March 1998

• No news until E3

3D Realms in under tight orders not to release any new information about their games until the annual E3.  The E3 gaming show will take place at the end of the May, and we can expect a flood of previews and information about the game.  3D Realms is specially not saying anything until then and is planning some surprises for the show.

• Paul Schuytema's Day

Joe Sielger has started some features on the daily lives of some of the employees at Apogee Software.  Today, Paul Schuytema, Project Leader, told how an average day for him goes.  He mentions that he gets on the job about 8:00 in the morning, but the rest of the team wanders in at 11:00 :)  Some pretty interesting ideas on how Paul records all his ideas.  A Palm Pilot or a tape recorder.

• Prey Poll + Prizes

Preyground has posted a survey called Prey Poll with the goal to get your ideas, the gamers, to the developers and into the game.  The survey asks about what you like best about the different parts of games today, like multiplayer for example.  When the survey is completed, you will be entered in a drawing and a few random people will get some prizes.  A Prey T-Shirt and a few other goodies will be given away.

• Lon's Prey Page -- Two years old!

March 30th, 1996, the world's first Prey website was founded: Lon's Prey Page.  Two years later, the site is still in the same spot it started off (oakland.edu), and has come along way.  Starting off as a few pages of information about the game, engine, and Prey team;  this site has grown to around 100 pages offering everything imaginable about Prey and the Talon Brave universe. 

Since this site is two years old, check out the news archive I've kept.  Every Prey news event in the last two years has been saved and is a good way to look through the history of the game.   No stories about my personal life or other games here, all Prey.

How long will Lon's Prey Page be around covering Prey?   As long as possible I hope.  I've been covering Prey for two years straight without a break and I hope to continue to do so.

• The voice of Talon Brave

Scott Miller announced some trouble in the search for the Talon Brave voice.  3D Realms is continuing its tradition of featuring voices for their main characters, like Duke Nukem and Lo Wang.  I hope Prey has an intersesting voice that fits the character and the game.

It is proving to be difficult to find the right person to act the voice of Talon Brave, the star character of Prey. After months and months of listening to audition tapes, the right person--the one that makes everyone here say "that's him!", still eludes us. Luckily, we started the search early and there's plenty of time left.

• Prey Designer's Journal #4

"We are the hive mind"  The topic of this month's journal is the design of Prey, and Paul explains his job as Project Leader on the Prey team.  The process of how ideas are formed and then incorperated into the game is explained.  About three new screenshots are also shown in this month's journal from GameCenter.  I noticed the use of GSE (gamespace engineer) in the article instead of Environmental Alchemist.  I wonder why the name change?

• Interviews

Two interviews were conducted related to Prey over the last few days.  First, Scott Miller was interviewed on MeccaWorld's Daily Dementia.  In Part 2 of this Real Audio interview, Scott was asked about Prey. Below is some of what Scott ways in the interview.  Some good stuff here.

• Scott hopes that Talon Brave will branch out into other media such as novels, comics, movies, etc.
• "Image characters show emotions on their face and in their speech."  - Scott talking about Prey AI
• "We get contacted every week with companies who want to license the Prey engine."
• Right now, the engine is being licensed to one company right away.  There will be an announcement in about 2 weeks.
• In Prey, Talon can get into a shuttle and fly above the level, and fly into other levels!

In another, unrelated interview, Matt Wood was interviewed by Lithium on Preyground. He was asked about his background and about level design.  Just about everything except the game, Prey.

• Online Merger

Some rather large news coming from two of the most popular Prey sites on the web.  Preystation is merging with Preyground to make one larger site.   Lithium, the maintainer of Preystation has been running his site for over a year now and now has decided to move to a larger group at 3D Portal/PlanetQuake.   Preyground is a part of the PlanetQuake network.  What does this merger mean for Preystation?  The domain will probably stay in the hands of GamesMania and they will find a new maintainer.  What does this mean for Preyground?  A bigger and better Prey site.

• French Prey FAQ

I've been notified that someone is interested in translating v1.2 of the Prey FAQ to a French version.  This will make the FAQ even more international!  Once finished, the French version will be posted at this Prey website.

• Development Update

The following is the new Prey Development Update from Paul Schuytema.  He gives an update on Martinus, preperation for E3, some of the programming, and the music.

Busy time here on the Prey ranch. First off, we've got to welcome Martinus to the fold.

He arrived on a rainy day three Mondays ago. It seems as if it's raining and the traffic is at a standstill whenever we have new folks flying into town. Martinus spent the first week running all of those annoying errands that we force new residents to endure: getting furniture, getting transportation (he selected a bike at Toys R Us), getting an SSN, utilities, house wares and all that jazz. He spent last week just getting up to speed with Preditor, and he's refining his Preditor skills this week. In a few days, I'll hit him with his first two level assignments, and he'll be off and running.

It's very exciting to have the entire team in place right now (and everyone finally has a real desk-no more folding tables for anyone!). I've been spending the last few weeks filling out countless spreadsheets with all of the myriad of tasks ahead of us as we rumble towards E3 and beyond. Sometimes my brain begins to ache when I try to get my mind around Prey and its seemingly endless list of development tasks, but I also get this wave of calm as well, like we've got the chaotic beast under control (for the moment, at least).

When I left last night, Tom and William were merging their code bases together-I didn't hear much yelling or screaming, so I'm assuming that things were weaving together nicely. If they're both alive this morning, then I'll know for sure. Tom, William and Loyal have their own threads to pursue for the moment, but every few weeks between now and the end of April they are scheduled to weave their code together, and I'll keep you posted as that happens. William's current realm is the engine, collision and Preditor; Tom's is network, sound, entities, messaging and the game itself and Loyal is still wrestling with the massive beast that is our character system (I think he's winning the war).

Content-wise, we're nailing down the stuff we want golden for E3 early this month (to get it into the coders' hands as quickly as possible), then we'll do some design refinement and blast ahead at the remainder of the game content (there's plenty there to keep the boys off the street-trust me).

KMFDM is working on our music as we speak-we should get the first DAT of their work in a week or two. Their first two tasks are the Prey theme song and to lay down some potential level play music so we can see if they are on the right groove. Sascha and I have talked a few times over the last week, and I'm confident that they share our rather twisted wavelength-I can't wait to hear their first
stuff.

• William Scarboro Interviewed

William Scarboro has been interviewed for the first time since August 1996, this time by Voodoo Power.    He was asked about the Prey engine and other parts of the game.  Below is an intersesting question and answer from the interview.

Russ: What do you think of Glide vs. Direct 3D vs. open Gl? Does any of these three have something the other can't or at least have the ability to do it as well?

Well, Glide only works with Voodoo technology; it is very straightforward, so native Voodoo suuport is relatively simple; My experience with Direct3D and OpenGL is minimal, and both are coming out with new versions (GL 1.2 and DX6) before Prey ships, so I'm not going to screw with either until that time.