I hope you enjoyed our talk! Open up the video description for nearly 80 timestamps of notable topics, and check out the new game Ted did writing work for: www.immortaldarkness.com
Your TES videos convinced me to sub instantly, I really love how The Elder Scrolls community has such an appreciation for the roots of the series. I would love to hear your thoughts on the Dark Souls series I think you,d have an interesting take on it.
One thing I have to hand to you is you are an excellent interviewer. You know when to let the person speak, something that a lot of people can't do for some reason.
If I remember correctly, we (Doug Goodall, Mark Nelson, Ken Rolston, Gary Noonan, Mark Bullock, and Christine Miller) were joking at lunch about Crassius' dialogue and general character. Someone at the table said it would be funny if Crassius was a playwright and examples of his plays existed in-game. I think we threw around a few potential titles for plays, possibly including The Lusty Argonian Maid. But it was Mark Nelson who followed through on the joke and wrote The Lusty Argonian Maid book that appears in-game.
The live-action actor for the Emperor does an amazing job delivering his lines with not an ounce of cheese. Compared to other game fmvs at the time he did an amazing job. Oh, and great job getting another interview done! This is really cool, man. And thanks to Ted for taking the time. Cheers!
It also hilarious how they cast Patrick Stewart to reprise the role in IV, which on the surface sounds, great because he actually looks like an aged version of the Daggerfall emperor. Only for them to give him hair… (He did have hair in Arena to be fair though)
This channel needs more attention, how does someone’s with less then 50k subs manage to score interviews with these fascinating older game devs. And yet gaming channels with over half a million don’t even seem to bother to try. There’s so many fascinating insights these kinds of people can offer into our favourite media
I'm so happy someone is taking contact to older developers and getting their take and vision on projects that has since become more than simply themselves.
We joke at the end that I'm almost obligated to interview Vijay now. I probably wouldn't be able to get Bruce though, as he's still working for Bethesda.
If he is still working there, he has even more to say. I don't see why that would be a hindrance. Plus: you can coach him, so that TES6 will be even better. :)
@Terminator1337CoolDude I just imagine current Bethesda employees have incredibly restrictive non-disclosure agreements, so interviewing them and asking about design decisions would be tricky. Also I imagine they're all quite busy digging into Fallout 76/Starfield/ES6 at the moment as well.
Dude I watched your documentary on the elder scrolls series and the julian interview last night, I gotta say I'm a huge fan of your interview style. Very friendly, humble and respectful and you really know the subject well so the conversation flowed really well with that first interview. About a hour into this one and I just wanted to say you definitely got a permanent sub from me. Was a huge elder scrolls fan growing up and really never knew most of this stuff bc I didn't care to dig into it until now, went on a Bethesda binge the last few weeks bc I was really shocked at the controversy going on with fallout 76 (been outside of the scope of the gaming community last few years too much work)
Thanks very much. I'm by no means a professional interviewer, I just try to come up with interesting questions that haven't broadly been asked before, and am genuinely curious about the design and development side of things. Half the time I just ask real questions I have about the games they made. It's fascinating learning all the behind-the-scenes information that we never hear about.
I'm guessing this is just before Once Lost Games huh? Indigo you have become a saint. You'll be known as the man who made RPGaming great again. Thank you.
Indigo you are becoming my favorite youtuber! This is what I wish gaming youtubers would do, something contributing to video games and whatnot which you are the best at honestly. Seriously thanks for these interviews they are very interesting as I love Elder Scrolls and have been a fan of the series for almost a decade, wonder who’s next up for one of these interviews!
Thanks Gord Lord, I try to find a niche that isn't quite as explored as much (even though there are a metric ton of Elder Scrolls channels). I am enjoying exploring the origins of the series with its creators and shining a light on the beginning of the series, which isn't as well known as the more recent titles. I'm glad you found it interesting!
I really liked this vid. .. I kind of wish I could talk to this guy just to ask about all the books in the game which I love and have read almost all of them. There were a lot of good stories that show a good imagination. The books bring to life the game and make it have more depth.
Yeah it's amazing how little you can cover in 3 hours, but I hope we helped share some ideas behind the TES series and other games he worked on. Had a blast, glad you enjoyed too!
So he didn't write Skyrim? That explains why Skyrim had such a downgrade in the writing. Among other things. It goes to show how losing a writer can turn out. When no one can replace them.
Ted was a designer for Arena and Daggerfall, and was hired as a contract writer for Morrowind and Oblivion. He wasn't the lead writer for those games, but much of the books, and some of the quests and dialogue, especially in Morrowind was done by him. The senior writer of Skyrim was Emil Pagliarulo, who was also the senior writer for Fallout 3 and 4, for what it's worth.
oh totally 😆 those who read children of the sky in game playing morrowind were expecting a whole more in the north of skyrim. but we got floating ice. oh wait the elemental nord is the floating ice!
I feel lucky for being aware and around this time while it's new and fresh! Because of my job I had to watch this in parts since you released the interview, even though it was hard to stop. As a guy who loves writing stories I found this interview really insightful. There's a lot to learn about world building from Ted.
Such an awesome interview! Well done. Really enjoyed the third screen with the games and context; normally I always look those things up and watching a video like this takes like twice the time (because often I get distracted 😅) .
I've only recently found your channel. And I'm so happy I did. Been a fan of Elder Scrolls games since Daggerfall, and it's so cool to see these guys talk about the behind the scenes stuff of the games that I grew up with. You deserve a medal for these interviews!
"cult classic" listening to this resonates as I work in the film industry in the field of special effects makeup/prosthetics, and i can tell you we work so hard for months and months and most of the time its for a trash film, you get desensitised to it after a decade of doing this, only to reinforce the gems we work on that become loved classics, and then the pride and memories from working on those is wonderful. in my 30 year career ive probably got less than i can count on my fingers that are great productions.
