The Cast of Characters
Stupid Computer Nerd
Smart, Famous,
Australian Computer Nerd
Comments by
Stupid Computer Nerd
Part 1
Just starting to cut away the
scalp
The pre-alpha questions for TFS:
You were demoing Half-Life at
E3 -- does that mean you guys are actually involved in coding the game,
putting in features that you want to be able to exploit, and customizing
the internet play to what you had planned for TF2 in cooperation with the
Valve programmers ... or is it a more passive role, e.g. telling them what
you want?
John's working in the Half-Life code itself to make it more customizable for mod-makers. It went kind of like this:
Us: Wow. Cool engine. But... uh... we'd like to be able to do this, and this... and being able to do this would be great too.
Valve: Sounds good. Unfortunately, none of us have time to add it in. Here's the code.
So, we sat down and came up with a list of additions we wanted, and then went through it with them. We went over the additions and figured out which were feasible in the timeframe we have, and then John started coding them into the engine. Other sections, like the additions to the networking, were just added to the schedules of whoever was appropriate... e.g. Yahn's handling the changes to the networking that we requested. Its was always a very friendly situation, and its even moreso now that we're part of Valve. We know we can't get everything we want in the engine if its to ship on time, so we had to make a few sacrifices.
How long have you been working on the game, then?
Well we've been at Valve for 3 months now. In that time, John's probably spent about a month and a half working on the engine itself.
Are each of you maintaining your respective roles with Valve that you had when you were Team Fortress Software?
We're still working in the same roles, yeah. We've got the artistic grunt of Valve behind TF2 now, but the rest of it's pretty much stayed as it was before the merger.
OK, obligatory technical questions have been covered. What, in a nutshell, is going to be the number one eyeball popper about TF2, whether it be part of the gameplay, graphics, realism? If YOU were an avid gamer with little to no programming knowledge (like me), what would you appreciate most?
Visually, I think the most eye-opening experience will be the interface. No more ugly menus in the middle of your view, etc. Now we have our own class specific huds. We minimise the information displayed by removing sections when they're not needed and fading data the longer it stays unchanged. Gone are the days of many key bindings to operate effectively as your class. Wherever possible, functionality is moved from being player / key activated to being "smart" activated... TF2 figures out what you want to be doing from your actions and does it for you.
Any examples of this you can share?
A simple example is the Trading system. If you run up to a teammate and look at him her for second, you'll begin to trade. TF2 figures out what you've got that he / she needs and what he / she's got that you need. It'll trade ammo for primary weapons first, followed by secondary. If both of you have identical weapons, it'll even out the amount of ammo between you.
No more explaining to new players how to drop ammo and discard! Good teamwork sounds more feasible than ever.
What in your opinion is going to set Half Life apart from Unreal, Sin, and Daikatana?
So many things that I could write a few pages on this answer alone. Read the many HL previews around the net, and you'll see what I mean. Personally, being a hard-core DMer, I love the HL AI. I've played for hours against a couple of squads of human grunts on one of the DM levels... its never the same game twice with them. Their squad tactics have to be seen to be believed.
TF2's expansion pack status -- how hard are you guys working to get TF2 bundled with Half-Life? (Fargo raised this point in his interview.) Do you think selling TF2 as a expansion pack will affect its success, as Fargo predicted? I know I would pay upwards of $50 for Half Life bundled with TF2 ...
I'd better No Comment this one, since I suspect its something that'll be decided sometime soon.
If TF2 is sold as a mission pack, will the TF2 pack contain anything else besides TF2? Some HL missions or new DM levels?
It's possible..
One of the great fun things to do in TF1 is to load up the Id levels and go through them as a sniper or heavy weapons guy. Please tell us we can play the Half Life levels as our TF characters.
Not at the moment. If we have time, it'll be something we'll add back in.