http://www.taldren.com/who.htmlFrom their front pages:
Erik Bethke, Zachary Drummond, and Sean Dumas met in 1995 while working together at a neat, little game development company called The Dreamer?s Guild (DGI). DGI was a fantastic opportunity to learn their craft and meet some really terrific people.
While at DGI they worked on I Have No Mouth and Must Scream, an adventure game based on Harlan Ellison?s short story. No Mouth was critically acclaimed by the press and achieved ?Adventure Game of the Year? from Computer Gaming World and later won the Computer Game Developers? Association?s award for the year?s "Best Conversion from Linear Media?. They also worked on several client/server games to be published on MPGNet. These included a baseball league simulation, a cyberpunk FPS/strategy game, and a user extensible fantasy RPG based on the Mud Object-Oriented (MOO) technology of Pavel Curtis.
They learned a lot from DGI; the ins and outs of game development, new systems and ways to code, and most importantly, the value of good teamwork. The three of them took this opportunity to expand on their knowledge set, and they left DGI in search of additional software engineering skills and AI techniques. The idea of starting their game company began to spark in the crevices of their minds.
They chose to work with Interna, LTD., a small game development company who impressed them with the quality of their software engineers, background in AI, and their publisher relationships. While at Interna, they worked on several unreleased titles and successfully developed Caesars Palace W95 for Interplay.
In late 1997, they left Interna, and further considered the idea of forming what was to become Taldren. They wanted someplace to develop their own distributed, user-extensible RPG. They performed contract work for about a half year while developing a 3D engine and a fleshing out a distributed server design.
In the summer of 1998, however, they joined the 14 Degrees East division of Interplay in order to run the Starfleet Command (SFC) project and whet their management skills. SFC has been and continues to be the most wonderful game project they have had the privilege to work on. SFC, an award-winning game, was published in four languages, and worldwide sales (including the value-priced Neutral Zone edition) have so far exceeded 600,000 copies.
They used their success with Starfleet Command as a jumping-off point, and formed Taldren as an independent developer, using all the skills they had l earned over time. Interplay became their first publisher, as they worked to develop their first independently-developed game - Starfleet Command Volume II.
Since then, they?ve released Starfleet Command Volume II and Starfleet Command: Orion Pirates. They?ve reworked and refined their processes for both pre-production and production; documentation; and demonstration of their technologies and ideas. They?re pretty good at what they do, and they?d like to share that with you.
During during their run in game development they have been fortunate to work with some of the best people in the industry. For this they are eternally grateful. The Starfleet Command series of games have provide the opportunity to work as developers on projects that were not only challenging, but also brought a great deal of enjoyment. The fan base that these games have acquired has sustained all of the Taldrenites over-worked souls more often than they can count and they owe them a big thank you.
THANK YOU!
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