[STG -
Victor1st]
First of all, as we always do with the first question in
these interview's, for the people who have been on mars for
the past year or so, can you tell us a little about yourself
and what you do?[Eric C.
Reuter]
[Eric C. Reuter]
I'm 47 years old, and have been working in the field of game
and level design since 1993. I live in NJ, and my
favorite football team is the Philadelphia Eagles (who just seem
to never quite make it all the way...) I've got numerous hobbies
and interests, and am married with 2 "adult" children, 17 and 19
years old. My greatest love is design. Although I've spent
nearly 30 years as a specialist in the field of supercomputing
and research, it is the ability to use my artistic creativity
that has given me the most reward. I've always been a
huge videogame junkie, and I guess it was just waiting until the
field matured that allowed me to finally find an outlet for that
expression. I've done all of the projects on my resume as a
contractor, working from home. I never really had an opportunity
to go full-time (many offers though) into a design position,
because my day job / career was so stable, and it pays well,
with good benefits. With a family and a home, and roots in my
community, it was never worth the risk. I've been very fortunate
to have had the opportunity to work on some great projects, and
hope to continue to do so. Perhaps when I retire, I can think
about expanding into a full-fledged design studio of my own.
[STG -
Victor1st]
How long has Fusion Creative Design been on
the go for and what other projects do you have going on at the
minute for other games?
[Eric C. Reuter]
I've been incorporated since 1999. I worked before that as an
individual contractor. I have no commercial projects at the
moment. (one good reason to have a day job!)
[STG -
Victor1st]
Looking at your resume that’s on
the FCD website (
http://www.fusioncreativedesign.com/
) it seems to me that you have had a lot of experience in the
world of game design. Some of the games you listed on your
resume that you worked on are basically million sellers in the
world of PC gaming. What made you come back to work on The
Fallen, a game which is now half a decade old?
[Eric C. Reuter]
I
love the Star Trek universe, and have been a fan since I watched
the original series as a kid. The Fallen just seemed to
captivate me, and I just loved being a part of the Star Trek
world, if only as a level designer on a game. I'm also the only
one out there who seems to be able to really understand how to
use the modified engine, and have enough knowledge about how to
create complete missions, to be able to add anything to The
Fallen. :-) I had originally planned (with the Collective's
approval) to release some add-on missions shortly after
the game. I wasn't picked up for The Collective's next title
(Buffy), and went instead onto another project, so the missions
waited and waited. Until 2 years ago, when I decided to to
"Convergence"
[STG -
Victor1st]
Going back to your time on working on The Collective's Deep
Space 9: The Fallen. The game itself used a modified
version of the original release Unreal Tournament engine.
Considering the limitations of the technology back then and the
young age of the UT engine at that point in time (1999/2000) was
there any difficulties in trying Trek the UT engine?
[Eric C. Reuter]
We
didn't think of the UT engine back then as a limitation. :-)
Only now, in hindsight, does it have those limitations. Sure, we
would have liked better performance to allow for more
complexity, and true curved surfaces and terrain modelling would
have been amazing to have. But considering what the engine COULD
do, for it's time, we didn't feel constrained in the least. The
only difficulties I personally ran into was overall level size.
Performance would just suck massively if the levels were too
expansive and had high total poly counts, regardless of how well
you zoned it. So, for the Ulysses Interior missions, 1 really
big, complex level became 3 smaller ones, for both Worf and
Sisko. (6 total) That was painful to do, technically, in the
extreme.
[STG -
Victor1st]
What was your one memorable event
on working on the original release of The Fallen?
[Eric C. Reuter]
I'd have to say that it was the days leading up to release, and
the anticipation, the anxiety, and the hope that all of that
work was going to be warmly received. It's quite a feeling when
you say "done". Then it gets really scary. :-) Other than that
it was working on 500 rebuilds of the Ulysses Interior (A map I
"inherited" and did a shitload of work on), then to be told by
Richard Hare, that it really needs to be split, and we decided
on 3 levels. I was like "AAAAAAGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!". Memorable, and
excruciating. :-)
[STG -
Victor1st]
Moving onto Convergence. Give the readers a little
back-story on the mission itself. What made you think of
the story line and what’s the general story line itself?
[Eric C. Reuter]
The
story line evolved over time. The very first level of the demo
was the map I started for the mission I was going to release
right after the game came out. It was just an idea I had to have
these generators and a secret weapons lab on SR-III, and to have
some sort of setup where you need to activate the thing for some
reason. I didn't even know where it was going to lead at the
time. The main idea behind the Convergence storyline came about
after I had extensive discussion with Lewis "Dyre Straits"
Turner, from the official DS9 boards. He is probably the most
loyal and knowledgeable fan of the game ever, and was still
helping people on the board years after the game was out. He is
largely responsible for any continued interest in The Fallen,
and especially "Convergence". I cannot thank him enough!. He
helped me round out the story, and he is responsible for leading
the quality testers, and for the dialogue/script, as well as
much of the storyline.
