What Was Cut from the Elder Scrolls Online - A Kinda Funny Gamescast Limited Series

Summary

Episode Summary: "What Was Cut from the Elder Scrolls Online"

Podcast: Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast
Hosts: Greg “GameOverGreggy” Miller, Snowbike Mike, Rich Lambert, Matt Firor
Release Date: May 9, 2025

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1. Introduction to the Limited Series

In this third episode of the four-part limited series focused on The Elder Scrolls Online (ESO), hosts Greg Miller, Snowbike Mike, Rich Lambert, and Matt Firor delve into the intricate development process of ESO, particularly highlighting the features and elements that were ultimately cut from the final game.

2. Revisiting the Development Process

a. Initial Vision and Whiteboard Sessions

The discussion kicks off with an exploration of ESO’s foundational planning stages. Matt Firor explains how the team began by establishing the "virtual world" concept, focusing on what players should achieve within the game before delving into specific intellectual properties (IPs):

"When is it? And as that starts to materialize and starts to gel, then you start digging into okay, well in this particular province, Hieroc, right?"
[04:42] Matt Firor

This approach allowed the development team to organically build the game's story and mechanics based on the regions and alliances crafted during these initial brainstorming sessions.

b. Balancing PvP and Zones

A significant pillar for ESO was its PvP system. Matt elaborates on choosing a three-sided PvP model inspired by Dark Age Camelot, which promotes ongoing conflict without one side dominating permanently:

"A three-sided PvP, it can go on forever."
[06:10] Matt Firor

This decision led to defining three distinct alliances: The Pact, The Alliance, and The Dominion, each with unique characteristics and motivations, laying the groundwork for dynamic player interactions.

c. Story and Character Creation

Rich Lambert discusses the organic development of characters within ESO, emphasizing the importance of narrative coherence and engaging storytelling:

"Characters just start to organically happen."
[10:53] Rich Lambert

The inclusion of notable characters like Cadwell, voiced by John Cleese, showcases the team's commitment to integrating high-profile talent to enhance the storytelling experience.

3. Challenges and Decisions in Development

a. Features Cut from ESO

Greg Miller sheds light on several ambitious features initially planned but ultimately omitted due to time and resource constraints. Housing was a prominent feature that was cut, leaving the team to later recognize its popularity among players post-launch.

"Housing was an original feature we had to cut."
[12:35] Greg Miller

b. Balancing Classes and Mechanics

Balancing the diverse classes and their abilities posed a continuous challenge. The team aimed to provide flexibility, allowing players to create unique character builds while ensuring no single class became overpowered.

"We're taking skill lines that were balanced and mixing them with other skill lines."
[58:38] Matt Firor

c. Starter Zones Revamp

A significant portion of the conversation revolves around the decision to revamp starter zones after a decade of ESO’s existence. The original starter zones were updated to match the game's matured art and design standards, enhancing the onboarding experience for new players.

"We started digging into what that meant and we looked at everything."
[38:25] Greg Miller

4. The Role of Leadership and Team Dynamics

a. Robert Altman's Influence

Matt Firor pays homage to the late Robert Altman, founder of ZeniMax Media, highlighting his pivotal role in steering the company's vision and fostering a supportive work environment:

"His superpower was he made you feel like you were always heard."
[26:33] Matt Firor

Robert’s leadership emphasized the importance of creating great games over chasing profits, a philosophy that deeply influenced ESO’s development ethos.

b. Team Collaboration and Mentoring

The collaborative spirit within the ESO development team is evident as Matt and Rich discuss how mentorship and open communication helped navigate challenges and iterate on game features effectively.

"We're very happy that it is [housing]."
[61:28] Matt Firor

5. Community Impact and Player Behavior

a. Player-Driven Content

The hosts acknowledge the unpredictable nature of player behavior and its impact on game design. Features like housing, not initially intended as major endgame content, became beloved aspects driven by the community's engagement.

"What I usually say, so I'm going to do it on this one... we've made a virtual world where different activities are valid and fun."
[61:53] Matt Firor

b. Housing and Endgame

Housing emerged as a significant endgame activity, surpassing the original expectations of the developers. This shift underscores the importance of adaptability in game development to cater to evolving player interests.

6. Collaborations with Voice Actors

The episode highlights ESO’s collaboration with renowned actors like John Cleese, Kate Beckinsale, Troy Baker, and Laura Bailey, enhancing the game's narrative depth and character authenticity.

"We financed a week of John Cleese vacationing in Morocco."
[51:23] Matt Firor

These partnerships not only elevated the game's storytelling but also added layers of immersion and engagement for players.

7. Technical Aspects and Engine Development

Matt discusses the transition from licensing a game engine to developing ESO’s proprietary engine, enabling greater flexibility and scalability across different platforms.

"Our client was specifically designed for scalability."
[37:01] Matt Firor

This technical evolution allowed ESO to maintain high visual fidelity while optimizing performance for both high-end and low-end devices.

8. Future Plans and Upcoming Updates

Looking ahead, the team teases upcoming updates, including the "Seasons of the Worm Cult," a direct sequel to ESO's main story. They discuss the introduction of large-scale events like the Soul Wall, which aims to unify players in tackling significant in-game challenges.

"The Soul Wall is this giant wall of soul magic that is separating the western and eastern halves of Solstice."
[41:38] Greg Miller

9. Conclusion

As the episode wraps up, the hosts emphasize the importance of community feedback and continuous iteration in ESO’s ongoing development. They express excitement for future episodes that will delve deeper into the community-driven aspects of the game.

"If you ask five ESO players to describe the game that they're playing, they will describe five different games."
[61:52] Matt Firor

The discussion underscores ESO’s success in creating a versatile and engaging virtual world that caters to a diverse player base, thanks to the dedicated efforts of its development team and the unwavering support of its community.

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Notable Quotes

• Matt Firor [04:42]: "When is it? And as that starts to materialize and starts to gel, then you start digging into okay, well in this particular province, Hieroc, right?"

• Matt Firor [06:10]: "A three-sided PvP, it can go on forever."

• Rich Lambert [10:53]: "Characters just start to organically happen."

• Greg Miller [12:35]: "Housing was an original feature we had to cut."

• Matt Firor [58:38]: "We're taking skill lines that were balanced and mixing them with other skill lines."

• Matt Firor [26:33]: "His superpower was he made you feel like you were always heard."

• Matt Firor [61:28]: "We're very happy that it is [housing]."

• Matt Firor [51:23]: "We financed a week of John Cleese vacationing in Morocco."

• Matt Firor [37:01]: "Our client was specifically designed for scalability."

• Greg Miller [41:38]: "The Soul Wall is this giant wall of soul magic that is separating the western and eastern halves of Solstice."

• Matt Firor [61:52]: "If you ask five ESO players to describe the game that they're playing, they will describe five different games."

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Conclusion

This episode provides an in-depth look into the behind-the-scenes decisions and creative processes that shaped The Elder Scrolls Online. From initial conceptions and character development to technical challenges and community impact, the hosts offer valuable insights into what was cut and why, illustrating the complexities of developing a long-standing MMO. Notably, the episode honors the legacy of Robert Altman, underscores the importance of player-driven content, and highlights the continuous evolution of ESO through both developer and community collaboration.

Transcript

[Greg Miller]

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[Snowbike Mike]

What's up, everybody? Welcome to the Elder Scrolls Online podcast, Episode three, a Kind of Funny Gamescast limited series. I'm one of your hosts, Greg Miller, alongside the master of hype in no joke, no lie, no nothing. No cap. My favorite, one of your little Ziba Putties, Snowbike Mike.

[Rich Lambert]

Thank you, Greg. You always make me smile. And I want you to know that this is a medium and I'm an extra large. How does this work? I don't know, but we're making it work.

[Snowbike Mike]

I mean it Look, I mean, is it or do you feel comfortable in it?

[Rich Lambert]

I feel very comfortable now. The guy behind the counter definitely looked at me, was like, this is a medium. And I said, well, it fit. And I walked away.

