02-20-2006, 02:44 AM
Neocast radio interview [Feb 16th 2006]
I found a link to a podcast interview from Neocast, dated February 16th 2006, where they interview Pete Hines on Oblivion.
- DOWNLOAD HERE -
? At 07:12 into the clip Pete talks about the main nemesis in the story, which I thought was interesting.
? At 12:33 he discusses the benefits of playing on dual-core processor computers.
? At 14:29 has an interesting portion about the latest rumors regarding the shadow system changes:
Neocast: Just in general, not necessarily comparing a 360 version to PC version, there were rumors that the shadowing I believe, or the lighting, for the game was toned down recently so that the PC version matched the visual quality of the Xbox 360 version.
Pete: Nnno. That's not true. So what we did... this all started because ... we had to do a different shadowing system than the one we had originally intended because it was too expensive. And it was too expensive on anything, it wasn't just too expensive here or there, it was... it just didn't work right. And the only place we had actually shown it was in the very first cell of the E3 demo, where if you watched those videos we released, Todd picks up a rib cage and shows off some of the lighting on the individual objects and such. That's actually the only place we've ever shown anybody the game looking like that. So the rest of the stuff that you've ever seen has basically been with that system either turned off or completely out and with the new system in. So, the issue was individual shadows for every single object in the game and it was so ridiculously expensive that we just... the game wouldn't run looking like that.
So we came up with a system that actually worked as opposed to trying to shoe-horn something in that just didn't work. There's been a lot of discussion about that, but it's really sort of, people "Oh, it looked so much better with the old system!" but no-one's ever played the game with that system in and you only saw that one little prison cell with it working like that, so it's one of those things that got blown way out of proportion just because people didn't quite sortof get what had changed and what was different. We don't make decisions based on this platform or that platform. It is, what are we gonna do in the game. This is the game - what is the best decision for the game. And so we changed the way we did shadows in the best interest of the game.
Neocast: That really makes sense. So in other words the system you originally showed in that one portion of the original E3 video you'd need like a supercomputer to run.
Pete: Yeah, it's wasn't feasible, it wasn't practical... it didn't work! You try things in the game and some stuff work and some don't. We did three different combat systems [*snip*]
? 32:20 - Pete Hines says that as far as player characters go we're limited to what the facegen system in character creation can supply. Or in his words, "It's not something we're planning to officially support, or do, we have a wonderful character creation system with a gazillion different sliders and ways to customize." "You can not use the Construction Set to change what your character has or does or looks like."
BUT there seems to be a window of possibility for customizing the way NPC looks that goes beyond the boundaries of the facegen system, which I'm sure is good news for everyone hoping to mod or play with new races.
? 41:00 - Pete says, "There are no dragons in the game."
A little bit later he says they plan to release the game simultanously not only on both platforms but on all continents. Yaay!
? 47:10 - Regarding the rumor on ESF that Pete recently confirmed a release date of March 24th in an interview with CVG: "I can 100% confirm that I've never told anyone a release date other than Early 2006 and anybody who says otherwise isn't telling the truth." But he also says they *have* a date in mind, but it's confidential.
I found a link to a podcast interview from Neocast, dated February 16th 2006, where they interview Pete Hines on Oblivion.
- DOWNLOAD HERE -
? At 07:12 into the clip Pete talks about the main nemesis in the story, which I thought was interesting.
? At 12:33 he discusses the benefits of playing on dual-core processor computers.
? At 14:29 has an interesting portion about the latest rumors regarding the shadow system changes:
Neocast: Just in general, not necessarily comparing a 360 version to PC version, there were rumors that the shadowing I believe, or the lighting, for the game was toned down recently so that the PC version matched the visual quality of the Xbox 360 version.
Pete: Nnno. That's not true. So what we did... this all started because ... we had to do a different shadowing system than the one we had originally intended because it was too expensive. And it was too expensive on anything, it wasn't just too expensive here or there, it was... it just didn't work right. And the only place we had actually shown it was in the very first cell of the E3 demo, where if you watched those videos we released, Todd picks up a rib cage and shows off some of the lighting on the individual objects and such. That's actually the only place we've ever shown anybody the game looking like that. So the rest of the stuff that you've ever seen has basically been with that system either turned off or completely out and with the new system in. So, the issue was individual shadows for every single object in the game and it was so ridiculously expensive that we just... the game wouldn't run looking like that.
So we came up with a system that actually worked as opposed to trying to shoe-horn something in that just didn't work. There's been a lot of discussion about that, but it's really sort of, people "Oh, it looked so much better with the old system!" but no-one's ever played the game with that system in and you only saw that one little prison cell with it working like that, so it's one of those things that got blown way out of proportion just because people didn't quite sortof get what had changed and what was different. We don't make decisions based on this platform or that platform. It is, what are we gonna do in the game. This is the game - what is the best decision for the game. And so we changed the way we did shadows in the best interest of the game.
Neocast: That really makes sense. So in other words the system you originally showed in that one portion of the original E3 video you'd need like a supercomputer to run.
Pete: Yeah, it's wasn't feasible, it wasn't practical... it didn't work! You try things in the game and some stuff work and some don't. We did three different combat systems [*snip*]
? 32:20 - Pete Hines says that as far as player characters go we're limited to what the facegen system in character creation can supply. Or in his words, "It's not something we're planning to officially support, or do, we have a wonderful character creation system with a gazillion different sliders and ways to customize." "You can not use the Construction Set to change what your character has or does or looks like."
BUT there seems to be a window of possibility for customizing the way NPC looks that goes beyond the boundaries of the facegen system, which I'm sure is good news for everyone hoping to mod or play with new races.
? 41:00 - Pete says, "There are no dragons in the game."
A little bit later he says they plan to release the game simultanously not only on both platforms but on all continents. Yaay!
? 47:10 - Regarding the rumor on ESF that Pete recently confirmed a release date of March 24th in an interview with CVG: "I can 100% confirm that I've never told anyone a release date other than Early 2006 and anybody who says otherwise isn't telling the truth." But he also says they *have* a date in mind, but it's confidential.