Developer Spotlight:
TriXie Does Oblivion
On original Xbox® there are only a few RPGs—the most popular and critically acclaimed being The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind®. So we're especially looking forward to The Elder Scrolls IV®: Oblivion™, which is exclusive for Xbox 360™, and developed by the team at Bethesda Softworks based in Rockville, Maryland. I took a quick trip to the other side of the continent to meet the team, learn more about Bethesda, and of course, get a peek at Oblivion.
"It's a good thing I got here or I would have been
in trouble; I didn't really have a backup plan."
—Programmer Brendan Anthony
The folks at Bethesda were all welcoming, helpful, and genuinely nice people. When I was there the office, located in an innocuous office park, was in the home stretch of a remodel/expansion. It looked like they were doubling their space … the cubes were breeding like rabbits.
They have their own kitchen and cafeteria at Bethesda. Vlatko Andonov, the president of Bethesda, hired the chef from one of his favorite local restaurants; his name is Kenny and I watched him try to lock Vlatko in the giant walk-in refrigerator. In the interim, they're having lunch brought in each day until the kitchen is up and running again. Wendy's was the slop du jour. I wandered around taking pictures (there is a multitude of Wonder Woman swag around), and distracting people from their work. Here are some of the cool people and interesting stories I found.
"I'm a totally geeky Morrowind fan."
Brendan Anthony is a programmer who works on physics and magic. He was a huge fan of Daggerfall and Morrowind when he was at Colgate University, "a totally huge geeky Morrowind fan" who was all over the forums. This is the first job he applied for out of college.
Brendan is pretty much living the dream. "I've wanted to make computer games since I was a really little kid. It's a good thing I got here or I would have been in trouble; I didn't really have a backup plan." Brendan's all-time favorite game is Legend of Zelda. His favorite movie is Total Recall, and if he could tour with any band, it would be Phish. You can find him in the Bethesda forums as Raptormeat.
Putting words in Sean Bean's mouth.
Kurt Kuhlmannis a Senior Designer for Oblivion, which means he's in charge of the main quest and storyline. He worked for Bethesda in 1990; he came in at the end of Daggerfall, worked on Redguard and started on Morrowind before moving to Colorado for a while. He's been back at Bethesda for two years working on Oblivion. His favorite movie is Raiders of the Lost Ark, and he'd like to go on tour with Eric Clapton.
A typical day for Kurt during 'crunch time' is about 12 hours of going over the main quest, polishing, fixing bugs, making sure the final art, final spaces, and all the systems are working. The challenge is figuring out how any little tweaks at this stage of the game will affect everything else. The day I was there he was finalizing dialog for Martin, who is voiced by Sean Bean.
"You guys are idiots."
Ahn Hopgood is a programmer who works on the artificial intelligence (A.I.) for Oblivion. "One thing about A.I.," she says, "it touches everything and everything touches it. My strong suit is being able to read other people's code." She's been at Bethesda for four years but is a lifelong gamer who misses the old text adventure games. She was especially fond of a Perry Mason game for Commodore 64 that allowed the player to investigate the crime scene and go to court.
Before Bethesda, Ahn got a degree in history with a minor in Asian Studies. Then she went back to school for a degree in Japanese Studies. Her third degree was in Computer Science and she was hired right out of school. "I was the only female programmer. The guys used to put DOA Beach Volleyball up on the big screen during lunch. You know with all the … bouncing. I'd just say, 'You guys are idiots.'" Her favorite movie is the Lord of the Rings trilogy and she'd like to tour with Van Halen in the David Lee Roth years. Who wouldn't?
Quest designer Alan Nanes.
Alan Nanes has been at Bethesda for nearly four years, and has a good story. He was the manager of a Funcoland when a customer asked him if he wanted to beta test Morrowind. Which of course he did. Then the QA department offered him a job. After a while in QA, he put in a request to be a game designer. "I had played pen and paper games, and Todd Howard gave me a chance."
As a designer for Oblivion he helps write the plot lines. During my visit, people were playtesting the game and Alan was fixing bugs in the 'quest logic.' The first game he ever played was Ultima on Commodore 64. He thinks the best game of all time is Devil May Cry: "I don't know what it is about that game, but I love it." His favorite movie is Army of Darkness and favorite band is Slayer.
World builders Clara and Grant.
Grant Struthers and Clara Cafasso are world artists for Oblivion. Meaning what, exactly, I asked. "We build environmental art," Grant said. "We build everything that's not underground or in another dimension," Clara added. The art team is divided into the world builders and the dungeon team, they told me. Sounds a little like the Eloi and the Morlocks to me. Wait, did I just geek out in a Time Machine moment?
Grant and Clara both studied at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. They both enjoy gaming; Clara likes Final Fantasy 7, the first Metal Gear Solid and Mario Kart. Grant has wanted to get into games since Myst blew his mind back in the day. "Here was an entire game done in an art form I didn't even know existed. I said 'I have to find out how they did that.'"
Exec Producer Todd Howard violates an E3 faceplate.
Todd Howard, the executive producer of Oblivion has been with Bethesda for 12 years, since he was hired on as an Associate Producer for NCAA: Road to the Final Four. Though Todd has a finance degree from William and Mary, he taught himself art and programming. He used to make his own games on the Apple II and then the PC to entertain his friends. Bad Boy Howard used to pirate games back in the day … he even cracked Bethesda games.
