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Welcome to the internal 2A-A2 Team interview, with Yesteryears being a private mod now I didn’t see the need or could find someone offering to interview us so I decided to take it upon myself by asking the forum members to provide questions for Syf and myself to answer.
I would like to thank everyone for proving questions and apologize for this being short, but we only had what was posted to work with.
Now onto the questions.
Timothyjmcneeley: How did Majestic come up with this idea? Pop in your head while dreaming? Watching Star Trek?
Majestic: Well I have always been a fan of TMP era, I always liked the feel it brought out when compared to the later series set in the 24th century. To me Star Trek is all about the 23rd century with Kirk, Klingons and so on.
Yesteryears is in fact a follow on from my old Mirror Wars mod that we were making way back in 2004. While different in concept (as Mirror Wars only have the Federation, Terrans, Klingon and Romulan Republic [Mirror Universe]) as it dealt with a major war between the two universes the basic idea behind the mod is the same, that to bring a good quality TMP/TLE mod to Armada 2. There are a thousand and one TNG era mods out there and at the start of Yesteryears there we no TMP era mods in development.
Syf: It's his brainchild. It fell into the same thing I had been working on. I seen that the models he was wanting or using were way off the charts in poly counts for this mod/this game engine. So since it was appealing to me ( I was on the verge of stepping away from modeling for a while at that time too), and I could see he really needed help, so... here I am. * to rock you like a hurricane*
Amateur: Was there anything that you wanted to include, but were limited by the engine?
Majestic: Much we wanted to do isn’t possible due to the engine. We actually wanted to introduce a prototype function where a player had to build a prototype of each class to mass produce it and loosing the prototype would mean loosing the ability to build the class. Having realistic damage, blow off a ship nacelles would stop it going to warp, have the ability to disable a ships weapons and the like. Other ideas like having real usable fighters like in Star Wars Empire at War, commerce and infrastructure hubs, better physics closer to the show (no more bumping into things either), more realistic warp and not being so restricted by class labels.
Syf: I'd loved to do ultra high poly, ubber sweetly detailed 3D models. But with the thought that we wanted to have the mod playable by anyone that can run Armada 2, we are limited in the poly rates on the models. With that in mind, I personally have strived to make the best looking models for the least poly counts.
Steven Kodaly: I know that you guys already stated elsewhere that this time period gave you a great deal of flexibility, story-wise but what alternative time periods did you consider when initially brainstorming this mod, and how would they have affected game play?
Majestic: When we started the mod, there were only four races, three playable and one map for the campaign. They were the Federation, Klingons and Romulans with the 4th race being the secret race that has yet to be disclosed. I myself started the mod using available models from games like SFC and BC reducing the poly counts as much as I could with my limited skills at modelling. I from the very start wanted a TMP era mod as it was something not attempted at the time for Armada 2.
As for effecting game play, if we chose another era say the Enterprise era or the TNG era, technology would’ve been more advanced or less advanced depending on what alternative era we choose. I have focused a lot on portraying the era correctly, having slower ships, weapons not as accurate and less powerful, some technologies not that all advanced or don’t even exist yet like no shields on planets and the detect cloak function unreliable at best.
Syf: It was his mod idea... I just model it.
Tycoon: You are having a total of eight species in YY? Once the project has been released, do you have plans at all, to make an expansion pack of sorts?
Majestic: That is correct, 8 races. There has been discussion of an expansion pack to add two additional races with one race already confirmed if a pack goes ahead. But so far no decision has been made for or against due to the two of us focusing on the races we currently have in the mod. If a pack does go ahead an announcement will of course be made on MSFC at the earliest opportunity.
Syf: Indeed we are still considering our options. However, I'd like to point out that we are really tired of the limitations this engine has. So most likely, we may consider a small update, or save it until YY2... on a different engine. But nothing solid to confirm yet.
Steven Kodaly: I have a question for you, Syf - why the obsession with undergarments?
Majestic: Over to you Syf, nothing to do with me.
