"Nope. No typical spiders in Morrowind. There are however similar creatures. You have all seen the scric. It's what you would get if you stepped on a spider, a roach, and a puppy all at the same time. I imagine that if and when the children in Vvardenfell come out from hiding, you might see them walking these scribs around the block on a leash. Fairly tamed little buggers until you kick one. Then it turns on ya with quite a punch.
There is also another "spider" creature in the game. Of the Dwemer make, but I cant get into that too much right now. "

"To answer your questions, yes there will be a visual effect on the enchanted items, and no you won't have to do anything special to get it."

"Trust me, you won't be finding Daedric weapons at the local smith. Perhaps if you check every shop, you'll be able to find equipment that will get you through most of the game, but if you want the good stuff (and there is some really good stuff), you're going to have to work for it.

[edit] That Khajiit isn't exactly lying... he's just exaggerating. Sort of. "

"Well, he *is* telling the truth... in a sense. They *are* Daedric, er, in a sense. And well worth the money at low levels. You can trust me."

"I'm not sure what you're asking. You can do things like text searches (which also searches all scripts). You can see the hyperlinks, but you have to go to each one "by hand" as it were..."

"You can export all dialogue to a text file and print that, though personally I find just working in the editor more useful. There's no way to see all scripts at once.
Edit: Well, you *could* open up the Morrowind master file and cut out the first 90% of it, and then run some search & replace stuff to get rid of the binary characters... The text is not encoded in any way, it is stored in the master/plugins as text."

""[Bethesda] plan[s] on including over 100 specifically hard-coded (custom built from scratch) dungeon locations out of over 300 dungeons, most of which they figure you'll be able to play through in 15 minute to half-hour jaunts. Even though only approximately one-third of the dungeons are custom, Howard says that's still a lot."

I have read this three times and I do not know what they are saying. No two dungeons should be identical.

"[Bethesda will be] using the same [questions] they used in Arena and Daggerfall, but since there are a lot more classes this time around, the formula for choosing them is slightly different... and you can go back at any time to decide not the be that warrior or that thief, and to become, perhaps, a porpoise instead."

I was not aware that we added a "porpoise" class... I'm guessing Athletics would be their major skill...

"I'm going to guess that they cut up some dungeons into big chunks, put the chunks together, and then tidied it up. This way, they could create dungeons quickly, even though not all of it was hand crafted, a fair amount was esentially copied and pasted."

Sort of. It's easier to lay down architecture that way. Instead of putting down six peices to make a big room, then putting down three doors and doorjambs in the right places, then making sure all the pieces are snapped to the grid and you didn't put in the wrong piece somewhere and all the door open the right way, etc... It's much easier to just make some individual rooms, then cut & paste them and add hallways between them. The dungeons were NOT cut in paste in the sense that one LAYOUT was copied over and over. Just at the room level to save time.

At least, not to my knowledge... All the dungeons I've been in so far or built or had to look at for some reason were all different."

"There are rats. There are no trolls, but there are large troll-like ogre guys. That would be the Ogrim. The original name of him was the Clanfear Daddy. Just thought a snippet of past interest might be interesting. There were trolls in Redguard if you played that and remember. Strangely enough, trolls (even the TES ones) have a weakness to fire. Considering this game takes place on a volcanic isle, I think trolls would have relocated looong ago, if they ever existed here at all. As for goblins, scamps tend to fit our goblin needs very well for this area."

"Each weapon is one object. There can be no mixing and matching of hilts and blades. However, you can put whatever magic effect you want on them. So if we haven't made the Dagger of Nosepicking, then you could make this spell in the editor, define it's effects, and stick it on a dagger.
Supreme nosepicking...I amuse myself...
Respectfully,
Mav"

"huh?? who said anything about exporting with the editor? i dont know what format Poser will export in, but if its any one of the numerous files Max accepts, you should be fine. you need to keep an eye out for face counts though as i believe poser is rather large. ive never played around with it so im not sure.
you export files from Max in Nif format. that is the only kind the game will understand. you cannot export anything from the editor, and there would be no reason to since you dont edit the meshes in the editor."

