Douglas Goodall: Behind the scenes of Morrowind

[Sander]

I recently encountered a nice little interview at The RPGCodex. Scroll down the thread for the whole interview.

It's a very interesting piece describing several design decisions made during the development of Morrowind, and how they treated the license of The Elder Scrolls.
For instance, it shows that Morrowind was based on real-world history much more than the previous games (Duh gypsy), but also that this was a conscious decision flowing from one of the 'rules' the lead designer, Ken Rolston, had. It also shows what happens if you have multiple people with conflicting views working on a game: the quality of the game degrades significantly.

It also explains several problems with Morrowind, the fact for instance that Todd Howard is much more of a Hack-and-Slash man than a real roleplaying man explains the way Morrowind turned out, and presumably the way Oblivion will turn out as well.

 

[zioburosky13]

I recently encountered a nice little <a
It also explains several problems with Morrowind, the fact for instance that Todd Howard is much more of a Hack-and-Slash man than a real roleplaying man explains the way Morrowind turned out, and presumably the way Oblivion will turn out as well.

HOLY Shit! Oblivion will sucks!

 

[Paladin Solo]

I'll play it first comrade. Too many fanboys/hate-mongerers have lied to me in the past for me to give a fuck about what they say.

 

[Josh]

Well, in about ten days I will give my verdict on the quality of Oblivion, as my collectors edition has been pre ordered. There is no way to tell if a game will such, prior to release (unless its FOPOS, or the first game of a dev team).

 

[Signeon]

as my collectors edition has been pre ordered.

Pre-ordered? Man, you must be really optimistic or really foolish. Well, I guess Oblivion could turn out to be a decent game, but a really horrible roleplaying experience (if there's any roleplaying to speak of).

 

[Josh]

And what are you basing that on? From what I have heard and reaserched, oblivion seems to be a good resource for roleplaying through the imagination. As I have said before, I will make my own descision on whether or not it is worthy.

 

[Sander]

Go read the articles on the RPGCodex, they discuss some of the quests for instance. It seems that all the quests are very straightforward and don't use any of their potential. To take an example, some novice for a mage guild had dissappeared. You get to go search for him. SO what happens? You talk to a dude in the village where he was last seen, and you find out he made himself invisible to mess with head mage.
End of quest.

 

[MrSmileyFaceDude]

I didn't realize RPGCodex was the sole source of information about Oblivion

 

[Sander]

Heh, that's been a long time since you posted.

No, the codex isn't the sole source of info about Oblivion. It's one of the few with a lot of different articles and one of the few with something other than "Morrowind rocked, this will rock!!!!!" Reading those kinds of (p)reviews makes me very, very annoyed.

 

[Ratty Sr.]

I didn't realize RPGCodex was the sole source of information about Oblivion

True, but it's one of the more intelligent sources.

 

[Brother None]

I didn't realize RPGCodex was the sole source of information about Oblivion

The Codex is cruel, but honest.

I hate hyping. Hyping can destroy any good game and lift any mediocre game into fame, but little good can ever come from hyping.

Oblivion? Definitely hyped.

Sadly honest reporting is the closest experience I can get, as the insane demands shoved into Oblivion go quite a cut above what my computer can manage. Unless I badly overclock it, which I won't.

 

[Roshambo]

I didn't realize RPGCodex was the sole source of information about Oblivion

Yes, but we find it has the least amount of idiocy, since conventionally a media whore and the developer hit heads as they both go for the developer's wang to see who can suck off the developer first. Then the interview becomes even less intelligible than a victory speech at the Special Olympics.

Some of us would like to read something other than what amounts to slash journalism. You know, since we care more about the design than the drama around the developers. That just comes along for free, and it gets even better when the developer is pissed that they actually have to talk about design instead of how innovatively they renamed a concept from over 10 years ago.

 

[zioburosky13]

Go read the articles on the RPGCodex, they discuss some of the quests for instance...

Any link??? :

 

[Tannhauser]

Here are two threads I remember that mention specific quests: Oblivion mage quests (highly intricate stuff) and Oblivion fighter quests - the IGN preview.