Interview from xbox.com Options

[Hukai The Wandering]

E3 Developer Interview:
Beyond Morrowind


The Elder Scrolls saga is coming to the Xbox 360 video game system, and Bethesda Softworks Executive Producer Todd Howard is ready to begin the next installment. We pumped him for some in-depth info about the story line, characters, and technical secrets of The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion.

Xbox.com: How long has the team been working on Oblivion, and how far would you guess you have to go?

Howard: We've been working on it for almost exactly three years, and have the rest of this year left on the game. We spent the whole first year on new technology. New rendering methods, procedural landscape and face generation, lip-synching, and much more. The past two years have been full of content and design production.

Xbox.com: How many team members have been with The Elder Scrolls series since the beginning? How has this development process been different from that of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind®?

Howard: The whole series? Gosh, probably over 100 different people have had their hands in it. We're fortunate that almost everyone who worked on Morrowind is working again on Oblivion, and we've added a lot of great new talent.

In many ways, the development has been similar to Morrowind's, since we basically started from scratch on Oblivion. But this time around, we were making a console game from the very start. We knew from day one that Oblivion would be on the Xbox 360™, while with Morrowind, Xbox development didn't start until we were halfway done. Oblivion's been designed from the ground up to be a next-generation console game in every respect.

Xbox.com: What other games have team members played or worked on that have influenced your approach to Oblivion?

Howard: Morrowind, obviously. We're mostly influenced by our own stuff, and by figuring out what worked well and what we could do better across the whole series, from Arena, Daggerfall, and Morrowind. Some of our other team members have worked on the Thief series, so that's an influence to our stealth system. Other influences? Anything from Bungie, Blizzard, and Bioware. And any other devs starting with "B".

Xbox.com: We hear Oblivion features a new main plot that doesn't necessarily rely on the events of Morrowind. What's the setup, and how will the hero fit in to the new events?

Howard: We like each game to be its own, so we've never done a "sequel" in terms of story. This one takes place in Cyrodiil, the capital province of the empire. You're tasked with stopping an invasion from Oblivion, basically the Hell of Tamriel. To do this, you have to find the true heir to the throne and get him there.

Xbox.com: What made you decide to focus on a purely single-player experience for Oblivion?

Howard: We think it's the most fun. The worlds and stories we like to put together work best around a sole hero, you.

Xbox.com: Cyrodiil, the main setting of Oblivion, is a place new to gamers. If it were a place in the real world, how much real estate would we be talking about?

Howard: It's about 40 square miles—it's big.

Xbox.com: What different guilds and factions are operating in Cyrodiil? What enemies lurk around every corner and beautifully crafted tree? Could you give us the nickel tour?

Howard: There are five main factions you can join: the Mages Guild, Fighters Guild, Thieves Guild, Arena, and the Dark Brotherhood. As far as enemies, the major ones in the game are the Daedra from Oblivion, and the humans that support them, called the Mythic Dawn.

Xbox.com: Many roleplaying games (RPGs) released since Morrowind have made the choices between good and evil, a critical component of a hero's story. How does Oblivion handle these moral decisions?

Howard: You can solve most quests in either good ways or bad ways. We also have "evil" guilds, such as the Thieves Guild and the Dark Brotherhood. The Dark Brotherhood are pure evil assassins.

Xbox.com: The screenshots we've seen are stunning. How have you accomplished such realism, style, and downright beauty?

Howard: It's a new piece of technology we have been working on for some time, taking in everything we learned in our past games. It's pixel-shader heavy.

We really got excited by doing the water effects in Morrowind, so now we're taking that kind of care with every surface—whether it be metal, wood, stone, blood, skin, you name it. We also work in several middleware packages like Havok and Gamebryo. The detail level is amazing.

In particular, we're using normal maps for lighting, diffuse maps for color, specular maps for shininess, and parallax maps for geometry detail. There are also specific shaders for skin, hair, and many other things. Parallax mapping is a new and exciting technique that's similar to displacement mapping, but is much friendlier to the GPU.

Xbox.com: How does the game's Radiant A.I. interact with other A.I. characters and the world at large?

Howard: It allows for full 24-7 schedules for every NPC (non-player character) and they also think on their own. So we give them general goals, like "Eat at this city at 2:00 P.M.", and they figure out how to do it. They will find food, find a place to sit and eat, and so forth. They can buy the food, steal it, hunt for it, whatever. But that micro-decision is the NPC's to make; we just provide the general goal.

Xbox.com: How much complexity does the average NPC have as far as choices and personality? In what non-quest, non-violent ways can heroes interact with NPCs?

Howard: They have a ton of stats determining how they act, and when it comes to the player, a lot of that is determined by how much they like you. One cool way of affecting that is through your persuasion skills. You can bully, admire, boast, and even joke with NPCs.

Xbox.com: What has the radiant A.I. done on its own that has really surprised, shocked, amused, or even frustrated you?

