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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"><img src="../../images/raven_thum.jpg" width="93" height="93" align="MIDDLE"></p><p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1"><a href="index.html">Inside Raven Software</a>: Our definitive history of the company behind <B>Hexen</b>, <B>Heretic</b> and other classics.</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 
          three)</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">"Some people complained bitterly 
          about it from the start, " Michael Raymond-Judy explained. "They weren't 
          interested in hearing why we were doing it…I was pleased to discover 
          a substantial presence of people around the 'net that basically said, 
          'hey, let's wait and see.' Unfortunately some of those were people hoping 
          for a <b>Tomb Raider </b>clone." </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Regardless of the initial 
          reaction, <b>Heretic II</b> was their second fully 3D game…and this 
          time they were prepared. Man, were they prepared. Raven devoted an incredible 
          amount of resources to <b>Heretic II</b>. "At one point I was leading 
          a group of like, ten programmers," Pat Lipo recalled. <b>Heretic II</b> 
          used the <b>Quake 2</b> engine, which obviously wasn't exactly ready 
          out of the box to handle a third person title. "It's a great code base," 

          Lipo explained. "It's really good technology. But, especially doing 
          a third person game, there was so much we had to do to make the game 
          be what we wanted it to be. So extending it was a lot of work."</font></p>
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            <td> 
              <div align="center"><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1"><b>Heretic 
                II </b>art by Brian Pelletier (with inks by Mark A. Nelson).</font></i></div>
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        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Heretic II</b> was the 
          first project for one Raven newcomer, Mark A. Nelson. If you were a 
          comics fan a few years back, you may recall the name. I certainly did, 
          and was really pleasantly surprised to discover that he had joined Raven. 
          Mark explained to me how he wound up at a gaming company. "I was at 
          GenCon, because I did a lot of work for TSR. I had known Les [Dorscheid, 
          a conceptual artist at Raven] for years, and Les came up to me and asked 
          if I had ever thought about doing [a] computer game, and would I want 
          to come over [to Raven] and take a look at it. So I said okay, and I 
          dragged Kevin Long along, and the two of us brought up our portfolios…what 
          it was, is that they had basically just said, 'well you guys have good 
          drawing skills, and that's what we're looking for, because we can teach 
          you Photoshop in two or three weeks.' So they were trying to hire guys 
          with really strong drawing and painting backgrounds." Mark came on board 
          as one of the seven conceptual artists on <b>Heretic II</b>. Another 
          comics veteran turned Raven artist is Jeff Butler, who comic book fans 
          may know as the co-creator of The Badger (with Mike Baron). In all, 
          there were seven conceptual artists on <b>Heretic II</b>, a number that 
          rivals many major motion pictures.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">"We were doing <i>tons</i> 
          of art," Brian Pelletier, Project Lead on <b>Heretic II</b> explained. 
          "One of the main things was just trying to figure out what the character 
          was going to be [like]. Alone, I did about thirty drawings of the character 
          before I finally got something…overall we did over a hundred sketches 
          before we got it nailed down." Pelletier, in addition to working on 
          conceptual art for the game, helped a great deal with the overall design. 
          "[I] wrote the story, wrote the script…me and Dan Freed." This was a 
          great proving ground for Pelletier, as he's now overseeing development 
          on <b>Star Trek: Voyager</b>.</font></p>
<p>&nbsp; </p>
        <p align="RIGHT"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1"><i>(<a href="index8.php">Continued 
          on next page</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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