Ken does not post enough around here.

Ken does not post enough around here.

Now considering a burning goat class for Tartary.

Originally shared by Ken Rolston

The following is a Team Diary I wrote during Oblivion Development. Ever-vigilant against my seizures of Unseemly Whimsicality, my Insect Overlords deemed it ‘not appropriate’ for publication.

I came across images of flaming sheep in Picasa today, and thought it would be a good tiem to redress this literary injustice.

Ken Rolston – Team Diary [composed 6/13/2005]

THE NO-SHEEP-LEFT-BEHIND PROJECT

I know many of you are asking yourselves right now, “How can I get my horse inside the Elder Council Chambers and ride it up and down the stairs?”

You’ll need two spells. One is the standard off-the-rack Apprentice Command Creature. The other is a homebrew Fortify Intelligence Other. The first will enable you get the horse to follow you through a door. The second you will need because, alas, the horse is not smart enough to use doors in OBLIVION. [Actually, I believe that is also true in the real world. At least, I am fairly sure they do not know how to use car doors, because I have never found a horse grazing in my Miata.] Once you have led the horse through a door, into the Imperial Palace and along various corridors and through various doors, you can enter the Elder Council and ride up and down the stairs to your heart’s content.

Others of you are asking yourselves, “How do I get lots and lots of sheep in the Chapels?”

This is a lot more work than getting horses indoors, because you can ride the horse right to the door, but not the sheep. [Alas. I did so want to ride a Heavily Barded War Sheep in OBLIVION. But a knight riding a barded war sheep doesn’t make such a good magazine cover.] Sheep must be led, and you will need to cast the Apprentice Command Creature spell over and over again. And you have to first lead the sheep through the streets of the city, which will present quite a spectacle, but, again will require a lot of patience, or a VERY Powerful Wizard. Then, at last, when you reach the doors of the chapel, you need to raise the sheep’s intelligence so it can use a door. There are no schools for sheep in OBLIVION, and no heroic advancement ladders they may climb to improve their intelligence, so you must bless them with a Fortify Intelligence spell before leading your flock into the Chapel.

Those of you with the PC version, of course, can just skip the time-consuming labor of leading the sheep to the Chapel. You can just use the editor to fill a Chapel with sheep. And then you can share the plugin with a grateful community.

Some of you may be wondering if Nords are smart enough to open doors. So were we. But we have found many Nords hanging around indoors, where all the beer is, so the evidence is conclusive. Nords are smarter than sheep and horses.

[The sound you hear in the background is my colleagues gasping with horror as they read this, and rushing off to change the code so you will never be able to get horses or sheep indoors again.]

SECRETS OF THE GAME DESIGN GODS

Some of you want to learn the Secrets of the Game Design Gods. And I am here to reveal to you one of our special, most closely held secrets.

            “Everything is better on fire.”

                    — Ken Rolston

For example, sheep are better on fire.

Screenshot Priestess gazes on flaming sheep.bmp or high angle shot of flaming sheep.bmp

“FOOLING AROUND WITH STUFF”

When I was a fresh, young, rosy-cheeked lad of unquestionable integrity and high purpose, my mother used to ask me questions like: “Where are you going with my aluminum sauce pan and all those earthworms on this hot, sunny day?”

I would look up into my mother’s eyes and say with perfect sincerity: “I’m going to do some experiments.”

Even as a bright-eyed youth I had isolated the key strategy for one interested in a creative career — “Fooling Around With Stuff”.

Fundamentally I am a harmless drudge. I have the earnest Puritan’s belief that working very hard and very seriously is the path to success. As I have grown old and wizened in the service of my art, experience and sagacity are still my most reliable tools. But I must also regularly paddle about in the Trough of Madness for inspiration.

A case in point is the Fleece of Fire. I decided I wanted a chapel full of burning sheep. I had no good thematic or narrative purpose for it. In fact, burning sheep for OBLIVION is clearly a Very Bad Idea. [Sound of anxious colleagues nodding their heads vigorously in indignant agreement.] But in the process of creating this dubious feature, I was forced to explore some rather obscure… and powerful… aspects of our editor and engine. I collaborated with three colleagues who, innocent of my Dark Purpose, successively led me towards a better understanding of our tools and features.

I also had the pleasure of making my coworkers nervous. As I tested and refined the effect, I was treated to the wary and distrustful admiration of colleagues passing my cubicle. Peering over my shoulder at the monitor, they would casually observe, “Ken… what the hell are you doing with all those sheep? And why are they on fire?”

You won’t ever encounter my Ever-Burning Sheep in OBLIVION. Because that would be Just Silly… and Wrong. OBLIVION is an epic heroic game of high fantasy. And Ever-Burning Sheep would spoil the tone of the game. But the exercise of creating the burning sheep got me thinking in fresh, new ways, and taught me how to use some of the coolest features of OBLIVION’s engine and editor.

And, of course, when OBLIVION ships, and if any PC user wants to create a plugin that features burning sheep, or burning horses, or burning dogs, or burning anything, I’d be happy to share my Dark Secrets with the world….