What inspired you to create Ravenhold Castle as opposed to something else?
It’s been such a long time since I started that it’s hard to remember exactly what first sparked the idea. I’ve always had a fascination with castles and medieval themes, which I think was the main inspiration. I also played with Legos a lot while I was growing up, and this just sort of became my grown-up Lego set.
Building is just something that comes naturally to me. I’ll start on a project, work on it for a while, then sit back and think “What can I do to make this bigger and better?” When I first started Ravenhold Castle, it was a small castle on a tiny island with a small farm. As of right now, the main island alone is slightly larger than Vivec. Early on, I had a lot of areas that I didn’t really know what to do with. I would leave them alone for a while, then come back later and try different things to see what felt right. The harbor district started as a small fishing dock, and the swamp that consumes 1/3 of the island started as one small puddle.
Why do you think Morrowind’s modding community continues to thrive more than a decade after the game’s original release?
Morrowind is an incredibly immersive game which offers a degree of freedom that isn’t seen in most other games, even now. Not only does it offer that degree of freedom, but it also has a much higher difficulty curve than the newer Elder Scrolls games. One of the biggest complaints of Oblivion and Skyrim I hear is how the leveling and character stat system has been simplified to make it more appealing to a wider audience. Skyrim is a mixture of action and RPG, where Morrowind is almost entirely RPG. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but for gamers who prefer a more pure RPG experience, Morrowind is the one that offers it. Lots of nostalgia also helps.
The ability to easily modify all of Bethesda’s games since Morrowind is what puts them ahead of the curve in the game industry. Bethesda has fantastic writing and level development teams, but a group of very talented people can never come up with something that a community of millions of fans could. This is what will keep the Elder Scrolls alive for years to come.
