So first of all, we eh, we love that people love Morrowind, you know, that was another game I directed, so you know, we, we, I view each game as its own thing, and the vibe we 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, um, hmm.

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, you know, we loved it as well is that there is this, the wonder of discovery in Morrowind, is, 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, you know, traditional fantasy, but then the culture of the world, umm, we do have, Dwarven ruins are back, in this game, umm, how the different, uh, Nordic cultures view certain things, um, when it is different, even in different parts of this world, umm, much like in Morrowind, where, you know, 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, uh, 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, um, 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, umm, so, umm, tchk, I, 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 think 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, um, because each can have their own tone, and things that they all do well, and things 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, ahh, you know, have more detail close up, but I think, environment-wise, you know, twenty feet in front of you, it would probably look the same.

Umm, tchk, you know, 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, ahh, 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, you know, we were on a next-gen system, that might be something you wouldn’t have to do, memory-wise, you know, 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. So I'm kind of thinking on my feet, thing that we could do, you know, 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.

You know, 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.

Umm, 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, umm, so there are a lot more of that, and, and special puzzles, ahh, with things like that, tchk, when it comes to like the kind of more, adventure gamery? Puzzles that you saw there? Umm, 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, you know, little mini, um, tchk, ahh, 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, umm, I don't have an exact number of that either. The numbers get so big that we stop counting, these kind of things, so, umm, ahh, 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, umm, you know, they are just what they are, whether it's wolves, and deer, and elk, and umm, 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, umm, 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, umm, 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, you know, the difference, and, and there are obviously some creatures that are more important than others, that have gotten more attention. Umm, and in the future we will be showing more of the creatures and more of, you know, 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, you know, 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, umm, so even if you know this game is not Oblivion, still the presence of Oblivion, being this, ahh, you know, other place that has multiple planes of existence, and gods, they rule over them, tchk, not gods, Daedra, umm, you know, that's still a big part of this world.

I do not want to spoil it, but, umm, that is the place we get to do, probably, you know, historically, all most interesting quests, the ones that feel really unique, ahh, when you get into this really high fantasy, kind of, ahh, 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, you know, 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, ahh, locations with mountains end up being, longer place basemants, than their equivalent in Oblivion. Umm, tchk, but we like the size of Oblivion was good thing to shoot for, ahh, 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, umm, I, you know, we feel that's enough, and, eh, we are more interested in making those ten feel different from each other than adding, adding new ones. Umm, tchk, and so the kind of things, we are, like where this race come from, and this price of things we could do, we were happy with those ten races.

Umm, and there is, err, you know, err, the racism you saw in Morrowind, you know, Cyrodiil gets less of it, because it's kind of melting pot of the races, and where it is, you know, Skyrim, you are getting back to, this is the, this is the province of the Nords, and even if the other races make appearances, umm, they don't like elves, you know, they are the original home of man, and they think, umm, men vs our elves, the mer, men are, are the ones who should rule Tamriel, not, not elves, so there is this, ahh, conflict between that, umm, 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, hmm, depending on the race you pick, it's, err, 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, umm, 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, you know, so there are multiple states that the enemies go into, you know, ok, so they have heard something, they are gonna try to, you know, 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, you know, 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, so, generally we find we need a visual to go along with that, you know, 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, ahh, you know, ahh, making armor, making weapons, cutting wood, ahh, working in a mine, umm, tchk, cooking, there is, err, you know, umm, 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, umm, tchk, we have raw salmon, we have cooked salmon, we have rabbit, and, and so forth, so, umm, they are just fun diversions for the player, while also making the other characters feel, err, just feel more real, they feel more alive.

Ahh, what I can tell you is there is crafting for each of the, umm, major disciplines, so the, the magic crafting one is enchanting, where you make your magic items, umm, 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, you know, 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, err, 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, so, ahh, we are not quite talking about alchemy yet, how it works, but it does, umm, it does work a bit differently, ahh, than Oblivion, in some interesting ways.

Alchemy, smithing, and enchanting are skills, and so you'll, you know, you'll level up by doing those things, and you'll, umm, 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, you know, our level design staff and our art staff is, is bigger, and they, you know, have really taken to making these all unique, umm, so obviously with that number, these is gonna be some game-play things, or things that we do that, repeat, ahh, but not in the same way, visually, umm, and design-wise, each of the dungeons plays out differently.

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

You know, we try to make each time, the, the you know, ultimate warrior game, the ultimate wizard game, and the ultimate thief/stealth game, ahh, so, 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, you know, perform those roles.

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 think 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 things that they all do well, and things 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. So I'm kind of thinking on my 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.

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 think 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 things that they all do well, and things 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 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 always put more detail, put more people on the screen, 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 we 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, I don't really dwell on these things, to be honest, like what we can do this, and we can't do this. So I'm kind of thinking on my feet (thanks srk), 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, and 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 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, and 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.

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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.

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.

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Gods of the elderscrolls, are still the gods of the elderscrolls, whether they are, they are the Aedra, 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.

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.

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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 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 you get bonuses for attacking guys, when you are hidden, there is the eye ball that opens and closes, and if you played fallout 3, and looked at the stealth in that from Oblivion, it really goes into different states in fallout 3, 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.

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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, 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.

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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 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 work a bit differently, than Oblivion, in some interesting ways.

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

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(Probable question: How do you plan to design better dungeons in Skyrim?}

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've accomplished something. And they range from that to the one to two hours epic dungeon.

We try to make each time, 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're different from what we've done before, but we still want to pay off on people who wanna, perform those roles.

...
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.

He understands that people love the unique and stylish feel of Morrowind but thinks that the alien visuals are not proper for Skyrim, so the game is set in a more or less traditional fantasy setting more like Oblivion than Morrowind, but on the other hand, the land and its inhabitants will have a strong culture inbred, which would set them apart, and each hold will have different view on things that might conflict with other holds, not to say the remains of the old Dwemer civilization and the ancient Dragon worshiping folks that has sorta preserved till now in the shape of those Draugrs, so in this side of things are quite unique and stylish, much like Morrowind. I love it!!!

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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 think 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.

...

Gods of the elderscrolls, are still the gods of the elderscrolls, whether they are, they are the Aedra, 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.

So we do not see scenes as exotic as the Telvanni province in Morrowind, but the Skyrim scenery would have style and variance, which would be great, and he is hinting that as their last elderscrolls creation was the shivering isles, another plain of Oblivion, just like Mehrun Dagon's Deadlands in the original Oblivion games, there would be quite exotic places in Skyrim, maybe when you visit one of the plains of Oblivion to perform one of those fun and interesting quests for a god.

I like all those plains of Oblivion, but I have thought a lot about the Molag Bal's Coldharbour, which is a really interesting place, so let me visualize it for you, the way I envision it in my mind:

"Coldharbour, the immense realm of Molag Bal, is also one of the most inhospitable realms, consisting http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/learning/features_facts/digging/arch/images/large_extra_phases.jpg http://farm1.static.flickr.com/7/10916266_997777bef9.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Bachkovo_Charnel_House_2.jpg and vast http://images.wikia.com/fallout/images/7/76/Child_Slave_House.jpg http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4012/4638961078_c63c51cb2b.jpg. Any mortal found here is captured and placed in one or the other. It resembles Nirn except colder, darker and more beaten and violent; according to some a premonition of the future of Nirn itself."

I visualize it as a land always fixed in the twilight zone, when the sun is just below the horizon. But the twilight source, (the position of sun), rotates around the world without ever peaking over the horizon. The place is like a ruined future of Nirn, so all the land is beaten and barren and erosion is more pronounced everywhere, and in the place of all the cities and culture in the Nirn, you only see devastated ruins which have almost blended into the harsh land, scattered with ruined and exposed charnel houses, full of the remains of the skeletal bodies.

Instead of all the water bodies in the Nirn, you see the seas of swamp and rivers of sludge, where the dead, or undead bodies are afloat just under the surface, and whenever you get near a shore or river bank, undead hands come out from under sludge to grab at you.

Different types of undead roam the land, lost and confused, and may randomly attack any nearby moving body, that catches their attention out of their prisoned mind, but wherever a higher ranked undead, like a lich, or a daedra is found, it can rule over the ruined minds of other undead and make them more purposeful, in their actions.

The land is scattered with slave pens that are made of placing stones over each other, glued to other stones, by some type of goo. And those pens might have a few inhabitants still alive as they would be recently captured and placed there, but as they would be fed with undead meat, they would gradually die or become undead themselves.

The atmosphere of that plain of existence would be misty, and colored fog tend to seep out from the cracks of the land, where some ghosts might be found floating around, in the middle of those fogs, and might decide to charge toward you with a screeching scream of mental pain and anger.

There might be some intact spooky keeps and citadels around made in the style of horror themed films, with all those hanging dead and the dead body remains nailed to the walls as decorations, and the lot. Those keeps are the place where the rulers of the ColdHarbour reside. Some higher level liches and hideous daedra reside in those places and rule over the land from those places, and the biggest and the most hideous keep of them all is the residential place of the Molag Bal himself.

OK that is all for now. :)

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...
More speed would allow you to always put more detail, put more people on the screen, 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 we 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.

OK, if they had a next-gen console hardware at hand there would be no need for walled cities in separate cells, but he promises us that although in the current consoles they are forced to section-off the bigger cities from the rest of the world, your experience with the cities would be 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.", which was what we got in Oblivion. Great! :)

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There would be a lot of dungeons, full of interesting traps and puzzles, and a lot of interesting sites and points of interests in the surface where you would have some interesting encounters with inhabitants, and they doing their best that each of those dungeons and encounters are unique and satisfy your sense of exploration and after those events you would think that you have accomplished something. Great, again! :)

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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.

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.

They have worked a lot to make each creature believable and unique, but they have put more time on the "more important" ones, like Dragons, Giants, Draugrs and the like.

So you would see creature dens and the like were the critters would live, but for the more important ones, you would see their different life styles, and "cultures?", so you would see Giant clans where they reside as in a village and herd Mammoths, and so on... Great, you know! :)

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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.

The land mass is about the same size as Oblivion, but it feels larger, because of mountains and different hand placed vista, and fogs and the lot. Just like Morrowind. Great! :)

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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 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.

There are still ten playable races, but there feel a lot more different from each other in Skyrim.

The Morrowind's racism and cultural tension and conflicts between different races and factions has returned. Great and Great! :)

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And there is the sneak skill, and the stealth, you sort of saw it during where you get bonuses for attacking guys, when you are hidden, there is the eye ball that opens and closes, and if you played fallout 3, and looked at the stealth in that from Oblivion, it really goes into different states in fallout 3, 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.

What can I say! More valid, believable and interesting sneaking and stealth game-play, Great! :)

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The world is more alive and the activities of the inhabitants more natural and believable and you can even join those activities and help other people in their daily tasks. So you stand in the front of a wood needed to chop and click on it and your character starts to chop the wood, or you stand in the front of a cooking fire and click on it and a menu would open with a list of your cooking ingredients and the choice of the cooked food that you can make out of those ingredients.

There are three crafting skills, one for each of major disciplines:

• Magic: Enchant.
  
• Stealth: Alchemy.
  
• Combat: Smithing.

All of which are different from the previous games in interesting ways, and those skills let you create more interesting and rewarding stuff than just cooking or chopping wood, when you have grown in them.

We try to make each time, 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're different from what we've done before, but we still want to pay off on people who wanna, perform those roles.

And no matter what type of character you make, if you follow one of the major disciplines or make a hybrid, the game is gonna to pay off on all those play styles, guilds will ever do that, but they're different from what we've done before, but they still want to pay off on people who wanna, perform those roles. Did I say, Great? :)