Author Archives: gstaff

New Community Content for The Elder Scrolls

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So far this week, I’ve seen several cool mod additions over at Planet Elder Scrolls. Here’s are a few of my favorites for the week…

The Nazarian Library: Repeal19 has created a mod that builds a library just south of Arcane University. So what makes this library so special? Well, it actually houses EVERY book that can be found within the original quest of Oblivion. So if you’re spending too much time playing the game in the coming weeks when school starts back up, you can at least tell your parents that you’re studying at the library :) .

Chargen Diseases: When generating your character, Marbred’s disease mod allows you to make your character suffer from Werewolf disease, Vampire clan disease, or simply no disease at all. Perfect for folks who can’t get enough of Teen Wolf.

Mostly-Mini Todd Howard: Last but not least, and destined to be a favorite around our office, this new Morrowind mod from Fliggerty & Friends adds a “Mini Me” Todd Howard to the game. I’m sure Todd is honored to have his likeness in the game. Now can we just get a new weapon called the “Gstaff” (I’m imagining some sort of staff that has a “G” at the top of it).

Firor Chats with ActionTrip, Ten Ton Hammer

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Two weeks ago, we introduced you to Matt Firor, who is heading up our new MMO division, ZeniMax Online. Since we had a lot of folks ping us interested in what he was up to, we thought we’d keep you up to date on what he’s doing. He’s gone out and done interviews with FiringSquad and Ten Ton Hammer.

Here’s a sample from the Ten Ton Hammer interview:

Ten Ton Hammer: MMOGs continue to rise in the gaming landscape, how do you see the industry changing over the next few years? Where does ZeniMax fit into that change?

Matt: Instead of trying to “game” the market by figuring where everything will be in a few years and develop a product that will fit in an unused niche, we’re just going to try to make the best MMOG possible.

And from Firing Squad:

FiringSquad: How did ZeniMax approach you when they said they wanted to launch a new MMO game studio?

Matt Firor: They told me that they wanted to give me all the resources I needed to make a great MMO. After meeting with the company’s management, I felt very strongly that this is the “once in a lifetime” opportunity that one shouldn’t pass up.

Edit: Shacknews has added an interview with Matt as well.  http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=518

Conquest Question of the Week

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So within our in the Star Trek: Conquest forums last week, we set up a thread for fans to ask questions about the game. Our first “Question of the Week” comes from member Joelteon7, which Lead Designer Frank Arnot was kind enough to answer.

Q: Can you provide some examples of the special weapons?

A: There are six unique special weapons in the game. One of the nastiest is the Wormhole Generator. With this you can launch a surprise attack transporting an entire fllet across the galaxy. But it can also be used to for defense to instantly bring in reinforcements to defend a friendly system that’s about to be overrun.

Come back next week for another Conquest Question of the Week. Keep the questions coming on the thread or email us!

Get Your Questions Ready!

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So we’ve let the journalists do the talking through their articles, but now we’d like to field some of your questions. That’s right, Todd and Co. are going to be willing to talk about more than Batman and their favorite color. If you’ve got something you’re dying to know about Fallout 3, take your suggestion to the forums here. If you want to send them directly to us via the blog, that’s fine too.

In addition to pulling together a list of questions that covers all the things people want to know about, we’ll keep an eye on other questions that get sent to us and pull in a developer every now and then to answer a few questions. You never know when a dev may stop by to answer a question or two from the mailbag, so send in your questions about Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, Star Trek Conquest, or whatever it is you want to know and we’ll get to work.

Interview with ‘Undernethe’ Modding Team

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A little more than a week ago, I was reading about Undernethe Prequel mod project in the works for Oblivion over at FileFront’s Oblivion Files site. The mod will open up a new underground quest featuring new NPCs, music, creatures, weapons and more.

The folks working on the project are currently seeking help from others, but in the meantime, I thought I’d check in to find out more about the project. I asked some questions for some of the guys working on the mod to find out more.

