YouSaid · the spoken record

Todd Howard

lines on the record: 202
first: 2022-11-29
most recent: 2022-11-29
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“And I mean this honestly. It's been awesome that the culture inside of Microsoft and Xbox that people see from the outside is the culture inside, the way they talk about players, the way they'll invest in the players, the risks they'll take, the thoughtfulness from Phil Spencer on down has been, you know, Phil really, really lucky. And then a game like Starfield, where, look, we've had a lot of success with the games that you talked about, but we've never been kind of the platform seller. You know, the game for a platform for a period of time. And so, you know, there is a lot of pressure there. There's a lot of responsibility there to make sure we deliver for everybody.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Your company goes through a change like that, no matter what it is, even if it's somebody that you've worked with for a long time you never know what you're in for, you hope And I had worked with them since we started doing console stuff with Morowind was they came to us, came to me and said, hey, you should make this game for the Xbox. And so when they were making that console. Had a great experience with them. And then on the 360 with Oblivion. And so I guess the point is we felt that we had a very good relationship with everybody there and we understood what their culture was. But you never really know.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's not an exact science, but you can look at what needs to be done and the amount of time you have. And you know, we've done it in the past where we can get it done. We believe we can. And so you're fighting that personal belief that you can get something done. But there's a lot of things that go into release date with marketing and publishing. And, you know, we've reached a point where on Starfield where it was pretty clear to us, even though you want to say you can get it done, that The risk involved with that to the fans, to the game, to the team, to the company. We're part of Xbox now to everybody was we should really move it. Give it the time it needs.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I've done it all ways, right? I've announced Starfield, we're pretty loud with a release date that we then had to delay. It was. It was, but it was the right thing to do.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, we try to make it like, hey, this is our best guess. If you make it tough to reach, it's sort of, you know, you're going to miss it, it's arbitrary. We really try to keep ourselves honest because it will let you know where you're at, right? When I first playable, we want to be done with prototyping or designed by this date. We want to have first playable this date. We want to have this. But look, things happen. Pandemic happens. People go home. It throws everything off. What you needed to do because we're not just making a game and then moving everybody on. you know what you needed to do like skyrim was so popular we kept people on that game for longer so it delayed a little bit we were doing with fallout 4 at the time because we can't we're you know hey we really shouldn't move the people on to fallout yet because we're doing these things in skyrim and we should so it just sort of keeps you honest for where you're where you're at”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I love Mobile games, though. I play a ton of them. My favorite game this year is Marvel Snap, this card game from the folks who did Hearthstone. You should really play it. Do you like card games? Like super You don't like superheroes?”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And if you look at You know, if you look at kids these days, they can stare at their phone for hours. That's all they do. That's where they watch everything. So it's also like a demographic thing. The younger audience, they would rather sit and stare at their phone than play it on a big screen.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The amount of people you're going to get, the number that have the amount of time to sit there for a long time and play it like a console game or a PC game is lower because people are playing mobile games on the move or whatever. And how it onboards you, because obviously most of them are free. So the tutorial works, how it gets you into the game because you haven't bought it, you haven't done this investment of buying it and then saying, no, I'm going to learn it. People don't care. So really understanding how they get into the game. Those two things are really the magic to mobile gaming. We have found though with our games, you know, particularly Fallout Shelter, people will sell there for an hour or two. Like they will just sit there and play it large numbers of people will play it for hours a day.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We've done a few things and we have a new mobile game that we're working on that we haven't announced yet that I'm in love with. A couple things that you approach on mobile. Now, I can give you sort of the classic mobile gaming thing and then what we do. You know, a classic mobile gaming is really for short play sessions.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, follow, I definitely recommend that one Fallout Shelter, completely different game. Diablo Immortal is, I was very, very impressed. I had a lot of fun.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Do some great storytelling quests, like the actual mechanics aren't the same as Skyrim, but the world is awesome. They've just done an incredible job. You know, it's about to be 10 years for that game as well. And this is great community around that.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We did Fallout 76. We have Elder Scrolls online, not game I created. But look, that started as more classic MMO. Know the folks, they're part of our company who made that game. And it's insanely, insanely popular.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For us 100% because we've been classically with most of our stuff single player. That water cooler shared experience, we would have a thing like what we call did you know moments. Like we got to have a bunch. So you meet someone, they do. What are you doing? And then they say, did you know? You go here and do this. What did you know? And that to us is where of a lot of our community has been sharing their stories. And here's what you can do.