[STG -
Victor1st]
Will the mission pack be general format or will it be mainly
puzzle or "shoot 'em up" what will the player expect from the
new mission pack?
[Eric C. Reuter]
Convergence
is more of an action-oriented "Fallen". I've let my
DOOM/QuakeWorld/HL deathmatch influence come into play, and I've
set out to try to make it more of an adrenaline-pumping
experience. Convergence will test your combat skills. I wanted
to set this up to be more realistically plausible, so the fact
that a huge battle rages for control of the facility, by
different races, makes the intense combat more believable than
would otherwise be the case. There has been a lot of negative
comment about how "true" to the Trek universe we should be in
games, which generally means a lot less combat and
confrontation. However, this isn't an RPG, and it's not a
puzzle-solver game. The Fallen was designed for action, and I've
brought plenty of that to "Convergence". I think it is just more
fun this way. So, shoot-em-up, you bet. But, I don't want to
cheat players by not making the story interesting, and
compelling, and I've really tried to bring some of that to the
mod. Hopefully, we will succeed. The gamers who play it will let
me know, I'm sure. :-)
[STG -
Victor1st]
Who else is on the FCD team and what are there jobs? What
are the team thinking this close to release?
[Eric C. Reuter]
FCD
is just me at the moment, and John W. Anderson (Dr. Sleep of
DOOM fame) has done some work with me in the past. We are also
hooking up again for a freeware project. He is an
incredible level designer, so I can't wait!. The rest of my team
are volunteers from the DS9 community. They are all just fans
who wanted to help and to be a part of the mod. I can't thank
them enough!!!
We're all thinking, "Come on!! Lets finish this thing
already!!!" hehehe.
[STG -
Victor1st]
Many mods of this size and scope
for other Star Trek games never get completed either due to lack
of time or lack of interest. What do you think has made
Convergence move though all the phases to the final release?
The community? The team? A mix of both? Or
maybe the tenacity of the team's leader? :)
[Eric C. Reuter]
All
of the above. Without the community, my team, and their support,
I may have just quit the whole thing. They were and are an
inspiration and motivation to keep pushing. This is a really big
project, and has been a ton of work. I am the only level
designer, and anyone who has done this before knows it is
painstaking work.
[STG -
Victor1st]
Modding a game that's now over half
a decade old cant be easy. Technology and texturing
techniques plus scripting moves along on the rollercoaster ride
of PC Gaming and general PC technology. S&S themselves
along with Microprose and Interplay found it hard to keep up
with technology from 1998 going into 2000. Is there any
throw backs to the "golden age" of PC game coding that has
caused you problems in making this new mission pack?
[Eric C. Reuter]
No,
I can't say that there is. The original Unreal engine was
something I worked with for 3 years, during it's development. I
have had no trouble using the UT enhancements to it, and it is
like riding a bike for me. I don't miss the features of the new
engines, I just make do with what I have. I thought I'd have
some trouble playing with the Source Engine (HL2), but
it has never been the tools or the features that were
insurmountable. It was pretty simple, actually. It's trying to
create fun, interesting levels that matters. It's just a matter
of practice to learn the new things and to then take advantage
of them. I should add, to take advantage of them but not to go
crazy either. Don't you love it when someone posts a level, and
they just discovered some cool new capability....something
like coronas and lens flares, back in the days of the early
Unreal tech, and then the level has every lamp bleeding coronas
and flares all over the screen? :-) Or today, so much wacky
curvy terrain that couldn't even exist in nature, and is almost
impossible to navigate?...or Jump pads!...OMG, don't get me
started. :-))
[STG -
Victor1st]
About the mission itself. The story line continues on from
the end of the original The Fallen story line. Was there a
period of time where you sat down in a darkened room with a hot
pot of coffee and just bashed out the story line in it's
entirety giving orders that you should not be disturbed, or was
there a full out story line process with the rest of the team?
Did you do a Gene Roddenberry or did you do a Jeri Taylor (for
all you uninformed folks, Jeri Taylor was the lead story editor
for Voyager and one of the creative leads, she got teams in to
help her finalise the story lines whereas Roddenberry was famous
for locking himself in the office and finishing off things by
himself)
[Eric C. Reuter]
I used
my teammates, and fans to bounce things off of, and the plotline
evolved over time. It was a collaborative effort, and I wanted
as many opinions as I could get, to see what ultimately would
work, and would be fun to play.
[STG -
Victor1st]
The big question, does the story
line remain slightly open ended, will there be a chance of maybe
"Convergence Two"?
