Several comments have recently emerged on these forums regarding the Vir2L & gamesas relationship and TES origins. This warrants an entry here on backgrounds.

It's important to understand that Vir2L and gamesas roots have more parallel than most people know. Vir2L is the wireless and handheld arm of ZeniMax Media (parent corporation of gamesas as well). We work in the same building, formulate strategy and planning together, use the same support staff, and eat from the same kitchen. I began my tenure as division director of Bethesda Softworks in 1997 until the company restructuring in 2000. At that time, I was selected to head Vir2L and was charged with pursuing new business areas and technologies. This lead to the present Vir2L focus of wireless and handheld console games.

Regarding key TES participations, of course any TEST game is overviewed by Todd Howard, executive producer of all things Elder Scrolls (and more).

Other key Vir2L members have interesting TES & gamesas origins. In the days of Battlespire and Redguard, I worked frequently with Todd Howard and others. At that time, TES teams included Mark Jones and John Pearson, who more recently were the core artists for Shadowkey. Both have significant Elder Scrolls background, and those familiar with TES history will recognize this. Their participation on Shadowkey was fundamental to our strategies. Mark Jones of course has been lead artist on all three TEST games.

Greg Gorden joined Vir2L in Stormhold & Dawnstar. I stumbled onto Greg, however it was quickly recognized by Ken Rolston (who had worked with Greg at West End Games) that Greg's participation was perfect and uniquely capable for TEST. Ken Rolston needs no TES introductions, I'm sure. Again, it was a TES/gamesas input that helped bring about an excellent creative resource. This has evolved into three products for TEST so far.

Vir2L team members may participate in future TES products, and for example, these could be for handheld console products under the banner of gamesas. This wouldn't be objectionable to anyone at Vir2L or gamesas. We pool our creative resources and energies, and draw from this common pool of talent. We all strive to make great games that we'd be proud of. Our goals are common: to build and expand upon our achievements and success and to help one another in the process. For their part, I'm thankful to gamesas for this open spirit.

Now, someone around this forum (myself) better get back to work on future products for you...Thank you for the air time.

I have question....what is the average age of people from your company?
Or what is range?

2Vir2l
Consider this official "I wanna join" post

Just asking

Most of us here at Bethesda are in our late 20's and early 30's.

Then there are exceptions like Ken!

thanks for the info Vir2Ldouglas

So I have some time:D
To complete school, start university studying and end university studying;) But I am afraid what technologies will be in market when I ll go out of school:)))

BTW I was alway wondering what programming language does the engine is written on ? It's definatly not Java 'coz it can only handle on pressed button at a time...

Java can do more things:D It's power is in simplicity. And in this times most widespread phones are s40, which have just J2ME. The most problems of Java are restrictions (u have not access into filesystem, ...), speed (Java bytecode is interpreted by JRE instead of apps written directly to OS), operating memory restrictions (240kB in s40) and JAR size limitation (65536 bytes in s40).

TEST is written in Symbian s60 and it uses C++. It is written directly to OS, so it is fast, powerful. S60 has much memory. And you arnt limited by size of your app (just by size of memory card). Handicap is, that result app is much much bigger then J2ME app, but it neverminds:D And programming is more difficult too...but more free too...

Ahh. Good old C++. Now I feel happy

Just wanted to notice that Shadowkey is written in C++. But Stormhold and Dawnstart are java games

Yeap. Knew that actually (about Stormhold and Dawnstar).

It is obvious for the first look:) In J2ME you can max do pseudo3D ala Wolfensteinf;)

Since the TEST games aren't available for my phone (LG u8110, UK), I haven't seen fit to poke my head in here before now... though I'd be intrigued to know if Vir2L have any plans to port TEST to other common phones?

Of course, if I had the time, I'd write me a little adventure game in J2ME (yesh, I'm a Java spod, though mostly applications rather than mobile stuff)

On another point, I was taken quite aback when I suddenly realised that the Ken Rolston had such input here! I've been an admirer of his work (especially regarding RuneQuest) for many a long year, and the realisation that this was the same guy responsible for such greats as Borderlands (amongst many others) came as something of a shock! Great to see he's still around designing wonderfully imaginative worlds over 20 years after I first had the pleasure of playing one of his games!

Regards,
Pauly
TheLys Admin-thingy, showing his age

It's quite impossible. S60 is a fully functional OS while normal phones don't have it. I think you can play Shadowkey on S70 and S80 too.

It's not about symbian, it's about java games like Stormhold and Dawnstar.

Ahh. Greg I think told that they may be avaliable from this site to purchase.