I recently had a chance to Interview Codemasters SimonH about IGI2
The following Questions were picked by fractalgp, phlashman and myself

Hello and thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to conduct this interview.

Q: First off can you introduce yourselve and tell us what your job is?

My name is Simon Humphreys and I am the QA Team Leader on Project IGI2. This involves all aspects of testing the game, producing test plans, day to day running of the QA team and, of course, organising the beta test. I even get a chance to test the game myself sometimes General Game Info:

Q: Can you tell us if there is any plans to optomise the engine to take effect of advanced graphics? like Anti-Allasing , volumetric fog, Pentium 3/4 instructions ect..

The engine is already far more advanced than the original, the new lighting effects are a great improvement. I believe there will be further optimisation and use of the hardware effects and instructions found on todays graphics cards.

Q:Will we be able to shoot round walls (lean and shoot)?

The 'peek' function allows the player to lean around corners and observe the enemy undetected. This gives the player a strong advantage, and a quick strafe-step will allow the player to put a bullet in someone with ease.

Q: Have you managed to play the game yet? if so how are you enjoying it?

The game code is fully playable although a lot of the data is placeholder. The level designers are working to get initial versions of all the levels into the game and some of the levels are much more finished than others. I am enjoying it a lot, but its more testing than playing at this stage. I am really looking forward to the multiplayer, it's working already but needs a bit of work before it becomes fun to play.

Q: Phlashman: Are smoke grenades, flares, mines in IGI2?

We have flashbangs, smoke and HE grenades. We also have proximity mines, and anyone who has played multiplayer Goldeneye knows how much fun these can be!

Q: Phlashman: Will the user be able to use Monitors to see what the cameras "see" in game? this is for both the SP and MP part of the game.

Cameras will be a large part of both modes, but their use will be integrated into other hi-tech equipment such as the Map Computer to facilitate flowing gameplay.

Q: Can you tell us what Weapons and Equipment Jones will use?

There are a lot of weapons in IGI2, but I'll just tell you one of my favourite weapons, the Steyr Aug, is in the game.

Q: Will there be any training Missions included?

A: We feel a mark of a good game, especially in an established genre, is being intuitive enough to start playing without needing the game explained to you first. IGI2 is a good game, hence no training mode. Beta:

Can you answer some of the more pressing questions the beta team have like:

Q: Do you have a date in March when the beta will ship?

As I have said before, beta will go out when the code is stable enough to test. There is no fixed date for this.

Q: Any ideas on Size of the beta?

It should be small enough to download without having to wait days.

Q: And how will we get it? download or CD?

This has yet to be finalised. Ill let you know as soon as I know.

Q: fractalgp: How will the process of reporting bugs during the beta testing be conducted? Will the beta test forum be used for such purposes, or are you using a special bug-reporting tool?

Again, yet to be finalised.

Q: Will updates be made available once a bug is fixed to make sure it doesn't cause a problem? and how will these be issued?

Patches will be issued by FTP (and maybe through the website).

Multiplayer:

Q: Have you had a chance to try it yet?

Early days but its playable, network code is all there and seems strong. The mp missions need quite a bit of work though.

Q: if so how good is the money system?

I can see the early working of this, at the moment you can buy weapons, ammo and items. Soon you will also be required to pay to respawn into the game, resulting in some interesting decisions to be made. Pay quickly and go in lightly armed, or wait and go in tooled up? It has a lot of potential.

Q: Do you have any ideas yet on Number of players?

We will support 16 players

Q: Any plans for IP Connected games or will it all be via dedicated servers and gamespy?

There will be support for both

Q: Phlashman: Any Idea on How many Maps will be available in the retail version?

Not finalised

Q: Phlashman: Will the MP be two sided? Terrorist & Good guys? Red team & Blue team If so, will the good guys have some equiptment available to them that the terrorist don't?

It will be two sided, and there will be some team-specfic weapons available, although this may change from map to map to suit the occasion.

QA:

Q: Hopefully the QA team will fix most of the bugs, but since you can never find them all, can we assume that codemasters will provide patches, unlike Eidos?

We will continue to fully support the product after release.

Community:

Q: Shortly after the game was announced a large following had developed, how important is the community to Codemasters and is there any plans for special offers for them closer to release date? (I.E. the T-Shirts that fans of Flashpoint could buy, keychains for pre-ordering)

The community reaction has been fantastic, I loved IGI-1 but never realised it had such a following. Its great reading all the suggestion and comments on the forums, we know that if we have a design issue that needs to be resolved we can just go to the forums where there are thousands of people waiting to give an opinion.

Q: Will you be releasing Videos, New Shots, Artwork soon?

Marketing is not something I really deal with, its an important part of producing a game though and you will see more shots and art soon. Certainly there will also be videos when we feel the time is right.

Q: Any release date planned for the demo(s)?

The demo will go out after the betatesting is completed, shortly before release.

Modding: Questions by Phlasman, fractlgp and SAS

Q: Is there any further word on the possibility of a Level Editor shortly after release?

This is still being discussed, I believe the last comment that was given said "if there is enough demand for it" so keep demanding

Q: Related to Other question: If so will IGI 2 support Mods?

Unknown.