I recently had the opportunity to chat with Blake Hutchins, David Griffin, and Victor Shekels, the three-member writing team for Starsiege 2845. They agreed to talk with us about the development process as well as delve into some specifics regarding the single player campaign and some of what we can expect to encounter in it. In the first part of our interview we focus on the development process itself, some of the hurdles they face as a team, and how they are handling the expectations surrounding the project.

SSU: First of all, thank you guys for taking the time out for this interview. We can see by the recent updates that you've obviously been quite busy, so we appreciate the chance to fire off some questions at you. Since this is an interview from TribesRoleplayers and Starsiege Universe we're obviously going to have some questions about the development of the universe and some of the things we can expect to see, but first we want to start off with some questions to illuminate for us your vision as a writing team and some of the process that goes on as you create the next chapter in the Starsiege saga.

	"We believe that the choices [the players] make should feel like difficult choices, not merely a pick between right and wrong, but between two morally defensible viewpoints."

SSU: Now, in regards to the campaign, it is obvious that you are attempting to create a compelling story in the Starsiege Universe, but beyond that what would you like to accomplish with the tale you're telling? At the end of the day when folks have consumed the single player campaign and all the accessory materials you produce what do you want them to come away with, what do you want them to feel or say about it all?

Victor: Speaking for myself, I'd hope for two responses from the players: "Wow!" and "I want more!" Add a dash of "Now what can I add to this story?" and it would be perfect.

Blake: I want them to have had a good time, obviously. From a story point-of-view, I suppose that means they should feel a sense of satisfaction and wonder, of having completed a meaningful chapter in the Starsiege saga. I'd also like to have them come away with the belief that their choices made an impact on the outcome. Tech and resource limitations keep us from being able to provide an open storyline, but our unique structure should break it from being completely linear.

David: Player choice is a big deal for us in this campaign. We're obviously limited in time and resources, so there is only so much we can accomplish in the way of a dynamic single player experience but to the extent that we are able we want to make the players in-game decisions reverberate in a very compelling fashion. We want them to come away feeling as if they really experienced the events in some fashion and were able to personally impact the progression of the story. I think that goes to immersion, sinking the player deeply into the universe. It's certainly not required for a good immersive experience, but it can definitely add to it provided that the choices are compelling and thought provoking, rather than straw men set up for the sake of a marketing bullet point.

Blake: Right, we believe that the choices they make should feel like difficult choices, not merely a pick between right and wrong, but between two morally defensible viewpoints. That's going to be a challenge to implement, I don't mind saying, but if anyone can do it, it's this team.

SSU: So how do you all craft that experience? What is the process like for you as a team? Or to be more specific, what are some of the steps that you go through to create this immersive experience together and what are some of the obstacles you face in that process?

David: The distance is a big factor. Not being able to be in the same room can be a headache. And the time lag takes its toll on development to be sure. Things that might take us an afternoon to work through if we could walk around the corner to someone else's cubicle might take a week using forums, e-mail, and instant messaging.

Blake: I'd give a lot for an hour in a room with Jake, David and Victor. Just us, a few pitchers of beer, and a whiteboard. We're managing it though. It's tough when everyone has RL commitments and relies on the net to coordinate things. Consequently, the process has had its share of frustration. That said, I proposed the basic plot and character, and then we kicked it all around until we had something we liked. There's a lot of back and forth, occasional disagreement and negotiation.

Victor: Each of us has our strengths and weaknesses and occasionally one person's way of thinking about the universe as it grows is different from the others. For example, I personally am much stronger at setting, locations, and linear progression of story locations than I am at (for example) remembering the psychology of the Cybrids. My preferred format of a timeline in progress is divided by planet rather than a straight list of all the events in a particular time period. David and Blake both have a better grasp of the universe's history than I do and so they are doing most of the work in setting up the background timeline of events. I'm concentrating on giving them locations to put things in.

Blake: Though I try to be as inclusive and open as possible, I have the final word on what goes in. As we reconsider certain elements, that means some backtracking and adjustment. There'll be more of that as we implement gameplay and run across the unavoidable play balance and tech/art limitations.

