Posted: 14-07-09 In: Interviews By: BlueWolf72 | (0) comments | Add your comments

Welcome to the first of many interviews that I will be doing with the mods supported via Steam.  Our first mod is Age of Chivarly, Tibberius Bane & Wraiyth, the leader and coder of the mod was kind enough to talk to us.  Jump to the bottom and you will get to see some exclusive screen shots of a new map called "AoC_Cove".


Age of Chivalry:  Toe-to-Toe is a massive update release June 30th, 2009 to the widely popular Half-Life 2 Medieval mod, first released on steam in October 2008. The game is a first person medieval combat experience that revolutionizes the genre of FPS games by thrusting the player into the middle of medieval battlefields complete with swords, armor, bows, catapults, siege towers, massive castles, sprawling outdoor landscapes and up to 32 player on line battles.

HalfLife2.net:  What was the inspiration behind making Age of Chivalry?

Tibberius: Development on the game really started out as the result of a couple of guys who went to the stores trying to buy a first person medieval combat game and felt there was nothing available that suited their interests. And thats really what the team still is today, a bunch of guys who are passionate about medieval times and are trying to make the best first person melee combat game ever. Obviously we also took in a lot of inspiration from various novels and movies each Team Member has read and seen but mostly it was all about being able to get in game with your friends and prove who was the greatest warrior!

HalfLife2.net:  Since the AoC toe-to-toe update which changed the combat system in the mod, what has the reaction been?

Tibberius: Surprisingly good. You will always have some naysayers with any changes and especially a team like ours that is constantly changing and updating the game but so far the feedback has been mostly positive and our player count has increased substantially since the release, which is always nice to see. Basically what the changes did is move the game that extra bit away from Half-life 2 and more towards the game's own unique game play.

HalfLife2.net:  Describe the best feature in the mod in your opinion? What should the person look for that they might miss?

Tibberius: What could be more satisfying than lobbing the head of your opponent clean from his neck with a massive claymore? Most players seem to enjoy the amount of gore and brutality in our game and lets be honest, medieval times was a cruel and dark era! I think one of the issues new players have and something they might miss is the depth of combat that is actually there, the game has a high learning curve still so its going to take some getting used to. Its not all about running as fast as you can and landing the most powerful strikes, but rather using your class, weapon, current stamina and surrounding environment to help you make the decisions of which attacks to use how to evade your enemies strike or parry it at the last second and counter attack.

HalfLife2.net:  What have been the most successful maps in AoC, and why do you think that is?

Tibberius: Probably the two most popular maps in Age of Chivalry are Helms Deep and Darkforest. Helms deep is an accurate recreation of the epic castle siege that occurs in the Lord of the Rings movies and I think that alone makes it immensely popular, also just the scale of the battlefield really makes players feel like they're part of a huge war. Darkforest is one of the first maps we ever made and it has always been like our de_dust, players just love it I guess we found the magical mix of tactics and fun game play on this one.

HalfLife2.net:  Are you content with the changes in game play you have made or is there more to come?

Tibberius: We're pretty happy with how the game has been coming along but I can promise you there is way more to come. Team Chivalry has a million and one ideas we still want to do with this game before we consider a new project. We already have several things in the works, including new maps, new classes and a big improvement in the combat system.

HalfLife2.net:  How did you guys come up with the steam stats system for Age of Chivalry?

Wraiyth: The original inspiration for the stats system were the stats systems from both Battlefield 2 and Team Fortress 2. Both of these systems had their pros and cons - Team Fortress 2 gave us the idea of class records, Battlefield 2 gave us the idea of the overall stats.  Originally the stats in CR1 were fairly hacked in. The system was pretty broken and flawed, so during development of CR2 we sat down and discussed what we wanted to log, what players might want to know, what we need to store for ratios, and things that players could measure their performance by. Battlefield 2 probably had more than Battlefield 2 probably had more than we were interested in, so we managed to strike a balance between the two aforementioned games. Current I think we're logging over 400 individual stats (including class records, highs, map records and overall stats for many things). Theres a lot more going on under the hood than you see on the current stats pages, including ranged weapon stats and map stats. Eventually the Steam pages will be updated to show these. Stats is something that we've wanted for a long time. Clans can use them for recruiting purposes, we can use them for balance information, and players can show off just how good (or bad) they are.

HalfLife2.net:  You are the first team to do this, Dystopia have done a similar thing using their own stats system, but you are using SteamWorks stats. How easy has it been to work with the SteamWorks tools and do you feel it has improved the AoC experience?

Wraiyth: Anything that gives players something tangible back for the time they invest in the game is an improvement. Stats and Achievements are the modern 'high score', per se - a measure of a players skill and dedication to the game. Steamworks has been amazing for us, along with the support that Valve has provided. Obviously because they are designed to be used in the broadest of situations, you'll never have as much power with a toolkit that you haven't built. Dystopia have done some amazing things with their stats - round by round stats, player relationships, and things like that. Not having the money for a dedicated stats server, or a coder with the experience to sort out database problems as well as code the whole system, Steamworks was a godsend for us to create this. It only really took a couple of weeks of on-and-off work to get the whole thing up and running. The most challenging part was testing the system to make sure nothing was missing or logging incorrectly.  We've gotta give a massive hats off to a couple of our testers for their tireless work in testing all 350-odd stats individually and informing us of any bugs. Admittedly, I expected there to be a few things missing or bugged when the stats pages went live and we could see thousands of test cases, but all in all it appears pretty solid.

HalfLife2.net:    In your next update you'll be introducing a team killing punish system, will it work similarly to tk punishing plug ins for games such as CS: Source?

Tibberius: Yes this is something we feel the game has needed for a while, at the same time, due to the nature of the close combat in Age of Chivalry, friendly casualties happen, so we need a fairly forgiving system that will still deal with griefers and help people to learn to be careful while "helping" allies. The system will be modeled after several plug ins as you say and will give players the option to forgive a player if they feel it was not an intentional act.

HalfLife2.net: For any potential new players from HL2.net who haven't played AoC, what would you say to make them go and install AoC today?

Tibberius: Age of Chivalry is finally first person melee combat done right. The Team's goal is to bring the epicness and intensity of the powerful medieval Hollywood movies to a first person on line game. The game can be installed with two clicks via steam <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/17510">here</a> and is entirely free providing you own a source-based game. And considering the Team is still actively updating it there's no good reason to not give it a try!