Post by Bravo 1 on Dec 9, 2004 16:09:50 GMT -5
Some interesting stuff in here...and some reasons for why some things were not in Morrowind...
"Early December 2004, a group of Elder Scrolls fans at the official forums decided to conduct an interview with the team of Oblivion, the next part in the Elder Scrolls series. They formulated twenty questions, and just contacted the developers. The result is this nice Q&A list, which will give more insight on the upcoming Oblivion game. Some questions are still left unanswered but hey, they still got more than a year to think about that
Enjoy reading, and we want to thank all people who helped on this interview session.
1. Will Oblivion retain Morrowind's linear quest concept for the main quest, or will it be possible to approach this from many different angles, changing the final outcome in the process?
Overall, the main quest is more linear than it is wide-open, but it does have sections where the actual goals for you become more open. As much as possible, we try to allow you to finish each quest in as many ways as possible. The actual very end is the same no matter what you did to get there. There are little things we can do well with our kind of game, like “get this item from this character” – especially now with our new AI system – where even something that simple opens itself up for tons of different gameplay options.
2. Altering the level of difficulty in Morrowind and its expansions was very simple. You slid one generic bar up and down and it increased or decreased the difficulty of some aspect of the game. In this next installment of the Elder Scrolls series will players have more control over specific aspects of the game?
Unknown right now, we do plan on having a difficulty slider that affects how easy and hard the game is. But how it does that has not been finalized. I'd be interested to hear people's opinions on that one. Would they like separate “damage” sliders vs. “skill use” sliders?
[glow=red,2,300]Good one for the fans to chime in about.[/qlow]
3. The TES series has always offered the player other options besides the main quest and side quests. Will Oblivion expand on that concept and offer other activities/professions?
I'd like to think we're expanding that idea. There is tons to do other than the main quest, and we hope that we've got a better handle on what kinds of things the player may want to do and how to deliver that. I don't know if I would say “expand” as much as “improve” the concept of freeform gameplay.
4. The population in Cyrodiil, the assumed main setting for Oblivion, is said to be ‘thousands upon thousands'. With such a small NPC bank, how do you plan on emulating this massive crowd?
With the number of NPCs we have (around 1000), it's dense. It's an insane number for us to pull off, so I can't say we're at-all concerned with the number of characters in the game. If anything, it's too many, but we always do that. All of our lore is obviously written as ideal, to say X province or city has so many people, but you can't always actually pull that off on screen, or even store it, so you try to create a scale that feels good in game, that plays well and is fun. So the scale of the terrain and the number of NPCs is always geared to the gameplay more than the lore saying how big or small something is.
5. In regards to the new Radiant AI system, it has been stated that NPCs will be able to think and react independently of scripts. Does this mean that a player could order an NPC to do something (if in the position of a guild head, etc.), or perhaps find a random unscripted quest due to independent NPC actions?
Yes, we can do those things. I'm not saying they are in there, and we're toying now with watching NPCs do things and how we can really get the player to affect that or have more fun with it, or even see it. So I won't give specific examples right now, but we'll be trying some similar things in places. I can tell you that our goal for the Radiant AI was the “Fargoth” quest in the beginning of Morrowind, which took some heavy scripting to get Fargoth to behave well, sneak around, steal the ring, put it in the stump, and such.
Our early goal for the Radiant AI was that kind of thing just “happening”, without any scripting. And it works - which is great. But if we didn't tell you what Fargoth was up to, you would have never noticed, or it would have looked really odd. Anyway, that's the stage we're at, we have the behaviors, and we're trying to maximize the player's perception of what's happening.
6. The armorer skill in Morrowind was limited to repairing objects; the bus 'stopped there'. Do the developers plan on expanding the abilities of this skills in Oblivion, and if so, how?
One of the things we're not ready to talk about.
7. In Morrowind beast races were restricted by their physical attributes from utilizing closed faced helms as well as boots, and were not given a boost in hand to hand attacks based on their claws. What, if any, special rewards are going to be awarded to beast races in Oblivion, to balance this lack?
Well, Oblivion handles those races differently in many respects, so I can't really talk yet about specific perks and such. Suffice to say, each race will have it's own perks, and they should all balance well.
8. How do you expect the Oblivion Magic system to differ from Morrowind's?
Another item, we're not ready to go into detail on. But I can tell you that we felt Morrowind magic was too weak, in terms of being able to use it as your sole way of playing the game. That was really a reaction to Daggerfall, which was too magic heavy. Anyway, our goal is that you could play the entire game just using magic, and have that balance the same way combat or stealth does. To really be successful playing Morrowind, you had to use weapons, and we want to avoid that.
9. In Morrowind it did not matter where you struck an enemy in melee combat; a hit was a hit, and the damage was determined independently of where your blow landed. In Oblivion will the point of a weapon's impact, on both armor and flesh, factor into a more or less devastating attack?
It won't. We did have that in Morrowind for a while and found it just made it too action heavy. That if you were good at it – you could easily go for the head and really kill people. And on the converse, if NPCs could do it to you and you would die faster. I think with this game, your character's appearance is almost as important as your stats, and some people simply like their character's look without a helmet. So we treat armor rating as one number for your whole body and the damage is based on that.
10. A developer recently stated, on the forums, that sneaking was going to get some 'tender-loving-care'. Is there anything you would be willing to share with us about these changes at this time?
That part of the game is working great, really good stuff we've been spending more time on recently. Emil Pagliarulo, who worked on the Thief series, has been working on that, and it's much more realistic, using light and shadow and how you are moving. It's always been tricky for us because you have physical things affecting sneaking, and then abstract things, like your character's skills, so I think we're getting a better balance of how that plays out and giving the player feedback on if they can be seen, and NPCs searching for you and you can hear them say things like “I know you're here somewhere…” kind of stuff.
