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Bethesda has a new Mod Interview up with Elder Scrolls modder Gaël Zimmermann or Gez as he’s known online. He’s been modding the Elder Scroll series since Daggerfall and is currently the Head of Concept Art for the mod project Tamriel Rebuilt.

In Morrowind, the Tamriel Rebuilt team focused on expanding the rest of the Morrowind province. For Elder Scrolls IV, Oblivion, the team is creating Hammerfell, the home of the Redguards. Gez is looking forward to seeing TES5 and plans to continue with the Tamriel Rebuilt project.

Gez does the occasional solo project, and has translated several mods into his native French. He prefers to work with games that have open source code and wishes Bethesda would open-source the Morrowind and Oblivion engines.

I know it’s a pipe dream because there is too much licensed middleware to leave the matter in Bethesda’s hands, but if the Morrowind or Oblivion engine were open-sourced, the community would be able to do wonderful things with them. While already really impressive, MGE or OBSE are nothing in comparison to what could be done…

To learn more about this French modder, read the entire interview with Gez on Bethesda Blog. You can find more information on the Tamriel Rebuilt project at the official site.

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Bethesda Blog has alerted Oblivion players to an amusing and useful tutorial. The video will show you a little exploit to get rich; quick meaning in ten minutes or less. The piece is done pop-up video style with snide little comments along the way. If you are playing for fun and don’t care to be challenged, or even if you just need a laugh for the day, check out this video.

via Bethesda Blog

Over on the Bethesda Softworks site, Elder Scrolls modder Fliggerty has challenged modders to participate in The First Semi-Annual House Fliggerty Modding Invitational. The contest is geared towards modders who are less well known.

To participate, you must not have a mod in the Hall of Fame on Planet Elder Scrolls and you can’t have a cumulative download count of 5000 or more on any single mod you’ve released. Modders who don’t qualify for the contest are invited to help judge entries.

All members of Great House Fliggerty with a total of 50 posts or more can submit their Morrowind Housing or Hireable Mercenaries mod by Midnight, MST, July 31, 2008. The deadline allows for plenty of time to achieve that number of posts without any inappropriate spamming.

Interested modders can get the full details on Bethesda Softworks.

Emergent Game Technologies has announced the release of the Gamebryo 2.5 development tool. The engine has been used to create Bethesda’s Oblivion and is being used to develop Fallout 3 and Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. Gamebryo 2.5 features a redesigned core with the Emergent Terrain System, a new Geometry System and enhanced support for the Floodgate stream processing engine.

“Gamebryo 2.5 is the foundation for a new generation of creativity in game and simulation development,” says Geoffrey Selzer, CEO, Emergent Game Technologies. “The significant transformation of the Gamebryo core and our vibrant partner community has given birth to the industry’s most powerful and flexible game development environment. Nothing else allows developers to as easily and smoothly create in any genre on multiple platforms.”

Gamebryo 2.5 is compatible with the PC as well as the Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii. Perhaps this is one of the reasons you see familiar settings in multiple games. The engine is meant to be a framework for development, not a cookie cutter short cut.

via Business Wire

The latest mod burning up the charts on TES Nexus brings a bit of the World of Warcraft to Tamriel. Jojjo’s New Frostmourne Sword is the most popular mod of May 2008. This Oblivion weapons mod was designed from scratch. Jojjo promises to follow up with the Helmet of the Lich King. I’ll be looking out for that.

The second most popular mod is Growlfs Hot Clothes and Armor 5 Full. There are two racial mods and the Oblivion Mod Manager, always a solid choice. Check out all the details on TES Nexus.

There’s an interesting question raised by Scorpia about the place of traps in video games. The author asks whether traps actually do what they’re intended to within video games… or are they just annoying.

We could say they’re supposed to add an element of tension, of risk, to the game. Whether the defusing method is D&D’s dice rolls, Elder Scrolls’ minigames, Avernum’s “skill equal to or greater than to some preset number”, or any other procedure, you’re supposed to feel uncertainty about success and worried about failure.