This was such a great thing to sit and listen to, and found myself watching the whole thing with my eyes too. The "dream" game you guys were talking about with legends does exist, in the very comprehensively designed game Dwarf Fortress. The extent in which it creates histories and builds worlds that you too can be apart of is insane. The ways that the player can be apart of it has definitely sunk my free time. Highly recommend checking it out. It's been worked on almost daily since 2006. The developer is fascinating (Tarn Adams) and would love to see you do an interview style like this with him.
Great interview, very chill and you are willing to push boundaries around the questions and not strickly sticking to the game stuff only. The video material on top of the scene really helps to keep track of what you guys are talking about
Just saw that you're now working with Julian, Ted and Vijay on a DF spiritual successor? What the hell that's awesome dude. Was it because of these interviews along with your qualifications? I saw the photos of the team and was like "wtf, that dude looks like Indigo Gaming."
Wait, is Indigo working on it? I just saw the videos about The Wayward Realms and though it was a cool idea and wanted Indigo's opinion on it, but now he is part of the team? Edit: You are right! I just saw the page and it shocked me. Guess he really achieved his dream!
TED!! Thank you for so much for your work on Morrowind! My ultimate favorite game of them all. I play ESO,but it isnt the same. They added a Morrowind to it but it just feels so cluttered up and over done,without any open plains to run around in. Again,..thank you oodles!
I love that you edit these so I can watch them but also just listen to it as a podcast. There are some upsides to watching them with some footage from games but it definitely works as a podcast as well. Thanks!
Thanks! Spent many hours trying to make the interview visually interesting with references and footage to back up what we were talking about. Also helps when skimming through the interview to find the topic at hand. Glad you like the video!
It is such a treat to see the talent behind the older games, they laid the groundwork for what we have now, and frankly I don't know if they'll be surpassed. The books in game add depth to the world, giving it a history. A true pleasure to watch this.
Holy shit this was interesting! The videoclips and pictures on top were perfect. Very well produced and Ted is a very interesting person, so much knowledge and such a lovable personality
2:25:12 "Make it happen Julian" Well, I guess it's happening! Once Lost Games is planning an announcement for the end of the year and I'm looking forward to it.
Thank you for mentioning Brothers! What a wonderful game, and the bond created between the characters is unique to the gaming medium thanks to the dual controls, as you have identified. Great interview and totally stoked for Oncelost...
What is good about your interviews is you never move the guest along, you are a great listener the next question only comes when the guest is finished.
@@priestfan81 joe knows things when he talks about what he's knowledgable about, that being MMA. I'm sure if Inigo interviewed guests that had expertise in something unrelated to TES and gaming it'd be different!
Great interview, and it was wonderful to hear Ted tell us about his perspective. I was a huge fan of Dungeon Hack, Wizardry 7, the Ultima series, Heavy Gear, Morrowind, and TES in general. It was especially a treat to hear about my favorite days, the mid 2000s after Morrowind and before Oblivion and the lore community then. (Also, if it wasn't Kuhlmann, my second guess for Lusty Argonian Maid would be Goodall.) Would like to see questions for MK or Kuhlmann. Well done.
And now you 4 have a company and are working on a project. I'm excited. To think that none of this would be happening if it wasn't for this channel. It's crazy how things work out sometimes.
I just rewatched this. Such an awesome interview. I love when you guys talked about Bond films for a bit. I have become a total junkie for this channel! Looking forward to the Wednesday stream as always.
Glad you asked about Legends of Valour. That game is pretty difficult to get running now, despite being free. I made a whole blog post laying it out step by step so no one else has the hard time I did. Lol
Yeah I hadn't heard of Valour outside of Ted's recommendation, but I can definitely see a lot of the city sequences of Arena and Daggerfall from it. A very interesting concept.
When listening at 3:12:58 I couldn't help but think to Dwarf Fortress for a lot of the ideas you were talking about. Obviously Dwarf Fortress has a huge scope in general, and especially after the upcoming update I feel that the game will encompass a lot of the ideas you and Ted put forward. Have you heard of the game before, and what are your thoughts on it?
Keep doing these, absolutely love them. On another note I'd say that the game that is closest to having a fully procedural generated story is Crusader Kings 2.
Procedural generation can work out great. I have a lot of funny stories from dwarf fortress that I remember and the history generation is amazing as well. If procedural generation was focused more games would be very different. I hope procedural generation becomes better overtime
Late to the party, I know - But I'm not even a fan of the earlier ES games, but this was really interesting. I respect how those games got us from then to now, for better or worse, and it's cool hearing one of the OG's of the franchise talk about it.
My god. You do amazing work! I so hope you get the recognition you deserve! I will try to help, IF I can. Well you don't release but twice in a year. Nevermind.
Man, it would really be amazing if they got together and made another procedurally generated open-world RPG like Daggerfall. With all those years of technical advancement, imagine what people could do if they put the right minds to it.
Massive, massive respects to this guy. Ok, now that I've paid my due respects, my man's a super slow talker. Everything he says is interesting don't get me wrong, but I felt way more comfortable watching it in x1.5
It’s a far off dream but... it would be so cool to have Michael Kirkbride on the Wayward Realms team, even if only as a part time contractor/concept artist
Just found this interview recently and decided to chuck some $ at immortal darkness. The game works well on the steam deck. Fun little hack and slasher. :D
The problem I have with the current writting is how bare bones it is. That and the inconsistencies of the narrative. The writters does whatever the developers want. The writing suffers for this. Since it limits the narrative potential. As they need to keep the narrative in tone with the gameplay. My problem with that mentality is they don't need to do that. They could have deeper and longer narratives without those restrictions. There could be thought provoking plot points and other interesting writing. This would help the gameplay not hurt it. As it would yield the player more varied and interesting objectives. I much prefer a narrative that can entrall me as I play. The Witcher 3 manages to do this. The writters had a lot more leniency than Bethesda gives their writters. There is also the fact that their writters actually put in the effort. They think outside the box and don't look down on the player. As if we're to stupid to understand a deeper narrative. Bethesda is most likey not going to change this. Their success made them complacent and arrogant i.e. Fallout 76. Which was the most glaringly obvious tell.
