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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>

<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><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/cover1.36_sml.jpg" width="230" height="230" align="middle" hspace="4"></p>
        <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">Needless to say, working 
          on three games simultaneously was a lot of work for a relatively small 
          developer like Raven. But, as Raffel explained, there were other factors 
          involved, "everyone looks at id…these guys are the exception. They could 
          control their destiny because they had the technology. We couldn't. 
          We could be pushed around by publishers. And we were! We had publishers 
          who would try to bleed us out…hold back payments, and then say, 'oh, 
          we'll buy you.' So what we came up with was that we needed to have different 
          sources of income coming in. We needed to grow to a certain size to 
          bring in enough capital to go through those rough times and still have 
          money." Regardless of the reasons, three titles are a <i>lot</i> of 

          work for a single developer of this size. But according to Raffel, "one 
          of the things we do really well around here, better than a lot of companies, 
          is focus our people on deadlines and getting things done, and doing 
          things in an organized fashion."</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">But no matter how organized 
          they were, there was one windfall they weren't quite ready for. It's 
          strange to think about from the sidelines, but up until <b>Hexen II</b>, 
          Raven had never actually made a 3D game before. While those of us who 
          played <b>Doom</b> and <b>Quake</b> naturally assumed the transition 
          would be an easy one, that didn't seem to be the case at Raven. "We 
          probably had as many people on <b>Hexen II</b> as we did on <b>Hexen</b>," 
          Raffel explained. "We didn't realize the magnitude of going from the 
          <b>Doom</b> engine to a 3D engine." Rick Johnson, who was one of the 
          programmers on the title, put it all in perspective, "<b>Hexen II</b> 
          represented a transition for Raven, or at least a time period of games 
          when they kind of went from the small project to a larger scope. I think 
          we didn't quite realize that during the development of <b>Hexen II</b>. 
          When we started <b>Black Crypt</b> there were four of us: two programmers, 
          and two artists who also did the levels. With <b>Soldier of Fortune,</b> 
          right now I have eleven programmers and six or seven artists. So you 
          can see in less than ten years how much the production process has grown. 
          And with <b>Hexen II</b>, we didn't quite realize that yet. We just 
          had two designers, Eric [Biessman] and Brian Raffel doing all the levels. 
          And that was a tremendous amount of work. We didn't realize how much 
          time it took to make a level, especially with the BSP problem. You make 
          a level, you wait an hour or two, or if it's Brian Raffel's map, you 
          wait eight hours sometimes…but that's another story."</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">"I was really bad," admits 
          Raffel, "I remember I made this blacksmith's shop, and I put pokers 
          coming out of the fire, and I had all this stuff going, just crazy stuff. 
          But we didn't know what BSP was. And you know, they had leaks! You have 
          to get this thing air tight."</font></p>
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              <div align="center"><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">GLQuake? 
                What's a GLQuake?</font></i></div>
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        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">But there were other major 
          changes as well. Whereas <b>Hexen </b>and <b>Heretic</b> multiplayer 
          were designed for LAN play, suddenly <b>Hexen II</b> had to be made 
          with the Internet in mind, as Rick Johnson recalled. "We weren't used 
          to how important the net play was, let alone how sensitive the Internet 
          was. When <b>Hexen II</b> first came out it was horrendous. All these 
          technologies were hitting us at the same time, and we really weren't 
          prepared for it." Hardware acceleration was a whole other can of worms. 
          If you weren't one of the first people to purchase <b>Quake</b>, then 
          you don’t remember the fact that it was an MSDOS program. When <b>Quake</b> 
          first shipped, hardware acceleration wasn't even thought of, let alone 
          possible. But as work started on <b>Hexen II</b>, this thing called 
          "GLQuake" was making the rounds…and suddenly 3DFX hit the scene. Johnson 
          explained how weird this was, "So with software you’ve got sixteen megs 
          of RAM. Now you've got this Voodoo 1 that only has two megs of texture 
          memory, and all of a sudden our game didn't fit into it."</font></p>
<p align="RIGHT">&nbsp; </p>
        <p align="RIGHT"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1"><i>(<a href="index5.php">Continued 
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    <td> 
      <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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