Interview with FPS Central on October 25th 2004.
To start this interview off, can you tell me a little about yourself and what do you do?
Basically, I'm Calimer; I'm a 24 year old dude from upstate New York. Presently my jobs for the mod include administration, public relations, mapping, music engineering, concept, and perhaps most importantly, I try to make sure the maps are fun.
How many people do you have working on this project?
Currently we have eight although some of the members are a lot more active than others.
Next question, are you still looking for help? If so, what are you looking for and how can they contact you?
We are always going to be looking for help, especially for mapping since our mod allows so many creative approaches when creating a map. Currently though we are really looking for some coders to help us make the maps coop, and also for a coder to help us get the mod working on Linux. To contact us you can by posting on our forum at http://lms.d3files.com/forum/ and provide some examples of your past work if possible.
Can you give us a brief introduction in side the world of the Last Man Standing?
Sure can, our basic concept is to allow players to battle either competitively or cooperatively against hordes of minions. There are three main game play modes that we are working on developing. My main mode is where players work together to try to fight off monsters and survive the ensuing battle, eventually winning when all the monsters lay dead at their feet. The second mode, developed by Altheus and the main one on our site is the mode where you complete with against other players to try to be the last one standing against endless swarms of monsters. There will also be the option to have teams where you try to be the last team standing and score will be based on kills and time alive. The third game play mode that we have been playing with, also developed by Altheus, is to basically have the storyline be that the character(s) are marines who are working to clear the way for the main doom 3 marine. Their mission is pretty hopeless since they are throwing themselves into the fray against all of hells minions so they are wearing a bomb strapped to their chest that will go off after a certain period of time.The object is to try to get as many kills as possible before the timer goes down to zero. My main emphasis for the game play of LMS is to make it fun, exciting, intense, require strategy, and to be a challenge. You're not going to be able to just waltz into a server and spam rockets, you're going to have to actually use your brain for this mod, and I can't wait to see the different strategies that people employ.
What inspired the name "Last Man Standing"?
Altheus came up with that name and I think it was mostly inspired because the whole concept is to be the last man (or team) left alive at the end.
How will the visual and sound effects be?
Visually, I'm sure they will be better than my first map. That map was mainly just a rough display of game play. If I do make that map coop, it will be much more polished. As far as future maps, I am currently modifying a section of an Id map so visually it should be great. As far as the other maps, the other map makers are much more talented than me when it comes to visuals so expect great quality in them. As far as sound effects and sound in general, I'm planning on having a kick ass heavy metal song for each map, unless there is a good reason not to. Of course I am going to be spending a good deal of time to make sure the song goes along with the map and the action, but I think having some metal pumping while blowing apart swarms really adds to the game play and to the experience.
Are you looking for Voice actors or music techs to help out with sound for this mod?
Use of voice actors, we will most likely not need. There has been talk about having some voice stuff in to announce each swarm with some type of smart remark such as "Uh oh, you're F**ked", but that would probably just include my voice. As far as music techs, not only do I plan to be creating some music myself for the mod, but we have permission from two great music artists who have allowed us to use their music, so we aren't really currently looking for music techs but I'm always willing to listen to submissions and consider putting them in a map.
Can you give us an insight to who these 2 music artists are?
Skaven, of http://www.futurecrew.com/skaven/ already demonstrated his music ability with the song that was used in fortcomp10. We will probably be using more of his music in other maps. The other artists we are considering using music is a group called Neurosphere, located at http://www.neurosphere.it/ .The offer has already been made to send me the songs without the lyrics since I think the lyrics might distract from the game play. I think their music will fit into our game play style very well.
How do you think "Last Man Standing" will stand out from all the other Doom 3 mods?
I think our mod in general is very different. Most other mods and maps have players having to go through the map and find the monsters. In our mod, the monsters are coming right after the player which makes the game play much more exciting and intense in my opinion. Also with our game play style and modes there is pretty much an endless variety of maps that can be created. Also I think our maps will require a lot more strategy than the majority of the other mods because of how intense the fighting is going to be, which to me makes a huge different and will give a lot of replay value to the maps.
Can you give us a release date or an estimate date for this mod?
I really can't give an accurate release date until we get some coders working on getting coop in gear. From the searching I've done in the forums on the topic, it seems like it will require a good amount of work. We are currently working on maps though intended for multiplayer so once we come out with, or another mod comes out with coop and lets us implement it, maps should be released quite shortly thereafter.
Do you have any other comments you can add which we have not touched upon yet?
One thing that I was to strongly emphasis is that my main focus is to make sure this mod is fun. If people aren't having fun playing the mod I want to know why and what suggestions they have to make it more fun. We are more than willing to listen to the community for suggestions as long as the comments are constructive. We might not be able implement everything that everyone wants, but we are going to do our best to make sure that players have a fun and quality experience, while also being challenged.
What you have to say to the people who don't have Doom 3 yet?
Answering that question will definitely get me in trouble but it comes with the territory. Mainly, I'm a doom 1 & 2 fan. Doom 3 single player was too boring for me, and the current multiplayer doesn't appeal much to me. Also I was hugely disappointed that the double barrel shotgun wasn't included in the game, which was actually my main reason for stopping the single player missions. The double barrel shotgun was always my weapon of choice, even vs. cyberdemons in doom 1 & 2 but this problem will be remedied shortly in our mod. To answer your question, I'd say don't buy it until you've tried out the demo and our mod. I think that once our mod is released with coop that doom 3 will definitely be worth buying, and that when we get that released there will also be a lot of other good mods released as well that will more than make doom 3 worth buying.
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