Dire feature

Garrett: Not a problem!

First of all, would you like to introduces yourselves and your roles on the team, and also give a general outline to the story of Dire for those not yet aware of your existence

Garrett: Sure thing, my name is Garrett but for the mod I go by Xion. I am the leader and original creator of the entire idea. I do mapping, sound FX, music, story, public relations, you name it. I am 19 years old and I am in college for an E-Business Associates Degree from IBM. Videogames are my passion but I am usually too much of a critical ass when I play them to enjoy them haha. I love awesome game play, I love good graphics, and I adore great stories. I am a huge fan of Fantasy RPGs and hardcore action games. I am proud to say that I love Nintendo not just because I grew up with them, but because they follow their own path and innovate, which is what I want to do with my games. I plan to start my own business with Troy called “TG Developments”

Dire will be our first production.

Mohawk: I'm Troy A.K.A. Mohawk and I’m 22 years old. My role on the team is Co-Leader and Lead Programmer and basically what I do is work with everyone to implement their work into the mod through Programming there content into the mod. Of course I do all the modification and conversion programming too. I am and will be helping with various assignments besides programming. I have experience with a little bit of everything. You need to understand everything when your programming or you’re not going to get very far, because everything is code. I'm also doing this to gain more experience Garrett and I are going into Game Dev Industry so we need to start gaining more experience.

McKiller: Hey, I’m Ryan "McKiller" Godshalk. I'm doing concept art, particularly character design. I’m 19, and a student at SUNY Oneonta in NY. I am a computer art major, and hope to specialize in character design, and art direction (hopefully learning some 3D programs soon).
I've done work for several other mods in the past, including the mods "Epicenter, Dark Spirits, and Opposing force 2." I do a lot of comic book style work, but am constantly trying to improve my skills. Not so much in just the art, but developing characters that visually have a lot of character and depth to them.

Captainchet: Hey, I'm CaptainChet, a modeler here at Dire. I've been modeling for quite a while, but most of my stuff isn’t for games. Right now I’m handling the majority of the weapons modeling here at dire. I'm trying to achieve the highest quality possible for any/all of our models through the use of both realistic modeling and normal mapping.

Zombieman101: Yo, what's up? I'm Erik, AKA Zombie. I'm from Washington State. I'm a full time college student at the local community college, and I work at a grocery store up the street.
As far as me working on a mod, I'm a newbie. lol. I'm a weapons researcher/music maker. I have been into guns ever since I could say the word pretty much, so it's a hobby of mine to learn facts and shoot em. I've been playing saxophone since the 7th grade, so like 7 years now, and I have been playing guitar and bass for about the last 3 years. I hadn't really written any of my own material 'til about a month before Garrett asked me if I wanted to help on the project. Since Garrett and I are in the same CSS clan, along with Troy, I decided it would be a fun experience to work on a mod.
Overlord: My mane is Rok Potočnik, my nick is Overlrod. I'm 16 and come from Velenje, Slovenia. I'm quite a game freak, I love playin' them, but even more I like to make them. I started mapping when HL2 came out. My first finished map was DE_Apocalypse for CS:S, later I was making a test map for the Epicenter Mod and after the Mod (unofficially) died, I joined DiRE. I'm still a sort of a n00b, doe. When not in front of my computer, I like to play (It's played, right?) Airsoft at my friends place, and I don't mind cycling either. I have a 6 months old dog, who is my favorite family member.

Raptor: Hi, I'm Raptor, one of the modeler of Dire, my real name is François Martinez, I'm from France and I'm 17.... First of all, I started modding in 2001, when I discovered Half-Life 1, I had a lot of mod ideas but nothing came out, as I wasn't experienced enough. I was mapping all the time, it was a drug . I discovered 3DS Max in 2003 and all the possibilities it offers, but I really began modeling in 2004. My goal is to make my models look as close as the real thing if it exists, and if not, make it possible to exist
I can do everything except coding (well, a very little bit), I love guns, warplanes, military gears, and most of all, AIRSOFT !
What I like the most in Dire is that it has a strong structure, well managed. They don't tell you it's good if it's not.

Garrett: Damn Right!

Thirteen: Hey,
I'm THIRTEEN and I'm helping out with the soundtrack side of things.
This is my first job on a mod, so it’s new and exciting for me. I spend my days writing/recording music. So it's something I take seriously and decided that would be my cup-of-tea.

All my music is created on my home computer using Reason 3.0. I make my own sample sounds etc, and basically program/mix everything myself.