"linking - no
group selection - yes
any more questions - no
the end - yes
enough coffee - no
vacation next week - YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"The new map is accurate."

"You couldn't have both at the same time. To cast a spell, you have to "ready magic" -- your hand go up in a pre-casting position, and then when you hit the left mouse button (default, you can change it), you cast the spell; your hands making an appropriate gesture based on the type of spell.
To fight, either hand to hand or with your currently equipped weapon, you "ready weapons", and either your fists/claws come up, or your weapon is drawn.

However, if you have an enchanted weapon that has a "cast when strikes" enchantment on it, the enchantment will be cast when you hit a target with the weapon."

"Gloves, gauntlets, bracers and the sleeves of whatever you're wearing (if it has sleeves) all show up in the first person view."

"Yes. Easy to change. And if you feel it screws anything up, just unload your plug-in.

Oh, and not to get into a battle of defending the choices made for governing attributes, but...

I see the arguments made for some of the skills mentioned in the post so far, and I see your points. However, I think that using speed for H2H is the obvious choice. From my experience, speed wins the day every time. Speed, not strength, equals power. Just my opinion, though."

"A number of different types will ship with the game. Be very careful opening the box...."

"The editor contains all the information for all the quests in the game. You can spoil each and every one of them by looking around through the dialogue...pretty much. You'd also have to look through a bunch of the scripts and see what they do.

However, it's easily avoidable--just stick to what it is you want to know. Filter for specific information. Additionally, it's not always easy to follow where exactly dialogue is going unless you know what you're looking for. I've come across this when editing quests I did months ago.

This is one of the things that's always bugged me about the editor: the fact that all the quests we've written will be on a spoiler site the day after release. But, it's one of those things that comes with the territory. I really hope most folks just play the game for a while before they delve into the editor or head to the spoiler sites."

"Like Pete said, the map's not drawn to scale (but it's pretty damn cool, isn't it?). I don't know the exact size of cells, or how they correspond to real-world measurements, but I can give you an idea of relative size on that map. Balmora is spread out over about four exterior cells, and it's a fairly large piece of urban sprawl. Of course, it pales in comparison with Vivec, which is at least three times the size. It's huge. You will get lost. I get lost. Everyone gets lost. Did I mention it's huge?

Anyway, maybe that gives you a little idea. I kinda just wanted to chime in to say I think the map rocks."

"The animation file has more than just the animation data in it. It has the structure and also placeholder data for the programmers. This basically says that a body part labeled "chest" or "foot" will go in the appropriate place. So, you see, if we don't give you the structure of the "base-anim" as we like to call it, meanin the MAX file, you'll have no idea where to start. Evil, huh?
But if we did release this file...(not saying we areTM) you could plug in any animations you wanted. Yes... even the burping and farting... you might even be able to tag a sound to it...(not my department so don't quote me on thatTM)

I neglected to say that the females have Vivec brand undies and the males have ConanWearTM.... :D"

"----------
Originally posted by Darcon:
I have a couple of questions about the tutorial:

1. On the Info/Response box. I understand the Unique ID and why you put the NPC's name there. But what about the Disp/Index, none of the screenshots show anything in them. Nor does for Faction and Cell. Can you give me a short description for these?
----------
Faction is for adding dialogue to anyone in a faction. Like the topic "join the Thieves Guild" would be in anyone of faction "thieves guild" rank 7 or higher, etc.

Cell is for adding dialogue to places. Like the topic "Balmora Temple" would be in anyone in the Cell Balmora, etc.

Disposition in topics means that an NPC must have at least that disposition towards you to say the topic.