[Snowbike Mike]

Rich Lambert, game director on the Elder Scrolls Online. Is he pulling off the media?

[Greg Miller]

He is.

[Rich Lambert]

Thank you.

[Snowbike Mike]

Looking good.

[Rich Lambert]

Our guests are saying that that makes me feel good.

[Snowbike Mike]

Matt Ferroy, you're back. One more time. Of course. Here we are.

[Matt Firor]

We are here.

[Snowbike Mike]

What do you think? What do you think?

[Matt Firor]

I'm a big Carhartt fan.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah. All right.

[Matt Firor]

And they're cut. Very generously. There we go.

[Rich Lambert]

Work where it's in right now.

[Snowbike Mike]

Generous cut. Studio director, Zenimax Online. He's saying that about me right there for you. Welcome back everybody, to episode three of our four part series. Yes, that's right. The end is in sight, gentlemen. We'll let you go home to your family. Soon you'll be able to stop talking about this game you've been working on for 10 years.

[Greg Miller]

Launched can't Stop, Won't Stop.

[Snowbike Mike]

Can't Stop, Won't Stop. Well, this is your life. This is it, I guess. You know what? Even before we get into the rigmarole where we have been, Rich, is this the last game you'll ever work on? Do you think you work on this until just. And this is like by the time this all wraps up, I truthfully, going.

[Greg Miller]

Into it, I didn't know we were going to be working on this for 17, 18 years. So who knows where the future goes?

[Snowbike Mike]

Okay, bad answer. Matt. What about you. Is this the last. You've already retired once. You already tried to get out once, they pulled you back in.

[Matt Firor]

I've launched two games since 2001, so. Right. And when you're in this, in the live service game, you know, when you do that, it's. You're in it for the long haul, right? Because it's. You go where the community takes you.

[Snowbike Mike]

You think it's gonna take you forever. Is this it? You think you do this? I mean, I guess. How do you guys tackle that? When you think about your own personal career, you forget you're on the ESO show. Your personal careers, Right? Like, is there always something happening with eso? So it feels like a new adventure, because this is something we talk about a lot, where it's like, oh, well, you know, Sony Santa Monica, they didn't want to do three God of War games because they didn't want to work on this for 30 years or whatever. Like, how do you tackle that and keep your team motivated?

[Matt Firor]

I mean, it's a privilege to work on this game. I mean, this is a force of nature. Right? But there is a reason why my title is studio director and his is game director.

[Snowbike Mike]

You can freely move about the cabin whenever you want to. I appreciate that. Well, everyone, if you want to hear more about the Elder Scrolls Online, guess what, you're in the right place because this is the Elder Scrolls Online podcast, a kind of funny gamescast limited series. No matter where you're getting it right now, whether it's over on the Elder Scrolls Online channels, whether it's on the kind of funny channels, please, like, subscribe, share so we can do more stuff like this and, of course, get you involved in the conversation as we build to the next big update for eso as we move into these crazy seasons. We got the worms. It's all happening, but we're not even talking about that. Of course, last episode, we touched about the early days, right. Of what was happening with launch. Then, of course, the console stuff. And then we started tiptoeing around one Tamriel. We're going to talk about the secrets of Tamriel today. All right, well, I want to get into this. This is something we're talked a little bit about, but again, because it's so great to have these episodes where we can come back to stuff you talked about sitting down with Todd Howard. Okay. This is their game. Oh, this is this great spot where, you know, nobody really knows the historical record of what was happening. Have fun with that. I need to know what we're talking about when we say, hey, let's make a new entry into the Elder Scrolls universe, make it online multiplayer, do all these different things. How do you tackle that from a story perspective?

[Greg Miller]

That's a really good question. I mean it really starts in the location. Where are we going? What are we doing?

[Matt Firor]

When is it?

[Greg Miller]

When is it? And as that starts to materialize and starts to gel, then you start digging into okay, well in this particular province, Hieroc, right? Or Orsinium or well I guess Orsinium was post launch. But you start digging into those like what are the people doing there? What are the stories? What are those things? And they just start coming together.

[Snowbike Mike]

So my question would be and pro interview tip that you like I asked a question I didn't direct. I wanted to see who would bite first. Now I'll go to you Matt, because of course you get called in the ballroom here, right? You get called in this meeting room and they're like, hey, come out of retirement, come do this for us. Like can I do follow? They say no, you can't. You're like, okay. Even when you say okay, I want to do this. And we're going to pick this time period where there isn't much known about what happened, does that mean that you then go home and replay all the other scroll games that you start and while you do it you're taking copious notes or is there a giant bible that's being handed over from Bethesda? Like where are we at? How does that happen?

[Matt Firor]

So it really starts with you sit down. And none of us use this terminology then because it's more modern than 2007. But what we really do is we set up what I call the virtual world. Like what do you want players to do in this game? Don't worry about the IP yet, right? What do you, what's, what's happening? Like and like I said in the previous episode or two episodes ago, like we knew we wanted a strong PvP system. We knew we want which if you, if you go down that road it starts asking a lot of questions like who's fighting in this PvP system? I'm a historically a strong fan of three sided PvP because we did that in Dark Age Camelot and it worked really well there because in a 5050 game, the one with 51% of the power always wins, right? And a three sided, it can go on forever. And so we were committed to that. But that asked a lot of questions. Who are the three sides? And then that asked the Questions. All right, there's nine provinces. There's 10. But what's happening with the. Right. And then the question started, well, who would be allied together? What are they fighting over? And then you're like, cyrodiil's in the middle of the map. Oh, Oblivion just came out. We don't want to really go to Cyrodiil, because that's where Oblivion just was. So let's make that the PVP zone. What's in the middle of Cyrodiil? In the Imperial City with the Ruby Throne. Okay, we're gonna have a PVP system where you fight other alliances to become Emperor and sit on the Ruby Throne. Right. Those are the kind. That's the way the conversation usually goes. And then it's like, okay, now we know that there's these three alliances fighting over the throne. What does each alliance do? Right. And Rich, I think, came up with the names, which is like, the Pact, the Alliance. Right. And the Dominion. And the names of those are very evocative of what they are. The Right. The Pact is like three groups of provinces that aren't usually allied with each other, but they're in it together because they have to. The alliance is like, we're a union of equals. And then. Right. And then the Dominion is like, okay, you're here whether you want to be.

[Snowbike Mike]

They're not as kind.

[Matt Firor]

And if you look at the stories for each of those alliances, which we launched with. Right. Those themes go throughout those. So you have to set up the foundation for the world. And a lot of these questions start to. The more that you answer, the more other questions get answered when they come up.

[Snowbike Mike]

Gotcha.

[Matt Firor]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

Rich, for you, coming up with these names. Yeah. Like, is this just you guys back in your house on a holiday break with a ball, like a tennis ball bouncing off the wall and go, what about this?

[Matt Firor]

Now, this is in the basement at Bethesda, which is where BGS was at the time. On whiteboards.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. In the loading docks. Yeah. I mean, a lot of it is just throwing ideas out onto a whiteboard and seeing what sticks. But you have to have those foundational pillars that you're starting to build stuff off of.

[Snowbike Mike]

Sure.

[Greg Miller]

And you just start. You start going one block at a time, building, building, building. And then something catastrophic happens, and you have to solve that problem. And that's. That's game Dev.

[Matt Firor]

Right.

[Greg Miller]

And just keep going until you're done.

[Matt Firor]

Ship.

[Greg Miller]

And then keep going and going and going and going and going, going.

[Matt Firor]

But to get there, you have to build a series of Boxes and right. That you contain the story and the developers and the narrative into. Because it can't be wide open. Right. You have to be like, okay, this story is going to be about this. And right. You're working in the IP at this time, so you're going to have some limitations about that. So it's not like blue sky, do whatever you want when it comes to the storytelling. It's more like you're telling the story of the Dominion. What are they dominating? Right. How does that work? And I don't actually know who came up with the Molag Ball Stole My Soul main story, but that's how it was pitched. Literally, Molag Ball is stolen my soul and I want to get it back. That was literally the tagline for the main story. And so. Right. And then it's like, okay, that's what we knew about the story when it started. Nothing else except Molog Ball stolen my soul and I want it back.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Matt Firor]

And then it was.