[Eric C. Reuter]
I'll
let you know when I decide what the very end of Convergence will
actually be!!. I'd say there is room for another DS9TF mod, but
I'm concerned there will be so little interest by then as to
make it not worth the time.... It's not like I can whip up a 20
level add-on in a few months. :-)
[STG -
Victor1st]
It's now obvious that you are
nearing the release date so questions about how far along in
development you are will be pointless. However...was there
a sticking point in development of this mission pack where you
and your team thought "this can't be done!!"
[Eric C. Reuter]
Sort
of...until Ken "DataCable" Quick came along, and his
modifications to the code allowed us to do things that we
couldn't before. He saved this project from mediocrity.
[STG -
Victor1st]
Looking at the community of The
Fallen still residing on Simon & Schuster's own message boards.
What do you think has made The Fallen's community so long
lasting where massive community message boards like the one
originally for Armada and so many other message boards by the
other developer's have dried up and closed?
[Eric C. Reuter]
Largely,
the efforts and enthusiasm of one person. Lewis Turner (Dyre
Straits). If he weren't always lurking there, and didn't inspire
me to go full-hog on a new mod, I think it may have petered
out.
[STG -
Victor1st]
Did the community have any input on
the mission pack which got into the end product? Ideas on
texturing and the story line/game play?
[Eric C. Reuter]
Most
definitely. More with regard to the story and the missions
themselves. I got a lot of good feedback from the 3-Level demo
we released a while back.
[STG -
Victor1st]
How do you think the community will
react on the release of the mission pack for The Fallen?
[Eric C. Reuter]
That is the million-dollar question, isn't it. :-) I hope they
have as much fun playing it as we have had making it. As many
people in my position are fond of saying. "God, I hope it
doesn't suck!"
[STG -
Victor1st]
Have you got any worries on the
amount of coverage the new mission pack is getting or do you
think the community and the half decade old community sites like
this one will spread the word out?
[Eric C. Reuter]
I
think that the exposure will be good. There are a number of
sites out there who have been great to us, and they will help
spread the word. The Fallen community is pretty small, from what
I can gather. Maybe a few hundred people at most will still have
the game and will be interested. So, I think it will make it to
them. :-) All of my inquires about this very subject have only
gotten a handful of responses. I asked this poll question on
STGU : How many will be downloading Convergence?" I got 4
replies. I'm not dissuaded though, because I've done this out of
love for the game and the joy of designing my own project as
much as anything else.
[STG -
Victor1st]
Everyone has a favourite Star Trek
game. Apart from The Fallen what other games in the Star
Trek PC franchise do you consider "good"?
[Eric C. Reuter]
EF1,
EF2. I'm an action junkie. I can't comment on most of the
others, as I haven't played them all. The Fallen wins hands-down
for me, for obvious reasons.
[STG -
Victor1st]
When the dust settles and
Convergence is released to the community, what plans do you have
for the future? Will you and your team be modding any
other games for Star Trek?
[Eric C. Reuter]
I've
thought about that, but haven't taken it to the next level (an
actual design document). I suppose I will leave this decision up
to the community, to some degree. If there are enough people who
would like to see me work on something with one of the
other Trek games/engines, and there is enough of a push, I
may be inclined to do just that. I don't think I want to work on
something this huge (like Convergence) without a lot more
interest from the community. I'd also want to perhaps work with
a few other designers on something like that. I know having
another Level Designer for Convergence would have been immensely
helpful.
[STG -
Victor1st]
You worked in the trek game
franchise at a time when the franchise for the PC gaming side
was on its highest point. The infamous battle between
Interplay and Activision in 2000 seen many games like Armada,
Elite Force and Klingon Academy being released along with S&S
The Fallen. Considering the state of the franchise as a
whole and the steep 2 year decline in the community since the
lawsuit of Activision and Viacom in 2003, what do you see the
future of Star Trek gaming like in the next 5 years?
[Eric C. Reuter]
I'm pretty concerned. There is so much material in the Star Trek
universe for great games, and still so many have been poorly
designed, or poorly received. Most of the studios out there
don't seem to want to touch it right now, except for STO. There
is a huge potential fan base out there. I have some good ideas
for ST games, but there doesn't seem to be anyone willing to
invest in it, without even considering the licensing issues and
past problems. I hope this changes, as there is so much I would
love to see....
I am encouraged by fan-based mods. This is something I'd like to
see even more of, and sometimes, the success of a mod can spur
enough support and activity so that one of the big "houses"
decides to make something commercially.
[STG -
Victor1st]
...and finally. We always
give the last question as a chance for the interviewee to
advertise any projects he/she is working on and advertise the
mod they are making, here's your chance now, advertise away :)
[Eric C. Reuter]
I appreciate the offer!. I don't have anything to promote but
"Convergence", and it is my sincere hope that those who play it
feel it was worth the effort, and the wait.
http://www.fusioncreativedesign.com
Thank you very much, I've enjoyed the interview!
Best regards,
