They did say something about this in an interview i think. The ammount of people that worked on Morrowind was 40 people give or take. 60 people on Oblivion and 100 people on Skyrim (although i was only able to count exacty 90 people in that group photo they showed us).

Yes, as I had heard, they started designing and stuff directly after Oblivion was released and then began the physical production, and still had people on their team, just not EVERYONE. The remainder rejoined the team after finishing work on Fallout.

I read this somewhere, though I wouldn't be able to confirm it since I don't remember the source, sorry.

But anyway, if this is true, that's about 2 years with part of the team (let's say half, eg. 45 (this is a guess)) and then another 3 years with all 90. Sounds good to me.

Technically, they started working on Skyrim at the release of Oblivion. Also, Todd said in the latest interview that he is as sure as he can be about the release date, right now they are trying to cram as much as they can into the game.

Don't forget that coding the creation engine must have been a big chunk of the process.

They have said they have a team of about 100. Not all of them were in the group picture. Sick, vacation, out of town....you know, like most work places one would be hard pressed to get them all together in the same day.

edit: I no longer have the source but when FO:3 was being made either Todd or Pete (don't remember which) said that as one group finished up with Oblivion, they would move over to FO:3. So for instance when the artists were done with concept art in Ob, they would move to doing concept art for FO:3. So on and so forth. So by the time FO:3 went gold, there were already more working on Skyrim than on FO:3. Quest writers would not be needed for the polishing and testing and could move over to the other team. Made sense to me since you wouldn't want them to sit idle after they complete their portion of the game they are responsible for. So each team member moves from one game to the next.

unless some cataclysm occurs I think we can expect skyrim in 11.11.11

What I dont get is the video dated back to 2009 which indicates they work very fast...

In oblivion they only had the final hardware for 6 months or so anyway

What kind of weird statement is that?

You HOPE it will be delayed? Yet YOU have NO CLUE at all how the game is coming along.

They can polish the game for 1 extra year but there still will be some bugs that only a million player base can come up with.
Also bugs are sometimes left in cause fixing them can cause bigger bugs.

Today only thing stopping a game from being released is essentially game breaking bugs and crashes.

I certainly don't want any delays, it would aggravate me quite a lot, they gave a specific date and they should stick to it or not announce a date at all.
It is stupid to give excitement with a specific date unless they know that they can keep it barring a disaster bug etc.

If they also move the game cause it will be a "busy" holiday with COD and Uncharted 3 and BF3, it will also be a cop-out and they should have realized this since for example COD always release in early Nov.

I don't like bugs, but I can live with a few non breaking bugs, that will be fixed via patching and good after-release support.

The beauty for us PC players at least is that our modding community are also seemingly good at fixing bugs too, they did in Oblivion.


As for the game development.
I think Todd said that a small team was doing for pre-production before Fallout 3 was completely done, as in the they were probably pitching ideas and coming up with a game concept.
So the actual production was probably pretty quick after Fallout 3 release.

Together with a larger team of almost 33% more people and they could be done within 3 years, especially since at least partly the pre-production was or almost was done by Fallout 3 release.

Then again we don't know much and we speculate of the comments we hear from Todd etc, which can be taken out of context.

All I know I REALLY want this game and ON the specified date 11-11-11.

Yes its considerably larger like 40 people more i think


yeah last i heard it was 100


they did, according to Todd Howard

Ha! All this talk about worries if the game will be out on time, in the shorter time period. To be honest with Ya'll I'm lovin the increased labour = shorter dev time thing cause it potentially means we get future TES games sooner.

i'm confident thye will have it out on time. If not, I'd rather have a polished game, especially THIS game, than a rushed one.

Not gonna happen. It's being released 11.11. Bank on it. They have a bigger team now as well then when they developed Oblivion and Fallout 3.

I'm sure it's plenty of time.

Keep in mind;

? They have a proven working base engine
? The team is substantially bigger now
? They can probably allocate more production funds to the game
? They have experience creating the same genre. several very successful times
? The technology is more advance now, most likely allowing for quicker production.
? 100 members. 8 hours a day. 260 working days per year. 3 years production. 624,000 working hours combined!