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“An art, even more so of an art. Bible says we have a ways to go there in terms of finding the right drop rate for special items we call them, your epic rare, legendary. You look at games like so many games do it. And there are ones that you just play and love because they have it down, destiny 2 is great at it. Diablo, the series I love, you know, sort of famelessly Diablo 3, which I think is great. And they did an update. It mostly just changed the loot drops. And it's like this whole new experience. And there's a really, real art to it. I think that we're still learning. We're still learning a lot and have to, we're trying to get better at it because it's one of those things where it drives you through the game. It's fun to get the treasure.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then it's finding, oh, I stuck my head in this corner, and I picked this lock and I opened this locker. Oh, there was this thing I've been waiting for.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like the moment where you decide, you're just like, I've clicked so many things in this room, I actually am going to leave that ammo canister there. But you feel like a dope You've probably experienced this.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, it creates, people want to pick everything up, they want to click everything. So, if you have too many things of importance in a room, it's like, it actually makes you feel a little tight as a player. You're like, well, I need basically an idiot if I don't pick all this stuff up. You probably felt this way”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, look, you played a lot of games, you played a lot of levels where you're just like, I'm a little confused or I don't know. And you play other levels where like, man, I just, I, yeah, I. Great. I went through it. It was well balanced. I knew where I was going. And it's not, you don't want to ever be mazy. As long as you know where you're going, as long as you know you made those choices, then it feels fine. But as far as the treasure and all of the loot. It is really an art. We will not do enough clutter, and then we will over clutter, and then there's too much stuff everywhere, and then we declutter every single game. I wish we got better at it. It would save us a lot of time.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As they say, with even if you walk by like a little T intersection, that becomes like a decision point in the player's head. Like, oh, I didn't go down that way. But the more you do that, it looks easy on paper, but when you're playing a game, you actually kind of want to limit those because he's trying to keep track of all these decision points. Then they get lost. And yes, we have maps, but anytime the player is going to check a map in a place like that, I feel that it's more of like a backstop for certain players. If they need to check the map, feel like we've kind of failed.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For treasure and stuff and trash. And they go through every space and they clutter it. Our level designers think about it a lot. These also become landmarks for the player when you're walking through a space and, oh, this is the place with this. And there is a logic to making a good level.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We have a level design, you cannot people if they only knew how much we spend on, we have a clutter group, a group people who clutter. Like we like. Butter is all the stuff around. It's interior decorators.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a very simple set. You can give a simple story set up for that And we're not telling the player where to get those. And they think, now, where could I get those? I actually find those to be just as rewarding as the really handcrafted, well done, a little bit more linear with an interesting choice at the end. If those objects are in the world in some believable way that there's usually some challenge at getting them.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, there's multiple flavors of a compelling quest. Know some of them have very good upfront storytelling. You just like the story and the NPC that's giving you this task. And you'll go through a more handcrafted experience that Designers have done a really, really good job on the space. It has some twist or surprise in the middle and then the ending has some, you know, multiple options that the player feels like they got to do something. They made an interesting choice. But the best ones for me are actually were. All of that was far more open ended. The how I am going to accomplish this task. Completely up to me, and I'm going to find some ingenious solution. A silly, this sounds very basic. It's going to sound quite cliche and silly. Go find me five Datrikarts or whatever. Find me X of something that's hard to get.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Breaks so many quests. And so as we would do this exercise of designing a quest. And then someone would say, and then I recall away. Okay, the quest is broken. And then one day someone says, can we just get rid of that spell effect? Everyone's like, yes, please. And so it allowed us to make better content.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, there's like one people love in Morrowind where you could make these recall stones. And you could teleport. Different areas which you really need in that game”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You could do it in Morrowind as well. Oblivion has some more guardrails on it. Morin's where you can really go. And Daggerfall. I don't remember if you get mixed spells in Arena. I think you can. Someone will correct me. You definitely can in Dagerfall gets crazy Morrowind You can somewhat and then we start we start putting guardrails on it because people started Breaking the game in certain ways.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I wish I had learned archery. Well, I'm going to start tomorrow. So, you can do that like the Skyrim character system was really designed around that. All you pick is, what's your race? And that gives you some things, but there's nothing you can't get then on your own. It mostly It sounds weird, but you mostly want that beginning character generation to be visual, which you then can also change in the game, and some starting skills that get you off to the type of play that you want, but if you discover you don't like that type of play as you play, you can move your character along. So we have Moved away post oblivion to a classless Meaning you don't have a strict character class where you're mage thief, whatever, in our games.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Some people, when you get this comment in Elder Scrolls, like, oh, you simplified it. No, no, no, no. We move those choices into the gameplay. So that you don't make this character in the beginning and then eight hours later realize you make a horrible mistake. And so, okay, I'm going to start out like that to me is a really, really bad experience.