The Recent Interview With The Ns Team
Gunman_Addraek
Join Date: 2004-11-19 Member: 32883Members, Constellation
Join Date: 2004-11-19 Member: 32883Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">A mini transcript (as much as I could)</div> Ahh!!
20 minutes into doing the transcript for everyone I got ADD. I saw that there was another 30 minutes of discussion left and well.. I couldn't handle it. Here is what I got of it. Note that I skipped a few things like names and labels for who was talking but it reads coherently (except for Flayra, I pointed him out; its fairly obvious when an NS member is speaking). Forgive me for not mentioning names because it was very difficult to tell what they said <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
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Alright ladies and gentlemen. What you have been waiting for, we?re bringing it to you right about now, the Natural Selection interviews. Here we are, we?re here in the interview channel. We?re here with Natural Selection. What?s going on, Ante? I?ll let you take it away.
Not much, and as Defi said, uh, we?re here with the NS crew getting ready to ask them some questions, getting some questions from you guys that we will relay onto them and they?ll try to answer them most as clearly as possible. I guess to start it all off, uh guys, please introduce yourselves and state your role to the NS team. We?ll start off with Flayra, then go on down the line I guess.
Fl: Hey, this is Flayra, my name is Charlie Clevelend, and I?m the designer and uh, project lead for the game.
My name is 2Nemesis, I?m known as tier around here, my real name is ?. and I?m the level design QA Lead.
I?m ?my name is <> and I?m the QA Mananger. QA meaning Quality Assurance, not Question and Answer. Somebody sent me an email about that once.
Those guys actually do a lot more than just those two things, but those are technically their roles.
Q: Alright, so can you guys briefly explain your mod for those who don?t really know about Natural-Selection and those who might be interested in covering the Source release?
A: Sure, I guess I should do that. Natural-Selection is a first-person shooter real-time strategy hybrid. Which basically means ?you have no idea what that means? Its kinda like take Starcraft and Quake and mixing them together. You have up to 16 Marines and up to 16 Aliens, multiplayer only. One of the Marines can become a Commander, given a top down view of the world and give orders, kind of like Starcraft. You can build weapons, and research technologies, and drop structures, and things like that.
I think the most important thing to keep in mind about the Commander role too is that when you give those orders, you?re giving orders to real players, and not to any bots. So, they may do what you want, and they may not.
That makes NS one of the most teamwork oriented games that exists currently. You definitely rely on skills and co-operation of your teammates to succeed with your strategy, whether you?re Marines or Aliens.
Good one.
Q: Alright, while making this mod, what did you guys see as the biggest challenge in making it for Half-Life 2 or for making it for regular Half-Life..and did you guys plan to start from the ground up or basically take most of the old Natural-Selection and bring it right in to ((Half-Life 2))?
Fl: Well, when we started the game three years ago there was no Half-Life 2, but you know, clearly we would do it for Half-Life 2 if we were starting it all over right now. We don?t know exactly what we?re doing as far as Source goes, because we don?t have our hands on the SDK yet. The Mini-SDK has been released so far?it?s really not enough to evaluate how long different features are going to take. So, we really don?t know if we?re going to move NS, or when, or what form. The other big thing there is that we don?t know how much the community is going to move over. We definitely don?t want to switch engines on people if most of the people actually just stay with NS. So, you guys want to expand on that?
Yeah, I was just going to say, in all likelihood it?s not going to be accurate to call it a port, because we?re most likely going to have to recreate most of our code and content in order to benefit from the Source engine.
Fl: I actually think we?re going to be able to keep our code here, but it will definitely be a month or two to port the code, but the rest of it, I think is going to have to be redone. And I think that a lot of our players would question whether we should move to a new engine and then give them the same game after months of work, or whether they?d want us to put those few months into actually improving the gameplay. So, we have to weigh those decisions.
Q: Alright, and a quick question from a listener. What type of gameplay differences are planned?for example, changes in favor of aliens and that sort of thing?
