PCShooter: Now that Elite Edition has been released what do you think of the final product? Would you now change anything in it?

Cade: We’re very pleased with our finished product, although no multiplayer game is ever truly finished. We’re working on improving the multiplayer from a 5-man game to a 10-man game.

PCShooter: Players everywhere are waiting for the 10-player limit increase patch. Can you tell us when this will be released?

Cade: We’re hoping to release it before the end of the year, but it may not make it out until the beginning of 2001.

PCShooter: Are any more game play mods being considered? eg. Capture the flag or some other new modes?

Cade: We’ve made some changes to Team Death match mode. Now you can have 2 5-man teams fighting against each other. Each team will have the ability to use the Command & Response menu from the Single player/Co-op game, so each team can better coordinate their efforts. There will also be a ‘Base Camp’ option. When the ‘Base Camp’ option is activated, teams will always start the game and respawn after death in the same place/room in the map.

PCShooter: Is your team mainly concentrating on Swat3? How soon till you start creating new games?

Cade: Most of the team is working to support the community via game updates and new levels right now. A few team members are researching technologies that we will use to make the next SWAT game even more realistic.

PCShooter: Concerning 3d Studio Max. Will there be an updated plugin for 3d Studio Max 3.1 ? In some ways this seems to be holding the mod community back.

Cade: Unfortunately no. At one point another dev team using the SWAT engine wrote a v3.1 plugin. It partially worked for the meshes (.gsm) but bombed badly with the animations (.gsa).

PCShooter: In the last few years Mods have become very popular. How do developers and the gaming industry in general feel about private gamers and groups taking their games off the shelves and modifying it to make a new game.

Cade: I think mods and community support is incredibly important to the longevity of a game. As long as the people who are making the mods don’t intend to profit from them, then I think it’s fine.

PCShooter: Any plans on releasing an SDK? Many have said Swat3 is perfect to mod. But there are some limitations as to what can be created.

Cade: Not at this time.                

PCShooter: Where do see the first person shooter genre heading?

Cade: I’d like to see a FPS in a perpetual world. Something like Everquest, but with a tactical-shooter spin to it.

PCShooter: Was the game code for swat3, written for the high-end graphics cards on the market today?

Cade: Actually it was written just before the new nVidia and 3dfx cards came out, but the visual quality is incredible and we haven’t experienced that many technical support issues related to the newer cards.

PCShooter: Can you give me a little hint what you are currently working on?

Cade: Aside from the 10-player update to SWAT3 Elite Edition, we’re working on the next SWAT game.

Official Swat 3 Elite Edition Website

 PCSHOOTER SWAT3 REVIEW