Warriors of the Apocalypse

[Munro]

Warriors of the Apocalypse is yet another Multiplayer mod that displays some
very promising features. However, WOTA is shaping up to be one of the best
looking Half-Life 2 mods both in a visual and gameplay aspect. Rather than just
being a straight up shooter, WOTA incorporates teamwork through completing
assigned objectives. These assigned objectives will require players to use their
mind as well their trigger finger. Not only will there be challenging
objectives, but there will also be several unique playable factions. Now that
you have read what makes WOTA such a wonderful mod that everyone should be on
the look out for, lets progress with the interview. [br]
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Halflife2.net: First off, I would like to thank Morgan, the leader of
WOTA mod for sitting down with me today to complete this interview.

Morgan: Thanks for interviewing me, I’m sure people will like what
we have to offer.

Halflife2.net: In a few short sentences, please describe the storyline
to the readers who are new to Warriors of the Apocalypse.

Morgan: The storyline is pretty involved but leaves enough open to
prevent us from restricting ourselves. It is, however, an alternate reality,
so the events leading up to the war are a little different than you’d expect.
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Basically, the world was for the most part at peace, the Soviet Union and the
rest of the world had found a way to keep the world economy in balance. The
United States government was corrupted and built a computer system to make
things right and restore liberty to the people without crippling the power of
the corporations that corrupted elected officials. The system gets confused
and believes that corporations are to blame for people’s unhappiness, so it
decides to destroy them, which would destroy the world economy. The Soviet
Union invades the American States of Canada and parts of the United States to
attempt to force them to stop the computer system, but even the US couldn’t
stop it. A massive attack was launched on the main part of the system and it
was apparently destroyed. The world was left shattered, torn by the war,
bombings, civil war, terrorism, and radioactive fallout. [br]
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The game picks up a few decades after the war, in a fight for control of
resources, dominance in various areas, and most of all, survival.

Halflife2.net: Creativity held within a mod is a very important
deciding factor that categorizes a mod as either noteworthy or yet another
average game being developed. In what ways do you think WOTA expresses its
creativity to the player?

Morgan: WOTAMOD is certainly going to be one of the more creative
mods out there; our weapons are not brand new shiny M4A1s and SOCOM pistols,
our firearms will be old, worn, rugged, abused weapons that will jam and need
to be maintained to ensure performance. Our melee weapons will be crude,
sadistic weapons made from whatever was at hand, such as our street sign
battleaxe and scythe, toaster mace, various baseball bats with sharp stuff
attached to them, Jagged pieces of aluminium siding on a stick, saw blade
battleaxes, assorted knives, etc. Some of these weapons you can make yourself
using tools. That’s another thing, allowing players to combine items in their
inventory to make various new items (whether they be explosives, equipment,
weapons, armour, accessories, ammo, etc.) will surely allow even the players
themselves to express creativity. [br]
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Aside from that, our maps will not just be death match with rusty guns;
objectives will require teamwork and creative problem solving to accomplish
goals. Our characters will be customizable by the player, and will vary in
ethnicity. Our vehicles will be unique in their own ways (like our Luxury
Whaling Sedan, a Lincoln Towncar with a harpoon mounted on the roof) There may
very well be too many things to go into, there are some very creative people
working on this project and I believe you can see this through our work.

Halflife2.net: WOTA sounds like it would be a perfect single player
game as the storyline fits in perfectly. Why was the decision to make the mod
multiplayer exclusive, rather than adding a single player portion?

Morgan: Adding single player would require a lot of AI coding and
such to make the game worthwhile, and even then it wouldn’t be as enjoyable as
playing against human players. People love to talk smack, often make mistakes,
and are generally very unpredictable. This makes for a very fun and rich game
play experience that doesn’t get boring as fast as single player.

Halflife2.net: Since there will be multiple factions to choose from to
complete the assigned objectives, how will each faction differ from one another?
Is there a dominant faction that will appeal to players more than other
factions?

Morgan: Each faction will have its own weaknesses and strengths.
Depending on a map, a faction may be in better or worse shape. Also, there
will be sub-factions that may even be at war with each other. Raiders will be
known for their gang wars within their own ranks. [br]
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I don’t believe there will be a dominant faction that will appeal to players,
although everyone will likely have their favourites, the factions will be
balanced. Not all factions will be on every map; generally, 2 or 3 factions
will be on the map, and they will be balanced in one way or another to make
game play interesting.

Halflife2.net: Speaking of factions, which is your favourite?

Morgan: Tough decision, they’ll all be so cool !Although one of the
maps will be a drug war map in which villager and raider drug gangs are
slitting each other’s throats in a town for control of the town. There will be
one leader randomly chosen for leadership of each of the small gangs, a few
chosen to be thugs, and the rest of the players will be drug addicts with no
predetermined loyalty to the dealers. If they don’t receive their fix, they’ll
die of withdrawal. To get their fix, the drug dealers will offer jobs to each
of the junkies, such as “Here’s a pistol with 2 shots. Go put 2 shots in the
head of that dealer over there. If you do it I’ll give you 2 hits of owl juice
and a dimebag of ook. And ya best bring that gun back or I’ll kill ya myself!”
Also, the UMA will be sending an anti drug trafficking task force to the area
to arrest people, so that may be one of the other playable teams. [br]
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I’d love to be a junkie on that level; it would be both hilarious and fun.

Halflife2.net: Since WOTA isn't exactly far in development, can you
shed light upon what type of scenery there will be included in the environments?
Will the map's architecture be based more upon wide open spaces, or more
tighter, confined areas?

Morgan: The maps will all be objective based involving a few
factions fighting to complete their objective. As so, the maps will vary in
their design. There will be some maps with open areas, but for the most part
the maps will be somewhat urban environments.

Halflife2.net: Vehicular transportation is mentioned on WOTA's
official website, which can be found at

Join us! Whether as a development team member, or as a fan, we could always
use more people! Sign up on the forums, I post updates of our progress about 5
times a day, so you’ll get to see a lot of cool stuff that I don’t post on the
front page.