Scorpia agrees that traps have a place in pen & paper RPGs, but suggests that video games, could really do without them. They don’t really present any significant threat or consequences other than having to load a save, and are often annoying wastes of time. Puzzles can fulfill the same minigame break in combat.

So the question is, can video games do without traps entirely? Would games seem any less difficult or real without them?

I think there may be one type of video game in which traps can be affective; the MMO. Death usually has consequences other than a reload, so the danger traps present is more real.

via Scorpia’s Gaming Lair

Ah, nothing like waking up on a Wednesday morning to a new review from Yahtzee Croshaw. This week, given current gaming drought, Yahtzee casts his reviewing eye on an older favorite, Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. But since he doesn’t tend to like most RPGs anyway, you can probably guess his opinion of this one. Of course, those games he really doesn’t like tend to make for more hilarious videos. Enjoy.

Via The Escapist

PC gaming is dead!

We’ve all heard it over and over recently from many pessimistic sources in the games industry. They cite software piracy as a major culprit, claiming an incredible percentage of games are stolen. We’ve heard how PCs are so much more expensive to upgrade than consoles and with the seemingly infinite combinations of hardware, software and drivers is it any wonder consoles look so promising to developers? With each successive generation of systems, consoles have become more sophisticated and now rival the performance capabilities of midline PCs.

PCs are hard to write games for. Again and again, developers complain about the time and money involved in creating games for systems that have no standard specifications and have a wide range of performance capabilities. Consoles represent a base configuration, sure they may or may not hare a hard drive and even when they do the size might vary but its nothing like PCs and its use of different hardware, OS and drivers. There’s no guarantee that a game will work for every build out there even if the machine meets the minimum system specifications.

All these are legitimate complaints, but I think there is one very important reason why the cries of PC game death are false. PC games have an appeal that is uncommon among the proprietary game consoles by offering a training ground for future developers. Gamers modify PC games adding increased value for other players while granting the titles a longer life span if the mod scene takes off after release. Developers even plan for and encourage game owners to create new content and change existing code. What console offers this sort of tool? Some games come with tool sets packaged with the game, while others are free to download. Its become common for development teams to challenge amateur game makers to enhance or create new game content through contests, some - like the Make something Unreal contest, offer substantial prizes to the winners.

Read the full article

After a short hiatus for the month of April, Planet Elder Scrolls has inducted new mods into its Hall of Fame. There are four new Morrowind mods and six new Oblivion mods instead of the traditional three each due to the break.

Qualifications for mods to be considered Hall of Fame material require the mod to receive a minimum of 25 votes and a score of 8 or higher. The mods also have a three month minimum availability, and have been downloaded over 5,000 times.

Here’s the four Morrowind mods that made the cut.

• A Lord’s Men by Lord Gildor: According to Lord Gildor, this mod (which requires the Tribunal expansion) is intended “to add to the atmosphere of players’ houses and strongholds.”
• Real Stars by grVulture: When it becomes night time, this mod uses real astronomical photos to fill the game world’s sky with real stars.
• Vibrant Morrowind 3.0 by Skydye and Headless Wonder: Want a more colorful Morrowind? This mod replaces all the game’s textures for a more vibrant look.
• GS_TAMRIEL Tribute to The Community by Gianluca: This landmass mod serves as a tribute to the Morrowind community and combines 64 different mods.

For Oblivion, here’s the latest mods to make their way into the Hall.

• Louder Nirnroot Sound by Sandman: This mod adds a ringing sound to let you know when there are nearby nirnroots to collect.
• Seph’s Hand to Hand Animation Replacer by Keter Sephiroth: Adds new kick animations when delivering hand-to-hand combat in the game.
• Mountain Tower by Sage Rime: This mod adds a new tower to the game full of filled with new stuff to explore.
• Kvatch Rebuilt by Kvatch Rebuilt Team: This mod fulfills the dream of many Oblivion fans — to finally see Kvatch rebuilt in all its glory.
• Bag of Holding by Quarn: Based on the Bag of Holding from D&D, this mod allows you to store as many items as you want in it while also nullifying their weight so you won’t become over-encumbered.
• DarkUI’d DarN by Gothic251: Adds a DarkUI version of the popular mod, DarNified UI 1.3.1.

