Skyrim - What's New Interview @ IGN

Todd Howard has been interviewed at IGN about some of the new things in Skyrim. Here's a sample on the engine:

IGN: When did development begin and how big is the team? At what point was it decided that all-new technology should be built in-house at Bethesda Game Studios for Skyrim?

Todd Howard: We have a team of about 100 people. We were doing some design during Fallout 3, but the real work started when we finished that game, with our tech staff moving over to work on the new technology for Skyrim.

We've always used a lot of our own stuff, mixed with other middleware that we liked. Coming off of Fallout 3, we made a pretty big list of what we wanted to change technically. So we redid the rendering, lighting, shadows, animation, faces, foliage, mountains, scripting, interface and more. And by the time we got through it all, it was clear the technology was new enough to give it its own name, The Creation Engine. Same with our editor, The Creation Kit. They go together as technology.

Some of that you'll notice as a player, like shadows, mountains, and the animations; some you won't, like how scripting or pathfinding works internally. If you looked quickly at our editor, it behaves similar to our old ones; it just does a lot more, and does some old things in better ways. But we don't change things just to change them. We still use the nif file format, because it worked fine for what we're doing and our modders know it well. We still use some middleware that we like, such as Havok. We're not just using their physics this time, but their animation system, Havok Behavior. It makes a dramatic difference in how the game looks and plays. Overall though, the paradigm for how we build these huge worlds has not changed dramatically, we just want it to look better and play more smoothly.

More information.

I thought this a telling comment, though in general it was a good interview.

At the end of the day, no matter what we do, the meaty gameplay is in the combat, and you're going to see it a lot.

At least they're doing something about the level scaling!!

"We still use the nif file format" awesome news for us modders

Glad to hear about carriages… Oblivion having no in-game transportation at all really hurt immersion for me. Also glad to hear about DirectX 11 for the PC.

No levitation? NOOOOO

What percentage of all those Todd's statements should we believe?

Great interview, I'm really looking forward this game.

One thing that bugs me though: Why do these journalists always ask multiplayer? Its a well known fact already that Skyrim is a pure singleplayer game.

Hmm, if their changes from Oblivion amount to: "Looks better and performs more smoothly." - I'll be quite disappointed.

But, based on other interviews, I think there's more to it than that.

Hopefully it's not the same guy who did PR for Crysis 2.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Hmm, if their changes from Oblivion amount to: "Looks better and performs more smoothly." - I'll be quite disappointed.

But, based on other interviews, I think there's more to it than that.

If its only "Looks better and performs more smoothly" then il be dispointed not getting something i want. But i think it will be more then that too. Certainly hope so.

Originally Posted by Dez
Great interview, I'm really looking forward this game.

One thing that bugs me though: Why do these journalists always ask multiplayer? Its a well known fact already that Skyrim is a pure singleplayer game.

I starting to get realy anoyed by that too. Always that stupid multiplayer stuff.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Hopefully it's not the same guy who did PR for Crysis 2.

Cant remember, but what was wrong with his PR?
Just finished Crysis 2 and i really liked it for what it was.

Nevermind….

Haha, I find this amusing

Originally Posted by Dez
Great interview, I'm really looking forward this game.

One thing that bugs me though: Why do these journalists always ask multiplayer? Its a well known fact already that Skyrim is a pure singleplayer game.

They're pushing an agenda, same with all the "is it coming to consoles?" questions in every Witcher 2 interview.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Haha, I find this amusing

It seems I really need to lower my standards for shooters.


Hmm I found this interesting..

Coming off of Fallout 3, we made a pretty big list of what we wanted to change technically. So we redid the rendering, lighting, shadows, animation, faces, foliage, mountains, scripting, interface and more. And by the time we got through it all, it was clear the technology was new enough to give it its own name, The Creation Engine.

The technology was "new enough"? So is this his way of saying that it's really just a heavily modified Gamebryo?

Originally Posted by JDR13
It seems I really need to lower my standards for shooters.

Can you really go lower than DS?

Hmm I found this interesting..



The technology was "new enough"? So is this his way of saying that it's really just a heavily modified Gamebryo?

I thought we established that long ago?

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Can you really go lower than DS?

SS

(extra characters)

Uh oh… don't get him started.

……..

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Can you really go lower than DS?

Originally Posted by kalniel
SS

Originally Posted by JDR13
Uh oh… don't get him started.
……..

I hope SS doesn't stand for System Shock, or it might get me started

SS = Serious Sam?

If so, then I agree

SS = System Shock?

If so, then *head implodes*

Space Siege?