Heretic II Interviews

by Anaxagoras

Shortly before the release of Heretic II, Anaxagoras conducted interviews with six of the Raven Software employees working on the game.

Jeremy “Terata” Statz

Designer

We are all very excited about Heretic II. Please tell us what your main role is in the development of the game.

Designed a few of the levels and just generally was annoying about piddling little things. I’m currently on SoF, and I’m kinda moonlighting by building a tutorial map and tweaking the buoys on the rest of the maps.

How long have you worked for Raven? What particular positions have you held, if you have held more than one.

Around a year now. I’m just a lowly designer-type, building my maps and trying to ensure coolness where I can. hehehe

What will the Demo that is to be released soon consist of? How many maps? Will they be all SP maps? Or will there be some DM maps? Will the Demo have DM support?

Current plans are for two single player maps — the docks and the canyon, two pretty different levels that’re both very cool.

Have you read, and if so, what do you think about, Lorien’s Editorial on game publishers and how they neglect their fan base? What is your take on his conclusions?

Yeah, read that a few days ago. It doesn’t, frankly, seem too big a deal to me. Any fan sites will likely have it up within a couple hours anyway, so there’s no serious “service” problem if that’s the word for it. On the other hand, if you give it to a fan site first, there’s no guarantee that the commercial sites will jump on it that quick, and it might get stuck on just one or two servers — that’s not too good either, though not a very compelling reason one way or another.

Ultimately, his point that it’s about money is pretty clearly the truth. Whether or not something like that seriously gets Gamecenter or wherever a significant boost in traffic (or more accurately, advertising dollars), I don’t know. As far as neglecting your fan base goes, there are plenty of more significant ways it can be done.

I know that you have been asked this question a gazillion times and that Raven has taken a lot of crap for it, but could you please comment on the 3rd person perspective in Heretic II and assure us that it will be yummy? How will aiming work? Will aiming mostly be determined by autoaim? Please feel free to comment widely on this topic of 3rd person ; ) Some other things you might consider explaining to us: how will the camera be handled in both SP and DM? Will it be handled differently? Will the camera be adjustable for FOV? Can it be manually rotated 360 degrees? Elaborate.

The camera’s cool, have no fear. The Man, Marcus Whitlock, has it working really well. Aiming is fairly Doom-style — It autoaims up and down, and somewhat left and right, but you’ve got to be fairly lined for it to take over. This isn’t a Tomb-Raider “if you can see it it’ll aim at it” setup. Personally, I disable the autoaim and don’t have much trouble hitting things, either with or without the crosshair. Preferably, you’d use the mouse and mlook to aim, but it’s pretty playable with a gamepad and keyboard, too.

You can still specify an FOV, I believe, and there are console commands for setting the camera’s distance, damp factor, etc. The dampening, at least, will also be menu selectable. If you want it real mushy or not you can tell it so.

Currently, the camera’s pretty much a chasecam, though there’s a cool “combat camera” Marcus added (that the uses can turn on or off at their choosing) that’ll make it swing to somewhat of an above view when in battle, so you can most easily see your relation to the enemy. That’s something that’s best used when playing with a keyboard or gamepad, though.

I’m really surprised how worked up some people get about the viewpoint. I mean, it’s a game, the whole point is entertainment.

Will the source code for Heretic II be released with the game? How about map and texture editors? Viewers for models? What other nifty stuff might we find on the released CD?

The CD will have the source for both the client and server DLLs on it, along with utils for making models and textures, and a copy of Heretic2Ed or whatever. There’ll also be a model viewer included so you can browse to your heart’s content, or something.

Could you comment some on the scripting language in Heretic II? What tasks or functions is it specifically created to do?

Mostly, it’s suited for setting off sequences of events, and for manipulating entities. Things that would’ve required insane numbers of trigger_relays and func_trains and such can be handled a lot more cleanly with a single script. It also allows you to control monsters, so you can have them doing interesting stuff within the maps. All the in-game cutscenes were made with the scripting language, too.