"Early December 2004, a group of Elder Scrolls fans at the official forums decided to conduct an interview with the team of Oblivion, the next part in the Elder Scrolls series. They formulated twenty questions, and just contacted the developers. The result is this nice Q&A list, which will give more insight on the upcoming Oblivion game. Some questions are still left unanswered but hey, they still got more than a year to think about that
Enjoy reading, and we want to thank all people who helped on this interview session.
1. Will Oblivion retain Morrowind's linear quest concept for the main quest, or will it be possible to approach this from many different angles, changing the final outcome in the process?
Overall, the main quest is more linear than it is wide-open, but it does have sections where the actual goals for you become more open. As much as possible, we try to allow you to finish each quest in as many ways as possible. The actual very end is the same no matter what you did to get there. There are little things we can do well with our kind of game, like “get this item from this character” – especially now with our new AI system – where even something that simple opens itself up for tons of different gameplay options.
2. Altering the level of difficulty in Morrowind and its expansions was very simple. You slid one generic bar up and down and it increased or decreased the difficulty of some aspect of the game. In this next installment of the Elder Scrolls series will players have more control over specific aspects of the game?
Unknown right now, we do plan on having a difficulty slider that affects how easy and hard the game is. But how it does that has not been finalized. I'd be interested to hear people's opinions on that one. Would they like separate “damage” sliders vs. “skill use” sliders?
[glow=red,2,300]Good one for the fans to chime in about.[/qlow]
3. The TES series has always offered the player other options besides the main quest and side quests. Will Oblivion expand on that concept and offer other activities/professions?
I'd like to think we're expanding that idea. There is tons to do other than the main quest, and we hope that we've got a better handle on what kinds of things the player may want to do and how to deliver that. I don't know if I would say “expand” as much as “improve” the concept of freeform gameplay.
4. The population in Cyrodiil, the assumed main setting for Oblivion, is said to be ‘thousands upon thousands'. With such a small NPC bank, how do you plan on emulating this massive crowd?
With the number of NPCs we have (around 1000), it's dense. It's an insane number for us to pull off, so I can't say we're at-all concerned with the number of characters in the game. If anything, it's too many, but we always do that. All of our lore is obviously written as ideal, to say X province or city has so many people, but you can't always actually pull that off on screen, or even store it, so you try to create a scale that feels good in game, that plays well and is fun. So the scale of the terrain and the number of NPCs is always geared to the gameplay more than the lore saying how big or small something is.
5. In regards to the new Radiant AI system, it has been stated that NPCs will be able to think and react independently of scripts. Does this mean that a player could order an NPC to do something (if in the position of a guild head, etc.), or perhaps find a random unscripted quest due to independent NPC actions?
Yes, we can do those things. I'm not saying they are in there, and we're toying now with watching NPCs do things and how we can really get the player to affect that or have more fun with it, or even see it. So I won't give specific examples right now, but we'll be trying some similar things in places. I can tell you that our goal for the Radiant AI was the “Fargoth” quest in the beginning of Morrowind, which took some heavy scripting to get Fargoth to behave well, sneak around, steal the ring, put it in the stump, and such.
Our early goal for the Radiant AI was that kind of thing just “happening”, without any scripting. And it works - which is great. But if we didn't tell you what Fargoth was up to, you would have never noticed, or it would have looked really odd. Anyway, that's the stage we're at, we have the behaviors, and we're trying to maximize the player's perception of what's happening.
6. The armorer skill in Morrowind was limited to repairing objects; the bus 'stopped there'. Do the developers plan on expanding the abilities of this skills in Oblivion, and if so, how?
One of the things we're not ready to talk about.
7. In Morrowind beast races were restricted by their physical attributes from utilizing closed faced helms as well as boots, and were not given a boost in hand to hand attacks based on their claws. What, if any, special rewards are going to be awarded to beast races in Oblivion, to balance this lack?
Well, Oblivion handles those races differently in many respects, so I can't really talk yet about specific perks and such. Suffice to say, each race will have it's own perks, and they should all balance well.
8. How do you expect the Oblivion Magic system to differ from Morrowind's?
Another item, we're not ready to go into detail on. But I can tell you that we felt Morrowind magic was too weak, in terms of being able to use it as your sole way of playing the game. That was really a reaction to Daggerfall, which was too magic heavy. Anyway, our goal is that you could play the entire game just using magic, and have that balance the same way combat or stealth does. To really be successful playing Morrowind, you had to use weapons, and we want to avoid that.
9. In Morrowind it did not matter where you struck an enemy in melee combat; a hit was a hit, and the damage was determined independently of where your blow landed. In Oblivion will the point of a weapon's impact, on both armor and flesh, factor into a more or less devastating attack?
It won't. We did have that in Morrowind for a while and found it just made it too action heavy. That if you were good at it – you could easily go for the head and really kill people. And on the converse, if NPCs could do it to you and you would die faster. I think with this game, your character's appearance is almost as important as your stats, and some people simply like their character's look without a helmet. So we treat armor rating as one number for your whole body and the damage is based on that.
10. A developer recently stated, on the forums, that sneaking was going to get some 'tender-loving-care'. Is there anything you would be willing to share with us about these changes at this time?
That part of the game is working great, really good stuff we've been spending more time on recently. Emil Pagliarulo, who worked on the Thief series, has been working on that, and it's much more realistic, using light and shadow and how you are moving. It's always been tricky for us because you have physical things affecting sneaking, and then abstract things, like your character's skills, so I think we're getting a better balance of how that plays out and giving the player feedback on if they can be seen, and NPCs searching for you and you can hear them say things like “I know you're here somewhere…” kind of stuff.
"But some flowers are made of paper..." 
