An Interview With Brian Pelletier by Bakshra.

Bakshra: Mr. Pelletier, could you please tell me who you are and what you do for Raven Software?

Brian: I am an Artist and I have been with Raven for over 5 years now. Before being hired at Raven I was a part time freelancer for Marvel Comics, working on such titles as Avengers and Fantastic four. I am the most senior employee here. At one point in Raven's history it was just Brian Raffel, Steve Raffel and Myself, making a game. Now the company has 50 employees. Besides being the Art Director and being in charge of all the artist, I have been involved in all of Raven's game designs, including Heretic, Hexen and Hexen II. And now I'm leading up Heretic II.


Bakshra: How did you get into the gaming industry originally?

Brian: I was doing freelance work for Marvel back in 1992 when I was introduced to Brian and Steve by a mutual friend. They needed an artist and my freelance work was only part time. The steady paycheck seemed nice so I took the job at Raven to work on the game ShadowCaster. I enjoyed making games so much that I put Marvel aside, and here I am 10 games later.


Bakshra: Okay... onto your current project, Heretic II. About how much of the game is actually complete?

Brian: We are going on 3 months of a 7 month production run. We are about quarter the way through. There are about 7 creatures and 9 levels being worked on right now. Not to mention the final player character just being implemented in mid April.


Bakshra: Probably the most noticeable thing about Heretic II right now is the 3rd person camera. How much time and energy is being spent to make it a fully functional part of the game?

Brian: The camera along with the character are the two most important, visible things new to the Quake engine. So we are taking our time on them and doing them right. One of the programmers has been assigned to the camera for the past 3 months and we are still working on it as we go.


Bakshra: How are the controls going to be handled now that there is a camera to worry about? Will the player control the camera, or will it pick the best position on its own?

Brian: There are 3 camera options we are working on as of right now. The first is a free look camera like Quake 2 and Hexen 2. Wherever you move the mouse, the camera moves with it. The second is a follow mode. The camera will stay behind the character and follow him as he moves through the levels. The third is a stationary camera that locks to a position in the room and pivots to follow the character. When the character moves out of view the camera switches to a new position to keep him in view. The best reference would be like Resident Evil but with a camera that has free pivoting motion.


Bakshra: How will the aiming system work in Heretic II? Obviously auto-aim would make the game to easy, but no aiming system could make the game overly-difficult. How are you guys handling this problem?

Brian: We will be handling this a few ways so people will have a choice of how they want to play. First off, there is no auto targeting like Tomb raider. (there was a great discussion of this on our message board) One targeting method will be just like the original Heretic, Doom and Hexen 2, where there will be a cone of influence. Projected out in front of the player will be this range. If a monster is in this range the shot will go toward him. We need to do this because our camera can be at many different angles and we want our character to shot in front of him not where the camera's looking. Again, it works just like the Doom system, so there "is" skill involved. Second: You shot where the camera is looking. just like Quake 2 and Hexen 2.As Dan mentioned in his plan we have a free look camera and there will be a crosshair option to help aim. The third system we are still playing around with. All of these will involve a lot of play testing to make sure they work really awesome.


Bakshra: What would the advantages be of making Heretic II a Hardware only game, as opposed to having both hardware and software modes?

Brian: The advantage of making a hardware-only game is that we could really push the amount of polygons we can put on the screen at one time and support specialized programming features such as z-buffering which allows for perfect sorting. The end result is that hardware-only games enable us to create insanely realistic environments. Unfortunately, the hardware-only install base is still quite small at this time, and we wanted to make Heretic II available to as many PC owners as possible.
As it is now, we are working very hard to make the game -- especially the special effects such as spells, explosions, flames, waterfalls, etc. -- look as good in software as they do in hardware which is sometimes a tricky thing. We are dedicated to making a great game that works equally well in hardware and software, and end users of both should be very happy with the final result.


Bakshra: Ive noticed you guys are adding spells in addition to regular weapons to Heretic II, something that wasnt really used in any other Heretic/Hexen game. How will the spell system work?

Brian: We have two different types of spells; offensive spells and defensive spells. The offensive spells work off of one type of mana and the defensive spells are powered off of a second type of mana. He uses his hands to cast these spells. The offensive spells are just like weapons, they will be bound to one of the number keys for quick access. The defensive spells are like secondary weapons (or specials) that work like the heretic Hexen inventory items and can be used while the offensive weapon is readied.


Bakshra: Will Heretic II ship with its own level editor, such as a modified version of QuakeED (Heretic2ed?)?

Brian: No. People will have access to the editor's off of the internet.


Bakshra: As I understand it, Kevin Schilder, who did the original Heretic music (as well as Hexen and Hexen II) will again be doing music for this game. Can we expect re-mixes of old tunes, or totally new music? Perhaps we will see a mixture of both?

Brian: When you start the game at the Elven village (which by the way is where Heretic started) the music will be reminiscent of the original Heretic music. Once you leave the Elven village the music will be totally original and it will be themed to the level you are in. I didn't want arbitrary musical scores throughout the game. I wanted the music to help convey the culture of the city you are in. And when you are in natural world environments like the swamps and the canyon, we wanted more of something along the lines of background ambience versus music that you are used to hearing. We're really thinking through the music on this one and making it an integral part of the game. And from what Kevin has been composing so far, I think we're really going to surprise some people, in a good way.


Bakshra: After Heretic II was announced, John Romero commented in his .plan that you guys were throwing the series out of the window. What do you think about his comments?

Brian: It doesn't bother me what John says, he is entitled to his own opinion. He is commenting on something he doesn't have all the answers to. We are paying a lot of homage to the original Heretic and doing Heretic II does make sense. We aren't screwing around with the story line either. Heretic Hexen and Hexen II, told the story of the Serpent Riders. Heretic II is going back to continue the story of Corvus the hero who defeated D'Sparil in Heretic. The Heretic Hexen universe is big and there are many stories to be told. I'm sure you will see more. And I'm sure Romero will be pleasantly surprised with Heretic II.


Bakshra: Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to answer my questions, it is really apprecated. I'm looking forward to Heretic II very much, and I wish you and your team the best of luck on it :)

Brian: It's been a pleasure! And thanks for the kind words, we won't disappoint you.

Special thanks to both Brian Pelletier and Caroline Poon of Activision for setting up this interview.

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