I'm sure it'll be fine

This. Todd even said in the IGN interview they are as confident as can be with the release date.

Think about it this way. When you write a series of books, you don't just write them one by one, you plan ahead. The more games Bethesda made, the more lore they had at their fingertips and the easier the plot will be to write. So theoretically, each games story becomes easier to create, as each game has more previous games to base the story on.

This is the same with a lot of other aspects too. When the elder scrolls began, ideas would be harder to make, as you would be making them from scratch. Now the developers have years of experience making these games, they have extensive knowledge of how things should be in the game. They know what Elven armor would look like in THEIR game, they know certain features and lore of the land (Skyrim) that they are making, from lore references in previous games.

This allows them to make the features better and still shorten the time in which they are produced.

What you reckon?

They also have a new engine, close to a 100 person staff, and most importantly, 5+ years experience with the consoles. Remember, Oblivion was a 360 launch title and they didn't get final specs until late in the dev cycle. Skyrim is in good hands.

1 they started planning before the release of FO3 and 2 they have more people to do the game this time. eg one dungeon dev in OB, now they have 8 just for dungeons in skyrim.

Frankly at this point I would be more worried that they will push the date cause of so many huge games coming out at almost the same week.

Now it is confirmed that EA is releasing BF3 in early Nov, likely Nov 2nd. Then you have COD a week later likely.

I know those two games are different genre compared to Skyrim, but many gamers will play both types of games, I for one know I want both Skyrim and BF3.

Wonder how many that feel they have to choose one or the other cause of limited funds.

I would imagine there will be losses in sales, but then again some can pick it up a month later for Xmas.

Still the last 2 years developers/publishers have all migrated their games cause of COD release in Nov, this time it is even worse, two major games that could account for close to 30 million games sold will go head to head right when Skyrim is released.
Skyrim is going to drown in the $100 million dollar AD campaign of BF3, not to mention same amount by Activision for COD.

I hope Bethesda sticks to their guns though, I WILL buy this game as long as I live and breathe.

But, I am definitely more worried about this than delay cause of bugs.
I am almost certain that if there is a delay the official talk will be "polish", but it's more likely Zenimax/Bethesda worries about sales cause of above mentioned.

Also here in North America games and movies are released on Tuesdays, but Skyrim is announced as Friday Nov 11th, what to make of that?
I know in Europe the games come out on Fridays so I understand that, but there is no North American date of the Tuesday before or after the 11th.
I am fine with it coming out on a Friday, I don't care but will that happen here in NA?

....

Let's hear it for 4-month necros. :rolleyes:

The thing you forget TC is that the reason took four years instead of two(as stated in the most recent podcast) is because they decided to use new tech, which the development of took up the bulk of time. This is the same engine at its core. From what I can tell, its for the most part been pure game creation thoughout the development of Skyrim.

Regardless of readiness, bugginess, what have you... The game will release 11/11/11. It is simply too good a marketing opportunity to pass up. I do think it's enough time to make this game stellar though, considering that Bethesda is a studio with tons of experience behind it instead of something like a VALVe case where they just pick up people and do their very best (which is the very best).

This ^^

And I have no proof or facts to back this up but im sure the game has been under some kind of development longer then 3 years, just saying.

In one of the podcats with Pete, he was asked about releasing in November knowing that a COD game would be more than likely coming out. He said they are aware of it and not concerned either. Does that make you feel better? Some of you are really paranoid. It actually seems like people want the game to be pushed back and look for any reason possible.

You forget, they have a lot more people now.

Edit: D'oh! Necro'd! >:[

It could be that Bethesda got a lot right the first time in skyrim. Maybe they were suprised to see it turn out so well, so fast. They certainly seem to be in a good mood XD

I'm guessing there's something crazy they are waiting to reveal. This month some good info is comming, so we'll know more about how its comming.