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UESP Interview with ESO developers (Summerset)

Tags: #ESO  #Interview  #Summerset 
  • Member
    April 10, 2018

    The good folks over at UESP had an interesting interview with ESO Game Director Matt Firor and Lead Content Designer Rich Lambert. What follows are some of the most interesting bits of the interview. You can find the entire interview here

     


     

    Alarra: So I think that was all of our Morrowind [questions], so there's several for Summerset, then. So the first question is, "When coming up with Summerset, what sort of inspirations did you take from the older games, like Arena, or the lorebooks that have mentioned it?"

    Matt Firor: Yeah, so if you think of Morrowind vs Summerset, we didn't really figure this out that we were going there, but subconsciously we were. Morrowind is in the northeast part of the map, it’s dark elves, it’s alien, right, it’s different. Summerset is like the 180 degree difference: in the southwest, it's high fantasy, it's bright and happy – at least on the surface. So the mood is all, it’s just different. I'm not going to say it looks like a different game, but it feels really really different if you've had a chance to play it. You'll see, it's like – everything is bright and happy, at least until you dig under the surface a few inches and then it all goes to hell.

    Alarra: Yeah, we did get to try it out a bit at PAX.

    Matt Firor: Yeah, yeah, so subconsciously we were doing that when we made the decision to go to Summerset. It's like, we never want to do the same thing twice, so we want to find something that was different, but the players really wanted to go see, so obviously they haven’t seen it since 1994 and it looked a lot different back then. (laugh) And we took a lot of the Arena stuff, I mean, Crystal Tower which I'm looking at right here – (gestures to art behind us) – you know, it was basically the only interesting part of Summerset in Arena. And it's where – I'm sure you guys have played it – it's where one of the nine sections of the staff were, and so it's gonna be part of the story in ours too. I won’t spoil it.

    . . . .

     


    baratron: Our fans are curious to know how heavily Summerset relies on undisclosed Bethesda concepts from way back and how much of it is… you guys' idea.

    Matt Firor: So I don't have to tell you guys this, but the lore – maybe some of your readers will know this – but the lore in Elder Scrolls is never definitive, it’s always told through the eyes of people that live in the world, which gives developers – not just us, but everyone that works on Elder Scrolls – certain leeway to kind of find what that person meant when they were telling the story. We used every piece of lore that we could find for Summerset, but a lot of it contradicted itself, so we found the path that we wanted to take and went from there. We're building on top of a foundation like we always do, but I think we came up with a really good direction. I don't think anyone will be shocked at any of the decisions we made if they know the lore. They'll go "okay, yeah, great, awesome!".


    Alarra: So kind of related to that, there's been a lot of talk among fans about how what we've seen of it doesn't really match, necessarily, how it's been described - like Alinor's buildings looking like insect wings? Is that a matter of just, it's hard to reflect that in the gameplay, or was that a deliberate design choice, or is it the unreliable narrator?

    Matt Firor: Yeah, you mean picking certain lorebooks, cities looked a certain way, but they're not definitive, so, you know… I think Elder Scrolls is, at its heart – and Todd Howard says this all the time – if magic left Tamriel, no one would notice, because it's very mundane at its heart. It's like, there's poor Altmer pig farmers, like, it's not like the high elves are better than anyone else, they're just different, right? They’re not like the super race, or they would’ve been able to control all of Tamriel. They have their own thing going, and so they can't be that much more advanced than everyone else. It just doesn't make sense in the lore. So with that in mind, that’s how we came up with the architecture for them.

    . . . .

    baratron: Well, that's actually the next question, which is, "Where is Artaeum physically-"

    Matt Firor: Nobody knows!

    baratron: Nobody knows. (laughing)

    Matt Firor: But you go there, but you don't know where it is.

     


    Alarra: So this is related to the existing lore: Does Crystal Tower contain animal pens, as described in the lorebook from Daggerfall, A Dubious Tale of the Crystal Tower?

    Matt Firor: No spoilers.

    Alarra: Okay. (laughs)

    baratron: (laughs) That's a good answer.


    baratron: Okay, I'm not even sure how you pronounce this, because obviously it was from the older games, which weren't voiced, but is Ceporah ("kef-or-ah") Tower made of coral?

    Matt Firor: Made of what?

    baratron: Coral. "SEF-or-ah", might be "SEF-or-ah".