We spent a good portion of time on establishing the basic parameters of setting, character, and plot structure. We're just now starting to flesh out the story components that relate directly to mission and level design. SP campaigns are tricky because you have to decide what constitutes "part" of the SP immersion. For example, on the high end, mission briefings feel like part of the game "world." On the low end, briefings are just fancy and very basic texts that list mission objectives. The entire experience creates the story.

	"As a writing team, it's important for us to sell the rest of the team on the story... we have to invite our department teams to take their own ownership of the story and give it their own signature."

SSU: How do you coordinate with the other departments to ensure a look and feel in the art and other assets that is consistent with the story you're trying to tell?

Blake: (laughs) Carefully...! Right now, we're posting what we have to the ClanCore site, and answering questions as they come in. At present, coordination has gone through Jake, the project producer/director. As we cement more of the story, that'll pick up.

As a writing team, it's important for us to sell the rest of the team on the story. So far, I think we've managed to pull that off, but it's a continuing process. Take the art team. If the artists get excited about the story, and they buy into the look/feel design parameter, they'll go out and create incredibly cool stuff we could never have visualized in the first place and sell us back on it.

In other words, we have to invite our department teams to take their own ownership of the story and give it their own signature.

SSU: Have you all thrown out any bad ideas since the start, or was there just one kick-ass story always waiting to be told that simply needed development?

Blake: I always had in mind what I'd wanted to do with Starsiege 2, had Dynamix chosen to do that, so I dusted that concept off and put it on paper. We're refining as we go, which means tossing out what doesn't work, but overall, we've stuck to the original offering. I guess that means it's the "one kick-ass story." So far, no one's told me it sucks, and I have enormous faith in the writing team (and Jake's) demonstrated willingness to tell me when something ain't working right.

David: Well we did have one major change early on in the process, but it was more about implementation than anything else. We're still telling the same story, we just changed a few of our plot devices for delivering that. And of course it's gone through the usual refinement. As we go along and certain aspects of the story become more polished they will naturally push other elements to the periphery. For the most part though, yeah as Blake said, we've been working on telling the same story from the get-go.

SSU: The team behind Tribes Vengeance has openly stated that they want to tell a mature story, and aren't worried about the rating that T:V gets. What are your plans in that respect?

Blake: Pretty much the same. We caught some flak with the original Starsiege for including a few off-color exclamations, stuff like "Goddam horse's ass," that sort of thing. You could also find some pretty disturbing images in the game, like the stalking and killing of children, genocide, human shields, mass torture as a military tactic, and the like. I don't think we need to soft-pedal it. Starsiege contains some psychologically graphic story elements, right from the little girl reciting that grim nursery rhyme in the opening AVI. We're telling a futuristic military story in a gritty space opera setting, so that adds up to something aimed at a mature audience.

David: And I can't tell you how happy I am about that. Starsiege has always been a dark, brutal period in this franchise's history in my mind and if you try and water that down I think it loses something of it's essence.

SSU: Do you feel intimidated or challenged at all by the prospect of you work being held up against and compared to Irrational's campaign?

	"Irrational has an outstanding track record, and their production values are some of the highest in computer gaming. That's quite a standard to be measured against."

Victor: Not particularly.

David: I think challenged is probably the right word. We have a tremendous amount of respect for Ken Levine and his teams in Boston and Canberra. They have created some of our favorite games. I know I had a blast with Freedom Force most recently, I practically laughed until I cried at some points.

Blake: Sure, I feel challenged. Irrational has an outstanding track record, and their production values are some of the highest in computer gaming. That's quite a standard to be measured against. But intimidated? Nah. I have confidence in our ability to deliver a quality experience of our own.

David: I think if anything the possibility of being compared to them probably drives us to excel, and is actually a compliment in its own way.

SSU: Are there plans for accessory documentation dealing with the universe as there was for Starsiege? Obviously the team lacks the budget to do a printed compendium but is there any chance we could expect a digital version or perhaps some outside-the-box guidelines similar to the Starsiege Writers Guide?

