Unreal Tournament 3 Game Talon 1-5 feature

Survive Together

Talon 1-5 speeds into the mod scene with work of unrivaled quality and motivation to match. This shooter aims to exploit the seldom developed Cooperative game mode and create an experience perfect for a group of friends looking for some extreme fun.

Unreal Tournament 3 mod Talon 1-5, alongside Crysis mod Obsidian Edge 2, takes up a daunting challenge in being one of the first next generation modifications. And despite the ever so high standards set by commercial games making use of next generation tech, Talon 1-5, so far, has managed to fly above and beyond many gamers’ expectations. The media released by the uncannily talented Talon 1-5 team has been some of the highest quality work ever displayed by a mod team.

Now, two members of the development team behind Talon 1-5 have spoken up about their project and the challenges that next-generation technology brings to the table, as well as the power it holds.

---

 

Hello, and thank you for joining us today. First off, let's get the formalities out of the way. Could you please each introduce yourselves and tell us a little about your jobs on the Talon 1-5 development team?

Matt Riley: I'm Matt Riley, lead designer and writer for Talon 1-5. I also dabble in a little concept art.

Matt Bromley: I'm Matt Bromley and am Lead Level Designer for Talon 1-5.

And for those of us who've yet to hear about Talon 1-5, could you give us a brief synopsis of the story, game play, and some of the noteworthy features?

MR: Sure. Talon 1-5 is a tactical first person shooter set in a believable future that centers around a squad of 12 US Marines and their struggle during a massive international conflict.

The game is built from the ground up to be co-operative, with every feature designed to promote players working together in order to survive and achieve victory. As well as the 12-person class based co-op, we are bringing an unprecedented level of tactical realism while still maintaining an frantic intensity of war and a solid, character-driven storyline.

It's a bird... it's a plane... it's a futuristic, hover-craft style military gunship!

MB: On the Level Building side of things we'll be presenting the player with a little bit of a sandbox world in which to accomplish the Marines' objectives, which ties into the overall co-op feature because if you stray away from your squad to explore - the player will probably find that the situation gets much more difficult much faster.

MR: The phrase "Survive together, die alone" comes to mind

Very interesting and grandiose plans. How long has Talon 1-5 been in development, and how did the idea for it originally come to be?

MR: The original idea was spawned over two years ago now, essentially as one of those "what if" sessions among a group of friends.

I began to take some of the ideas brainstormed and form a story and preliminary design document around them. A few people did some concept work here and there, but we were mostly dormant until November of last year, when we went public and put the project into full gear.

We had anticipated early on that a project this ambitious would require technology that wasn't available at the time, so we decided to hold off until an engine like Unreal 3 was on the horizon. That down time really helped in terms of creating a solid, well-formed vision of what the game would be, and creating an efficient pipeline that we could work with

Die Alone

How many people are on the development team presently, and what kind of changes has the team gone through over the course of Talon 1-5's creation? Additionaly, were you both part of the original development team, and if not, how did you come to join?

At long last, a set of science-fiction armor that doesn't look painfully blocky and wedgy inducing.

MR: We were both in the initial core circle, yes.
The team currently has about 20 active members and 15 who are on the sidelines either because of real-world commitments or because they're departments have little to do without an SDK at the moment.

We started out with eight, and it has been steadily growing from there since November. We have of course had people come and go for various reasons, but all in all we are in a good place.

We have department heads for each section which makes things very efficient in terms of chain of command and who people go to when they need certain information

MB: Mods are always 'liquid' in form, really - people will always come and go. But it seems like if there's at least a core for the water to splash against, people who can keep the vision steady, and the team on track, then it can survive for the amount of time needed for a project to finish.

Having department heads of the most reliable team members certainly has seemed to help Talon swim. Keeping track of who's doing what at what time and who's away for 'Real Life' commitments can be a challenge. But in the end we're all here working together for a common goal.

And so far it's paying off...

MR: That common goal of course being...women.

Looks like Crysis is getting a run for its money...

Fame, riches, women, if only modding could bring it all. You earlier mentioned that Talon 1-5 will include an extensive cooperative mode of play. What influenced the team to work on such a mode as opposed to, say, making Talon 1-5 a purely singeplayer mod or a Deathmatch style multiplayer mod.

MR: Good question. To be quite frank, I see co-op to be the most disregarded mode of play that exists in mainstream gaming. It always seems to be an after-thought from most developers, and most of the team agree that if it is done well, it has an unrivaled amount of potential for that elusive "fun" factor.

We are really trying to push co-op into the fore-front with this mod, give people a taste of what it really could be like.

It is a real challenge because really you have to completely rethink the way you approach game design. You are making a story-driven experience, for 12, individual and essentially unpredictable human beings. It requires a lot of failsafe mechanics and checks and balances to make sure it remains fun and not a chore.

Warfare of the future: lots and lots of firepower.

MB: So instead of taking a single player experience with some DM/CTF maps thrown in the mix - and then add co-op; we start with co-op first. We try to provide fairly non-linear world progression, toss some objectives in, plant it in a visually appealing yet believable world, and the fun factor - with the right game mechanics, should be right there waiting for the player to experience.

Of course, this challenges the level design (LD) dept. because the LD will need to anticipate all the various actions that 12 free-thinking creative players can get up to in a sandbox. However, the payoff should be worth the design challenges in the long run.

