What did you all think about the Todd Howard interview? Honestly, I love this guy! Why? because he has the same vision of rpg's as me. Possibility to do anything ( well mostly) !!! This is why I really enjoyed TES 4!! In other rpg's, you can't do stuff like you do in Oblivion and it's not even possible in JRPG's!! For example, if I want to kill a random guy, I can! If I want to rob someone, I can!

Really can't wait for Skyrim!

He talked a whole lot about removing and merging things and not a lot about adding things. And he wants to design an RPG as Apple would. Luuulsies

You guys are taking things way too literal. He said that as a way to improve the product. He didn't say "I'm going to take out the best stuff and throw in crap." He's saying, "What do we need that is slowing us down that we can just incoporate somewhere else, or scratch it and come up with something better."

The guy has made millions. Obviously he knows what he is doing.

Edit: Didn't mean that to sound rude, just, I think they're really going to pull a gem out this time.

I know what he meant, thanks. And making millions /= knowing what you are doing.

On the other hand, Todd is still awesome.

Nah man, I wasn't trying to be rude. Sorry :\ Been at work since 8:00 AM this morning...still here for two hours. A little grumpy at this point. I didn't directly mean it at you either, just a lot of people have been bashing the interview, just wanted to throw my two cents back at 'em. :flamethrower:

I personally loved the interview.

Loved it. Todd is awesome. He is still such a down to earth dude. Definitely share his perspective on gaming..

Me too, it was good to get some behind-the-scenes information like that.

And the JRPG part made me laugh because it's so true, haha.

This just goes to the heart of the situation where people couldn't let themselves enjoy Oblivion, a great game, because they were too busy trying to find and seethe over what was "removed" from Morrowind. But in reality, there was almost nothing removed from Morrowind to Oblivion except a few armor slots, (which was done to eliminate over stacking of enchants that happened in Morrowind), Spears (which were a little strong and did need a little tweaking) and levitation (which if you made a half decent mage you would know how OP it was). There were a few other minor things removed but were replaced with more complicated systems and other things like mounts. But as for the 8 skills "removed", all but 2? of them were removed and the rest "removed" were actually just repurposed into the game or consolidated into other skills. The same goes for Skyrim. They are consolidating skills and repurposing skills and other systems into other parts of the game. They are all still there but they just don't function in the same way and are instead replaced with new systems.

Bah, I was the rude one. Perhaps I'm still bitterly heartbroken because of Todd's little "radiant AI" demo, haha

The bit where he talks about fans saying 'add spears, add crossbows, and add more races' pretty much sums up the difference between game designers and gamers. There are some clever people with clever ideas on these forums, but to see them you have to wade through eighty pages of 'man I hope in this one you can destroy any building and also there are no loading screens ever and you OWE US.'

I like Mr. Howard, and I generally agree with his ideas in the theoretical, even if I don't always like the results. He's charismatic and passionate. Contrast with, say, Josh Sawyer, who I honestly think is one of the most talented designers working, but it's obvious that he has had the idealism kicked out of him by the realities of the industry. Probably mostly awful publishers (and people saying 'man I hope in this one you can destroy any building and also there are no loading screens ever and you OWE US').

It made me realize that we woun't see anything really exotic for a long time - he is awfully concerned with keeping things "familiar" to the player, which makes me understand better why Oblivion turned out so bland and unimaginative in turns of environment, lore and culture.
And that we are going away form true RPGs - the rant about quests and two stats being enough to make the game an RPG and how a sport simulator is an RPG... I think someone got tired of RPG games bout woun't admit it even to himself, and is looking for a "way out" without actually getting out.
And it explained why New Vegas feels so much better than Fallout 3 did - it was made by the company that is setting out to make a proper RPG without waxing philosophy about the genres, and "what feels fun at the moment".

A few armor slots, spears, and levitation...and crossbows, thrown weapons, mark/recall/intervention spells, world transportation, unique non-quest artifacts (and artifacts in general), 2,000 or so NPCs, 5 or 6 factions, faction skill requirements, faction rivalry, vampire clans, werewolves, ability to delete spells, ability to fail at casting spells, ability to fail at alchemy, new in-game books, thousands of lines of dialogue, vocal variation between races, individual types of armor, individual types of weapons, unique non-quest dungeons, working mines/farms... (sorry, I just couldn't let that pass)

And as always Todd "I think an RPG is me riding around on a horse killing things" Howard never fails to disappoint. He wasn't so bad in these videos...he didn't make me cringe even once. It's obvious he read the forums after Oblivion was released which is a positive.