Index in journals work the way kathode didn't say above. You have to give each journal an index. Then you can set the index and check it with "Journal" and "GetJournalIndex," etc.
----------
2. Functions/Var1..var2..etc. Is there any order preference with utilizing these. I noticed that Fun/Var1 and Fun/Var4 are used, any reason why not just 1 then 2 then 3 if more are used on the same row?
----------
Originally there was an order to them, but there is no longer (which is good). But, sticking with only conventions, I usually put journals in func/var4, etc. It helps me see what's broken just by looking down the list if I know where to look for things.
----------
3. What is set for NPC's as a condition to know or don't? Is it the same as in PCs? It looks as if you need a certain index name and level set for interaction with certain NPCs. Is this the only case?
----------
If an NPC passes ALL the conditions for any response in a topic, the NPC "knows" that topic. They only have to know ONE of the responses, but they must pass ALL conditions. There are time when an NPC will "know" something, then stop "knowing" something if conditions change.
----------
4. By this couldn't you just enable/disable the castle whenever you like via script tied to an object... say when you use one Wand it turns on (enable) and use another Wand to make is disappear (disable)?
----------
Yes, the enable/disable function is not the problem, it's "using" the wand that's the problem."

"The main problem is still the conflict between save games and on-line data. For instance, if you load an area from a web server, then save your game in an area that only exists on that server... Or with an item in your inventory that only exist on that server... Or with an NPC in your "party" that only exist on that server... If the server is down, you could not use that save game.

You *could* put in some code to handle this and returned you to a "default" location, removed on-line inventory items, etc. But this has problems of its own, especially with quests and scripting. You'd have to run lots of checks on the data each time you load it, and make corrections that could be irreversible.

Personally, I think this would cause too many unusual bugs for it to be useful in Morrowind. I still think it is an interesting idea for a future game, however. But you'd have to design the game around the concept from the ground up."

"----------
Originally posted by Ultimate-:
Tell me if I am correct:

1. Summon a creature/NPC not amid the 16 hard coded ones.

2. Make a castle that pops out of mid air when I blow my whistle.
----------
1. Yes, we'd have to code a new spell effect to do that. I can see the fan community wanting to summon creatures they create. You could still make an item that did this, but it would not be convenient. For instance, you could make a lamp that summons a genie (genie not included with game). But you have to put the lamp down on the ground and then select it again to do the summoning. Or you could make a warhammer that summons a giant animated foot that attacks your opponent (3DS Max and some assembly required). Make it summon the foot whenever the hammer takes damage (meaning it hit), then set a timer or wait till the number of dead feet increments to avoid summoning multiple ones.

2. This is a valid point. There is no way you could do that.

Well, now that I think about it, there are actually two ways you could do that, but both of them would look silly or fail outright in different circumstances. And you can't summon load-doors, so you're castle couldn't have a separate interior...

I suspect you want a "castle in a box" that you can carry all your stuff in. There's no spell *OR* script command that would let you do that.

Now, if you just wanted a castle that is placed at a permanent location (or several locations... with doors that all lead to the same interior...), that's easy (via script). If you just want to teleport yourself to your castle, that's also easy (via spell *OR* script)."

"----------
Originally posted by Darcon:
Edit: Ok, looked again and I believe that the @....# is what you will put in when you have a hyperlink to another topic... correct?
----------
Those the editor puts in for you when you press "update hyperlinks."

You don't have to type them yourself, and they do not appear by default. I did an update before taking the screenshots because I thought it would make the tutorial a bit less obfuscated."

"----------
Originally posted by Soralis:
I believe it was mentioned before that a quest to put someone to sleep like was done in Daggerfall, where a script could be made to determine if the person's stamina dropped, or dropped below zero. I was thinking that something like that could be done more precisely with a wand or such spell. For example, perhaps you make a door, that can only be opened by using a certain wand. You could have the door open when it looses 8 health, 3 stamina, and 6 strength, or something like that, and if it loses some of those but not the right amounts, to reset it back to it's normal statistics. And have a matching wand which had exactly those effects, so if you used your wand on the door, it would open. correct?
----------
You have the right idea, but doors are not affected by spells other than "Open." There are a few ways you can get around this. I've only used this on NPCs and Creatures.

