August 1997

 

August 25, 1997

The Adrenaline Vault did the most complete interview in a long time with someone from the Prey team. Paul Schuytema was interviewed about the game Prey, its development, its technology, and its story. This article is a must read.

It was about one year ago when most of the Prey team left to go to other companies. It was also around one year ago when Paul Schuytema was hired to get a fresh start on Prey. Now a year later, Prey has new technology, story, and developers. Many thought Prey was never going to happen one year ago, but now 3D Realms is showing that it is alive a well.

August 20, 1997

Some other employees at Apogee have expressed interest in the Preditor and Prey levels. Bryan Turner, a Tech Support, has been experimenting with Preditor and will make a few levels. Joe Siegler, the online support manager, has also said he will try some levels. If the levels from Bryan or Joe are good enough, they might appear in the game. Joe Siegler is known for doing level design in ROTT and ROTT Extreme. Joe is pondering about a "Vomitorium" using Portal Technology(One of his levels in ROTT).

August 19, 1997

A new version of my Prey FAQ has been completed with many additions and updates. This is the first update of the FAQ in four months, and holds a lot of new information. Please take a look at it.

Read the FAQ at apogee1.com
Read the FAQ at oakland.edu

You may remember an old Prey page called Marc's Prey Page. Marc Molinaro has moved and joined up with some others to create PlanetPrey. This is a new Prey News Page. It's a good page, but too bad they ripped off Blue's News design. I don't look highly to people who copy off of others.

Paul Schuytema clarified a few things in his plan update yesterday about the Next Generation preview of Prey. Here is his update below:

I read through the Next Gen article--good writing, to be sure. But those screen shots! Ugh! Rest assured, our Prey environment isn't that washed out or color saturated! For some reason, the print quality of those screens ridiculously exaggerates our colored lighting.

Also, a point of clarification regarding the Trocara. The Trocara is a single term to refer to a trinity of alien species who all exist upon the same gigantic "mothership." I hesitate to use that term, because the Trocaran vessel is VERY large and is actually the home world for all three species. Then, of course, we throw the Keepers into the mix...

The Prey Web Ring has been scrapped and started over. A new site and a new ring are present now. A new Prey web ring has also shown up, The Circle of Tribes. Because of all this Web Ring activity, I have setup a WebRing page to sort out the different web rings.

August 18, 1997

Today in a .plan update from Scott Miller, he says that David Perry, President of Shiny Entertainment (A game developer), is trying to patent some "obvious" engine technology. The strange thing is, this technology is already being used in the Prey engine. I don't know what part of the engine this is. Scott Miller explains this is not a big deal, and there is nothing to worry about. This does not have any connection to the other patent threatening Apogee a few days ago.

Scott Miller also has a few comments about Prey shown below:

Our goal with Prey, for example, is to be highly innovative in terms of gameplay *and* technology. If we were to use the Quake engine for Prey, we could only be innovative in gameplay, and we'd have a much less impressive game overall. In fact, many of the gameplay elements we have in mind for Prey are only possible with our new portal technology.

August 17, 1997

The previews are not stopping for Prey, and Next Generation magazine shows this by writing up an article about the game in the September issue. (pg. 72-72) The preview contains seven all new E3 demo screenshots that can be seen in the E3 screenshots.

This screenshot shows a never before seen enemy. One interesting quote found in the article is, "Talon will also be able to commandeer a shuttle to fly from area to area through space." That may be a key part of the game, we will find out.

 

 

 

In the light of Next Generation's preview, they released a new Prey QuickTime movie. This movie shows some of the smooth frame rates that can be achieved in the game. The downside, nothing is visible but the lights in this movie. movie2.zip (2.5MB)

 

 

August 13, 1997

Paul Schuytema mentioned in the WebCast a few weeks about Multiplayer Prey is going to be finished soon, and he wrote about it again in his updated .plan shown below: 

Life around Prey-land is pretty hectic as we’re  approaching Prey milestone 4. We’re shooting to  get deathmatch Prey up and solid in the next few  weeks. We’re all on edge around here because we  just can’t wait to climb into our Prey world and  start blasting.

 As we’ve been thinking about multiplayer Prey,  and playing some other cool games, I’ve found  myself thinking about the "lethality" of action  games...

My guess is that Prey won’t be as lethal as some  of the other twitch action games, because we all  like the thrill of the hunt around here, but  we’ll try out both approaches (super lethal and  less lethal) once we’re deathmatching. I’ll keep  you posted on which approach seems the most fun...  

An article in this month's PC Gamer features a preview of Prey.  Scott Miller talks about it in his .plan update below.
 

I'm trying to avoid hyping Prey too much in my plan, but PC Gamer (US version) just arrived and said many glowing things about Prey that I want to repeat.

