I recently had the opportunity to have an interview with Mike Gummelt from Raven Software. Mike is one of the programmers and the writer of Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force.

Blood: Thank you for the opportunity to sit down and do this interview with you. I am rather excited to ask you some questions regarding what is quickly becoming my favorite game, Star Trek Voyage Elite Force.

I realize that many people out there probably already own their copy of Elite Force. For those who don’t can you give us a brief overview of what the game is about?

Mike:  Voyager is a starship that was stranded on the other side of the Galaxy while chasing down some rebellious Federation members called Maquis.  The two crews joined forces and have been trying to get back home.  They're totally cut off from Starfleet and have been traveling through some of the most dangerous parts of the Galaxy- including Borg space.  So they've formed a special SEAL-like "Elite Force" of crew memebers called the Hazard Team.  You play the second in command of the Hazard Team.  During your training, Voyager is hurled into a kind of Sargasso Sea (but in space) where the Hazard Team has to deal with Borg, Klingons, Hirogen, and all sorts of other aliens, some they've never encountered.  We've tried to create an experience that makes the player feel like he is actually in a Star Trek episode/movie with our plot and characterization, but still keep the heavy action feel of a game like Doom.

Blood: What are the major strong points of Elite force?

Mike: To me, the best parts are the cinematic feel to it and the sheer beauty of the game.  I think the scripting is one of the main things that gave it a really immersive feel, and our artists and level designers deserve a ton of credit for making it such a visually attractive game.  Our target audience is the somewhat casual gamer- I think we've delivered a game that they will really enjoy.  It's not necessarily something hardcore gamers will find excessively challenging, but it should be fun for them too.

Blood:  How long was Elite Force in development? Were there any major setbacks or milestones while making the game?

Mike: Well, it was in a planning stage for about 6 months in which it went through several several changes in the basic concept... we probably started real development in about January '99 and really went into full gear in about August '99.  Between then we prototyped the various ideas we had and showed them at E3 and GenCon.  In about September or October, we presented our first playable demo to Activision.  One of the main milestones, of course, was getting the final Quake 3 engine codebase, which we got in December '99.  From then on, there was really no obstacle but time.

Blood: I think the single most impressive aspect to Elite Force that is lacking in other first person shooters is the storyline. Most games give you a two paragraph story in the game manual then dump you into the game to shoot stuff with no visible storyline beyond the manual. What inspired the development team to write such a interesting story to make the game more real?

Mike:  I guess because it was Star Trek, it was something we thought needed a strong story.  In addition, early on in the development, we decided we should have the player working with a team of NPCs.  This really interested me because the potential for character development and interaction with that concept was pretty exciting.  I got the task of writing all the dialogue for the game and I really relished being able to create and develop the Hazard Team characters.  I think the credit goes to everyone involved at Raven, Activision and Paramount who conceived and supported the idea of an FPS with a strong story- there was good reason to believe that FPS fans wouldn't go for it.  Sure, Half-Life was praised for having a "great story", but when you think about it, it was really just a general impression of things going on around you- not a concrete storyline.  The Half-Life "story" was essentially the standard sci-fi FPS story that was first used back in Doom- weird alien creatures start pouring through transdimensional rifts accidentally opened by unethical scientists.  What really made Half-Life so great was the excellent gameplay design and scripted events- they gave you a real feeling that something was going on around you.  You filled in the "story" yourself based on what happened around you.  What were were doing was really trying to go a bit further and create a cinematic event that you played through- and that had never been done in an FPS before.

Blood: I noticed on the PCShooter.com Elite Force message board one of the developers mentioned a scripting tool called Icarus. I also saw that it is mentioned on the back of the Elite Force box. What is Icarus? Was it developed just for this game, or will we see it in future games?

Mike:  ICARUS is the scripting "language" developed by Josh Weier and myself early on in Elite Force.  We knew we wanted to do extensive scripting, so we needed something very powerful.  Josh did a great job of getting it together quickly and efficiently (and it's portable).  I worked on the "Interface" aspect of ICARUS- the part that links up ICARUS to the actual game.  So I would create new commands and implement them.  That took quite a while- to prototype all the commands we'd need and implement them and write test scripts.  It wasn't really until Fall of '99 that we turned scripting over to the designers, and that didn't give them much time to learn it and use it, but they did an excellent job.  The tool for scripting was largely made by Ste Cork off an initial GUI design by Josh.  It's called BehavEd and was released by James last week.  It essentially makes scripting much easier because you can point and click and drag and drop commands, pick valid values from lists, etc.  Helps avoid typos, etc.  Even I, a hardcore handwritten scriptwriter, ended up switching to BehavEd exclusively.  It really is a handy tool.

Blood:  What other things were done in Elite Force to make it stand apart and be unique from other first person shooters?

Mike:  Hmm... well, as was stated above, we had a strong story and character development, we had extensive scripting... we also had a team of NPCs with you that hopefully added to the gameplay and sense of immersion.  Some of the stuff we did with the cinematics was pretty cool, too, like the lip-synching, camera control and our dialogue system.  And, we have Raven's well-known attention to detail.  From the thousands of frames of animation (made possible by our skeletal animation and compression) to the textural and architectural detail to the little gameplay and plot nuances... these are the kinds of things that, I think, make every Raven game stand out.  And, of course, there's the license.  Elite Force is really the first FPS to really make strong use of a Star Trek license.  We recreated the ship, the characters from the show, worked closely with Paramount to ensure authenticity, got all but one of the show's actors to provide their voices and we used as many references and content from the Star Trek universe as we thought we could plausibly get away with.  We really tried to make the game a "Star Trek" experience, not just a shooter with Star Trek sound effects and textures.

Blood:  I noticed the violence level in Elite Force was fairly tame compared to other game titles. Why is this?

Mike:  Because (with very minor and isolated exceptions), Star Trek violence itself is rather tame.  You don't see people getting gibbed on Star Trek (if you exclude the TNG episode "Conspiracy").  This was really done to not only make the game fit the license as faithfully as possible, but also to appeal to a much larger audience. 

Blood: Is it possible for your teammates to die other than when it is scripted into the game?

Mike:  Yes, but if they are essential to the mission, the mission fails.  In some cases, though, it is certainly possible to lose a member of the team and continue.

Blood:  I realize it may be bit early for you to give away any future plans but will there be a sequel or a missions pack?

Mike: I certainly hope so!

Blood: Thank you very much for you time. I think it is clear the Star Trek Voyager Elite Force is an excellent game and a must have for any serious gamer.

Mike:  Thanks very much, it's good to see the response we've been getting after taking so many chances and working so hard!