You could have the wand cast a "self" spell, and also have a script on it that checks if the player has that particular spell effect on them, and, if so, do whatever you want in the script. I've never done that, so no guarantees.
----------
Hey, there's a question. Can a script be used to modify a players spell list, such as to add a spell with certain specific effects to someone's spellbook?
----------
Yes.
----------
Also, would it be possible to save a random number in a variable, and use it in both a script for an object, and in specifying what spells a wand would cast, such as in the above example?
----------
Yes, but they'd have to be area or self spells. Touch and target spells require a target, and there's no way to get that information in the script. You couldn't make it "cast when used." You'd have to make it "when equipped" or "when strikes."
----------
Hmm.. Would it also be possible to set up something like a custom teleport spell or wand, that had a specific spell with some minor effects directed at the caster, and a script detect that and teleport a person to a specific place when those effects happen?
----------
Yes.
You don't need to change the player's statistics. Just make a spell with a unique-ID that adds 1 to Luck for 1 second or something equally pointless. The spell itself has little effect, but the script can detect whether that spell is in the player's spell list or if that spell effect is on the player.
----------
If not that, might it be possible to have something invisible follow you around, and have the effects be area effect, and test what the effects did to the object following you? That could also allow a way to prevent using this spell in certain circumstances, as something in certain areas might make the invisible thing insubstantial as well (although a simple variable that's 1/0, true/false, etc. could also take care of that)
----------
That is too easily broken. You could run too fast and leave your invisible friend behind, and never know... Or your invisible friend could be killed by a monster, etc. A global script runs no matter where the player is, so there's no need to go to such extremes..."

"There are buttons that count things. There are other buttons that test things. There are still more buttons that make things go. I don't use them, myself."

"----------
Originally posted by Ultimate-:
1. Usable objects (wands for example) can't activate scripts, but they can activate spells.

2. Spells CAN'T activate scripts when cast, so there's no way around point 1 (that's to say Use Item -> Cast Spell -> Activate Script).

3. ANYHOW, could I turn the above mentioned wand into an Activator and use it to activate scripts when activated/used by my PC? And what's then the difference between Use and Activate?
----------
1. Not quite. Activators can be used. Miscellaneous items can have scripts. Any item that can be eqquipped (weapons, clothing, armor) can have BOTH enchantments and scripts at the same time.

2. Correct. Spells can't activate scripts.

3. Activators can't be picked up. There are two functions you can use that scripts react to:

OnActivate (when you select an item in the world)

OnEquip (when you put an item on your character)

The third, missing function is "OnUse." You use an item by selecting it from the magic menu and then "casting" it.

Everything we've wanted to do "on use" is easier and better to do with a spell instead of a script. So there's no "OnUse" function. I can't think of any example of anything I'd want to script "OnUse" that doesn't already have a magic effect."

"You only see the topics that you and the NPC you're talking to have in common. Sometimes you have 1-2 topics in common, sometimes you have 3 pages worth. To "ask" about a topic, you click on it. There is no typing involved."

"Yes, NPCs on the chase will open doors, and if it is trapped, they WILL trigger them off. Works well on double, or French doors, cause you can disarm and open one, peer through, and if an NPC on the other side spots you, will run after you (if he is aggro to you). If the closed/trapped door is in his way, that poor su cker will be in for one heck of a surprise. Sometimes it's even funny.

As far as monsters, I believe SOME can open doors and set off traps. These would be the more humanoid ones."

"Huge. Huge is the animator that used to work here who left for Legend. Huge is the size of Shiney's car. Huge is the account that Mr Gates has in un-named banks. Huhe is the fireball that was desperately unleashed on Hiroshima. Huge.

