GamersInfo.net: Can you tell us a little about yourself and how you got involved with GMX?

Uros Rogulja : Hello, my name is Uros Rogulja, I am presently the Chief Operating Officer of Gameyus Interactive. As you may have guessed by my name, I come from Eastern Europe, the city of Belgrade in Serbia.

My job is to work together with other key team members to make sure all parts of the game are successfully put together. I also work with our publishers. Most importantly, I have to make sure the programmers and artists don't kill each other when they have an argument about the game (jokingly).

I was introduced to GMX by Shane Nestler from Tri Synergy. I've known Shane for some time and he recommended GMX because he had worked with them for a long time and always had the best experience and results. It didn't take long for me to find common ground with GMX and so we made an agreement with them to publish the game in Europe and Asia, with Tri Synergy handling North America.

GamersInfo.net: What prompted the development of the game Will of Steel?

Uros Rogulja : When we were discussing what kind of a game we would like to make, we knew we wanted to do something different from what was already on the market. We are all big strategy fans and since that is the genre we know the best, we quickly decided we would do a military strategy.

There were already many excellent WWII and fantasy themed games, so after some discussion, we unanimously decided to take wars in Afghanistan and Iraq because that is something we, unfortunately, see everyday on the television and in the press.

GamersInfo.net: Can you give us an overview of what the game basics?

Uros Rogulja : The player assumes the role of William "Will" Steel, a young Marine officer and the son of the highly decorated USMC General, late, Thomas Steel. Will's military duty takes him to Afghan mountains and Iraqi desserts where he has to fight for his, and the survival of soldiers under his command. The player takes over as Will and commands a battalion by making tough and clever choices. Under his command, the player has infantry, tanks, armored personnel carriers (APCs), Apache helicopters, and other weapon systems and hardware.

The player also earns medals, promotions to higher ranks, and special options. Some of the special options include:

• Air transport
• Artillery support
• Air strike
• Close air support
• Satellite reconnaissance
• Long range missile attack
• Reinforcement
• Special operations team

Uros Rogulja : No, not all units are used all the time. The number of units and their equipment varies with the player's progress and success rate. Also, some of the missions are designed so that in order to complete them, the player really doesn't need to use many units or a lot of brute force - instead he has to devise a wise, step-by-step, strategy. An example would be a hostage situation where the player has to make sure the hostages are not killed.

On the other hand, there are "scorched earth" types of missions where it's an all out war and the player has to use many units to achieve the mission objective.

GamersInfo.net: A battalion is a fairly large group of military personnel, what is the smallest unit that you can manipulate or get information on?

Uros Rogulja : Going back to the previous question, the whole battalion is not used in every mission. The player can get info on all the individual units, such as their stamina and type of weapons used.

That is not all. The player can organize the units any way, in any combination and number, and assign them to groups. This is where the voice-recognition comes into play. Using his own voice, the player can quickly and easily create groups of units, assign them names, and then call them up by that name.

GamersInfo.net: Does the game take into account morale? For instance, if an infantry platoon loses its Lieutenant, or a high percentage of its men, will it break and run, or seek cover?

Uros Rogulja : Yes, "morale" is a factor, but to put it simply, the response of units mainly depends on their strength as compared to the enemy. When a unit is overpowered and outnumbered, it may seek cover, tactically retreat, wait for reinforcement etc. Of course, the response also depends of the type of orders the unit was issued as well as other factors.

GamersInfo.net: How big will the play maps be? And will the weapons that are being used have realistic ranges?

Uros Rogulja : We experimented with several different map sizes and finally came up with, we hope, the right size. The maps are large enough to accommodate vast mountain settings in Afghanistan. At the same time, they are not too large because lots of action, especially in Iraq, takes place in the urban areas.

The trick is finding that perfect compromise between many different map sizes, which is also true for weapons' characteristics. While the goal is always to preserve the authentic, real-life, weapon ranges - sometimes that has to be tweaked to fit the map and gameplay. Overall, I think we've managed to preserve the game's realism.

GamersInfo.net: Will the game have real world technology for the military units? And will that technology be available to everyone? Or will each military unit only have access to what they have access to in "reality"?

Uros Rogulja : The units in the game are equipped with the same technology as the real units. The reason for this is that we wanted to provide as realistic combat experience as possible.

I personally like games where you are able to give units all sorts of different - even made up weapon - but Will of Steel is a realistic military game and therefore we had to give the units realistic equipment both in type and quantity. The great thing about US units is that in reality they are equipped with so much incredible and diverse weapons and hardware that our job was easy and all the units in the game have more than enough of both.

GamersInfo.net: What sources did you use to compile information and inspire you to build the game?

