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              <p><font color="#0000FF"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0000CC">volume 
                1, issue 36</font></b></font></p>
              <p><font color="#0000FF"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0000CC"> 
                </font></b></font></p>
              <p>  <p><font face="Courier New, Courier, mono"><b><font color="#339900" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Today 
                in loonygames:</font></b></font></p>

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              <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1"><a href="http://www.raven-games.com">Raven-Games.com</a>: 
                A great resource for classic Raven games.</font></p>
              
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        <p align="center"><font size="+3" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0022A8">Inside 
          Raven Software:<br>
          <font size="+1">the definitive history</font> <font size="+1">(part 
          two)</font></font></p>
        <p align="RIGHT"><font color="#804000"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">By 
          Jason &quot;<a href="mailto:jason@loonygames.com">loonyboi</a>&quot; 
          Bergman</font></b></font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">But even more things were 
          going on in the background, as Brian Raffel explained. "During that 
          time period, we did <b>Hexen II</b>, <b>Take No Prisoners</b>, <b>Mageslayer</b>, 
          built an engine, we were aquired by Activision, I had a baby during 
          that time. It was crazy. And plus, when we were merging with Activision 
          I was flying around talking to other companies." Bear in mind that Raffel 
          was also making half the levels on <b>Hexen II</b> during this time 
          while trying to run the company! With this in mind, it makes sense that 
          they decided to merge with Activision. "It was mine and my brother's 
          idea." Raffel explained, "We do run this as a business. <b>Hexen II</b> 
          was a big one. We were looking at how many people it was taking to develop 
          it, and we only had so much cash. Look at <b>Dark Forces</b>, which 
          beat us out for the Codie with <b>Hexen</b>. They had twenty guys in 

