So, knowing that all Bethesda employees are sworn to secrecy about all things TESV, and there is no way to Jedi mind-trick Pete, what questions would you ask him if you had him on the phone for 5 minutes?

Please make them things he could actually answer (like questions about previous games etc.) but the questions could be used to gather information to speculate about TESV (like enhancements to the Gamebryo engine).

Why not make this hypothetical question about Todd Howard instead of Pete Hines? Hmm...

Eh...boxers or briefs?

More seriously... How would you like to see Quakecon shaped in the future to fit it more in line with Bethesda's vision?

What are some lessons learned from Oblivion that will help shape future game development?

Todd or Pete would probably know this stuff.

Are you adding any 3rd party tools in regards to animation implimentation into the engine, specifically what 3rd party apps?

(we know they are overhauling that section of the engine, cept nothing specific about it) working with naturalmotion?

What about normal mapping procedures, ever thought about changing over to use "swizzled" normal maps.... DXT5 NM? (as a modder, not that I really care if they would or not. I would just change workflow to suit)

That's all I got for now.

I like this one!



What are "swizzled" normal maps? Though the third party apps question is nice...

What sorts of technology have you came across since finishing up Fallout 3, and what sorts of technology are you borrowing from Id?

What did you and your team learn from Oblivion and, later, from Fallout 3?

Do you plan to use Quakecon in the future, and, if so, what sort of event do you want to see it turn into? How helpful has Id been in this planning, and do they agree with making QuakeCon the same sort of event Bethesda wants it to be?

And speaking of Quakecon, you think it is possible to prevent the event from ever happening again like it did last year?

Also, in retrospect, how much does one learn from making Fallout 3 as well as if there is any indication as to what would be use to make TES V?

Doom3 introduced the technique. basically the R channel is dumped into the the alpha channel. because they offer higher bitdepth in those channels. what would have been in the Blue channel is reconstructed by the renderer.
its slightly better looking, dxt compression kills normal maps pretty bad. this all sone in an attempt to make them better quality on screen without performance cost. Although 3dc is supposedly better.. for some reason I think its for dx10....but could be worng about that.

Great questions, Orzorn.

We've seen a great increase in quality of DLC thanks to fallout 3, unfortunately we saw no expansions. Is Bethesda planning to continue this procedure, or is it still as likely that we could see either?

Word on the street is that RAGE is being shipped with a "construction set" how easy would TES or Fallout 3 modders find the program to use?

I'd ask...

Do you even play video games anymore? Do hire people to play video games to pluck out ideas that you can use? Like, oh, you know, doors and containers actually opening when they are activated.

Will you always provide a retail disc for your DLC for people who won't or can't download 'em from the internet?

Why did you decide to have people pay for TESIV DLC when TESIII's DLC was free?

Why is your post-release support for your games so poor?

Are you ashamed that modders make better content than you do?

Does it trouble you that people keeping confusing Bethesda Softworks with Bethesda Game Studios, and thus think poorly of BGS when they see that you've published a piece of trash like Rogue Warrior?

Why the hell did you publish Rogue Warrior?! Didn't you know it was too crappy to sell much of anything?

EDIT: Oh! One more.

Who had the bright idea for horse armor anyway?

WIN.

Wow. Calm down. No need to turn this into a flame fest.

It's good to take a deep breath from time to time.

Many of them were valid questions, though...

I could see some of them being good... and others not so good. But all of them were legitimate. I don't share the same feeling about some of them, since I have played a slew of games that had no post release support, and the fact that the construction set and modders are a part of the overall post release life of TES is wonderful... and yeah we got the horse armor, but we also got Shivering Isles...

If I do get 5 min to talk to Pete though, I'll want to ask just a couple key questions that will at least help me gain some insight into where Bethesda is headed and what I can expect out of them in their next release.

Five minutes with Todd sounds like a perverted party game, or something Princess Stomper would love.

How many people are currently actively working at BGS?

How closely do you work with Valve in regards to the Steam network? Will future BS or BGS products feature steam achievements or other forms of integration beyond the basic support and distribution seen with previous titles?

Can you explain again for the public that BGS is not working on an MMO title, that that is the domain of ZOS? (just to help clear this one up in public)

You've never played Five minutes with Todd? Sheesh, you must be like the last person alive. Todd throws some really big parties...

When will obliviondownloads.com be up and running again?

It already is... they redirected it to their Online Store:

http://orders.gamesas.com/

I decided to delete the content of my post. *Sigh*... never post when you're tired, cranky, and full of nerd rage .

1: dollars. cha-ching

2: when you sign contracts with M$ to get DLable content on Xbox market place... Well I'm seeing an obvious connection.

1) Have you been busy?
2) Have you put thought into being more careful with new features?
3) Will there be pauldrons?

This was because Microsoft has a policy concerning DLC with Xbox Live and requiring the game producer to charge a fee for their DLC. So you can imagine the dilemma, since they wanted to release DLC but had to do it for a price with Microsoft's Xbox Live policy. So they charged for both the PC DLC and Xbox. Here is an exerpt from wikipedia concerning the matter:

Criticism of Microsoft

Microsoft has especially borne the brunt of criticism regarding downloadable content.

Microsoft has since then been known to force developers to release their content at a charge, when the developers would rather release their content for free. Some content has even been withheld from release because the developer refused to charge the amount Microsoft required. Epic Games, a developer known for continual support of their older titles with downloadable maps and updates, believed that releasing downloadable content over the course of a game's lifetime helped increase sales throughout, and had succeeded well with that business-model in the past, but was forced to implement Microsoft's strategy of fee-based downloads when releasing content for their Microsoft-published game, Gears of War.

ME 2 got around that a bit by adding waivers to the new games sold and having their own sub-network updated still acting under the Cerberus Waiver and made stuff indirectly free.

So if Beth charged for the regular 'Mod / DLC server' but gave a code for new copies or for registration M$ could get the middle finger.

[] if that made sense...
Just saying.

Forget the phone! It's 5 minutes in a dark alley you want. He'll soon start talking then! :ph34r:

If I could talk to anyone at Bethsda Game Studios, I'd want to ask: Do they think that not employing dedicated writers is still viable? Would they consider any applications? and What qualifications would be necessary?

Also what do the rest of the company think of the novels? although that one would probably not get an answer.