How extensively have you guys modified the Quake II engine to accomodate your goals and creativity to accomplish your dreams with regard to HereticII?

I’m not doing the programming, so I’m not really the one to say, but I know quite a bit of stuff has been added and changed. The client-side effects DLL is a pretty major thing, that lets really flashy effects happen without costing much networkwise. Users will have the source to this, of course.

How about custom DM skins and models? Will we be able to make them? How many frames of animation has Corvus and how many frames will DM models have, on average?

At the moment, there aren’t plans to have proper custom skin support in right off the bat. Custom skins will, from what I’m told, be added in a patch or something later, but as they’re not really vital to the gameplay it’s not a priority. We will have a bunch of selectable DM skins included, though.

I’m not sure what the status is on dropping in models, but it should be possible to do. This would be a nontrivial thing, though. The player model is broken up into a bunch of different groups, and he has a partial skeleton that controls the angle and current frame of the legs, torso, head, etc independantly. So, those would have to match up for a replacement model. The current player model has 1405 animation frames, with 230+ actual sequences. That’s for actual movement and actions, too. The cinematic sequences use a seperate model, and if you count those there’s plenty more frames and sequences than that.

A lot of your fans (many of whom are great lovers of Hexen II) have one really really big question: Will Heretic II be better supported than Hexen II was? I know this is a rude question. But, please, forgive that and indulge us.

Just the amount of stuff included on the CD answers that question pretty well.

Jon Zuk

Lead Designer

We are all very excited about Heretic II. Please tell us what your main role is in the development of the game.

Thanks for expressing your excitement! I’m excited that you’re excited! I’m the Lead Designer on Heretic II. Therefore my role is to bully all the other designers around and make them do what Brian Pelletier wants. You see he bullys me around and… well you get the picture.

How long have you worked for Raven? What particular positions have you held, if you have held more than one.

I’ll be at Raven two years next week. Two short and fun packed years. I started as a regular designer and assassinated my way up.

What will the Demo that is to be released soon consist of? How many maps? Will they be all SP maps? Or will there be some DM maps? Will the Demo have DM support?

The demo will consist of 4 levels, two single player and two deathmatch specific. You can play deathmatch in the single player maps though, giving a total of four deathmatch playable maps. There is also going to be a tutorial map so you can get used to the controls and feel of the game.

Have you read, and if so, what do you think about, Lorien’s Editorial on game publishers and how they neglect their fan base? What is your take on his conclusions?

Yes, I read what he had to say and here’s my take on it. He’s probably right. It’s up to Activision as our publisher to secure these “deals”. We do have a say on what goes on, but we’ve never said, “Hey Activision, make sure no fan sites get an exclusive on our demo. We want the big sites to have it first.” It’s just ridiculous to think we’re ignoring fan sites. Phoebus of Hexenworld fame is in constant contact with the boys at Raven. I know that everyone here kindly answers any correspondence sent directly to them in a timely manner. To us, the fans are our biggest commodity and we don’t want to lose them. I will say this. If a fan site ever wants to have Raven release a demo to their site first (after Heretic II) they should contact us or Activision, and make sure that they can handle the traffic a brand new demo would generate. A Geocities site probably won’t cut it.

I know that you have been asked this question a gazillion times and that Raven has taken a lot of crap for it, but could you please comment on the 3rd person perspective in Heretic II and assure us that it will be yummy? How will aiming work? Will aiming mostly be determined by autoaim? Please feel free to comment widely on this topic of 3rd person ; ) Some other things you might consider explaining to us: how will the camera be handled in both SP and DM? Will it be handled differently? Will the camera be adjustable for FOV? Can it be manually rotated 360 degrees? Elaborate.

To me, the camera is almost a complete non-issue. I’ve become so used to it and seeing my character in motion, that I almost don’t want to go back to first person. You feel more like the character when you can see him and how he is affected by the environment around him. Aiming will be variable. The player can turn on a crosshair or autoaim; it just depends on the feeling he or she wants. Right now we have autoaim turned on as a default, but you still have to aim pretty close to dead on. It’s not just if you see an enemy and fire you’ll hit it. We also have camera dampening controls in the console so if players aren’t perfectly happy with our settings, they can mess with the numbers. I really have to compliment our programmers, especially Marcus, for making the camera feel natural.