Fl: Well, <laughs> we really don?t even know the capabilities of the engine yet. We haven?t gotten to play with it. There?s obviously so much cool stuff to do?all these toys! We really just don?t know yet. <laughs> Only time will tell.
We could baffle you with all the awesome possibilities but that really is going to wet your appetite needlessly. Until we actually get down to planning new features, there?s no way to know what?s possibly going to go in.
We?re looking forward to the (hopefully) vastly improved VGUI. A lot of the current cool things about the game, like the Commander view (which makes it all really different) are really just clever hacks of the VGUI and other things like that in Half-Life, which is pretty broken as Charlie can definitely tell you.
Fl: <Laughs> Oh man.
We?re hoping that there will be big improvements there in the VGUI that we just don?t have access to yet, that will just open up things that people?ve been wanting in the game, and that we?ve wanted in the game, but haven?t been able to implement for technical reasons.
Fl: Yeah, a lot of times people think that we?re just ignoring their comments and their feedback, but a lot of times, the things that we really want to fix are just incredibly difficult. Or just the things that we fix, we could only fix if we broke something else. So hopefully Source will just allow us to really tune up a lot of things and just improve the overall quality of the game. Then we could start thinking about crazy new features.
Then we get to the fun part where we can sit there and talk about flamethrowers, mounted on onos and things like that?
Fl: Shh, Shh? Flamethrower would finally be possible, now that you mention it, without looking like the TFC cone of sprites.
<laughs> Yeah.
Q: So what are the big things that you?re looking forward to doing that weren?t exactly possible in HL1?
Larger player numbers, volumetric weaponry, those are a few that come to mind for me. Then if you go into level design technology, you?re able to get a lot more out of your maps in HL2 than you would?ve been able to in HL1.
Fl: Yeah, a lot of times the mappers can?t even put the atmospheric stuff that we wanted the mappers to - like sounds and ambient .mp3?s and particles, since the performance really dropped when we went over 200, 300 entities. Hopefully that will be fixed.
And our PR guy is saying that ragdoll physics, how can you forget? It would definitely be really cool, especially shooting the aliens and having their bodies twist in the air and slam up against walls.
I think that modeling in general is one of the areas we?re looking forward to being able to do on the engine. From the little bit of a preview we got?well..the biggest problem we?ve had with the models is these four legged alien creatures and it just really breaks a lot of the animations and the ?look? of what you?d like to do with those kind of creatures in HL1. In HL2, you?ve seen the preview of some of the alien creatures they have there, like the Striders, these big three legged things, so I?m thinking that based on the demos we saw, that a lot of the animations are going to look really nice on the larger creatures.
Fl: Not to mention the texturing effects and the shaders? I mean we could start to have things like shiny Fade carapace and you know?glistening aliens?we could start making them really pop.
Q: While we?re talking about improving technology and how your style will have to change?How do you think modding style will change and adapt with the improving technology?
Fl:About the only big thing that I can think of is that team sizes will have to grow, just as the content requirements are getting larger with every new engine. Source is no exception. I mean, NS is a small team already. We have around 10 members. That number is just going to have to keep going up just to handle, you know, the ability to create these complex creatures. That?s the biggest thing. Bigger teams.
Personally, I think that rather than doubling or tripling the size of the team, we?d get a lot more benefit out of acquiring more efficient tools to help us create content, and finding better ways to test the content. Basically, just reducing the overhead on creating some things so that we can put out more in less time.
Fl: Definitely. I think that?s just smart team development in general. but most people don?t understand that?
You know we?re moving from an engine that dates back to ?98..if we?re talking about doing things on a new engine..there?s all these things that are unlocked. That means that all the technical people that are involved in creating the content have to be a lot more savvy and have to update their skillset. HL?s been around so long, there?s all these tutorials that are out there now so it?s fairly easy to find people with experience in it. But with HL2, there may be people that have decided that its too complicated for them? so?
