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| Suislide Speaks |
| by Shinobi |
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Shinobi: I'm sure anyone who plays action quake knows who you are by now, but how about a brief introduction? (real name, location, and school attending if any and major) Suislide: Dallas, Podunk Nowhere Kentucky, and I don't go to school at the moment. Shinobi: How did you come up with the name, Suislide? Suislide: I sort of got stuck with it actually. I like some of my other nicks better. I used it in game a few years ago and I was doing suicide run and they were entertaining. So I used the name Suislide. I used the name in AQ a couple times because I was doing the same thing and then people just started getting to know me. Now I can't really change it since so many people know me by it. Shinobi: I know Cail was pretty much the driving force behind action. How did you become involved with the team? Suislide: I started playing action with the first public release. It had potential but wasn't very good yet. So I thought I'd help since it was close to what I was planning to do in a mod I was planning myself gameplaywise. SO I made a replacement Hand Cannon model and after a while I had done a lot more, gotten to know the team really well, and since I was working closely with them for so long it just sort of happened that I was a team member. Kind of happened. Shinobi: What are some of the things you helped develop for action quake as a team member? A: I made the Hand Cannon model, The knife model, The skin for the grenade, the blood splats, the bulletholes, a few sounds, vweap, in game item models, actionmale model, tons of skins, a lot of ideas and testing. Mostly other than that is was just misc. stuff I think. (i.e. working with people and the web pages and stuff) Shinobi: How did the A-team come up with action quake? Who actually thought up the idea? A: I wasn't there myself since the original team members were all living near eachother. I am pretty sure it was Cail's idea to do the Action Movie theme though. But don't hold me to it. I know they thought it up after watching the movie "Hard Boiled" from John Woo though. Great movie. Shinobi: What were some of the things which were being considering for action quake, which just didn't make the final cut? Suislide: Capture the Briefcase, Assassinate the leader, Damage skins, a grenade gib model, rangefinder on the sniper scope, smooth autozoom sniper scope, sniper gib model with head removed for sniper headshots, etc. Really a lot of stuff didn't make it because only so much can be handled at once and we also ran out of time really. Shinobi: Some pretty cool stuff there. Suislide: yeah, but things like texture memory, second thoughts, etc. restricted us. We were going to have locational damage skins so you could tell where people had been hit. you have to stop somewhere ya know. Can't do everything so you have to do what you think is most suited. Shinobi: Will we ever see any of these in the future perhaps? Suislide: perhaps. You never know what you might see in the future. Different engines open different doors for us to do things and if I have learned anything it is that even if the people who make the engine tell you something can't be done that all it means is it can't be done to their satisfaction. Shinobi: I noticed that there is an official Capture The Briefcase in development. Does the A-team endorse this? Suislide: I personally want to see CTB made. I am trying to help out one team working on it if I can but the truth is that right now there really is no 'official' ctb in any real sense. Once it is done it might get a nifty title like that though. never know. Shinobi: I'm really looking forward to anything that will add some new dimensions to gameplay. Suislide: So am I. I like Action The way it was in 1.0 myself but a change is always good. That is why I promoted the code release like most of the team did. It opens it up for interesting new things such as CTB or maybe (I hope) a single player mode. But I guess the AQbot is sort of a single player mode as well. Shinobi: Looking at where action is today, just how far has it come? Did you ever expect it to gain as much popularity as it did or to be as well developed as it is? Suislide: I expected Action to be as well developed as it is but I really had no idea how many people would like it. We made it the way we liked it and it just sort of happened that others liked the same thing we did. Shinobi: Did you have to sacrifice any realism for mechanics, style, or playability? Suislide: People have a bad impression of Action which is the base of a lot of the complaints people give. Action isn't based on realism at all. It is based on gameplay and then realism is put in to fill the gaps. So realism was never sacrificed as it was a bonus rather than the base of the mod. But it definately makes way for some of the most realistic situations if not super realistic mechanics. Shinobi: I know there are alot of people out there who think it's based on realism instead of action movies. These same people tend to complain due to it's non militaristic (realistic) nature. Shinobi: How long did it take to complete action quake from start to finish? Suislide: I have no idea. It depends on wether you mean the coding that the Ateam did or wether you mean the mod as a whole. With the help of new code maintainers and the source release I personally think it is far from done. SO I don't know how to answer he question. Actually 1.0 was the final versions with bug fixes aside. Even saying that I am not sure how long it took. Never thought about it that way. But if you really want to know the message history from the news page goes all the way back to