Will the source code for Heretic II be released with the game? How about map and texture editors? Viewers for models? What other nifty stuff might we find on the released CD?

You will find everything you need to get started building levels, and mucking about with our models. We will have a model viewer, the model and texture generator, and the editor. I’ve also taken it upon myself to compile a fairly lengthy document explaining how to use the editor and all the entities contained within.

Could you comment some on the scripting language in Heretic II? What tasks or functions is it specifically created to do?

I think Rick could elaborate on this, but basically it allows the designers to do programming. We can make almost anything in the game do what we want now, rather than how predefined entities like doors work. We also have created in-game cinematics using this system, and it works great. While the programmers have to do a lot of coding still, the designers actually wrote all the scripts in the game.

How extensively have you guys modified the Quake II engine to accomodate your goals and creativity to accomplish your dreams with regard to Heretic II?

I’ll defer to the programmers on this, but I know no stone was left unturned. The camera alone was a major modification, but the model system, textures, and even the networking has been modified.

How about custom DM skins and models? Will we be able to make them? How many frames of animation has Corvus and how many frames will DM models have, on average?

I don’t know about models (although I’m sure someone will figure out how), but skins definitely. You’ll probably need Photoshop to get all the layers and everything. Corvus has over 1000 frames of animation, but with our node system, you make a couple of skins for one Corvus and you’re set.

A lot of your fans (many of whom are great lovers of Hexen II) have one really really big question: Will Heretic II be better supported than Hexen II was? I know this is a rude question. But, please, forgive that and indulge us.

We actually provided a lot of support for Hexen II, but it might have been too little too late. We realize that a lot of mistakes on Hexen II, and we will do everything we can to support Heretic II for as long as people want to play it. I don’t think it’s a rude question at all, but we would also like to know what we could do better. If anyone has comments on this, feel free to email us.

Rick “Superfly” Johnson

Additional Programmer (scripting system & Quake engine expert)

Rick has sent the following to me:

I’ll just comment on the designer scripting language, as I’ve originated the scripting language.

The purpose of the designer scripting language (DS) is to give designers more flexibility in cinematics and triggers throughout their level, without having to set up a ton of trigger relays or have programmers do customer code. DS is not designed to drive the game, like quake-c did. It is a very simplistic language so that most people can understand it and accomplish tasks. All of the in-game cinematics, some elaborate sequences (doors, platforms, etc), and some puzzles have been scripted by the designers.

An example of a very simple script:

local entity box
local integer sig
box = find entity with targetname "mybox"
label loop
rotate box by [10, 20, 30] over 5 seconds signaling sig
wait for all clearing sig
suspend
goto loop

The map would have an entity in the world with a target name of “mybox” and a trigger pointing to a script_runner entity. Every time the trigger is crossed, the entity would rotate by 10, 20, 30 in the x, y, z respectively.

Marcus “Swamp Thing” Whitlock

Programmer (Camera, network, game programming)

Hey Robert – how are you? I wish I had time to answer in depth – but I (we :)) don’t…. we are just cramming like crazy to get this game done – two weeks left to go and it’s looking simply awesome, really smart! But every hour between now and Halloween is crucial in making this game as good as possible. There are still so many small things and bugs to be fixed yet. And some of the stuff I can’t answer definitely on – it depends on what we get done in the short time left.

Anyway… some answers…

We are all very excited about Heretic II. Please tell us what your main role is in the development of the game.

Since the start of the Heretic2 project last year – I’ve been responsible for programming the camera(s), a good deal of the networking and netplay aspects and some of the more game related stuff such as a couple of the spells and some other fluff effects. And fixing bugs everywhere – we all end up doing that a lot – fixing each others bugs – lol!

How long have you worked for Raven? What particular positions have you held, if you have held more than one.