Then his girlfriend—who is now his wife—gave him Wayne Gretzky 3. Todd noticed it was made in Maryland. One day after a disappointing interview for a finance job he said to himself, "I should go make video games." So on his way back to school he knocked on the door at Bethesda and announced: "I want to work here when I graduate."
"Our goal with Xbox 360 is to get all three
cores talking to each other as fast as possible."
—Executive Producer Todd Howard
He was amazed that they actually talked to him and told him to send in his resume after graduation. "I kept pestering them, and eventually they hired me. The programmer who made that hockey game is still here—I'm godfather to his kid." Todd's favorite movie is Raiders of the Lost Ark ("I named my dog Indiana") and he'd most like to go on tour with Bruce Springsteen (which makes Todd one of the coolest guys EVER).
You Asked, Todd Answered
Before heading off to Washington D.C., I asked Xbox gamers at Xbox365.com for their questions about Oblivion and Bethesda. Oblivion's Executive Producer, Todd Howard, answered. By the way guys, he was very impressed with your questions.
cigaretsNcoffee: What types of punishments can we look forward to when breaking laws in Oblivion?
Todd: All the guards come and if you have the money to pay your fine you don't have to go to jail. They will take any of your stolen items. We're pretty mean when you get caught. But you can break out of jail. You can steal keys from a guard, or if you had a lock pick when you got arrested you can use that.
Forsaken77: Do you see future RPGs lacking in the serious length department in the upcoming generation of games? Previously most RPGs ran 50-60 hours, but lately the good ones have ended on a shorter note. And why is that?
Todd: Length is coming down in all genres due to development time. RPGs are on the long end, and we want every hour to be good. The main Oblivion quest should take 20-25 hours. If you play all the quests it's like 200+ hours.
Vieri: Are you planning on adding any new races to the game that will be playable and not just NPCs?
Todd: No. There are the 10 classic Elder Scrolls races.
Darkmaster09: Any chance we will be able to buy our own homes in the game? I mean in Morrowind you can kill a shop owner or a home owner and then it's basically yours, but will there be a 'legal,' more official way to do this in this go round?
Todd: Yes, there are lots of houses to buy and decorate. You can even buy furniture.
Luketh: I personally felt that the combat was the weakest part of the third Elder Scrolls game. What are you doing, if anything, to improve the combat for Oblivion?
Todd: It's been completely re-done. Blocking is under your control. There are special moves. As your character gets better, you get new moves for your weapon. We spent a long time on that. When we started the game, we wanted to redo the combat and A.I.
Erin Losi, PR and Marketing Master.
CANTINUELO: Do you think that Oblivion will fit on a DVD-9 or do you plan on having it on more than one DVD and then installing it on an Xbox 360 Hard Drive?
Todd: It'll be one DVD. There are 25 hours of recorded voice.
Mister K: A lot of reports are saying the multi-core/multi-thread structure will be useless for the next two years, as developers still don't have the resources to use that structure. For Oblivion, are you running on a single core or are you already including some multithread processing?
Todd: We use all three cores. It's different and scary. You can get a lot of power out of that thing, but the profiler's always telling you there's more power available. The goal is to get all three cores talking to each other as fast as possible.
American Psycho: Will there still be challenging enemies to face after you've reached a pretty high level?
Todd: Absolutely. We level most of our enemies. If you're thirtieth level, you'll run into a thirtieth level enemy. The treasure also levels like in Diablo and Diablo 2.
[cage]TF: Is there any Xbox Live® functionality? If so, what?
Todd: Xbox Live-aware and Marketplace. We're going to do a lot of Marketplace stuff. If not on day one, very soon. We're good at this … we've done plug-ins with Morrowind.
TokyoFunk: Is the A.I. going to react to their defeats or wins against you? For instance, if I start to defeat a knight or fighter and he feels he can't win, will he run or beg for mercy?
Todd: Yes. They will also ask you to yield, or you can yield to them.
TokyoFunk: I've seen the physics being put to use in the trailer; are there a lot of instances where physics can aid me?
Todd: Yes, we use physics a lot. In traps, in dungeons and in all the items. This helps when you're a thief or use telekinesis magic. It creates a more believable world.
Stapler123 [BP]: How about a sequel to X-car?
Todd: [laughs]. One of the programmers from X-car is now our lead Xbox programmer.
Jackanapez [MK]: What is going on with Fallout 3? Since you acquired the license has there been any work on it?
Todd: It's looking amazing, but we won't be talking about it for a while.
As you probably know, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion will be making its long-awaited and eagerly-anticipated appearance on store shelves on March 20. The team is already hard at work on Fallout 3, and in January Bethesda announced that they had secured the rights to publish a series of Star Trek games.
Trekkies rejoice: Star Trek: Legacy will be spinning in your Xbox 360 this September—in time for the fortieth anniversary of Star Trek. Thanks to all the great people at Bethesda Softworks, particularly Vlatko Andonov, Pete Hines, and Erin Losi for showing me around.
You wanna win this? Work for it.
P.S. When I was at Bethesda, I had the Oblivion development team sign an Xbox 360 shirt—with the help of fabulous PR babe Paris. The first person (who does not work at Bethesda!) to correctly guess why there are so many Wonder Woman collectibles in the office wins it. Send me an email at xlmail@microsoft.com.
Article by TriXie