Zidane: Hey, what's up? I'm Zidane, and I'm doing the voices for many of the characters for Dire, including Jack Clausen, civilians, ghosts, swat units, team commanders, helicopter pilots, hybrids and more. Each voice I've created for Dire was recorded in my recording studio at home. I take voice over acting very seriously. It takes hours, sometimes weeks to master various types of voices needed to make characters sound believable, and different from the other characters. Don't get me wrong though, it does require a lot of work, but it's always a lot of fun.

Daman: I'm Aaron A.K.A. Daman; I’m 20 years of age and live in US, MI. I am currently the webmaster. Currently I am getting back in the game of mapping. I use to map for mods back in the HL1 days. I currently am taking time off of college but I want to go back here soon to finish up my bachelors in computer science/networking. I want to become Cisco certified and start my career with computers. I was gearing my self more towards modeling, but I have far more experience in the arts of mapping which will make my self contribute more to the community. I really do like the concept and creativity of Garrett's modification that he is creating.

Azure: I’m Azure and I’m the female voice actress of the team, so I’m voicing the female medic Toki Sato. I’ve been voice acting for about 6 years; though this is the first Half Life 2 mod I’ve worked on. Normally I voice for flash animation and fan dubs.

To record I use either cool edit or audacity, together with a USB microphone. Hopefully my contributions will help make the mod much more enjoyable to play.

Garrett: Well, I started to develop the idea over 2 years ago. Once I had a solid concept down I registered the name on Moddb and started to seek out a team and hone my skills. Definitely helps to take your time and not rush into things when it comes to making a mod and that is probably the most important thing I could express to someone.

Have any of your team mates worked on a mod before, or have they all been bought together for the sole purpose of creating Dire?

Garrett: I have worked on a couple mods in the past but what I always wanted to do was make my own. I originally made a mod for UT2k3 called “Mx2 – Man vs. Machine. It was such a cool concept but I never planned and wasn’t ready to lead a mod at the time so it failed. Dire is a completely different story though.

Zidane: I've provided voices for plenty of game mods before, but no other job has been as intense as Dire. I can tell this game is massive just by the amount of characters there are, and the number of things they say. This is gonna be some hardcore stuff. The whole team is talented and dedicated, and I can't wait

Mohawk: I've had experience working on many hl mods. Also while I was attending High School I worked at Accela (Accela.com) a Software Development Company. I was in the engineering department worked as a scripter and tester. I currently work for RhinoVideoGames.com.

Zombieman101: As far as working with anyone else from this mod, I barely know em, lol. I've talked with some of them, and they seem like pretty fun/laid back guys. I'm currently writing one of the songs for Dire. As soon as it gets finished and recorded onto my computer I will be sending it to Thirteen for him to add some parts and do the full recording with his band.

Overlord: For my long turn plans...Well, I'd like to be in the game development industry, as said before, I love making games or just stuff for them (like maps, and so...).

Captainchet: I've worked on a few mods before, but they all crumbled into pieces; unlike Dire, which I view as a very strong team made up of inspired people whom I respect and enjoy working with.

Azure: I’ve not worked with any of the team before, and got involved though a help wanted post.

Half Life 2 has attracted an abundance of Zombie horror mod’s since its release, and while many are impressive in their own right, there is always the worry that the theme can become generic and overused. What steps are you taking to ensure that Dire stands out from the crowd?

Garrett: Well, there is actually much to say to this question. First off, we aren’t actually a zombie horror mod. The banner on our website can sometimes deceive people into thinking that they are zombies but actually what you see is the spirits of the dead. “Spirits…W.T.F. mate” you may say but I can explain this fairly easily. As stated in the storyline, Dire is based off of forced evolution. Since the main player is slowly going through the evolutionary process to becoming evolved, the player will experience their player’s senses being heightened in game. You will first start to hear voices while around corpses, and then eventually see the dead. The spirits have many roles in the game. Some give you information and others will try to mess with you. Either way they are a frightening experience.

Anyhow, the game revolves around the hybrids, which are people that where experimented on but didn’t get the results that the scientists at project EVO wanted. The hybrids are stored at a facility which is where your player is taken to be observed. She has the gene inside her now to evolve her and the scientists are awaiting some form of change. Not to go too into detail, the Hybrids get loose into the city along with you (we are talking 6 underground levels of pure hybrid storage) and massacre people. This if where your mission really starts…or where it really ends.

Garrett: The real question is, why not go with the engine? The levels can be so detailed, so beautiful and so large. There is already a huge community for the game and people moving from the original Half-Life doesn’t have to learn everything over again, they merely have to bush up on what is new about the Half-Life 2 engine. Not only that but the team I had from our previous version for HL1 could easily move to this more powerful engine without me having to find all new people.