The landscape in Morrowind isnt exactly measured on scale in my opinion. After playing it for a few weeks now, I have still not walked from one end to the other. I am so busy fighting baddies, talking with NPCs, clearing out dwellings, and questing, that size no longer means anything to me in the game. I am so overwhelmed with gameplay that the idea of how large the landscape is not a concern. Is it big? Yes. Do I know or really care how big? No. I have no time to worry about the size. Even now that I AM thinking about it, and keeping in mind where I have been in the game.... it is BIG, and I have only explored about 10% of it. This excludes interiors. Put all of the interiors together and you about DOUBLE the actual size of explorable areas in Morrowind. I wont blow hot air up anyone's launcher, but it is large. Use whatever word to describe it that pleases you. Huge, large, big, vast, whatever.... it is all the above, because it has plenty to do, see, and interact with within it. But, since you are speaking on terms of cell size, I can say it's all relative.

Ok, I am stopping. I lost track of what I am saying. I totally forgot the topic. :p"

"Why would it be in Morrowind? Quite simply, the Crescent Blade is Daedric. The Daedric Prince Mehrunes Dagon took over the Battlespire (for a short time) and the Blade was seen within. Since Daedric Ruins appear to be quite common in Morrowind, it actually is more common to see it's likeness there. :)"

"since the landscape is basically a giant mesh, you could pull the vertices straight up. it does tend towards jaggedness, but with a little patience and some geometry i think you could make a very nice terrace"

"youre not going to make right angles, no. but if you make it large enough you should be able to accomplish a terraced hillside. ive carved paths in the sides of mountains - terraces would be done the same way. if you wanted to make something that would fit in your back garden, then no, youre not going to be able to. youll have to make that with geometry"

"while netimmerse does support environment maps, they are generally expensive computationally so we decided, for the most part, not to use them.
underground lakes are possible, you need to build the interior around them. there are pools and such in some of the caves
as for texture sizes, generally they run between 64x64 and 256x256 pixels. there have been numerous discussions in depth on this, just do a search. as for texture transparency, im not sure i understand your question - they are made in alpha channels in photoshop
and no, particle animations are not editable in the editor. you can make one in max and export it, but i wouldnt bother doing it until you have the exporter since chances are it wont work right. they are nasty, tricky little things that dont play fair :)

hope this helps"

"actually its disintegrate armor and weapon but there are many other ways to destroy people. :)"

"no. but you can summon certain types of creatures and they will defend you"

"We excluded a large number of dungeons, mines, etc. from the map.

So what you see is not everything in the game. You must explore to find all the little dungeons and mines.

Also, the final map is still being refined, so symbols and such may change on the final printed map."

"We are only adding the Stealth skills today. Maybe next week for Magic."

"Also, an easy way to get an idea for a cells size is to look at ONE of the buildings in Vivec. The main buildings are slightly smaller than a cell in size.

And, Vivec is drawn the most accurately of all of the cities on the map. It really IS that big in relation to the maps geography."

"You'll be able to pre-order the collector's edition through us very soon.

Oh, and did I mention the merchandise that we should have available soon? :)"

"The buildings on the map are just a cool way to show the location of the town, rather than just a circle or a dot.

Cell sizes are sort of irrelevant. I realize that without being able to play the game, people are apt to ask questions about how many square miles the game is, or how many cells there are.

The game is freaking huge. I spent a good part of last week wandering around Balmora testing various quests and was amazed at how big it FELT. I don't know how many inches or feet or meters wide Balmora is. I don't know how many minutes it takes to cross from one side to the other. It feels huge to me. That's all I care about.

Oh, and I'm not being evasive, I actually have no idea how big a cell is. I never bothered to ask, because unlike, say, BG or IWD -- where a "cell" is a finite thing and to move to the next town you go to a big map and click on an icon and get taken there -- our game is seamless and so you won't really know or care about cells because we aren't restricted by them."

"Yes"

"An exterior cell is a square 8192 "units" per side. There are 22.1 units per foot, so a cell is roughly 370 feet per side. That's approximately 3.14 acres. (And no, that's not what the PI symbols on the map mean :D )"

"Think of the camera as if it's on an invisible rod sticking out the back of your head. As you move the mouse up & down, the camera moves accordingly, so that it's always behind your character & looking in the direction you're looking.

So if you make your character look down, the camera will be above the character, and when you make your character look up, the camera will be low to the ground & behind the character."

