[b]1. Does COR stands for your first attempt at a mod?[/b] [i]COR was not our first attempt at producing a MOD, more like the 4th. Most of the people working on COR have been involved with several mods prior to COR. Myself and fellow project lead Matt Tonks both tried to start a similar mod over 4 years ago for Quake 3 called MTOS. While MTOS and most of our other previous mods have ultimately failed, we have all come from our prior projects with a lot of knowledge about the technical and managerial aspects of producing a game. Part of COR's success is the result of studying how previous projects went wrong, and applying new and thorough strategies to keep it going in a timely manner.[/i] [b]2. Where did you get the ideas to create this mod, from your head or did something inspire you?[/b] [i]Since the beginning, the focus of COR has been to capture the fun and excitement found in the Transformers and similar toys of the 80's. These transforming characters used to spark our imaginations and fill us with a sense of adventure, it was in this spirit, that every aspect of COR was designed. Last December, when we sat down to plan our first "professional mod" we felt we were ready to tackle the beast of creating our own property. While COR is obviously inspired by toys like Gundams and Transformers, we have put a lot of effort into creating an original universe where we could tell our own story.[/i] [b]3. What is your favorite aspect of the unreal Engine?[/b] [i]There are so many technical reasons that Unreal was the perfect choice for COR, it's hard to list them all here. Coming from the artistic and design side of things, I'd have to say my favorite aspect of Unreal is its ease of use for importing and using stuff in real time. When having to import 3 separate models of each character and get them to line up *Seamlessly* it really helps to have the awesome UED asset browser. From a design standpoint, unreal is great to use because we can sit down as a team and fuss with vehicle settings while the game is playing and have instant feedback on whether the changes we are making are helping. This is very important for fine-tuning the Karma vehicles.[/i] [b]4. What has been the hardest part of this project?[/b] [i]Anything and everything having to do with the transform system has been very difficult to perfect. So much planning and communication have to happen to get a single CMR in the engine. First the CMR is concepted, next the modeler creates 3 versions of the model, and works with the animator to ensure that the transform is seamless. Then both animator and modeler must work with the coder to get all 3 versions swapping in the game seamlessly. Finally the CMR's unique driving physics must be implemented. Each one of these steps is a back-and-forth process and some thing can be re-imported up to 20 or more times before they work correctly with all the other models.[/i] [b]5. Community Support, anything the community can do to help Contribute?[/b] [i]Download COR! Get on our forums and let us know what you think. Our team is dedicated to standing by our mod for as long as there is an interested community who wants to play it. We are always working on getting more servers online for our players, but its really hard to find a full server when a mod first comes out. To help combat this, we have weekly gametimes scheduled where the developers all turn out to play with the community. Currently we are playing on Friday evenings at 8:00 PST. There's more info on this in our forums.[/i] [b]6. Are there any ideas for future development of the mod?[/b] [i]There are tons of ideas for future expansion on this project. Everything from the Linear Multiplayer Progression, to the melee combo system is expected to go in during the next year. We are going to spend the next 2 months refining and polishing our current content before we begin the next phase of development, but more cool stuff is just around the bend! *hints at new CMRs*[/i] [b]7. Are we going to see any new features in your next releases.[/b] [i]The next two months should see a lot more maps come into play, as well as possibly a few new weapons and the item-system. We're even trying to do more CMR skins/models, so keep checking out our site.[/i] [b]8. How did the community react on the recent release of the mod? Are you happy about the community response?[/b] [i]We had a very strong launch despite some pretty big bugs. We had at least 2000 downloads in our first 2 weeks of going public, which is excellent. We have noticed a very strong following in Europe, which we love, but makes it really hard for everyone to play together, at the same time, on the same server.[/i] [b]9. What did you enjoy most about working on the mod[/b] [i]I enjoy working with other highly motivated people. Nothing is as fun as doing something you love with your friends, in this case, create a game. Personally, I had a blast trying to develop fully transforming robots that look good in both humanoid and vehicle forms. Even if I did scream and curse a little in the process, it was totally worthwhile to see the reactions on people's faces when they see how we have brought these machines to life.[/i] [b]10. Is there anything you would like to say to your fans?[/b] [i]Thank you! We wouldn't be doing this if no one cared, so it's great to have a few fans pushing us on and holding us accountable. Also, play COR! LANs, online, anywhere. We just want to get up to a nice stable base where we can find COR games to play with others easily.[/i] We would like to thank the COR Dev Team for their time and willingness to participate in this interview.