We just have interviewed AND and Motostrelok from the promising Liberation 1941-1945 MOD. In this article you will find some information about technical stuff of their first release and next projects.
Ofp.info: Good afternoon, gentlemen. We have decided to interview you as two of the most prolific members of Liberation 1941-1945 team. So let's not waste any time and jump to our first question.
It is well known, that the release of the first version of your mod is right around the corner. Can you tell us what are you plans for after the release? What are going to work on in the future?
Lib: Overall the work on our first mod release is done. Internal testing is all that is left, however we decided to use several testers from the community as well. We could've released the combined RKKA and Wermacht/SS pack earlier, but we thought that our fans deserve "bugless" mod and did not want to disappoint them with some minor glitches. The main goal of the next stage is a release of "Brest" Island and a campaign about tragic days of June 1941. We didn't want to use standard objects and therefore decided to make new ones that would immerse players in that era completely. Creation of original campaign is also important. We are also thinking about continuing our trend and releasing more bonus addons and packs.
Ofp.info: It is no secret that "Brest" Island that your team is currently making is an exact copy of real life Brestskij Region in Belarus. If we look at the map of the Belarus it is quite clear that it has no access to the sea. Our next question is whether your "Brest" is going to be an island in a proper sense of that word. If yes, isn't it kind of stupid? How are you going to implement it properly in OFP?
"Brest" Island
Lib: Well.. this is an interesting question.. Many modmakers encountered that problem before. "Ardennes" and "Afghanistan" are also islands...
We decided that it is going to be too simple just to stick to the limitations of this game. Islands mean marine assaults, boats, air support, infantry and saboteurs. But those are not tank battles, not fast paced "engine wars" on wide open spaces. Which was a main part of Second World War. How did tank battalions get to this island? Therefore as other authors of OFP islands we are going to search for an adequate solution to that. What about other games? Bottomless canyon, flat infinite plain or a fence, all of which prevents the player from leaving the game area - isn't that stupid?
Ofp.info: Your island is going to feature a railroad. Will we have fully functional trains or just static objects?
Lib: Yes, we are going to build a railroad. We even have functional trans - E-Series train, Armoured train etc. Our island is going to feature a railroad as a static object by default, however they will come alive and fully functional for individual campaigns and missions. We are going to think further about this, but we are planning to allow player to make his own missions with railroad units. Although, as we stated before, we don't want to invent wheel twice. We are ready to discuss other options with other mod teams. On the other hand we don't see our island as a representation of our vision of USSR in 1941 without a railroad.
Ofp.info: Is your railroad script more advanced than similar one from AEF team?
Tanks KV-1 and KV-2
Lib: It is perfectly normal to boast about your work, but I would have to say that guys at AEF did a terrific job with their railroad.
Ofp.info: Good answer.
Few questions about your campaign now, what time period can we expect? Is it going to be based on historical facts or completely made up? What side(s) will we play as?
Lib: Our campaign is dedicated to the tragedy of 4-th Army on Western Front in the first days of Great Patriotic War. Main character is a border guard commander who lives through the "whirlwind" of the early Blitzkrieg days. Not very glorious, but rather tragic days in our military history. But our grandfathers managed to beat all odds - meeting mobilized and highly trained Wermacht military machine on the night of June 22nd in their underwear (sorry for the details). They not only managed to hold their ground, but to strike at the enemy in its lair. Not many survive that, we did. Our campaign is about that.
Overall it is made up, but main character's name is real. Those kind of stories happened to thousands of our soldiers in those days. It is pretty common story: sudden war, battles, encirclement, defeat, trying not to get caught, trying to get back etc.
Ofp.info: All popular mods nowadays are being released with custom GUI. Are you planning something like that for Liberation?
Lib: Definitely. We decided straight away that even the icon on your desktop is going to be our own - Great Patriotic War order. Main menu is going to be new. We are going to use our own mod folder - Libmod. There you will be able to find extensive folder system - separate folders for models, textures, scripts, sounds etc. This will allow us to patch the mod easily without having to download huge files. All units are nicely balanced between each other and are going to play better when installed on top of clean OFP installation.
Ofp.info: Are you planning on using your own animations and SFX? Probably your own sky?
Lib: Some of that has already been done.. I would have to say that our humble effort already made a difference. We departed from standard OFP gameplay, and I'd have to say we made a right choice. Now tank battles are not 2-3 seconds long at distances over 1500 metres. We made all tank battles a much longer experiences with ability to maneuver a lot. We also threw away old OFP damage model that randomly "crumbled" objects. We are going to mention everyone who helped us with that in the credits. This includes explosions script, burning vehicles script, debris script etc. We also believe that we managed to get rid off the "curved" legs of OFP infantry. Now they have wider posture, but straight legs. We used brand new static animations for vehicles. We haven't changed all the dynamic animations for the infantry, because we ran out of time. Maybe later...
AS for the sky... we have not thought about it yet. Maybe we will do something about that when we release our island. That work is still ahead of us.
German gunner
Ofp.info: Well those were all of our question regarding technical details. So what do you expect from OFP2? Are you going to continue your work for the new platform?
Lib: You know, we do want to release second version of our mod dedicated to events more glorious than 1941. We might be able to do it for OFP2. We are definitely planning on doing Soviet infantry of 1943-45, but not at the moment.
I would also like to say couple of words about our guys, which are doing models, drawing textures, writing scripts, scenarios, helping us with historical data. We've got to be the friendliest team in OFP community. We stick together, many of us became friends in real life as well. This is great. We would want to do everything and now, but that's impossible.. unfortunately. So were hoping that we get support form our friends in the community that waited for this release for so long. We are hoping to raise an interest in our mod, so users would not only play it, but make missions and campaigns on their own. Our fans can add where we lack in imagination and historical facts. As for OFP2, we are waiting for it as much as everyone else and planning on making our addons for it as well.
German tanks
Ofp.info: Can you say couple of words for the community and your fans?
Lib: Guys, it is always hard release your work for everyone to see, maybe because there always be criticism. But believe us, when we say that we want to give you completely new base to play out your own WW2 scenarios in OFP. There, no doubt, will be bugs and errors, we know that. But the only people who never make mistakes are the ones who never do anything. We are ready for your constructive criticism. To everybody who was waiting for our mod - thank you, maybe after the release of Liberation 1.00 our team ranks will grow.... who knows.
Ofp.info: Thank you very much for you answers. We wish you the very best in everything and especially Liberation.
