===========================================================
By Grant Maher-Hughes
Published June 10th, 2000
http://web.archive.org/web/20010429015125/http://www.3dgameforce.com/interviews/valve/
===========================================================

Grant: How are you going to address the cheating issue? Many people have devised a way of cheating in numerous games such as the add on Counterstrike for Half life, theirs no doubt that these people are going to try to cheat with TF2, I was just wondering what does Valve plan on doing?

[Yahn] I think it's something you have to continually re-evaluate. We've been pretty diligent about listening to our users tell us about exploits and fixing them. I think you can go a long way on this issue by designing various systems, but in the end, the motivated hacking community will find exploits. With that in mind, you have to have mechanisms in place to close any such loopholes that are uncovered.

Grant: As of now, how do the testers compare TF2 to anything else on the market better? What's their favorite and least favorite aspect of the game?

[Yahn] The main focus in the TF2 game design is in fostering the team play and social aspects of the game. In this respect, TF2 takes a lot of things learned from the original TF and casts them in the light of motivating team play. From our internal testing, probably the coolest aspect of the game is the commander view. I'm not really sure there's a "least favorite" aspect of the game - at least not collectively.

Grant: If you communicate through the radio while in a massive fight, will the background noise really stuff up what your trying to say? How will the sensitivity of the microphone affect the actual sound / noise quality? Will Valve make it so that you have to push a TALK button on the keyboard to be able to speak?

[Yahn] We'll probably require a TALK button, but that's not definite yet. Making sure that voice is understandable, etc. is one of the major game design challenges for TF2. We have put a lot of thought into controlling which players get to hear each other. This is critical to prevent confusion. With that said, being able to bring the voice into focus while subduing background noises is something we'll be addressing.

Grant: There are games which include specific moves to add to the games stealth side, Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear is a good example where you can stick your head around the corner and pick off anyone who is wondering around the room, So is Valve going to include moves to add to the stealth part of the game??

[Yahn] It's something we've thought about, but haven't decided on one way or the other.

Grant: We are always interested in hearing/reading about the different types of game play in TF2, so can you give me a low down on the type of game play we can expect in TF2, for example an experience which one of the testers have had while playing/testing the game.

[Yahn] TF2 will ship with a variety of scenarios that encompass different gameplay styles. For instance, some scenarios will be of the "escort" style, where players must protect a particular player. Other scenarios will explore attack / defense tactics. Still others will be about controlling key territories. One of the best ways to sample some of these gameplay styles will be to check out some of the maps we are and will be testing out in TF 1.5. There are some new maps in there with completely new gameplay styles. We're using those maps to test out TF2 concepts.

Grant: What are the minimal requirements??

[Yahn] We haven't determined the minimum requirements yet. However, one of our design goals has been to make sure that our technology is very scalable - it should run well on a wide variety of systems.

Grant: Thanks very much for your time.