First, some introductions. Fire Legion is the project lead of the Undernethe mod, and works with all aspects of the mod, as well as promotion and team management. Mr.E is the loremaster, and leads the writing and quest departments. Sheogorath is the lead scripter and worldbuilder, and also works heavily in modelling and texturing.

For those unfamiliar with your mod, tell us what folks can expect with Undernethe?

Mr.E: The Undernethe is all about adding a grand scale to the land below Cyrodiil. We plan for there to be be caverns so large and intricate that you can’t help but get lost (and scared), civilizations with lore and quests so involved that you’d swear they were a part of The Elder Scrolls mythology, and items and creatures that will make dungeon delving as fun as possible.

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Are you the Oblivion Iron Man?

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Ash and I got to wondering after reading Oblivion fan Victor Hedenberg’s comment about playing Oblivion for 250 hours. We asked, “I wonder who has put the most time into playing Oblivion?”

I’d venture to say that someone’s gotten close to playing the game* for more than 1000 hours somewhere. Since I’m so curious about it, I think it’s time to run our blog’s first ever contest!! Let’s call it “The Oblivion Iron Man Contest.” The rules are as follows:

  • The contest is open to players of the PC, 360, and PS3 versions of the game.
  • Send unaltered photos showing your gameplay time (from the save menu) to bethblog@bethsoft.com. The winner selected by us will be required to send us his/her actual game save for verification purposes via e-mail, memory card, or memory stick. If for any reason we are unable to confirm the gameplay time, we’ll pick the next person in line. Winners who send a memory stick or memory card will receive the card back via mail.
  • Please send a photo of yourself that we can post for the blog announcement of the winner.
  • All e-mails must be received by midnight (U.S. EST), Sunday, August 26th (so start playing your game non-stop NOW!) The winner will be announced once we have confirmed the winning game save.
  • Any foul play detected will result in automatic disqualification.
  • All participants must be 18 or older to enter and verification may be required before the winner is announced. Any material sent shall be deemed non-proprietary.

So what does the Oblivion Iron Man win?

Well, Pete emailed from vacation and told me to send one of my trusty droids into his office to pull a signed copy of the game from his office…and not just any signed copy. This PC copy of Oblivion is signed by renowned actors, Terrence Stamp (Mankar Camoran) and Sean Bean (Martin Septim)!

*I’m sure some of the modders out there have probably spent at least that much time doing mods for the game, but we’re only accounting for gameplay time. That said, modders are welcome to enter.

Interview with Star Trek: Conquest Lead Designer

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Last week I was able to chat with Frank Arnot, lead designer for Star Trek Conquest. The following Q&A should help you learn a bit more about the game and what it’s all about.

How would you best describe Conquest?

Conquest is a game of galactic domination that mixes turn-based strategy game with arcade elements.

What’s back story for the game?

Because of the nature of the game we have a very straight-forward back story:

It is a time of unrest, all the major races are at war. Age-old alliances are forgotten, diplomacy is dead. Powerful fleets prowl the galaxy establishing outposts and vanquishing indigenous and enemy fleets alike in the pursuit of the ultimate prize – the capture of all home worlds and galactic domination.

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Oblivion Offers New Opportunities to Architects

About a month ago, Pete made a post revealing how Dr. Andrew Hudson-Smith’s blog, Digital Urban, featured a two-part tutorial on how to create 3D models using 3D Max and then import these models into Oblivion. In the most recent online issue of The Escapist, writer Allen Varney discusses how architects have been using game engines for experimentation with architecture, in an article titled “London in Oblivion.”

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OXM Podcast Featuring Todd Howard

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On Friday, the latest Official Xbox Magazine podcast went up featuring an interview with Todd. During the podcast Todd discusses Fallout 3, Oblivion Game of the Year and more.

To listen to the podcast, visit here or download it on iTunes…

UPDATE: In other podcasting news, PSM 3 Blog talks about Fallout 3 in their most recent podcast. You can hear what they have to say about the game about 15 minutes into the podcast. It’s a good show though, so don’t skip ahead :)