I was lucky enough to get a few questions answered by James Monroe of Raven about their upcoming Star Trek shooter, Voyager : Elite Force. We chatted mainly about the technology, which considering the technology is Quake III Arena adapted to single player is rather interesting. Read on:

Lady Pain: Ok, for the readers out there that don’t already know the answers, who are you, and who are raven?

James Monroe: I am James Monroe, Lead Programmer of Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force at Raven Software. Raven Software is a small (50 ppl) company in Madison Wisconsin.

Lady Pain: Ok, let’s begin at the beginning, how did you [Raven] decide to do a game based on Star Trek, and how did you go about the license.

James Monroe: We thought about several different ideas, until Activision approached us with the Star Trek idea. We jumped at the chance. Many of us here are huge Star Trek fans. We started planning out our story lines while Activision sorted out the license for us.

Lady Pain: What was the decision process behind picking the Quake III engine, what else got considered?

James Monroe: We first started our prototype with the SOF engine (based on Quake2) using Ghoul. Later, Carmack invited me down to have a look at what they were doing with Quake 3. I went down with Chris Foster and we were amazed. We came back with the decision that we really should upgrade to the Quake 3 engine.

Lady Pain: My big defense of Quake 3 to its critics is it’s not so much a game as a technology. As Elite Force’s Programming head honcho you were tinkering with the innards of the quake 3 engine before the game was released to us mortals, what is having access to such technology like from the game maker’s point of view.

James Monroe: It is cool, to say the least. I have worked on products using most of id’s engines from Doom to Quake 2. And to get a look at what they had done to Quake 3 was really quite impressive. Some of the same improvements that the Heretic2 team had made to the renderer had already been made for us. Which is a huge time saver for a new project. Other elements had been changed so dramatically that I had to relearn that part of the system. (shaders for example).

Lady Pain: What have you done to change/enhance/customize the engine for Elite Force? I heard Gill Gribb (Creator of GHOUL) was working with you on the skeletal system

James Monroe: The greatest changes we have made are due to our immersive single-player story line. Q3A didn’t come with any support for the kinds of things we needed so we added a scripting system (ICARUS), a new navigation system for our NPCs, an effects system (for maps and weapons), voice-overs with lip-synching animations, an ambient sound system, a whole camera system for cinematic quality scenarios, and level save and restore. And yes, Gil and I are starting work on a skeletal replacement for the md3 models.

Lady Pain: How did you take a multiplayer engine and add single player elements?

James Monroe: By basically ripping out the parts that don’t fit the single player games and by-passing the networking parts. If we kept the multiplayer restraints, the single player game would be compromised and would not look as good.

Lady Pain: This is more a question for mappers, but what is it like modeling an environment that is already to fixed in the mind of the fans? Is it a challenge or a constraint?

James Monroe: Well, i asked our level designers, and the word is that it is slow. It takes a lot longer to model all the intricate details of a Voyager level. And the challenge was to fit the realism with the physics properties of the game engine and the player’s bounding box.

Lady Pain: More to the point what is it like working on it with Paramount watching over you? How helpful are they?

James Monroe: They have been fantastic! I had been forewarned about them looming over every step and preventing us from doing cool game things. But that is not how it turned out at all. Right from the start, Paramount let us know that they understood what it takes to make a fun game. We haven’t had any trouble getting our ideas approved. And when they do have a concern, we are happier with the suggested change. They have given us reference pics of the set, props, and actors. And even arranged a tour for some of our people to get a look at the set.

Lady Pain: What do the cast and crew who’ve seen the game think of what you’re doing with it?

James Monroe: As far as i know, they are loving it.

Lady Pain: I heard there was a lot of competition about which modeler got to model Seven of Nine, is this true? What happened.

James Monroe: Not really. Of our two modelers, Brian Shubat made the model. I think there was more competition over who got to do the skins for her. We were given a 13 inch cast model and a life-size stand up of Seven for reference.

Lady Pain: I’ve read that the Bridge, Conference Room, Captain’s Ready Room, Mess Hall and kitchen, Sickbay, Hazard Area, Brig, Armoury, Transporter Room, Astrometrics, Cargo Bays, Engineering, some Jeffries tubes, your quarters and the Shuttle Bay will all be mapped in the game. Are there any plans (and this is a personal question as well as curiosity) to release the .map files of these with Elite Force scripted sequences and entities removed and an SDK so that mod makers, like myself, can make single player campaigns without having to re-model the entire ship? I for one hope the answer to this is yes.

James Monroe: Yep, we’ve got pretty much all of Voyager mapped. I don’t know of any plans to release the .maps but I certainly think it’s a good idea. This will probably have to be approved by Paramount. We’ll see.

Lady Pain: Are you going to release an SDK of any form?

James Monroe: Oh yes! It will be just as moddable as other Quake titles.

Lady Pain: Speaking of scripted sequences, tell us about ICARUS. I love the sound of this and want to know more.

James Monroe: That’s our scripting engine written by Josh Weier. It allows the designers to place interactive elements in the maps with requiring programmer intervention. JW quote: “ICARUS seeks to give our designers a higher level of control than what has been available in previous games. By placing more control in their hands, you’ll see more content that is varied and unique. Instead of enemies that react to all situations in a set manner, the designers are able to meticulously craft situations for the character to experience. This can be as simple as an enemy who throws a switch to sound an alarm, or as complex as starting a massive chain of events that can affect the entire outcome of a level or the game as a whole.”

Lady Pain: Where are you in your development? Alpha, beta crunch?

James Monroe: We are getting very close to the end but are not at alpha yet.

Lady Pain: What’s your current time frame on the demo?

James Monroe: We’ll probably (and this it not a promise) have it ready by next E3.

Lady Pain: What do you most enjoy about working on Elite Force?

James Monroe: I love the creativity. I actually enjoy the challenge of coding the right solutions, like fixing dynamic lighting or getting Save and Restore working. It’s really fun to see it all working once it’s done. But, (seebelow)

Lady Pain: What do you hate about it?

James Monroe: As Lead, I don’t always get to actually code. It is still fun to come up with the solutions, but sometimes i miss getting to write the code.

Lady Pain: What’s been your favourite moment in the development?

James Monroe: That would be when we got the camera system and the scripting to the point of setting up an in-game cinematic. It was very exciting to see Tuvok and Munro walking around the ship conversing.

Lady Pain: What kind of multiplayer are we going to see? Straight Deathmatch, Capture the flag? And I heard something about designed-for-co-op mini missions.

James Monroe: The standard play will be there of course, but we are also planning some specific missions for multiplayer. Like Team Deathmatch: Federation against Borg, or other missions like Defend the ship or Assault the Borg.

Lady Pain: Anything else you’d like to add, or a question you’d like to answer that I forgot to ask?

James Monroe: This game should be fun for everyone from the casual Star Trek fan to the extreme Quake Player.

Related Links
   • Official Elite Force Page
   • RavenSoft’s Page