Dystopia Mod for Half-Life 2 Dystopia Q/A feature

[page=Introduction]
The player will be immersed in action packed battles, whether as a heavily augmented combat mercenary armed to the teeth with the latest in firepower and implants, or a twitch reflex cyberdecker racing to infiltrate a cyberspace node. Only through skillful use of the high tech arsenal we're making available and intelligent team play will players truly jack-in and kick ass.

[page=Interview]
modDB: So, who is everybody, and what are your jobs on the mod? State your real name, job, place where you are from and age!

I'm Robert "Fuzzy" Crouch and I'm one of the 3 project leaders / managers of Team Dystopia. I'm also the PR Lead and chief stats junkie. I'm 26 and live in Brisbane Australia.

modDB: Dystopia was thought up when? What type ware are you aiming for? Is the mod like another game or mod in your opinion?

The original game design for Dystopia was created by a good friend of ours, T'lexii. He and a few of our gaming mates started planning for a Quake 3 mod back in 2001. They quickly hit a number of technical issues with the Q3 engine and the project was shelved. In August of 2002 we breathed new life into the idea and began pulling together a development team to turn Dystopia into a reality on the Source engine.

Our goal for Dystopia is to create a team game which features fast paced and intense action, all in a gritty cyberpunk theme. Our dev team are all hardcore gamers who were bored with the current crop of world war 2 and realism based multiplayer games. Since there seemed to be no high action, team games on the horizon, we decided that we'd attempt to create something to fill our own desires. It seems we're not the only ones wanting something fresh and unique, rather than yet another port of 2forts or another realistic combat mod.

The closest gameplay parallels you could draw would be Enemy Territory, in that like Dystopia it's maps feature multiple objectives which the attacking team must complete.

modDB: How long have you been working on Dystopia?

While the current project was kicked off in Aug 2002, it wasn't until mid 2003 that we'd pulled together the core of our development team. From then until the HL2 SDK was released we prototyped our gameplay ideas in HL1 and begun work on maps and models.

modDB: Describe the best feature in the mod in your opinion? What should the person look for that they might miss?

The interaction between players involved in fire fights in the real world and players who are hacking in cyberspace. For example; in a section of the level Vaccine, real world players on the Punk team have their progress through the map stopped by two turrets mounted on the ceiling. They have a range of options; physically shooting the turrets until they're destroyed, which will result in them taking some damage. Or, more preferably, they can request their hacker take the turrets offline. Better yet, the hacker can hack the turrets so they target the Corp players rather than his team mates.

modDB: Describe the weapons and what the weapon you will use the most and why?

Dystopia features 9 primary weapons (3 for each of the augmentation classes), 3 melee weapons, 3 hand grenades (melee and grenades are unique for each class) and a common side arm. The primary weapons are:

Shotgun, BoltGun, Laser Rifle.
Assault Rifle, MK808 Semi Auto, Grenade Launcher.
Rocket Launcher, Ion Cannon, Minigun.

Each weapon definitely has it's own niche in the game, and which weapon you'll use most depends on what sort of role you're wanting to fill. A couple of examples; the Shotgun is excellent when combined with the Stealth implant, allowing a player to sneak right up behind someone and unload two barrels of pain into them. The Minigun is the weapon of choice for someone who wants to tank their way up close to an enemy and make him eat hot lead, great when used in combination with the sound surpressor implant.

modDB: How is the damage system in Dystopia?

You shoot your weapons at people and it hurts them. I don't really understand this question :)

modDB: What's your favorite Dystopia gameplay and explain it:

Recently I've been really enjoying filling the role of harassing the enemy hacker in the real world. The load out I select to do this is the light class with stealth and tac scanner implants and armed with the BoltGun. My strategy is to sneak past the front line battles and take out the real world body of the enemy hacker while he's jacked into cyberspace. Doing this gives my team's hacker a clear run through cyberspace so he can make hacks with out getting into cyber fights with the enemy hacker.

modDB: I have seen the latest video on the site. For those who haven't seen it yet please describe what everyone who has seen it watched?

The teaser video shows off a series of short, high action sequences taken directly from demos of our playtest sessions. While they are only short sharp scenes, the video shows off almost every implant and weapon in the game. You'll see our Identify Friendly / Foe system, the Thermal Vision and Sound Wave Triangulator implants and much much more.

modDB: Explain how the player classes will work and in your opinion why I should be one over the other:

Your selection of class effects more than just your speed, health and weapon selection. Each class can select different amounts of implants, the light class has the most implant slots and the heavy class the least. If you want to play sneaky, select the light class and choose the stealth implant. Want to jump from building to building, sniping at enemies from a height advantage? Go light, select legboosters and laser rifle. If you want to play a front line support role, medium class with tac scanner and mediplant is the class for you. If you just want to do huge amounts of damage, go heavy.

modDB: When should we see a release? Has anything been cut to make the release?

It'll be released when it's done. We have held back some of our features for the full release of Dystopia. The demo release will feature the core of our gameplay ideas. As well as a few other additions, the full version will add vehicles. These will be used in the opening phase of a level, as the attacking team infiltrates the enemy building / facility.

Final thoughts:

The entire team has their nose to the grind stone, working their butts off to get the Dystopia Demo completed. We don't want to keep the eager gamers waiting much longer before they can experience our special brand of cyberpunk action!