Syf: lol, just an inside joke really. Most people that make games, and in this case, mods, have the secret desire to make the gamers have to have an extra pair of 'em when playing the first time.
Timothyjmcneeley: How long have the two of you been working on this project? Did you start it together, or did Majestic bring Syf in later?
Majestic: I started it in September 2006 if I recall correctly and I started it as a side project using models from games like SFC and BC and poly reducing them. Syf later came to me and offered to work building the models so I scrapped what I had and we started a fresh.
Syf: Well Federations was really when I got into this focus of modding. Well, Federations is pretty much gone unless I revive it on a different engine. I've concluded that what I wanted in Federations just could not be done on the A1/A2 engine. So when I seen Majestic was attempting to revive his "dream" mod, I offered to help. That's been about a year and a half now.
Amateur: Are you planning to revisit the TMP era in future mods/games?
Majestic: We have Federation Rift Wars that is TMP headed by Syf which I am apart of but as far as that I can’t say for certain.
Syf: Rift War is intended to be much of a "limited" sequel to Yesteryears, as it is a "settlement" in relation to Federations.
Tycoon: How many Campaign missions are there, and how many species have a role in the campaigns?
Majestic: Like stock we have 3 campaigns and 10 missions (if I remember correctly) per campaign so 30 missions in total. If there was a way to increase that we would but I believe it is hard coded. All races in the mod appear in the campaign, though some have more of a role than others.
Syf: That's his job!
Steven Kodaly: To you guys, what is the best part of modding - what makes it so enjoyable for you?
Majestic: For myself it’s working on bringing something new and better than stock to the game. Seeing a Miranda blast a Bird of Prey out of the sky is so more appealing than watching a Galaxy and Warbird dogfight. In a nutshell it’s making the game more like I envision it should’ve been released as rather than what we got.
Syf: I enjoy the Fan fare... Really, if others enjoy my work, I am inspired to do more.
Timothyjmcneeley: What are you guys going to do next after Yesteryears?
Tycoon: What are the two of you going to be putting your work into next? Are there any big projects coming up, or are you retiring from active modding?
Majestic: Considering how close these two questions are I thought we would answer them together. Federation Rift Wars is next and our last venture in Armada 2. Once that mod is complete we will be retiring from Armada modding and moving on into creating brand new games like Red Ash which is in the concept stage.
Syf: Indeed, what are we going to do... lol, actually, we pretty much have a plan to complete Yesteryears, and Rift War, then like He said, that's really it for "modding" at this time. I myself have already been moving away from A1/A2 since I decided to put Federations on the shelf. Since then, I have been using projects like YY to hone my 3D modeling skills, while starting a few new Games. So in short, we are moving on to actually making new games and much much more.
To keep up on these, look in the Red Ash and MSFC Games sections in the forums.
Amateur: Do you plan to include any 3rd party mods with the install, such as Midnight universe or pink blobs be gone?
Majestic: There are a few 3rd party modifications we will be including but are attempting to keep them at a minimum. Unfortunately both of us don’t have all the skills required. We have most but not all, nor the amount of free time for that matter to do everything. Such things as Elrond’s shields, pink blob gone and Midnight are included.
Syf: Again, that's his call.
Timothyjmcneeley: How old are you guys, and how long have you been doing this line of work?
Majestic: We are 10 years and 2 weeks apart or something like that. It’s awfully close to 10 years in any case. I have been into modding Armada since 2000 and Armada 2 since it came out though believe it or not I hated the game when it first came out continuing to mod Armada 1 until I gave it another shot months later. I’ve been in the community since early 2001.
Syf: I am 33yrs old... Yeah I know... I'm one of the oldest in the modding community.
Timothyjmcneeley: Did you learn by going to school, or trial and error messing around with some programs?
