Interview with Jon Zuk from Raven Software.

Firstly thanks for taking time to do this, I know SOF is an old game but it still has a massive following and people like to know about all aspects of it.
Some of the questions may seem a bit ordinary, this is because not all of my readers, in fact most of them, are not Tech Heads, just Joe Bloggs’ with an interest in the game’s background. I count myself as one of them.

 A bit about me.
I am a fifty seven year old granda and have been playing SOF for approx six years and if truth be told apart from a few of my sons games occasionally, SOF is the only game I play with regularity. Apart from my age, I think I am fairly typical of the common or garden variety player.
Ok on with the interrogation :).

” Hi I’m Jon Zuk and I was the project lead on Soldier of Fortune II. I’ve been with Raven since 1996 and have worked on a number of titles here as Designer, Lead Designer, and Project Lead.”

Q. ” When did Raven begin it’s assault on the games world and who started it.?”

A. ” Raven was founded by brothers Brian and Steve Raffel in 1990. Brian was a school teacher and Steve was working at a silk screen printer and they both had a great love of role playing and computer games. You can actually read about the start in Brian’s own words here: http://www.ravensoftware.com/birth+of+raven.aspx ”

Q. “You have been famous for lots of great games but what was your first.? “

A.  ” Raven’s first game was Black Crypt for the Amiga, back in 1992. My first game was Take No Prisoners, released in 1997 and just before we were acquired by Activision. It was a top down action game with a large hub-based post-apocalyptic setting and I was a brand new level designer fresh out of college.”

Q. ” When / where did you get the idea for SOF and how long did it take to develop?”

A. “Soldier of Fortune took about 2 years to make and Soldier II took about the same. “

Q.  “We know the games main character is John Mullins, is he a real person? “

A. ” Indeed he is. John Mullins is not only a real person but an amazing and interesting one to talk to as well!  Mr. Mullins was in the military and did serve as a “consultant” to other military groups around the world.”

Q.  ” How much did he contribute as a ‘consultant’ to the game? “. ” I had more involvement with John on Soldier II personally. We met a few times to discuss story, how soldiers would act and react, and weaponry. When we got into development, I would frequently mail John asking questions about weapons, locales, and soldiers.
One story I can still recall is that I had asked John about the OICW, an experimental weapon that was going to be the future of infantry warfare. We were interested in having it in the game but couldn’t really find any information about it. I mailed him some questions and a couple of days later I get a call from a military contractor working on the actual weapon! He discussed the weapon with me and pretty much told me anything I wanted to know that wasn’t classified.”

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Q.  ” As developers do you find it difficult to come up with new ideas? “ ” Coming up with ideas isn’t usually an issue. We have so many creative people at Raven that a small kernel of an idea from one person can mushroom very quickly into a full blown game feature. It’s a much bigger deal to take an idea and prove it out to be fun.”

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Q.  ” When you get an idea what happens then? “ ” Depends on what it’s for. If it’s an entire game, the concept goes into testing. If it tests well we might make a prototype to prove the fun factor. But a lot of factors have to line up because we usually have multiple projects going and other projects lined up. If the idea is for a game feature, say a multiplayer game type, we’ll talk amongst ourselves, come up with a viable design, and try to get it up and running as quickly as possible.”

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Q. ”  Who makes the coffee and snacks? 🙂 ”

A.  “ Angling for that position? ”
  ” Coffee is made by whoever drank the last cup from what I hear, but I’m a soda guy myself; never could get used to the taste of coffee. For snacks, we have the good ole vending machine to keep us happy.”

 Q. ” Why was Payback not developed by Raven? “.  ” Activision still had the SOF license and wanted to get another title out of it before the license lapsed, but Raven wasn’t in a position to develop it.
At the time, I believe we were working on Wolfenstein, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, and Quake 4. Games typically have a 2 year development cycle so we just weren’t in a position to get a Soldier game done in time. “

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Q.  ” Please will you bring out another in the series as Payback was such a disappointment to many devotees?
If you do bring another one out think about the mappers and skinners and and of course server admins, a bit more online freedom would be a great asset to them.”

 A. “ If the community is really interested in another game, the best thing they can do is contact Activision about it. We discuss doing a lot of different games but we can only do so many.
If an SOF game were to rise to the top of the must-do list, it would certainly be considered. “

Q.   ” What is your relationship with Activision? ”

A. ” Activision acquired Raven in 1997 and we are a development house for them. We have our own management structure and project leadership internally while Activision provides the rest, PR, marketing, QA, and the like. We work pretty collaboratively and it overall it has been a good relationship.

Q. ” Back in Dec ’06 a lot of CD’s were sold with the same CD key, what was that all about? “ ” I’m not aware of why that happened. I would assume it was a simple production error but that is something that we as the developer have no control or stake in.

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Q.  ” Does PunkBuster play a part in the development of your games? “~ ” If you mean, do they give us suggestions and such, then no.
We included PunkBuster because they provided a good service and there was no reason for us to duplicate that effort. “

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 Q.  ” Do you get time to play any games and what is your favourite game? ”

A. ” I’m an avid gamer and play pretty much everything. I have all of the game console and handhelds, play games on my iPod Touch, and play non-electronic games as well.
I can’t say I have a favorite game because over the years that has changed. Games that I have particular fondness of though are X-Com, Heroes of Might & Magic, Advance Wars, the first Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Dark Forces, and the original Fallout. “

Q. ” Did you think back in the D & D days you would be where you are now?”A. ” That’s probably a better question for Brian or Steve. I’ll skip that one. “

 

Q. ” Would you please tell me a bit about your use of the Quake eng as it features in so many games?” ” Raven has always had a good relationship with id and we had generally been one of the first groups outside of id to see their newest technology. We ended up using the Quake 3 engine on 4 titles because it was very flexible and easy to use and we had written a lot of custom features for the engine that we were able to leverage over multiple projects.”

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I hope there are not too many questions but there are sooooo many more I want to ask but these will do ‘for now’ LOL. 

Thank you Jon for taking time from your, I’m sure, busy schedule to answer these questions and I know people will be interested in your answers as it was the SOFers who gave me them to ask.