I had to laugh when Ted is talking about the ESRB checklist and it felt like Daggerfall had bragging rights for going through the checklist of things like, "Can you kill innocent people? YES! Are you rewarded for killing innocent people? YES!" And I wish we saw more games that take this as a challenge. I don't want to see it Duke Nukem style where it's a deliberate boob bouncing in your face mechanic, but I feel like it's something that so many good games miss out on their opportunities to be adult and address real-world adult conceptts because they're so afraid of angering the rating systems and losing customers that they deliberately child-proof their bottles. Because I'm all growed up. (Allegedly.) I wish we had a separate rating system that "protected" adults. And by that I mean that kept us rooted in reality, key there: reality. That prepared us for real world situations instead of avoiding them. But that punished over-indulgence just as much as it punished an over-protective parent's avoidance. Because you don't need to have a particularly realistic game setting to adequately address real-world concepts. You can throw fireballs from your hands one minute and address the line between helpful self-medication done intelligently and harmful addiction the next. I also keep loving this growing narrative of combining procedural generation and AI into an MMO RPG where the world lives around you and how much you are a part of that or not just depends on how much you wan tto be. Maybe you're just playing as a fishy stick vendor at arena matches because that's what you find fun in your spare time. Maybe you decide that you like a certain faction and become a leader, waging wars and changing the world around you. Maybe the game is smart enough to write these things into lore automatically and if you want into the next country over you hear about your own exploits. Maybe if your character dies you later start another character as the son or granddaughter. Just let people do what people do. But fill the world with more NPCs, intelligent interactive learning AI NPCs, than with players. (At least at first.) And just let the world evolve naturally. Let quests create themselves naturally. Let players create quests in mining out or building in game their own dungeon, attracting people or monsters to fill it, putting in loot that they created or found. Just people some people would have fun with that. Run it from a server that has more intelligent bots that learn. Maybe even have the server learn your playstyle from how you play and have a mechanic to let the server control your character when you're not playing. Or use interesting players as templates for future NPCs by learning from them. Have the game server learn how to build and expand the world by how players do. There's of course the danger of the game server learning from bad example and becoming a hate speach bigot or go awry in other ways. So you still need humans to keep on top of that in any learning system. But ... yeah ... I'd play that. Like "The Sims: Daggerfall, an MMO". It's so WTF and yet at the same time so ... what if. You can't help but be curious what could be done with the right minds behind it and enough financial backing to comfortably make it what it could be.
Awesome, glad you're digging my work. I also interviewed Julian LeFay last year, the project lead for the first 2 Elder Scrolls games, if you don't have enough to watch already!
@@Indigo_Gaming i couldnt finish it, i was born 1984 so i dont have a clue about some of the games he kept going on about. but i agree that bathesda could make an epic game. right now they re too far behind Rockstar. Warhorse and CDPR, there is no excuse. And mods is the only thing that gave their latest installment longevity, instead they got greedy and tried to grab it. so thank god for NEXUS with their Vortex for mods. I wounder, is there an engine that can create a world as big as Daggerfall, but with real content, without loading screen, and maybe easy graphics. nothing crazy that a10 year old pc can handle. because thaat might be what is needed to create something more about the gameplay than the looks and linear story.
I think the jab at final fantasy and other games for having impressive pre-rendered cinematic scenes, and having amazing orchestra level music and music compositions, and having a plot, and claiming the game having that is the game trying to not be a game (and instead wanting to be a movie, or some orchestra, or a novel etc) is invalid. The first video games had no guys specifically for art, music, story etc, instead it was just a few coder guys that made the game that also did those other things (to an amateurish level). Arguing that this setup determines what a "real game" is, is quite absurd. Early Japanese game developers realised that to take games to the next level (beyond amateurish stuff like Daggerfall), professional composers should be made to make the music (like Nobuo Uematsu, Koji Kondo etc). As well as professional artists should be hired to make the graphics, and pre-rendered scenes would give the game more life. The real time graphics were treated as a game representation of a world, but one which you understood was limited, you didn't think for example that Zidane from FF9 was meant to be 100 pixels, because you saw him in the cutscene and know what he actually looks like in high detail, it gave the characters more life, and the world more true feeling and emotion. This is also why professional story writers were also hired, every single facet of the game had professionals specialising in each area, to bring the medium of video games forward (ahead of the amateur days). This is also how anime got ahead. Once upon a time cartoons were very simple, such as in the 1950's etc, they had no real story, had cheap sound effects and comically bad music and were seen as a cheap gimmick (they were the Daggerfall equivalent in the animation world). However the creators of modern day anime realised that animation had potential, but there needs to be professionals writing the story, making the sound effects and music, drawing the frames etc. And by doing this, animation was able to escape the amateur days and reach the success it has today. The reality is that Todd Howard took Bethesda in a direction where they achieved success, and they wouldn't have ever achieved that under the original guys (who were just obsessed with purely making a PC equivalent of Dungeons and Dragons tabletop game). Todd instead made the world smaller, but more detailed, and with more plot driven narrative, as well as hired professional musicians and artists. This is why it became so successful, it went from a small amateur company where Daggerfall only sold 700,000 copies, to then Skyrim that sold 60 million copies. Daggerfall isn't "true gaming" it is just a procedurally generated amateurish mess, there is no real story, it has bad music, it uses procedural generation so much that everything feels vapid, the art style is bad, even the gameplay mechanics are bad, there is no character development in relation to personality and interactivity etc. Bethesda's first proper game was Morrowind, which Todd Howard was the project lead of that. Morrowind is what saved the company in fact, if Morrowind wasn't made then Bethesda was going to die off right there and then. Daggerfall was 487,000 square kilometres of procedurally generated nothing, where as Morrowind was 24 square kilometres of hand crafted terrain, this made it unique and all players could memorise it (like a real life area in our world). In addition to this, Morrowind was very story/plot driven compared to Daggerfall, Morrowind also had more detailed character backstories, it had especially very good music.
