Morrowind Design Diary

VoodooExtreme has posted up the fifth edition of their Morrowind Design Diary, this time with comments from one of Bethesda’s programmers, Mike Lipari. Here’s a snippet:

By this point, the average reader already knows that Morrowind, the third RPG in The Elder Scrolls series, is going to be a great game. They have seen the raw beauty of the world in which the game is set — harsh rocky landscapes of twisted trees and staggeringly detailed cities created by the artists leaving fans agape — and hunger for more. They have seen the amount of detail put into the characters and the equipment used to outfit them, each piece of armor and animation worked over again and again (and again) until its just right. They have seen the interiors of buildings, painstakingly filled by the designers with the sort of stylish clutter that gives the world flavor. They may have even explored the histories of the world, written by designers both current and past, and loaded with the intricacies that make Tamriel unique. Yes indeed, all of this will make Morrowind a great game. But I have nothing to do with any of that. My name is Mike Lipari. I am a programmer on Morrowind.