This is really where you have to hit the ground running and adapt to the new engine if you want to succeed in creating a mod?and I think that at this point, in the game development universe, any company that is planning to have their game last longer than a year or so is going to have to leave the potential for mods to be created for that game.
Fl: Yeah, the technical requirements have grown, so its harder to create content for it, but the nice thing is that it sounds like Valve has really paid attention. Obviously they know mods are a big part of their success, so they?re making sure that Hammer and QC files and maps and all that junk can actually get up and running with Source relatively quickly. I know the code is supposed to port fairly easily, but NS is probably the biggest code base for any mod?so that will be a lot of work for us.
Yeah, I?m definitely pleased to see the improvements that they?ve made to the technology for solid entities..to be able to move and have more than one property. That will give us a lot of freedom to make the levels more a part of the gameplay than they used to be.
Fl: Hopefully there is more than three hulls now too. So we don?t have the onos..the crouched onos that?s the sized of a standing player and all those other bad things.
Q: A lot of people have been asking, what exactly is the bus that you guys have been mentioning? What are exactly the main points of it?
Oh, I can answer that! That?s how we?re going to drive <> to school in the morning.
Fl: Yes, it?s a big oblong yellow thing. Um?
Actually its something we?ve been talking about for awhile internally, and we?ve been working on for many months?Carl Patrick, known as XPCage has been doing a great job on it. All I can say is that it?s a big new system that is just going to transform the way is going to be played. <laughs> We wanted to tell everyone a little more about it, but we?ve always gotten bitten when we announce something early and then have to wait months before its finished, so. We?re keeping our mouths shut.
Yeah, I think we?d be much better off keeping our mouths shut and just making it the most interesting and useful thing that we can so that when it finally does come out, people will just be pleased and they won?t mind having waited.
Fl: One thing that I can say about it is that its something that I don?t believe any other games are doing?so I think its going to be..maybe not as unique as the first-person shooter real-time strategy angle, but it?s definitely a big bold step that will really change the way games are played, I think.
And one more thing about that, we?ve been trying to get the first version of it into the game for awhile, and we?re going to have kind of?a first hidden version of it. No one will know that its in there, you won?t be able to tell..but we?ll probably have the first version that we can test in Beta 6. If that?s the case then we?ll probably start to be more forthcoming with information because it will be that much closer.
Yeah, that will be a benefit to help us develop the system. Not anything that any player knows exists.
We?re closed beta testing v3.0 B6.
Q: People are wondering, with all the plans ahead, are there any plans for new aliens or races in NS?
Fl: Well, I don?t know. We?ve worked so hard to get the game balanced at this point, that adding a new big alien might be a lot of work. So I?m not sure yet. We don?t know. The future is wide open because we gotta see what we?re doing with Source first. Then we can talk about it.
That definitely falls into the category of ?big awesome things that we might be able to do with the source engine but haven?t decided yet?.
Fl: The scariest thing there is not even the amount of work of creating it, but balancing it. That?s the big cost there.
Alright, someone was saying, will NS ever focus more on strategic gameplay than action gameplay? Something new and refreshing as opposed to HL mod FPS madness.
Fl: I can answer that one. When we started NS, I really had the idea that there was going to be more of a strategic element, and I had kind of designed it originally ----
----------------------
And thats where I gave up. haha <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
This is also technically my first post, but uhm....I've been with NS for a long while. I'm sure at least a few of you will recognize me, at least I hope so Haha.. I finally got a different email than the one I got when I first started playing NS in 1.0, so I can USE THE MESSAGE BOARDS FINALLY.