[Greg Miller]

Lawrence did a lot of that, Wynne.

[Matt Firor]

Did a lot of that stuff for bringing back Mannimarco. And they're like, oh, Mannimarco right here is a necromancer who could work with Molag Bal, right? And he comes from going really deep into the geekery of Elder Scrolls here.

[Snowbike Mike]

This is what it's all about.

[Matt Firor]

You gotta have a man four part.

[Snowbike Mike]

Show to get as geeky as you are.

[Matt Firor]

But Mannimarco is like the Uber Lich in the Elder Scrolls universe. He's lived for almost forever and he pops up in various Elder Scrolls games doing various nefarious things. But he's always the head of the Worm Cult. And the season that's coming up is called Seasons of the Worm Cult. So. But it's. Right, it's like, so we have a villain now. We have Molag Bal, who's a Daedric prince. And again, our frame of reference at the time was Mehrunes Dagon stomping the Imperial City flat at the end of Oblivion. So that concept was fresh in our mind. And if you played that part of ESO where you get to meet Molag Bal. Right. I'm not going to spoil it too much, but there's a scene very similar to that, except he's stomping you flat. And so that was very much done in an homage to Oblivion at the time. But anyway, I digress. So you have Mannimarco, you have Evil, you have Molag Baltimore, you're getting your soul back and then it's creating great characters. And that's where Rich is And the.

[Greg Miller]

Characters just start to organically happen. Right. And going into that stuff, I think a really good example would be Cadwell. Cadwell wasn't actually part of the main story when we originally pitched it. Cadwell was written specifically for John Cleese. Once we realized we could actually get him, and the team went off, they went and did their thing. They introduced this new character. Right.

[Snowbike Mike]

We got all the time in the world. We got all the time in the world. So I want to put a full stop on that. How do you realize, oh, we could get John Cleese? Like, what is that? Did somebody know him and casually mention it or.

[Greg Miller]

That's a good question. I don't know how we got him.

[Matt Firor]

Yeah, I mentioned it in. In the earlier episodes, but ZeniMax, obviously, pre Xbox, had a board of directors that was full of Hollywood people, and so Hollywood insiders. And so we had lots of connections. And even the past Bethesda games had major, major voice talent, of course. And. And that's the reason. It's because they knew those people. And so it was. We were given a pretty good budget because it always makes great headlines when you say that you're working with Malcolm McDowell and Kate Beckinsale and John Cleese and Alfred Molina and Michael Gamboni and Bill Nighy. Right? These are all, like, super, super, super good actors. And not only did they help raise the profile vso, but they're really, really good. Like, when you interact with them in game, they know what they're doing 100%.

[Snowbike Mike]

Even as a noob. Right. I mean, when John Cleese pops up, you're like, oh, my go.

[Matt Firor]

Yeah. And he's believable in that character. Right? And it's because our writers, which I'm sure we'll get into, our writers are amazing in ESO and know how to write a character that could take advantage of John Cleese's unique personality.

[Snowbike Mike]

Steve, you've laid out so much on the table for me, and I like that. I appreciate that. Thank you. You say when you're sitting there, you know, well, forget the world and the ip. What is this game? You know, you want the strong PvP foundation. What are the other boxes that you put up on that whiteboard to really start building out what the original ESO is?

[Greg Miller]

There were. There were so many different ones, and some of them actually got cut. Like, housing was an original.

[Matt Firor]

Many of them got cut, but we.

[Greg Miller]

Just didn't have time to do it. We couldn't do it the way we wanted to. But we started going down the well. What is a Elder Scrolls player want? Well, they want the single player story stuff. Okay. We got that pillar. What do MMO players want? Well, they want group activities, so that's probably where dungeons come in, that's where trials come in. The veteran content type stuff comes in. And we just slowly keep building out those pillars until you get to a point where you're like, okay, we have enough or we have too much, we have to scale back. And then that comes to.

[Matt Firor]

Yes, that happens in every game developer.

[Snowbike Mike]

Of course. Something like. Right. Like any game you play is like 60% at best of what the vision was when it got started. Right.

[Matt Firor]

Because you really find the fun once you start playing it. And then you realize what's necessary and what's not. And then you realize what you literally can't do because of technology and you pair that back and then we don't have all the time in the world or budget, so you pair it back a little more. And that's where you end up when you.

[Snowbike Mike]

And I'll start with you, Rich. But when you think back to this whiteboard and you think about everything on there, do you laugh to yourself like you're that ambitious or that's what you thought the game would be?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things where wouldn't it be cool? Like that stuff goes up on the board, right? It's, oh, it would be cool if we did this. It would be cool if we did that. And then you take a step back and you look at that board and you're like, that's going to take us 30 years. How can we do all this? And so then you have to go through this triage process, figure out what's the most important and then start building on it. And there are things, like I said earlier, there are things that we wanted to do for launch that we just couldn't get to and we eventually did put in the game.

[Snowbike Mike]

Talk to me about the things that you couldn't do. I figure you sit down, you make the boxes, we make the pillars. We're building block by block. And then you, you start in on a story. Is there a meeting with Bethesda Game Studios where you're like, we want to go xy. And you're like, not a chance, you can't do that. Like, were there sacred cows this way?

[Matt Firor]

Yeah, those were laid out mostly before, just like, hey, you're going to again boxes. You know, here's, here's where you are. You stay inside here. You can do basically whatever you want. You want to get outside of that, come talk to us. So dragons, right. Dragons were verboten because Skyrim had just launched and. Right. And was still going strong, and it was no dragons. Right?

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Matt Firor]

And eventually we're like, we're getting to the point in ESO's development where we want to introduce some cool new system. We're like, we need to do dragons. And they're like, okay, it's been long enough. And that's why there are dragons in elsewhere.

[Snowbike Mike]

Gotcha.

[Matt Firor]

Gotcha. And then we had to come up with a reason why dragons existed in this place that nobody knew about.

[Greg Miller]

And that was part of the fun of the negotiations, I guess, in all of that, which was, okay, dragons aren't generally. In the second era, why were they there and how to train your dragons was the thing that popped into my head. It was like, well, they just got released out of a vault. We could make something up.

[Matt Firor]

And apparently they were hiding in a cave.

[Snowbike Mike]

Who would have thought they were?

[Greg Miller]

They were locked away in a. In a. In a cave, in a vault, and you accidentally set them free, and now you got to go fix your mistake. Right? Yeah, it was really cool.

[Snowbike Mike]

So the other thing I would say that's interesting for me, talking about this, you're like, okay, we can't start the game where Oblivion takes place because we were just there. So then how do you key in on other spots? And then is it. Again, I can't even fathom. Like, I'm a big Superman fan, right? But if you were to say, all right, cool, take the current run of Superman and build it, I'd be like, well, I gotta go. It's gonna take me three years to read everything to know. How do you get your head wrapped around what this place that you would know, that you've seen on a map would look like? And it was in this letter that they said, like, what? I don't understand how that works at all.

[Greg Miller]

I mean, it's. It's just. Again, it kind of goes back to the. You just start going. And you just start. You start building. You put something down on a whiteboard, and then that starts the conversations, and you just take your steps because it is overwhelming. Elder Scrolls is 30 years old.

[Matt Firor]

1994.

[Greg Miller]

1994. And generally, Bethesda Game Studios always focused on a single province and did, like, that super deep dive on the. On the province. And really, arena was the only game that had them all together. And so being able to dig through some arena stuff, through lore books and all that other. And just pick, pick and choose the really interesting bits and that was something that the team really enjoyed. Like Ransors War was a really good example of that. Right. Digging through and it was just a lore book and we turned that into like an entire series of stories in. In Riven Spire.

[Snowbike Mike]

Incredible.

[Matt Firor]

Yeah.

[Rich Lambert]

What was it like creating hubs? Right. We always talk about these big hubs, these center areas that everyone meets at. What is that like for your team of over the fun ones? What were the challenging ones? What are the ones that don't get enough love? What are some that never were to be?