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We think about it a lot. It's a really, really good comment and question. And it's more than Has to set the whole stage, has to pique your interest for the world you're going to enter. We've done it so many different ways in terms of when you actually go to make your character, when you're making the choice. And one of the things over time that we've wanted to avoid is people starting over. So there's a lot of intentionality around the types of choices you have that can be undone or not undone. Because what game players want to is all play it and then I'll make a new character Sometimes they do that because they realize they made the wrong type of character. And as a designer, you don't want that to happen. So”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A lot of it, you know, is in your head, so you're going to do that. You're going to pick this background, you do these things, and you're sort of like, this is who I was. And we intentionally with Elder Scrolls kind of make it as much of a blank slate. Elder Scroll is a little bit more of a blank slate game to who you are, which has a lot of positives and fallout for us has been more of a, this was your life before. Here's who you were. Go be who you want to be, but this is the background. It's a little more strict.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, you do some of that stuff, but they go through menus, you know, pick your background. We're doing that in Starfield. Hey, pick your background. What were you doing before this moment”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“All out three, I love again. I usually start with the beginning. I love the beginning. I love the character generation. If you played it a lot or you're developing it, it starts to feel really long. The first time you play it, or second, I just think it's awesome. And this idea, it's a hard thing to say, okay, we want you to feel like your character on the screen, even when you play like a Skyrim, you don't know what you were doing before that. But Fallout 3, you were born in the vault and you raised in the vault and you lived in the vault, but you experience a part of that. So it's a very different, when you step out, I think it really... The visuals are the visuals, but the emotional moment of stepping out of the vault, you feel like you lived your whole life in the vault.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“World creation, like it was, you know, obviously a different look, even though some of us, very few of us, had worked on the Terminator things. The VAT system, the skill system, and we love the original game so much. So you felt this responsibility to bring it back in a big way and reintroduce it. In a way that, you know, as much as we could scratch the same itch when you played the original game that had the same tone.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think it was pretty rewarding for us that that game found the audience and success that it did is one of my favorite projects that I've ever ever worked on. And because it was so fresh for us and we had a very clear like even before we had the rights, like this is the game we're going to make. This is the kind of thing we're going to do. We had done more than we were working on oblivion. And it was kind of a breath of fresh air to do it. And what's kind of remarkable is Fallout 3 comes out just two and a half years after oblivion. And we did all this DLC for oblivion. So we were really, really kind of prolific in how our development, how it was going. I just remember enjoying making that game so much because it was everything we were doing was new”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, back to the Fallout one. Yeah, that was look. I remember that. We were met with a lot of skepticism. In terms of, oh, what are they going to do with this? It was a beloved kind of isometric, turn based role-playing game. You know, awesome for when it came out. And actually, it was announced, we had finished Morrowin, but not announced Oblivion. But because we had acquired the rights, we had to announce it. Because I think Interplay was a public company. I don't remember. I just remember we had to announce it, and we're thinking there, well, we're going to piss off all the Elder Scrolls fans because we're announcing a Fallout game. probably going to piss off the hardcore Fallout fans because we didn't make the original and clearly we'll probably make a different kind of game. So I do remember, you know, there was a lot of concern with all of our fans and fans of Fallout at the time. And so”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Little bit more, a little bit more, yeah, yeah, it does. It's like ironic humor. It's the duck and cover. It's to get under your desk if the bomb comes and everything will be fine. That type of humor.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, there's look in entertainment, there's a lot of post apocalyptic stuff. And what makes Fallout tick is The world that was left behind, the world that blew itself up, this utopian world of nuclear energy and it all goes wrong. So I love the American dream of that, like how they visioned the future in the 50s and that blowing itself up. I think that's like a super interesting place to explore, which is why we always wanted to play in that world. And it does an amazing job of sort of weaving. You know, the drama and darkness of a post apocalyptic world with B-movie humor. You know, it winks at the camera sometimes, often actually. That when you're in that world, it just has this own unique flow outside of anything else kind of in that genre.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, I think we It really cracked it in a way I like with Fallout 4 actually, where when we're doing elder scrolls, we have like the flowers and things and you have alchemy and we took this to, okay, if it's post-apocalyptic, what if everything in the world? Was an alchemical ingredient some kind. So breaking it down of their components. So when you walk around a world like that, again, we like the simulation. We like the forks and the spoons and the cups and all that. Okay, how can I use those to create? So I love how it works. Starts working in Fallout 4 where, okay, all these things I find, they have some value in creating or crafting outside of a cup is worth one gold piece or one cap.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yep, all the games do it. You know, it's not unique to what we do in terms of how they handle combat scenarios. And there's some games that just do it extremely well in terms of even a multiplayer where you're playing bots and most people don't know it. Or how a multiple enemy scenario is really, you know, they don't all shoot you. They trade off. They're going to wait. I was like, all right, I'll just wait my turn because we don't want to overwhelm them. But he feels like you feel like you're overwhelmed when there's six enemies. A good game will no, they're gonna take their time.