From Star Trek Game Information
This Interview with Toonloon of Space Station K7 took place on the 20th February 2005.
STGU: Are you a Star Trek fan and which shows are your preferred viewing?
Toonloon: I've been watching Star Trek since I was quite young back when there was only one Star Trek on TV. I'm a big fan of the show and the message within it that transcends just being another science fiction series. TOS is my favourite of the series although I did really like TNG although I thought it was getting a bit tired towards the end. DS9 was a revelation and is my favourite show after TOS. I never got into VOY, I gave up on it after two years as being dull and very unlike Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek. I was very excited by the premise for Enterprise and enjoyed the pilot, but it was all downhill after that. It was a dreadful waste and a huge disappointment. I've actually changed my mind about the show now and have found season four to be superb and the best Trek since DS9 IMHO.
STGU: When did you first start modding Elite Force?
Toonloon: I started modding shortly after the game was released. I was massively impressed by Synchromesh's Enterprise map and by Kirk1701's skins. Skinning seemed to be the area I was most interested in and pretty soon I had a very unhealthy obsession with making TOS skins. :)
STGU: Can you tell us a little about yourself and the team behind TOS Weapons Mod II?
Toonloon: I'm 31 and an actor, I live and work in London and I'm team leader of the mods at K7. The rest of the team are from all over the world. We have Europeans and Americans, college students and USAF pilots. We're a very mixed bunch.
STGU: Why did the team decide to make TOS mods?
Toonloon: At the beginning of EF modding there was a small weapons mod which just changed the models of two of the guns. It was by AFADoomer. Doomer and I started to work on a fuller conversion and with the help of a brilliant Austrian coder, TheSnerd, TOS WEAPONS 1 was born. It was very positively met and it was the first mod I'd ever been involved with as part of a team. A 2nd version seemed the natural progression and we were able to add much, much more to the original. We used our community at K7 to ask the fans what they wanted and we tried to incorporate as much as we could into the 2nd version.
STGU: What are your main goals when creating TOS content for Elite Force?
Toonloon: Autenticity and fun. Sometimes I post pics at K7 of skins I'm working on and some of our members haven't seen the original episode so they go and check it out. That's a nice feeling knowing that we're helping to introduce TOS to a whole new generation of potential fans, although I don't kid myself that I'm converting thousands to TOS Trekkers, hahahahaha. I started off skinning by myself but now I get help from our two amazing model makers Ambassador Petri and AFADoomer and FishDS9 helps out getting me source pics and sound files from his inexhaustible Trek archives. I'm very grateful to them for helping me make these things as good possible.
STGU: Can you tell us a bit about the single player missions (The Argas Effect) you are currently doing?
Toonloon: Absolutely!! We're very proud of the work we've done. It's taking a long time because people have so many outside commitments and some of our team have had to go on tours of duty around the world or have vital exams, but I'm confident that when our imminent release of ACT I is made, interest in the mod will really peak. There has never been a FPS TOS game and I firmly believe that we have improved on the original EF and that we have a damn good mystery/adventure story for the player to work through. Our coding genius, Skinner, has done wonders with the game code and we have all sorts of cool features. Our phasers have stun settings, you need to use the tricorder to solve certain problems, Kirk can sneak up and Karate chop enemies or just slug it out with them. As a TOS fan, all this stuff would be my dream to see in a computer game and we're actually making all of this happen.
"The Argas Effect" is a single "mission" if you like. It's structured in exactly the same way as an original episode. We have already released the short Teaser segment with the title credits attached and the next release will be Act I and everything up to what probably would have been a commercial break in the 60's. The mod is set in a hypothetical season 4 (TOS was cancelled after 3 seasons) so we've designed the mod as if it was an episode shot in 1970. Simple little details like some of our female crew are starting to wear trousers and some of the characters seen in early episodes are seen in the mod and they have obviously been promoted to higher positions. We even recycle props seen in previous episodes just like they did in the series - it's a TOS fans dream to see all these things in game and to be able to identify them as objects seen before in other episodes. We've also made a nod to The Animated Series by including "M'Ress" the Caitian Navigator.
STGU: What other modding plans do you have for the future?
Toonloon: I would dearly love to finish AE in all of its acts. The more we do this the better we get as a team and the work gets better too. Ideally I would love to have a larger team so we can get stuff done much quicker. Who knows? When Act I comes out, we may get some new volunteers when everyone sees the quality of the mod. I've also been making some new skins recently. I just released an Amok Time 2 pak after a member at K7 asked me to make some Vulcans for Chaos' Amok Time map, which is a stunning recreation if you haven't seen it. I don't think there will be another version of TOS Weapons. I think we've crammed as much as we can into it. Snerd did a terrific job of changing the HM code and I can't think of anything else he could have done to improve it. If the community find issues and things that need fixing, I'm sure we could take a look at it, but until then, I think we've done all we can.
STGU: What do you think the future holds for Elite Force?
Toonloon: I was very disappointed with EF2. The SP game was terrific and had great graphics but I was disappointed with the lack of other TNG characters and the story wasn't anywhere near as good as EF. The Holomatch side of things was a major disappointment so I never bothered modding for EF2. I'm surprised that EF is still going. EFfiles.com still get a tonne of files coming in and there is still some interest in HM. I think it's possibly because there is a gap in Star Trek gaming right now and I think the fans stay faithful because its a good place to get Trek gaming and the user made mods are of a very high standard, and I'm not just talking about the ones we do at K7. There are hundreds of good files out there! Kirk1701 is particularly prolific and Colony 7 was a hell of an accomplishment.
STGU: What do you think about the current state of star trek gaming. Is there more of a positive outlook for modding with new Star Trek games?
Toonloon: Star Trek fans have always been inventive and creative and user made mods are a great way for fans to express these talents. I don't think I will bother with the online game when it comes out. It just doesn't strike me as something I would want to spend time doing. I'd love to see more TOS gaming. It's a lot of fun to recreate the retro stylings and props and wobbly sets. It's a shame there was never a Star Trek beat `em up. Who wouldn't want to play as Kirk and bash the hell out of the Gorn or have Picard knock the stuffing out of Locutus? I think that could have been a lot of fun, much like the Star Wars version released on the Playstation a few years back. I would also love to see the Secret of Vulcan Fury updated and released. I don't know why that game folded but it had all of the main actors provide voices and the screenshots looked amazing. The frightening thing is they could probably be even better now and they were stunning a few years back! Harry Lang over at Paramount is a good guy so I'm sure there will be many good Star Trek games to come in the future, hopefully every bit as good or better than EF.
If I may, I'd very quickly like to thank Andorian and HorckDude at K7 for maintaining our website and keeping our community together and everyone else who visits the site and appreciates the work we do. Thanks again to STGU for hosting our mod. You have a great site and thank you for asking me in to chat.
