Inside the Vault heads back into programmer territory today with a Q&A with Erik Deitrick, our lead interface programmer. He spends his days knee deep in code and XMLs. Every Halloween, Erik is known for creating a costume that incorporates his young son.
Our first Inside the Vault for 2008 is with someone all our Elder Scrolls fans know – Christiane Meister. She’s been the Lead Character Artist for Morrowind and Oblivion. She is currently hard at work on Fallout 3 along with the rest of the team.
This week’s Inside the Vault is about Gavin Carter, our lead producer on Fallout 3. Gavin is responsible for one of my favorite Elder Scrolls quests – Tribunal’s A Star is Born, which involved the player acting in a play. We tried to reprise the concept of the “play” quest for Oblivion, but unfortunately, it ended up on the cutting room floor. Gavin has been involved with Fallout 3′s development from the very start, and he will be responsible for getting it to the finish line, as well (No pressure, Gav).
This will be our last Inside the Vault for 2007. I believe these interviews are a great way to learn more about the passionate, fascinating people working here at the studio. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about them as much as I have.
Today is Ahn Hopgood’s turn on the Inside the Vault question and answer ride. Ahn has worked on several different parts of our codebase including interface, gameplay and AI. She was one of the primary architects of the Radiant AI system for Oblivion and is currently hard at work on Fallout 3.
Today’s Inside the Vault is about senior designer, Kurt Kuhlmann. Kurt has worked on a few Elder Scrolls titles including Oblivion. Much of how we implement quests in the Construction Set, especially when we transitioned to Oblivion from Morrowind, was conceived by Kurt. He once made a web version of the board game, Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation, after we became addicted to it in the office.
Today’s Inside the Vault is with associate producer, Will Noble. Will was one of our original core testers way back during Morrowind and has tested every game that the internal team here has created and many of our externally developed titles, too. He is now a part of our external production team at Bethesda, working on Rogue Warrior.
Bethesda is not just a developer but a publisher as well. So today’s Q&A is with Charles Harribey, one of our producers who handles external projects. Charles is primarily reponsible for our Star Trek games, and since we shipped his latest project today – Star Trek: Conquest — we thought it fitting to give some insight into Charles’ world.
This edition of Inside the Vault features programmer, Orin Tresnjak. Orin is one of the awesome programmers who work on multiple systems. He’s worked on a variety of interfaces and shaders, and even made tools for creating DLC and PC installers (Orin even pitched in and made the installer for Star Trek: Legacy). In short, we drop Orin in and cool stuff results.
We have a special Inside the Vault today, featuring our community manager, Matt Grandstaff. We thought it would be fun to do a special Q&A with Matt since he is our main point of contact with our fan community. Todd Howard contributed a few of the questions.
After a week hiatus, Inside the Vault is back. Today, our Q&A features Robert Wisnewski, one of our senior artists. His main focus is on our dungeons – he created the beautiful fort ruins in Oblivion.