Uros Rogulja : These days it's much easier to find (accurate) military info. The Internet is such an incredible tool that if you know how and where to search for the right information, there is almost nothing you can't find. Through email, we even got in touch with several real-life military experts who gave us info and advice on anything we couldn't find - that is on anything we were too lazy to look for long enough (jokingly).

In addition, we have a member of the team, one of our game designers, who is a walking military encyclopaedia. So, usually the problem wasn't how to find the info, but rather what to do with tons of material.

GamersInfo.net: According to the game description, Will of Steel will use voice activation to play the game. Can you give us an example of the types of commands that will be used to control various units?

Uros Rogulja : The game has full voice control so the player can use his own voice to control the options, camera, and all the units. The control of units is divided into two groups of commands:

1. Simple commands. An example would be selection of individual units by name or type. For instance, the player can say "Armor" and all the available armored vehicles are selected.
2. Complex commands. The player can select individual units, as many as he wants, and assign them to groups. For example, after the units are selected, the player can say "Create group Alpha" or simply "Create Alpha" and the group is formed under that name. Next time the player wants to call up that group - he only has to say "Alpha" or "Alpha group".

GamersInfo.net: Having used it in previous tactic battle situations I enjoy voice activation. What made you decide to use a vocal aspect with the game?

Uros Rogulja : As you said in the question, many of us really enjoy voice-activated commands. It was clear to us that strategy genre fits perfectly with the voice commands. While you can certainly use voice effectively in other genres, it's really when you assume a role of a military commander - ordering troops on a battlefield - that voice becomes a critical part of the gameplay. Voice becomes your best way to quickly issue orders to units that you would otherwise have to first search for and find on the map.

GamersInfo.net: Will it be an option not to use voice control? And how dependent is the game play on the vocal aspect?

Uros Rogulja : Yes, absolutely, there is an option to turn off and hide the voice control system. If the player decides he doesn't want to use it, he can fully play the game without it. I personally hope that most people will decide to use the voice control because it's just more fun, more engaging, to play that way.

GamersInfo.net: Will the game deal with resource management? Fuel, ammunition, travel, troop replacement etc.

Uros Rogulja : There is no resource management in the traditional sense. The reason being that we decided early on we would concentrate our efforts on the game's combat aspects. Often times in military (strategy) games resource management and construction take too much time and effort and combat becomes secondary - we wanted to avoid that.

Another reason is that in the modern military commanders of troops on the ground don't have to directly deal with providing their troops with resources, weapons, equipment etc. The US military has a huge supply system in place that provides the troops on ground with everything they need, from food to bullets.

There is troop replacement in the sense that it's possible to get reinforcement - when reinforcement troops are available and have not been previously used.

GamersInfo.net: Will you be able to modify your core unit to fit your personal preferences? Or are you issued units by the USMC?

Uros Rogulja : The player cannot change the basic (combat) characteristics of his units. As in the case with weapons and hardware, we wanted to present the player with a realistic combat experience and therefore we had to exclude the option to change the units' attributes.

The problem with having modifiable units is that all of a sudden the balance of power between the player's and enemy units can change. One of our main concerns was to find the right balance between both sides and having interchangeable unit properties would make that balance much more difficult.

GamersInfo.net: What do you see the game going in the future? Will there be a Will of Steel 2?

Uros Rogulja : The technology we developed for Will of Steel, namely the engine we named "Perun", is very flexible. This gives us lots of freedom to choose what we'll do next.

Right now we're putting the finishing touches to Will of Steel so once completed, we'll sit down and talk about the next game. A sequel is certainly possible - but it would be a lot different from Will of Steel because we always strive for innovation.

GamersInfo.net: Does the game have Mod support? And/or can players create their own maps?

Uros Rogulja : The game currently doesn't have those options but we do have plans to later on release for download a custom-made "level editor". The editor will enable players to make, and share, their own maps. We are still working on making the editor simple and user-friendly and hopefully once we're done, the players will be able to easily and quickly create their own maps.

Of course, we'll be releasing for download other game add-ons as well.

GamersInfo.net: What is your personal favorite aspect of the game and why?

Uros Rogulja : I am personally a big fan of special options. In all games I play, that is the first thing I explore. I must admit that is why I pushed us to develop so many special options for Will of Steel. It's just awesome to see big "Hollywood-like" explosions and special effects.

In Will of Steel, my favorite is the laser-guided bomb because it's incredibly precise and always destroys the intended target nearly 100%.

GamersInfo.net: Where does a polar bear keep his money?

Uros Rogulja : It's funny you should ask that because we happen to have thrown in a battalion of polar bears into the game. So you could be playing a mission in an Iraqi desert and all of a sudden your advancing units are stopped by a heard of polar bears - we thought it would make the game little more unpredictable.

OK, I admit, we didn't do that (jokingly), but we did inject the game with occasional humor, units' sarcastic responses, remarks etc.

Thank you very much for the opportunity and interesting questions!