[Matt Firor]

So. So I'm going to mangle this answer a little bit because I know I'll get called out by someone who watches. I think I believe it was everquest made an amphitheater and it was where players are supposed to going to get together and do performances and everyone is going to go to the amphitheater. And of course after launch nobody went to the amphitheater. Right. Everybody was in south row. Yeah, like, like fighting right in between the commons. And so that's the beauty of these games is it's hard to script what people are going to do when you get into the game. So we tried not to do that. We just tried to make a great fantasy world and build, you know, Daggerfall has to look like a medieval, you know, English place and Black Marsh has to look like a swamp that lizard people would live in. Right. And we just leaned into that and then players made it what they want. And of course it turned into. They did all that around every way shrine in the game, in the major cities. But. Right. And. But we let them do it. We didn't try to lead it, you know, into. Into a conclusion.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, we focused really heavily on the services side of things, making sure that there was a location somewhere in a zone where they got the things, the vendors, the, you know, all of their crafting stations, like all that, that was the focus. And then. Yeah, like Matt said, let players figure it out. And when it came to like biggest problems, biggest challenges, it was what happens if everybody decides this is the hub, this is the city and that's where they go. And we have a few of those. Rockaha was one of them. Right. Where that was the top end.

[Matt Firor]

Is that how you pronounce it?

[Greg Miller]

That's how I pronounce it. But I also say arcanist class.

[Snowbike Mike]

You say that's a classic rocker.

[Greg Miller]

Rocker. But yeah, so it's right. It's just kind of a guess, best guess.

[Matt Firor]

And who knew that players would end up. Our number one place where players get together is in the middle of the desert, right in Amberfell. Because it's a very. It's like 3% better, more efficient leveling there because they figured out where the Dark Anchors fall and how the way shrines are closer to the Dark Anchors in that zone than anyone else. And there's this literally this train of, I don't know, hundreds of players that run through that zone. 24 7. Right. And it's like, you think Molokba would stop invading that zone because it's literally. And it's an immediate bloodbath. And then they run onto the next one.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Matt Firor]

And we didn't design that. That's just players found it.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. And I think the other. Other big part in that too was access to guild traders.

[Matt Firor]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

They were literally right. Right next to the Wayshrines. So people could just way shrine in, take two steps. The guild traders were there, they get their stuff and then they get out.

[Matt Firor]

So.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, it's interesting.

[Snowbike Mike]

I know I said you got. But a question I have here is like, is that loss of control not maddening for you?

[Matt Firor]

It's awesome.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Matt Firor]

Yeah. It's the same design as like universities. A lot of time if they're redoing a quad or a field or something, they don't actually put in the paths first. They wait and see where people walk and then they pave them. Right. That's kind of what. What we do.

[Snowbike Mike]

Interesting.

[Matt Firor]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

Because like it's, you know, something we talked about in the previous episodes. We're going to talk about the community going forward since then, you know, this big update you guys are here to talk about is all about that. But it's that idea for me of like, y' all exist in such a interesting and special place, which I know you know, but you know, we talk every day on Games daily about these games that are. This happens, they're starting up, they're doing the thing, they're out. They failed. They didn't. That first week dead, not enough people showed up. They're pulling the plug, yada yada. There's a million games that line the streets as corpses like this. Right. But for you guys to be able to come out, struggle like we talked about, but find the what you need, then get to iterate change, go evolve with this and get to this point. Like, it's just such a special thing that I don't know. And I. I guess I shouldn't even hypothesize. Do you think Matt and I'M coming to you, Rich, do you think that that's something that can still exist in 2025? That games can launch like this and be like, hey, it ain't going to be perfect because you need to help us make it perfect.

[Matt Firor]

No Man's Sky Valheim. Those games exist very much and they become better if the developer sticks with it through the criticism stage.

[Snowbike Mike]

Sure, sure.

[Matt Firor]

And so it all depends what your goals are when you launch. Right. If your goal is to launch a completely finished game that's going to have 5 million active players and that's probably not going to happen.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, the people at the top who.

[Matt Firor]

Usually understand that on that level, but it's very. It's always good to build the foundation and build the world and test it a little bit. Like, Valheim was perfect for that. Right. The first word, Hades. I mean, you could. There's many of these games, right, that, that do it in a way that failure is not catastrophic. Right. Because it's built into the plan.

[Snowbike Mike]

I love that. Okay, Rich, that was pretty well said. Maybe you're off the hook.

[Greg Miller]

I mean, he's right. I think we were also in the very fortunate position that Robert believed in us, believed in the IP and didn't quit. Like, he didn't quit on us.

[Matt Firor]

He forced us not to quit.

[Greg Miller]

Right, exactly. And that was a big thing. Like, there's not a lot of companies around that have that kind of foresight and leadership.

[Matt Firor]

So, yeah, there was literally a meeting after launch with just a few of us, me and, and, and, and Robert and some of the higher ups at, at ZeniMax. And basically it was like, all right, didn't go the way you planned. Right, yeah. Now what are you going to do? Yeah, and that was literally the. And the subtext was very clear, which is don't wallow in misery and, you know, and, and get fixated on, you know, comments on YouTube. Right. Just tell me how you're going to fix it and what's the plan to go forward? Cause we did have a lot of players and he was very, very. Robert was very, very aware of this cadre of players that was smaller than we thought, but who was playing every day. And that was the argument that always won. And so he gave us the Runway.

[Snowbike Mike]

To do that couple episodes. I want to get back, I want to go back, but I do want to talk about it. We keep occasionally in this story coming back to Robert Altman. And I mentioned, of course, the late great. Was he special? It seems like everybody who ever talks about him in relation to this. Can you explain to a listener of viewer who doesn't know who he is, what, what his role was, why he was so special?

[Matt Firor]

So he, you know, he was, he was the founder of ZeniMax Media. And he had a, you start grinning.

[Snowbike Mike]

Because you're like, all right, here comes this diagram tree.

[Matt Firor]

So he was a Washington D.C. lawyer, banker. Right. Work with Clark Clifford, who was one of the advisers to presidents and I think a secretary of Defense in the back in the day. And so he was a connected guy in D.C. and so in 1999 he started ZeniMax to be a media holding company where they would buy different companies. And it was 1998, it was, you know.com era. So they bought a lot of companies, including this, this little startup called Bethesda Softwares, which have been around for 15 years.

[Snowbike Mike]

Sure.

[Matt Firor]

Then the document bubble burst and they were basically left with Bethesda, which is why there's only been zenimax and Bethesda. There were other companies in the umbrella for a brief shining moment before Rich and I were there. But it basically turned into we're going to be the management company for Bethesda. So Robert was not a game guy. He was a business slash human guy. Right. And so he very much looked to people to solve problems and he mentored people to become the people that would be able to make big decisions and, and be the people that would, that would bring the company forward. And so if you know anything about Bethesda throughout the years, very strong personalities. Right. Very firm vision on what, what we do and how we do it. And that almost universally came from Robert. It was like, tell me what you're going to do and do it right. And don't, don't, don't squirm around. I don't want to hear, you know, he did not. Like, yeah, he could tell if you were bullshitting, but he wouldn't be mean about it. He would be like, just collect yourself for a minute. Tell me what you're actually trying to say. Right. I don't tell me the bad stuff. If I don't know the bad stuff, I can't help you. Right. And of course we always tried to hide the bad stuff, but, but it was, it was near impossible because he was really, really good at just understanding problems and then helping you figure out how to solve them. Even if he didn't know the answer, he knew the process that it would take to get there.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, his, his, to me, his superpower was he made you feel like you were always heard it didn't matter what level you were or anything like that. You could be a frontline dev, you could be a senior exec. He found a way to connect with you and actually feel, make you feel like he listened to you.

