I can't wait to shout fire in the face of NPC's in the middle of a city and/or tavern.

Holy Cow! You are awesome! thanks! :read:

Thanks for this, it was a good read!

Another member over here.

He sure does love saying "you know".

Thanks a million!!!! =)

Thank you! After reading the discussions, and then actually reading what was said, I can see a lot of people were hearing things wrong/what they wanted to here. Glad I KNOW what was said for myself, thanks to you my friend!! Next interview that comes out, we'll all be waiting for you!

Much as I love hearing/reading about anything Elder Scrolls related, and love hearing Todd, reading this transcript kept reminding me of Rainman. Must have been all the er, uh, tch, and repeating words.

Great job, man, was a cool read. Very informative.

Sorry bro, had a hard time reading it so I filtered it a bit.

=== === === === === === === === === ===

So first of all, we love that people love Morrowind, that was another game I directed, so I view each game as its own thing, and the vibe were going for in the Morrowind was "Stranger in a strange land that it felt alien."; that feel wrong for Skyrim, right. Skyrim should not feel like this isolated alien place the way we treated that section of Morrowind, .

Oblivion in Cyrodiil, we did, coming off from Morrowind, we wanted to go back to the more classic fantasy, so if you look at the elderscrolls, between Arena, Daggerfall and Oblivion, Morrowind is the odd one out. One of the things that is really great about Morrowind, and the reason, we loved it as well is that there is this, the wonder of discovery in Morrowind, is heightened, because of how it's delivered.

So what are we trying to do with Skyrim is walk that line, so at first glance, it does come across as, traditional fantasy, but then the culture of the world, we do have, Dwarven ruins are back, in this game, how the different, Nordic cultures view certain things, when it is different, even in different parts of this world, much like in Morrowind, where, House Redoran and Telvanni would treat things differently, we have that differently between the various holds in Skyrim.

So we are trying to walk that line, where we have that wonder of discovery and that unique culture in Skyrim, but also make it appropriate to what Skyrim should be in the elderscrolls, just like I think Morrowind was appropriate for what it was.

I mean the graphic style that you saw today is the graphic style of Skyrim, but you didn't see everything in Skyrim, as far as, the different landscapes, the different dungeons and things like that, so it does vary it up quite a bit.

Are you going to get things that are alien as the Telvanni in Morrowind? No, no, it is different, different style for that game. The last elderscrolls thing we did was Shivering Isles, and it's pretty. It gets pretty alien, I would, I would never rule it out. We just kind of do what, what we are excited about for that time, and what we thing as appropriate, visually, for the game we are doing, and we do think, no matter what happens in the future, we'll treat each game as its own entity, and we are perfectly comfortable with people arguing over it, you know.

I've no doubt, people will play this game, no matter how much you put into it, they'll say, I like Oblivion better, I like Daggerfall better, I like Morrowind better, because each can have their own tone, and thing that they all do well, and thing that they won’t do as well as another game, for one reason and another.

There is always more fidelity, graphically, that you can put into something, so if you had a new system, that had more memory and pushed more polygons, the game would have a bit more detail on things, but honestly, with HD graphics now, we are able to make it look, the way, we'd, we'd want it to look. So things might, have more detail close up, but I think, environment-wise, twenty feet in front of you, it would probably look the same.

more speed would allow you to, to always put more detail, put more people on the screen, we won’t, we wouldn't have to make as many choices between, how many polygons or memory we would put in the environment vs the people, so our bigger cities, still have walls, that load you, so that if, if, were on a next-gen system, that might be something you wouldn’t have to do, memory-wise, to section that off.

