Those interested in getting into the modding scene with Oblivion, I just noticed that The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion Files has launched a new tutorial team for helping out. If you’re interested in becoming a tutor, check out this link:
Sounds like a cool opportunity. And remember, if you have stuff that you liked to contribute to the modding community, you can always visit other sites like our very Construction Set Wiki.
As you know, we’ve asked that you guys submit fan art for our blog. Over the weekend, I got some cool stuff from Elder Scrolls fan Raven Hall. These drawings are based on her interpretations of how the Daedra should look.
Above is her adaptation of Azura. Check out the Fan Art section on the right side to look at some of her other drawings.
Want your stuff in the Fan Art section? Just send an email with your JPEG files attached. We prefer to put up original designs, and keep in mind, we’re not going to be able to put up everyone’s art, but we’re always interested to see what you’ve come up with.
Oblivion is the first Elder Scrolls game to ever be localized into Japanese. Japan is about to experience an open-ended RPG, the likes they’ve never seen before. The Elder Scrolls is a very different breed of RPG from Japanese RPGs, and we can’t wait to see how it does. Hopefully our initial Famitsu scores are a pretty good indicator that we’ll do well.
The Xbox 360 version ships today. It is the one we finished first originally so we decided to release its Japanese counterpart first. That said, we’re hard at work testing and wrapping up the PS3 version and that will be out in a couple months.
If you haven’t heard of Folding@Home, it’s a pretty cool and unique project. Set up by Stanford University, the project is a distributed computing project where people around the world can download software to create a supercomputer of sorts. The “folding” deals with research through folding proteins. Through this research, folks at Stanford hope to find solutions to diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, forms of cancer, and more.
So how does this relate to Bethesda or any of our games? Well, on Planet Elder Scrolls, and within our forums, The Elder Scrolls community has come together to create a team to help with folding projects (the more computers you have, the faster projects can get completed). If you’re interested in participating, you’ll want to join Team Elder Scrolls (ID #52286). Oh yeah, and if you’re using a PS3, you can help with this project too!
A while back before launching the blog, I asked Rob (our IT guy for the blog) about some issues I was having with posting YouTube videos. I was looking to post the Perlman intro from the original Fallout. When Rob finally got videos to embed on our blog, he replaced the Perlman video with this video. Even though the video has been out there a while, it’s still worth mentioning for those that haven’t seen it before.
Pretty funny use of the Construction Set if you have ask me. I especially like how the books speall out “LOL” near the beginning of the video. Secumfex, if you’re out there, I’d love to know how long this took. And if anyone has cool video similar to this, send them over!
With the poll question relating to Elder Scrolls mods, I thought I’d mention some notable mods I’ve come across this week.
The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion Files have uploaded a new mod, Martigen’s Monster Mod 3.0. The mod offers plenty of new stuff to fans, including:
“Over 800M in 150+ brand new creatures and NPCs, 1900+ variant creatures and NPCs, unique encounters, advanced behaviour AI, advanced combat AI, tailored loot drops and more!”
Sounds like a really impressive mod. For more details on all the features of MMM 3.0 (and there’s plenty), visit here.
Another cool mod comes from Planet Elder Scrolls member Coleen. This mod adds the ability to cook food and brew drinks, and it even adds a farmer’s market to the game. As noted, the mod combines food items from the Salmo the Baker from Tarnsman and Ravida’s hungry scripts.
Thanks to Coleen for making this (and making me hungry)…LUNCH TIME!
Alan Nanes is featured for this edition of Inside the Vault. Al created my favorite download for Oblivion, Wizard’s Tower, and is responsible for many of the miscellaneous quests in Oblivion, including the memorable A Brush with Death, where the player is teleported into a painting.
Less than an hour ago, we got some exciting news that Fallout 3 received three nominations for the 2007 Game Critics Awards. The game pulled in nominations for Best of Show, Best PC Game, and Best RPG. For more details on all the nominations, click here.
The Game Critics Award nominations come from editors from the 36 leading videogame publications. For more details on the nominations, judging, rules, and past winners, visit here. The winners will be Tuesday, July 31.
UPDATE: On top of these nominations, we got some good news from Gamespot. The game took home Best Role-Playing Game, Best PC Game, and was a finalist for Game of the Show! Additionally, Gametrailers nominated the game in the category, Best of E3 2007: One to Watch.
The Escapist’s Joe Blancato, like me, apparently really likes “Power Rankings.” Being a sports junkie myself, I’m a big fans of checking to see how my teams do on ESPN’s weekly Power Rankings, whether it be for the Wolverines, Pistons, or Braves.
Anyhow, the site’s Inaugural Power Rankings place us in good company, as our showing at E3 helped us land a debut at #4, behind Microsoft, EA, and Irrational Game Studios. Rounding out the Top 5 was Peter Moore, who made headlines last week leaving Microsoft to head up EA Sports.
In other Fallout 3 news, here’s some more coverage that’s gone up in the last day or so:
- Grrl Gamer writer Didi Cardoso shares her first impression of the game after watching the demo in Santa Monica.
- Xbox Evolved has put a video interview with Emil.
- John Callaham of Firing Squad recaps the E3 demo and weighs in on the demo and how the game is shaping up to be different than Oblivion.
Over the weekend, I saw that Tim Buckley over at CAD ran a comic focusing on Fallout 3. Tim also did a series of comics last year on Oblivion, which starts with this one. No, we aren’t in the loop on any of these.
Looks like he’s hoping that Santa, Superman or even Nic Cage (HA!) could help bring Fallout 3 to stores sooner than Fall 2008. Sorry, not going to happen…even if NBA referee Tim Donaghy bets on it.
Tim has always professed his affection for Fallout, so this may not be the last we hear from him on the subject.