"That, my friends, is a Daedric Longsword, one of the summonable weapons.

And you can run right up that path. :)"

"You can enchant any article of clothing, piece of armor, weapon, or jewelry. The success or failure of enchanting an item depends on your skills, what effects you choose, their magnitudes, durations, and the casting type. You also have to have a soul gem with the trapped soul of a creature to impart the enchanting's maximum charge.
Or you can find or purchase enchanted items.

The only time the item you're enchanting comes into play is in choosing the casting type -- only weapons can be "Cast When Strikes". Otherwise, the type (or composition) of the enchanted item does not matter."

"we dont use a displacement map. the tool in the editor is basically a brush, it can be sized rather large. it will still take some work to do what you want, but there ya go "

"quote:
----------
Maybe *MAYBE* you could force first-person view (doubtful)
----------

DisablePlayerViewSwitch

quote:
----------
and transport the player to view a scene his is not really part of.
----------

Player->PositionCell x y z zRot "Act 1 Scene 1"

quote:
----------
In that case you would want to prevent the player from affecting the scene, which maybe can be done (also doubtful).
----------

DisablePlayerControls
DisablePlayerLooking

quote:
----------
I want to clarify that you do have COMPLETE control over the NPCs that would be in the cutscene. You just can't control the camera.
----------

Well, more or less.
quote:
----------
Is it possible to script a battle between two large armies?
----------

Yes, and no. The commands are there. You can force any NPC to attack any other NPC. It would not be hard to set up. The problem is how many NPCs you can render at once. Even a high-end machine would have a hard time getting a playable framerate.

quote:
----------
How does spawning work? If you wanted one side to win could you just have those that die respawn back into the battle?
----------

Spawning only works when you enter an area. They do not come back to life right before your eyes.

quote:
----------
Can you set the time frame of the spawning?
----------

Yes and no. There is a setting for how much time passes before something respawns... But it is a global setting. You cannot change it for individual creatures or levelled creatures."

"LOTS AND LOTS!

I will answer your specific questions.

Entering an area:

If ( GetPCCell "Bob's House" == 1 )
-or-
If ( GetDistance "Bob" < 500 )

No way to test when an item is *used* (you can do alot with spells which are activate on use, however). You do get:

If ( OnEquip == 1 )

But note that it stays == 1 as long a the item is equipped. So you could do mean things like:

If ( OnEquip == 1 )
Player->ModHealth -100
endif

Selecting an item (not a spot):

If ( OnActivate == 1 )

The item has to be something you can pick up or activate. You cannot script, for instance, a table. But you can use the same art files to make a NEW table that is an "Activator" which can be "Activated." I hope that makes sense.

You're not really "triggering" scripts. There has to be a script already running on the object for most of these to work. You put these conditions in the script on that object."

"quote:
----------
Can you make your own birthsigns?
----------

Hm. I *think* so, but I'm not 100% sure, so don't take this as gospel.

quote:
----------
If further explaination is needed? Do you just walk up to someone and hit an icon that says talk to them? Can a NPC initiate the conversation? (thinking yes here) Is the dialogue set up like Deus Ex where the player has scripted dialogue with scripted responses from the NPC depending on which one they choose?
----------

You walk up to someone and click on them (or whatever you set the "activate" button to -- I've changed all my controls around because I'm special). This opens the dialogue window if you can enter dialogue with that person. For instance, you can't talk to most creatures, and you can't talk to someone who's attacking you.

There's a command called "ForceGreeting" which will make an NPC try to find you, run up to you, and enter dialogue when he gets near enough. I'm pretty sure I've talked about this before. We don't use it very often. It can get confusing at times when the NPC runs up BEHIND you and starts dialogue. It would be a Bad Idea(tm) to make a room with a dozen people in it all of them running infinite "ForceGreeting" loops...

The dialogue isn't really like Deus Ex. That was more of a "branching conversation tree" model. Where you watch kind of an in-game cutscene and then get to select A or B. In ours, everything you can ask about is a hyperlink, so you can ask about things in any order you want. We don't usually "put words in the player's mouth." What you're saying isn't written, except in some cases where you're offered a "choice."