I highly recommend the Kvatch Rebuilt mod as one I’ve enjoyed. Congratulations to all the winners and thanks for your hard work prolonging the life of these Elder Scrolls games.

via Bethesda Blog

Two major developers, Bethesda Softworks and Splash Damage, have announced today that they’ve agreed to a long-term development partnership. This certainly comes as an unexpected surprise, especially due to Bethesda being located here in the U.S. and traditionally focusing on action and RPG games, while Splash Damage is in the U.K. and is best known for multiplayer development. Then again, that seems like a perfect pairing, as the two seem to compliment each other very nicely.

“Bethesda Softworks has repeatedly been responsible for outstanding games as both publisher and developer.” said Splash Damage creative director and owner Paul Wedgwood. “Both of our studios share a passion for creating great games, and we’re confident that this partnership will result in even greater experiences for gamers. We’re really looking forward to working with Bethesda.”

“This could not be a more perfect fit,” said Bethesda president Vlatko Andonov. “We are extremely impressed with Splash Damage and the quality titles they produce. They are highly creative and innovative, and have demonstrated a high level of dedication to their projects. We are confident that gamers everywhere will be thrilled with the offerings from this collaboration.”

Anything they might have in store for gamers is currently under wraps, although a press release states that details on Splash Damages’s “brand-new project” will be revealed in the coming months. We’ll certainly be keeping an eye out for that and any other further developments on this story.

The Oblivion Files have sifted through the multitude of mods for Oblivion, and have picked several stand out pieces of work for this weeks feature.

The picture to the right is from the Angeleron weapons mod by DireStorms. The one and two-handed swords are cool looking and yet not uber powered like many of the weapons and armor mods out there.

Sheogorath has once again put out a well crafted mod. Sheogorath’s Master Craft 2 expands on the crafting system contained in Martigens Monster mod. It adds socketed weapons and armor that can be crafted using the many new Runes and runic metals.

There are also a couple featured mods for your home. The first is Floating Platforms by CobraUnit42, which allows you to own a magical floating home With a bird’s eye view of Cyrodiil. The second is a secret escape route to your homes via a cellar  suited to the stealth oriented character. The Cellars of Cyrodiil by FlyingPieofDeaththis is week’s File of the Week. Here’s the description provided with the mod:

“Cellars of Cyrodiil gives a small but handy upgrade to various houses. It adds cellar doors like the one in a certain quest. This mod is meant for players who’s characters prefer darker paths such as thievery or murdering, allowing you to enter a home through the basement rather than the front door. This may be version 0.5, but there should be no bugs, and is considered version 0.5 due to the fact there are so few cellar entrances, a grand total of eight. FlyingPieOfDeath is prepared to listen to any suggestions for homes to give cellar entrances, but know before suggesting that he is not creating basements for the houses, simply adding the entrances.”

Considering there’s already a very well done basement mod, the cellar entrance seems like a fun edition to life in Oblivion adding a little flavor to anti heroes.

via Bethesda Blog 

There’s a new Modder Profile up on Bethesda Blog featuring Keter Sephiroth. Obviously a fan of Final Fantasy as well as the Elder Scrolls, Keter has released several Oblivion mods specializing in custom animations. Most modders would tell you that animation is one of the most difficult parts of creating mods, but it seems to come naturally to Keter. He even designed a video interview with his Oblivion Avatar answering questions and demonstrating animations from his My Dual Wield, True Acrobatics, and H2H mods.

Keter speaks good English, accented with his native Russian. For those who have trouble understanding him, you can read the transcript of the interview on Bethesda Blog.

The most popular Elder Scrolls mods for the month of March have been announced for both Planet Elder Scrolls and TESNexus. I have a vested interest in following these announcements each month, since I’ve spent so much of much playing Morrowind. I find I rarely play anymore now that I’m into Oblivion, although there are some features of Morrowind that didn’t carry over that I miss.