[Matt Firor]

Yeah. You were always the most important person in the room when he was talking to you. Right. He focused in and there was like any. He cared about people as. People like not just as game developers or people that work for him. He knew your family. He knew and he cared. I mean it was very, very human level that I haven't seen anywhere else. It's impossible to describe kind of the family feel that ZeniMax had because it was a very close knit organization of people that really cared about each other.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah. I've talked to other developers, other people connected. I've always heard that. And I don't think it's something that gets talked about enough because usually these podcasts are so short, these interviews are so on point. But it is that idea of like, God bless them. Right. Because like I feel. And I'm on a soapbox now, but that's what's missing from the equation on so many of these companies where it is the chase, the bottom line, chase the profit. This you said, you know, I love it. Failure is not catastrophic. Right. But for so many people, they don't have the stomach for it. That's not what I was in here. I was in here to make a fortnight. You're not making Fortnite, so see you later.

[Matt Firor]

Yeah. His going in position to any project was make a great game and the business will follow. Right. Right. Don't. This isn't necessarily my story to tell, but there's a very. Todd has said this many times, but the wisdom in the industry was not that RPGs were dead when Oblivion was greenlit. And Robert was like, is it going to be a good game? Is it going to be the best RPG ever? And they were like, yeah. And he's like, do it. Right. And it's like that means no one else is making RPGs and come out at a time when there were no other RPG and it was, you know, one of the best games ever made.

[Snowbike Mike]

Hell, yeah.

[Matt Firor]

So that's. His personality was like, if he trusted you, that you were passionate about, was it was. That was the key.

[Snowbike Mike]

I love that. Well, rest in peace. Of course. In 2021. Yeah. Mike, I want to get you back onto your Elder Scrolls train. I know you got your.

[Rich Lambert]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

He didn't bring your glasses.

[Rich Lambert]

That was so special though. It's just a tough one to follow.

[Snowbike Mike]

That's why I want to follow it up by reminding everybody that this is the Elder Scrolls Online Podcast, a kinda funny gamescast special limited series. If you like that. Thank you. Like subscribe Share Support us however you can and for right now, here's a word from our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by the Elder Scrolls Online. Every legend starts somewhere, and in eso it starts with you. Join the millions of players in the award winning online fantasy rpg, write your story into a vibrant chapter of Tamriel's distant past and discover a world steeped in adventure and possibility. ESO is more than a game, it's a virtual world where you belong. This year, ESO is breaking the mold and introducing the content pass, complete with two new dungeon packs, two part story content, a brand new zone to explore, and a world changing in game event. All released throughout the year. And Talking about story 2025 brings us the seasons of the Worm Cult, a direct sequel to ESO's main story. Travel to the never before explored island of Solstice where Worm Cult activity is surging. It's up to you to unite the three alliances against this old foe that has mysteriously returned. Pick up the Elder Scrolls Online now on PlayStation, Xbox and PC.

[Unknown Sponsor]

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[Rich Lambert]

Yeah, let's get in. Let's have some fun. You know, it's wild where I want to go and I know we have a lot of time so we'll be able to jump all over the place. But yeah, I want to talk about zones really quick. Right. We talk about the map and being B, building it out and adding new zones. What is that like finding that balance of keeping a player in a zone, making sure they see enough of it before they move on to the next zone. At the pacing wise, you always talk about talked about it in the past couple episodes of like the Elder Scrolls player. You put them in the world and they just go wherever they want.

[Matt Firor]

Right.

[Rich Lambert]

And so is there a push and pull? I think it was so great before the ad break of talking about the players are the ones that are driving this. Right. So is it hard to be like, hey, we want you to go from quest A to quest B, do all this and then go to the next zone when really it's, well, now with the world that it is, I can go anywhere and just have a great time.

[Greg Miller]

It took a while for us to get right, but we learned a lot in terms of tricks and tips and things. And I think the biggest thing for us was just making sure that there was something cool over every hill, every rock. You know, waterfalls have to have chests behind them. P.S. my wife will kill me if I don't put one back there.

[Matt Firor]

Right?

[Greg Miller]

Because she's that explorer. Right.

[Snowbike Mike]

You know, when you go behind it, it's just a surface.

[Greg Miller]

Like, what the heck, right? You know, a player gets to a cool spot, they want something neat. And it doesn't always have to be a chest. It can just be like a cool little vignette scene of a skeleton with an arrow in its knee or in its head or something. And then players can make their own stories up. But yeah, so we focus a lot on just creating interesting locations for players to find. And then when we're telling our stories, we try to guide them through areas where they might get sidetracked and discover something else. So those are kind of the two big things. And then there's lots of like world building tips and tricks with lighting and stuff like that. You know, if it's brighter over here than over here, generally your eye's going to draw you over there. So you go that direction.

[Matt Firor]

It's it's.

[Greg Miller]

It's those.

[Matt Firor]

Yeah. Our team had very much led by a guy named Jared Carr, who is, who is, who has since retired, but he's amazing art director, but he was very good at. Whenever you crest a hill, there should be something behind it that looks awesome. Right. To make people want to climb hills and keep going. Right. And the reveal. Right. The scenes are in. ESO are all because of that and very, very, very well done. Also, ESO is basically a masterpiece of art style and fidelity where because we have a really forgiving engine that can run on many, many different types of on our PCs. Right. It looks fantastic, but not everyone has super high end gaming rigs and ESO runs on just about anything. But when you get to the running on lower power devices, it still looks amazing because of the art style. Right. It doesn't have the fidelity of turning on all the settings, but it still looks amazing. And that's a very hard to do. And we managed to pull that off.

[Rich Lambert]

Yeah. When we talk about the engine, what was that like of when talk about console in particular, Xbox One. Now we move on to the next generation. What was that moment of what we can do all of this? Are we leaving this behind? How do we find that blend to make sure everyone can see it in all of its glory?

[Matt Firor]

Well, this leads down a whole nother tangent that we haven't even gotten to. We probably don't have time for this, but we wrote we, we have our own engine for eso, right. And we started by licensing an engine and we basically, over time before launch, just swapped it all out for own. So it makes decisions like going to console or hey, now the next generation of console is out and we want to do, you know, cool lighting and shaders. And since we can do that all ourselves, because it's our engine, it makes it makes that possible. And our engine, our client, was specifically designed for scalability. Like it has to look great on high end machines and it has to run great on low end machines within reason.

[Snowbike Mike]

There you go.

[Rich Lambert]

Really quick, before we get away from zones, just two more fun ones on the zones, I want to talk about revisiting some starter zones, which we're about to do here. I think that's really important and special. We talked about the new players jumping in and what they're experiencing. What was that like to finally circle back? How long did it take the team after 10 years to be like, oh man, the starting areas, maybe we should go back there and relook at those.

[Greg Miller]

I mean, over time, as we've launched new things, right? Our tools have matured, we've matured as developers, our art has matured. And a lot of those starter zones were, I guess, some of the last ones we built before launch, but they weren't up to the same standards as, like, our latest chapters or latest DLCs. And so when we first started talking about looking at the new player experience and bringing players back, back to the game, returning players, we knew we had to go and do something there because they were good, but they weren't as good as what they should be. And we started digging into what that meant and we looked at everything. We looked at specifically lighting, doing, propping, doing clutter passes, and then swapping out ancient, ancient assets for newer ones and whatnot. And it really changed the spaces. Like, just doing the water, going from the old water to the new water. It was night and day difference. Night and day.

[Matt Firor]

We have old water.

[Greg Miller]

Very, very old water. Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

So was there pushback at all from the team? And I know the community's just learning about all this and stuff like that, but of like, well, why are we going back to a starter zone and we have so much.

[Greg Miller]

Absolutely.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Matt Firor]

Well, half the team pushed back. Why are we doing. The other half are like, we want to do more, we want to go back and fix everything.

[Greg Miller]

Can we just burn this down to the ground and start again? But yeah, it's, it's, you know, like we were talking about one Tamriel.

[Rich Lambert]

Right.

[Greg Miller]

The team plays the game as well and they want to be perfectionists. And yeah, looking at your. Your older stuff, you want to redo it. And we had to find that balance between a complete overhaul and just touching some stuff up.

