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              <p><font color="#0000FF"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0000CC">volume 
                1, issue 24</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>

<P><font color="#000000" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">New!!</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"> The Archives have been cleaned up, fead links fixed, and printable versions restored! Also, don't miss the new comments <a href="../../../index.html">on the front page</a>!</font></p>
              
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        <p align="LEFT"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0022A8"><b><a target="" href="../../corner/index.html"><font size="-1">Guest 
          Editorial</font></a><font size="-1">:</font></b></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="+3" color="#0022A8"><br>
          To Scuttle the Boat</font></p>
        <p align="RIGHT"><font color="#804000"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">By 
          </font></b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <a href="mailto:randyp@home.com">Randy 
          Pitchford </a></font></font></p>
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        <p><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">&quot;What more can you 
          tell us about the game you are making?&quot;</font></b></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Prax War</b> is known 
          to some, but not all. I think it’s valuable to share how our game concept 
          was created and how it evolved and what impact this concept had on our 
          eventual cancellation.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The first thing we all knew 
          is that we would be making a first person shooter and that it would 
          be fully 3D. It’s what all of the content developers had lots of shipping 
          experience with and it’s exactly what the technology Billy was creating 
          would be perfect for.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Some interesting things were 
          happening in the industry that influenced us two years ago when we were 
          designing the game. The third person 3D game was evolving and it was 
          exciting a lot of people. We had played <b>Tomb Raider</b> and <b>Mario 

          64</b> and were taken by some aspects of what those games provided. 
          I concluded that it wasn’t the third person perspective in itself that 
          was so great. After all, we (like everyone else) had difficulty adjusting 
          to the problems of the control interface for both <b>Tomb Raider</b> 
          and <b>Mario 64</b>. It seemed to be consistent that every third person 
          game was much more difficult to control than the first person games 
          we were used to. However, the thing that was uniquely cool about the 
          third person game was that you could witness your character up-close 
          performing cool moves and displaying animations and behavior that were 
          fun to watch. That perspective was impossible, by definition, in a first 
          person game. Our solution was to add several characters that were partners 
          with the player that could exist in the game with the player and give 
          us all the cool advantages of a third person game without the disadvantages 
          of an indirect interface. It just looked cool to see a guy back flip 
          off a wall or something. Since you’d never see your own character perform 
          the act (as your eyes are in his head), we used the other friendly characters 
          to show off the cool animations. The key to this would be hundreds of 
          custom scripted animations and some good friendly partner AI.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Another thing that was bothering 
          us with the first person shooter was that every game up until then had 
          the universe centered around the player. Nothing in the world happened 
          until the player stepped into the next room to wake up all of the creatures 
          there. That wasn’t good enough for <b>Prax War</b>. We wanted the player 
          to feel like he was a part of something bigger. I always bring it back 
          to the <i>Star Wars</i> Trilogy and compare our hero to Luke Skywalker. 
          He’s the pivotal character that ultimately destroys the Death Star, 
          but his success relied upon the influence of a number of other interesting 
          and cared about sub-heroes. Luckily, the solution to the &quot;center 
          of the universe&quot; problem came easily because we already had the 
          group of friendly soldiers who would essentially support the player 
          as he carried out his missions. <b>Prax War</b> was becoming a first 
          person shooter with a squad, but I wouldn’t call it a squad based game. 
          &quot;Squad based game&quot; implies that the player must give commands 
          to the other members of the squad. In <b>Prax War</b>, the friendly 
          characters would act on their own. Our player wasn’t required to command 
          the other teammates any more than Luke commanded Han Solo in the movie.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">In addition to developing 
          an amazing 3D rendering engine, the Zelsnacks were big fans of physics. 
          The content developers had just come off working on <b>Shadow Warrior</b>, 
          which was one of the first 3D shooters to feature vehicles that the 
          player could jump in and out of. The game didn’t do vehicles realistically 
          because of the limits of the sector based engine, but it was still fun. 
          And, we were seeing how vehicle combat gaming with more realistic physics 
          could make a really fun deathmatch in <b>I-76</b>. Our engineers were 
          sure they could outdo the physics in I-76 (which they did) so vehicles 
          became a big part of <b>Prax War</b>.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Finally, most of us knew 
          that the future of the 3D shooter was going to finally have to take 
          the player outdoors. Attempts at outdoor areas within engines designed 
          for corridor shooters up that point had been not believable, at best. 
          But, fortunately, the engine that was being constructed at RBR was based 
          around the concept of arbitrary polygons. This would allow us to have 
          small and detailed geometry for complex indoor environments and have 
          huge polygons that could build a vast terrain mesh. We were going to 
          be the first 3D shooter that did outdoor environments in the quality 
          of a racing game or military sim. Doing so also allowed multiple structures 
          with indoor complexity that was a little higher than a <b>Quake</b> 
          level.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">So, we had several strong 
          hooks and worked the game concept around them. We had indoor/outdoor 
          levels, vehicles, and a friendly team that would fight with the player. 
          The concept <b>of Prax War</b> evolved from the basic premise of &quot;GI. 
          Joe vs. Cobra&quot; to allow us to take complete advantage of all of 
          our primary hooks. </font></p>
        <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font> </p>
        <p align="right">&nbsp;(<i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1"><a href="index3.php">continued 
          on next page</a></font></i>)
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    <td height="22"><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-2"><b>Credits:</b> 
      Guest Editorial logo illustrated and is &copy; 1999 Dan Zalkus. This Guest 
      Editorial is &copy; 1999 Randy Pitchford. All other content is &copy; 1999 
      <a target="_self" href="http://www.loonyboi.com">loonyboi productions</a>. 
      Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited and not nice.</font></i></td>
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