Battlefield Apocalypse Interview

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-First off, please introduce yourselves to the community and tell us what you do for BF:Apocalypse.

· Hitpawz, Lead Animator, Skinner, Modeller, and effects coder. I've been with the team since BF:Apocalypse was started.
· Sickre, lead Public Relations Representative for Battlefield: Apocalypse, I've been with the team for 7 months. I'm also a mod designer.


-For those who don't know about this mod, explain what BF:Apocalypse is about.

Battlefield: Apocalypse, as the name suggests, is set on Earth roughly 50 years after civilization as we know it has obliterated itself through nuclear war. Humans are still alive in numbers, but have been relegated to previously unpopulated areas such as deserts in order to avoid radiation. Since the apocalypse, humanity has banded together into four main factions: the Reavers, the Remnant, the Keepers and the Damned.

Basically, the Reavers are your typical barbarian warriors, comparable to the Mongols or the Huns in the Middle Ages; but instead of horses, the Reavers use salvaged cars to live and fight. The Reavers are very assault-driven, and will be a favourite faction for those who like to kill first and not ask questions.

The Remnant are almost the Ideological exact opposite to the Reavers. The Remnant are the 'remainders' of the pre-apocalypse government forces, so you'll see Policemen, Firemen, Secret Service Agents, and even Postmen fill their ranks. The idea is that the surviving Policemen etc. pass on their occupation to their children, so you'll be seeing second or third generation 'Policemen' in BF:Apocalypse. Unfortunately or not, these occupations have become twisted in the Apocalypse, so whilst Firemen once concentrated on putting fires out, the Fireman in BF:Apocalypse will be a master of creating fire using his primary weapon: the flamethrower.

The first two factions to make release will be the Reavers and Remnant. You'll definitely see them in Battlefield: Apocalypse Beta version 0.1. The other two factions (Keepers and Damned) will be added in later releases.



What made you decide to start making the BF:Apocalypse mod?

Battlefield: Apocalypse (BF:A or BF:Apocalypse) was officially started about 15 months ago, in August 2004. Before that, the senior guys that make up our team of 22 were members of a website called Doomlab, www.doomlab.com (Including our mod leader, Doomsayer, the creator of Doomlab.)
Doomlab was and is a place for modders to hang out and share tips and experience on modding the Battlefield Series.
Last year, some of the most active members of that website realised that they were working so well together, that they may as well start a mod of their own. The group voted on several themes, such as Western, Space Sci-Fi, Modern day realism etc.
With the influence of games like Fallout and movies like the Mad Max Series (Mel Gibson) weighing heavily on their minds, a 'post-apocalyptic' setting was chosen almost unanimously, and Battlefield: Apocalypse was born.

One of the main reasons for choosing the a post-apocalyptic (eg. Set after some kind of catastrophic event, such as nuclear war or natural disasters.) setting was the freedom it allowed. Thankfully, our civilization hasn't experienced a broad scale apocalypse yet, so we basically have free reign over what kind of weapons and vehicles players can use, and what kind of environments they can use them in. We can create amazing playable character factions from scratch and basically let our imaginations run wild in respect to maps, weapons and vehicles. So you'll see a lot of household tools adapted for warfare, objects like cordless drills and car batteries.

In contrast, mods set in historical eras such as World War Two generally have to stick to the weapons and vehicles actually used during that period, and can only use them in defined environments, irregardless of whether that ultimately creates a fun situation for the player.



-Have you encountered any problems during development of the mod?

Unfortunately the Battlefield 2 engine doesn't allow as much limitless modding as we believed prior to its release. With that said, it utilises DirectX 9 and realistic physics, so once our custom assets (cars, rifles, objects etc.) are in game, they look great and are really fun to play around with.

We also started building a concept version of Battlefield: Apocalypse on the Battlefield: Vietnam engine, before BF2 was released. So even though we built the BF:Vietnam version of BF:A with Battlefield 2 polygons and textures in mind, its still been fairly difficult porting over 'old' assets to BF2 - sometimes they might need better textures or more detail overall, but we're definitely focusing on making Battlefield: Apocalypse for BF2 look the best and fit in with current DirectX 9 commercial games, visually.

A good example of this is the Skeleton model which features in our newly released 'Skeleton player and blood' mini-mod.
The skeleton model was originally built as a low-res static object such that many of them could be placed all over the maps with no affect on performance. They were one of the first few objects to be included into the mod and have been a part of it since the beginning. In order to prepare for the process of creating extremely high-quality character models for use in BF2, we needed to first understand the procedure. It was important to get experience translating them all the way into the game in a state which can be distributed without error. A low-res model meant a quicker transition to the setup phase since the skinning of the skelly was practically nothing. It has taught us a great deal about customizing the player models. While they won't be playable in BF:A, they're going to be making appearances in some of our maps alongside various other types of corpses.



-In most of your updates thus far, we have seen mostly ground vehicles and infantry weapons. Do you plan to include any air or sea assets?