David: Jake has already announced publicly that there will be a Compendium of some sort, distributed in a digital format. How weighty that material will be, how much content it will contain and other details remain to be seen. Much of that will depend on how strapped for time we are as the end of the project comes around.

Blake: Few people understand just how much effort went into producing that book.

SSU: Blake, Starsiege was the game that got you into writing for PC games in the first place, how does it feel to be working on a Starsiege game again after five years away?

Blake: Glorious. Liberating. Exciting. The Starsiege fanbase has always been the best, and I've always loved the way the fans' excitement and collaboration fueled story development. So yeah, I'm grateful as hell to have the chance to work on another Starsiege project. On one level, we have the opportunity to create something much closer to the way I'd liked to have done Starsiege in the first place, and that's just indescribably cool.

SSU: Are you nervous at all about the expectations of the fanbase?

Victor: I'm confident that all of us can put out a story of proper uber-epicness.

	"I'm grateful as hell to have the chance to work on another Starsiege project. On one level, we have the opportunity to create something much closer to the way I'd liked to have done Starsiege in the first place, and that's just indescribably cool."

Blake: There's the desire to make the story worthy of their love, y'know, but I'm not nervous. The fanbase is quite open in articulating its expectations, and we're equally honest in saying what we are and aren't going to do. I don't expect to please everyone, but I think I know what makes Starsiege tick enough to keep that part intact and satisfy expectations. And I'd venture to say the fans are happy that a team is approaching the project with this level of professionalism and talent. I'm confident we're going to make everyone happy.

It helps that I have marvelous assistance. Victor is a leader in the SS fanfic community, and David runs this marvelous Universe website you've got here, so he knows more about the setting than I do to be perfectly candid. And when you can get Jake to stop drinking radiator fluid and smoking crack, he's pretty good about setting our compass for the project.

David: He only engages in flattery when he wants something. He must be fixing to tell me he has a new project for me. In all seriousness though, no we're pretty confident that we can deliver. The fans have expressed enormous faith in our ability, and we're led by Blake. I mean come on, if anyone can create the sequel that Starsiege deserved it's him, and our fans know it.

Blake: Well now that you mention it, you probably should check your staff e-mail, David.

David: You know all those nice things I said about you before? I take them all back.

SSU: Ok, on to some red meat for the faithful: First of all, we've seen the concept art in the public updates showing off the human and Cybrid infantry designs. Does this mean we're finally going to get some more information on Cybrid infantry and on the development of SCARAB technology as a war-fighting tool?

Blake: Yes. Infantry gameplay means this area of the setting should be fleshed out substantially.

SSU: Can we expect some more info on space travel and naval combat? How about technical details and information about the ships?

David: We have actually invested a fair amount of effort in visualizing the Black Navy this time around. So yes, we do have more information about that subject, but obviously for IP reasons there is only so much we can establish as canon.

Blake: We'll put out information about naval combat, but technical details may well remain fuzzy for the same reasons as with the first Starsiege. If Sierra/VU decides to make a Starsiege-era space sim, we can't foreclose their options.

SSU: How about orbital fighters and bombers? We've known they were a crucial part of combat for quite some time, but never been able to see them in action before. Are those sorts of technology going to take a broader role in both the gameplay and the theme this time around, or is the story and the game still going to be almost entirely (if you'll excuse the pun) HERC driven?

Blake: The game is still HERC-driven, but you'll see more of orbital craft as the plan is to have pilotable flying vehicles available for player missions.

David: You may have noticed that Orlanda Konovalev's bio lists one of her proficiencies as being aerospace combat piloting. There's a reason for that.

SSU: Will we begin to see the proliferation of Anti-grav and nanotech devices on the HERC's or in general use?

Blake: There'll be some improvements over the former generations of HERCs, but you'll have to wait and see. Overall, the shape of ground combat will remain pretty close to that of Starsiege, so don't expect to see HERCs doing backflips and spin kicks.

Victor: Take a look at some of the model rederings and screenshots for more clues about the proliferation of cache-tech in general, and a-grav in particular.