Q&A with Charlie “Flayra” Cleveland

If you’re unfamiliar with Natural Selection, it is a free total conversion mod for the original Half-Life and was released in 2002 by Unknown Worlds Entertainment.  NS is a sci-fi FPS/RTS hybrid which pits marines versus aliens.  Both sides battle for resources to upgrade their players while attempting to wipe out the other team.  The marines (Frontiersman) have a commander who views the map from an overhead perspective and can instruct teammates where to go, research new technology and weapons, and drop supplies and structures.  The aliens (Kharaa) have no leader, but are part of a hive mind.  Unlike the Frontiersmen, they control their own resources and decide how to use them.  The Kharaa can gestate into high life forms which each have their own unique abilities and attacks.

Natural Selection 2 was announced in 2006 and is currently in development for the PC.  NS2 will be a stand alone game and is being developed on its own custom game engine.  I was hoping to do an interview with Game Director and founder of Unknown Worlds Entertainment, Charlie Cleveland, at PAX09, but unfortunately the team was unable to attend.  Charlie was nice enough to take time out of his busy schedule and answer a few questions about the game.

Aside from the RTS elements, what sets Natural Selection 2 apart from other first person shooters on the PC?

We’ve always approached the design of the game with principles in mind instead of specific features. We call the four guiding principles our four “pillars” which hold up NS2.

The first pillar is “Two unique sides”. This means we want to make each side have completely different weapons, abilities, movement modes, aesthetics and everything else we can manage. When you’re an alien, we’re not just swapping out a view model and tweaking some code. They don’t have ammo or really even weapons! They have natural abilities which use an energy that replenishes but never runs out. Other things can boost (or drain) alien energy so it makes it altogether different than ammo. They also have evolutions which change their physical abilities, along with unique movement modes like wall-running for the skulk which lets him navigate the whole map on the walls or ceiling. We also have an extensive vent network on every map which is largely just for this alien. Those are just a few examples of making sure both sides look, feel and play totally differently.

The second is “Real-time Strategy” which includes the Commander Mode which you already know a bit about. Basically, some players are playing the game from the top-down like Starcraft and everyone else is playing first-person. Commanders can give orders to AI units like sentries and builder-bots as well as players. They also research new technology, create structures and dictate the strategy for the team.

The third is “Dynamic Environments”. Our hope is to make sure the environments and gameplay are changing constantly throughout the game. Elements that came from this include our marine power grid which support entire rooms of marine technology (and which can be strategically knocked out by attacking vulnerable places) and our Dynamic Infestation which is the alien goo that grows around all the alien structures and deforms the map geometry. It also includes our door welding feature which is discussed more below.

Our fourth pillar is “Unlimited Variations” which means we are creating a very powerful modding infrastructure (based around Lua and Decoda) and releasing all the tools we used to make the game, to make sure that tons of custom maps, modes, artwork and even entire new games spring up around Natural Selection 2. Our roots are in the modding community and having lots of gameplay modes and crazy custom content really appeals to us. We will be partitioning our servers into “vanilla” (the default) and “custom” which means that anything goes. Of course it will all auto-download so you can spend your time playing instead of installing. Anyone that pre-orders Natural Selection 2 will get early access to our tools and a lot of our artwork too so they can start creating.

What part did the availability of digital distribution platforms like Steam play into Natural Selection 2 being made?

It made NS2 feasible. Without a big digital distribution platform like Steam, we wouldn’t be able to justify putting all the time, effort and money into a proper sequel deserving of the original. We will be releasing through our site and other portals as well, but we’re sure Steam will be the most popular by far.

In NS1 the Marines only had one commander. N2 will be adding an Alien commander, and even multiple commanders per team. Can you explain how having multiple commanders on the team will work?

Sure. Teams now need to create multiple Command Stations or Hives in special rooms around the map in order to make big advances in technology. Along with these advances, each new Command Station or Hive will house another team Commander. Commanders can affect the team through team resources but also have their own units and abilities that are all theirs.

One of the most unique “weapons” in NS1 was the welder and its ability to repair armor, repair structures and seal up select vents. Are there any plans for new functionality for the welder? Have you thought about making all vents and doors weldable?

We’re not sure about vents but yes, all doors are now weldable. We saw some confusion in NS1 when players couldn’t tell which elements could be welded or not so we just opted to have them all be weldable. This also means that we have less doors on the map (about 7-10). We’re currently planning on having the Commander do all the welding through his “builder bots” instead of players doing it from the ground, but that’s not definite. Welding encounters were highly memorable in NS1!

One trick with doors is we have to be sure that even if all doors are welded, players aren’t trapped anywhere and can still access all the resource points and hive/command-station rooms. So doors are there to focus player movement through chokepoints, to slow players down when attacking or reinforcing an area, etc. Finally, the marine team won’t want to spend too much time welding or getting too comfy behind them, lest an alien rhino-gorilla bash through…

Natural Selection 2 is scheduled for a Fall 2009 release [updated].  For the latest information on NS2 head on over to the official site or Unknownworlds.com.

- Jon “DigitalFirefly” Bauer