Has using this technology posed any specific problems so far in development? If so how have you solved them?

Garrett:To be completely honest, there has been no major problems as far as development goes. We have run into a couple road blocks but used good old research to discover a solution. For example, our advanced voice system we are designing gave us some trouble. See, we created a constantly looping static sound, and depending on where you are in the level defines how high the volume is for the static. So if you are 2 blocks away from a guy you are trying to talk to over the mic (your radio) the volume for the static is going to be about 50 or so. The farther they move from each other, the higher the volume goes. Picture yourself barricaded in a house basement, hybrids breaking through the door, and you’re trying to get someone to your location over the mic but the people on the receiving end only hear static. This adds a realism and definitely panic to the already crazy game play. Anyhow, the problem we ran into complicated things a bit. I wanted to make a radius that would stick with each character and define the volume per distance between another character kind of like when you put a sound in a map for valve hammer and you get to edit the radius. That plan didn’t work at all haha, we now have to create a custom grid for the entire level and define things like “If one person is in grid b1 and another is in grid c3 then the volume is 19%.” That has taken a lot longer than I thought it would take but it is so worth it in the end.

From the moment the player fires up the game and gets sucked into the world, what do you hope will affect them and grab their attention the most?

Garrett: I really want people to be grabbed by the experience we are providing them. I couldn’t possibly point out one thing in particular because the true success of a game is when you get all areas of it working together so well you see an experience and not just another videogame. Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear Solid) the greatest example of this in my option because he makes a game go so smooth that when your done with it you almost have to sit there and go “Whoa.” I want to do this exact thing with Dire. When the player gets on, I want him to see the intense game play, the unique characters that all have their own guns and abilities which makes each one worth playing in their own respect, the musical score working with the game play to enhance the experience, the atmosphere, and just everything that goes into providing a kick-ass experience.

From reading your web site, I gather a very key feature of the mod is the random nature by which events take place. While this is a very useful element to install fear and uncertainty in the player, from a design point of view it can be difficult to utilize properly. There is always the worry that it can become over used, and may even have a negative impact on the core gameplay. Are you taking any specific steps to ensure that this is not the case?

Garrett: Absolutely! The core game play and events will be scripted and each player will, at the core, have the same experience but some will encounter different problems in their paths or different enemy encounters. Maybe in a map the player will find that an explosion or car has blocked a path when another player at the same spot would find it to be open. We are working very closely with the mappers to make sure we utilize all the triggers that we can. Like I have said a million times before, I want this to be an experience, not just another mod.

There is a great deal of style with your conceptual work and general art work. Are there any specific sources that have had a strong impact and influence on the mods artistic direction?

McKiller: For references I look at a lot of real work equipment and combed over military photos from recent conflicts (I’m a sucker for realism). This was especially helpful for the merc team. They are well trained, well equipped, professionals. I wanted them to have a real hard, cold look to them because they are there because they are being paid to be. They don't quite share that brotherhood that soldiers share, and there a bit more concerned about their own hide first, even though they know they have to rely on each other to survive.
The Hybrids are a little on the unconventional side. They are designed and bred to be advanced human beings, but because of some problem in their creation, they are mentally primitive, and incredibly aggressive. While intelligent in some aspects, they are socially equivalent to apes. So the idea behind them is to take an otherwise very beautiful and advanced looking being and twist and deform it into a monster.

Garrett: I think the almost comic look we have does a fantastic job of bringing the idea alive. The darker tone, great deal of detail and the facial expressions that you see with each picture really helps give the viewer a good idea of what the player will be going through while playing the game.

Garrett: We are trying to focus on the idea of the player having to soak this all in; much like they would have to if it was real life. We can’t possibly make over an hour and a half of depressing music and expect it to enhance the experience, so we need to really watch what we are doing and test the maps as much as possible to make sure the music matches up. For example, the music sample we are releasing to the forums is the music that will play when you have 10 minutes left when you chose the 30 minute session for survival mode. It is designed to give you a sense of hope and really encourage you to fight on for the remainder of time. We are trying to make the music exclusive to each level and the music will have slight differences depending on what time limit you select. Not a lot of mods really take advantage of music to enhance the experience that people get from their game. I really hope that people will appreciate the extra effort we are putting into this because it benefits them in the end.

Thirteen: As for the music working in accordance with events in the game, I really can't say. However, Garrett and I work very closely. He asks me to make something; I make it and interpret it my own way. I then send it for him to listen to. Get feedback, alter it etc. So I'm confident it will fit perfectly when the game is available for the public!
I'm basically working on a 30-40 minute emotional storyboard, which in my opinion, is coming along really nice.

