you consider how it changed in those few years in WWII alone.

Q: As you researched and built Panzer Elite, what facts did you uncover along the way that surprised you? Did they influence the design?

A: Oh, many. We didn't know the units removed their unit markings because they were excellent target markers for the enemy. We didn't know that only a few tanks could turn on the spot. We didn't know that a Tiger consumed 700 liters fuel on 100 kilometers range. We didn't know how gunnery optics worked properly. We didn't know that shells not only dropped due to gravity but also dragged to the right due to their spin. We didn't know that gunners sat on the other side in allied tanks except for the M10, where they sat like in german tanks. We didn't know that over 60% of German tank crews were killed outside the tank. All of those factors influenced design and decisions of course.

Q: How much of your original vision actually made it into the sim? What would you add if you were given another three months?

A: Oh, most has gone in there, and more. We only deleted a couple of things. If we had three more months I would spend that on minor details anoying me. We have some polygon flickers here and there, some tank models are not quite optimal, a tutorial is missing...

Q: How many of these things might yet be seen in an add on?

A: We want to make a tutorial for the demo. Some of the things we where in the initial design which will be seen in the mission disk: Air Strikes, Commanders MG, Mine Fields, Bunkers.

Q: Somewhere I read that PE is an open design and users will be able to edit and add new elements. What kind of user edits and add-ons do you expect to see?

A: I expect units to pop up first, they are easiest to do. Scenarios will likely show up when we publish the scenario editor. Modifications of existing scenarios are easy to do too.

Q: After many thousands of hours building Panzer Elite, will you play it yourself? What is your favorite tank to fight with?

A: I will, of course. I only do games I would love to see myself. Why bother with a game I dont like to see and play myself? I started a desert campaign recently I need to finish. Although its fun to fight in a Tiger or Panther I must say playing a Panzer IV throughout the war is my way to go.

Q: What was the public beta process like? Would you do it again?

A: It was great. We had tons of feedback which helped us set priorities. And certainly we would do it again, although I would clearly mark the beta as such: many people thought it was the official demo (and still think it is). It was less work than I thought it would be, so that was a surprise.

Planning for German Campaign

Q: If sales go as well as you expect, how long will we wait for the first expansion? What can you tell us about it? What would you like to do if sales go well?

A: Well, the mission disk is the first thing we already planned. It will cover the Battle of the Bulge plus the fight to the Rhine. That should be ready mid of next year if things go well.

If sales are going well and we can place Panzer Elite II it should be a release of mid 2001, that heavily depends on what the final design will be. If the mission disk does well a gold version might contain addtional features too. We want to fully continue support for the game throuhg our website, so expect goodies being posted there :o)

Italian Town

Q: How will recent hardware advances influence future projects from WINGS?

A: A lot of course. We are looking forward seeing T&L (Transform and Lightning) in all cards and in consumer machines. The more work those new cards do the more we can use the processor for the game and not the graphics. We can now plan for uch more than we could in Panzer Elite. PE was planned for P166's, now we can plan for P2's which means better math support, more cache, more memory, MMX standard etc.

But the 3D hardware cards aren't at the end yet. If we come to the point where every pixel got its own math unit then we can talk serious business :o)

Q: How will the growth of the Internet influence your future projects?

A: Yes. We used the internet for work already but will use it now for games at the customer end as well. All future projects are planned as front ends for massive multiplayer games, even if the massive online game never would see the light of the day. If a developer doesn't prepare their game to go massive MP as a front end he is throwing his work out of the window. In the hope that our future games are successful we want to be prepared to move it online as well.