Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Team Diary & Fansite Kit

Bethesda’s official Elder Scrolls website has been updated with a new team diary from designer Brian Chapin and a downloadable fan site kit for Oblivion. A snippet from the diary:

What’s your favorite development tool?

There can be only one answer: The TES Construction Set. The editor we use to build the game has become even more powerful and versatile since Morrowind’s development, making my life easier and giving me the opportunity to try all sorts of new things while focusing on telling a good story.

Quests now have their own section in the editor. For each quest, I can view all the dialogue associated with it, the scripts that are connected to it, the journal updates the player gets for it, and any conditions that may be placed on it (such as whether it’s available at the beginning of the game, or triggered later on.) Having everything available in a single window makes it much easier to keep track of the quest’s flow, as well as find any problems down the road. It’s also easier to handle avoid problems in the game: an entire quest can be turned on, enabling all new dialogue, AI schedules, and objects with a single command. When the quest is done, everything can be turned off, making sure that quest dialogue doesn’t accidentally pop up later on, or that quest items are still appearing in the world after you’ve already received them.