QuakePlanet.ru interview
Posted: (061112)(07:11.05)
I was asked to give an interview on http://www.QuakePlanet.ru, a Russian Quake 4 site, about Shadowing Hate, so I thought I would post it here too as more public info about the project, as the interview may most likely end up shortened and translated to Russian on the website.
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Hello again.
"I'm owner of largest Russian Quake 4 fansite (www.QuakePlanet.ru). We are all waiting your total conversion Shadowing Hate for Quake 4. Can you give us some more detailed information about your project (maybe interview)? (including screenshots and arts)."
- Sorry to say that a singleplayer release is still a long time from happening. We plan to have a multiplayer test released by early next year, but the singleplayer missions could take a very long time yet, because our team is still really too small for projects this big. Everything can be found on the website, including screenshots and information, as well as some videos of our models:- (http://www.violationentertainment.com/g_sh.html) any other questions are welcome and can be asked at our team forum here:- (http://www.violationentertainment.com/forum/) and you can also find more information and screenshots there.
"Following some question: About what your TC (shadowing hate)? (universe, setting, storyline)"
- It has been heavily inspired from games like the "Deus Ex" titles and "Perfect Dark 64", and the storylines are similar too. Global domination and technological warfare, and the prevention of. In Shadowing Hate, it is by use of large armies of robotics and so many times in Shadowing Hate your enemies will be robotic units, but also human enemies such as the city police force, who regard the player as a criminal. It will _not_ include aliens, demons, zombies, ghosts or anything supernatural like that. The setting begins in a large futuristic city environment but we plan to release the mod in chapters, so later chapters will include other settings such as forests and subterranean Arctic, possibly even an ocean setting including underwater Pacific. Before that, we must finish the first metropolis chapter and multiplayer tests.
"Could you tell more about game universe? Where and in what year will occur actions?"
- The year will be roughly only 30 years from now, so many of the settings will be familiar. Much technology is still underdeveloped, robotics is still not perfected and cybernetics is still new and dangerous, and the player will encounter many general problems in this futuristic world and with their own identity and psychology, because our lead character, the player, has cybernetic and biomechanical implants, they have many faults and this will often be made to affect the player. The story also involves the breakdown of global economics, massive surges in population and the effects of small-scale nuclear war and global warming, and the political motives to resolve these problems, both good and bad, passive and aggressive, by some very desperate people. The player is a small but very important part of these larger political issues.
"What genre there will be a game? (arcade FPS, stealth action, horror, shoot'em up..)"
- We will focus on intense action, but we are also planning a balance of stealth gameplay. Very little horror, but it will be a very violent experience as we evolve many special effects including the "frag" event. We hope to create a multi-genre game experience that is an intense action FPS with stealthy intellectual RPG aspects.
"It will be really 123 maps in game? What will be duration? More than twenty hours?"
- No sorry, the 123 maps listed on the information page refers to _all_ maps, including test maps. So far, no maps are completed, and only a few are playable. We are concentrating on getting the media finished first, and proper map development is almost the very last thing to be developed in a serious project like this. We hope to give players a long and enjoyable playing experience to match other games, so hopefully 20 hours of play will be possible if our team can expand enough.
"What features will be in game? Weapon? Enemies? Friendly NPCs? What can you tell about vehicles?"
- We want to have a LOT of weapons, so the player can decide which are their favourites to keep. We plan to have RPG-like inventory system, so the player will not be able to carry all weapons at one time, but hopefully we will have up to 50 different weapons, from handheld non-lethal weapons, to pistols, shotguns, automatics, assault and sniper rifles, up to rocket/grenade launchers and high-power energy weapons, as well as other items/upgrades/abilities. We also plan to have neutral NPCs in the form of civilians in the streets, business employees and defecting members of enemy groups, and enemies that belong to different factions that are at war with each other, and hopefully we will have the player be able to choose their own faction too, which will result in specific enemies attacking you or fighting with you, and will possibly affect the actual storyline. We don't have plans for controllable vehicles, but we plan to have robotic units that can be controlled via a GUI on a computer console, so if the robot is destroyed, the player will remain alive. This would usually require the player to "hack" into an enemy computer terminal, but so far that is just an idea.
"What abilities will be at the player except shooting and movement? Game will be how much complex (for hardcore or casual gamers)?"
- Again like Deus Ex, we plan to have upgradeable player abilities such as faster run speeds, higher jumps, more stealth ability, protective abilities, invisibility and the ability to slow down time (slow-motion), all of which will drain a bio-electrical energy gauge that needs a supply of energy cells that can be collected during the game. The abilities will expand based on skill points rewarded to the player throughout the game, until the player has the ultimate abilities of a future special agent and ready for the much harder levels in the game. Some of the enemies will also have these abilities. All of this makes a complex shooter using many different keys and menus. But to be honest, we lack the programmers to be sure about these plans, but we do already have some abilities working. As we hopefully get more team members, we will hopefully get more of these functions working. So far we have made many changes to the "feel" of the game, so it no longer feels like you are playing Quake 4, we have changed as much as possible to make it feel original. We also have many many other ideas in our documents about changing gameplay, but these are only ideas, not all can be possible.
