Private Wars - Sergey Titov

Interviewed : Sergey Titov CEO of TS Group Inc in Moscow

                                    Interviewed by : Frank, Mark

                                    Date : June 18th 1998

Note: This interview was conducted by ICQ so it comes out a little different that your typical E-Mail Q & A style interview.

<3DSS> How long has Private Wars been in development?

<Titov> We started pre-production phase around Feb '98 ( I mean we have idea for about year, but since we've been busy all 97 publishing our racing game in Russia and working on new version of our engine 'eternity" - we showed it for first time at Comdex '97, we actually haven't time to start PW ) and we start actual production around April 10 ( plus minus a week ).

<3DSS> When do you anticipate the game will be ready for release then?

<Titov> If we stop at 15 levels design, I think we could made it till Christmas ( if something horribly does not happen ), but with an extended design (25 missions ), I think somewhere in Q1 of '99 will be more realistic.

<3DSS> Any plans for a demo before the main release?

<Titov> Right now we are absolutely sure that we'll have a playable preview version with two missions complete by early July. But...Right now we are discussing publishing of PW in the US with several large publishers, so I think ( and hope :) ), that this will be a publishers decision to release a demo prior release of the full game. Anyway, we'll be ready :)

<3DSS> Sounds like you guys are going to be very busy!

<Titov> Yep. Actually I'll have a schedule for several trips to US in next two months, to present PW to major game publishers in US.

<3DSS> Thanks Sergey. Changing topics and getting into the game, what 3d graphics cards do you plan to support ?

<Titov> OK, we have a long relationships with 3Dfx, so Voodoo and especially Voodoo2 will be our primary target. Also we started working with Matrox, so we'll tune up our D3D version to support specific features of MG200 ( 32 bit rendering especially, that means 24 bit textures ). Next we have fully functional Direct3D version up and running. We plan to ship with DirectX 6, since DX6 (and D3D in DX6 ) is a MAJOR leap from dx5 in terms of 3d rendering and processing. Thanks to Microsoft ( did I said that :) ), they're made really good version this time. At last :).

<3DSS> laughs

<Titov> So bottom line is - 3Dfx Glide + D3D. No openGL :)

<3DSS> Great stuff! It sounds like you have the game engine all wrapped up with the majority of your work still to come on level design?

<Titov> Yes and no at same time. Yes, we have engine almost complete, but we still miss some of these modern tricks like a procedural textures ( Unreal rocks ), we still need some more optimizing - right now to run game you must have PII233 + 3D Card+32MB RAM. I'm targeting for MMX 233 for standard configuration.

<3DSS> ouch!

<Titov> Next goes to our proprietary "TruNature" algorithm - this beast allows us to render absolutely REAL forests and any other kind of vegetation, complete with objects like a logs, etc... Actually I've been looking at Trespasser screen shots for long time and said to myself - "no it's impossible, it's impossible, etc....". then week prior E3, I came with idea, how we can do it. So right now this code is still in it's infancy I'll be working on this and the character animation system for some time. But the primary engine coding is complete and now we working on missions design.

<3DSS> Sounds fantastic...

<3DSS>Speaking of sounds, at what stage of development does the 3d positional sound come in?

<Titov> We have a positional sound engine in right now, but it does not use any DS3D or A3D calls at this point in time. We have little experience with A3D, and we know DS3D relatively well, so I think it takes not much time to switch to them. Once again, right now we have positional audio through plain DS and our own algorithms.

<3DSS> Would you anticipate a switch to hardware positional audio giving you some of that engine optimization that you are striving for?

<Titov> Absolutely YES. Right now positional algorithms eats up to 10% of all processing time.

<3DSS> That’s not too bad from what I understand about software sound so your algorithms must be pretty good :)

<Titov> They’re pretty EASY - we just use positions and directions to get volume and pan values for each effect and any given time, and we have special pre-calculated tables to get Doppler effects.

<3DSS> Cool :)

<3DSS> Have you had an opportunity to evaluate the Creative Labs Environmental Audio eXtension API or the new Sound Blaster Live! technology?

<Titov> Not yet.

<3DSS> Have any 3d sound games influenced you to use positional sound in Private wars? If yes , which game would that be?

<Titov> Oh, yeah - it was most perfect game ever created - world around me :)

<3DSS> laughs :)

<3DSS> So you would want an environment that includes as much of the world as possible to be interactive within the game then, including positional audio, realist graphics and physics...

<Titov> To some degree - I don't want to create absolutely REAL world - since then we'll never succeed. But I'll try to make game environment as much realistic, as it will provide player with more GAMING options. I think that game play is more important that any graphics innovations, but at same time I KNOW that these innovations is selling engine for game. With regards to positional audio, I think ( feel, hope, etc. ) that this is something that gives player more GAMEPLAY value. you know it's really frightening to hear some monster roar behind you - you just can't see it, but you can hear it. At least in real life.

<3DSS> Yes we could not agree more! Positional Audio definitely adds a lot to game play.  Finding monsters in a dark room for example

<3DSS> One last question for you. But before we get there thanks a lot for taking time out of your schedule to chat with us.

<Titov> It's a 3AM in Moscow now. So I don't think that I taken to much time from my work schedule :)))) I'm usually sleep from 5AM to around 1PM, then start my working day :)

<3DSS>Yikes! Well from your personal schedule then :)

<3DSS> Our last question for you…What is it that Private Wars will offer gamers to distinguish itself from all of the anticipated hot releases scheduled for Christmas 98 and Q1 99?

<Titov> Real world - I mean this is our world, not some alien planet, etc. Real people, real weapons, real mission settings. And something that missed in FPS by now - thinking. I don't think you could complete any single mission in Private Wars, just by blasting your way. You'll be killed :)

<3DSS> Sounds cool!

<Titov> So bottom line is - I want REAL world with real weapons, with options for turn based combat as well as real time action. And I want realism - yes, I want to be killed by single bullet ( in game I mean :))) ).

<3DSS> laughs

<3DSS> Once again thank you for the interview Sergey Titov , good luck with this and your future endeavors.

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