Croteam Q&A by Jason "Rodzilla" Rodzik   Posted on November 7, 2002   With the release of Serious Sam: Xbox just days away, the netcode patch within reach, and Serious Sam 2 as well as future Sam games on the horizon, there are tons of questions people are asking. After bugging, bribing, and flat-out threatening Croteam, we finally got some answers out of that crazy group of Croatians. We asked them what are some of the most important questions on people's minds regarding upcoming releases from Croteam, and got answers out of Alen Ladavac (Lead Programmer), Dinko Pavicic (2D Artist), Goran Zoricic (Network Programmer), Zeljko Visnjic (2D Artist), Davor Hunski (Lead Game Designer/Application Programmer), Admir Elezovic (Lead Artist/Modeller), and Damjan Mravunac (Music and Sound Artist). Seriously! - Congratulations on getting Serious Sam: Xbox finished. What changes to the Serious Engine were made for the release of Serious Sam for the Xbox? Will any of these new features be carried over to the PC games in a future patch? Alen Ladavac - Thanks. For the Xbox version, we've heavily optimized the SKA model renderer, making use of full hardware skinning, switched networking to full client-server model, added support for hardware 3D sound, used vertex and pixel shaders to the maximum extent for model rendering, optimized the world renderer for better hardware acceleration, optimized loading speed, and added some Xbox-specific stuff (like movie playback, etc). You will see almost all of this in the next patch. SS:SE doesn't have any SKA models, so you won't actually see that in the game, but it will work for the mods. Seriously! - Will we be seeing a PC version of the Xbox game, including the new music, levels, and more, all in one package? Dinko Pavicic - I'm afraid that there won't be the actual X-box game on the PC. Serious Sam Gold Edition was finished long time before X-box title and sent to our publishers. It will contain both Serious Sam:First Encounter and Second Encounter with addition of new deathmatch levels and selection of user community maps for both The First and Second Encounter.. Seriously! - The community has been anxiously awaiting the upcoming netcode patch for a while now. In the recent Croteam website update, it was mentioned that the netcode had been completely rewritten and worked a lot better. How much of an improvement, both client-side and server-side can we expect? Goran Zoricic - Well, the server's performance will stay pretty much the same. It does a bit more work now, but some major chokepoints have been removed (optimized), so the overall performance of netcode should be about the same for the server. Clients, however, should have a much smoother ride from now on. Client machines have been relieved of some complex work (AI, most physics) and local prediction has been greatly simplified. Complex local prediction was the main reason of bad framerate for players with high latency (ping). The net result - ;) - should be higher framerate in all situations, and smoother play in simple to semi complex situations, while in complex situations (lots of baddies, rockets, laser beams...), a lot will be dependant on available bandwidth. Seriously! - In addition to the netcode, what other changes will be included in the upcoming patch? Alen Ladavac - New SKA model render with vertex and pixel shaders, faster loading... and what some people wanted for a long time - hardware 3d sounds. Seriously! - One of the main reasons that there are not many Serious Sam servers is the lack of a Linux dedicated server. Are there any plans for a Linux server? Alen Ladavac - Yes, there are plans to implement that. Serious Sam for Linux is (thanks to Ryan) in a functional alpha state. Still it has to be upgraded to the latest netcode before it can be used as dedicated server with the upcoming patch for Win32. Seriously! - Are there plans for subsequent updates to Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, and if so, what will likely be included in them? Alen Ladavac - This is not known at this point. If the patch causes some new issues to arise (what is possible, since this is a thorough recode), we will have to make another release of it. It all depends. But apart from that, we don't have plans to provide major updates to Serious Engine 1.5. We will concentrate our work on the next major version, Serious Engine 2. Serious Engine 2 will be used for Serious Sam 2, and is not directly compatible with the previous versions - meaning that it won't load the old worlds. So we won't patch to it. Seriously! - One of the biggest things holding back mods and custom levels online is the lack of an automated download system within the game, allowing users to download and install custom additions to the game without leaving the game and downloading them on their own. Are there plans to include an automatic download system in future patches? Alen Ladavac - This will be possible in SE2, but not in this