If you've played Dark Age of Camelot, it is similar to their quest interface... Except that instead of clicking on one topic at a time to get some more text which may have another single topic to click on, you have a list of topics to choose from, and you can talk to anyone at almost any time about any topic they know."

"I'll do my best on 1 & 2...
1) The moons are flat polygons (in other words, a square) that move accross the sky with their own time and phase schedules. (Again, hopefully you all will be able to tweak these settings in the .ini file.) Each moon has it's own texture and then a seperate alpha texture is placed over it for the various phases (new, 1/4, half, 3/4, and full) Waxing and waning are in as well.

There is (sort of) a north star. I mapped one of the constellation's brightest stars at the apex of the night sky dome. I'll let you all figure out which one it is ;-). The cool thing is, when the day cycle is sped up, you can see the stars rotate, and the 'north' star effect is much more pronounced - that is, if the clouds cooperate and let you see the stars.

The clouds are different layers, with one layer (weather type) fading out as a new layer (weather type) fades in.

We tried the cloud shadow trick a while ago and it proved to be e-x-t-r-e-m-e-l-y expensive. Don't count on it being in the game. I'll bug Todd about it again though as it would be a cool effect. No promises though. :-/

2) I'm pretty sure you can do all of the things you described except for the last two. No fishing, and there aren't currently any bubbles. Good idea though...."

"dalinn...yes, I was only referring to the (at this point hypothetical) cloud shadows.
BWS2000...The topmost star moves, albeit *very* slightly. This is due to the fact that it is ever so slightly off center. (by design)

I don't think you can truly navigate by it, as the stars and sky are always directly over the players head. In other words the sky constantly follows the player around. Think of it as a big hat directly over your head and everything you see in the sky is projected on the bottom brim.

As an aside...we did at one point have 3D moons. The problem with those was their ambient color or 'the dark side of the moon' if you will. We couldn't get it to evenly match the sky color. You'd have this huge moon in the sky with a black shadow in front of a blue sky, which din't look right. The new scheme is much better and lets the shadow of the moon dynamically match whatever the sky color happens to be at the time. Plus the moon textures map to the surface better and without distortion.

Hope this helps.

~noah"

"Hmm...I suppose navigation by stars would work. The sky rotation and the day to night cycle speed are constant so I don't *think* there's a way they could ever get mis-aligned...so yes, I guess one could pick out certain stars at certain times to navigate by. However the top-most star is always directly overhead, and would prove pretty useless to navigate by...that's what I was thinking of earler.
~noah"

"I've said it before -- I do not see how the editor could possibly be released for the Xbox.
Xbox has a version of the Windows 2000 kernel -- the "central" part of the OS -- but it does NOT have any of Windows' graphical user interface features -- it doesn't have windows, menus, dialog boxes, etc. Basically, there is no way to run Windows like you'd see it on your PC.

So there's also no way that the editor -- a program that makes extensive use of Windows' GUI features -- could run on the Xbox."

"It is true that you won't be able to make a race-car game, or a football game, or a multiplayer online shooter. We could go on and on about what kind of games you can't make with the editor. Of course, that's not what the editor is designed to do. It's not a tool meant to create a new game; it's a tool designed to augment the game with which it is shipping.

I don't believe we've been misleading about what the editor can do in any way. We've always said you'll be able to add models, textures, scripts, quests, factions, etc. We've said you can tweak game values, to adjust play to your liking. I don't believe we've ever led anyone to believe that the editor could be used to create a new and different game--race car, sci-fi epic, or otherwise.

I agree with you that people expect to do a lot with the editor. However, I know first hand what is possible to do with it, and it's truly impressive. If your goal is to create a completely different game from Morrowind, the editor is the wrong piece of software for you. However, if your goal is to add content to the existing game, it will be a very powerful tool. Again, I know this because it's what I do every day--without even messing with that sneaky "hard coded" stuff."

