Gamestah: What has been the highlight of working on Dystopia for you?

Fuzzy: The night we released the original Dystopia Demo. Right up until the moment we posted up the download links we really had no idea about how many players to expect. I was organising the first servers to be up and read the moment we pimped the links I was happy whan I had 4 servers up in each region (AUS, US, and EU). With in a few hours there were over 150. And they were all full. Those first few hours after release was such an amazing rush, as positive feedback came flooding back in.

Gamestah: Has the popularity of Dystopia met or exceeded your expectations?

Fuzzy: While developing Dystopia the entire team knew that we were creating a complex and demanding game, that would probably be loved by a niche community. With over 250,000 downloads of the demo we know that a very large chunk of the gaming scene checked Dystopia out. The vast majority of feedback was quite simple: we like it, we want more maps!

Gamestah: There is no doubt that Team Dystopia has been doing a fine job, how did the team come together?

Fuzzy: The Dystopia "project" has been running for nearly 3 years now, as
with anything on that kind of timeline there have been a lot of
comings and goings. However, the core group of Team Dystopia have been
there from the beginning. Most of us met playing Quake3 Fortress and
BF1942 in the Aussie clan scene, staying in touch when both titles
came and went. Back in 2003 we all came to the conclusion that there
was no online FPS game on the horizon which we were really interested
in. A real case of "how hard could it be?".

Now 3 years down the track I'll be the first to say that it's been
damn hard, but well worth the effort.

Gamestah: Are there any differences between the original design doc and the Dystopia demo and planned V1 release?

Fuzzy: Absolutely. One of the real lessons the team has learnt while
developing Dystopia is that a design document needs to be a living
thing. Ideas written down, even after being discussed and fine tuned,
are completely unproven until you've prototyped and playtested them.
The best sounding idea can easily turn out to be simply "un-fun" when
you actually have it in game. Because of this "suck it and see" system
the design of Dystopia has really evolved over time. One thing is for
sure though, with 20/20 hindsight Version 1 of Dystopia will be far in
advanced of what we imagined in our mind way back in 2003.

Dystopia raised the bar for all HL2 Source mods to follow, moving towards the much anticipated V1 release how will Dystopia again up the ante?

Along with the addition of a whole slew of maps players will notice
some very subtle but effective polishing of Dystopia. The most obvious
of these is the refinements we're making to the HUD and other
displays. I'm sure everyone is aware that on a project like this the
last 10% can be harder and more time consuming to complete than the
previous 90%. We released the Dystopia demo to the public simply
because we were eager to share our game with the world and get
feedback. With more content and a high level of polish Dystopia v1
will have the world decking in cyberspace and battling in meatspace in
style.

Gamestah: There has been talk of vehicles, stemming back before the original demo release, any word as to whether they will make an appearance?

Fuzzy: We have maps in testing at the moment which include vehicles. There
are still a few gameplay issues which we need to find solutions for,
such as distance to travel if you don't have access to a vehicle.
Quite simply though, vehicles bring a lot of fun to Dystopia and due
to that we're continuing to persist with finding an enjoyable balance
between infantry and vehicles.

Gamestah: Before the demo was released the website made reference to a Hang Glider in Dystopia, will this be making an appearance in V1?

Fuzzy: Prior to the demo's release Teddy did indeed have a hang glider
prototyped and in our test build. It's flight was a little erratic to
say the least. When we turned our focus towards getting the demo
released to the public all work on vehicles was put aside as we
focused on the core gameplay features. After the demo Ted started on
vehicles a fresh, and I'm sorry to say the hang glider isn't one of
the vehicles he's prototyped up again. Maybe one day, but highly
doubtful for V1.

Gamestah: In previous interviews you have mentioned that you were wanting more programs for cyberspace, and the ability to pick which programs you take into cyberspace and which ones you risk leaving out. Have any steps been taken in the furthering of cyberspace gameplay?

