The Irish Scrolls
For the Irish Elder Scrolls fan!

Q. A new feature in oblivion will be the previously unjoinable assassins guild, The Dark Brotherhood.Tell us, how do the dark brotherhood differ from the Morag Tong? Will their be more strategies involved in the quests?

A.In Morrowind, the assassins guild known as the Morag Tong was a government-sanctioned organization. Whenever the player was granted an assignment, he or she would be issued a "writ of assassination," which was essentially a "get out of jail free" card. So killing your assigned target was perfectly legal.

Well, the Dark Brotherhood in Oblivion is about as far removed from the Morag Tong as you can get. The guild is reviled and feared by the authorities, and anytime you assassinate someone while on a Dark Brotherhood quest, you're definitely on the wrong side of the law.

Would I characterize the Dark Brotherhood as "evil"? I'd say that's a pretty apt description. When you play the questline, it quickly becomes apparent that every one of your fellow assassins has a unique story, and a unique motivation for doing what they do. But they each share an important unifying trait -- when they joined, they left their compassion at the door. So that's really one of the cornerstones of the Dark Brotherhood as it's been presented in Oblivion. It's for those players who have jumped over that moral fence, and never want to look back. But you've got to be careful whenever you present something that is so blatantly sinister, because you run the risk of it feeling very heavy-handed, very oppressive. So the Dark Brotherhood really encourages you to have a black sense of humor about the whole thing, and that same black sense of humor has certainly been worked into the questline. 

 As for the quest themselves, yeah, it was one of my goals going into this game that the quests had to present their own unique challenges, and sort of feel novel and refreshing. I mean, you're in a guild where you're tasked with killing people, so it's hard to fail any quest, since success is usually depended upon the target being dead. Let's face it, in Oblivion, you're going to engage in a lot of combat, and kill a lot of NPCs. But as an assassin, as a member of the Dark Brotherhood, you want to feel like you're sort of an expert at killing. Anyone can kill, but only the Dark Brotherhood can do it with style. But I also didn't want to punish the player with brutal total stealth challenges, or demand a certain play style. So for the majority of the quests in the Dark Brotherhood, you'll succeed if you simply kill your target. But... most of the quests also have an "optimal" method of completion, and if you carry out the assignment that way, you'll earn a bonus, usually a sweet magic item. So the questline as a whole offers a lot of strategy and player choice, and rewards subtlety, without jamming it down the player's throat.  Actually, during one of my internal playtests, I did an "incompetent assassin's" pass through the questline... Making lots of noise, never getting bonuses. It was really fun, and different, and boy did my questgiver lose respect for me! But I was still successful, and in the end, that's what was important.

Q. Another new feature in Oblivion will be the gladiatorial Arena, Where you'll be able to both fight and place bets.  Focusing on the betting aspect, will the player be able to watch the fight first hand or will the player be informed of the outcome of the match Directly after he has placed the Bet?

A. When you bet on a match, you do indeed actually go up into the stands and watch the fight firsthand! So you'll hear the announcer, the gates will drop, and those two combatants will charge at each other with murder in their eyes.  Every time you bet on a fight, the two combatants come in with randomly spawned equipment, so that's sort of the first thing you notice when the fight starts. "Oh no! The guy I bet on has a dagger!" Or "Yes! My guy has a claymore!" But even then, the fights are so dynamic, so really never know what's going to happen. I've watched as a combatant with no weapon actually beat the stuffing out of a combatant with a two-handed warhammer. It's just a lot of fun to move around, and try to see the fight from a better vantage point, and cheer for the combatant you bet on, and watch in either horror or joy as one of them goes down. So I think we've really managed to effectively simulate the excitement of watching an Arena match

 While you're watching a fight, you can also talk to any NPCs who may be up in the "bettor's box" with you. One old woman tells you she thinks the fights are barbaric... but she's become quite addicted to gambling. And it's funny, because the same thing can happen to the player. Watching Arena fights tends to be like eating potato chips -- you always want just one more... Oh, and I won't go into specifics, but a character with a high Luck skill will have a certain advantage when betting on a match....

Q. Now on to the new stealth system. The new system seems vastly improved over the system used in previous games, What fun or exciting things might we come to expect from this system?
 