Garrett: Here is a sample of the lighter music that you will see in Dire: Dire_ForumExclusive_Song_Demo.zip

You mentioned on your moddb profile that the AI in Dire is being enhanced to provide a far more realistic, intense experience than you might be used to in most zombie based mod’s. Have you had much success with this so far, and what future steps are you taking for this to work?

Garrett: I realize that most games do a simple AI that involves the enemy locking onto you from the moment it spawns and finding you even if you hide or elude them. With our AI, it plays much differently. First off, the AI isn’t pre-set to anyone. They wonder the streets and houses attempting to search the player out using their advanced senses. Since they are hybrids and they are more evolved than anything on earth today, they can spot you from long distances and smell you out. Not only do they chase after you but they call for backup. Imagine this if you will; you and your partner need to get across the street. You don’t see any hybrids and you think it is ok to run for it. You two begin to run but as your half way across the street you hear a roar down the street from an unseen foe. You two know your in trouble and double time it to the building. Hearing the roars getting closer you desperately try to get the door barricaded and push things in front of windows. To your dismay, there isn’t nearly enough to secure the house and definitely not enough time to do it. You begin to run farther into the building as you hear the door being beaten, a hybrid diving through the window and 2 hybrids going through the second story window. What will you do to get out alive? This is the kind of situations the AI will put you in. Not only will they attempt to find backup, but they will find alternate routes to you when you block them out. They also split up so some will go around to the back, one will go to the second floor if there is one and others will beat at the front of you barricaded it…and that is just the survival mode.

We are really trying to take full advantage of hints, ground nodes, and goals. This means if there is a hybrid in a second story window of a building that you are walking out the front door of, the hybrid will dive out of the window after you. If you are in a building on the third floor and a hybrid spots you it will scale the building and go through a window or other entrance to get to you. Your one major hope is to either kill the hybrid or to hide from it. These AI don’t care how they do it, they just want to kill you anyway possible and working closely with the mappers we are really making it an intense experience.

Can you give us any more details on the types of weaponry we can expect to see in the final release?

Garrett: I don’t want to promise too much because that isn’t finalized yet but you will see a great array of weapons. Nice machine guns, pistols, melee weapons, sniper rifles, etc. We are also hiding super weapons that can really help you out, but you can only find them if you work really hard to .

What do you feel will really make Dire’s single player campaign unique? Have you created anything yet that you are particularly happy with?

Garrett: Oh man, don’t get me started with the single player. First off we are going to mix in a lot of different types of game plays and we are going to huge lengths to make sure none of them get old. The single player actually starts you off in a facility that you have to escape. Hybrids and all the main enemies of the game are not even in the picture yet. You begin completely unarmed and actually need to fight your way out as you seek weapons and more weapons to help you survive. This is where the melee that we are programming in really shines. You are able to shoulder ram an enemy or kick or punch them. You also will be able to take advantage of the indoor and outdoor combat modes that Toki is equipped with. This means that outdoors you have both hands on your gun for better aim. This still allows you to use most of your melee attacks but it won’t help you when you are indoors. That is why switching to indoor combat mode will allow you to take your left hand off the gun and un-sheath your combat knife from it’s holster and use them together for a more lethal pair. It kicks down your aim a bit but that isn’t a huge deal indoors when it would be fatal outdoors. Using this fighting style will allow you to actually make your own combos. You could stab a hybrid, shoot it in the head, then kick it’s body to the ground or shoulder ram it, shoot it then stab it while it is on the ground, etc. You, the player, gets to develop your own fighting style to use to kick ass.

After the facility comes the outbreak. We are going to really focus on detail for this one. You get to observe people walking on the streets and living their lives and almost instantly get to see it all taken away by a huge swarm of hybrids. Since the main character has the actual gene inside her that made the hybrids what they are, you will actually start to evolve throughout the game. Sound will be amplified, then reflexes, vision, etc. You could walk down a street in the beginning of the game and see corpses just littered all over and return to it later as your hearing evolves and actually hear the dead talking or laughing at you. This will get much worse when your vision evolves and gives you almost a 6th sense. The spirits of the dead will not be able to hurt you, but they will attempt to do whatever they can to make your life miserable. These spirits will actually appear in some multiplayer modes as well. In Deathmatch when you are a hybrid and you kill a human you will see their spirit standing over their body. They won’t do much more than stare you down but it is a nice detail to add in to keep with the theme. Anyway, back to single player. Eventually in the game you will be near death yourself and actually visit the land of the dead. In here you have to seek out a man that died before he could give you information you needed. This world will actually be much different than the real world with huge influence from Silent Hill. This is the actual Realm of the Dead Theme here:

Realm_of_the_dead_Theme.zip

The end of the game, and the thing I am most proud of, will have a HUGE game play change. It will be one hell of a finale but I don’t want to spoil it for anyone.

