d00d, n0 wai

That's pretty awesome - some of my favourite quests in that list. Although unfortunately I've never been able to force myself to hunt down all those damn Nirnroots or Quantums, you sadist!

I have a couple of questions. Did you prefer working in the Capital Wastelands, somewhere based on a real place with real references and landmarks, or Tamriel, where you can create anything from your imagination? Do they hand out fishysticks at the Beth HQ door?

Sorry if it was already asked but if you didn't work in the game industry what job/position would you see yourself in?

I hope you guys aren't working in a horror environment that some people that left the industry claimed to have experienced. I've seen an ex-dev say you're better off as an indie developer rather than working in a major developing studio pushed by a huge publisher; the too-well-know situation where someone that doesn't have a clue about what you're doing and the effort it takes running the show.. I'm a programmer and I'd love to work in the industry but after reading some of the horror stories I'm beginning to have second thoughts lol.

They told you at the end of your interview? Had they already decided to hire you, or did they tell every applicant (if there were others) that they were making TESV? Wouldn't it be leaked if they did...?

I'm obviously missing something :facepalm:

Hmmm, that's an excellent question. I'm going to take the coward's way out and say both actually. For different reasons. I liked working in Tamriel because of exactly what you said... all of the locations are not "real world", so the sky's the limit. There's nothing more fun than sitting down at an empty sheet of paper and making a world appear.

But, on the flip side, it was really fun to revisit an area that I know quite well and use that to a design advantage.

It all depends on where you work. I was at EALA right after the infamous "EA Spouse" environment -- it was actually really good at that point (probably because they were so hyper-aware of the problem), but I also heard lots of horror stories from the veterans. It's a problem with any creative industry, to be honest, and it requires smart scheduling and very sharp producers to avoid. We have both of those at Bethesda, so it's pretty good.

If I wasn't in the games industry, I don't know that I'd actually be employable anywhere else. Not much call for my skillset outside of games, but thankfully games exist (not just for paying my bills, but for spreading joy and happiness, and giving us all something to complain about other than how badly a movie adaptation will destroy the book).

I don't know. Can't see myself doing anything else really. Become a vagrant?

When you interview, you sign an NDA so they can talk to you about what they're doing. I've got all sorts of details about various in-development games that I did interviews for, but I like not having to deal with lawyers, so I keep my lips zipped. I'm sure folks around here are tired of me saying "oh, yeah, I interviewed for that project" right after a major announcement.

Do the code-monkeys ever come out of their caves to interact with the rest of you gameplay guys or do you just send them requests on new stuff and it magically gets committed to your code within a week?

We work very closely with all of the departments here. I spend a good deal of my time meeting with other developers in art, code, etc. There's no other way I could see doing it. Working on a project like this in a vacuum would be awful in my opinion.

What he said. Seems like one of the more common misconceptions about game development is that it's an assembly line. Code --> Design --> Art. The reality is that it's intensely collaborative and we're constantly working with new tech while finding bugs/requesting more features/getting preliminary art/etc.

Ah, of course. That's actually pretty cool. Maybe I should just go around getting interviews (as if it would be that easy ) at all my favorite developers so I can find out what they're working on :celebration:

So, what are some of the titles you heard about? Obviously, I only mean the ones that have been released and you can talk about them (if that is in fact how a non-disclosure agreement works - I'm not exactly sure :unsure: )

God dammit. I was hoping to be a clumsy giraffe (/reindeer) that kept bumping into and smashing crates

I have another question: If any of you have kids, what do they think of what you do for a living? Do you let them play the games you make?

Oof, I was at the Redwood City campus for six months in the early 2000's. Most people there worked six months, because over six months meant they had to pay benefits. Could have gone back the following year, but at that point I figured I had better things to do than 100+ hour weeks at a dollar over minimum wage. (At least they were fully compliant on overtime, so it was actually a boatload of cash... but, yeah.) And the veterans when I was there had even worse stories...


That, sir, is hardcoe.

My son thinks it's pretty cool what I do, but he's far too young to play M Rated games.

To all the Devs/concept artists: What do you want for xmas?

Have you guys at Beth payed attention at any acclaimed mod for OB that tweaked or changed it in any way (like Deadly reflex, Midas Magic, Nehrim even if it' a TC, capes and cloacks ecc ecc) and thought " Mmmh this is a nice idea, let's put it into Skyrim.."

The main thing I've heard was that new guys get hired, over-worked like hell (he said people were literally sleeping at work, they didn't even leave) and then let go because there are 10 other CVs for that very position. The ex-dev said it's a horrible practice because you're not holding on to any real talent that way, you're just taking advantage of people's enthusiasm.

@ slateman & SJML
Yeah that makes sense. I've read that it's a bad practice to separate the departments too much.

How does it feel to get the game out the door and see people's reactions (especially major successes like the TES games or the FO series)?

REST.

Amazing. When I was at the local midnight release for Fallout 3 at Best Buy, it was utter chaos... very surreal. It was like being at a rock concert. I think that was the first time I realized the effect our work has on people. It's both exciting and almost humbling at the same time.

Yup. That's why the average career in the games industry is only about five years long. Seems a lot longer at Bethesda, which is the sign of a good company -- people want to stay.

Steed Malbronque or Paulo Wanchope?

@ SJML
Good... I know on what door to knock if I make the jump

No kids of my own, but I do a bunch of volunteer stuff with kids and some of them are awesomely impressed with what I do. Of course I always make sure that their parents understand the rating systems and recommend appropriate content.

Wow that's awesome, the fallout 3 quests were some of my favorites and I've done them 3 or 4 times at least :tongue:

I never managed to complete the nirnroot quest :shrug: even though I looked up a map of nirnroot locations and there were tons of them. Way more than you needed to complete the quest. I like those quests actually, because you can just casually work on them by playing the game. Anyway I've got a continuation of the question if you don't mind. What parts of these quests did you make/write/work on. Are you a writer? And how do you actually make those quests? Does one man/woman do several things like make up all the characters and the setting and the story and the backgroundstory and the rewards? Or is it all divided into several tasks performed by different people?

I'm really curious to how you guys make all those quests :tongue: