Todd said a lot of things akin to "we're not sure yet" or "we are still working on it" in the podcast. With the game releasing in nine months how an he be so unsure about so many things? You can cut at least a month away for bug testing and manufacturing and that leaves eight months. That's not a long time to be so unsure of so many things.

His way of saying "No Comment"

Or he doesn't want to pull a Molyneux

They can always cut features if they don't work out the way they want them. I fthey tell people they are working on them, they'll expoect them to be in the game and be disappointed when they don't make it. This way, they avoid all that and can keep trying to work the bugs/gameplay issues out.

Exactly. I said similar in another thread.

People are used to Call of Duty type of simplistic action games that don't really shock or surprise you.

The last time the gaming world was "Wow! This is possible?" Was in 2006, with Oblivion.

I'm not worried, they're still working on the game and the fact that they can answer what they could is a good sign. I mean we didn't hear anything about Character Creation for New Vegas this early into the cycle but with Skyrim we already have heard that their will be preset stuff for faces like Noses that we can tweak.

He also said that he is sure that they are going to make the deadline.

I wouldn't worry.

I think they have enough time.
Other companies are making new games from zero in less than 9 months.
Of course they are not so big or good as Skyrim,but Bethesda has the time to work on things.

Crack open your CS and mod away. These guys make things that way to. when they have a agame to a certain level, they can use the remaining allowed time to add features while keeping it stable across platforms.

gamesas games have always been modular, and you don't build modular games like you build other linear games, or sport games. you don't begin at the beginning and finnish at the end. you add as much stable content as you can and stop when your times up. the only thing that could go bad is if mistakes were made, or they are relying on a system that is still unconfirmed to be in, such as oblivion's soft shadowing. we know it was removed. and we should also know that the decision to remove it brought upon new challenges, like creating a lighter shadow and "canopy shadow" system, which MIGHT explain the delay with oblivion.

i'm confident they will get it done.

Edit: I am guessing here BTW, I don't work there... unfortunately...

Todd probably just wanted to play safe, not confirming nor denying anything. To keep us in suspense.

It's only natural that they will experiment with things all the way up until the last month. Things that are still unsure by then will be cut from the game and saved for the expansions. I imagine that the team is split in two right now - one part is experimenting with various things, the other is working on the quests.

To me it was 2007 with Portal. "Wow, my dinosaur can run this without crashing?"

Anyway, as I also stated in a different topic. He's not giving typical PR answers because he's not a *I payed $10K for 2 weeks of media-training* [censored].
Instead he gave us honest answers about stuff that most other companies lie about, trying to sound all mighty mysterious and professional.

lol nine months is loads of time, it's like 40% of the dev cycle of many entire games, Also Beth have alarge team numbering up to 100 people, in nine months they can do a lot.

I am not really sure about the answer however I can say I am considering it and if I come to a conclusion I will assuredly get back to you at the appropriate time.