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Guest
The Elderscrolls III: Morrowind: Pete Hines - 2002-03-17
XboxActive.com: First off, could you please give us some information about yourself and what you do at Bethesda Softworks.
Pete Hines: I'm the Director of Marketing and Public Relations. In addition to handling all of the marketing and PR, I do some playtesting for Morrowind, I'm writing the manual, and editing and doing some writing for the official strategy guide.
XboxActive.com: Could you give us an overview of the game? I.e.; story line, goals, and the overall goal.
Pete Hines: Morrowind is a massively single-player role-playing game. We create a big virtual world with lots of people and things to do and allow you to live in this world any way you want. The goal if for you to have fun, whether that be solving the main quest or wandering around doing whatever you like. Solve problems, dungeon crawl, mix and sell potions for a living...whatever you want. The main quest in the game has to do with The Blight -- a disease cloud that is spewing out of a large volcano in the center of the island. You'll be asked to figure out who's behind it.
XboxActive.com: What is some of the background on the levels in Morrowind? What was some of the inspiration for the creation of the levels and the components based in each one?
Pete Hines: Morrowind isn't made of levels. The first thing the designers did was not to write a bunch of quests, but instead they worked on creating this world. Who lives in Morrowind? What do the towns look like? What are the factions at work here? What do the people want? Once we got all of that in place, then we start creating things for the player to do as it relates to all of these people. So rather than seeing all of these people and towns and having them be mere scenery, they're a big part of what you do.
XboxActive.com: What made you choose to develop Morrowind on Xbox over other next generation consoles like GameCube? What does both the hardware of the Xbox console and the XDK offer you that other systems don't?
Pete Hines: The Elder Scrolls had only been done for PCs previously. Morrowind was designed with the PC in mind because there were no consoles that would allow us to make the game we wanted to make. When Xbox came on the scene and we saw what it could do, we realized that Morrowind would work on it and we wouldn't have to change the game. We wanted to bring a fun, and very different, RPG to the console market because we think people are really going to be intrigued by how new and different it is from anything they've experienced before.
Morrowind is a huge game, so the big thing for us was memory and hard drive space. The specs were Xbox were what we needed to bring Morrowind to console gamers, and now we will.
XboxActive.com: Could you tell us about the audio and its features in Morrowind?
Pete Hines: All of the NPCs have spoken dialog for greetings and combat. There are lots of ambient sound effects that really add to the realistic look and feel of the game. The Morrowind soundtrack was done by award-winnin
g musician and composer, Jeremy Soule. It's a great soundtrack and fits in perfectly with the game.
XboxActive.com: How far developed is Morrowind at the moment?
Pete Hines: We are in the final stages of testing and balancing the game.
XboxActive.com: What are some of the characteristics of the A.I. built into the game in regards to characters, creatures and surroundings?
Pete Hines: Characters are set up so you never know what to expect. For example, you may decide to walk up to someone punch his lights out or smack him with your sword. One character will call for the guards and you'll be in big trouble. Another guy may decide to fight for himself and teach you a lesson without calling a guard. If you're being attacked by a creature and run into a town, the town guards will help you fight the creature. Again, we're trying to create an immersive world where things revolve around the way you play the game, and we don't want you to know what's going to happen if you try to pick someone's pocket and get caught. Maybe they'll call for help (probably), maybe they won't.
XboxActive.com: How many stages/levels will there be in the game? And approx. how many hours of game play will Morrowind provide?
Pete Hines: It can take around 100 hours to finish the main quest. There's probably upwards of 500 hours of gameplay for a single game, depending on what you decide to do.
XboxActive.com: Could you tell us any information on differences between the PC and Xbox versions?
Pete Hines: Other than the interface and control differences, the game is exactly the same on PC and Xbox. We haven't removed a single quest or object from the game
XboxActive.com: How many people have been working on Morrowind?
Pete Hines: Our current team is over 30 people.
XboxActive.com: To what capacity will Morrowind use Xbox's hard-disk and/or online capabilities?
Pete Hines: We hope to be able to provide plug-ins for anyone playing Morrowind on Xbox, so that you can add new content to your existing game...dungeons, quests, items, etc. There are still some issues to be resolved here, but we hope it'll work out.
XboxActive.com: What has been the hardest hurdle to overcome during development?
Pete Hines: It's hard to express just how big this game is. All through the process we've gotten lots of requests for various features, but just making a game this big and getting it to work properly is a monumental task all by itself. I think the development team has done an outstanding job in managing a game of this size and making sure that everything works well and fits together seamlessly.
XboxActive.com: What has been your favorite part of the development stage?