[Rich Lambert]

I know I am number one when it comes to guilty of this, but I am the player that when I get something new, I always ask, well, what's next? What can we expect? And what is that bounce? Like, how tough is it to put out a new zone and then think about, okay, we're putting out another new zone in the next one. What's the balance of new zones? Of course, we'll get into new classes eventually, but what is that bounce of, hey, let's do it this update, but let's skip the next two updates and then do a new zone. Is there a balance? Is there a perfect world, or is it just we got to do it every single time?

[Greg Miller]

A lot comes down to what teams are doing, what and where they are in the process. It takes a while to build a zone. So we're releasing this first half of Solstice or in June, I guess it is. The team's been working on that for nine months already and they're already working on the second half of that as well. And so it just comes down to how much bandwidth does the team have. That's why we generally do like a dungeon update and then we do a story update and then we'll do like a systems update and then we'll do another story update and we just kind.

[Matt Firor]

Of leapfrog the teams that generally we divide players into different behavior types, which is like co op PvE, story based questing systems based like crafting and. Right. And we want to make sure that every year we kind of hit those groups at least with a couple of new things like new dungeons for co op PvE, a new story, new quest, new zone for the story people. Which is kind of the foundation of the game, of course, being Elder Scrolls. But we always try to pop in a new system like the card game or housing or. There's so many of them at this point. Antiquities. And those are the things that give players a ton of things to do over time. But we don't have to handcraft all of them. So you can put that system in the game for antiquities. And then we just add a couple of antiquities every once in a while to give a new scavenger hunt for players to run around on. So we consciously have a cycle where we try to hit the different groups of players with new. With new content like that.

[Rich Lambert]

Can we talk a little bit about the wall? Of course. We have something new coming our way and it's exciting. Right. The. The mystery. What is. Has there been stuff in the past that you've done that you really like? Highlight. Like this was a cool moment map wise, zone wise and just player experience wise, similar to what we'll experience with the wall.

[Greg Miller]

I think this is kind of the next evolution for us in terms of a major event in the game.

[Snowbike Mike]

Because I want to know. There's plenty of people who are the kind of funny who. Yeah, they watched the direct like a month ago. What is the wall? What are we talking about for the new update?

[Greg Miller]

The Soul Wall is this giant wall of soul magic, I guess, that is separating the western and eastern halves of Solstice. And so you.

[Snowbike Mike]

Hence the two parts broken up. Valak.

[Greg Miller]

Hence the two parts. Right, broken up. And the worm cult has kind of erected this thing to protect whatever's on the other side. And you don't know. And so as a server, you are working together to bring that wall down to Open that second half up. So each server will progress in their own way, their own pace.

[Snowbike Mike]

Wow.

[Greg Miller]

Which is cool. Right? We've never done that before.

[Snowbike Mike]

And pulled together PlayStation 5. We gotta get this thing done.

[Greg Miller]

And it's gonna be really interesting to see how this works. Right. We've never done something like this on this scale. And the team's really, really interesting, excited about it.

[Snowbike Mike]

So now back to Mike's question. Sorry. Of things that were similar to that or learning experiences on that path to the Soul Wall.

[Greg Miller]

So I think the closest thing, you know, we obviously, we've got lots of events in game. We've got, you know, the New Life Festival, we've got Witches Fest, things like that. We have our prologue quests. So those are the. The quests that kind of give you that little teaser into what's coming up. So elsewhere is probably the closest thing where you unleash dragons on the world. So that's kind of what this is.

[Snowbike Mike]

All about when you're talking about these giant events in this and the little things you've done to build this prologue. When you look at this, do you compare it to other. I know we already talked about it. What both of you. But what MMO online players you are. What does that speak to? Because you start talking about that. It reminds me so much of Guild Wars 2, where there would be those giant events. Right.

[Greg Miller]

We had a guy. They're living world stuff.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Is that an inspiration for you?

[Greg Miller]

Sure. I mean, we're all gamers. We take inspiration from games and movies and books and TV and. And all that.

[Rich Lambert]

So.

[Snowbike Mike]

Okay.

[Rich Lambert]

That's really exciting. Talking about the new player experience. We talked on that. Of course, updating the intro and welcoming players on that new onboarding experience. I know me and Greg have jumped onto a couple of MMOs where they've had something fresh and new to welcome players that have maybe never been in the universe or it's been quite some time. What has that been like? Talking about jumping back to the starting areas now, creating kind of a new welcome. Matt, what's that like?

[Snowbike Mike]

He's being careful.

[Greg Miller]

I wanted to figure out how we could go through and do this, but I think the best way is we use a lot of player metrics and player data to kind of help inform some of our decisions. And the launch tutorial that we had, a lot of the feedback we got was it was too long. Just get us into the game we want to play.

[Matt Firor]

Update 6 was our first new tutorial. Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

And now we're on. We just launched 46, something like that. So we try to use that to inform it. And that was good. That was an interesting thing. And then when we switched the model to Chapters, we started talking about, well, how can we make it so that the tutorial kind of feeds directly into the new chapter, so you kind of get an idea of what it is, and maybe more players will go to the new stuff. So that was when we started thinking about, okay, let's do a new tutorial every year that, you know, looking back, probably not the right thing.

[Matt Firor]

Pro tip. Don't.

[Snowbike Mike]

Don't do the tutorial.

[Rich Lambert]

Probably not the right thing.

[Greg Miller]

But, yeah. And so we just started continuing to iterate through that, and then we took a really hard look at that and what it was doing to player retention numbers and things like that with Gates of Adamant. I don't know if you guys remember that, but that was. I guess that was last year's tutorial that we did, where you get to the end of the tutorial, and then there's different portals in the room that allow you to pick whatever zone you want to go to, depending on what access you have.

[Matt Firor]

Yeah. Which sounded great to us.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, it was awesome.

[Matt Firor]

But imagine you're a player who has never experienced this world before, and you go through a tutorial and then you're. There's a choice of things that you have no concept of what you're choosing.

[Rich Lambert]

Can I tell you, there's like, 10 portals. I was on the phone with all my friends, like, what alliance did you choose? Where are we going? How do we all stick together? So, yeah, like.

[Greg Miller]

And so, again, you know, looking back at it, it's kind of like, well, duh. Like, why would you give players that many choices when they're just starting the game?

[Matt Firor]

Hey, why not go back to the tutorial that has Jennifer Hale and John Cleese? Right. It's like, why would you ever not. Michael Gambon. Michael Gambon, yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

Right.

[Greg Miller]

And so we did that and we went back and we kind of. This latest tutorial that's out right now is very much the old one, but with a lot of improvements, focusing on the areas that players need in terms of core mechanics to understand the game and be able to play the game.

[Matt Firor]

Better and introduce the story. The main story. Right. And not a chapter story.

[Snowbike Mike]

Sure.

[Matt Firor]

Because it got really confusing for people that started in, say, Morrowind, and they did it and they finished the story, and then they're like, oh, wait, there's more. Right. And then there's like, 70. Not 70, but you know, there's a ton of other zones and stories and. And that they were kind of sheltered from until that. And this is a much better way to get players in to see kind of the whole game and explain the alliances, because you go to an alliance city first now and so forth and so on. And the new. The new starter zones too.

[Snowbike Mike]

I like that we've come all the way back to starter zones and how you start the game. Because I still want to talk about this whiteboard and I'll get out of here.

[Greg Miller]

I love it.

[Snowbike Mike]

But it's you guys, it's Bethesda Game Studios. You're figuring out you're noodle in the story. You get this thing going and then this is something I honestly don't know, like what happens next? Is it. We talked about it being mechanics and a PvP pace. So is it that somebody goes and you start really rough with an engine. Do you also hire writers at that time to start noodling on this story? Like, where does that kind of thing go?

[Matt Firor]

So project wise? Yeah, we started with the whiteboard map of what the alliances are and which provinces were in which alliances and that made a world exist. And then inside of that it's like, okay, then you have to. Then it gets to your point, which is what is a zone?

[Snowbike Mike]

Right.

