We recently had the opportunity to sit down and chat with HypnoTech, and NuclearGerbil from the Negative Zero mod team.

(PCShooter) Please tell me a little about yourselves and what your responsibilities are with the Negative Zero team?

HypnoTech: Well, at first I joined the team as a mapper. Besides that I do skins and textures too. Along the way I also became assistant project leader….

NuclearGerbil: I’m the project leader, and coder. I also help out a little with the skinning & modeling.

(PCShooter) Can you give me an overview of what Negative Zero is all about?

HypnoTech: The Negative Zero story takes places in the near future, but I’ll let gerbil explain the rest to you.

NG: Yeah, as Hypno said, the Negative Zero story takes place in the near future, and involves an omnipotent government, involved in conspiracy – stuff you’ve heard before. We’re trying to create an atmosphere of guerilla warfare – a small rebel force against a large, powerful government. The maps have a great feel to them to enhance this atmosphere. We want the player to feel as if he is really in this war.

(PCShooter) Can you tell me a little about the different classes in the game?

HypnoTech: Well, we have about 7 classes. Each class has its own special skills. Some are stronger and more suited for heavy battle (ex. The assaulter and the rifle infantry), others are weaker but are great for tactical play (ex. The spy and special forces).

NG: There are a lot of different classes, and each will need very unique strategies. Some classes are very heavily armored and have powerful weapons, while others are weaker in armor and weaponry, but they have powerful special skills that make them just as deadly. The spy, for example, can turn invisible, and the special forces can run straight up walls and walk on the ceiling.

(PCShooter) What are some objectives of the mod?

NG: The mappers basically have quite a bit of flexibility when it comes to objectives. Right now, most maps have a capture the object objective, where each team has to steal something (maybe money, precious metal, crystals, etc), and take it back to their base. The more objects they have, and the longer they have them in their base, the more points they receive.

(PCShooter) How long have you worked on this mod? What are some good and bad things that have happened during the mod’s creation?

HypnoTech: I’m in the team for almost a year now. I don’t really have an idea of how much time Nucleargerbill has spent on it before I joined. In this year not much bad things have happened. This team is one of the best functioning mod teams I ever worked with. Lost of talented people joined us and the mod is becoming a real quality mod. Well… there’s one bad thing, and it’s a very recent problem. There seems to be a shortage of animators and skinmeshers in the HL editing community.

NG: I’ve worked on the mod for a long time, perhaps a year or so, its gone by very fast though! HypnoTech was one of the first members of the mod, and I’m really glad that he has stuck with it! A huge amount of progress has been made, and has Hypno said, we have a great team. I agree with Hypno in that probably the worst thing so far in the mod’s development is the lack of people who can apply skins and animate.

(PCShooter) What are some of your expectations for this mod?

HypnoTech: Well we can’t expect to have as much success as mods like CS etc… but I do expect a great amount of players. This mod is very original and has a lot of things that is never seen before. I really think the half-life community will like it.

NG: I expect it will be fun to play and have a great atmosphere. Already, I’ve had a lot of fun in the playtests with the team, and I hope the HL community will enjoy it just as much.

(PCShooter) Can you tell me a little about the weapons? Are there any weapons you like more for one reason or another?

HypnoTech: Most of our weapons are realistic weapons, or at least look realistic. But besides those we also have some special futuristic weaponry. We have a laser infantry equipped with a laser rifle. This gun can temporary blind you and its secondary fire is quite deadly. Our grenades will be special too. We have sticky bombs, gas grenades, some sort of Molotov cocktail, etc… Its really hard to give you my favorite…

NG: We have a mix of contemporary weaponry (AK-47, MP5-SD, etc…), and futuristic weaponry. We try to stay away from weapons used in a lot of other mods, and use lesser known weapons whenever possible. I really like some of the more futuristic weaponry, just because its fun to mess around with in-game. I don’t really have any favorites though, really depends what mood I’m in.

(PCShooter) I read that in this mod you will have the ability to walk on the ceilings, climb walls and drive a vehicle.  Would you please explain?

HypnoTech: Well the special forces can easily climb walls and walk on the ceiling. The mod story takes place in the future and wall walking is possible because of anti gravity technology. When you are walking on the ceiling you see everything upside down and it may take some time to get used to that, but besides that its an amazing feature.

NG: Yeah, the special forces class will be able to run straight up walls, and walk on the ceiling. It’s some pretty crazy stuff in game, and is a lot of fun. Walking on the ceiling does take getting used to, because you can get disoriented for a minute, but it is a neat feature. The drivable vehicles are pretty cool but they aren’t 100% finished. We’re not even sure if they will be used in the mod, because they can be somewhat laggy.

(PCShooter) Do you want to share any other unpublished abilities that will be in the first beta?

NG: We have a few other abilities, some of the infantry classes have an “enhanced HUD”, that allows them to see a player’s health, and which team they are on, from a distance away. We might possibly add more special abilities, if time allows before the first beta.

(PCShooter) What are some new weapons you plan to incorporate into this mod?

NG: We have an array of futuristic weapons, such as the laser rifles, and some interesting new grenades too, such as the sticky grenade (you can put it on walls, and it acts like a landmine – detonating when a player is nearby, or you can put it on players, and watch them run around until they blow up). We are also hoping to put in some modern weapons that aren’t as well known, instead of the weapons used in many mods.

(PCShooter) Would you say you have created an ultra realistic mod with Negative Zero?

HypnoTech: Not at all. We have some very realistic aspects, but some completely unrealistic too. What we aimed for was a fun teamplay mod…. Not another CS clone.

NG: I wouldn’t call negative zero realistic at all. We didn’t worry about realism, for the most part, when worrying about how much damage does – we just worried about how fun it was. Besides, how realistic is running straight up walls, or walking on the ceiling? We try to create a believable world, which means there will be some realism, especially with the weaponry, but we want players to be able to do things they’ve never done before.

(PCShooter) What do you feel are some limitations with the Half-Life engine, if any?

HypnoTech: The half-life engine is very limited, but that’s just part of the fun. When making a map in the hl engine, everything is based on illusions. The only thing I really dislike about this engine is that it don’t really supports big outdoor areas ( but expect to see some anyway)

NuclearGerbil: We do our best to work around limitations in the HL engine. I feel the mappers are a lot more limited than I am in coding. The mappers have done an excellent job working. I agree that a lot of the fun is seeing how much we can get out of the HL engine =)

(PCShooter) Thank you for your time.  We really appreciate you taking the time for this interview and wish you the best of luck in the future.  

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http://www.shockrealm.com/negzero/frameset1.htm