If you are still interested in the upcoming The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, there are some more game developer Q & A from RPGVault. The fascinating item here is the TES Construction Set, which "allows the creation, modification and editing of game data, from building landscapes, towns and dungeons to writing dialogue as well as creating characters, weapons, races, creatures, magic spells and more." Morrowind Developer Q&A #15 TES Construction Set January 03, 2002 Tamriel is the original fantasy-based gameworld that provides the setting for the titles in Bethesda Softworks' highly acclaimed The Elder Scrolls series. To date, players have had four opportunities to visit it, in two award-winning RPGs, 1993's Arena and 1996's Daggerfall, and in a couple of later action-adventures, Battlespire and Redguard. In the relatively near future, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind will allow long-standing fans and new followers alike the chance to return and to explore the vast island of Vvardenfell in the center of the province from which it derives its name. Dominated by the giant volcano Red Mountain, also called Dagoth-Ur, its numerous locations include communities ranging from cities to villages and terrain types from desert to grassland, all populated by many different monsters and opponents. To supplement the abundant content created by the development team, gamers will have access to a powerful tool, the TES Construction Set, that allows the creation, modification and editing of game data, from building landscapes, towns and dungeons to writing dialogue as well as creating characters, weapons, races, creatures, magic spells and more. Using a plug-in architecture, it will afford tremendous flexibility, from adding a single item to the world all the way to creating a completely new adventure. To learn more about it, we decided to ask the team members to share some of their thoughts, and this Morrowind Developer Q&A #15, we find out how seven of them have used the editor in their various jobs and what stands out about it in each of their minds. Jonric: To what extent have you used the TES Construction Set, and what are one or two things about it that particularly stand out in your mind? Todd Howard Project Leader I've used in extensively, as has much of the staff here. It is by far the best game development tool I've ever used, and a lot of the credit goes to Mike Lipari, who took over the TES Consruction Set last year and has made it better than any of us imagined. The main thing that sticks out about it now, outside of the ease of editing and building, is the information management. You can click on a sword and it will tell you how many of it there are in the world, where they are, who has them, etc. You can search and replace on that sword, or visually step through every instance of it in the world. The data management it can handle is fantastic. Much of that has been added over the last six months as our needs changed from building the world to modifying or viewing what is in the world globally. It allows us to get a larger view of the game balance, which is a big issue for us with a game this size. But I also still love just dragging and dropping clothing and armor on people to see what they look like. Mark Nelson Designer I've been using the Construction Set for a year now, and I've used a majority of its different features. I began with building interiors, which is something I think most gamers will start with as well. It's pretty user-friendly for that stuff. The pieces snap together, and you can slap together a solid interior in a few minutes. That doesn't mean there isn't a good deal of work that goes into making it a good interior, but it doesn't take a degree in computer science to figure it out. More recently, I've been using more of the dialogue and scripting functions of the editor. Certainly these are trickier, but they're extraordinarily powerful. There have only been a few instances where I've scrapped ideas because it would have been too tough to pull off through dialogue or scripts. Basically, the Construction Set impresses me because I was able to use it successfully without smashing my skull through my monitor. I appreciate that in an application. Matt Krohn Programmer My use of the Construction Set has been limited to making the occasional tweak to help me track down a bug, or throwing together a debug area to test a particular aspect of the game. Two things stick out in my mind about the Construction Set: First is the relative ease with which one can fire it up and go. Changing many aspects of the game is extremely simple, from tweaking items or naming NPCs after your pets, to creating a mountain in the middle of the ocean. Secondly the sheer volume of data contained Construction Set in staggering. You can't help but respect the designers and artists that have been painstakingly plugging in the details of this enormous game world. Also, the ninja-monkeys. Whoever made the ninja-monkeys is my hero. Steve Meister Programmer I used the TES Construction Set primarily to test the magic system. I would create spells and assign them to my player character Scourge so that I could then test the various spell effects in the game. Of course, in order to make sure the effects were functioning properly, I couldn't resist adding a few, shall we say, exaggerated spells, such as a ranged fire damage spell with a two-kilometer radius that I named "I Am Become Death". I've also used the editor to create my own testing environments, such as an island with a bunch of NPCs on it, all of whom had a different summon creature spell, so that I could test NPCs casting the summoning spells. What amazes me about the editor is how easy it is to use, and how powerful it is. I know the mod community is going to create some incredible things with the editor, and I can't wait to see what they come up with! Ashley Cheng Associate Producer The Contruction Set plugin system is fantastic. It allows you to change just about any part of the game quickly and easily. For instance, you could change all the text in the game to French in the Construction Set, save it as a plugin, start up the game with that plugin loaded, and play the game in French. (This isn't too far off from how we're actually implementing the localization for international markets). Mike Fridley QA Lead I have used the TES Construction Set fairly extensively in setting up testing scenarios and balancing things like weapon speed and health. I obviously don't have the building knowledge that our designers do, but I can throw together some interesting cells when I have the need. One thing that stood out in particular was the quick learning curve for the construction set. A completely novice user could sit down in front of this thing and build a small city in a couple of hours. That includes the time it takes to learn how to move things around like walls and landscape, change the NPCs' stats and equipment, and giving vendors merchandise to sell. Of course, it won't be as fancy as an expert user's city, but it just goes to show how easy it is to get started. It's all drag and drop so the time it takes you to actually build something is very small. Another thing that impressed me about the construction set was the ability of the user to change the entire feel of the game in a few clicks. With the editor, the user can, for instance, change the level progression of the player to twice the normal rate, increase the minimum walk speed of the player to 3 times the norm, and reduce the amount of damage the player takes from falling. All in about 30 seconds with the editor. The user could also go in to the editor and change the way that all fire based spells magic effects look with only a few clicks of their mouse. The game can never get old as long as the user has new ideas they want to try out in the editor. The power of the construction set really has to be seen to be believed. Christiane Meister Lead Character Animator I've used the Editor since there was art to plug into the world. On the first day, the land in all of its splendor was created - or so they tell me. On the second, I created the races and gave them the gift of movement. On the third, I clothed them. On the fourth day, weapons were given to them. What a mess! On the fifth day, other smiths and myself gave them armor... less mess. On the sixth day, horrible monsters were added to give the people something to do. And on the seventh day, the artists rested and the designers were set loose upon the land! Now, this creator, on the 151st day, has gone back through every one of the 2,000-plus NPCs to make sure their mama didn't dress them funny before they walked out the door in the morning. This may seem an insurmountable task, but the editor makes it easy! You simply click on a cell in one window and it loads with a complete list of what is in that cell. You can sort this list, find your NPC, click on him and in the world view window, he appears! In all of his funny clothes - ARGH! Want to change anything about him? Fine! Just double-click in the world view and this brings up the NPC's life history - including his clothing list. Then it's just a few click and drags from the clothing list, and voila! The Emperor's got some new clothes! As Morrowind continues its progress towards its anticipated release for the PC and Xbox, it also continues to draw increasing attention from both gamers and the media. With major features like the TES Construction Set only partially revealed so far, it seems inescapable that the levels of expectation and excitement will grow even more. While we look forward to learning more, we also thank both Bethsoft and the team members who took part in this latest Q&A.