"Why did you chose Quake 4 as a base game, i.e. Doom 3 engine?"
- Originally I started the project with "Return To Castle Wolfenstein", and then shifted to Doom3 as planned, but found that Quake 4 has more potential for our project and already has some features not found in Doom3 such as well-developed allied NPCs, better multiplayer support and most importantly some features to allow for large open environments (distance vis-portals and object-fading), and shifting from Doom3 to Quake 4 involved almost NO work at all. Again, we may shift the project to another engine, perhaps to "Return To Castle Wolfenstein 2" and we already have plans to make a Shadowing Hate version multiplayer mod for "ET Quake Wars". I can say for sure that if RtCW2 is released sometime 2007 and if it's compatible and easy to shift everything from Quake 4, we will definitely do that, mainly because of the contrast between WWII and the Shadowing Hate world, and innovation Gray Matter always bring to their games, I think people will appreciate that more. Being a true total conversion, we don't need to rely on the themes of other games, only the technology (e.g. normalmaps, editor, file formats) and a contrast of theme from a mod is exciting. Hopefully we would gain better overall engine rendering features, such as possibly HDR/bloom, motion blur, and other next-gen effects, if they are included. For now, we will stick with Quake 4 and have a multiplayer test sometime early 2007.
"Why did you decide to make Shadowing Hate?"
- I find the ideas and themes very interesting and I enjoy working on these themes. I have spent a long time thinking about this type of game and it is my dream to develop a first-person shooter, and I guess this is the type of game I would enjoy playing, as only a player. I prefer to make some futuristic designs and try to be original and creative, and bring something new to people.
"Your previous project and experience?"
- I started very young, making little 2D games for Commodore64 when I was under 10 years old. I started modding with Doom II, then again with Quake II and I have made maps and models for Quake 3 Arena, as well as a full 2D Windows "breakout" game which I developed alone, all of those can be found on my old website - (http://www.planetquake.com/violatione/) After that I began work on Shadowing Hate and Chaos Circuits together. Other members on the team have also had previous experience, and we don't accept new members that don't have previous work to see. Personally, I also have experience in amateur film-making and directing, as well as composing music and writing fiction, which I think all contributes to computer game development.
"Thanks. Best regards, Dima. PS: sorry for bad English."
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Hello again.
"I'm owner of largest Russian Quake 4 fansite (www.QuakePlanet.ru). We are all waiting your total conversion Shadowing Hate for Quake 4. Can you give us some more detailed information about your project (maybe interview)? (including screenshots and arts)."
- Sorry to say that a singleplayer release is still a long time from happening. We plan to have a multiplayer test released by early next year, but the singleplayer missions could take a very long time yet, because our team is still really too small for projects this big. Everything can be found on the website, including screenshots and information, as well as some videos of our models:- (http://www.violationentertainment.com/g_sh.html) any other questions are welcome and can be asked at our team forum here:- (http://www.violationentertainment.com/forum/) and you can also find more information and screenshots there.
"Following some question: About what your TC (shadowing hate)? (universe, setting, storyline)"
- It has been heavily inspired from games like the "Deus Ex" titles and "Perfect Dark 64", and the storylines are similar too. Global domination and technological warfare, and the prevention of. In Shadowing Hate, it is by use of large armies of robotics and so many times in Shadowing Hate your enemies will be robotic units, but also human enemies such as the city police force, who regard the player as a criminal. It will _not_ include aliens, demons, zombies, ghosts or anything supernatural like that. The setting begins in a large futuristic city environment but we plan to release the mod in chapters, so later chapters will include other settings such as forests and subterranean Arctic, possibly even an ocean setting including underwater Pacific. Before that, we must finish the first metropolis chapter and multiplayer tests.
"Could you tell more about game universe? Where and in what year will occur actions?"
- The year will be roughly only 30 years from now, so many of the settings will be familiar. Much technology is still underdeveloped, robotics is still not perfected and cybernetics is still new and dangerous, and the player will encounter many general problems in this futuristic world and with their own identity and psychology, because our lead character, the player, has cybernetic and biomechanical implants, they have many faults and this will often be made to affect the player. The story also involves the breakdown of global economics, massive surges in population and the effects of small-scale nuclear war and global warming, and the political motives to resolve these problems, both good and bad, passive and aggressive, by some very desperate people. The player is a small but very important part of these larger political issues.
"What genre there will be a game? (arcade FPS, stealth action, horror, shoot'em up..)"