Here are the latest and greatest picks from Planet Elder Scrolls:

Morrowind mods

• Mori Mountain Estate by Marc: This mod adds a large house inside the Northern mountain of Balmora, and is compatible with the Balmora Expansion Mod.
• Clean Dragon Blade by Phijama: Shown above, the Dragon Blade is a wicked sword, inspired by the Requiem blade.
• Svenn’s Pack Guar by Svenn: With this mod, you’ll have a new NPC within the game that sells pack guars.

Oblivion Mods:

• Adonnay’s Classical Weaponry by Adonnay: Adds to new weapons inspired by Adonnay’s mods for Neverwinter Nights 2.
• Slof’s Dremora Textures by AlienSlof: A retexture project to bring a new look to the Dremora.
• Midas Magic - Spells of Aurum by Xilver: As previously mentioned on Bethesda Blog, this mod adds over 100 new and unique spell types.

Here’s the rundown of the Files of the Month for March from TES Nexus. The winners were selected by popular vote:

• Kvatch Rebuilt by The Kvatch Rebuilt Team: The name says it all, Kvatch has returned in all its glory. This mod also adds new armor, a battle arena, and the opportunity to become Count(ess) of Kvatch.
• Verona House Bloodlines by DTOM: This mod adds a new quest where your character is pitted against a sinister cult and their leader. Those who succeed will gain access to an updated version of the Verona House and Verona Bay.
• The Lost Spires by Leo Gura: As you may recall, this mega mod was entered in last year’s IGF Student Competition.
• HG EyeCandy Body by }{ellKnight: A body mod that helps you customize body types in the game.
• Akatosh Mount by Saiden Storm: Saiden Storm’s ever-popular mod that allows you to ride a dragon within the game. If you haven’t seen it already, check out our interview with the creator.

I glad to see the Kvatch Rebuilt mod on the list. I have it loaded as part of my Oblivion Build, and verify that the mod team deserves the accolades for their work.

via Bethesda Blog

Bethesda’s gstaff spotted a new total conversion mod project for Oblivion; DUNE. Stefano Tonello (aka Prometheus), the originator of this project, assures gamers that this is unrelated to Frank Herbert’s Dune Series. Here’s a taste of what to expect from DUNE.

“The DUNE World, known as Dusaar, is a huge desert world where the brutality of people and nature is an everyday part of life. Water has long since ceased to flow on the surface and can only be found in the last sea, some oases, and tiny lakes and streams are the only source of life for the Ancient Forest, a Tropical Jungle surrounded by Canyons and covered from the everpresent winds of the open Desert, protecting this small Last Paradise.

The desert covers the majority of the land, almost 90% of it is surrounded by the Great Wall Cliffs of the east and the Sea of Silt to the west. Some of the mountains are nearly impassable, but ancient canyons throughout them hide the last spots where life can still continue….There are many diverse cultures living in the few safe places on this world.”

Even the Bethesda devs are impressed by this project. Take a look at some video footage from the DUNE mod.

If you’d like to join in on the project visit the official forums Prometheus put up for the project.

via Bethesda Blog

The Guinness World Records Gamer’s Edition 2008 is out, featuring the most amazing feats in gaming. This is the first time Guinness has devoted a book exclusively to games. Twin Galaxies, a company that has been tracking pinball and video games for years, was in on the project.

According to Bethesda Blog, gamers will see entries like the following:

• Daggerfall has the largest land-based game area at 63,125 square miles.
• Daggerfall is also listed as having the most NPCs (non-player characters) in any RPG with 750,000.
• The fastest play-through of Morrowind was done by Vladimir “Knu” Semenov at 7 minutes, 30 seconds. Kudos to Freddo for pointing this out a month ago.

I can’t help but wonder if they have a record for the most number of hours (days, weeks and months) spent playing an MMO since that would be very trackable. I know I’ve wasted a few weeks playing myself.
via Bethesda Blog

One of the latest mods featured on the Oblivion Files features a tribute to Metal Gear Solid IV. AlexScorpion’s Adamantium Battlesuit is the featured armor pictured above. Yes it’s inspired by Raiden’s armor in MGS4, as it confirms in the description. By the way for the Bethesda Blog Devs that spotted it; this is a cool mod but your conclusion on the inspiration for the piece was a bit off. Wolverine’s adamantium skeletal makeup and claws are internal, not body armor. You were closer with your first guess of MGS2.

