Ryan Feltrin 04-07

April 07, 1999 on www.3dspotlight.net
A = Ryan Feltrin (A.I. and effects programming)
Q = Julio Franco

I had the opportunity to ask Ryan "Ridah" Feltrin from Xatrix Entertainment a couple of questions about the upcoming Quake 2 engine based FPS, Kingpin: Life of Crime, here's what he could tell me about the game:

Q: Tell us about yourself
A: Name: Ryan Feltrin, Age: 23, Music: R&B/HipHop, Movies: Sandler, Leslie Nelson, Chris Tucker, Car: S/charged VT, currently undergoing surgery after shredding another S/charge belt. *sigh*.

Q: Could you tell us about the Kingpin concept for the people that is still in the dark ? (which is pretty improbable after the popular demo release)
A: A game of violence & profanity, filled with thugs, punks, runts and bitches. Not a game for the weak of stomach.

Q: How do you expect the Kingpin concept will make a difference in gameplay, I mean what does Kingpin have that other FPS don't?
A: I think after playing Kingpin, those that dig the "theme" will come to expect a certain level of interactiveness and individuality with other characters. I also think we're pushing the extremes of model detail and quality, and the environments will show a wide range of settings, from the grimmy back-alley's of Skidrow (which you see in the demo), to the lavish mansions of the current "Kingpin".

Q: What are the biggest changes you've done to the Quake 2 engine?
A: Several additions come to mind here. The new sprite system, 32bit source art of course, entirely new AI system, guorad shaded models, localized damage zones and skins. We've more than doubled the original code that makes up the Quake2 engine.

Q: I know FPS aren't just about graphics enhancements but... How do you think Kingpin graphics will do against other FPS based on more advanced engines such as Q3A, Duke Nukem Forever and Unreal Tournament? According to the screenshots and the demo its going to do, very well, but there still are some features missing like curved surfaces, what's your opinion...?
A: I have a favourite saying that applies to many things in life: "It's not the abilities you have, it's how you use them". While we may not have the ability to do all the things some of those other engines can, but we have made good use of the technology we have expanded upon, and our design/art teams have done a very good job in bringing out the best of our engine. There is a definate advantage in spending more time tweaking and working on gameplay, than enhancing an engine beyond the competition.

Q: Will there be a lot of difference if we run Kingpin at 16 or 32bit color?
A: Depends on the card. Most cards have very good quality 16bit performance, like the TNT, Rage128, G200, etc. So you'll only notice the different by walking real close to smoke and fire effects. For 3dfx-based cards, you'll notice a huge difference when switching to one of these other cards.

Q: How do you think Kingpin will do against other "deathmatch only" games like Quake3 and Unreal Tournament in the multiplayer part of the game?
A: I think that many people will get into Kingpin multiplayer simply because it's a different, more realistic atmosphere. Hopefully we'll be able to support some team games to spice things up a bit.

Q: Unreal experience was cool the first 3-4 levels but then all scripted sequences were gone and we went back to the classic, a bit boring FPS, but Half Life changed that, do you think, Kingpin will have as many scripted sequencies as Half-Life? Should we expect that kind of interactivety?
A: The thing with Kingpin, is the only "scripted" sequences are the cut-scenes. These don't take much at all to do. The most work goes into creating the personality of each character, recording the voices, keying in the responses to that characters, and how they interact with the player/other characters. There is no doubt areas of the game will "feel" like the classic shooter, but that will be because you're deep in enemy territory. These situations will be few and far between.

Q: Will vehicles be present in Kingpin? If yes, how much would them affect gameplay?
A: At this stage we're not sure. We're focusing on touching up the other aspects of the game right now. Once that's done, I'll jump back onto the vehicles and see if we can get them in the position where they live up to the quality of the rest of the game.

Q: Do you think the recently released Kingpin demo captured most of Kingpin gameplay experience?
A: It gave a glimpse. We got a lot of feedback from the demo, and we're making a lot of changes. It was a good thing to release a demo at that point, now we have a clear focus of what the gaming public wants to see.

Q: Now... on the 3D APIs thing, should we expect just OpenGL support as in Quake or have you also planned adding Direct 3D support? I can't ignore 3D Audio, will Kingpin support EAX and/or A3D 2?
A: At this stage nothing is planned. Time permitting, I'd like to add support for every API out there, but obviously that's isn't being very realistic. First and formost our objective is to polish the gameplay.

Q: What about KNI and 3DNow! optimizations? Should we expect them out of the box or maybe in a later patch?
A: I can't really comment on this, since I haven't had much time to look into the work required to do this. There is no doubt that the biggest performance boost will come from using optimized drivers.

Q: What are the basic machine specs to run Kingpin at a decent frame-rate?
A: Whatever runs the demo at a reasonable speed, will obviously run the final game nicely. We have a lot of optimizations left, the biggest of that being the memory requirements.
Since different 3d cards/CPU speeds & brands/memory mix to produce large variations in performance, it's difficult to give a flat miminum spec at this point.

Q: What is your favourite weapon in Kingpin?
A: In Single Player, the Shotgun owns. In multi, I like the Tommy Gun, or the Flamethrower.

Q: Anything you would like to add about Kingpin?
A: Just that it's been a pleasure to work on.

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