Yay <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/wink-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
You're welcome in advance,
Gunman
20 minutes into doing the transcript for everyone I got ADD. I saw that there was another 30 minutes of discussion left and well.. I couldn't handle it. Here is what I got of it. Note that I skipped a few things like names and labels for who was talking but it reads coherently (except for Flayra, I pointed him out; its fairly obvious when an NS member is speaking). Forgive me for not mentioning names because it was very difficult to tell what they said <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alright ladies and gentlemen. What you have been waiting for, we?re bringing it to you right about now, the Natural Selection interviews. Here we are, we?re here in the interview channel. We?re here with Natural Selection. What?s going on, Ante? I?ll let you take it away.
Not much, and as Defi said, uh, we?re here with the NS crew getting ready to ask them some questions, getting some questions from you guys that we will relay onto them and they?ll try to answer them most as clearly as possible. I guess to start it all off, uh guys, please introduce yourselves and state your role to the NS team. We?ll start off with Flayra, then go on down the line I guess.
Fl: Hey, this is Flayra, my name is Charlie Clevelend, and I?m the designer and uh, project lead for the game.
My name is 2Nemesis, I?m known as tier around here, my real name is ?. and I?m the level design QA Lead.
I?m ?my name is <> and I?m the QA Mananger. QA meaning Quality Assurance, not Question and Answer. Somebody sent me an email about that once.
Those guys actually do a lot more than just those two things, but those are technically their roles.
Q: Alright, so can you guys briefly explain your mod for those who don?t really know about Natural-Selection and those who might be interested in covering the Source release?
A: Sure, I guess I should do that. Natural-Selection is a first-person shooter real-time strategy hybrid. Which basically means ?you have no idea what that means? Its kinda like take Starcraft and Quake and mixing them together. You have up to 16 Marines and up to 16 Aliens, multiplayer only. One of the Marines can become a Commander, given a top down view of the world and give orders, kind of like Starcraft. You can build weapons, and research technologies, and drop structures, and things like that.
I think the most important thing to keep in mind about the Commander role too is that when you give those orders, you?re giving orders to real players, and not to any bots. So, they may do what you want, and they may not.
That makes NS one of the most teamwork oriented games that exists currently. You definitely rely on skills and co-operation of your teammates to succeed with your strategy, whether you?re Marines or Aliens.
Good one.
Q: Alright, while making this mod, what did you guys see as the biggest challenge in making it for Half-Life 2 or for making it for regular Half-Life..and did you guys plan to start from the ground up or basically take most of the old Natural-Selection and bring it right in to ((Half-Life 2))?
Fl: Well, when we started the game three years ago there was no Half-Life 2, but you know, clearly we would do it for Half-Life 2 if we were starting it all over right now. We don?t know exactly what we?re doing as far as Source goes, because we don?t have our hands on the SDK yet. The Mini-SDK has been released so far?it?s really not enough to evaluate how long different features are going to take. So, we really don?t know if we?re going to move NS, or when, or what form. The other big thing there is that we don?t know how much the community is going to move over. We definitely don?t want to switch engines on people if most of the people actually just stay with NS. So, you guys want to expand on that?
Yeah, I was just going to say, in all likelihood it?s not going to be accurate to call it a port, because we?re most likely going to have to recreate most of our code and content in order to benefit from the Source engine.
Fl: I actually think we?re going to be able to keep our code here, but it will definitely be a month or two to port the code, but the rest of it, I think is going to have to be redone. And I think that a lot of our players would question whether we should move to a new engine and then give them the same game after months of work, or whether they?d want us to put those few months into actually improving the gameplay. So, we have to weigh those decisions.
Q: Alright, and a quick question from a listener. What type of gameplay differences are planned?for example, changes in favor of aliens and that sort of thing?
Fl: Well, <laughs> we really don?t even know the capabilities of the engine yet. We haven?t gotten to play with it. There?s obviously so much cool stuff to do?all these toys! We really just don?t know yet. <laughs> Only time will tell.
We could baffle you with all the awesome possibilities but that really is going to wet your appetite needlessly. Until we actually get down to planning new features, there?s no way to know what?s possibly going to go in.