    Matt Firor: It's "Seh-FOR-ah".

    baratron: Yeah. Is it made of coral?

    Matt Firor: It looks like it is, but I can't guarantee that. I actually don't know the answer. Like, you look at it and you're like "Okay, that's... odd." And you've seen the interiors in some of the movies we've released: it's the blue, kinda blue - it's a room where it's got kind of blue sparkly stuff in the walls...

    baratron: Oh, yeah, I liked that.

    Matt Firor: There's a whole lore associated with that that I would probably go to UESP to find out. But it was not built by elves, I know that. I don't actually know who built it. So yeah, it does look like coral, but it might be some other substance that looks like it.


    Alarra: So as far as how Bethesda and ZOS work together, how much collaboration and overlap is there when it comes to ESO?

    Matt Firor: Yeah, every day. Especially now that we're doing much bigger things. So, you know, they're the experts, so Lawrence's job, and Rich Lambert's, is basically pitching ideas to them... I mean, we're canon lore, so we need to make sure that we're based on reality - you know, reality as it exists in the lore. And when we add new stuff, we always run it by them and make sure we're going in a direction that they would wanna go if they were doing it. So everything that we do has been run through them.


     

  • Member
    April 11, 2018

    This is interesting, Patriarch, thanks for sharing. I know the design and architecture has generated a lot of chatter on the forums so it's good to see a bit of devoloper insight into it. I think we're all used to it, or should be after Cyrodiil deviated from the expectations :D 

    The PGE is a great resource, part of its fun lies in its unreliability and bias - one of those sources from which one can pick and choose what works in the mind's eye. Part of what I'm looking forward to most is seeing if we can spot the things which have been preserved from that source, much like how the Orsinium's echaterre seem to have evolved into the creature we know and love from this sentence:

    These Orcish tribes chose an uninhabited mountain region near Old H'roldan in High Rock, for their people were (and most still are) dependent on a rare shaggy giant centipede herdbeast that can live only at high altitudes on alpine and sub-alpine forage.

    So I'm pretty excited to see just how it feels and soak up that mood they're talking about in the interview. If we can see some more conservative Altmeri views or explore subjects like goblin slavery or their views on mer superiority without it being couched in the fanatical policies of the Veiled Heritance, I'd be chuffed. I mean, that poor Altmer pig-farmer mentioned above... why does he think the way he does? Plus there's the beasts. Am looking forward to the critters, must be said. 

  • Member
    May 10, 2018

    On the subject of ESO and canon, the Golden Fool recieved a Frostbane Bear mount in one of the recent free Crown Crates from the Bonus Event. I had a little look in the store while I decided whether or not to blow my Crowns on some Crates, was interested to see the description of this mount:

    Without extensive fact-checking, as far as I know this is the first "canon" reference which links Tsun with the Atmoran Bear totem. This validates the assertions seen in the Design Document. Interesting to note, I thought. 

  • Member
    May 10, 2018

    Also its default name is Tsunny.

  • May 10, 2018
    Well I guess poor Albee don’t know coral from marble. Gah, I’ll have to retcon a lot of things.
  • Member
    May 10, 2018
    I’m not sure a retcon is nessecary. Worked stone can take all shapes and styles. If Albee believes it’s marble, who’s going to disagree with his perspective on it. “Eye of the Beholder” and all. Also, by the time Albee sees it, it could have been replaced my marble. Perhaps a natural/un-natural phenomenon occurred to deterate the original coral. There is a lot to play with on this, time being the biggest.
  • Member
    May 10, 2018

    Oh c'mon, Lis, don't be like that. You don't need a ret-con for a single small detail. It's just like the "glass half-full" scenario; so what if it's either half-empty or half-full? In the end someone probably had drank from it. :P 

    On the other note...

    Golden Fool said:

    Also its default name is Tsunny.

    Well I'm sure that bear likes to take "Tsunny" strolls on the beach. *Ba-dum-tis!*

  • Member
    May 10, 2018

    The Long-Chapper said: Well I guess poor Albee don’t know coral from marble. Gah, I’ll have to retcon a lot of things.