Pete Hines: Definitely this part, where the game is fully playable and it's as fun to play as we hoped it would be.
XboxActive.com: Favorite part of the game?
Pete Hines: The ability to go wherever I want at any point. I'll be in the middle of completing a quest and will decide to duck into a dungeon to see what I might find, or talk to someone I see out of curiosity and end up getting myself involved in some mess that I can
't help straightening out.
XboxActive.com: What were some things planned for Morrowind, but never made it?
Pete Hines: For the most part, not much. What we've got here is the game we wanted to make from the start.
XboxActive.com: Will it be very hard to learn the basic gameplay of the game?
Pete Hines: You don't have to read the manual to be able to play the game. We teach you how to do everything right from the start. In fact, the playtesters weren't given the manual and all of them indicated that they had no problem playing the game because we provide so much in-game information.
XboxActive.com: What experience do you hope to leave players with, playing Morrowind?
Pete Hines: We think they'll be amazed by the size of the world, the depth of the character creation and development, the high level of interactivity with the characters they meet and the world itself, and the incredible amount of detail. Mostly, we hope to leave them desperately wanting a sequel.
XboxActive.com: Comparing from when you started the project, to now, has Morrowind and its development exceeded you expectations? Why?
Pete Hines: Tough question. I don't think it exceeded expectations only because we had such high expectations from the beginning. We really wanted to throw the rock as far as we could. Make a big world with great graphics and completely free-form gameplay. We haven't fallen short on any of those objectives.
XboxActive.com: What reactions have you experienced from the gaming community so far?
Pete Hines: It's been extremely positive. The official forums (at www.elderscrolls.com) has over 5,000 registered users and we're adding folks by the truckload on a daily basis. The Elder Scrolls series has been around for a long time, so we have a mix of people who have been with us since Arena in 1994, as well as gamers who know nothing about the series but are really excited about Morrowind.
XboxActive.com: And last but not least, is there anything you would like to say to our readers and why they should run out and buy this game as soon as it's out?
Pete Hines: Morrowind is not like any game you've ever played and it'll change the way you look at RPGs (or games of any type for that matter). It's a tough game to stop playing. You're always wanting to finish one more quest, get one more special item, increase that skill just one more level...it's definitely addictive.
XboxActive.com:XboxActive.com would like to thank you for taking you time to answer our questions, and we look forward to the release of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind!
XboxActive.com: First off, could you please give us some information about yourself and what you do at Bethesda Softworks.
Pete Hines: I'm the Director of Marketing and Public Relations. In addition to handling all of the marketing and PR, I do some playtesting for Morrowind, I'm writing the manual, and editing and doing some writing for the official strategy guide.
XboxActive.com: Could you give us an overview of the game? I.e.; story line, goals, and the overall goal.
Pete Hines: Morrowind is a massively single-player role-playing game. We create a big virtual world with lots of people and things to do and allow you to live in this world any way you want. The goal if for you to have fun, whether that be solving the main quest or wandering around doing whatever you like. Solve problems, dungeon crawl, mix and sell potions for a living...whatever you want. The main quest in the game has to do with The Blight -- a disease cloud that is spewing out of a large volcano in the center of the island. You'll be asked to figure out who's behind it.
XboxActive.com: What is some of the background on the levels in Morrowind? What was some of the inspiration for the creation of the levels and the components based in each one?
Pete Hines: Morrowind isn't made of levels. The first thing the designers did was not to write a bunch of quests, but instead they worked on creating this world. Who lives in Morrowind? What do the towns look like? What are the factions at work here? What do the people want? Once we got all of that in place, then we start creating things for the player to do as it relates to all of these people. So rather than seeing all of these people and towns and having them be mere scenery, they're a big part of what you do.
XboxActive.com: What made you choose to develop Morrowind on Xbox over other next generation consoles like GameCube? What does both the hardware of the Xbox console and the XDK offer you that other systems don't?
Pete Hines: The Elder Scrolls had only been done for PCs previously. Morrowind was designed with the PC in mind because there were no consoles that would allow us to make the game we wanted to make. When Xbox came on the scene and we saw what it could do, we realized that Morrowind would work on it and we wouldn't have to change the game. We wanted to bring a fun, and very different, RPG to the console market because we think people are really going to be intrigued by how new and different it is from anything they've experienced before.
Morrowind is a huge game, so the big thing for us was memory and hard drive space. The specs were Xbox were what we needed to bring Morrowind to console gamers, and now we will.
XboxActive.com: Could you tell us about the audio and its features in Morrowind?
