[page=Introduction]
In the grim world of the far future, mankind has exploded in expansion, its population numbering in the hundreds of trillions. Populating thousands of plants over thousands of systems, they are a force to be reckoned with. But that does not stop them from being in a state of constant warfare.
For in the grim future of mankind, THERE IS ONLY WAR!
[page=Interview]
If you would please, state your names and positions on the mod team.
Alan : I'm Alan Briggs, Battlefield 40k Mod Director. I also developed the website and set up the current forums. I'm also a 3d modeler and Texture artist
Magus : I'm John Mansir, otherwise known as Magus. I'm a coder for the team and i also deal with packaging and distributing the alpha files.
Lion : Philip Dredge, PR, Damage system, Development Methodology With a Degree in Computer Science
Fend : Fend 575 - Second in Command - Planner, Supervisor and Advisor , (I am Chris Riese)
Duke : My name is Steinar Husby and I come from Norway. On the BF40k team my focus is on modeling and animating. I am studying for a bachelor degree on Multimedia-technology.
Thank you, When did the battlefield 40k mod team come together?
Alan : Battlefield 40k came together at the end of July 2004, originally setup my Dakota Stuart when he made a post on a gaming website looking for a mod team, and shortly put one together. I joined the mod team shortly after it was formed, being one of the first members.
Lionheart : I joined the mod team at the end of August late last year after interest in seeing the potential of Battlefield with 40k.
Now, has the Battlefield 40k mod team been through any particularly "rough times" during the course of its life?
Alan : There have been numerous occasions where the mod team have not always agreed, I’m sure this is always the case when working on large projects, you always have personal disagreements. But most of the key members of the team have been with us from the start, so we seem to have quite a strong team working on this project. I think the fact that we all have a shared interest, Warhammer 40k and Battlefield has meant we're basically in this mod for the same reasons and we all want to see it become as successful as it deserves to be
Magus : There have often been times when core team members couldn't work for whatever reason; school exams, work, personal issues...but we have always had most of the team working away to produce the final piece
Lion : It has been tough on all of us but we have kept going, some of the troubles with the mod have been discovering how bf1942 works and creating a work pattern
Fend : Many times on this Team we’ve Faced Disaster, competition, Even a loss of our Main resource Storage unit (the FTP) and other things. But we’ve had that passion to go on. and we’ve survived.
Duke : A mod that argues and grows is better than one that is silent and dying.
Wise words, Duke. With so many, many other game engines out there, why choose the Battlefield 1942 / Battlefield 2 engine?
Alan : I've always been a fan of the wide open battlefields available to fight on in the Battlefield series of games , BF1942 and BF2. The combination of vehicular combat and ground troops gives a very interactive feel. It opens up a lot of possibilities and is particularly suited to the style of warfare in Warhammer 40,000, I've always wanted a Warhammer 40k FPS and battlefield was the best option.
Magus : I was amazed with Battlefield 1942 when it came out, It was an incredible idea that was executed perfectly by Dice. And from a modding point of view, it is many many times simpler to mod for than other similar engines, and allows us far more customization for the vehicular combat of 40k, The world of Warhammer 40k perfectly suits the engine of the battlefield series.
Lionheart : Part of my answer has already been answered by magus. Its ideal for creating mods with the simplicity provided by the scripting system however due to the code being closed source we can only implement what DICE provides us with in features
Fend : As Warhammer collectors we Value one thing. Large Scale Epic Warfare. with Vehicles. Infantry and Arial Balance. Neither overpowering the next. BF2 gives us the flexilibty not only to represent the Variety of Tactical Situations presented on the table top, but it Gives us the ability to make a powerful Experience through the eyes of a soldier fighting in the 40k universe.
Duke : Well, the battlefield series has always been about getting infantry, tanks, boats and airplanes to work in a balanced way, and large maps. its almost as close to the tabletop warhammer that one could get it really. And I believe that its with the battlefield engines that we have the best option of making a mod which would resemble the gritty combat of the 41st millennium.