Excellent interview! Thank you both for this. I'm sorry but I have to mention that it's really strange for someone who wrote so many words for game design, to constantly repeat "you know" or "like" :)
09:11, Obviously Eye of the Beholder was an FPS party dungeon crawler and official AD&D and SSI product that did quite well in 1990 (onwards with the sequels), remember playing it a lot back then.
I uploaded the Arena executables in a single ZIP already patched with WASD keys and the DOS32A Extender to fix crashes and avoid savefile corruption, download the pack here (game files not included) www.dropbox.com/sh/57hamnfckic8q8h/AADQf-L42FdXdVKL4NIGSCUla?dl=0
i found the part where games try try to ape Movies and are seen as 2nd best interesting. Game's have always had this desire to be held up as Art, and as both a film and game buff, it was always misplaced. Games offer something completely different , you could not have the scale of TES lore in a movie or TV Series, I always feel games that try to do this most often fail. A notable example is heavy Rain, i found the way that game tried to mimic story beats, as a complete misunderstanding of what Video Game strengths are. You don't need to have sections where you mimic shaving, that's not compelling. Then you have things such as the Stanley parable, papers please , monkey island and such that don't try to mimic a movie but can tell a compelling story in many ways better than a film and offer mechanisms which a movie cannot. Videogames shouldn't try to be movies, TES is a prime example , it's the freeform nature of it that makes it special.
I hope you enjoyed our talk! Open up the video description for nearly 80 timestamps of notable topics, and check out the new game Ted did writing work for: www.immortaldarkness.com
You are one of the most Criminally under subbed channels on this platform, the gaming industry needs more people like you ;-)
Your TES videos convinced me to sub instantly, I really love how The Elder Scrolls community has such an appreciation for the roots of the series. I would love to hear your thoughts on the Dark Souls series I think you,d have an interesting take on it.
One thing I have to hand to you is you are an excellent interviewer. You know when to let the person speak, something that a lot of people can't do for some reason.
Excellent! Thanks very much for doing these interviews. :D
Thank you so much, Indigo. I am very interested in this "Once Lost" Game.
That was fun, Ian. I guess there was some stuff still left to say about 20 year old games after all. :)
Oh, and I did hear back from Julian.
Thanks for doing the interview. And for your contribution to the Elder Scrolls as well. These games will always have a special place in heart. :)
@Ted Peterson That's great you heard back from Julian. I know he's been hard to reach recently, seems like he's knee deep in work.
y did the band break up dude? heavy
Thanks for everything Mr Peterson! Daggerfall has a very special place for me and my brother, best childhood memories! Lots of love from Turkey!
The world must know of the origins of The Lusty Argonian Maid. Even if the entire team must be interviewed.
If I remember correctly, we (Doug Goodall, Mark Nelson, Ken Rolston, Gary Noonan, Mark Bullock, and Christine Miller) were joking at lunch about Crassius' dialogue and general character. Someone at the table said it would be funny if Crassius was a playwright and examples of his plays existed in-game. I think we threw around a few potential titles for plays, possibly including The Lusty Argonian Maid.
But it was Mark Nelson who followed through on the joke and wrote The Lusty Argonian Maid book that appears in-game.
@@douglasgoodall2040 Simply amazing. Thanks for the anecdote.
LOL the mystery is now solved!
@@douglasgoodall2040 thank you for this gem
The live-action actor for the Emperor does an amazing job delivering his lines with not an ounce of cheese. Compared to other game fmvs at the time he did an amazing job. Oh, and great job getting another interview done! This is really cool, man. And thanks to Ted for taking the time. Cheers!
It also hilarious how they cast Patrick Stewart to reprise the role in IV, which on the surface sounds, great because he actually looks like an aged version of the Daggerfall emperor.
Only for them to give him hair…
(He did have hair in Arena to be fair though)
This channel needs more attention, how does someone’s with less then 50k subs manage to score interviews with these fascinating older game devs. And yet gaming channels with over half a million don’t even seem to bother to try. There’s so many fascinating insights these kinds of people can offer into our favourite media
They need to bring the band back together.
It has happened with the Underworld crew. Let's hope lightening can strike twice.
I'm so happy someone is taking contact to older developers and getting their take and vision on projects that has since become more than simply themselves.
You may as well interview the entire Daggerfall team at this point, lol...
Emperor Palpatine meme: "Do it."
We joke at the end that I'm almost obligated to interview Vijay now. I probably wouldn't be able to get Bruce though, as he's still working for Bethesda.
Indigo Gaming You miss every shot you don’t take😉
If he is still working there, he has even more to say. I don't see why that would be a hindrance. Plus: you can coach him, so that TES6 will be even better. :)
@Terminator1337CoolDude I just imagine current Bethesda employees have incredibly restrictive non-disclosure agreements, so interviewing them and asking about design decisions would be tricky. Also I imagine they're all quite busy digging into Fallout 76/Starfield/ES6 at the moment as well.
@@Indigo_Gaming Mark Jones had a lot of interesting information on Daggerfall in his website.