[Matt Firor]

And that's usually a technical exercise of how much stuff can you load in at one time. Are there loading screens between zones? We actually had a version of Tamriel that there were no loading screens. And then we decided to go to loading screens for a whole other reason which we haven't talked about, which is our Mega server technology, which allows a lot of the social systems that we have in the game. But it was the right call, but we had to go back and. Which is why in many zones you just walk and you hit an invisible wall and then you zone. And that's because that's an original game zone that used to just be able to walk into the other zone.

[Snowbike Mike]

Interesting.

[Matt Firor]

But. And we didn't have to worry so much about memory and stuff in that sense. But yeah, so it's like you're making the Daggerfall covenant. Okay. You got to have Daggerfall. Right? Okay, let's start in Glen Umber, which everybody knows from the. From the game Daggerfall. And then what's in there? Okay, the Red Guard are there, so you gotta have Sentinel. And yeah, the orcs are there. And we're not gonna give the orcs at Homeland until after launch.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, they're the underdogs for sure. Right.

[Matt Firor]

But that's where it starts. And yeah, we had an engine. We started prototyping things. We actually had zones that were too big, zones that were too small, zones that made no sense at all. And then we, like I said in last episode, we fixated on Stormhaven because we needed to focus the team on one zone.

[Snowbike Mike]

Let's get something correct and get something.

[Matt Firor]

Correct and then replicate that throughout the rest. And so Stormhaven actually grew and shrank and had many quests in it and then had not enough quests in it. And finally we hit the right balance of. It's 15 hours to get through a zone. I forget. We came up with a. Yeah, it's about. With a metric 15 to 20 hours. Right. And then. Then we replicated Stormhaven to Rivenspire, which we also redid about 50 times. And I.

[Greg Miller]

It was only five, but it was. I mean, it's known to us internally as Revision Spire because we redo.

[Snowbike Mike]

Interesting. I love that.

[Matt Firor]

Okay, so then it's playing trial and error.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah. At what point? Or is this. While you're doing all the trial and error for the zones, are you having somebody concurrently write and write?

[Matt Firor]

Oh, yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

Okay.

[Matt Firor]

Yeah. So we knew what the stories were going to be for the zones early on.

[Snowbike Mike]

Gotcha.

[Matt Firor]

So there's a main story that goes. That carries the player from the. From the tutorial through to the alliance to the end of the alliance and then into Cold harbor, which is where the story ended in the. In the. In the launch version of the game. And so we had that spine, and then you see what pois points of interest there are in each zone. And then you start writing a little quest thing for each of those. And then so the stories just kind of grow from there, but it's pick your characters, pick the spine that moves the player through. Through the zones and then. And then go from there. And we had 10 voice, really good voice actors, and we might. Made sure to split them up among alliances or in the main story, so.

[Snowbike Mike]

That you already gave a shout out to Jennifer Hale, of course, Commander Shepard herself.

[Greg Miller]

I think the best way to think about it is we tried to build a box for the teams that had that spine, had a couple of key points, and then let the team go and fill out the world. And so a lot of that stuff just kind of started to organically happen as the team started to iterate on things.

[Snowbike Mike]

Talk to me about, are you guys then. I know it's not really your thing, but are you going to these like, I gotta see Kate Beckett's ale. I got. I gotta go listen to John Cleese.

[Greg Miller]

Some people were lucky enough to do that.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, yeah.

[Greg Miller]

I wasn't, but yeah, yeah. I have to imagine there's lots of neat stories.

[Snowbike Mike]

Give me some of them.

[Greg Miller]

John Cleese maybe going to his. His island in order to record.

[Matt Firor]

Oh, that was the second one. The first one. The first one was funnier, which was. So you always get contracts. Right. These are busy people that have a lot to do. And we got the message that based on his schedule, right. He was going to be recording in Morocco.

[Greg Miller]

Right.

[Matt Firor]

Because he was. He was there. And so, you know, we. Which is fine. Right. This is voiceover. You know, you set up.

[Snowbike Mike]

You can set all the closet, put a. Put the blanket over the door. You're all set.

[Matt Firor]

Exactly. So after. After going through the technical exercise of getting the equipment to Morocco and which we have a team dedicated. Which we still have a team dedicated to doing vo, it's, you know, they set it up and then, of course, it turns out we basically financed a week of John Cleese vacationing in Morocco. Right. Where he worked for a couple hours a day, very professionally. Right, right. To record the. To record the.

[Snowbike Mike]

What are you in Morocco for, John? Oh, you guys.

[Matt Firor]

And then when we brought him back for Elsewhere, it was the same story, but in the Caribbean.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, I love that.

[Greg Miller]

And they went to a big ballroom and built a blanket fort as a sound booth.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

So. And he crawled under this tent and recorded his lines.

[Snowbike Mike]

And I love that, I love that, I love that. Meanwhile, Kate Beckinsale just went to a studio in la.

[Matt Firor]

Well, the LA actors, right. That's what they. It's. It's all set up. You don't have to do anything. Anything special for that. But, you know, we released a video right before launch that actually has some behind the scenes stuff with all the actors talking about their characters and everything. And it's well worth it to go back and. And look at that.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah. Because this isn't like, you know, oh, it's a line and they're gone with these characters.

[Matt Firor]

Yeah. And we brought. We brought Kate back in.

[Greg Miller]

I mean, every time that the. The queen. Right.

[Matt Firor]

Yeah, yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Is in there, we brought.

[Matt Firor]

There's a chapter she was in.

[Greg Miller]

I mean, Somerset.

[Matt Firor]

She was in some.

[Greg Miller]

With Raz and whatnot. Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

We're finally seeing them turn on each other.

[Greg Miller]

I know.

[Matt Firor]

There's so much. No, no, it was, it was high aisle with. When the alliance leads came back and.

[Greg Miller]

Then like Alpha Berlina came back.

[Matt Firor]

Yeah. For Abner Thorne and elsewhere, he's amazing to work with, like, super professional.

[Snowbike Mike]

Is there a moment? I mean, I know, again, okay, there's Hollywood people on the board, so. But. But is there still a moment? Like, I can't believe we're working with these people.

[Matt Firor]

Oh, yeah, Every day. I mean, Troy Baker, right, Who's. Who's like, yeah, but Troy sucks.

[Snowbike Mike]

It's fine.

[Matt Firor]

But. But it's like, you know, he's. He's a voice of Indiana Jones and he's. He. He's additional voice. Additional voices in eso.

[Snowbike Mike]

Right.

[Matt Firor]

But he's done so many lines for eso just because they're so good at doing different voices.

[Snowbike Mike]

And yeah, Troy's amazing.

[Matt Firor]

And yeah, Laura.

[Snowbike Mike]

Laura Bailey's been in there, too.

[Matt Firor]

Laura Bailey's there. She's one of the major companions that you can get. Have follow you around and talk to you all the time. So her character is great. Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

One of the things you talked about back there, and I think we're starting to get, you know, as we move on in the timeline here and flesh out there, is what was it like? You know, you talk about, okay, well, Oblivion was there, so we don't want to go there. But then, of course, you've done. Okay, well, now we're going to Morrowind. Now you started going back to the places, obviously, that people know from Elder Scrolls. What's that like? And is there a process with that, again, of having to go meet with Bethesda and check with their historian or somebody of, like, this, that the other or. And also then the expectation of, well, I know this. And in my playthrough of Skyrim, there was this thing and it said, it's been there for thousands of years.

[Matt Firor]

So we have to have the Lawrence discussion. We do, yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

The Lawrence discussion.

[Matt Firor]

So Lawrence Schick is one who was one of the original ESO team members. Members. Many people watching this have just gone. I know that guy because he was one of the original 10 designers of D and D. So he did White Plume mountain module in 1970. Whatever. Right. He was an original OG game designer. He's amazing. He ended up. He worked for us for years and years and years. He was the Lore Master. So his job was literally keep everything on a timeline that made sense.

[Snowbike Mike]

Because this is canon, right? This is all.

[Greg Miller]

Absolutely.