Fuzzy: The reworking and touching up of cyberspace is the current big ticket
item inside Team Dystopia. We've been brainstorming up ideas for
tweaks, changes and additions. The front runners are a selection of
new combat weapons as well as the addition of combat programs to be
launched at an enemy. Attacks like virus, trojans, worms or denial of
service are some of the ideas which will be prototyped. Of course
they'll all have counters and defenses, and the fast speed of
cyberspace will be retained.

The latest addition to cyberspace that is being tested are a range of
options for setting up defenses to a node. As well as the ice mine,
deckers can inject intrusion detectors or even black ice into an ice
wall. Additional protection and cracking programs, which will include
a new risk vs reward system are also on the cards.

Gamestah: There has been much talk on new implants and weapons on the Dystopia forums and in recent interviews. I know you have previously stated nothing is locked in, is there any update on this? Anything that you can tell us in regards to new features?

Fuzzy: While the implants are still massively "work in progress", our new
weapon line up is close to locked in. The new weapon for each of the
light and heavy classes is now having models and textures made, as
they've passed our playtesting.

I can announce here that the new weapon for the light class in Version
1 is the SmartLock Pistols. In it's primary fire mode these akimbo
pistols fire full auto, starting off accurate and spraying more with
continued fire. However it's the alternate fire from which the pistols
get their name; the ability to tag an enemy with a transponder which
all following bullets home in on. The user is able to fire a tagging
round from each pistol, allowing you to tag and track two enemies or
double up on one.

Gamestah: A while ago there was a post on the forums where a fan had modelled a new Assault Rifle, are there any plans to have the appearance of the weapon differ between the two teams?

Fuzzy: It's always been in our long range plans for this to happen. Currently
we have artists working on either new models or alternate team
specific textures for the weapons. It's touches like this which we
know will polish Dystopia and add to the immersion.

Gamestah: One of the biggest criticisms of Dystopia's demo release has been the way in which maps force players into chokepoints. How do you respond to these claims? And leading into Dystopia's V1 release is this a consideration in the maps being produced?

Fuzzy: I feel that there are two aspects to this, on Vaccine for example the
map was indeed designed to funnel all players to one last epic show
down full of carnage at the level 3 airlock. Then we have areas on
maps which we didn't plan or expect to see heated battle. This kinds
of situations we are finding solutions for, a great example here is
the first objective on Silo. Version 1 will include a remixed Silo
which addresses this.

For the new levels, I've just created a new death location plot system
which allows the mapper to easily see where the majority of combat
takes place on their levels. This is extremely helpful as it allows
the mappers to focus on make the combat zones as interesting as
possible.

Gamestah: How many new maps are you looking at releasing with V1?

Fuzzy: Our general aim is to have 10 maps included in Dystopia Version 1.

Gamestah: What types of scenarios are players likely to encounter on these new maps?

Fuzzy: The new levels have a very broad flavour. From punks breaking into
banks to crack corporate vaults to infiltrating mining facilities to
cause wanton destruction. We also see the first of the corporate
offensive maps and double objective scenarios. The themes from the
levels also span from run down urban areas to plush corporate head
quarters.

Gamestah: Are there any gameplay differences between the demo and the upcoming V1 release? What have you found in testing?

Fuzzy: For the majority of gameplay features Team Dystopia is happy, there
have been a few balance issues which we've seen in the stats and had
mountains of feedback about. Based on this some changes have been
made. An example would be the new tracking system for the rocket
launcher. We've increased the turning circle of the rockets, this
enables targeted players to get behind cover easier.

Gamestah: And finally the question on everyones lips, whats life like as a GameArena admin?

Fuzzy: On the whole it's great. At the end of the day it's basically the same
work as I was doing at the University, just that rather than services
like diary and email I'm admin'ing BF2 and Source servers. The fact I
bust my hump all day to admin servers for games that aren't Dystopia
kind of irks me :)

Aren't people sick of dust and wake yet?