Q&A with Chris Miller and Craig Hubbard - 19 September 02
NVIDIA interviewed Fox Interactive's Chris Miller and Monolith's Craig Hubbard.
Here's a bit from this short Q&A:
NVIDIA: For first person shooter fanatics, what would you like to say about
NOLF2 that makes it fresh and new?
Chris Miller, Fox Interactive: I'll tell you what NOLF 2 is, it's funny! That's
what I believe will draw people to it. It's a game with an incredibly rich
story line, great characters that are not easily forgotten and a sense of style
that will keep gamers coming back again and again to find all the subtle gems
in this title.
Lone Gamers conducted a short Q&A session with Fox Interactive's Chris
Miller. Here's a snip:
Why did you choose to use the Lithtech Jupiter engine?
The Jupiter engine evolved from the code base that NOLF1 was built on and since
the team was so familiar with it and they were in fact the ones making the
new changes to the system it just made sense to do it that way.
GP: How has combat changed from the first game to the sequel, if at all?
Combat has changed in that you are equipped with a different range of weapons,
which affects the way you do battle with bad guys. Also, the AI in NOLF 2 uses
more advanced flanking and searching tactics. Finally, the gameplay is less
scripted and allows both a stealth approach as well as run and gun battles.
NOLFGirl Community Interview Chris Miller Q & A - 15 September 02
Good things come to those who wait.. and in two parts even. In case you didn't
know, Chris Miller, Producer @ Fox Interactive, agreed to do another NOLFGirl
Community interview. There were so many questions that we broke down the interview
into two parts and here is part one. Part two will be coming very soon.
Enjoy and thanks to those in the community for participating. Also, thanks
to Chris Miller for letting the community ask their questions and to Samantha
Ryan (Producer @ Monolith) and Aaron Blean (Associate Producer @ Fox) for adding
bits here and there.
The Adrenaline Vault has posted a brief Q&A with Chris Miller. Here is
a snip:
How has the character of Cate Archer changed for NOLF2?
She's no longer working to prove herself in the field. After her success in
thwarting H.A.R.M.'s evil scheme last year, the good people at UNITY saw fit
to make her a fully independent field agent, no questions asked.
Action Vault: What are your main considerations and goals in the area of mission
design? How many missions will there be, and will they vary in terms of types
and goals?
Dan Miller: Variety is one word I would use to describe our missions and level
design. Much like the original game, we try to shake things up by changing
mission objectives, not the style in which the player must play. We encourage
sneaking through our rewards system, but if the player just wants to shoot
his/her way through a level - there is nothing we do to stop this type of approach
- it may be more difficult though.
On PCGamer, there's an article called NOLF 2: The Complete Developer Interview.
Monolith imbued NOLF with more than just a chic Sixties setting and a strong
female lead character. Critical to its success was its evolutionary AI: enemies
dodged, looked for cover, and interacted to some extent with the environment,
all of which helped cement the compelling experience.
HomeLan Fed speaks with Fox Interactive - 14 July 02
HomeLan Fed posted an interview with Fox Interactive's Aaron Blean and Chris
Miller. There's not much we didn't already know, but it's still a good read.
Here's a bit:
HomeLAN - What can you tell us at this point about the game's multiplayer features?
Chris Miller - We want to give players a unique experience. After following
the forums and newsgroups, we've decided to take a co-op mode approach to answer
the needs of the multi-player community. That's as much as we can reveal at
the moment, but there are some very cool co-op plans we hope to reveal soon.
The Armchair Empire has posted a Q&A session with several members of the
NOLF2 development team, Monolith. It covers a whole bunch of issues ranging
from the theme music to releasing the source and mod tools.
How well will NOLF2 lend itself to mod creation?
Samantha Ryan: We are still in discussions with our publisher about how to
handle releasing the tools and source for the mod community. However, mod users
already familiar with LithTech’s proprietary DEdit and ModelEdit tools should
find them somewhat familiar, although to create the very high level of detail
found in NOLF2 will likely take more effort than simply creating an old low
detail NOLF1 level.
GamersClick have posted an interview with Jeff Hutt from Lith Tech.
GC:The engine has proven to be very solid for 3D shooters such as NOLF and
AVP 2. What other programs are in the pipeline that will be showcasing the
engines talents?
JH: The Jupiter system was designed to be much more flexible than the systems
that were used to develop games like No One Lives Forever and Aliens vs. Predator
2. This has enabled developers to create 3rd person action/adventure games,
RPGs, massively multiplayer games and other types of games that were less common
for LithTech in the past. I'm sure you will see more news on these games as
they get closer to completion.
XGR is conducting an audio interview with Craig Hubbard, Lead Designer, and
Kevin Stephens, Director of Engineering from the E3 show floor. Check it out
now. If you miss it, don't worry. XGR posts a MP3 file 24 hours after their
usual reports.
Gamespy has posted a Q&A with several members of the dev team as they
talk about the co-op mode among other issues.
GameSpy: It has been said players will be able to work with one another for
the story part of the game. How many players will be able to play at one
time in this mode?
Samantha Ryan: Cooperative multiplayer missions will allow up to 4 players
to work together against AI opponents using an assortment of gadgets and weapons
from the single-player game. However, it's important to note that these missions
are separate from the single-player game. That's about as much as we are willing
to divulge at the moment!
Over at Action Trip is an interview with the development team for No One Lives
Forever 2 at Monolith.
"In addition, we've updated our models to support dynamic animation sets
(which allows us to have many more animation variations), improved model node
control (which allow the AI to turn their head, eyes, and torso and track moving
objects like the player), and added movement encoding to prevent sliding AI (the
AIs movement is tied to the animation so it looks correct.). We've also added
support for phoneme-based lip-syncing, which greatly improves the look of talking
characters. Finally, the size of our models has been compressed which helps them
to load faster and take up less memory."