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, first, I want to control side, helping the player when they don't realize it, there's a lot of tricks you can do with magnetism in terms of the controller and where the attacks go. So it has to feel the minute to minute has to feel really good in your hand. So there's a lot of animation time and changing animation so they're impactful and they happen at a rate that the player feels. They're really doing it. And then ultimately, it's the illusion that the enemies are smart. They really are there for you to kill them, right? So they do a lot of things to just let themselves get killed. They're not as near as smart, near smart as we can make them, because it turns out that is not fun.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In the beginning, yeah, every time. We're making that first playable, it's an area you can go through some amount of dialogue, some out of combat.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We usually have it in the beginning, but it's just we know it won't be done until that last year. We'll have one, but we know it's going to get honed because it's not until you really see, okay, how impactful is that one? How much are you doing it? Like, how much are you really, and the main combat ones, they always win. You always know the players will drift toward the combat type skills because every character needs some amount of that. But, okay, well, how important is cooking? How important is alchemy? How important is these other type of activities? And then how do you balance them where when you load up the skill menu, it isn't automatically give me plus 10 damage?”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The rate at which the game is giving you activities, then you're in like what we describe as a game flow. And it's not until really that last year, before that, the game flow was just, it doesn't even exist. In the way that you see it in the final game. And that's what we're working on a lot that last year.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's really, no, usually the story the designers have done a really good job. It's more about game features and then how they interact with the story or hey, I went from this experience to this experience or picking flowers and alchemy feels like a different game Then, and then how is another character referencing that and how is that intersecting with Skill system in the interface. Like the skill system and the interface is the party host Think about a game, most games, particularly what I like to do. Is that your person who says, Welcome, do this, go here, check this out. And the skill system and the way it reacts on the HUD, the interface of the game is sort of leading you to the next thing. And once you get that flow down and the...”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Very different elements that maybe aren't clicking together the way you want outside of the regular polish for levels and features. And we're shaving and gluing and sticking things together so that it's not the schizophrenic game experience that things flow from one and to another.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that's still what we call a VS vertical slice. So you still don't have the full team on it. And it's a larger chunk of the game that you can play. And then once you feel good about that, you're going to bring on The rest of the team, and we're fortunate that the other games we've done are popular enough that we can be doing DLC and content and those kind of things while we're getting the one going. And then we're at full production where we're sort of at maximum size. We just call that production. That's like the full production period. And that, depending on the game, can run a year, two years, maybe more. And then you kind of have a finalizing six months to a year on a game, which is, okay, we've built everything now. Usually, it needs a lot of glue where we have a lot of.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, no, the music we put in the teaser for it. This was 2018. We've taken that further, obviously. And Again, we're working on the world. You're then doing concepting and design for the world, and then once we're wrapping up one game, we can really start prototyping the new one. And you're usually building kind of your initial spaces. And so we do like to do like a first playable, a smaller section of the game that we can sort of prove out and show to people, hey, this is how it feels different. This is what it looks like. This is what's unique about it. Then we turn that into a larger chunk when more of the team comes on, when the other game is done.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Prototyping. Sorry, before that, we start concepting. So we'll do concept art. And for one reason or another, I usually have the beginning of the game worked out. I like to think about, okay, how's the game start? What's the player do first? We do music early, you know, so take elder school six. We forgot where it's set. What's the tone? What are the big features? We discuss the beginning of the game, which we've had for a very long time”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Question. Well, usually it starts with, I mean, honestly, lunchtime conversations with a number of us. Hey, we think we want to do this. This is what it's going to be like. I mean, look, with an elder scrolls, you know you're going to do it. A matter of when. Say, okay, what's the tone we're going for? Right? Where's it set? So we usually start with the world. And then we were always overlapping. So while we're making one game, as we're getting in the throes of it or wrapping it up, probably by the midpoint of one game, we've had enough conversations. To understand what the next one's going to be, what are the big ticket like? Where's it set? What's the tone? Is there a big ticket feature or two that make it really unique? And then when we're finishing one game, we start”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You play the survival mode, there's a survival mode in Skyrim. Was that Creation Club thing? It does some hunger. It does hot and cold. It does some other systems that make it. You know, in our minds a more believable. And it was actually a creation club thing made by an external creator who is now full-time with us.”
2022-11-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #342 – Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source