I moved to the US from England about a year and a half ago, so altogether I’ve been involved in games programming for a little over 4 years now. Just gotta say Raven rocks!!! It’s easily the most fun work environment I’ve been in and we have soooo many talented artists, designers and programmers here… really inspirational. What’s bad about Raven? It’s in Wisconsin – the winters are too cold (laugh)!

What will the Demo that is to be released soon consist of? How many maps? Will they be all SP maps? Or will there be some DM maps? Will the Demo have DM support?

The demo will have some SP and DM maps. And 3rd person DM is the stuff!! Great fun and really cinematic to watch blood and limbs flying everywhere, amongst the mayhem of myriad pyrotechnics and crazy elves vaulting and flipping all over the shop!

Have you read, and if so, what do you think about, Lorien’s Editorial on game publishers and how they neglect their fan base? What is your take on his conclusions?

No comment 🙂

I know that you have been asked this question a gazillion times and that Raven has taken a lot of crap for it, but could you please comment the 3rd person perspective in Heretic II and assure us that it will be yummy? How will aiming work? Will aiming mostly be determined by autoaim? Please feel free to comment widely on this topic of 3rd person ; ) Some other things you might consider explaining to us: how will the camera be handled in both SP and DM? Will it be handled differently? Will the camera be adjustable for FOV? Can it be manually rotated 360 degrees? Elaborate.

As usual — Raven tried something different… and it really works. It is, to quote you… ‘yummy’. Two major aspects of play mechanics that the switch to 3rd person has influenced are: cameras and aiming. Ignoring for now the cinematic cameras employed in the engine cutscenes, the other camera mode is the chase camera which is the same in both DM and single play. We strove to make this as functional as possible — we don’t want it wandering off giving you some bizarre angle that may look pretty — but is totally useless when you’re frantically trying to hack the limbs off your buddy in deathmatch. So our camera will always try to keep the player in view, yet show what Corvus is looking at. As for aiming… well, we have an auto-aim option whereby Corvus will twist his body and head a little to track what he’s aiming at. Besides being useful, it looks pretty cool! You don’t have to use this of course… some folks prefer to play with it turned off altogether.

Will the source code for Heretic II be released with the game? How about map and texture editors? Viewers for models? What other nifty stuff might we find on the released CD?

Not too sure about this – been up to my neck in programming.

Could you comment some on the scripting language in Heretic II? What tasks or functions is it specifically created to do?

The scripting language I don’t know much about either as I wasn’t really involved in creating that. But credit there goes mainly to Rick ‘Superfly’ Johnson who graciously took time out from working on ‘Soldier Of Fortune’ (which is shaping up nicely too) to make us a scripting engine. But our designers and animators have been able to make some really neat cinematics (wait ’til ya see the Ogles!) which help push the story along nicely. Oh and Bob Love (fellow H2 programmer) slaved away for hours on end to get them into the code.

How extensively have you guys modified the Quake II engine to accomodate your goals and creativity to accomplish your dreams with regard to Heretic II?

Let’s just say there isn’t exactly a whole load of original Quake2 code left in there. And I’m not just talking about the game.dll – we’ve replaced / added so much new technology to the Quake2 codebase – from the rendering, to the client-effects system, the skeletal system, the client-prediction and networking, the 3rd person camera… it’s a long list of extensive changes. But power to id software for providing us with some great technology to work from.

How about custom DM skins and models? Will we be able to make them? How many frames of animation has Corvus and how many frames will DM models have, on average?

Can’t be too specific here as were still sorting some of this out. Oh, but Corvus has LOTS of animation frames 🙂 … about 1500 currently.

A lot of your fans (many of whom are great lovers of Hexen II) have one really really big question: Will Heretic II be better supported than Hexen II was? I know this is a rude question. But, please, forgive that and indulge us.

We don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Later (back to work now),

Marcus.

Josh “Fallacy” Weier

Programmer (Player, monsters, game programming)

We are all very excited about Heretic II. Please tell us what your main role is in the development of the game.