Majestic: For me it all was from trying to install ship releases from sites. Back when I started there were no tutorials, and more often than not read me files had no install instructions, and the ones that did were very limited. I had to reverse engineer the install instructions to understand the game, but found once I put my first ship in game (Armada 1 in 2000) how easy to mod Armada it was. Armada 2 isn’t much different considering they were build on the same engine.
Many other things like graphic work comes naturally to me something I enjoy doing and editing sound files and hardpointing and the rest I learnt through trial and error or reading up on a few tutorials.
Syf: I am a schooled professions computer and network tech. Beyond that, I am completely self made. I have been using modding as a stepping block for moving into making original games and content... Almost there!
Amateur: Is there any aspect of the engine that would serve the mod better than other space-RTS games could?
Majestic: I am sure there are one or two. Like the tech tree setup and easy to install method it processes, that was one of the engines and games advantages being built with modder’s in mind. When it comes down to it, both of us have the game, enjoy the game and play the game so it was natural that Yesteryears and any other mods we work on together would be made for the game.
Syf: Actually, the engine is used in a several different games. It can handle FPS far better than RTS games. As far as our mod content, it's focused on being in an RTS style game.
Timothyjmcneeley: How did the two of you meet, when the both of you are on the other sides of the planet? Was it in a chat room, playing an online game? Yahoo? MSN?
Majestic: I grew wings and flew to Oklahoma. No seriously I did, just ask Syf. Okay seriously, we met on ArmadaFleetCommand in 2004. At the time I was making Mirror Wars and Syf and CrazyFrog were deep into Federations. The three of us created the Federation Microverse team after Syf approached me in a PM asking if I was interested in a merger were I would help him with the coding and creation of the mod and he would assist by building the models for Mirror Wars basically the three of us working on both mods. Yesteryears and the 2A-A2 team can be considered a subsidiary of the Federations Microverse which it itself can be considered a subsidiary of the larger Red Ash/MSFC Games production team.
Syf: ^What he said... I never knew someone could fly on natural wings until that day.
Well that is it, we would like to thank everyone who provided questions and hope you continue to do so in the questions thread so we can actually do this again sometime.
Questions regarding answers here can be asked in the general chat thread.
Until next time.
The 2A-A2 Team...
I would like to thank everyone for proving questions and apologize for this being short, but we only had what was posted to work with.
Now onto the questions.
Timothyjmcneeley: How did Majestic come up with this idea? Pop in your head while dreaming? Watching Star Trek?
Majestic: Well I have always been a fan of TMP era, I always liked the feel it brought out when compared to the later series set in the 24th century. To me Star Trek is all about the 23rd century with Kirk, Klingons and so on.
Yesteryears is in fact a follow on from my old Mirror Wars mod that we were making way back in 2004. While different in concept (as Mirror Wars only have the Federation, Terrans, Klingon and Romulan Republic [Mirror Universe]) as it dealt with a major war between the two universes the basic idea behind the mod is the same, that to bring a good quality TMP/TLE mod to Armada 2. There are a thousand and one TNG era mods out there and at the start of Yesteryears there we no TMP era mods in development.
Syf: It's his brainchild. It fell into the same thing I had been working on. I seen that the models he was wanting or using were way off the charts in poly counts for this mod/this game engine. So since it was appealing to me ( I was on the verge of stepping away from modeling for a while at that time too), and I could see he really needed help, so... here I am. * to rock you like a hurricane*
Amateur: Was there anything that you wanted to include, but were limited by the engine?
Majestic: Much we wanted to do isn’t possible due to the engine. We actually wanted to introduce a prototype function where a player had to build a prototype of each class to mass produce it and loosing the prototype would mean loosing the ability to build the class. Having realistic damage, blow off a ship nacelles would stop it going to warp, have the ability to disable a ships weapons and the like. Other ideas like having real usable fighters like in Star Wars Empire at War, commerce and infrastructure hubs, better physics closer to the show (no more bumping into things either), more realistic warp and not being so restricted by class labels.