We?re looking forward to the (hopefully) vastly improved VGUI. A lot of the current cool things about the game, like the Commander view (which makes it all really different) are really just clever hacks of the VGUI and other things like that in Half-Life, which is pretty broken as Charlie can definitely tell you.
Fl: <Laughs> Oh man.
We?re hoping that there will be big improvements there in the VGUI that we just don?t have access to yet, that will just open up things that people?ve been wanting in the game, and that we?ve wanted in the game, but haven?t been able to implement for technical reasons.
Fl: Yeah, a lot of times people think that we?re just ignoring their comments and their feedback, but a lot of times, the things that we really want to fix are just incredibly difficult. Or just the things that we fix, we could only fix if we broke something else. So hopefully Source will just allow us to really tune up a lot of things and just improve the overall quality of the game. Then we could start thinking about crazy new features.
Then we get to the fun part where we can sit there and talk about flamethrowers, mounted on onos and things like that?
Fl: Shh, Shh? Flamethrower would finally be possible, now that you mention it, without looking like the TFC cone of sprites.
<laughs> Yeah.
Q: So what are the big things that you?re looking forward to doing that weren?t exactly possible in HL1?
Larger player numbers, volumetric weaponry, those are a few that come to mind for me. Then if you go into level design technology, you?re able to get a lot more out of your maps in HL2 than you would?ve been able to in HL1.
Fl: Yeah, a lot of times the mappers can?t even put the atmospheric stuff that we wanted the mappers to - like sounds and ambient .mp3?s and particles, since the performance really dropped when we went over 200, 300 entities. Hopefully that will be fixed.
And our PR guy is saying that ragdoll physics, how can you forget? It would definitely be really cool, especially shooting the aliens and having their bodies twist in the air and slam up against walls.
I think that modeling in general is one of the areas we?re looking forward to being able to do on the engine. From the little bit of a preview we got?well..the biggest problem we?ve had with the models is these four legged alien creatures and it just really breaks a lot of the animations and the ?look? of what you?d like to do with those kind of creatures in HL1. In HL2, you?ve seen the preview of some of the alien creatures they have there, like the Striders, these big three legged things, so I?m thinking that based on the demos we saw, that a lot of the animations are going to look really nice on the larger creatures.
Fl: Not to mention the texturing effects and the shaders? I mean we could start to have things like shiny Fade carapace and you know?glistening aliens?we could start making them really pop.
Q: While we?re talking about improving technology and how your style will have to change?How do you think modding style will change and adapt with the improving technology?
Fl:About the only big thing that I can think of is that team sizes will have to grow, just as the content requirements are getting larger with every new engine. Source is no exception. I mean, NS is a small team already. We have around 10 members. That number is just going to have to keep going up just to handle, you know, the ability to create these complex creatures. That?s the biggest thing. Bigger teams.
Personally, I think that rather than doubling or tripling the size of the team, we?d get a lot more benefit out of acquiring more efficient tools to help us create content, and finding better ways to test the content. Basically, just reducing the overhead on creating some things so that we can put out more in less time.
Fl: Definitely. I think that?s just smart team development in general. but most people don?t understand that?
You know we?re moving from an engine that dates back to ?98..if we?re talking about doing things on a new engine..there?s all these things that are unlocked. That means that all the technical people that are involved in creating the content have to be a lot more savvy and have to update their skillset. HL?s been around so long, there?s all these tutorials that are out there now so it?s fairly easy to find people with experience in it. But with HL2, there may be people that have decided that its too complicated for them? so?
This is really where you have to hit the ground running and adapt to the new engine if you want to succeed in creating a mod?and I think that at this point, in the game development universe, any company that is planning to have their game last longer than a year or so is going to have to leave the potential for mods to be created for that game.
Fl: Yeah, the technical requirements have grown, so its harder to create content for it, but the nice thing is that it sounds like Valve has really paid attention. Obviously they know mods are a big part of their success, so they?re making sure that Hammer and QC files and maps and all that junk can actually get up and running with Source relatively quickly. I know the code is supposed to port fairly easily, but NS is probably the biggest code base for any mod?so that will be a lot of work for us.