Very well, sounds like the Battlefield engine is exactly what you would need. But now that Battlefield 2 has been released, do you have plans to drop the Battlefield 1942 part of the mod and devote all time and energy to the Battlefield 2 part? Or do you plan on using both still?
Alan : There are still a large number of players and members of our forums who would like us to continue supporting the bf42 version of the mod, I would love to work on both versions of the mod, however we don't have the resources on the team to be able to do that. So we’ll be primarily concentrating on Battlefield 2. Although there are currently a number of people still playing bf42, I feel those players will eventually migrate to bf2. Bf2 also makes apparent the graphical limitations of the original engine.
Magus : As much as we tried to make the battlefield1942 version of our release perfect we were slightly rushed for time to meet deadlines set by magazines, so there were a very small amount of bugs in the bf942 version of our release. Some members of our forums have requested that we add a "final" patch to our bf42 release to just polish everything off, but unfortunately with the release of BF2 that isn’t very high on our priority list, but it will eventually get done.
Lionheart : BF1942 has hindered some of the features we wanted to include in the game and made certain vehicles not possible, Battlefield Two solves many of these problems. As for the final patch I already have one available that will fix the boltgun shells that were damaging vehicles. Some of the problems we have had with normal battlefield have been with the number of vehicle positions available, the fact that only one soldier can be used per race so you could only change the helmet, hip pack and backpack between races.
Fend : A problem in Bf1942 was the sheer limitation of the engine. We couldn’t have some Races. We couldn’t even work in the many dynamic Infantry designs Displayed on the table top, mainly due to an issue where we could only have 1 Model Per team. With BF2 this issue is gone. Not only this but we can also give each class custom animations. We will Patch our bf1942 version, but as popularity for Bf1942 Dwindles, we will concentrate more on our New Toy.
Duke : Even if there are alot of fans left on good old faithful 1942, you have to face the facts that bf2 has multiple pro's: gameplay focusing on teamplay, commander mode and heat-seeking missiles are but a few of the new things that would have been impossible for us to do in 1942.
Interesting to hear. Are there plans to include every race from the Warhammer 40k world? If there are races that will be left out, why?
Alan : There are many races in Warhammer 40k, Initially we are concentrating on the 4 key races, Imperial Guard, Space Marines, Orks and Tau. Some races such as tyranids would be very limited within the bf2 engine. Some other races are not quite as developed by Games Workshop and would prove hard to balance in the mod, simply because of the lack of equipment and vehicles produced by Games Workshop. We are still undecided as to what the 5th race shall be as this is currently in discussion on our forums.
Magus : During the development of the BF1942 mod we were always planning for the future, and ways to make the mod innovative, and as such many of our suggestions could only be done on BF2. The primary 4 which Alan mentioned were clear winners, and we decided to limit the amount of races in the mod to 4 to limit file size and the amount of work we had to do. Creating 2 teams is a big task, but 4 is huge! But, the developers have a soft spot for eldar, and it seems the public are crazy for chaos, so we are considering adding them in after the first 4 depending on how things are moving along.
Lionheart : In terms of races I think the current five is enough, although where some are limited by the engine on classes and vehicles. I've always wanted them to still have a role in a more limited respect, but this would take more resources to develop them, so it’s best to focus on what we already have.
(About this time another member of the mod team, Snide, their head mapper, joined in)
Duke : The 4 basic races are the ones cast in stone more or less. Guard and Tau is going first because they have most of the work done for them already. Space Marines and Orks will come after that. Many mods for warhammer 40k wants to implement every race, but that’s almost impossible to achieve while balancing the stuff that’s already been implemented, thus we need to focus on a few races.
Snide : The team feels that one of the most important factors to take into account when developing a comparatively large number of races is the fine balance between doing the Warhammer 40k universe justice, and the time spent developing said races. Developing every race possible would increase development time to such an extent that, working properly on working details of each race would become impractical, and our loyal fans would be waiting longer for a release.