Howard: We've had guards decide to eat and go hunting deer, only to get arrested for attacking something. Then they fight back against the arresting guard, while the other guards see a fight and try to join in. It was guard mayhem. We've also had NPCs go around stealing and buying up everything in town so that there was nothing left to buy.

So we built a very generic system that allows NPCs to think for themselves. But we're scaling back on parts of it, because sometimes it creates a situation that isn't really fun for the player, like finding nothing in the stores.

Xbox.com: What are the main differences in movement and transportation in the new game, as opposed to Morrowind?

Howard: The biggest one is that you can instantly fast-travel to any location you've already been to, plus all of the major cities, even if you haven't been to them. It makes getting around the world a lot faster, and the game a lot more fun.

Getting around quickly is no longer an issue at all, but it still rewards a player who just goes out and explores, since you can find new fast-travel spots, whether it's a small camp, a woodland tavern, or a new dungeon.

Xbox.com: How has combat, both armed and unarmed, been improved and expanded since Morrowind?

Howard: This time we've realized how much combat people really do in a game like this and we've made getting it right more of a priority. We did three whole new combat systems before settling on the one that's in the game now.

We really are striving to capture the kinetic energy of guys bashing each other with swords, and do it right, because no one has yet. So it plays better and it looks better. You're in control of it more.

There are special moves you can perform, and the blocking is active. So the timing of it becomes a key strategy in fighting. It's also bloody. Not from a standpoint that we want lots of gore, but I think that when you really smack someone with a sword, you expect a certain amount of blood to come spewing out.

Xbox.com: What challenges, if any, have you faced in creating combat and magic systems that work equally well on the PC and on the next Xbox?

Howard: None, really. The game itself has more action than our previous titles, so it translates even better across platforms.

Xbox.com: How will characters improve their skills and abilities in the game? Have the core rules of The Elder Scrolls system changed in any significant way? Will trainers still allow you to turn gold into skills?

Howard: You still improve your skills by using them. There are changes, but not as many in this area. I think the skill-based leveling system works very well. It's fun and rewards you for actually roleplaying.

We've tweaked it—there are different skills and such—and the balance is better, but it will still be a "use-based" system. As far as trainers, you can still buy skill points, but we limit it to only a few per level, so you can't level-up with money, but you can still help yourself.

Xbox.com: What's new and improved about the magic system? What has remained the same?

Howard: It's all new, much easier to use, and a much more powerful way of playing through the game. We've integrated it with combat so you have separate buttons for casting vs. attacking vs. blocking. It feels great and you can switch between all three quickly. The basic idea of magic being a mix of effects remains from our previous games.

Xbox.com: Fantasy RPG characters often fall into variations on wizard, warrior, thief, and healer. If Oblivion lets players create heroes that don't necessarily pack a lot of fighting hardware, how do these character types survive in the game?

Howard: The only tricky one there is the healer, because this is a game where you get attacked a lot, and there's a lot of killing, some of which is unavoidable. We have made hand-to-hand combat more viable, as it damages an opponent's health and fatigue, so it becomes a fun and different way of handing out a beating.

Xbox.com: Classes were more like suggested guidelines in Morrowind. Do you offer gamers suggested and customizable classes this time around?

Howard: Yup.

Xbox.com: What different races are going to be available in Oblivion? How many different character models per race are planned? How can players customize their unique heroes?

Howard: You'll have the base 10 Elder Scrolls races, from humans to elves to beasts.

As far as character models, it's limitless. Our facial system is procedural, so you can create any kind of face you can imagine. It's like molding clay. You can age the face. You can also separately choose your hair style, length, and color. So you get a very wide range of character faces. Every single NPC has a unique face, too.

Xbox.com: Though the game is single-player only, do you have plans to include Xbox Live™ functionality of any sort in the game? Will there be content downloads or Xbox Live Aware, that sort of thing?

Howard: Yes and yes. Xbox Live Aware, and we're going to go crazy with downloads. We had it working for Morrowind with plug-ins on the Xbox, but it never made it in. We hope to really take that far on Xbox 360.

Xbox.com: If you had to name a single goal that Bethesda has with Oblivion, what would it be?

Howard: To create the quintessential RPG for the next generation.

[jonajosa]

[quote=Hukai The Wandering]

Xbox.com: Cyrodiil, the main setting of Oblivion, is a place new to gamers. If it were a place in the real world, how much real estate would we be talking about?[/color]

Howard: It's about 40 square miles—it's big.
[/quote]

Thats big. But keep in mind they are saying if it were in the real world. This is not the actual size.

[DoomedOne]

[harp harp] This should have been posted in the E3 thread[/harp harp]

[jonajosa]

I wish i could play the harp like you do doomed...

[Rane]

Seeing as there is a link to this interview in the E3 thread I don't think we need another topic about it.

If you feel like discussing it you can do it there.

http://forums.waiting4oblivion.com/viewtopic.php?t=335

And here's a link to the interview:

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/e32005/devinterv...18-oblivion.htm