Syf: I'd loved to do ultra high poly, ubber sweetly detailed 3D models. But with the thought that we wanted to have the mod playable by anyone that can run Armada 2, we are limited in the poly rates on the models. With that in mind, I personally have strived to make the best looking models for the least poly counts.
Steven Kodaly: I know that you guys already stated elsewhere that this time period gave you a great deal of flexibility, story-wise but what alternative time periods did you consider when initially brainstorming this mod, and how would they have affected game play?
Majestic: When we started the mod, there were only four races, three playable and one map for the campaign. They were the Federation, Klingons and Romulans with the 4th race being the secret race that has yet to be disclosed. I myself started the mod using available models from games like SFC and BC reducing the poly counts as much as I could with my limited skills at modelling. I from the very start wanted a TMP era mod as it was something not attempted at the time for Armada 2.
As for effecting game play, if we chose another era say the Enterprise era or the TNG era, technology would’ve been more advanced or less advanced depending on what alternative era we choose. I have focused a lot on portraying the era correctly, having slower ships, weapons not as accurate and less powerful, some technologies not that all advanced or don’t even exist yet like no shields on planets and the detect cloak function unreliable at best.
Syf: It was his mod idea... I just model it.
Tycoon: You are having a total of eight species in YY? Once the project has been released, do you have plans at all, to make an expansion pack of sorts?
Majestic: That is correct, 8 races. There has been discussion of an expansion pack to add two additional races with one race already confirmed if a pack goes ahead. But so far no decision has been made for or against due to the two of us focusing on the races we currently have in the mod. If a pack does go ahead an announcement will of course be made on MSFC at the earliest opportunity.
Syf: Indeed we are still considering our options. However, I'd like to point out that we are really tired of the limitations this engine has. So most likely, we may consider a small update, or save it until YY2... on a different engine. But nothing solid to confirm yet.
Steven Kodaly: I have a question for you, Syf - why the obsession with undergarments?
Majestic: Over to you Syf, nothing to do with me.
Syf: lol, just an inside joke really. Most people that make games, and in this case, mods, have the secret desire to make the gamers have to have an extra pair of 'em when playing the first time.
Timothyjmcneeley: How long have the two of you been working on this project? Did you start it together, or did Majestic bring Syf in later?
Majestic: I started it in September 2006 if I recall correctly and I started it as a side project using models from games like SFC and BC and poly reducing them. Syf later came to me and offered to work building the models so I scrapped what I had and we started a fresh.
Syf: Well Federations was really when I got into this focus of modding. Well, Federations is pretty much gone unless I revive it on a different engine. I've concluded that what I wanted in Federations just could not be done on the A1/A2 engine. So when I seen Majestic was attempting to revive his "dream" mod, I offered to help. That's been about a year and a half now.
Amateur: Are you planning to revisit the TMP era in future mods/games?
Majestic: We have Federation Rift Wars that is TMP headed by Syf which I am apart of but as far as that I can’t say for certain.
Syf: Rift War is intended to be much of a "limited" sequel to Yesteryears, as it is a "settlement" in relation to Federations.
Tycoon: How many Campaign missions are there, and how many species have a role in the campaigns?
Majestic: Like stock we have 3 campaigns and 10 missions (if I remember correctly) per campaign so 30 missions in total. If there was a way to increase that we would but I believe it is hard coded. All races in the mod appear in the campaign, though some have more of a role than others.
Syf: That's his job!
Steven Kodaly: To you guys, what is the best part of modding - what makes it so enjoyable for you?
Majestic: For myself it’s working on bringing something new and better than stock to the game. Seeing a Miranda blast a Bird of Prey out of the sky is so more appealing than watching a Galaxy and Warbird dogfight. In a nutshell it’s making the game more like I envision it should’ve been released as rather than what we got.
Syf: I enjoy the Fan fare... Really, if others enjoy my work, I am inspired to do more.
Timothyjmcneeley: What are you guys going to do next after Yesteryears?
Tycoon: What are the two of you going to be putting your work into next? Are there any big projects coming up, or are you retiring from active modding?
