I realize this isn't "strictly" elder scrolls related but thought it might be of interest to some here.

http://downloads.2kgames.com/irrational/IrrationalInterviews_s01e01_ToddHoward.mp3

Mods, feel free to relocate this thread if you feel it necessary.

Thank you for posting. Very interesting.

Just listened to that myself while doing the dishes, was going to post about it myself

Good listen. I hope they do more of these, with devs interviewing devs - I found it more information dense than, for example, Todd's interview with Kotaku, because all parties assume a level of understanding.

As for TES-related-ness, it was encouraging to hear Todd's investment in the 'hardcoe' demographic rather than chasing the Wii/FB audience.

Only my opinion, but listening to it, I could almost here him wanting to relate the discussion to his current area of effort, rather than going back to FO3 and Oblivion for every example.

For speculation value: Does Todd's addiction to, and appreciation for CoD:MW's progression-perk system mean anything for TESV?

I hope it just means he likes to play it, not copy it.

Well, who's to say something like a perk couldn't show up as a blessing? I get my competitive online fixes with TF2 and BF:BC2, but I know CoD:MW somewhat, and I could imagine some perk-like blessings (applied to the PC directly, not through item enchantment, as with birth signs and doom/heaven stones) being earned in a TES-style game. Just putting it out there.

If they're looking at something in that vein, I'd really rather them not look at MW2 and think 'ah yeah, that'll go great in our open world RPG'. But to be fair, that's one of the many reasons I suppose I'm not a game developer! Maybe they could implement it well, but I couldn't see it being done.

Well, what I mean is, if you think about many of those perks like marathon, juggernaut, or fireproof, you could implement those as normal spell effects like fortify fatigue, fortify health, and resist fire damage. In that way a MW perk and a TES birth sign/racial trait are already pretty much the same thing, so perhaps there really isn't a take away from Todd mentioning it in the interview - TES already has them.

Seems to me that we can take away a few things:

TES V will probably feature "skewed randomness", a la Diablo. What that means is that a repeated random chance increases on failed chances. If there's a 10% chance that a bandit is wearing a chainmail helmet, then if the first bandit you meet doesn't have a chainmail helmet, the second one has something more than 10%. 10.5% to 12%, for example.

You will have access to "a lot of tools" "very quickly" in any Bethesda game. Why? Quite a bit of it is about putting you in a position where you feel like you have an out. Example: Fatman in Fallout 3. Not hard to get one, but it turns out most people don't use it. However, knowing they have a portable nuke actually encourages them to keep trying. Reason? They COULD always fall back on the Fatman.

TES V will also probably still feature a gameplay character generation system again. Listen for an explanation, but effectively, it's about helping players "learn" the system. I read the manuals for RPGs before playing, but that's not how, for example, most of my coworkers are. They want to get in game and start playing. The resulting problem is that people are offered choices before they have a chance to understand what they are choosing.

To put it in perspective how important TH feels the introduction is, they apparently moved the pistol in Fallout 3 more than one hundred times to try to get the feel right.

Good interview, but why does he have to drop the F-bomb?

My sound is broke, so can anyone give a brief overview of the interview? Or something with subtitles.

:shakehead: I don't like Todd Howard. Maybe instead of wasting time doing that, they could've made the game actually feel like an RPG.

...Since the time they'd have gained from not shifting the gun around a couple of times would have changed the nature of the game significantly? :huh:

Because it's the internet, and it's America, and they can say anything they want... Oh, wait, can't do it on the forums though

i thought the gun being moved about discussion was related to Bioshock?

they did make it feel like an rpg, and I think the pistol discussion was about bioshock.

I realize a hundred was an exaggeration, but seriously, the time spent doing meaningless things like move a weapon around could be spent on much more important things.


Granted, Fallout 3 had way more RPG elements than Oblivion, it's nowhere near the RPG of earlier Fallout or Elder Scrolls games. And if it is about Bioshock, than my mistake, I was just replying to the guy I quoted.

Hasn't Todd been on the team since daggerfall, then I don't really understand why you don't like him, I kind of thought F3 had more Rpg elements than most of the elder scrolls games, I mean it had way more dialog choice and stats that affected dialog choices.

He was on the team since Daggerfall, but I don't think he had as much impact on DF and MW as he did on Oblivion. And there was like five dialog choices based on stats, and they didn't even really mean anything anytime you came across them. And yes it did have some decent dialog choices, but not enough I would consider to be ideal. In my eyes it's a step up from Oblivion but not quite to Morrowind yet, and is still quite a few steps from Daggerfall and Fallout 1&2.

Actually Todd Howard was the project lead of Morrowind, too.

It sounds like Todd Howard wants to basically do the same introduction as Oblivion, meaning you'll start out with a couple of spells before you even decide to have any magic schools for your class. Well, there goes my class-centric philosophy of not being able to cast spells if you don't select any magic skills for your class. Sigh.

He was the Executive Producer of Oblivion and Bloodmoon, and only Project Lead for Morrowind and Tribunal. As you can see, Bloodmoon is where the series started to turn actiony, as Todd got the promotion, and Ken Rolston had less impact. He was still a lead in OB, but surely didn't have as much influence as in Morrowind.

It's stated in the very begining of the interview

I'm pretty sure I talked a enclave base into self destructing, I'm pretty sure I've not seen anything similar in any TES game. It was a skill check, but same principal.



So the leader of the project don't have much influence on the project? In any case Correlation =/= causation.

Okay, forget the Elder Scrolls then. Have you played Fallout 1 and 2. One dialog choice is child's play compared to those two.


Don't talk down to me. The executive producer has more influence than the project lead. You can't argue with that. And you just ignored my point about Ken Rolston.

It wasn't really one occasion, there are several places where your character skills affect the outcome, so in that aspect it plays like an rpg, regardless of F1 or F2.



yeah but you act like project leads do nothing. And in the other thread didn't you just insinuate if oblivion players have a problem with morrowind, it's because they don't use their brain?