I’m a game programmer on the project. I’ve done some work with the AI system (Mike Gummelt and I developed the new buoy system), done a couple monsters, a few effects here and there, but as of late I’ve been completely in control of player control and actions.

How long have you worked for Raven? What particular positions have you held, if you have held more than one.

Not sure about an exact time… a little over a year and a half I think. I originally started working at Raven mid-way through Hexen II, took some time off to finish school, then came back full-time.

What will the Demo that is to be released soon consist of? How many maps? Will they be all SP maps? Or will there be some DM maps? Will the Demo have DM support?

2 DM, 2 SP, DM supported.

Have you read, and if so, what do you think about, Lorien’s Editorial on game publishers and how they neglect their fan base? What is your take on his conclusions?

Too busy with the game, sorry!

I know that you have been asked this question a gazillion times and that Raven has taken a lot of crap for it, but could you please comment on the 3rd person perspective in Heretic II and assure us that it will be yummy? How will aiming work? Will aiming mostly be determined by autoaim? Please feel free to comment widely on this topic of 3rd person ; ) Some other things you might consider explaining to us: how will the camera be handled in both SP and DM? Will it be handled differently? Will the camera be adjustable for FOV? Can it be manually rotated 360 degrees? Elaborate.

3rd person has added up to be great. When I first got on the project the idea of third person deathmatch was odd to me, and I didn’t think it would turn out very well. I definitely ate my words on that one though. Deathmatching in our 3rd person setup is very addictive. You can see yourself dodging, rolling, flipping and strafing around the world. You watch yourself do a move, release the Phoenix bow, and then laugh as you see your opponent’s body parts rain through the level leaving blood marks at every bounce. It fills in what most FPS lack, your sense of what you are doing and how you relate to the world your in.

One of the biggest problems people seem to have is that they assume the control and speed of other popular 3rd person games will also show up in Heretic 2. Not the case at all. When you think about the type of control you’ll have over Corvus, don’t think Croft; think Quake. The camera and the player’s angles are linked. As you turn the camera around, Corvus looks and turns around. This control of the camera and the player works great, and in a few minutes everyone has picked up the controls and is playing the game, not fighting with seeing what they’re doing. Control is what you’d expect of a fast paced action game. While running forward you can hit strafe and you’ll run strafe off at an angle. Stop pressing forward, and you’ll immediately be strafing to the side. Start pressing back with a strafe, and you’ll be strafing backwards. Stop strafing and you’re running backwards. This holds true for the whole range around the player. You go where you want, no awkward turning and bumping to try and just navnavigate a corner. In deathmatch this adds up to the same frenzied pace that you’d expect from a top-notch FPS. Same carnage–new tricks. You can flip over a player and land on the other side, slicing his head off with a powerful swing of your staff (and yes, his decapitated body slumps to the floor while his head flys off through the level, leaving blood splats in its wake.) You can also do all the great ledge grabbing and vaulting, without any extra effort or buttons. Just jump at a ledge, and you’ll grab hold and hoist yourself up. Jump at a wall, press backwards and you’ll back-flip off the wall over a would-be-foe. Then deal out whatever punishment you see fit. If you have any doubts about this game, play the demo. Don’t write it off until you’ve tried it, because if you’ll be missing out on a lot of fun!

Will the source code for Heretic II be released with the game? How about map and texture editors? Viewers for models? What other nifty stuff might we find on the released CD?

Lot’s of goodies… if you want to make a mod, you should be all set right off the disc.

Could you comment some on the scripting language in Heretic II? What tasks or functions is it specifically created to do?

Better left to Jeremy Statz or Mr. Bob Love.

How extensively have you guys modified the Quake II engine to accomodate your goals and creativity to accomplish your dreams with regard to Heretic II?

We’ve modified quite a bit. From the client effects system, to the camera, to flex models with nodes and joints, to the buoy system and the monsters ability to navigate just about anywhere… this isn’t Quake 2 with new art by any stretch of the imagination!

How about custom DM skins and models? Will we be able to make them? How many frames of animation has Corvus and how many frames will DM models have, on average?