But at the end, the experience is kind of the same. You would be just walking smoothly into that city, as opposed to clicking the door, waiting for the load, and then going in. I don't know how, amm, I don't really dwell on these things, to be honest, like what we, we can do this, and we can't do this. Some kind of thinking on by feet, thing that we could do, for the most part, the list that we made of technical features that we wanted after fallout three, we got all those done and then kept going; we got more done technically than we had planned on.

most of the things you are gonna get out of a new console are mostly graphical, so right now, we are able to do, whatever we can design, and have time to code, and balance, and those kind of things, roleplaying-wise, stats systems, AI, relationships, dynamism, all that stuff, we are able to get it all done, and the hardware isn't holding us back, in any way.

there are a lot more traps, you saw a few traps there, we've gone a long way with traps, Andwtsf:), they are a lot of fun, so there are a lot more of that, and, and special puzzles, with things like that, when it comes to like the kind of more, adventure gamery? Puzzles that you saw there? I don't, I don't know the exact number, to be honest, more than we've done before, that is the best way to say it.

We are currently around a hundred and twenty, which is a lot, and then we have, what we call "POIs, Points of interest", like, little mini, encounters, that we have outside that might just be an altar with some necromancers around it, something like that. Umm and there is, hsskkhh, there is well over a hundred of those, at last count, I don't have an exact number of that either. The numbers get so big that we stop counting, these kind of things, a lot, yeah.

So the giants have their own camps, and for some other creatures that are like natural creatures, and they roam and do stuffs, they are just what they are, whether it's wolves, and deer, and elk, and they have their little dens, but we don't, we haven't spent a lot of time, on how they live.

When it comes to like giants, the Draugrs that you saw, we have some other creature types we are not talking about yet, we've really not got into like just, "OK, this is who they are.", but then, where do they live, how do they live, what's all the clutter that goes with that, tchk.

So when you see giants in the game, there are often with Mammoths, we didn't show that today, but we will in the future, and their camps, and their fires, and how their dress themselves, things like that, we've really got into to make it believable, as opposed to just, "Here is a creature and they walk around and they attack you.", so there will be the, the difference, and, and there are obviously some creatures that are more important than others, that have gotten more attention. and in the future we will be showing more of the creatures and more of, how they, how they live and where they live.

Aah, gods of the elderscrolls, are still the gods of the elderscrolls, whether they are, they are the Aedra, the, the eight nine divines, or the Daedra, they are all, not all, a lot of them making an appearance again, and that's part of what's cool about elderscrolls, so even if you know this game is not Oblivion, still the presence of Oblivion, being this, other place that has multiple planes of existence, and gods, they rule over them, not gods, Daedra, that's still a big part of this world.

I do not want to spoil it, but, that is the place we get to do, probably, historically, all most interesting quests, the ones that feel really unique, when you get into this really high fantasy, kind of, activities, they do end up being some of the most fun stuff, and then their rewards end up being some of the best.

Ahh, the land mass is about the same size as Oblivion, it plays that the flow of that is a bit different because of the mountains, so even now a mountain takes up, x space, you can't just like, run like through it, because it's a mountain, you have to make your way up through it, so that those, locations with mountains end up being, longer place basemants, than their equivalent in Oblivion. but we like the size of Oblivion was good thing to shoot for, as far as how much space there was for the players to absorb.

So we do have the ten races we had in Oblivion, and it is just those ten again, I, we feel that's enough, and, we are more interested in making those ten feel different from each other than adding, adding new ones. and so the kind of things, we are, like where this race come from, and this price of things we could do, were happy with those ten races.

and there is, the racism you saw in Morrowind, Cyrodiil gets less of it, because it's kind of melting pot of the races, and where it is, Skyrim, you are getting back to, this is the, this is the province of the Nords, and even if the other races make appearances, they don't like elves, they are the original home of man, and they think, men vs our elves, the mer, men are, are the ones who should rule Tamriel, not, not elves, so there is this, conflict between that, so soon that does come into the play, some of that leads in the quests, and there is the theme for the quests, but a lot of it, , depending on the race you pick, it's, it's flavor more than it is locking you off from one thing or another.

And there is the sneak skill, and the stealth, you sort of saw it during where I, you get bonuses for attacking guys, when you are hidden, there is the eye ball that opens and closes, and if, if you played fallout 3, and looked, looked at, the stealth in that from Oblivion, it really goes into different states in fallout three, between caution, and danger, and, so there are multiple states that the enemies go into, ok, so they have heard something, they are gonna try to, they are on search pattern, and trying to find you, haven't seen you yet.

