Chris Weaver on a games discussion panel at MIT back in 2000

Post » Sat Jan 22, 2011 6:05 am

While looking for something on the Daggerfall letter opener mentioned in the other thread, I stumbled upon http://web.mit.edu/cms/games/popculture.html transcript of a "Games as Popular Culture" discussion panel that Chris Weaver was a member of back in 2000. The whole thing's a somewhat interesting read, but near the end there's a story from when Daggerfall was released about how they were getting letters from elderly people about how much they loved just exploring the world, and how that influenced how they were making their next game. Before that he also speaks about how they developed Wayne Gretzky Hockey.

There's more on Daggerfall and such, but here's the most relevant bit:
We started getting letters. The first letter we got was from this woman named Mildred who was 79 years old. Mildred had osteo arthritis. Severe osteo arthritis and she lived in an old age home. She had been a world traveler when she was younger. She loved going on cruises, she loved exploring the world. And somebody in her family had given her Daggerfall and said here, grandma, try this. And grandma not only tried it, grandma fell in love with it. And the reason was that we had created a world in which there was no absolute expectation that you had to do anything. If you chose to walk the world and to simply interact with interesting people with whom you happened to come upon, that could be your world. And what she wrote us about was how she and a number of the other people in this home had been turned onto this game where they basically chose to be things like priests or they had some slight magical stamina to give them the ability to walk and do things. But they didn't arm themselves and they didn't strengthen themselves and they weren't interested in slinging magical amulets at one another. They wanted to explore the world. And that's what they did. We thought initially this is one very sweet old lady. Then we started getting other letters. We got so many letters from people who were over the age of 65 that we created a whole separate category in a file cabinet to look carefully at what these people were telling us. Because clearly what they were doing with our game was something we had never intended as the designers and yet were totally blown away of their interest. Mildred wrote us, I think, five or six letters. And in one of her letters she told us, and mind you, of course she was probably lonely and she wanted to write a letter, but nevertheless she knew so much about Daggerfall. You know, I went to the elfin cottage and I turned left and walked down the road and I came upon the most wonderful brook and I sat there for an hour and I watched the fish occasionally jump out of the water and the birds fly by. [LAUGHTER] I want to tell you something, it was an eye opener to us. It was a part of culture we had never before given serious consideration. And we do now. Our next version of this, something called Merwin, will in fact take this into account. They have changed forever the way we are looking at some of the games that we're creating. We are designers. We will build the playground and we will supply you the tools. And we will not tell you all the rules. We will no longer make all the rules. They've changed what we do in our game. And hopefully we will change the way that they use it.

I feel the bolded bit basically defines what gamesas were trying to do with Morrowind, and it's one of the things I loved most about it.
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Andres Lechuga
 
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Post » Sat Jan 22, 2011 2:07 am

I guess some of these grandmothers and grandfathers who loved Daggerfall also enjoy Morrowind and Oblivion but not exactly for the same reasons. :P
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An Lor
 
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Post » Sat Jan 22, 2011 2:40 am

That's wonderful. Now if Bethesda could just return to those roots instead of descending deeper into the FPS/action-adventure quagmire of cliche gimmicks...
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Saul C
 
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Post » Sat Jan 22, 2011 5:08 am

How'd these people get out of Privateer's Hold? :P

It's amusing how they also apparently have very active imaginations. That description near the end reminds me of some of the Daggerfall-themed dreams I've had.
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Luis Reyma
 
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Post » Fri Jan 21, 2011 10:35 pm

This is a very refreshing thing to hear concerning the elderly and video games. Normally, when I think of the two, I imagine that they are too unsavvy with compters to run the software and play the game (Ex: my dad), or they think that it's some kind of monster that is turning our generation into a bunch of slackers (albeit true, this talk is not constructive). It is amazing to hear anyone (especially the elderly) pick up a video game and have a good'ole' fun time with it.
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JUan Martinez
 
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Post » Fri Jan 21, 2011 9:04 pm

I've had similar sentiments to Daggerfall...It's a great big world...a huge world...And even though it's not very interactive outside of fighting, shopping, dungeoneering, questing, and mercantiling...There is indeed a charm that other Elder Scrolls games lack.

I think it's because of the way time flows...months come and go...holidays pass...The time restraints on quests...some of the nature of the quests...It almost feels more...alive than the other games.
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hannaH
 
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Post » Sat Jan 22, 2011 6:20 am

Does this mean that we have elderly Daggerfall players to thank for the existence of the Construction Set? either way, this reinforces my conviction that I will be able to spend my retirement in a much more fun way than generations without computers.
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Emma
 
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Post » Sat Jan 22, 2011 7:06 am

Yeah, we'll be really old...And Elder Scrolls 10 or so is out...And we'll still be contenting ourselves with Elder Scrolls 6: Summerset or something.
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Lizs
 
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