» Tue Oct 12, 2010 2:18 am It was written in Norwegian so I mostly used Google Translate and a little of myself to translate it. I basically don't have the time for a full, perfect translation.
This is Part 1 of the interview. Enjoy.
It takes a lot to wear out to Todd Howard, game producer for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
He was still full of energy after having held an hour-long presentation of the game, and it was an opportunity to participate in a 50-minute general Q & A session immediately after.
We know how happy you are to svck you all the information about the game and choose here to reproduce the session in its entirety.
What does "Dragonborn" really mean?
- Dragonborn means that someone is born with the soul of a dragon. We do not want to say too much about what this means in Skyrim,
but there have been several such transferor born in previous Elder Scrolls games, and naming shows that they have been given special gifts of the gods.
What ressources do you use when you use shouts?
- Right now they only balanced by cooldowns, which means you have to wait a while before you can shout again. It allows us to balance the system better.
There are 3 levels of each shout, level 3 is the highest. Since the cooldowns limits your use of shouts, you must decide if you want to use a powerful shout and how great the need is at that time.
You may suffer from using a powerful shout if you need the shout later on, in combat. This is because of the cooldown of each shout.
Can you combine shouts?
- It was possible at first, but we found out it was really confusing, so we removed it. Instead, the game will combine shouts for you, automatically, whenever possible.
How many shouts is there in total?
- Right now we have about 20 shouts with three levels each, so we are talking about over 60 different shouts in total. We expect to end up with a few more before finish.
Can you explain the experience-system of Skyrim? Is it forcing you to go up in level? Is there any maximum limit?
- We think we've solved that problem this time. All skills will make you go up in experience level, but the higher the amount of experience you have in a skill, the greater the impact it has on leveling.
One thing we've noticed is that people look at their character and use the skills they have trained most.
Now you can be a magician and find a sword and use it for a long time without affecting your level of experience much. You will always be best served by focusing on something,
but this game makes it very easy to vary. Using the weapon in two hands independent of each other was actually something we came on late in development, because it felt so natural with the new control system.
In the intro it is mentioned that our character is on the way to his execution. Can you tell us more about the background of the main character?
- We give him no decided background. In this game-series, the player always starts in prison, and the player is to find himself his character's own background.
If you want a good or bad past then you could have it, we will only send you across the border to Skyrim.
In some of the combat we have seen the finishing-moves. Is this something that needs to be activated, or is it performed automatically?
- These animations are only for show, and is linked to different types of attacks. The animations you saw belongs to the powerful version of the melee attacks, and there is no special ending attacks.
In the beginning of your presentation you said that you must use all available ressources to kill dragons, but it did not seem as if you struggled too much with the one you killed.
Was that because you was high-leveled?
- I made it easier for this presentation and included titanium-covered health to my character. It looks bad if I die on this particular piece, so I made the dragon a bit weaker, and my character is much stronger.
Dragons in general will be very difficult!
Can you explain the dynamic of their storytelling?
- We developed a system for Fallout 3, which generated random encounters with different beings. And we thought, "what if we put this in the system? ". Therefore, we chose to integrate it in all missions in Skyrim.
And it turned out that it svcked, because it is too flat and transparent. So we went back to writing all missions and stories by hand.
Some of the missions will still contain dynamic storytelling. Instead of very fixed roles, for example a specific client that sends you to regain the specific child,
this system can be specified to interpret it as "the child of a person in the city have disappeared," and "find a random cave where it might be. "
One thing we have struggled with in our games is control. Because some players are not experienced enough to handle the freedom that we offer.
This system allows us to guide them to a greater extent. It ranges widely, from small random assignment to larger assignments where we ask the game to bring
out "the next character who hates the main character" or something like that.
We used that fact in one of the missions you saw. If your client dies, his sister will take over his store, and be quest-giver.
How do you handle the dialogue and voice acting for this type of missions?
We get voice actors to record the options for this type of mission, and we have learned us to write in a way to hide these "holes". An employer may say, for example,
"my child has been abducted to a cave nearby, you will get a reward if you get it."
You do not think about that the employer never mentions what your reward. It has been very difficult to get everything to sound right.
Is there a limit to the highest level of experience?
- No. That is, there's probably a mathematical limit, but like in Oblivion, it is resolved so that we do not put a permanent roof on it. We'll let things happen.
We have tried to balance it to the better, by allowing you to increase faster in experience-level. We look at Oblivion and Fallout 3 as level 1 to 25-games. This is a level 1 to 50-game.
But we have only increased the pace of leveling. Much of the character's strength lies in the skills, and there are many of them. We wanted quick things up a bit.
But the mathematical limit is probably around level 70
How to scale the PC version compared to the console version?
- I believe that it scales as expected. There are certain things we do with the PC versions of all our games. For example you can make the textures as large as you want.
In addition, you will of course have other solutions available. Something we have focused on is that the game will look the same no matter what distance you are sitting on,
so it suits for both console- and PC-players.
How do you handle the difficulty of the game?
- We haven't actually thought about it much. In Oblivion, we had a slider and in Fallout 3, we went over to a button with different levels.
I think people are more familiar with "easy, medium, hard," but it's hard to say exactly what system will end up with in the end.
In an interview with IGN mentioned that the game will support DirectX 11 Can you say more about how this is supported in Skyrim?
- Yes, the game will support DirectX 11, but basically it is a DirectX 9 games. In comparison with DX11, there are some things we get for free,
such as performance improvements, which was what I meant.
How big is the world compared to Oblivion, and how diverse is the environment?
- If you put the maps on top of each other it is about as big as its predecessor. But Skyrim is different because of all the mountains that form our routes.
The terrain makes it smaller in practice, but you spend more time trying to move through it because they often can not be crossed. So it probably seems bigger.
- About variation. You have already seen the spruce forests and mountain-ranges. We also have grassy tundras, a volcanic tundra, an forest in the theme of autumn and a glacier.
There are about six or seven distinct types of environments. The changes are much more obvious than in Fallout 3 and Oblivion.
Can we continue to explore freely without anyone trying to lead the player?
- We usually try to not lead the player in any way. The dynamic storytelling will only make generic tasks more enjoyable.
You will find the same game-flow as in our other releases, and we are trying only to toss you around a little bit, by including the use of the compass.
Before you complete a mission or task, we want the player to possibly find two or three new ones on the way.
You mentioned that one can affect the cities' and settlements' economy. Can you explain this?
- The ability to play with the economy is something that always looks good on paper, but if it is too realistic for the player, he will never notice it. It doesn't bother you that arrows is a tiny bit cheaper.
Instead we've tried to remove things from the economic system, so it is more noticeable. The player has resources that are directly connected to trade-skills.
Mining and smelting affects blacksmiths, farms affect food which in turn affects the ingredients which in turn affects alchemy.
We have not quite figured out how we solve this system yet, but it is something we are working on.
Does the enemies level up together with the player, or is their strength set from before?
- We have had some dynamics of this system in all our games, but it was too much of it in Oblivion. The short version is that the current is very similar to the one in Fallout 3,
but we are trying to signal the areas that are harder than others. We would like that the players pounded their heads against the wall and shouting "I'm a wimp," if they enter the wrong area,
but they should be able to use all their resources to push through a difficult area if they wish.
What happens if you enter an area, leave and come back again?
- How we did it in Fallout 3, the player made it certain how an area looked like when you first visited it. By coming back again later you made it only harder. So you just spoiling it for yourself.
Part 2 will arrive in next week.
Including information about horse riding, the variation in the areas and the always controversial leveling-system.
