Veritas: Your the person responsible for Qinling, Ghost Train and my favorite PR map of all time, Muttrah. Speaking of which, why did it get removed and will we get Muttrah 2 in v0.8?
Rhino: That is correct, though as lead mapper my responsibilities also include putting work into all the maps that go into PR, which means it's sometimes hard to find time to work on my own projects. The removal of Muttrah City was my decision, the map was developed around the game play in PR v0.3 and it worked brilliantly with v0.3. But by PR v0.5 it was clear that the mod had simply out grown the map. The map was too small and did not promote the kind of game play we wanted in PR, so there was two main choices: do a lot of work on the current version, or scrap it and start fresh, with a much, much larger, more realistic and overall better design. I've been working on the map on and off ever since (over a year now). This was no easy task and I have been pushing the map and myself to the limits.
The PR team has helped tremendously with this, and we have all had to learn new skills and overcome many obstacles to get this map to the point its at now. We have reviewed 100's of real life reference photo's and painstakingly re-created dozens of custom objects based on the real life location of Muttrah City, Oman. What I've done with Muttrah City v2 is something that no mapper in there right mind would try to attempt, and that is creating an urban map in non-symmetrical, unevenly shaped blocks. Most real life cities in the world are not a grid but rather a unique sprawling urban landscape, and this has proved quite a difficult challenge in the BF2 editor. The map has yet a lot of work still to be done on it before its complete but we are hoping it will be finished soon.
Veritas: The question we most want to know is, When can we expect to see PR v0.8?
Rhino: I should have known you were going to ask this hehe. Sorry but we never give out any dates of the release until we are close to finishing and 100% sure as as to when we will be finished. We are a free mod made by volunteers who work in their free time. Anything can happen with real life that can cause problems in the amount of free time we get, which can put back a release by a few weeks or more. Also we have to deal with unexpected bugs and hardware problems popping up. Just recently one of my old hard drive deiced to die, thankfully all of my files were backed up but it did cause us to miss a deadline by a week since I could not compile and do basic testing on the build so then we could send it off to the testers. We know its in the best interest of both the dev team and the community not to give out any dates until we are 100% certain, we do not want to disappoint our dedicated community. We do truly work on a tight time scale to give you our next releases as soon as we possibly can to keep the player base happy with new content and to keep the game play fresh and exciting.
Read the full interview here.
Now if that wasn’t enough, the guys at Project Reality League interviewed ZZEZ from our very own Israeli Defense Forces community mod team. Community mod team you say? Yea, community mod team. The Project Reality Development Team currently endorses a few small groups of developers as they endeavor to privately develop their own “mods” for the Project Reality Mod. Upon completion and thorough review from the PR team, their creations may very well be included in the main Project Reality Mod. If you haven’t checked them out, head over the Project Reality forums and get the full scoop. These guys are doing some fantastic work and are always open to criticism, suggestions, or anything else you can provide them with to further improve upon there mods.
I know, I know, what about Project Reality v8.0? We are making great progress and are very excited about all the new features we are including. Keep a very close eye on the Project Reality forums as there just may very well be a media release in the upcoming week. Yea that was hint.Project Reality League: Tell us about the PR community mods. What *is* a PR community mod and how did this idea come about?
ZZEZ: IDF PR community mod is a bunch of people interested in seeing IDF as a faction in a future PR build and are willing to spend their free time on making it happen. The idea came when THE.FIST originally posted his Micro Galil model in the community mod forum, I always had IDF community mod idea in my mind and decided to contact him and another guy, Lachtang, luckily they both said they'll be happy to work on it.
PRL: What maps will be included, and what factions will be the OpFor on those maps?
ZZEZ: A modified version of Strike at Karkand (modified by Hffet) which has IDF vs Hamas in AASv2, Sharqi Peninsula in Counter-Attack mode with IDF defending against the MEC. Goods Station, which is an old PR map we are reviving that will be IDF vs Hamas in Insurgency game mode. There are also a few custom maps in the works.
PRL:What challenges are there in creating a mod like this?
ZZEZ: Well firstly it's finding people to actually do the work. The BF2 modding community is already small and starting something as big as this requires people with know-how. Secondly after you find the people it's... getting them to workand in a timely matter as you want to get things done ASAP.
Read the full interview here.
-The Project Reality Team