We just got the new DM skin support in last night and it’s awesome! The detail of the skins and the quality of the model should allow people to make spectacular skins. No more weird armor for people to try and work around when they make a skin!

Corvus currently has around 1500 frames of animation, which adds up to about 230 sequences of movement and action. There is no difference between the SP model and the DM model.

A lot of your fans (many of whom are great lovers of Hexen II) have one really really big question: Will Heretic II be better supported than Hexen II was? I know this is a rude question. But, please, forgive that and indulge us.

The stuff is going to be on the CD. Doesn’t get much better than that! I’m really looking forward to what people can come up with!

Mike “Cosmos” Gummelt

Programmer (Monsters and game programming)

Hey Anax! I remember you as one of the Siege faithful! I’d be happy to help (even though I’ve worked 105+ hours this week…)

We are all very excited about Heretic II. Please tell us what your main role is in the development of the game.

I was brought in off of Siege to help work on monsters. Since then I’ve written or rewritten almost every monster so I guess that makes me the “monster guy”. Early on we decided we wanted our monsters to be able to navigate well and be able to do some smart stuff. As a result, Josh W. and I set up the Buoyah! Navigation System. Basically, it’s a web of waypoints around the map the monsters use to get around with our bumping in turning. Monsters use them to find any path to you they can, they can follow you almost anywhere, cut you off, jump over gaps, open doors and operate lifts, lead you into traps, and even flee intelligently. In addition monsters have a variety of other abilities- some can lead you and fire ahead of you, some can teleport, turn invisible, jump, duck, flip, dodge, etc. I wanted to make monsters who were as cool and maneuverable as the WereCats in Hexen 2. The result is pretty damn cool. Some of our monsters can even follow on land and in water, and jump in and out of water. Another thing I’ve worked on is the dismemberment and gore. You can chop of heads, hands, arms, legs or sometimes even slice a monster in half. Gibbing a monster throws out actual body parts of the monster and gibs that leave blood splats on the walls and cielings (which sometimes drip blood- pretty gruesome). Most people who’ve seen our gibs say we have the best gore & dismemberment in any game yet! Aside from that, I’ve done some miscellaneous effects and player control tweaks. However, player control is the almost sole realm of Mr. Josh Weier- and he’s done an awesome job with it- the game feels as responsive as a first person shooter but with so much more freedom and maneuverability!

How long have you worked for Raven? What particular positions have you held, if you have held more than one.

I started in April of 97 after sending Ultimate Quake to Raven as a resume of sorts. Since then I’ve worked on Hexen 2, the Hexen 2 Mission Pack, HexenWorld, Siege, and now Heretic 2. Luckily, for my next game I get to take a break from fantasy and do Sci-Fi, which is my favorite genre! Basically, I’m a game programmer. My interests lie mainly in the gameplay experience – I like options, interactivity, a sense of a story and drama and just plain making a game fun. I particularly like working on monsters, players, NPC and scripted stuff, and multiplayer modes (like Siege!).

What will the Demo that is to be released soon consist of? How many maps? Will they be all SP maps? Or will there be some DM maps? Will the Demo have DM support?

There will be two maps, and they’re quite different and very cool. There’s about 9 very different monsters on those two maps, so there’s plenty to see. There will also be two multiplayer maps. The demo will absolutely have Dm support (which I was just playing, actually!). Our DM is really just loads of fun and seems to run pretty damn well (at least for me!) I love the acrobatics and freedom of movement our player has. There’s almost nothing better than running away from someone with a projectile spell, pole-vaulting at a wall, backflipping off it over their heads, landing behind them and chopping their head clean off! It rocks!

Have you read, and if so, what do you think about, Lorien’s Editorial on game publishers and how they neglect their fan base? What is your take on his conclusions?

Unfortunately, I haven’t had time to read much of anything, especially online… maybe after the demo is done!