"You can jump and attack at the same time. You can attack and walk at the same time. You can run and attack. You can sneak and attack...but no chewing gum... sorry.
No tattoo parlors... we have many varieties to choose from in character generation however.
Not sure what you mean by the last thing... so... I'll leave that to someone else

Respectfully,
Mav"

"Why wouldn't we? History has shown that there's a lot more potential money to be made with console games than there is PC games (there are many, many more consoles in homes around the world than PC's). It's too big a market to ignore."

"quote:
----------------

1. We make our models in max?
2. We put on the textures in max?
3. We make our animations in max?
4. We save it all as .nif?
5. We import into TES editor just by simply loading the .nif file? or is it a little bit more tricky than that.

----------------

yes to all.
loading a model in the editor is as simple as hitting "insert" and selecting the appropriate nif"

"no"

"As far as the size of the game world goes... It is BIG! Really, really big. Some of the bigger cities like Balmora and Vivec (Especially Vivec!) will get you lost in them for hours, just like real life cities. Even with a map, traveling from one city to another often results in getting lost. Fortunately the graphics and surrounding landscapes are so impressive that getting lost is often the best part.
And, this is just the outside cities and towns! This doesn't include the huge number of ruins, dungeons, mines, shipwrecks and other surprises out there.
So, I wouldn't worry too much about the size of the game."

"It's simple. If your (or an NPC's or creature's) fatigue drops down to zero, you fall over unconscious. Subsequent hits (including via hand-to-hand) damage health. When that reaches zero, you're dead."

"actually, alphas are the transparency layers. figure it takes at least twice the computation for a polygon with an alpha on it as without and youll get some idea of the problem. usually games with forests either billboard the trees or have really low poly trunks and branches to compensate for the heavy use of alphas. we do have trees with leaves. if you wanted to make a forest go right ahead. but bring a book to read while waiting for your computer to do the math :)"

"well, if by canopy you mean geometry with a leaf texture on it, it wouldnt work since you can theoretically levitate above it.
and having low poly trees in a high poly world would look really bad. so its really a matter of deciding which aspects need to get left out or scaled down. but like i said, theres always the editor."

"If you "equip" Hand to Hand, your shield automatically unequips. No fuss no muss."

"Suppose it's time I stop lurking...
Yep, both leveled and random loot is possible. In fact, if you want to really get into it, you can combine the two - at a given level, you'll randomly get something from a set of items. It's a great system, and allows for a ton of diversity. If you want there to be a 1% chance of finding an uber-weapon once you hit level 15, you can set it up.

As for how things are incorporated into the game, I'll say that we've used several different tactics - some places have everything hand-placed, some have semi-random loot, and some are a combination of the two. The really good stuff?... you definitely have to work for it."

"Some can; some cannot."

"Yes. Skill raises depend on what type of armor is being worn on the part of the body that is hit. So...you could be wearing heavy, medium, light, and none, get into a long fight, and raise all your skills a little bit. Sounds odd, but it's pretty cool."

"There is a script command that lets you place things near the PC, so it's sort of like what you have there, except it goes near the PC instead of at some absolute position."

"quote:
--------------------
Originally posted by Ultimate-:
do "things" stand for creatures/NPCs as well?
If it is so, tell me if I could obtain a magical object able to summon any creature in the following way:
I would take an usable object from the game database (choosing something "ritual" like a little statue or a gem or you say it...) and I would slap a script on it that checks when the object is used. The script then does the following:

1. checks the PC Conj skill and draws mana from his pool following a certain rule .
2. uses the command you refer to in order to make the summoned beast appear.
3. Forces a "follow" AI package on it.
4. Starts a timer to eventually unsummon the beast.
5. Becomes dormant again.

Is this a feasible way to "summon" any kind of creature/NPC present in the game without recurring to your hard-coded 16 summonable creatures (even without any sort of special FX that I suppose you have put in those conj spells)?

--------------------

I am pretty sure you'll be able to do most if not all of that in a script."