The Unsung Mod plans to recreate many events from the Vietnam war, between the mid 1960's to the early 1970's. Most of the overall project will encompass the years in which US involvement in more than a funding and advisory role was no longer secret, this being 1965-1973. This was a very significant period in time for the USA. It was an engagement spanning ten years, where attitudes and tactics changed.
The First project is focusing on Marines in the early
years, 65-67.
It was also the coming of age of the helicopter, the creation of advanced tactics to combat a foe unlike any before encountered, in a country that held no front lines, no battle fields. It was the battlefield, its deep jungles and high mountains became the ever shifting sea of front lines. The US military quickly established various strategic bases, these were to provide support for the ground troops who would seek out and destroy the enemy where ever he may be.
Question (OFP.info): Do you plan to release the Mod as a large (or
several) addon pack(s) or more like a total OFP
modification? If you intend to release it as a total
modification, will you work on a new graphic user
interface and design, create hard coded modifications,
like changing NVG special effects...?
Answer (Drow, Unsung Mod's Leader): The Unsung will be a total modification. We
plan to first release a demo pack containing a taste
of whats to come in the full mod. We are working very
hard towards this primary goal and we should have some
idea of a release date within the next month or so.
We plan to make a custom GUI, we will work to create
as new and different an experience for OFP as we
possibly can. Our whole mod is working towards
creating a great campaign re-creating the experience
someone may have went through during the Vietnam War.
We do not plan to release any "packs" of addons by
themselves, we are not an "addon making mod", for the
most part each of our addons have a part to play in
the campaign. We are going all out to bring the most
atmospheric 'Nam experience to OFP, in as much detail
as possible.
With this being said, it should also be stated that
since our mod consists of more scripters and artists
than "addon makers" it has been a great challenge to
come up with the resources needed for our campaign. We
have imported resources from various other games to
speed up the preparation process (making Vietnam),
even so we have spent probably hundreds of hours
working on it so far, and everyone has only so much
"free time".
By resources I mean that these are textures and pieces
of models etc. not fully textured models converted
over without at least significant improvements/changes
being made. We have used these resources to speed up
the preparation process before we can really get down
to creating the campaign we have written. Our ultimate
goal is to bring the OFP Community a shockingly
realistic and chilling campaign to make you re-think
all you know about "Vietnam".
Q: Can you give us so far a list of addons or
categories and approximate dates of release?
A: The contents of the Full Release will remain
undisclosed at this time, Demo should be within a
couple of months.
The demo pack will contain the following: (note this
list may change slightly in the future)
- Small MP Island - "GhostLand"
- Unsung NamSky/Water Addon
- Unsung Command Engine (CE) - minus "Air Support"
feature
- Marines Pack1
- VC Pack1 (with AIA of WW2 Alliance)
- Weapons Pack1
- Huey Slick w/ M60
- AA Gun (for "EAST")
- Demo Missions showcasing the abilities of the Unsung
Command Engine
US watch tower.
Expect much more in the full mod.
Q: How many active addon makers are there in the
team, are you still looking for people to join the
mod?
A: There are about 3 active addon makers on our
team. We are always looking for more addon makers.
Q: Are you working with Vietnam conflict veterans
for the technical info and advice or do you find the
resources by yourselves ?
A: We find the 99% of the information ourselves.
I have attempted to contact veterans but they will not
often reply, so we do take seriously the input we
receive. I have personally read numerous books written
by veterans of various military units and ranks
stating first hand accounts of how the war really was.
Q: Will you re-use SEB Nam Pack 2 stuff and modify
/ improve it to fit your needs? What about non-Vietnam
mods using units involved in this war, like CSLA units
(PT-76, GAZ69) and FDF's ZSU 57-2 for example?
A: If it is already in ofp and good enough
quality I see no shame in asking the addon maker if we
can use the addon in our mod. Regarding SEB NamPack2,
SelectThis would not give us permission to use any
part of it, though he did grant permission to re-work
and use his old SpecOp Huey chopper (predesessor to
the SEB huey) which we were grateful for, however
after re-texturing it we have decided that rather than remodeling parts of
the SEB huey to meet our needs, we will create a
completely new Huey Slick.
Retextured SelectThis' Huey model.
Q: What about CSLA and FDF Mods, have they also
refused that you use their creations?
A: No we havent been turned down,
we have not asked though.
Q: Do you cooperate directly with other active
Vietnam conflict based mods, do you plan to work on
shared projects or keeping working only on your own ?
Are you in contact with Remo, who is working on a
NVA
Pack
?
A: Yes cooperation is a gigantic part of what
makes The Unsung. We have received much help from the
community in our quest, I see us as a mod for the
people by the people. We have stated that cooperation
is welcomed. -More info in this post-
As most everything in the Vietnam War was used in one
other war or another, it seems that most of our
necessary addons have already been made by modders in
the OFP community.
Therefore we kindly request
permission to re-work or improve and use many addon
makers past works in our mod, most people are very
accommodating and happy to help.
Retextured SelectThis' Huey model.
Q: Concerning weapon handling, from which style
your mod is the most close to; FDF mod style (hard
aiming/ heavy recoil / sharp weapons) or SEB team
style ( easier aiming / low recoil / high dispersion
bullets)?
A: As realistic as possible. We aren’t copying
configurations.
Q: So between those two kinds of config, what's the most close to realism in your opinion?
A: We're making it more like the FDF mod but we are not
going to copy how they did it. It should be
challenging to hit your target, like reality.
Q: Some of your work is based on or using directly
Battlefield Vietnam stuff, do you intend to import
massively other units or objects from this game?
A: No, we pretty much drew the line on
"massively importing" at that pack, which we intend to
use sparingly in any case. We can't really bother
ourselves about people saying bad things about
importing stuff, its all we can do with our free time,
"working" for free. We dont just convert textured
models to ofp, we are making something new out of many
resources compiled in one.
Q: What's your personal opinion about people
criticizing the way some addonmakers are importing
textures or models from others games?
A: It doesn't bother me. Lets not kid ourselves,
we are not game developers getting paid to do this,
you have got to take what you can get and make the
best of what you have. As long as people aren't taking
credit for work that they did not create then I see no
problem with it. The problem is there are people out
there modding for fame rather than fun, building on
models from other games and taking full credit, they
have long since forgot about fun.
Ancient Buddhist temple.
Q: The weapons, vehicles and ambient sounds
creation is a very hard task, what are your plans for
this?
A: We have people in our mod who can do sound
design, I for one have been doing music and sound
design since I was 15 (now 22), and have access to
professional recording equipment.
Q: Are you already working on missions/campaign
to release them at the same time of the upcoming
addons?
A: Sure we have some missions ready but I
believe we will create new ones once GhostLand is
ready. We will be making demo missions showing the
capabilities of our CE.
Q: Vietnam conflict has been a very controversial
one, will you stick to what happened or choose for a
more pleasant and game-adapted history?
A: We are going to try to blow people away, to
scare the shit out of you, and say every controversial
thing you’ve ever heard associated with the Vietnam
War, while avoiding clichés. Realism that supports
this gameplay is to be the focus, while the realism
that would bore you to death can be skipped over in
cutscenes.
This will not be candy coated for a PG13 audience, we
will use our judgment and good taste, but if you’re
easily offended you might want to stick to Lega Warz.
;-)
By creating a Vietnam war Mod after the SEB team and their rather old but still very good Nam Pack 2, the Unsung mod team is facing a really heavy and challenging task, since we can't avoid to make comparisons with what has been already done. Let wish them to succeed in building the first Vietnam-war OFP Modification even if it seems they're already following the right path to achieving it!