Now, You've already told us that there were severe limitations with the Battlefield 1942 engine, have you run into any such limitations with the Battlefield 2 engine?
Alan : Because the mod development tools for Battlefield 2 are so new, we're still exploring what is possible. We wish to include weapons such as the Dreadnought walkers and Deathwind Droppods, we just have to find out the most efficient way of including those ingame. Other mods for bf42 have included walkers but haven't always been that well executed; hopefully we'll be able to work around some of these issues. Magus our head coder is perhaps more informed and will be able to better answer this question.
Magus : As mentioned before, the battlefield series of games is comparatively easy to mod, but its a trade off, as with everything. Ease of use is traded for complete control of the game, so there are many limitations, for example walking vehicles, AI controlled vehicles. Each vehicle can only have a maximum of 7 weapons on it, which made it difficult to code the larger vehicles such as the land raider and thunderhawk gunship. We approached BF2 with an open mind, hoping that many of our failed dreams for bf1942 would be possible in bf2, and so far it appears that BF2 is a much more versatile engine and that everything we would like to do is possible. As Alan said, no one really knows how much is possible, and there are 1000 people working to find out everything that can be done in BF2 on the official editor forums. Time will tell what we can do, but we will be as innovative as we can within the limitations of the engine to accurately recreate the warhammer 40k game in BF2.
Lionheart : As for myself, I began investigating how the bf1942 engine is modded within a multidisciplinary environment as part of my undergraduate project. When you talk of limitations there are many different perspective on it, I have created a model for bf1942 in how a team should cooperate in creation of modifications and have trying to make a tool that allows a team to work within the constraints of the engine. Anyhow, BF2 will solve one of the problems with certain vehicles.
Snide : When taking into consideration the limitations of the Battlefield 1942 engine, it has to be considered that given the age of the game itself, that things considered “revolutionary” win gaming will no longer become possible, due to the constant stream of new technology and games on the market. However, the team has always strived and achieved at creating new and unique gaming experiences, despite the age of the engine.
Duke : There will always be limitations , as I can understand that DICE and EA wouldn’t release the source files for such a good game to the public, but compared to 1942 we have gotten more options, and im sure we will not run to as many problems.
Great to hear that Battlefield 2 will solve many of your problems. Now, as a more personal question, does all/most of the Battlefield 40k Mod team play the Warhammer 40,000 Table Top Game?
Alan : I used to play the tabletop game, about 10-15 years ago! I work in ICT as a network manager, and was looking for a productive way of using my modeling skills, I found Battlefield 40k and it’s re-introduced me to the Tabletop War-game, since then I’ve begun collecting the miniatures and have a huge Imperial Guard army again! It seems like a lot of the mod members are current 40k players or have been re-introduced to the hobby again via the mod. Oh, and can I add - modeling for BF40k is a great excuse to justify the buying of a baneblade!
Magus : I also used to play the tabletop game, I played Dark Angel space marines about 4 years ago. I had to give up playing because I didn’t have the time and couldn’t really find any opponents to play against where I live. I don’t really have any interest in taking up back up again… modding it is far more fun. It’s ironic that I don’t even collect but through modding the hobby I’ve learnt just about everything there is to know about it.
Duke : Well, since I come from quite a rural area, we had to make everything from scratch, so I got my own army which is around 3000 points of Thousand Sons Chaos Space Marines, and then we got dark eldar, blood angels, and necron armies around 2000-3000 points each. Also a table with a lot of custom stuff on it, which we are quite proud of.
Snide : I started colleting Warhammer 40k in 1997, and then stopped some years ago. However, I maintained a healthy interest with regular purchase of magazines and books, keeping up to date with the “fluff” and keeping my self well orientated with the Warhammer 40k universe. My knowledge of the universe pales in comparison, however, to many of the team and even fans, that make it their business to know all there is to know on every level of Warhammer 40k.
Well, I'd like to thank the Battlefield 40k mod team for letting me interview them, personally I am looking forward to this mod and I hope everyone else will check it out :P
this looks great :D