Dude I watched your documentary on the elder scrolls series and the julian interview last night, I gotta say I'm a huge fan of your interview style. Very friendly, humble and respectful and you really know the subject well so the conversation flowed really well with that first interview. About a hour into this one and I just wanted to say you definitely got a permanent sub from me. Was a huge elder scrolls fan growing up and really never knew most of this stuff bc I didn't care to dig into it until now, went on a Bethesda binge the last few weeks bc I was really shocked at the controversy going on with fallout 76 (been outside of the scope of the gaming community last few years too much work)
Thanks very much. I'm by no means a professional interviewer, I just try to come up with interesting questions that haven't broadly been asked before, and am genuinely curious about the design and development side of things. Half the time I just ask real questions I have about the games they made. It's fascinating learning all the behind-the-scenes information that we never hear about.
Ted is amazing and an inspiration. A real legend. Thanks for the interview. Both of you, thank you.
Holy moly I was waiting for something like this from the moment I finished watching interview with Julian LeFay! Thanks indigo we love you ❤️
In terms of quality, this is probably the best gaming channel on youtube. These interviews are fantastic.
Means a lot to me, thank you! I try to do my best. I recommend Ahoy, Raycevick and Strafefox as extremely high-quality gaming channels as well.
I'm guessing this is just before Once Lost Games huh? Indigo you have become a saint. You'll be known as the man who made RPGaming great again. Thank you.
Indigo you are becoming my favorite youtuber! This is what I wish gaming youtubers would do, something contributing to video games and whatnot which you are the best at honestly. Seriously thanks for these interviews they are very interesting as I love Elder Scrolls and have been a fan of the series for almost a decade, wonder who’s next up for one of these interviews!
Thanks Gord Lord, I try to find a niche that isn't quite as explored as much (even though there are a metric ton of Elder Scrolls channels). I am enjoying exploring the origins of the series with its creators and shining a light on the beginning of the series, which isn't as well known as the more recent titles. I'm glad you found it interesting!
Interview Kirkbride!
Maybe down the road, we'll see! I think he's probably trying to get work at the moment due to the recent TellTale layoffs.
An interview with MK would be a dream.
Ken Rolston would be great too.
Big fan of Kirkbride but that man has a sailor's mouth.
@@christopherpearson8637 He has a stoner personality, kind of intimidating.
I really liked this vid. .. I kind of wish I could talk to this guy just to ask about all the books in the game which I love and have read almost all of them. There were a lot of good stories that show a good imagination. The books bring to life the game and make it have more depth.
Yeah it's amazing how little you can cover in 3 hours, but I hope we helped share some ideas behind the TES series and other games he worked on. Had a blast, glad you enjoyed too!
So he didn't write Skyrim? That explains why Skyrim had such a downgrade in the writing. Among other things. It goes to show how losing a writer can turn out. When no one can replace them.
Ted was a designer for Arena and Daggerfall, and was hired as a contract writer for Morrowind and Oblivion. He wasn't the lead writer for those games, but much of the books, and some of the quests and dialogue, especially in Morrowind was done by him. The senior writer of Skyrim was Emil Pagliarulo, who was also the senior writer for Fallout 3 and 4, for what it's worth.
oh totally 😆 those who read children of the sky in game playing morrowind were expecting a whole more in the north of skyrim. but we got floating ice. oh wait the elemental nord is the floating ice!
@@Indigo_Gaming That explains why those games have bad writing. That was my point.
@@spartanq7781 Yes very bad video game plots. Very locked into to a specific role.
Fallout 4's would make even 14 year old me roll my eyes.
@@FardtilUshid You were 14 in 2014? Great now I feel old again.
STOP!YOU VIOLATED THE LAW!
*proceeds to kill you and loot your corpse*
STOP!YOU VIOLATED....MY MOTHER!
@@xerr0n YOU RUINED MY WIFE!
I prefer "Halt! Halt! Halthalthalthalthalt-" personally.
If my phone weren't dying I'd listen to this while at work now.
I feel lucky for being aware and around this time while it's new and fresh!
Because of my job I had to watch this in parts since you released the interview, even though it was hard to stop.
As a guy who loves writing stories I found this interview really insightful. There's a lot to learn about world building from Ted.
Another fantastic interview. Glad to see that Ted is still working on games!
Such an awesome interview! Well done.
Really enjoyed the third screen with the games and context; normally I always look those things up and watching a video like this takes like twice the time (because often I get distracted 😅) .
5:36 Terminator Skyrim? I want to play that.
Guards in Skyrem parodied Schwarzenegger's pronunciation, so there's that.
i make that game in 2200 before the end of the world
I love this interview with Tedders. Thank you! Please interview Michael Kirkbride! :D
Can’t believe you were able to get such a great interviewee. Could we possibly see more long form interviews like this in the future?
These are the videos I come to this channel for. Brilliant stuff mate.
I've only recently found your channel. And I'm so happy I did. Been a fan of Elder Scrolls games since Daggerfall, and it's so cool to see these guys talk about the behind the scenes stuff of the games that I grew up with. You deserve a medal for these interviews!
I'm glad these interviews have resonated with so many people! I do plan on doing more in the future.
"cult classic" listening to this resonates as I work in the film industry in the field of special effects makeup/prosthetics, and i can tell you we work so hard for months and months and most of the time its for a trash film, you get desensitised to it after a decade of doing this, only to reinforce the gems we work on that become loved classics, and then the pride and memories from working on those is wonderful. in my 30 year career ive probably got less than i can count on my fingers that are great productions.
You are one of the most Criminally under subbed channels on this platform, the gaming industry needs more people like you ;-)
This was such a great thing to sit and listen to, and found myself watching the whole thing with my eyes too.
The "dream" game you guys were talking about with legends does exist, in the very comprehensively designed game Dwarf Fortress. The extent in which it creates histories and builds worlds that you too can be apart of is insane. The ways that the player can be apart of it has definitely sunk my free time. Highly recommend checking it out. It's been worked on almost daily since 2006. The developer is fascinating (Tarn Adams) and would love to see you do an interview style like this with him.
