February 18. 2004 - PCGamer

1. How much time did it take for you to get a project together after
hearing about the contest? Did you already have a mod team in place, and if
so, what were some of your earlier projects?

We had the very first Deathball version out long before the contest was even announced.
Our previous project was Operation Na Pali, a BIG Singleplayer/Coop game for Unreal Tournament, based on the scenario of Unreal.
Can all be found here http://www.planetunreal.com/teamvortex/

2. How did this contest push your team? Did you have to rise to a new level
of quality?

We just did our thing. I knew what I wanted to accomplish with Deathball and what it should be like. The contest is a nice bonus, but didn't change anything.

3. What is the geographic makeup of your team? Is it an international
effort? How do you coordinate the team and the combined effort?

We're a spread out team as far as location goes. We have people from Germany, Netherlands, Finland and The United States. As far as being able to coordinate efforts we use the internet and programs like ICQ and IRC.

4. What were your best ideas about this project? What were ideas you had to
abandon?

Well, Deathball is the game I was waiting for for years. I was always playing the EA sports fifa series, but it kinda had issues, not enough control and such, so I've always been waiting for something like Fifa with full control, where you are 1 part of the team, you have to hold your position, mark your man, you have 100% control over your aiming etc. In your usual Football game it all happens automatically, you can score by just pressing the pass button a few times, then tell your player to hit the top left corner and he does it. Never was really satisfying to me, also because when you hit the post...it's not your fault, it's just bad luck. So with Deathball I wanted a full control game that's a little like football. I had to change the rules, Football wouldn't have worked, dribblings and such, it just wouldn't be controlable. Now to me it's what football should be like but it will never be...for obvious reasons ;)
Actually there were no major things we had to abandon, so far we accomplished all things that were planed. Ok, we are still missing chearleaders, but that's another story :)