Content writer Christopher "Ennui" Burris sits down with Decadence developer Henrik "Majestic XII" Alfredsson, responsible for game and level design on the upcoming modification.

Decadence is a story-driven multiplayer modification based on Valve Software's Source™ Engine that combines the personal relationship to characters and surroundings of single-player games with an adrenaline filled multiplayer experience. Decadence pits two teams against each other in a fight over territorial control. Each map is designed in stages to offer a more compact and action filled gameplay that puts focus on teamwork and strategy.

Halflife2.net: So first, tell us - what exactly is the basic premise behind Decadence?

Majestic XII: Decadence is essentially a team based territory control mod, but we’re putting a lot of focus on who you are, where you are, how you fight and with whom. Decadence will feature six characters with their own set of advantages and disadvantages when it comes to weapons and gadgets, so you’ll need to find the best combination for the map you’re currently in and what characters the other team is playing as.

Decadence will pit two teams with two players in each team against each other in a compact and adrenaline filled experience. Since there will be a maximum of four players on a server at any given time, we’re able to focus our efforts into creating a very interesting team play oriented gameplay with a bunch of tactical decisions available for the players.

All of our maps will be using a special kind of capture point system that will allow us to focus the action where we want it to be to ensure a good match for the player. Each map is basically divided into several parts or arenas as we call them. Each map will have a middle arena where the game kicks off and an equal number of arenas on each side of it. Each arena will feature one capture point for the teams to fight over, and when it’s captured, the teams move over to the adjacent arena in favor of the winning team. Only one arena will be in play at any given time. When a team succeeds in forcing their way through all the arenas, they’ll win.

The pacing in Decadence will be slower in terms of walking speed and such to a normal Half-Life 2: Deathmatch game. We’re focusing more on a trench war feeling, meaning that you’ll have to take baby steps, from cover to cover while covering for your teammate, in order to get to the capture point without being killed. With each character has their own advantages in certain areas of gameplay, how you go about reaching the capture point depends on which character you and your teammate play as.

Other features to help convey a heavily teamplay oriented gameplay are a regenerative health system and revival of fallen teammates among others.

Halflife2.net: What is the Decadence backstory?

Majestic XII: We haven’t released a lot of story for the mod yet, but as you can see on the screenshots and concepts, the future isn’t what you would be describing as great.

Decadence takes place in a future where the world has been flooded from melting ice caps. Most of the land mass is sunken and the population has been decimated. Attempts to find new food sources have left much of the water toxicated. The combinations of chemicals also caused reactions in plant life that caused them to grow out of control. There are a few water treatment plants around the world and some smaller bodies of freshwater that remained unaffected.

Every map of Decadence takes place inside a single city, so you’ll be able to see landmarks from other levels from the level you’re currently playing on. You’ll also be able to see your movement from arena to arena on a map, so you’ll always know where you are located within the city. The city the mod takes place in is lucky enough to house a water treatment plant, and most of the commotion is about who controls the plant.

We’ll have a much more detailed story up on our site in the near future, so keep your eyes open!

Halflife2.net: How do you plan on incorporating storyline and plot into a multiplayer mod?

Majestic XII: Since we focus on a few characters in a very consistent world, we’re able to offer the player a deeper story than a regular multiplayer mod. However, we still need to be aware of the fact that Decadence is a multiplayer mod, and as so, we can’t expect every player to become engrossed with the story. We certainly don’t want to alienate the players who do not read the story. So we divided up the story into two parts. The heavy reading is all done at our site which we will fill with information as we go along. You’ll be able to get to know the environment and characters before you get into the mod. Whilst in the game, you’ll be able to take part of the story through hints, hidden messages throughout the maps, symbolism and such. You’ll also hear the characters talk. So if you’re a player who does not like reading while playing on the net, then hurrah for you, you don’t have to if you don’t want to! However, if you’re a player who wants to find out everything about the world, then we got some stuff in store for you. All players will still have the same feeling of consistency throughout the mod.

Halflife2.net: The modification's visual style is relatively distinct, even this early in development. What are you trying to do with this, and does it apply to the characters and weapons, or just the environments?