Great interview, very chill and you are willing to push boundaries around the questions and not strickly sticking to the game stuff only. The video material on top of the scene really helps to keep track of what you guys are talking about
Just saw that you're now working with Julian, Ted and Vijay on a DF spiritual successor? What the hell that's awesome dude. Was it because of these interviews along with your qualifications? I saw the photos of the team and was like "wtf, that dude looks like Indigo Gaming."
Wait, is Indigo working on it? I just saw the videos about The Wayward Realms and though it was a cool idea and wanted Indigo's opinion on it, but now he is part of the team?
Edit: You are right! I just saw the page and it shocked me. Guess he really achieved his dream!
He has left the team since then, but I think they're still working on it.
TED!! Thank you for so much for your work on Morrowind! My ultimate favorite game of them all. I play ESO,but it isnt the same. They added a Morrowind to it but it just feels so cluttered up and over done,without any open plains to run around in.
Again,..thank you oodles!
I love that you edit these so I can watch them but also just listen to it as a podcast. There are some upsides to watching them with some footage from games but it definitely works as a podcast as well. Thanks!
Thanks! Spent many hours trying to make the interview visually interesting with references and footage to back up what we were talking about. Also helps when skimming through the interview to find the topic at hand. Glad you like the video!
It is such a treat to see the talent behind the older games, they laid the groundwork for what we have now, and frankly I don't know if they'll be surpassed. The books in game add depth to the world, giving it a history. A true pleasure to watch this.
Holy shit this was interesting! The videoclips and pictures on top were perfect. Very well produced and Ted is a very interesting person, so much knowledge and such a lovable personality
Loved talking to Ted, really interesting and funny guy.
2:25:12 "Make it happen Julian"
Well, I guess it's happening! Once Lost Games is planning an announcement for the end of the year and I'm looking forward to it.
Another excellent and absolutely vital interview! Thank you so much for making these with the original Daggerfall guys! You are the best!!
Thank you for mentioning Brothers! What a wonderful game, and the bond created between the characters is unique to the gaming medium thanks to the dual controls, as you have identified. Great interview and totally stoked for Oncelost...
What is good about your interviews is you never move the guest along, you are a great listener the next question only comes when the guest is finished.
You're like the Joe Rogan of the TES community.
Oof, that's something to live up to!
Except he actually appears to know things, unlike Rogan who is shocked by everything he hears.
@@priestfan81 joe knows things when he talks about what he's knowledgable about, that being MMA. I'm sure if Inigo interviewed guests that had expertise in something unrelated to TES and gaming it'd be different!
Man that’s really interesting...have you ever tried skooma?
It’s entirely possible
This is amazing, this is officially my favourite channel. Thanks IG and Ted (and Julian....)
Great interview, and it was wonderful to hear Ted tell us about his perspective. I was a huge fan of Dungeon Hack, Wizardry 7, the Ultima series, Heavy Gear, Morrowind, and TES in general. It was especially a treat to hear about my favorite days, the mid 2000s after Morrowind and before Oblivion and the lore community then. (Also, if it wasn't Kuhlmann, my second guess for Lusty Argonian Maid would be Goodall.) Would like to see questions for MK or Kuhlmann. Well done.
And now you 4 have a company and are working on a project. I'm excited.
To think that none of this would be happening if it wasn't for this channel. It's crazy how things work out sometimes.
I just rewatched this. Such an awesome interview. I love when you guys talked about Bond films for a bit. I have become a total junkie for this channel! Looking forward to the Wednesday stream as always.
The way he keeps calling Terminator: SkyNet, Terminator: Skyrim, seemingly without realizing it, is just hilarious and kind of adorable.
Woah fucking sweet. Thanks indigo! Keep this awesome content up! I always listen to GDC/RPG interviews while i go to sleep. Now i got some new content
Glad you asked about Legends of Valour. That game is pretty difficult to get running now, despite being free. I made a whole blog post laying it out step by step so no one else has the hard time I did. Lol
Yeah I hadn't heard of Valour outside of Ted's recommendation, but I can definitely see a lot of the city sequences of Arena and Daggerfall from it. A very interesting concept.
Can I just say how nice the gameplay and stuff you added was. Great to see the games you guys are talking about. Liked, commented, and subed sir!
Thanks! Spent way too long putting footage, pictures and imagery in there to keep it interesting, glad you enjoyed!
When listening at 3:12:58 I couldn't help but think to Dwarf Fortress for a lot of the ideas you were talking about. Obviously Dwarf Fortress has a huge scope in general, and especially after the upcoming update I feel that the game will encompass a lot of the ideas you and Ted put forward.
Have you heard of the game before, and what are your thoughts on it?
Yeaaaah, Kirkbride would be perfect next. Story of the Eltonbrand!
I've been bingeing all your videos, great work man :)
"That's interesting" Love your content man, keep it up! Can't get it anywhere else.
That's interesting! 😄 I was waiting for that one.
YES! YES! YES!.... did I already said that I'm excited because I'm so gonna view this tomorrow with a blanket and some tea, thanks for these videos.
Keep doing these, absolutely love them. On another note I'd say that the game that is closest to having a fully procedural generated story is Crusader Kings 2.
Awesome interview, awesome dude! Big thx!
Procedural generation can work out great. I have a lot of funny stories from dwarf fortress that I remember and the history generation is amazing as well. If procedural generation was focused more games would be very different. I hope procedural generation becomes better overtime
So cant wait for friday. So i can listen to this while playing skyrim
Ted Peterson please come back to Bethesda and take the seat of lead writer there. The Elder Scrolls needs you back!
Late to the party, I know - But I'm not even a fan of the earlier ES games, but this was really interesting. I respect how those games got us from then to now, for better or worse, and it's cool hearing one of the OG's of the franchise talk about it.