Majestic: Considering how close these two questions are I thought we would answer them together. Federation Rift Wars is next and our last venture in Armada 2. Once that mod is complete we will be retiring from Armada modding and moving on into creating brand new games like Red Ash which is in the concept stage.
Syf: Indeed, what are we going to do... lol, actually, we pretty much have a plan to complete Yesteryears, and Rift War, then like He said, that's really it for "modding" at this time. I myself have already been moving away from A1/A2 since I decided to put Federations on the shelf. Since then, I have been using projects like YY to hone my 3D modeling skills, while starting a few new Games. So in short, we are moving on to actually making new games and much much more.
To keep up on these, look in the Red Ash and MSFC Games sections in the forums.
Amateur: Do you plan to include any 3rd party mods with the install, such as Midnight universe or pink blobs be gone?
Majestic: There are a few 3rd party modifications we will be including but are attempting to keep them at a minimum. Unfortunately both of us don’t have all the skills required. We have most but not all, nor the amount of free time for that matter to do everything. Such things as Elrond’s shields, pink blob gone and Midnight are included.
Syf: Again, that's his call.
Timothyjmcneeley: How old are you guys, and how long have you been doing this line of work?
Majestic: We are 10 years and 2 weeks apart or something like that. It’s awfully close to 10 years in any case. I have been into modding Armada since 2000 and Armada 2 since it came out though believe it or not I hated the game when it first came out continuing to mod Armada 1 until I gave it another shot months later. I’ve been in the community since early 2001.
Syf: I am 33yrs old... Yeah I know... I'm one of the oldest in the modding community.
Timothyjmcneeley: Did you learn by going to school, or trial and error messing around with some programs?
Majestic: For me it all was from trying to install ship releases from sites. Back when I started there were no tutorials, and more often than not read me files had no install instructions, and the ones that did were very limited. I had to reverse engineer the install instructions to understand the game, but found once I put my first ship in game (Armada 1 in 2000) how easy to mod Armada it was. Armada 2 isn’t much different considering they were build on the same engine.
Many other things like graphic work comes naturally to me something I enjoy doing and editing sound files and hardpointing and the rest I learnt through trial and error or reading up on a few tutorials.
Syf: I am a schooled professions computer and network tech. Beyond that, I am completely self made. I have been using modding as a stepping block for moving into making original games and content... Almost there!
Amateur: Is there any aspect of the engine that would serve the mod better than other space-RTS games could?
Majestic: I am sure there are one or two. Like the tech tree setup and easy to install method it processes, that was one of the engines and games advantages being built with modder’s in mind. When it comes down to it, both of us have the game, enjoy the game and play the game so it was natural that Yesteryears and any other mods we work on together would be made for the game.
Syf: Actually, the engine is used in a several different games. It can handle FPS far better than RTS games. As far as our mod content, it's focused on being in an RTS style game.
Timothyjmcneeley: How did the two of you meet, when the both of you are on the other sides of the planet? Was it in a chat room, playing an online game? Yahoo? MSN?
Majestic: I grew wings and flew to Oklahoma. No seriously I did, just ask Syf. Okay seriously, we met on ArmadaFleetCommand in 2004. At the time I was making Mirror Wars and Syf and CrazyFrog were deep into Federations. The three of us created the Federation Microverse team after Syf approached me in a PM asking if I was interested in a merger were I would help him with the coding and creation of the mod and he would assist by building the models for Mirror Wars basically the three of us working on both mods. Yesteryears and the 2A-A2 team can be considered a subsidiary of the Federations Microverse which it itself can be considered a subsidiary of the larger Red Ash/MSFC Games production team.
Syf: ^What he said... I never knew someone could fly on natural wings until that day.
Well that is it, we would like to thank everyone who provided questions and hope you continue to do so in the questions thread so we can actually do this again sometime.
Questions regarding answers here can be asked in the general chat thread.
Until next time.
The 2A-A2 Team...