Other featured mods are the “featured home” mod from newcomer Arron_Dominion who contributed the Solsthiem Abandoned Shack and the “featured spell” from Trollf is Unnatural Aura. This spell mod contains two new spells, Unnatural Aura and Unnatural Perception. They aren’t strictly useful, but they are sweet:

“There’s the ‘Unnatural Aura’ Spell, which lets you put several different effects(Shaders) on your character, from the fog that comes off a Zombie, to the electricity from a shock spell, to the eerie glow of a ghost. The second spell, ‘Unnatural Perception’ allows to to put these same effects on Non Player Characters and creatures.”

via Bethesda Blog

SureAI modders Arandor and Lord Dagon took time out to talk with Bethesda about their total world conversion mod for Oblivion, the Nehrim Project. The project has been in development for five years now and is a world totally unrelated to Oblivion, using just the engine. This German modding team has envisioned creating a world apart from most RPGs.

Arandor: Basically the plot of Nehrim is very different from most story lines in computer games. You won’t save the shining world from the ultimate evil, as you have done so often in RPGs. The player is one of the few people in Nehrim who is able to use magic. But that’s everything of what makes him “special”, i.e. he is not the “chosen one” from some ancient prophecy. The player is thrown into our world of civil war and mistrust — as you see, everything isn’t going right in Nehrim…

Lord Dagon: It isn’t about the bad man who wants to rule the world; it’s a story about love and hate, loyalty and treason, and above that a story which also has a teaching aspect: Basically, that mankind’s nature to treat everything they are not familiar with in a hostile way will eventually [be] their demise.

As they say in the article, RPGs are all about story and the people who play them love a good one. If they see this project through to the end, it should be an interesting game to check out. Of course we’ll have to wait until it’s translated into English. Read the complete story on Bethesda Blog.

Elder Scrolls might not be on his top five games list but Trollf is certainly one of the top Oblivion and Morrowind modders out there. Bethesda Blog takes a look at this 30 something modder from the Baltic. Read about the projects he’s completed, the ones he has in mind and his favorite creations from other modders on the latest Bethesda Blog Mod Interview.

Ironically I’d love to see him work on some mods for his favorite cRPG  - Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. I wonder why no one has picked up that abandoned gem and its universe the game was based on the Source engine after all.

The latest Bethesda Fallout 3 development team member spotlighted on Inside the Vault is level designer Jeff Browne. Before Fallout 3, Jeff did work on DLC for Oblivion including Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles.

There are some interesting fluff comments in the piece that serve to give folks like Jeff a human face. Maybe Bethesda wants the rabid Fallout 3 Haters to realize that real people with real skills are actually working on the game and not faceless corporate automatons who are looking purely to squander the promise of the series in search of more silver widgets to build their empire. Or maybe not, I know the rabid Fallout fanboys in the audience have already passed judgment.

Especially funny was Jeff’s answer to this question:

What games are you looking forward to?
Planetside 2 - come on, someone in the industry has got to make it!

I hope that was a joke and no one at SOE was listening.

Get the inside story on Jeff’s work and tips on how to break into the gaming industry on Bethesda Blog.

The Bethesda Blog is spotlighting Oblivion mods from FileFront’s Elder Scrolls site; Oblivion Files. The highlights include the “file of the week”, Trollf’s Hunter’s Performance Review (v1.1). This mod keeps a head count of creature kills for you and your companions. This prolific modder has a few other gems including the “featured spell” Forecaster’s Will which allows you to change the weather. He also has a “featured animations” selection, Actors in Madness. A follow up to his Actors in Charge mod, Actors in Madness allows players with Shivering Isles to perform animations normally reserved for NPCs.

In each new game in the Elder Scrolls series, the scope or territory covered seems to have shrunk; so some of the more appreciated mods are those that add new areas to the game. The latest “featured landmass” is Kevin’s The Black Marsh: Snake Head Island. This swamp island populated by Aragonians is definitely not the ideal vacation spot, but promises adventurers a good time.

via Bethesda Blog