Great interview!
yay haha love these games getting more attention. thanks for the interview and your content again
My god. You do amazing work! I so hope you get the recognition you deserve! I will try to help, IF I can. Well you don't release but twice in a year. Nevermind.
Man, it would really be amazing if they got together and made another procedurally generated open-world RPG like Daggerfall. With all those years of technical advancement, imagine what people could do if they put the right minds to it.
Boy have I got good news for you....
Once Lost Games, yeah. Great stuff. I am really looking forward to what they are gonna make.
@@Agos226 Well I guess that me the bearer of bad news...
@@iladelproductions8820 which is?
You guys should check out dwarf fortress, it's basically exactly what you where conceptualising at the end
Massive, massive respects to this guy.
Ok, now that I've paid my due respects, my man's a super slow talker. Everything he says is interesting don't get me wrong, but I felt way more comfortable watching it in x1.5
It’s a far off dream but... it would be so cool to have Michael Kirkbride on the Wayward Realms team, even if only as a part time contractor/concept artist
Lord, right?
Let Ted handle politics and MK takes the paranormal.
Back here again
3:13:00 oh boy, I bet he'd love Valheim haha. Btw great interview!
These interviews are amazing! :D
I think the game you're fantasizing about at 3:18:00 is already in the works, with a 2019 release. It's called Chronicles of Elyria
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Thanks for bringing this to my attention. It looks very interesting.
Top journalism right here
Just found this interview recently and decided to chuck some $ at immortal darkness. The game works well on the steam deck. Fun little hack and slasher. :D
My favorite part was the weather talk.
Hail Ted Peterson!
The problem I have with the current writting is how bare bones it is. That and the inconsistencies of the narrative. The writters does whatever the developers want. The writing suffers for this. Since it limits the narrative potential. As they need to keep the narrative in tone with the gameplay. My problem with that mentality is they don't need to do that. They could have deeper and longer narratives without those restrictions. There could be thought provoking plot points and other interesting writing. This would help the gameplay not hurt it. As it would yield the player more varied and interesting objectives. I much prefer a narrative that can entrall me as I play. The Witcher 3 manages to do this. The writters had a lot more leniency than Bethesda gives their writters. There is also the fact that their writters actually put in the effort. They think outside the box and don't look down on the player. As if we're to stupid to understand a deeper narrative. Bethesda is most likey not going to change this. Their success made them complacent and arrogant i.e. Fallout 76. Which was the most glaringly obvious tell.
Subscribed
2 years late to this, but there was absolutely a ton of "alan smithee" in japanese games during the '80s.
I had to laugh when Ted is talking about the ESRB checklist and it felt like Daggerfall had bragging rights for going through the checklist of things like, "Can you kill innocent people? YES! Are you rewarded for killing innocent people? YES!" And I wish we saw more games that take this as a challenge. I don't want to see it Duke Nukem style where it's a deliberate boob bouncing in your face mechanic, but I feel like it's something that so many good games miss out on their opportunities to be adult and address real-world adult conceptts because they're so afraid of angering the rating systems and losing customers that they deliberately child-proof their bottles. Because I'm all growed up. (Allegedly.) I wish we had a separate rating system that "protected" adults. And by that I mean that kept us rooted in reality, key there: reality. That prepared us for real world situations instead of avoiding them. But that punished over-indulgence just as much as it punished an over-protective parent's avoidance. Because you don't need to have a particularly realistic game setting to adequately address real-world concepts. You can throw fireballs from your hands one minute and address the line between helpful self-medication done intelligently and harmful addiction the next.
I also keep loving this growing narrative of combining procedural generation and AI into an MMO RPG where the world lives around you and how much you are a part of that or not just depends on how much you wan tto be. Maybe you're just playing as a fishy stick vendor at arena matches because that's what you find fun in your spare time. Maybe you decide that you like a certain faction and become a leader, waging wars and changing the world around you. Maybe the game is smart enough to write these things into lore automatically and if you want into the next country over you hear about your own exploits. Maybe if your character dies you later start another character as the son or granddaughter. Just let people do what people do. But fill the world with more NPCs, intelligent interactive learning AI NPCs, than with players. (At least at first.) And just let the world evolve naturally. Let quests create themselves naturally. Let players create quests in mining out or building in game their own dungeon, attracting people or monsters to fill it, putting in loot that they created or found. Just people some people would have fun with that. Run it from a server that has more intelligent bots that learn. Maybe even have the server learn your playstyle from how you play and have a mechanic to let the server control your character when you're not playing. Or use interesting players as templates for future NPCs by learning from them. Have the game server learn how to build and expand the world by how players do.
There's of course the danger of the game server learning from bad example and becoming a hate speach bigot or go awry in other ways. So you still need humans to keep on top of that in any learning system. But ... yeah ... I'd play that. Like "The Sims: Daggerfall, an MMO". It's so WTF and yet at the same time so ... what if. You can't help but be curious what could be done with the right minds behind it and enough financial backing to comfortably make it what it could be.
Good work
|I just watched your one hour video released last jan, loved it. now i clicked on this one, then i notice. 3 hours. F ME i screamed.
Awesome, glad you're digging my work. I also interviewed Julian LeFay last year, the project lead for the first 2 Elder Scrolls games, if you don't have enough to watch already!
@@Indigo_Gaming i couldnt finish it, i was born 1984 so i dont have a clue about some of the games he kept going on about. but i agree that bathesda could make an epic game. right now they re too far behind Rockstar. Warhorse and CDPR, there is no excuse. And mods is the only thing that gave their latest installment longevity, instead they got greedy and tried to grab it. so thank god for NEXUS with their Vortex for mods. I wounder, is there an engine that can create a world as big as Daggerfall, but with real content, without loading screen, and maybe easy graphics. nothing crazy that a10 year old pc can handle. because thaat might be what is needed to create something more about the gameplay than the looks and linear story.