 Jason Bates, news editor for PC Gamer, who said in his column several issues ago that Prey was greatly hurt by certain developer departures, had this to say in the current issue after seeing the game at E3: "Prey...was a huge surprise, catching me completely off guard...anyone who saw the portal technology and the rest of the engine in action could make the case that this was the show stealer."

Elsewhere in the issue: "Easily one of the top three games at E3, it would be a shoe-in for game of the show if the gameplay was actually in place."

 Lastly, in a separate large feature on Prey, PC Gamer wrote: "After a stellar performance at E3, Prey--once considered a big question mark on the 3D Realms product schedule--has become not only 3D Realms' star attraction but a signpost for 3D games in 1998. Prey is a technological tour de force, beyond both Quake and Unreal; in plain English, this game rocks."

If anyone has a copy of this magazine, I'd be pleased if you could scan it in so it could be posted for all to see.   We do something from the article though.  Posted on Preystation, this screenshot shows an example of a portal. It shows another room in the small doorway.

It looks like CGW will run another article on Prey.  A few writers visited 3D Realms earlier this year for an article that wasn't too impressive, but that may change this time.  Here is was Scott Miller mentions:

Johnny Wilson, top dog Editor-in-Chief of Computer Gaming World, will be here in just a few minutes to have a look at Prey. He's heard so many great things about it (he missed it at E3) that he is flying down for a personal gander and a lunch stop at On the Border.  

August 9, 1997

After months of planning and work, the redesign is finished and online for the public! The site is about 95% operational right now. Earlier this year, I knew I needed to get something better for a site than what I had, so I went to the drawing board and put some ideas together. The release of Shadow Warrior, and me doing a site on the game, put this one on hold, but now as you can see it is complete.

What's New?

Everything!

What I don't have yet - Because of lack of CGI on the server, the forums are not online as of now. I hope you enjoy the new site, and I hope to live up to the my motto of having "Everything under the sun!"

The final two positions on the Prey team have been filled. Two new Level Designers (Mappers) have been hired by 3D Realms to work on Prey. One of these mappers is John Anderson, and the other will be announced at a later date. If you want to see the Quake level that got John the job on the Prey team, click here to download it. The Prey Development update page gives some more information on the level, if interested. Below is some background information on John Anderson, from 3D Realms:

John is coming to us from Lockheed Martin, where he worked for the last eight years as an engineering designer in their Space and Range Systems division. He has worked on the Green Bank Telescope (when completed, it will be the largest radio telescope in the world), on the Unified Tracking Antenna (at the Kennedy Space Center), and was most recently doing some modeling work of X-33 and its launch complex.

August 4, 1997

A few major game developers in Dallas, including Paul Schuytema, came together for a RealAudio Webcast last week done by GameCenter. Here are some quotes from Paul that I pulled out:

"We're doing a trillion different things, we're actually getting close to wrapping up a milestone. We're talking multiplay first before single play. That will help us nail down some of the design issues that go along with doing a net game so we don't have to retrofit all that stuff. So we're putting together some deathmatch maps and finishing up our mapper search which has been kinda fun because we have been getting all these quake maps. And yes, we do play Quake a lot on the Prey team. It's a cool game. By Monday we should be announcing our final team, we will all be together, and we are all excited about that. William Scarabro, our engine programmer, is finishing up the last rev of Preditor, which is our sculpting tool for doing environments, and we are having a lot of fun debugging that. That is kind of where we are at right now."

"...one of the things we are doing with Prey beyond the Radiosity lighting is Area Light sources. An entire area enmities light rather than a point. But is offers up a whole new set of problems that we just discovered, it tosses a larger responsibly to the artists..."

"Single play is where the game is, that's what sells the products. Not from a marking standpoint, but from an experience standpoint... You can deliver emotion, you can deliver a storyline."

"Our relationship with GT [Interactive] from what I've seen from the Prey site of things...they are extraordinary supportive. But my guess is some of that supportiveness comes from they know that we are proving, we deliver what they want delivered. We follow through. It's an interesting relationship. It's kind of fun working with a larger company because in a since the market is so large right now a company like 3D Realms can't do it alone right now."

August 1, 1997

Gamecenter posted a feature on the Magnificent Seven 3D upcoming games. Prey was included in this list. A nice description of the game was included with three all new screenshots! Screenshots 1, 2, and 3. And thanks to GameCenter for the link back to my page.

My new Prey site has almost all of the content in. Now I basically have to add graphics. Expect a new design right here in the upcoming weeks.

The "Official" Prey FAQ v1.1 is just a few days away. It is being checked over by 3D Realms right now. The new version includes a lot on the Prey engine and 3D Cards.

Copyright © 1997 Lon Matero. All Rights Reserved.
_ Prey is copyrighted by 3D Realms Entertainment.