In the end, the 'shared experience' of 12 people working together, challenged by the map, challenged by the game dynamics, and challenged by working together, should yield an experience to remember.

You say that that Talon 1-5 aims to be a more tactical, realistic shooter, but also state that it will be fast and action-packed. Generally tactical shooters are a great deal slower paced then twitch shooter; what plans do you have to keep up the pace?

MR: Well, fast does not always mean physical speed. Really what we're striving for is capturing the intensity of war. Your characters will move at a realistic pace, with factors like fatigue, stances, breathing and muscle tension all playing a part, however, within the context of the story, we will be throwing a lot of intense situations at the player in order to keep them on their toes.

The actual movement and combat mechanics will reflect the realism, whereas the situations players are faced with will create the intensity and visceral nature of warfare.

MB: On the level side, we're going for an 'ebb and flow' in the action - try to get the right pacing down. One of our primary tools will be a certain amount of randomization and variation in terms of 'encounters' and 'slow spots'. A player could play through a dozen different times, but with the variation we'll introduce in the game world, the player will encounter a different ebb and flow each time they play. This should keep the player on their toes and therefore up the pace. When combined with the movement and combat mechanics, the weapons & AI, and the world itself, it will all blend together well.

Team Work for The Win

Some people have far too much time on their hands.

Speaking of realism, though Talon 1-5 take place in a futuristic setting, I've noticed all the weapons and vehicles carry a sort real, functional look to them despite their fictitious origins. Is this one of the goals of the team, to create in-game equipment with a functional feel? And if so, what motions is the team taking to preserve the realism in the designs?

MR: Spot on! I'm glad it comes across.

Essentially, we are trying to give a very familiar, grounded science fiction experience. The visual design needs to reflect that, but we are also going for practicality and substance over style.

We have a done a lot of research into future warfare programs, and with the help of our military advisors, are crafting a military and an overall future that may be very much a reality in a century's time.

We are purposefully steering clear of technology that is normally relegated to the sci-fi realm. For Talon 1-5, everything in the world is at least in early experimental stages today/

From a purely art standpoint, we look at our present, and our past, study design trends and what certain things need to have, and then extrapolate that into the future as best we can. So far I think its working out well.

There is of course always the temptation to do something just because its "cool" or "original" but we try our best to stay clear of that, because style and originality without any sort of substance to back it up, always falls flat.

Very interesting stuff. When it comes to level design, what plans are in place? Can we expect to see more urban environments, nature-like settings, or a mixture of both?

MB: Well, we're focusing on one large level right now, so for the present it will be an urban setting. Other settings, both nature-like, or a mix, would be later on. The urban setting we're making is going to resemble a large city's downtown area: streets lined with shop, huge office buildings towering overhead, partially destroyed areas mixed in - after all, this is a war.

We've looked at satellite overheads of large urban areas and have done some concepting of overhead layouts.

Currently we're doing the 'meta' level design - the 'bird's eye view' which is to get the overall play area mapped out, keep long sight distances down, and plan out objective locations. Soon we'll move onto modularizing the overall area to help cool down the engine, and then we'll move into the 'micro' level design where we go through each location and design the areas with the game mechanics in mind.

And then, once the fun stuff is in place, we'll do the pretty bit.

MR: Yes, the story takes the Marines of Talon 1-5 to a variety of locales, including Alaska, South Africa, China and even Mars. However, all of our efforts at the moment are focused toward our demo level, which takes place in downtown Los Angeles, which is of course dense commercial urban, and some of the toughest terrain to fight in.

We all know that these are really just photos of real people...

Why is it that the team decided to utilize the Unreal 3 engine instead of a popular current generation engine such as Source, or another next generation engine such as CryEngine 2?

MR: Well, this is a simple one. We found Unreal 2 to be the most flexible in terms of how much we could manipulate it and how versatile it was, not to mention the very solid net-code which is essential with a large-scale co-op game. However, we also found that it lacked the ability to generate the scope and scale of what we wanted to create, and decided it would be best to wait for an engine that could handle everything we can throw at it. And of course, that engine was Unreal 3.

MB: Also, we chose Unreal 3 because it has a larger base of 'hobbyist' people to draw from to staff a mod, at least in my experience. And, at the time, it looked like UT3 was going to come out sooner.

Hey, marines have to eat too!

What sort of challenges come up when working with next generation technology, and what kind of tools do you use to face them?

MR: Well the number one challenge is the amount of time it takes on the art and level end. We are attempting to create art assets that will truly immerse players into the world. This means that everything visual has to be as high quality as possible, in an attempt to get as close to that uncanny valley as the technology allows.

UE3 provides an incredible amount of flexibility in terms of its visuals, and we want to take full advantage of it. However, what that means of course is that art assets take a lot longer to create than in previous engines. And that of course leads to personnel.

Finding people willing to dedicate their free time at that level of quality is very difficult indeed. We are lucky to have several team members with professional UE3 experience who can guide the rest of us as far as what we need to do, how, and when.

This challenge is also one of the main reasons we have started pre-production so early, so we can get as much of our visuals done before UT3 is released.

We are always looking for quality artists by the way, haha!

And finally, what can we expect for an approximate release date?

As per usual, I'm going to throw out the “when it's done” response. Though we plan to have the demo done approximately 6 months after the release of Unreal Tournament 3.

You may also accept the “when it's finished,” “when we feel like it,” or “when you shut up” responses for variety.