Majestic XII: When creating something unique art-wise we believe it’s important to set the visual style before we actually start creating the stuff that goes into the mod. Therefore we created a level that works as a template and inspiration. We also use this to define the color palette, architecture and the overall feeling of the mod. The reason why we do this is because we want to create a unified look that is easy for future team members to follow, this is especially important when people contribute from abroad and communication is limited.

The art team has regular meetings in which they discuss ideas and solutions together. This really helps when you want to create a unified look, which can be very hard from time to time when many contributors are involved.

Most of the important things such as characters and weapons go through a number of iterations before reaching a “final concept”, after that the concept is handed over to a person to start model and texture said object. We believe it’s important that the whole team has agreed on a specific look before we start creating anything to avoid any design or programming related issues that might arise otherwise.

Halflife2.net: What can you tell us about the weapons we'll be seeing in Decadence?

Majestic XII: The weapons will be very closely knit to the characters using them. Every character will have their personal home-built weapon that will both visually and design-wise represent the way that the character is supposed to be played and what sort of character that is using it. You won’t be seeing any real-life weapons in Decadence. They are all designed to give a very decadent feeling. What weapon would MacGyver be building in an environment like this? That’s exactly what we’re after.

Each weapon will also feature an alternative fire mode, and they can vary a whole lot between characters. We really pulled out all the stops to come up with alternative fire mode that can influence the game as a whole when used right. So you’d want to team up with a character who can take full advantage of your weapon.

Like I mentioned earlier, Decadence is focused to achieve a trench war feeling, so all weapons are designed for this in mind. You won’t exactly be able to run up to someone and punch them in the face.

Halflife2.net: How about the characters?

Majestic XII: There will be three unique characters in each team, with a total of six. For the sake of balancing, the three characters will be mirrored on the other side, so you get a set of three characters with the same abilities and speeds as their original characters, but with a totally different looks. Again, since we always know who will be fighting against whom, it’s easier for us to create a story to go along with it.

The characters themselves are not part of a faction or a group; they fight for their personal goals. This might force them into joining forces every once in a while, but it’s not something they enjoy doing. The world is pretty much “every man for himself” and you can’t really trust anyone with your life unless you’re forced to.

Halflife2.net: Why did you decide to remove the traditional FPS HUD, and how are you getting information to the player instead?

Majestic XII: We like a challenge, and this is one of them. Why represent numbers on an abstract layer in front of the player’s eyes when you can move everything into the game world itself? It would make a lot more sense. We’re also lucky not to incorporate any features that require big HUD elements, such as minimaps or radars. The maps are designed for the player to being able to see the end goal at all times, as well as get the general idea of where the enemy could be located.

All weapons will feature a laser sight instead of a traditional crosshair on the screen. The only downside to this is that your enemy will be able to see where you’re looking. We also moved the ammunition counter to the weapons themselves and added some effects to show that you are hurt and need to take cover from enemy fire. Damage will affect how you see the world, and you will not be in fighting condition if you take a bunch of hits.

Halflife2.net: How does your team work? Most, if not all, of the Decadence team are friends in real life, correct?

Majestic XII: That is correct, out of ten people, only two does not live in the same city as us. The longest the eight of us has to travel to get to one another is about ten minutes, across campus. Five of us even live in the same building!

The majority of the team is students at the University of Skövde where we study Game Development focusing on various disciplines. We like to keep the team as small as possible so we’re able to keep production speed up. A larger team doesn’t automatically mean you get more work done!

Another great thing with living so close to each other is that we can arrange development LANs without too much problems. So the whole team meets up in a single apartment for a couple of days and does nothing else than work on the mod. Most of the stuff you see on the screenshots on our site is the result of a three day development LAN, so you get a whole lot done! Other meetings included barbequing in a snow storm or with a whiteboard in a sauna, all of them with a cold beer in each hand.

Halflife2.net: Thanks for the interview, and is there anything else you'd like to say about Decadence?

Majestic XII: Thanks for giving us the opportunity! I would love to see people drop by our forum and post comments about the mod. We always listen to feedback! Oh and another thing, ModDB got a contest up for Mod of the Year ’07 and while we’re not counting on being #1 (yet!) we sure want to be on the top 100 list, so it would be great if you could go and vote for us at: http://www.moddb.com/mods/9773/decadence