A slew of questions!
Written by Comprox   
Monday, 15 June 2009

Charlie took some time to answer more oddball questions that people have been asking on the forums and IRC. Some of these have been answered but this is just a nice area to get all the answers together. 

Engine:
What admin functionality (kick. ban, mute, etc) functionality will the
game have out of the so-called box?


Not sure yet.
 
What shader model is the engine using? 2.0 or 3.0?

2.0.
 
What resolutions wlil the engine support? Will it support frameless
windowed mode (for us multiple monitor people)?

Many resolutions. We've talked about frameless windowed mode but don't really understand the point of it. (Ed. Note: I explained to Charlie the wonders of using it, we shall see!).
 
Will the game make use of physics at all (including destructible environments)?

We have great physics in game but not destructible walls.
 
Will the engine be licensable once it is done?

Most likely.
 
Do you have any stats for the server side yet (OS, network/cpu/memory
usage, etc)?

Nope.
 
Does the engine support surround sound?

It uses FMOD which I believe supports surround sound.
 
Does the engine support downloading custom content from www urls?
(sv_downloadurl in hl1/2)?

Not sure about the first version of NS2 but we plan on supporting this fully.
 
Game/Beta/Alpha:
At what point will people be able to run their own servers?

We're not sure yet, but probably at least some during the beta.
 
When will the tools be released so people can start making content?

We don't have a date yet but this is our next goal milestone.
 
When will the special edition stop being sold? Will the black armour
disappear with it? And will the final regular price stay at the $20
(meaning the $40 SE will disappear)?

We're not sure about any of this but the Special Edition has been selling very well so I don't think we're going to stop it any time soon.

How robust will the filter system be for the server browser? (see:
http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=106628 )

Unsure yet.
 
Will Vet and/or Constellation icons show up in NS2?

Probably not.
 
Will custom content (ie: maps) made during the alpha/beta be able to
be released as soon as the game is released? Are you guys still
looking at buying up some of the community content?

We would love to work with the community and release some of their maps officially with NS2. We are a small team and probably can't make all the maps. In NS1 the official team made only a few maps out of 20+ maps that ultimately shipped with the game!
 
What number of players is NS2 being designed for? NS1 appeared to be
set for 6x6 and is it the same for NS2?

It should work with any number of players, although it will be a lot more fun with more than 6 or so players.
 
Pre-order:
It seems to be clear that steamworks is a steam game (from:
http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=106616&view=findpost&p=1711512)
but what is this talk about 'adding a pre-order to steam')? Does this
mean the initial download (as of right now) comes from UWE, but once
added to Steam all the updates will come from there?

You should be able to buy NS2 from Unknown Worlds or from Valve over Steam. What we don't know currently is if you PRE-ORDER, whether you will be able to "convert" that into a Steam version of the game later, so it was just like you waited until it was released on Steam and bought it there. Valve has done this for other games with independent pre-order programs, but has not told us whether they will do it for us or not.

 
Last Updated ( Monday, 15 June 2009 )