the beggining if you keep clicking old news. SO I guess any curious folks could figure it out if they intended to. Shinobi: There were quite a few action fans annoyed about what happened with the whole extremeties pack deal. I'm sure the A-Team was honored when asked about action's inclusion in extremeties, but looking back, do you regret getting into it? It didn't seem to be a very hot item on the gaming market, and alot of hard core action fans believed it took away from some of the realism in the environments, when copyrighted material became prohibited and many textures had to be redone and maps rereleased. Suislide: No, I don't regret it one bit. I mean, we are still having some problems with the whole thing and I haven't gotten a dime from it. But it is a published item by a big game company with my work on it. I like the idea of that and I am sure it wouldn't look too bad on a resume either. I also think it would have sold real well if it had ever made it to the stores. Almost no stores ever got the item. Which is a shame really. Shinobi: I see. That would definitely look good on a resume. Suislide: Also, it is a common misconception that we banned illeagal use of textures, etc. because of extremities. The truth is we did it because it is unethical, immoral, and we didn't like the idea that people were stealing others work and using it for AQ. I would hate to have my work stolen and I am sure that others would as well. That is why we forced people to stop stealing and using it in the maps. Extremities simply brought it all to our attention. Shinobi: We've heard from the code gurus of GENO, Zuchinni and Fireblade that there is multi-team support and other features planned. What can we expect to see in future versions of action quake? Can you verify anything in the works? Suislide: I don't know really. They will be editing on their own. They are the code maintainers now. The stuff has to go through us before we slap the Action name on it but we aren't going to be too strict with them about it. Personally I still like 1.0 myself. Shinobi: If you could have any model you wanted for action quake who or what would it be? Suislide: I would probably want EvilBastard to make a model of the guy from the movie "The Professional", but that is a hard question since if I really wanted a model badly I could just make one I guess. Shinobi: Many people are anxiously awaiting the release of action half life. It can't be finished until the Developer's kit and source code are available, but I'm sure you've been working on it for a while now, just getting it ready. What exactly needs to be done and what has already been done? Suislide: Well, I can't tell you what we have and don't have but I can say that The head of Valve let slip some of what we have in a shooters episode. But I can tell you we are getting work done. I am the biggest holdback because I keep running into walls with it but I am getting there too. Nice try though. Shinobi: I read a while back where you got the chance to visit the guys at Valve and talk about action half life. How did that go? Suislide: Great. Definately something I will remember for a long time. I am a poor person to be honest. So when someone flies you across the country, puts you in a nice hotel, takes you to dinner, shows you around their work place, drives you around, gives you stuff (can't say what stuff), and all around treats you like a peer even though you look up to them..... well, it is not something you expect to happen often :) and they are still there to help if we need it. Shinobi: What was talked about, concerning action half life? Suislide: Well, there will be some weapon changes, some new features, some old features removed, and overall I think it will surprise a lot of people. It will be even more like an Action Movie than AQ is. Which should give you some idea as to how it will be. Shinobi: I'm personally looking forward to AHL. Alot of people have dissed HL's multiplayer, but it's improved alot in my opnion and will keep improving. Suislide: I think people diss Half Life because they hate change. A lot of people hated AQ and some still refuse to play anything but Quake1. But Half Life is good. Very good. Shinobi: A few people have been able to get some screenshots of Gerbil's Action Half Life, Urban map. What will the other action half life maps be like? What types of maps or environments can we expect to see and what will be the difference from these maps and those of action quake? Suislide: well, I don't know everything since it is totally on the mappers but Half Life opens a lot of new areas. the biggest for me personally is transparent textures. You can make trees, grates, wire fences, etc. that and breakable glass is supported in multiplayer... Shinobi: What mappers are currently making maps for the action half life release? Suislide: I don't know who's maps will be in the release. I am not working closely with mappers myself though I did give Cail some info and I believe he was working with them. Shinobi: Will the first version of action half life have both deathmatch and teamplay? Suislide: That is something I can't say really. If we wind up getting teamplay in for the release then that is good but chances are good the first release will be Deathmatch only. Teamplay really takes a lot more code work than Deathmatch and a lot more balancing and testing. Shinobi: I know you won't really know when action half life will be finished until Valve releases the SDK, but can you give us a rough release date? Suislide: Well, no. But sooner than you would probably expect I am sure. Shinobi: I guess that about wraps it up. Do you have anything else you would like to add? Suislide: nope, nothing else from me Shinobi: Thanks for your time. |
