Fallout 4 - How Mastermind Todd Howard Builds His Epic Dream Worlds @ Wired

[HiddenX]

Learn more about Todd Howard - the man behind the Elder Scrolls series and the newer Fallout games:

[...]

“I think if someone has a gaming obsession, Ultima became mine,” says Howard. “I would say no other series ingrained itself in how I want to make games or what I want them to be more than Ultima did.”

And it wasn’t any one Ultima game, says Howard, but the way series creator Richard Garriott managed to keep the story and game concepts vibrant during the decade between 1983’s Ultima III: Exodus and 1993’s Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle. In Ultima VII, for instance, players could pick up virtually any object not nailed down, bake bread, milk cows, play music instruments, even change diapers—at the time, an unparalleled push for player agency.

[...]

More information.

 

[HiddenX]

Thanks Eye!

 

[Morbus]

"I think an RPG is me riding around on a horse killing things"

:EDIT:
And for the record, this is a quote, and I found it relevant mostly because of the title of the interview.

 

[Vindicator]

Dang it, I wish I had known who Todd Howard was in the late 90's when I sold him a couple of classic Ultimas to complete his collection… I would've traded those for a job at Bethesda.

 

[suibhne]

For better or worse, it's pretty unsurprising that Todd thinks "being able to pick up anything that isn't nailed down" and "being able to change diapers" = player agency.

 

[Stingray]

Despite claiming he has a "gaming obsession" with Ultima, the games he makes sure don't resemble Ultima in the slightest…other than that one minor bit he cited - being able to pick up everything… Strange that someone would play and love the Ultima games, and their big takeaway from them is that it's so damn cool to be able to pick up a dinner fork.

Hey, at least in Fallout 4 you could turn that fork into a turret or something. Finally a use for all those forks, only took 10 or 20 years to figure it out.