| MiG Alley Interview by Leonard "Viking1" Hjalmarson |
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Q: Will MiG Alley include a Mission Planner? Rod: The campaigns revolve around the map screen which is essentially a Mission Planner. In addition to the campaigns there is a configurable quick start option. It should take only a few seconds to set up a mission. Q: When the player enters a campaign will he start out as a wing leader, or will he have to complete some training first? Rod: In the Mini-Campaigns that introduce the Spring Offensive, the player will have to get promoted to leader. In the 'Spring Offensive' he is in overall charge and can fly in any position. Q: The graphics engine for Flying Corps eventually became state of the art. What are some of the key features for MiG Alley? Will we see light source shading, dynamic lighting, blast effects? Are there any surprises? Rod: Any forthcoming suprises won't be revealed until you play the game! There will be light source shading for 3d cards, which should look particularly spectacular at night. Smoke and explosion effects are much more realistic than in Flying Corps and will set new standards. In addition to that we have lens flare, napalm, very long contrails and much more... Q: The terrain modelled in Flying Corps was basically flat, where Korea is mountainous. How will this affect both the look of the sim and the tactics of gameplay? Rod: The Somme is very flat but the Verdun area (Hat in the Ring) does have an altitude range of 1500feet. Have you noticed on the User Group that some people think the Somme is hilly and we didn't simulate it correctly! It made me smile. Korea is hilly and we should have done it first so the people could cope! Seriously, one of the reasons that we left Korea for so long is that we were waiting for the hardware to be fashioned to allow us to do it right! Q: What will be the maximum resolution? Is there proprietary support for 3d chipsets? Rod: Maximum resolution will be hardware dependent. If you have the hardware you can run up to 1600x1200 under Direct3d. Q: MiG Alley will model wind and even atmospheric pressure, another ambitious dimension of the sim! What is like to fly in? Rod: It is too early to get a good impression. Q: Will we also see weather modelling? Rod: Rain and floods should be present..... Q: What kind of detail will we see in sound modelling? Are sound effects based on digital recording? Rod: All sound effects are from real digital samples and are modelled to fit the 3d world to add to the illusion of being there. In the past we have experimented with Q Sound and we will be looking at Dolby this year. Q: How will you make the sim accessible to the novice? Will we be able to select levels of realism in flight, avionics, enemy AI? Rod: The quick start missions allow easy access. The mini-campaign gradually introduces the player to the complexities of the game. Even in the Spring Offensive, default missions are provided. However the player can change as much or as little as he wants. |
  Q: What about multiplayer support? How many players will be able to connect in one mission on the internet? Will there be a "capture the flag" option as well as coop missions? Will multiplayer campaign mode be available? Rod: Flying Corps Gold comms allowed death match and team play on a limited number of missions for up to eight players. The following extra features are required for MiG Alley:
Death match and team play on a limited number of missions should also be available. We are producing a design which will incorporate all the above extra features. Full campaign Internet play will be available on the first published version. Network, Wireplay, modem and direct connect will be handled by the Internet design. The design will not require a separate server however we will design so that the aggregator can be on a different machine from the host. Players will be able to play the Internet game for the cost of their telephone charges. We will be using the proposed EI Lobby service for the initial Internet connection. Q: What about the future? What kind of expansion sets will we see? Might there be new aircraft added also? Rod: It is too early to say. We issued Flying Corps Gold only 10 months after Flying Corps. This was due to exceptional circumstances. 3d cards came just too late for Flying Corps and the comms were rewritten for Wireplay. I know we patched FC but in the meantime we had added so much more to Flying Corps including a comprehensive Mission Editor that we decided we had a new product. At this stage I cannot see that we will be replacing MiG Alley within a year of publication. However we are committed to support our games and so there will be patches. Q: When can we expect to see the sim? Rod: August, 99. Q: What do you expect will be the minimum system requirements? Rod: Pentium 166. We have made some changes to allow slow machines to paint flat polys. Q: What can a player running under the present generation of Voodoo chipsets on a P200 at 640x480 and 16 bit color expect for frame rate? Rod: There will be a much wider range of graphic options to allow the user to choose his own frame-rate. Up to 33 frames per second is possible with our system. Q: Thanks for taking the time Rod and all the best with MiG Alley!
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