And know when they go in, when they actually get toward seeing you, the eye ball starts opening, and it gives you time to adjust what you are doing, so what it says, we wanna avoid the, instant gotcha.

Here we have Radiant AI again, and we had it in Oblivion, were we would move the people, they could sleep, they eat, they walk around, they never actually did anything, they just went places and stood there, maybe they ate, or laid down, generally we find we need a visual to go along with that, an animation, they are doing, they are working, ok, is this guy a cook? he should be cooking, and we've built that system for, making armor, making weapons, cutting wood, working in a mine, cooking, there is, working on leather.

And all of these things and, and activities that we can have NPCs do, we've built them all, so that you can do them as well, so they fff, the people, the world feel alive, and they have jobs and they are doing those things, but they want to leave that, so they are gonna ask you, "Hey go chop wood.", and that same suit of animations and everything works for the player, and this is kind of like fun little diversions.

They are not even mini-games, they are just things you go up, and you click on, and your guy does it, some of those would open up menus, like when you want to cook, ok, here is all the food you have, here is the things you could make, so not only we do have raw versions of all the meats, we have cooked versions of all the meats, we have raw salmon, we have cooked salmon, we have rabbit, and, and so forth, they are just fun diversions for the player, while also making the other characters feel, just feel more real, they feel more alive.

Ahh, what I can tell you is there is crafting for each of the, major disciplines, so the, the magic crafting one is enchanting, where you make your magic items, the combat one is smithing, making your own armor and weapon and improve them, and then we moved alchemy for us, kind of into the stealth, that Ranger wow of going into the forest and making potions, so that for us in this game is the stealth's crafting one.

And enchanting for, I mean alchemy, really is something we can take advantage of in this game, like, like we did in Oblivion, because we have these forests and this collection aspects, we are not quite talking about alchemy yet, how it works, but it does, it does work a bit differently, than Oblivion, in some interesting ways.

Alchemy, smithing, and enchanting are skills, and so you'll, you'll level up by doing those things, and you'll, you are also going to create the most interesting items you are going to create, coming out of those, vs. cooking, or chopping wood, or those kind of things.

Ahh, the easy answer is, it is just more man power and more time, our level design staff and our art staff is bigger, and they, have really taken to making these all unique, so obviously with that number, these is gonna be some game-play things, or things that we do that, repeat, but not in the same way, visually, and design-wise, each of the dungeons plays out differently.

Some of those are tiny, so that number is very big, I'd say, at least half of those are small, you go in, you come out, it might have been fifteen minutes, but you feel like you, like you've accomplished something. And they range from that to the, one to two hours epic dungeon.

we try to make each time, the, the ultimate warrior game, the ultimate wizard game, and the ultimate thief/stealth game, we wanna to pay off on all those play styles, guilds will ever do that, but they are, they're different from what we've done before, but we still want to pay off on people who wanna, perform those roles.

OK, added it to OP.

How dare you use my hard work for your own benefit! (kidding)

Thanks guys, and I cannot help myself with such a kind of act.


You bet!

And I have added a refined version of your filtered version of my, umm... You know. Phew.

Dear god, even in the 'refined filtered' text, each paragraph is one run on sentence. Throw some periods in there!

Still nothing on hand to hand combat though.

Nice. Thanks.

holy crap thats crazy

Thanks.

Yeah I know, I really want to hear about this as well.

Couldnt stop laughing while reading the original, Im far too gutter minded.

There are rabbits! :celebration: My life is complete now!

It's, um, well, you know, ahh, lovely!

But seriously, thank you sooo much for transcribing it - I won't have to watch the interview all over again and again just to refer to a tiny bit of information somewhere in the middle. And I may be a little weird, but I like it even with all these 'ums' and 'you knows' - it adds flavour

I commend your dedication. :thumbsup:

I like the umms and the errs... it sorta helps you understand how Todd feels about these things.

Link here, lol: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=db-o_HrpC-0

Thanks, folks, and I have added another part to OP, "my interpretation of some of the more interesting parts of his speech".