Pete Hines: All of the NPCs have spoken dialog for greetings and combat. There are lots of ambient sound effects that really add to the realistic look and feel of the game. The Morrowind soundtrack was done by award-winnin
g musician and composer, Jeremy Soule. It's a great soundtrack and fits in perfectly with the game.
XboxActive.com: How far developed is Morrowind at the moment?
Pete Hines: We are in the final stages of testing and balancing the game.
XboxActive.com: What are some of the characteristics of the A.I. built into the game in regards to characters, creatures and surroundings?
Pete Hines: Characters are set up so you never know what to expect. For example, you may decide to walk up to someone punch his lights out or smack him with your sword. One character will call for the guards and you'll be in big trouble. Another guy may decide to fight for himself and teach you a lesson without calling a guard. If you're being attacked by a creature and run into a town, the town guards will help you fight the creature. Again, we're trying to create an immersive world where things revolve around the way you play the game, and we don't want you to know what's going to happen if you try to pick someone's pocket and get caught. Maybe they'll call for help (probably), maybe they won't.
XboxActive.com: How many stages/levels will there be in the game? And approx. how many hours of game play will Morrowind provide?
Pete Hines: It can take around 100 hours to finish the main quest. There's probably upwards of 500 hours of gameplay for a single game, depending on what you decide to do.
XboxActive.com: Could you tell us any information on differences between the PC and Xbox versions?
Pete Hines: Other than the interface and control differences, the game is exactly the same on PC and Xbox. We haven't removed a single quest or object from the game
XboxActive.com: How many people have been working on Morrowind?
Pete Hines: Our current team is over 30 people.
XboxActive.com: To what capacity will Morrowind use Xbox's hard-disk and/or online capabilities?
Pete Hines: We hope to be able to provide plug-ins for anyone playing Morrowind on Xbox, so that you can add new content to your existing game...dungeons, quests, items, etc. There are still some issues to be resolved here, but we hope it'll work out.
XboxActive.com: What has been the hardest hurdle to overcome during development?
Pete Hines: It's hard to express just how big this game is. All through the process we've gotten lots of requests for various features, but just making a game this big and getting it to work properly is a monumental task all by itself. I think the development team has done an outstanding job in managing a game of this size and making sure that everything works well and fits together seamlessly.
XboxActive.com: What has been your favorite part of the development stage?
Pete Hines: Definitely this part, where the game is fully playable and it's as fun to play as we hoped it would be.
XboxActive.com: Favorite part of the game?
Pete Hines: The ability to go wherever I want at any point. I'll be in the middle of completing a quest and will decide to duck into a dungeon to see what I might find, or talk to someone I see out of curiosity and end up getting myself involved in some mess that I can
't help straightening out.
XboxActive.com: What were some things planned for Morrowind, but never made it?
Pete Hines: For the most part, not much. What we've got here is the game we wanted to make from the start.
XboxActive.com: Will it be very hard to learn the basic gameplay of the game?
Pete Hines: You don't have to read the manual to be able to play the game. We teach you how to do everything right from the start. In fact, the playtesters weren't given the manual and all of them indicated that they had no problem playing the game because we provide so much in-game information.
XboxActive.com: What experience do you hope to leave players with, playing Morrowind?
Pete Hines: We think they'll be amazed by the size of the world, the depth of the character creation and development, the high level of interactivity with the characters they meet and the world itself, and the incredible amount of detail. Mostly, we hope to leave them desperately wanting a sequel.
XboxActive.com: Comparing from when you started the project, to now, has Morrowind and its development exceeded you expectations? Why?
Pete Hines: Tough question. I don't think it exceeded expectations only because we had such high expectations from the beginning. We really wanted to throw the rock as far as we could. Make a big world with great graphics and completely free-form gameplay. We haven't fallen short on any of those objectives.
XboxActive.com: What reactions have you experienced from the gaming community so far?
Pete Hines: It's been extremely positive. The official forums (at www.elderscrolls.com) has over 5,000 registered users and we're adding folks by the truckload on a daily basis. The Elder Scrolls series has been around for a long time, so we have a mix of people who have been with us since Arena in 1994, as well as gamers who know nothing about the series but are really excited about Morrowind.
XboxActive.com: And last but not least, is there anything you would like to say to our readers and why they should run out and buy this game as soon as it's out?
Pete Hines: Morrowind is not like any game you've ever played and it'll change the way you look at RPGs (or games of any type for that matter). It's a tough game to stop playing. You're always wanting to finish one more quest, get one more special item, increase that skill just one more level...it's definitely addictive.
XboxActive.com:XboxActive.com would like to thank you for taking you time to answer our questions, and we look forward to the release of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind!