[Matt Firor]

It's all canon. And so he was the liaison to bgs, so we could make sure that everything was copacetic on the timeline and our character names were right. All that stuff that all went through Lawrence and he kind of whipped all that into shape with guidelines for everything and basically made the characterization of eso and fitting into the timeline make was coherent because before he was there, everyone could name things and there were crazy names all over the place and. Right.

[Greg Miller]

But yeah, it was kind of the wild wild west.

[Matt Firor]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

So he tightened his belt, said not have my watch.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. And I mean, and then when it comes to like, where do we go next? How do we choose the next thing? A lot of that is like conversations between Matt and I and it comes down to like looking at what we've done and we try to do almost the exact opposite the next time. So it's doesn't feel like it's. It's samey. And a lot of times we talk about like a word to kind of evoke the emotion and rally the team around things. So like elsewhere was, I think was revenge.

[Matt Firor]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

The dragons.

[Matt Firor]

Morwen was nostalgia.

[Greg Miller]

Exactly.

[Matt Firor]

Gramorr was Gothic.

[Greg Miller]

Yep.

[Matt Firor]

But. Yeah, but your, your question about zones. Morrowind. We literally used the height map from the game Morrowind From Elder Scrolls 3. We imported it in, made our zone based on that.

[Snowbike Mike]

That's awesome.

[Matt Firor]

So we instead we actually leaned into making sure that we had as because we were 600 years before the events of Morrowind so we could have lots of call outs to what was going to happen 600 years later. And if you play through it and you played Elder Scrolls 3, you'll be like, I know that guy. Or oh, that's the grandfather of that guy. Or. Right. So it's full of references and Easter eggs. If you played Elder Scrolls 3, my.

[Snowbike Mike]

Question then would become, as we move out of these, the zones, the story that this. How do you get to something like nuts and bolts of like, all right, here's the classes we're going to have. And obviously you've added since then, I mean, there's been a whole bunch of stuff, but like for this starting core, here's who you can be. How do you zone in on that? Rich?

[Greg Miller]

That was really hard. We didn't really start nailing that stuff down until like 2012.

[Matt Firor]

Warrior and Stormhaven.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, it was.

[Matt Firor]

And we don't even have a warrior in the game. That's the funny part. There is no class called Warrior, but there was for three years Warrior in.

[Greg Miller]

Footy pajamas in Stormhaven. Yeah, that was. So it was just a lot of trial and error, a lot of trying to dig through, like what are the kind of core fantasies that players want to fulfill as their class. And we ended up, you know, digging in on like the Dragon Knight and the Nightblade and the Templar, you know, paladin healer kind of thing.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

And then Sorc. Right. Those were the originals.

[Matt Firor]

Yeah. And how do they balance PvP game? How do you make sure no one's overpowered? Right. It's constant figuring out.

[Greg Miller]

And the fun too with that is you could use any weapon and any armor type. So like how do you balance with all of that and how do you know we've got this deck builder game but you can, your class is really just three skill lines and then there's 10 others that you can add to.

[Matt Firor]

You can make a healing based rogue, a healing base or you can make a heavy armor two handed sorcerer. Right. It's like you can do all that in Eso. Right. It's. You can basically build really weird characters and it's cool. Right. Obviously if you want to, if you want to do the most damage or you're, you're into that. Right. There's a clear paths that you need to take. But if you want to role play some pretty crazy combinations, it's. It's all, it's all there.

[Snowbike Mike]

And it's only getting crazier now. Right. Again, the director a couple weeks ago, we're talking about subclasses.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, it's going to be.

[Matt Firor]

But we're taking skill lines.

[Greg Miller]

Going to be interesting.

[Matt Firor]

But we're taking skill lines that were balanced. Right. And mixing it with other skill lines. They're already balanced. So I'm sure there will be some revisions at some point because that's the way these work.

[Snowbike Mike]

I was going to say you were talking about balancing but like I'm sure you've been shocked time and time again of what people figure out.

[Greg Miller]

Not so much shocked.

[Snowbike Mike]

Okay.

[Matt Firor]

This is my shock face.

[Rich Lambert]

Yeah, exactly.

[Greg Miller]

But we're not surprised. Like players are super, super ingenious when it comes to like thinking outside the box and doing things. There's the meme video that I'm sure everybody's seen about developers where the square peg goes in the round hole and the triangle goes. Right. Like it goes in the square. Like that is game dev in a nutshell. And I laugh at that video every time I see it because yeah, we built it with this in mind and players do the exact opposite. You're like, huh?

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, okay, good for you.

[Greg Miller]

Right, Exactly. But you know, leading up to subclassing the last three, four years we've been focused on balance and standardizing things and like going through literally every combat system and do that. And a lot of players Are like, why are you doing it now? Why are you doing it now? Why are you doing it now? Well, it's because we were going to do kind of this at some point and we had to make sure we got to a point where all of the lines were balanced to a specific point so that when we started adding in all this other crazy, like, now I can be a Nightblade with warden abilities, right? Or I can be a necromancer and a warden and a sorc, right? And have just pets galore. Like, what does that look like? And yeah, like there was a method to the madness, but it was, it was a long, long haul.

[Snowbike Mike]

Matt, does this play into something? I've heard you say before, but it's the fact that there's a. There's no right or wrong way to play this game. And the other thing I've heard you say is like, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it was on McCaffrey's podcast where you were like, I don't even call this an MMO anymore. Talk to me about that. Our next episode is all about community. So I think it's a good, like, build up to that.

[Matt Firor]

That's a good GDC presentation. What is an mmo? And the answer there, everybody game's an mmo. FIFA is an mmo. I mean, like it's, it's multiplayer in massive numbers is everywhere at this point. But yeah, it's. MMO is more of a technology than a game design now. It's a technology I love that let. Lets people play together in whatever way the game designer wants them to play.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah. So then is that all tied up together then? And like I do you again, same look at the whiteboard and the stuff that didn't make it in laugh. Do you look at your conceptions and your preconceived notions of, you know, hey, we're launching this PvP focused elder scroll and PV. Yes, yes, yes. But it was one of your pillars.

[Matt Firor]

It was your first one of the three.

[Snowbike Mike]

But do you look at it now and then go like, you see people just cooking or people just running around building their homes or whatever.

[Matt Firor]

It's. It is when you hand the game to the community on launch day, right, you. You lose control. Not all control. You lose some.

[Snowbike Mike]

Of course.

[Matt Firor]

Right. And then you, you look at what players do and did we think we were going to have one of the premier endgames in the. In the game or going was going to be housing? No, we had no idea. But we're very happy that it is. And I think the quote I did on that podcast, which is what I usually say, so I'm going to do it on this one.

[Snowbike Mike]

Thank you.

[Matt Firor]

Is in your face, McCaffrey. If you ask five ESO players to describe the game that they're playing, they will describe five different games. And to me that means we've succeeded because we've made a virtual world where different activities are valid and fun and players love to do them together. Michael, I'm just going to mic drop on that.

[Snowbike Mike]

You covered on your stuff.

[Rich Lambert]

Yeah, I'm excited to jump into the community. We've tiptoed around PvP and I think community really drives that. So we'll talk about that. Housing is a fun one, Greg, the addition of all of that. So I'm really looking forward to talking about the community that drives this game and the things that they really love, the things that they want, the things maybe they've given you a lot of feedback on and we've changed up and we'll talk more about that next time.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, we asked for questions. There was one question that kept getting asked. We're gonna ask it next time. Oh, don't worry about it.

[Matt Firor]

I'm sure we've.

[Greg Miller]

I'm very interested.

[Snowbike Mike]

No, I know you have. I don't think anything. Don't worry about it, everybody. This. This has been episode three of your the Elder Scrolls Online podcast. A kinda funny gamescast limited series. Thank you for your time and attention. Remember, of course, we'll be back in two weeks for our final episode on Friday, May 23rd. Of course, if you like this, like subscribe, share, wherever you're getting it. Wait, maybe it's over on the Elder Scrolls Online channels. Maybe it's over on the kind of funny channels. No matter where it is, we couldn't do it without your support. So until next time, no, it's been our pleasure to serve you.