Garrett: The thing I am trying to focus with for Dire is having each of the multiplayer modes contain so much quality, content, and variety that they could each be an individual mod within themselves. I don’t want people to get bored or tired with Dire, and I definitely don’t want them to run out of things to do. I plan for Dire to be round for a long time and I want to keep things new and fun.

An example of this would be survival mode. Survival mode pits a maximum of 6 people against 20 hybrids. You can choose from either 10, 15, 20, or 30 minutes of time that you will need to survival in. Each time contains different weapon finds, different variations of ammo, special secrets, and sounds. The music will also be different per time limit. You definitely get the better experience from playing the 30 minute episode though because you get the best soundtrack and experience. Each character has something special about them which makes them worth playing over the next. You really need to plan carefully who you want to be because it is best to utilize each player to his fullest. One example would be the newly designed Light Merc which specializes in sniping. Has a decent pistol, an HE grenade, Smoke Grenade, high powered sniper rifle, but these aren’t the things that makes him special. The things that make him special are his night vision, and his special add-on. He can attach a mini-cam to a wall which will give him real-time video on a visor he has over his eye to help watch his back when he snipes. In addition to the cam, it also beeps when something walks by it to alert you, and you also have the option to detonate it. You have to use this wisely. Don’t leave it behind or blow it up unless you have to because you only get one. This comes in extremely handy if you are on a roof sniping and plant it on the only staircase to the roof, or something along those lines. Toki and the other two have their abilities but I will release those a bit later on when we have the models to show.

The multiplayer also has many other things to it like melee attacks. Though Toki specializes in this, everyone still has one of their own. You can use this for anything from knocking down an enemy to kicking a door open while avoiding death from a pursuing Hybrid.

It is very important in multiplayer to keep Toki alive. You can only have one Toki if you only have 5 people but you can have two if there is 6 players on the server. The reason for this is the realistic effects to the player we are programming in. If you are hit in the arm, your aim gets crappy, in the leg means you run slow, in the stomach means you slowly bleed to death and in the head means that your vision will slowly blur while small trickles of blood run down the HUD. Toki can fix this all for you; you just need to stick with her. Toki can go off by herself but it isn’t a good idea for that to happen for two reasons. The team is left open for injuries and there is a chance Toki could die. She is built to be able to hold her own, but that doesn’t last forever.

Seeing that a character will have a clone on the server if he picked twice, we have made sure to make separate models of everyone so people know the difference. The original will show the character’s face while the clone has a badass mask on. Both characters have the same voice, do the same things, but it gives the illusion that they are different people.

You will come by a couple things while playing the mode like survivors and special weapons. The survivors will be able to aid you with their own weapons and you can do what them what you like. Have them help you defend a room or use them as decoys to lure in hybrids and blow them up. It is really whatever suites your needs. The weapons on the other hand suite you in one way and a very effective way at that. They will be fun and strong. They vary from a Katana sword to a flame thrower or chainsaw, etc. Many Easter eggs will be in levels as well, so make sure to peek around for those if you get the chance, but don’t expect Team Dire to tell you.

On a 30 minute round, you will be met with a lot of challenges to survive, including Hybrid swarms, ammo shortages, loses of teammates, location confusion and whatever else you can manage to get yourself into. When the 30 minutes is near up (or any time limit at that) an Evac chopper will fly though the level and announce it is ready to take you guys out of there. You will have 3 minutes to get to this chopper otherwise it will leave you to die. They do this because the hybrid population will double in 3 minutes and it isn’t safe for them to stay. If you make it to the chopper early you are assisted by gunners to help keep you safe as you wait for your partners. If they don’t end up making it…..well that sucks but at least you made it! They will see a losing screen and you get the congrats screen.

That is the gist of it for the Survival mode. Information on the other modes will be available soon.

What’s the current schedule for development? Can we expect any playable test releases soon?

Garrett: We are hoping to release the Survival Demo in December. One thing that would really ensure our success would be 2 more player modelers, 1 more skinner, and someone that can rig and animate. With so much that has to get done in such a small amount of time we can use all the help we can get. If we don’t end up releasing in December, I shouldn’t be too long until we release. So really we are looking at December or January.....depends on how much help we get.