Post-Apocalypse, air vehicles aren't as powerful as they were before, with fuel, ammunition constraints and all. Each faction will still have about two air vehicles each, but they'll be much slower and easier to shoot down than the modern jets you see in vanilla BF2. Our helicopters and planes will be more team-oriented, and not as useful to the single ubiquitous 'plane spawn camper'.
Sea vehicles will feature more heavily, with about three per faction. Vehicles such as swamp airboats and hovercraft will make up the various sea vehicle arsenals.

We're actually in the final stages of vehicle design. In a few weeks we'll have more information and concept art relating to the unique, original and exciting vehicles that will populate the BF:A universe for each faction.



What can we expect to see in BF:Apocalypse maps?

We'll have four fully fleshed custom maps ready to play for the first version of BF:Apocalypse is released. Each map will include the Reaver (Barbarian Warriors) and Remnant (Ex-Government Services) factions assaulting or defending against each other. Each map will be built using our own fully custom map assets, and truly create a Post-Apocalyptic atmosphere for the player and his teammates.

'Ground Zero' was our first map to be designed, and it set within a destroyed, flooded New York City.

'Shining Hills' pits two factions against each other for control of an abandoned, but intact, industrial park.

'Doomville' is a large desert map, in which both the Remnant and Reaver factions must fight for control of various desert facilities, such as water purification plants.

'The Hood' is set in a once typical suburban neighbourhood, where the Remnant must fight a vicious house-to-house battle to rid the neighbourhood of Reaver forces.

Each map already has their own assigned, dedicated BF:Apocalypse mapper working on it.

You can read our original map news post here for more detail on each map.



-What type of unique features or new game modes can we expect to see in BF:Apocalypse?

BF:Apocalypse will feature three new game modes: Capture the Tanker, Capture the Flag, and Team Death Match, as well as the standard objective mode; all coded independently by our numerous BF2 game coders.

CTT is 'Capture The Tanker', a game mode revolving around a controllable, capturable and destroyable fuel tanker, critical to the survival of each faction. At the start of a CTT game, the tanker will be located in the centre of the map, and factions must race to be the first to take control of the tanker and its location, and finally bring the tanker all the way back to their main base. To succeed, each side will need to employ coordinated ground vehicle attacks and then be able to organise them team into defending their captured tanker before it can be driven back to base. We're sure this mode will be a hit, with fast-paced car battles and chases, as well as the action and mayhem of up to 64 players fighting over a single tanker spawn point.

CTF is the traditional 'Capture the Flag', like that seen in Battlefield 1942 and the Desert Combat mod.
TDM is 'Team Death Match' mode, in which ticket loss due to flag capture is removed, and the opposing team can only be defeated by pure combat.



-When BF:Apocalypse is released, what do you think we will enjoy the most?

Hmm, that's definitely a tough one - I'd have to say that amongst the insanely unique weapons, diverse range of vehicles, various custom maps, and action-packed new game modes, each individual player will definitely have their own favourites. We're still developing and porting over new features and assets everyday, so its hard to name a definite most enjoyable aspect.

One part of Battlefield: Apocalypse I havn't mentioned so far is the team's talent for creating ingame items which truly look and feel like they have a place 50 years after a worldwide nuclear apocalypse - things like taking a modern day police car, and adding massive spikes, cannons, machine guns and bigger engines, as well as a fair dose of 50-year old rust. We call this process 'apocalization' - making an object physically 'fit in' with the BF:A post-apocalyptic universe. I think players will definitely enjoy the experience of playing with all these 'apocalized' vehicles and weapons and will appreciate the individuality and creativity apparent in each faction and map.



Judging from your current progress, when do you predict BF:Apocalypse will be getting ready for a release?

Our current development build is about 100mb (You can see it progress in size after registering on our website). We estimate BF:Apocalypse version 0.1 to be available to the public in Q1 or Q2 2006, at which time it will be a download greater than 500mb. It will go through two broad ranges of Alpha testing before first release. We plan on testing each map with a full server of 64 Testers, so the first beta should be very stable and easy to run on a private server.



-Any other comments you would like to add?

By registering and becoming a member of our website,you'll have access to media and news before it is released to the general public. You'll be able to get an inside view of what we're working on as a team, as well as communicating with us on our forums, Team Speak server, IRC channel, or live chat page.

We also plan to begin Phase 1 of official Alpha Testing, meaning we'll be publicly hiring dozens of registered community members to begin certified Battlefield: Apocalypse Alpha Testing. As stated above, we plan on eventually having enough people available to test each map on a full, 64-player server. Alpha Testers may also have access to our own specialised Content Delivery system for quick and easy Development Build updates, although that option is still being investigated.

We're also still eagerly accepting people talented in all areas of modding, particularly animating, unwrapping and texturing. Instructions for applying for a position as a BF:A developer can be found here.




I would like to thank Hitpawz and Sickre for taking the time to have this interview with us.

BF:Apocalypse Website