Yeah, I?m definitely pleased to see the improvements that they?ve made to the technology for solid entities..to be able to move and have more than one property. That will give us a lot of freedom to make the levels more a part of the gameplay than they used to be.
Fl: Hopefully there is more than three hulls now too. So we don?t have the onos..the crouched onos that?s the sized of a standing player and all those other bad things.
Q: A lot of people have been asking, what exactly is the bus that you guys have been mentioning? What are exactly the main points of it?
Oh, I can answer that! That?s how we?re going to drive <> to school in the morning.
Fl: Yes, it?s a big oblong yellow thing. Um?
Actually its something we?ve been talking about for awhile internally, and we?ve been working on for many months?Carl Patrick, known as XPCage has been doing a great job on it. All I can say is that it?s a big new system that is just going to transform the way is going to be played. <laughs> We wanted to tell everyone a little more about it, but we?ve always gotten bitten when we announce something early and then have to wait months before its finished, so. We?re keeping our mouths shut.
Yeah, I think we?d be much better off keeping our mouths shut and just making it the most interesting and useful thing that we can so that when it finally does come out, people will just be pleased and they won?t mind having waited.
Fl: One thing that I can say about it is that its something that I don?t believe any other games are doing?so I think its going to be..maybe not as unique as the first-person shooter real-time strategy angle, but it?s definitely a big bold step that will really change the way games are played, I think.
And one more thing about that, we?ve been trying to get the first version of it into the game for awhile, and we?re going to have kind of?a first hidden version of it. No one will know that its in there, you won?t be able to tell..but we?ll probably have the first version that we can test in Beta 6. If that?s the case then we?ll probably start to be more forthcoming with information because it will be that much closer.
Yeah, that will be a benefit to help us develop the system. Not anything that any player knows exists.
We?re closed beta testing v3.0 B6.
Q: People are wondering, with all the plans ahead, are there any plans for new aliens or races in NS?
Fl: Well, I don?t know. We?ve worked so hard to get the game balanced at this point, that adding a new big alien might be a lot of work. So I?m not sure yet. We don?t know. The future is wide open because we gotta see what we?re doing with Source first. Then we can talk about it.
That definitely falls into the category of ?big awesome things that we might be able to do with the source engine but haven?t decided yet?.
Fl: The scariest thing there is not even the amount of work of creating it, but balancing it. That?s the big cost there.
Alright, someone was saying, will NS ever focus more on strategic gameplay than action gameplay? Something new and refreshing as opposed to HL mod FPS madness.
Fl: I can answer that one. When we started NS, I really had the idea that there was going to be more of a strategic element, and I had kind of designed it originally ----
----------------------
And thats where I gave up. haha <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
This is also technically my first post, but uhm....I've been with NS for a long while. I'm sure at least a few of you will recognize me, at least I hope so Haha.. I finally got a different email than the one I got when I first started playing NS in 1.0, so I can USE THE MESSAGE BOARDS FINALLY.
Yay <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/wink-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
You're welcome in advance,
Gunman
Comments
--Gunman
oh give me a break.. I quit, LOL!!
I took the time, atleast, to show who was speaking when, but man you came that far you need to finish it since I just started.
Much <3.
--Gunman
Oh, and PS : Give me names of who said what and I'll be glad to edit them!
It was just hard to decipher <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Really illuminating interview, just the kind of thing I'd hoped for but didn't expect. Its nice to see the dev team open up and discuss things like that i.e. how limiting the current VGUI is, never even occurred to me that it was such an important factor!
The whole bus/Beta6 thing is interesting too, I've got a few vague ideas about what it might mean but I'm not gonna start openly speculating as the chances are I'm completely wrong <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Your effort was much appreciated though. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I've got some time so I'll just go listen to it.