Dear Bethesda, and also Elder Scrolls Community.

I hope this message finds you well. And perhaps it can bring some light on the subject within the community and bring some discussion to this topic.

This is something that has been on my mind since before Skyrims big reveal. It is regarding Bethesda's games and the Gamebyro engine not being Machinima friendly. And now the brand new Engine that Skyrim is running off.

Machinima itself has grown a lot over the years, and from what I've seen it pretty much acts as a free form of advertising for developers. From this we've seen many developers beginning to cater to this type of fan-fiction. A good example would be Halo 3's Replay Tool and Rockstar Games' Social Club and similar Replay tool which allows us Machinimists to rewind a particular scene and re-capture it at all sorts of speeds and camera angles with ease. It's no denying the fact that some of the game developers have seen the potential here and are making tools for us to use which make the process more accessible for new people. The amount of Halo and GTAIV Machinimas compared to all the Bethesda ones speaks for itself.

I've received emails, comments, and PM's over the years from hundreds of people saying they discovered and bought your games because of my videos. And I'm sure this is the case for all the other Machinimists out there who are doing the same thing with your games.

From my experience Bethesda's games have been some of the worst games to work with for Machinimists like myself. It gets particularly buggy when tickered with too much and the amount of things you can actually get NPC's to do is very small. In one of my series, DC Chronicles, I have to put masks over all the characters faces and if not, turn the camera away when I want them to talk because the process you have to go through to actually get their facial expressions to work is complicated and time consuming. Where as in a game like GTAIV there is a single button I can press on my keyboard and the character will move their mouth and perform all sorts of facial expressions. Yeah, you could argue that If I don't like it I can simply start making more GTAIV videos and no more Fallout/Elder Scrolls videos. But personally, I find the open worlds in your games far more interesting and theres a lot more potential for storytelling.

All I'd like to ask is that you guys could put some faith into all of the Machinima we create and the fans who enjoy watching it. I'm sure if Skyrim had better Machinima support there will be more people making these kinds of videos and without a doubt your games will be a little more exposed.

Thank you. Discuss?


:hehe:

Hmm... This is surprisingly something that hasn't been discussed very much here. I dunno, maybe it's just because the RPG and machinima crowds don't overlap a whole lot, but no one seems to discuss TES machinima too often.


Well, lets hope it does have some better support. I doubt it will just because the game is so single-player centered, though.

I'd rather they focus on making a great game. If they have time to make it easier for people to make videos, great, add it in, it can't hurt. But otherwise I'd prefer a game I love to play and dedicate hundreds of hours to instead of a game that has lots of cool videos on youtube, but isn't as good as I hoped.

I love watching Machinima from all types of games and now that you mention it can't really recall ever seeing a TES one. Here's to hoping things are easier for you in Skyrim, would love to see some good Machinima come out of that. There are a lot of very creative people out there.

Just being able to manipulate the camera better would be great

Bethesda shouldn't be catering to anyone, they should be making a great game. Modding, making machinimas (machinimii?), etc. is secondary.

I must say, your DC chronicles were some of the most well done I've seen to date, I find it interesting that you had such an issue with regards to mouth movement when you were able to get the NPC's to do so much more, that seemed like the smaller things really, but Mine are hands that delve into Oblivion than would FO3 and NV so i wouldnt entirely know.

thats a bit much to be honest BUT with the recent trailer being something far sixier than all of Oblivions Trailer, I think you might have more ease with it. all of Oblivions trailers were first person where as Skyrims first trailer prosttuted out angles and view points, pans, zooms etc etc so that MAY be a sign.

There are some great TES Machinima's out there. But a lot of people turn to other games for their Machinima because Gamebyro is notorious for being difficult to work with.



Not exactly the response I was hoping for. I see this kind of attitude in a lot of suggestion threads - It's doesn't add anything to the discussion and isn't constructive at all.



I share your same optimism. The trailer was amazing

Not sure what else I (we) could say. There will always be people who dislike an idea, and stating that opinion is as valid (in my mind) as voicing support.

For a long time I have seen the extreme importance of a modding community as it comes to a PC-centric game (yes, Oblivion was PC-centric) and I would fully be behind this sort of thing. One thing that always gets me is when it's utterly clear that a company has an established movie maker and chooses not to release it for whatever reason. Blizzard is probably the biggest example as it comes to WoW and all that, but there are others I could mention. Bethesda clearly has a movie maker since the guy in the trailer was definitely edited as an outside source, so the only thing they would have to do is tweak it and release it. I would totally be behind an Elder Scrolls movie maker to go with the construction kit.

It would be good, but I would dare say that so far there is no game out there that truly affords machinima makers the freedom required (eg: In Halo, you need to play a local game to be able to lower your guns and in TES or Fallout you can only have one character appearing at any one time).

And I would like to see it added as a feature, but not at the expense of other elements of the game.

Maybe, come TES VI, Bethesda will be able to add such a feature.

If you think that sounds like a long wait, just think about things this way:

There are a lot of people who could make Halo machinima if Bungie weren't so insistent that being able to lower your weapon in Xbox Live games is potentially exploitable.

How does machinima (sp?) get around the copyrights? I would have thought copying stuff from games music movies etc is just against the law without written permission?

Game first, machinima second.
I mean, sure, it'd be great, but I want absolutely nothing sacrificed for something I have no interest in for it's sake.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Egger3rd#grid/user/25343C55C49D0CF4

I've never really watched any machinima. It's really not an important aspect for me.

I don't think you're getting it. You CAN make great Machinima with Oblivion. It's just one of the hardest games to work with. Hours of work in Oblivion can be done in minutes in a game like GTAIV.

I agree DC Chronicles is/was impressive but that's due to a lot of editing. I'd say Oblivion and FO 3 were fairly, but not catering to, well to the machinima crowd. But as most other machinima if you want it presented well you have to do a lot of editing. DC Chronicles made from FO 3 and Maple Kombat based off assets from MapleStory compiled by BannedStory are two standouts. I highly recommend them. Maple Kombat is interesting, nostalgic for the right fan, and fairly full of the right dose of internet humor. Both DC Chronicles and Maple Kombat are still being made and continue to improve each time. I do agree some new tools for the PC crowd should do well. Also the Creation Kit should be easier to work with. Edit: Ah, impressive. So your one of the guys behind DC Chronicles? Nice bud.

Because it qualifies as fair use. They give credit to the owner and aren't profiting from it.

Plus, machinima improves sales, so some companies encourage it. Hell, when Halo 3 came out and included the Forge and Theater, it was specifically to make machinima easier to produce.

Exactly. Though I don't expect Bethesda to develop something on the same scale as Forge and Theater. But it would be nice to have a little more than what previous games have had.

So you made the D.C. Chronicles. Excellent job, by the way. And I agree with you completely.

They all ready have the Creation Kit, it's just a matter of controlling AI and camera movement.

Do you have links to some of our elder scrolls machinima fan art?
I am curious.

On topic: yes, why not.
Could be made as options in the construction set.

I wouldn't mind recording, but whats the point of it in a non multiplayer game? Machinamas crowd is 99% COD kids who thinks spinning around and abusing auto aim to kill someone instantly is "pro". That crowd doesn't play TES.

Then you haven't watch Dakortha's DC chronicles, it uses FO3, which is single player, and done oh so well.

I'd love a video editor-like tool. Even if it's simple

Maybe the game could save positional timing data, and then you can fire up the editor and place/move cameras around the scene.