- We will focus on intense action, but we are also planning a balance of stealth gameplay. Very little horror, but it will be a very violent experience as we evolve many special effects including the "frag" event. We hope to create a multi-genre game experience that is an intense action FPS with stealthy intellectual RPG aspects.
"It will be really 123 maps in game? What will be duration? More than twenty hours?"
- No sorry, the 123 maps listed on the information page refers to _all_ maps, including test maps. So far, no maps are completed, and only a few are playable. We are concentrating on getting the media finished first, and proper map development is almost the very last thing to be developed in a serious project like this. We hope to give players a long and enjoyable playing experience to match other games, so hopefully 20 hours of play will be possible if our team can expand enough.
"What features will be in game? Weapon? Enemies? Friendly NPCs? What can you tell about vehicles?"
- We want to have a LOT of weapons, so the player can decide which are their favourites to keep. We plan to have RPG-like inventory system, so the player will not be able to carry all weapons at one time, but hopefully we will have up to 50 different weapons, from handheld non-lethal weapons, to pistols, shotguns, automatics, assault and sniper rifles, up to rocket/grenade launchers and high-power energy weapons, as well as other items/upgrades/abilities. We also plan to have neutral NPCs in the form of civilians in the streets, business employees and defecting members of enemy groups, and enemies that belong to different factions that are at war with each other, and hopefully we will have the player be able to choose their own faction too, which will result in specific enemies attacking you or fighting with you, and will possibly affect the actual storyline. We don't have plans for controllable vehicles, but we plan to have robotic units that can be controlled via a GUI on a computer console, so if the robot is destroyed, the player will remain alive. This would usually require the player to "hack" into an enemy computer terminal, but so far that is just an idea.
"What abilities will be at the player except shooting and movement? Game will be how much complex (for hardcore or casual gamers)?"
- Again like Deus Ex, we plan to have upgradeable player abilities such as faster run speeds, higher jumps, more stealth ability, protective abilities, invisibility and the ability to slow down time (slow-motion), all of which will drain a bio-electrical energy gauge that needs a supply of energy cells that can be collected during the game. The abilities will expand based on skill points rewarded to the player throughout the game, until the player has the ultimate abilities of a future special agent and ready for the much harder levels in the game. Some of the enemies will also have these abilities. All of this makes a complex shooter using many different keys and menus. But to be honest, we lack the programmers to be sure about these plans, but we do already have some abilities working. As we hopefully get more team members, we will hopefully get more of these functions working. So far we have made many changes to the "feel" of the game, so it no longer feels like you are playing Quake 4, we have changed as much as possible to make it feel original. We also have many many other ideas in our documents about changing gameplay, but these are only ideas, not all can be possible.
"Why did you chose Quake 4 as a base game, i.e. Doom 3 engine?"
- Originally I started the project with "Return To Castle Wolfenstein", and then shifted to Doom3 as planned, but found that Quake 4 has more potential for our project and already has some features not found in Doom3 such as well-developed allied NPCs, better multiplayer support and most importantly some features to allow for large open environments (distance vis-portals and object-fading), and shifting from Doom3 to Quake 4 involved almost NO work at all. Again, we may shift the project to another engine, perhaps to "Return To Castle Wolfenstein 2" and we already have plans to make a Shadowing Hate version multiplayer mod for "ET Quake Wars". I can say for sure that if RtCW2 is released sometime 2007 and if it's compatible and easy to shift everything from Quake 4, we will definitely do that, mainly because of the contrast between WWII and the Shadowing Hate world, and innovation Gray Matter always bring to their games, I think people will appreciate that more. Being a true total conversion, we don't need to rely on the themes of other games, only the technology (e.g. normalmaps, editor, file formats) and a contrast of theme from a mod is exciting. Hopefully we would gain better overall engine rendering features, such as possibly HDR/bloom, motion blur, and other next-gen effects, if they are included. For now, we will stick with Quake 4 and have a multiplayer test sometime early 2007.
"Why did you decide to make Shadowing Hate?"
- I find the ideas and themes very interesting and I enjoy working on these themes. I have spent a long time thinking about this type of game and it is my dream to develop a first-person shooter, and I guess this is the type of game I would enjoy playing, as only a player. I prefer to make some futuristic designs and try to be original and creative, and bring something new to people.
"Your previous project and experience?"
- I started very young, making little 2D games for Commodore64 when I was under 10 years old. I started modding with Doom II, then again with Quake II and I have made maps and models for Quake 3 Arena, as well as a full 2D Windows "breakout" game which I developed alone, all of those can be found on my old website - (http://www.planetquake.com/violatione/) After that I began work on Shadowing Hate and Chaos Circuits together. Other members on the team have also had previous experience, and we don't accept new members that don't have previous work to see. Personally, I also have experience in amateur film-making and directing, as well as composing music and writing fiction, which I think all contributes to computer game development.
"Thanks. Best regards, Dima. PS: sorry for bad English."
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