    One thing that occurs to me that could be plausible (and i'll be keeping a lookout for anything even hinting at it) is the Elven mysticism and shaping magic. These guys can hide an entire island, and their cultural ethos is about bending the world to their will - Like, the Bosmer live in harmony with nature, the Altmer make nature live in harmony with them. With Queen Ayrenn opening the borders, it tickles me that maybe they wanted to redecorate for the rest of Tamriel. So maybe all the different accounts on how the Summerset Isles look can be explained as being true at the time of writing.

    In some ways that would be unsatisfactory because we think of the High Elves as wanting to keep things exact, pristine, and everlasting. However, that same perfectionism could compel them to alter things which don't quite fit or remind them of something they'd rather forget. The Queen's grand plan of opening the borders could be a stain on their culture that a generation later would rather sweep under the carpet of history, something so profound that, by the time of the Third Era, has prompted them to reshape their entire civilisation.

    Far-fetched, I know, but not entirely unprecedented: The Greenspeakers of Valenwood can use their shaping magic to grow an entire town in a matter of days, and their magic is but a hair on a bear compared to the mastery of the Altmer.

  • May 10, 2018

    KingsOfOld said: I’m not sure a retcon is nessecary. Worked stone can take all shapes and styles. If Albee believes it’s marble, who’s going to disagree with his perspective on it. “Eye of the Beholder” and all. Also, by the time Albee sees it, it could have been replaced my marble. Perhaps a natural/un-natural phenomenon occurred to deterate the original coral. There is a lot to play with on this, time being the biggest.
     

    The thing is that I think he would know the difference between coral rock and marble. I certainly do and I'm no geologist or biologist. There is also a history of the character and who he knows and that person is a person from this time period, so.... Yes, retconning will be done once I know more. I cannot look at my work otherwise. I edited Altmer burial to account for ESO and I will do the same here. 

    A-Pocky-Hah! said:

    Oh c'mon, Lis, don't be like that. You don't need a ret-con for a single small detail. It's just like the "glass half-full" scenario; so what if it's either half-empty or half-full? In the end someone probably had drank from it. :P 

    Well yes, I will retcon for a single small detail. I've done it before. See above. And the color of a giant tower that is the symbol of these people and that the Mer I write about nearly died to protect, lived there for two years, is not a small detail. When you've invested this much time into a story and researched a lot to get it as lore-friendly as possible, things like this are going to shake you up and rightfully so. It is almost to the point where I may not continue. Yes, I'm that upset about this. Well, upset isn't the right word. I am more, man, how do I even describe it, I guess, ashamed that what I worked on is now not accurate. For someone who takes great pride in their work, that sucks.  Think of it this way Pocky, my Summerset world is going to be flipped on its head. A huge part of the story I have told has been spent recreating this region of Tamriel with the same information that they had. I'll get used to this, of course, but please understand my perspective on this. Yes, I sweat the details, the details are extremely important to me in what I write.  

    Lol, the Numidium is going to be extremely beneficial. It is sort of my "Get out of jail card" with all of this Summerset stuff. 

    Paws said:

    The Long-Chapper said: Well I guess poor Albee don’t know coral from marble. Gah, I’ll have to retcon a lot of things.

    One thing that occurs to me that could be plausible (and i'll be keeping a lookout for anything even hinting at it) is the Elven mysticism and shaping magic. These guys can hide an entire island, and their cultural ethos is about bending the world to their will - Like, the Bosmer live in harmony with nature, the Altmer make nature live in harmony with them. With Queen Ayrenn opening the borders, it tickles me that maybe they wanted to redecorate for the rest of Tamriel. So maybe all the different accounts on how the Summerset Isles look can be explained as being true at the time of writing.

    In some ways that would be unsatisfactory because we think of the High Elves as wanting to keep things exact, pristine, and everlasting. However, that same perfectionism could compel them to alter things which don't quite fit or remind them of something they'd rather forget. The Queen's grand plan of opening the borders could be a stain on their culture that a generation later would rather sweep under the carpet of history, something so profound that, by the time of the Third Era, has prompted them to reshape their entire civilisation.

    Far-fetched, I know, but not entirely unprecedented: The Greenspeakers of Valenwood can use their shaping magic to grow an entire town in a matter of days, and their magic is but a hair on a bear compared to the mastery of the Altmer.

    We should have a chat about this, Phil. Bug me on Skype.  

  • Member
    May 10, 2018
    On May 11th, Albee can listen in to loremaster Lawrence Schick as he talks about Summerset. https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/26393?utm_source=SocialMedia&utm_medium=bitly