patch. Seriously! - Serious Sam: The First Encounter appears as if it has been overshadowed by The Second Encounter. However, many people still enjoy playing SS:FE instead of SS:SE. Are there plans to patch The First Encounter past its current version? Alen Ladavac - Actually, it looks like something like this will happen. I won't tell you just exactly what right now. Let that be a little secret. :) Seriously! - The upcoming patch is obviously going to change the way some things are coded. What kind of code changes will be required for current mods to work with the new patch? Goran Zoricic - New netcode uses events to keep server-side and client-side copies of the same entity in sync. Mod makers will have to implement that in their entity code. The concept is pretty simple, but can get a bit tricky in complex entities with many layered event handlers. Also, events that are sent over net are not allowed to contain a pointer of any kind, but alternative methods of referencing objects have been implemented (use of IDs). We will provide a 'Best practices' document or something similar, as an aid for mod developers in transition to new netcode. Seriously! - Will mod authors have access to the netcode for tweaking, such as allowing for more players to be in the game at one time? Alen Ladavac - Mod authors have more control over what is sent over net now, but there is still the limit of 16 players. As I've said a few times before, if we find that the new performance is much better, we will probably allow up to 32 players. But no guarantees yet. Seriously! - Serious Sam in its current form will run on just about any computer, but a lot of work is required to actually get it to work on many systems. Is there any priority to make the code itself a little more conservative and thus not requiring multiple software/driver updates to run? Alen Ladavac - Yes, the code is definitely going in that direction. Seriously! - Not much is known about Serious Sam 2 yet, aside from the fact that it's a completely new game with a completely re-written Serious Engine. What new features can we expect from the new engine, and how will it compare with other game engines such as the new Unreal Engine and the Doom III engine? Alen Ladavac - Well... yes, you are right. We've mentioned a few times that Serious Sam 2 will be riding on top of a completely new engine, and that's true. But we didn't feel like it was the right time to reveal what exactly will be under the hood. And that time has not come yet. :) You can be sure of two things. First, that we will continue to maintain our direction of pushing the limits of not only technological features but also of sizes and numbers. And second, that the tools and mod-support will be even more powerful and simpler to use than before. And of course, we'll have shaders. Lots of them, and of all kinds. Seriously! - Will John from Vegas make an appearance in Serious Sam 2? Zeljko Visnjic - Well I'm pretty sure of that. He will have his five minutes of glory in Serious Sam 2. Seriously! - Will Serious Sam 2 be the Third Encounter of the series, picking up where SS:SE left off and wrapping up the story, or will it be a completely new game? Also, The First Encounter featured only one environment, Egypt, while The Second Encounter featured three environments. What kind of various settings can be expected in Serious Sam 2? Davor Hunski - You can expect many new environments, different from ones you could see in two encounters. The style of Serious Sam will stay the same, everything else will change. I promise you some never-yet-seen stuff to emerge from Sam 2, but I'll let you boil for a while, hi hi.... :) Seriously! - In a recent interview, Admir Elezovic mentioned that a Serious Sam game would be coming to the Nintendo GameCube in 2003. Will this be a GameCube-only game, or is it going to be released for other platforms as well? Admir Elezovic - Its going to be new game, with new content (levels, weapons, monsters...), all set in Serious Sam universe. Game has been developed by well experienced, UK based developer, Climax. Seriously! - Serious Sammy was curious as to how big Sam was down south. Don't tell him she asked though... Damjan Mravunac - We'll explain that to her eye to an eye. She'll be surprised I promise! ;) Dinko Pavicic - A few words ... Albino anakonda baby! Seriously! - Thanks a lot for taking time to answer these questions, and good luck with the upcoming games! Dinko Pavicic - Thank You! It is always pleasure talking with our friends. P.S. - Got a great idea for a feature for SS2 when thinking of questions. Change the phone booths to portaJOHNs. Of course, they'd have "Manufactured in Vegas" written on them :) Damjan Mravunac - Hey, what about a game called 'Serious John' where you run around Vegas and play with strippers?! Noooo.... too complex. It would take forever to finish it... Links: Croteam Gotham Games Take 2 Games Purchase Serious Sam: Xbox Serious Sam: XBox Forum