A. The short answer is the new system, quite simply, lets you roleplay a better assassin or thief type of character. You know, Oblivion isn't Thief. There isn't one single gameplay dynamic that dominates the entire game. So when you choose to use stealth in Oblivion, you're engaging a complex formula that calculates if you're hidden based on a variety of factors, everything from your Sneak skill, to the amount of lighting in the area, to the weight of the boots you decided to wear, to whether or not any NPCs in the vicinity will attack you if you're detected. And what I think is really great about the stealth in Oblivion is that, when you're playing, we've balanced the stealth to the point where you never have to think of the formula, because it all just "feels" right. You walk instead of running, you stick to the dark corners of the room, you chug a chameleon potion to give you an advantage, and when you hear an NPC say something to the effect of "Hmmm... must have been the wind," you stop dead in your tracks, hold your breath, and pray they don't detect you! And when you realized you're in the clear, and then sneak close enough to get off a "stealth attack" with your bow -- or melee weapon if you're good enough to get that close -- it's just incredibly satisfying.

But, you know, another great thing about stealth in Oblivion is that you can indeed use it to "ghost" through certain encounters; that is, sneak by monsters or NPCs without engaging in combat. If your objective is not to kill... if it's only to, say, retrieve an item from a dungeon, then (assuming your Sneak skill is high enough and you're being very careful) you could very well just sneak in, grab the item, and get out completely undetected. And because the Elder Scrolls system is based around skill usage and not killing to gain experience points, the more you Sneak, the better you're going to get at it. So yeah, you might botch a few jobs, but in this case practice really does make perfect. 

Q. Since Oblivion uses the new advanced Radiant AI system their must be loads of "AI gone wrong" stories, could you share with us one of  these "AI Anecdotes"?
 

A. You know, there's always something unexpected happening in our game. I know there have been rumors that we've somehow "dumbed down" the Radiant AI to prevent the unexpected, but that's simply not true. What we've done is recognized certain NPCs whose behavior was so crazy, it actually broke stuff. The NPCs still perform a whole variety of tasks. They still have 24/7 schedules, and they still eat, sleep, read, cast spells, go swimming, have target practice, hunt deer, ride horses and so much more. Does every NPC do everything? Of course not. But as you play the game, you'll see them do all kinds of stuff.

And yes, the unexpected still certainly happens. Here's an example of something I just experienced yesterday. There's a quest you can complete, and if you don't kill one of the NPCs involved, you'll find him later in the local tavern, drinking his life away. So, about 4 hours after completing the quest (in real time) I happened to visit this tavern, and found that NPC. I talked to him, and he seemed quite depressed. But otherwise, everything seemed very normal. So I rented a room, went upstairs, and took a nap.

I awoke to the sounds of yelling, banging and items crashing to the floor. I honesty had no idea what was going on, so I rushed downstairs, only to find the NPC I had talked to earlier swinging his giant two-handed warhammer at another NPC! He was hitting tables, sending stuff flying across the room. The NPC he was attacking did the smart thing -- he bolted for the door! Naturally, the guy with the hammer chased after him. 

 At this point my curiosity was on overload, and I followed them outside to see how this was all going to end. The NPC with the warhammer was chasing the other NPC down the street. All of a sudden, a guard caught sight of the commotion, and engaged the NPC with the hammer! So then they started fighting, and the guard killed him! The NPC who was being chased, now nearly dead, headed back into the tavern and resumed his day. Now that was an awesome moment! But for me, the real clincher was the fact that the guy with the warhammer was one of the NPCs I myself had implemented. I knew his schedule, his general temperament, everything... but I never saw that fight coming! So how did it happen? Well, as I mentioned, the world reacts dynamically. For some reason I missed, the guy with the warhammer hated the other guy, enough to actually attack him. And then rest is history. 

Another anecdote. A couple weeks ago while playtesting I was walking through a town, and found a popular NPC lying dead. Wondering what had happened, I searched his inventory, and then found the incriminating evidence -- a piece of stolen cheese! So it's pretty easy to figure out what happened in that case!

But you know, it's also important to note that we've taken great pains to ensure that the game doesn't break itself. So let's say, for example, the guy with the warhammer had killed the other NPC. If that NPC were used in a quest somewhere, his death would be handled. You'd get the correct journal entry at the appropriate time, etc. Heck, in the Dark Brotherhood, most of your targets actually exist in the world and can be killed before you even get the quest to do so. But if you do, everything still works, because we've covered those bases (but you'll probably forfeit your bonus). So we feel really good at this point about letting the world sort of be what it is. 

Q. Their have been rumours that their will be a Official Werewolf mod made available in the near future, have you any comment on this? Also, will their be any Official mods downloadable from day one?

A. We have no plans for a werewolf mod. The current plan is still to have official mods available for download on day one, or very close to it. We do plan to have the horse armor download available right away. Beyond that, you’ll have to wait and see.

Q. And lastly, will their be any chance of an official Irish Themed mod?