          there. It sort of felt like six guys competing against the world. We 
          had a unique situation with id and we really wanted to take advantage 
          of that, but we needed more resources. And I was sick and tired of playing 
          the game of, 'where's the check.' I had to put large amounts [of money] 
          on my credit card. If that had fallen through, I would have gone bankrupt! 
          We recognized that if we wanted to really make the games we wanted to 
          do and survive, we wanted to be part of a bigger family." Raven had 
          fielded other offers before, but they felt that the time was finally 
          right. They hired an investment banker to look into their options, and 
          in the end they signed with Activision. "They were the one company who 
          wanted to keep us the same size. They had a unique opportunity because 
          they were publishing id to continue to do that. They really had a good 
          idea of where they were going. So we had three games coming together 
          at once, a merger happening, and trying to get games out the door. It 
          was like gas in a fire," Raffel remembers. "We lost some people, we 
          had one group break off." Those people would form Human Head, currently 
          working on <b>Rune</b> for the Gathering of Developers. </font></p>
        <table width="75" border="1" align="right">
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            <td> 
              <div align="center"><a href="hexen2.php"><img src="images/hexen2_sml.jpg" width="160" height="120" border="1"></a></div>
            </td>
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            <td> 
              <div align="center"><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">Locations 
                like this egyptian setting really made <b>Hexen II</b> stand out.</font></i></div>
            </td>
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        </table>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Hexen II</b> had some 
          non-technological problems as well. "We misinterpreted what we thought 
          people wanted. We thought people wanted more, deeper puzzles. We had 
          the hub system, which most people seemed to like from <b>Hexen</b>, 
          although now we hear later that people hated it. Another thing that 
          happened that was bad, is we were about to go final on the project, 
          and we realized that some of our levels were still too slow on a base 
          machine, so we had to cut them--split them apart. This was like a week 
          before we went final. What it made was more popping around, which made 
          it worse." </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Rick Johnson, perhaps because 
          of some masochistic thrill found this period to be well…fun. "The last 
          month of production, even though it was killer time here, and I slept 
          on the floor on a little green rag because I didn't have a pillow here, 
          it was still the best time. We'd go out back and play Laser Tag at three 
          or four in the morning." </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">While they were adapting 
          to the technology behind <b>Hexen II</b>, Michael Raymond-Judy<b> </b>was 
          busy working on <b>Take no Prisoners</b>. <b>TNP</b> had some similarities 
          to his previous project, <b>Hexen</b>, although he expanded on the hub 
          system greatly. "There were restrictions on where you could get," he 
          explained, "but basically what we tried to do was build a whole city. 
          Any place that you could physically gain access to, it would let you 
          get there. Now you might have to solve a puzzle to get access to that 
          level, but once you'd been to a certain level you could go back. We 
          had a subway system and a sewer system, and between those two connection 
          levels you could go anywhere you wanted."</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Unfortunately, <b>Take No 
          Prisoners</b> suffered from the chaos at Raven. "I think it was a very 
          good game design," Michael Raymond-Judy explained. "I think it was implemented 
          as best we could, but the technology was not up to what it could have 
          been. Again it was one of those efforts where we were working with new 
          technology developed in-house, and new tools that had to be developed 
          concurrently with the game. And as usual, the promises and expectations 
          of what technology would be able to do were continuously being narrowed. 
          I felt like the game had so much more to it than what you saw, because 
          we couldn't show a lot of the stuff."</font></p>
        <table width="75" border="1" align="right">
          <tr> 
            <td> 
              <div align="center"><a href="tnpbox.php"><img src="images/tnpbox_sml.jpg" width="100" height="120" border="1"></a></div>
            </td>
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          <tr> 
            <td> 
              <div align="center"><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">The 
                <b>TNP</b> box art.</font></i></div>
            </td>
          </tr>
        </table>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">And then there was the viewpoint 
          itself: <b>Take No Prisoners</b> was a top-down game. "I actually enjoyed 
          the top-down view. I know that there were limitations to it…we got a 
          similar reaction when we told people we were doing <b>Heretic II</b> 
          as a third person [game]. There's just an instinctive gut-reaction on 
          the part of the FPS players…they hear something other than first person, 
          and they say no, and nothing you say or do is going to convince them 
          differently." Ultimately, he thinks it all boils down to one thing, 
          "we wanted to do something different…I think it would have been better 
          if we had six more months to polish the technology."</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The underlying technology 
          for both <b>Take No Prisoners</b> and <b>Mageslayer</b> was the <b>Vampire</b> 
          engine. The core engine was authored by Chris Rhineheart (now at Human 
          Head) and some of the other major portions were by James Monroe. James 
          came to Raven by way of Rogue, where he was lead programmer on their 
          <b>Doom</b> engine title, <b>Strife</b>. As it turns out, both jobs 
          were the result of a certain friend of his. "I'm friends with John Romero…I 
          went to high school with him. So I was always asking him [for a job]. 
          So one day he calls me, and says, 'hey, you want a job at Rogue?' Sounded 
          awesome to me, so I said, 'okay, sure!' So I did that, and worked for 
          a year and a half on <b>Strife</b>. We got that product shipped, and 
          when I was done, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do next. At that time 
          Rogue wasn't sure where they were going to go. I was asking around for 
          what to do next, and Romero said [to Raven] 'sure, hire him.' And that 
          was the extent of my interview, pretty much." There you have it…if you 
          want to get into the gaming industry, be friends with geeks in high 
          school. One of them may turn out to be the next John Romero.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">James came on board Raven, 
          and started work on <b>Mageslayer</b>, Raven's top-down <b>Gauntlet</b> 
          clone. "I wrote the memory management system and the whole scripting 
          interpreter…the basics for the compiler [were taken from] what they 
          used in <b>Hexen</b>. Ben Gokey had written that, he had extended it 
          a little bit for me, and I wrote the interpreter in <b>Mageslayer</b>. 
          And I wrote all the scripting stuff to get that in there. I wrote a 
          few other things…tools, [3D Studio] Max converter…we did all our maps 
          in Max. I wrote a map exporter, and a texture converter for Max. A lot 
          of that is what spawned, <b>Spectre</b>, me using 3D Studio Max."</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Who? Oh yeah…<b>Spectre</b>. 
          After the release of <b>Hexen II</b>, <b>Take No Prisoners</b> and <b>Magelsayer</b>, 
          Raven suddenly went very quiet for a long stretch of time before the 
          announcement that work had begun on <b>Heretic II</b>. So what was Raven 
          doing during this time? </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Why working on their own 
          3D engine, of course.</font></p>
        <p align="RIGHT">&nbsp; </p>
        <p align="RIGHT"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1"><i>(<a href="index6.php">Continued 
          in Part Three</a>)</i></font></p>
        <p align="RIGHT">&nbsp;</p>
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      <p><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-2"><b>Credits:</b> 
        Illustration &copy; 1999 Rowan Crawford. This article is &copy; 1999 Jason 
        Bergman. All other content is &copy; 1999 <a target="_self" href="http://www.loonyboi.com">loonyboi 
        productions</a>. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited, so 
        don't try it...or we'll peck your eyes out. </font></i></p>
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