I know that you have been asked this question a gazillion times and that Raven has taken a lot of crap for it, but could you please comment on the 3rd person perspective in Heretic II and assure us that it will be yummy? How will aiming work? Will aiming mostly be determined by autoaim? Please feel free to comment widely on this topic of 3rd person ; ) Some other things you might consider explaining to us: how will the camera be handled in both SP and DM? Will it be handled differently? Will the camera be adjustable for FOV? Can it be manually rotated 360 degrees? Elaborate.

This question is really best for Marcus Whitlock, he’s our cameraman and I have to say, the game feels great from 3rd person! It’s much better for seeing what you and your opponent are doing. I have to honestly say that going back to 1st person after this is kind of claustrophobic and frustrating- I always feel like I’m missing the action! I was NOT a fan of doing a 3rd person game back when we started this, but I can’t imagine playing this game without it- it seriously is fun as hell and really really easy to pick up. Anyone who’s played it always picks up really quickly and has no qualms with the perspective. I do know there are a few camera options and I think there’s a hacked way to play froma 1st person POV if you really want, though I could never play that way! Also, there is togglable autoaim and a toggleable actual crosshair (not a + sign printed on the screen!)

Will the source code for Heretic II be released with the game? How about map and texture editors? Viewers for models? What other nifty stuff might we find on the released CD?

I’m not sure about the source code — I know it WILL be released, but I presume they’ll want to clean it up some first. Everything else, every tool we used to make the game that’s ours is being included – our Heretic 2 version of the QuakEd editor that runs in NT and Win95 and our model viewer written by Josh Weier, as well as all our other miscellaneous programs like qdata, vis, bsp, etc… There might be some surprises on the CD if we can fit it (it’s getting pretty packed!)

Could you comment some on the scripting language in Heretic II? What tasks or functions is it specifically created to do?

That is a perfect question for Bob “Doctor” Love — he’s been doing most of the scripting support for our designers. As far as I’ve seen it’s pretty cool stuff- it handles the numerous cinematics in the game as well as lots of scripted events like traps and coming across interesting scenes and events.

How extensively have you guys modified the Quake II engine to accomodate your goals and creativity to accomplish your dreams with regard to Heretic II?

Man, I’d have to say that almost every system has been rewritten or modified heavily. The renderer and the networking code I think are relatively untouched since they’re so solid anyway, but everything else has been majorly overhauled (sometimes inappropriately so – you shouldn’t rewrite stuff that’s not broke – that led to a setback a while ago, but we’re past that). The basic structure of many things is still recognizable, but there are some totally new things like all our player stuff, monster animation and control, client effects, and a few others. We also have Aureal 3D support in the works so the sound system is getting a much-needed boost for those with Aureal 3D.

How about custom DM skins and models? Will we be able to make them? How many frames of animation has Corvus and how many frames will DM models have, on average?

Yikes! Well, multiplayer skins are easy to do, we already have almost 8 really cool high-quality ones done by the best artists in the business. Models, though, may be a problem. Corvus, as he stands now, is over 1500 frames of animation and a 3MB model made in SoftImage by Brian Shubat and Jeff DeWitt. He has all sorts of special goodies in his model (joints, reference points, nodes, etc.) that will make it difficult for people to make their own models… but I think that we’ll be supporting this game in a big way (at least I hope!)

A lot of your fans (many of whom are great lovers of Hexen II) have one really really big question: Will Heretic II be better supported than Hexen II was? I know this is a rude question. But, please, forgive that and indulge us.

Ah! Nice segue! I myself tried to support Hexen 2 as long and as much as I could – to the point of being kinda yelled at for it. I think the decision was an Activision one – Hexen 2 didn’t do as well as they thought and they wanted to hurry up and get started on something new. I tried, I really did. Hexen 2 was troubled from the beginning, though, and I see Heretic 2 in a totally different light – I think this game is going to surprise the Hell out of everyone – including Activision, and be one of the best games of the year, seriously. Its just too much fun and anyone who gives it a chance – just sits down and plays it for 10 minutes will love the freaking shit out of it! (oops, can I swear?)

Thanks for taking an interest, we need people to start knowing more about this game – it’s gonna be out real soon now!