Do Kirkbride next!
Has Ted Peterson written any solo fiction? Even if it's only a few short stories I might find in an anthology somewhere?
3:15:00 -> Dwarf Fortress Adventure Mode
2:25:08 Julian made it happen
Indeed he did
I wish I could run daggerfall or arena on my phone.
Just figured out how to emulate it...
The controls are wonky but it works!
@@ln2435 Yeah, it's semi-playable if you're willing to spam pause lol
I think the jab at final fantasy and other games for having impressive pre-rendered cinematic scenes, and having amazing orchestra level music and music compositions, and having a plot, and claiming the game having that is the game trying to not be a game (and instead wanting to be a movie, or some orchestra, or a novel etc) is invalid.
The first video games had no guys specifically for art, music, story etc, instead it was just a few coder guys that made the game that also did those other things (to an amateurish level). Arguing that this setup determines what a "real game" is, is quite absurd.
Early Japanese game developers realised that to take games to the next level (beyond amateurish stuff like Daggerfall), professional composers should be made to make the music (like Nobuo Uematsu, Koji Kondo etc). As well as professional artists should be hired to make the graphics, and pre-rendered scenes would give the game more life. The real time graphics were treated as a game representation of a world, but one which you understood was limited, you didn't think for example that Zidane from FF9 was meant to be 100 pixels, because you saw him in the cutscene and know what he actually looks like in high detail, it gave the characters more life, and the world more true feeling and emotion. This is also why professional story writers were also hired, every single facet of the game had professionals specialising in each area, to bring the medium of video games forward (ahead of the amateur days).
This is also how anime got ahead. Once upon a time cartoons were very simple, such as in the 1950's etc, they had no real story, had cheap sound effects and comically bad music and were seen as a cheap gimmick (they were the Daggerfall equivalent in the animation world). However the creators of modern day anime realised that animation had potential, but there needs to be professionals writing the story, making the sound effects and music, drawing the frames etc. And by doing this, animation was able to escape the amateur days and reach the success it has today.
The reality is that Todd Howard took Bethesda in a direction where they achieved success, and they wouldn't have ever achieved that under the original guys (who were just obsessed with purely making a PC equivalent of Dungeons and Dragons tabletop game). Todd instead made the world smaller, but more detailed, and with more plot driven narrative, as well as hired professional musicians and artists. This is why it became so successful, it went from a small amateur company where Daggerfall only sold 700,000 copies, to then Skyrim that sold 60 million copies.
Daggerfall isn't "true gaming" it is just a procedurally generated amateurish mess, there is no real story, it has bad music, it uses procedural generation so much that everything feels vapid, the art style is bad, even the gameplay mechanics are bad, there is no character development in relation to personality and interactivity etc.
Bethesda's first proper game was Morrowind, which Todd Howard was the project lead of that. Morrowind is what saved the company in fact, if Morrowind wasn't made then Bethesda was going to die off right there and then. Daggerfall was 487,000 square kilometres of procedurally generated nothing, where as Morrowind was 24 square kilometres of hand crafted terrain, this made it unique and all players could memorise it (like a real life area in our world). In addition to this, Morrowind was very story/plot driven compared to Daggerfall, Morrowind also had more detailed character backstories, it had especially very good music.
"I'm not a lorebeard" made me think of Binky the Clown
It would be far more interesting to hear about things not main stream. things that the average person into games doesn't already know about.
Excellent interview! Thank you both for this.
I'm sorry but I have to mention that it's really strange for someone who wrote so many words for game design, to constantly repeat "you know" or "like" :)
WHERE IS MORROWIND ON THE VIDEO'S SECTIONS?
09:11, Obviously Eye of the Beholder was an FPS party dungeon crawler and official AD&D and SSI product that did quite well in 1990 (onwards with the sequels), remember playing it a lot back then.
You are doing God's work yet again good Sir.
Thanks for watching, glad so many others enjoy learning about these games and their creators!
What is the game being shown at 3:12:58 ?
Or is that just a game engine being messed with?
It's some demonstration footage of a program called TerrainEngine.
You're becoming the Michael Parkinson of RUclips.
Literally who
Micheal was a good tv host and always has interesting guests on just like Indigo, just Indigo is more handsome.
Well Michael does have about 50 years on me. :D
I uploaded the Arena executables in a single ZIP already patched with WASD keys and the DOS32A Extender to fix crashes and avoid savefile corruption, download the pack here (game files not included) www.dropbox.com/sh/57hamnfckic8q8h/AADQf-L42FdXdVKL4NIGSCUla?dl=0
So this is the person who caused Brian David Gilberts unraveling.
@@windsnexus9064 ruclips.net/video/RVdTZhmsGsU/видео.html
Who wrote the Song of Pelinal Whitestake ?
Michael Kirkbride
i found the part where games try try to ape Movies and are seen as 2nd best interesting. Game's have always had this desire to be held up as Art, and as both a film and game buff, it was always misplaced. Games offer something completely different , you could not have the scale of TES lore in a movie or TV Series, I always feel games that try to do this most often fail.
A notable example is heavy Rain, i found the way that game tried to mimic story beats, as a complete misunderstanding of what Video Game strengths are. You don't need to have sections where you mimic shaving, that's not compelling.
Then you have things such as the Stanley parable, papers please , monkey island and such that don't try to mimic a movie but can tell a compelling story in many ways better than a film and offer mechanisms which a movie cannot.
Videogames shouldn't try to be movies, TES is a prime example , it's the freeform nature of it that makes it special.
Legends of Valour fascinated me too, but when I read the reviews I decided not to buy it. It felt too empty and ran like a slideshow on the A500.