I am a mean and scary gray wolf, I know a thing or two about idiots!
Honestly, we were the idiots from the title at the time we started developing Bloodmoon. Let me explain.
Everything kicked off right after we released Tribunal, the first expansion for Morrowind. Big Boss Todd Howard had some thoughts on what he wanted to see in the second expansion, and my job was to turn those ideas into a coherent story. My name is Mark Nelson, and I am one of the designers here at Bethesda Softworks.
So Todd needed to outline his thoughts on the expansion to me. But you see, Todd sits as far away from me as possible. Just a coincidence, I’m sure, but he’s in one corner of our incredibly huge office, and I’m in another. Different time zones. I bring a snack with me if I go to his office. It’s a long road.
But the information had to be conveyed!
So Todd tugged on a big silk cord of a bell over his desk, calling Ashley, and expressed his thoughts to her. Ashley tapped out these ideas in Morse code on the partition between her and Matt. Matt sketched the ideas in brain-teaser pictograms on a piece of paper, folded it into an airplane, and launched it to Gary. Gary got up, went to Ken’s desk, and while he dozed, wrote the concept on his forehead backward. When Ken woke up, he saw his reflection in the monitor, stood up, leaned over the partition between us, and outlined the required details.
"Todd needs gray collars and meatballs." Then he dozed off again.
Got it. "Todd needs Nords, werewolves, and blizzards." No problem.
A good thought, but executing the entire concept seemed a daunting task. Nords were the easiest part of the job since we already had them. We were confident that the designers and programmers could handle the snow. But creating werewolves seemed particularly tricky. There were many factors to consider to make being a werewolf enjoyable and interesting for the player. We had experience with werewolves in Daggerfall, but Morrowind is a completely different game, and our old solutions wouldn’t fit the new system. So we started building everything from scratch.
First and foremost, we decided to allow players to do any quest in the game while being a werewolf. Since the transformation only happens at night, it made sense for NPCs, who have no reason to suspect the player of lycanthropy, to react normally to them. So NPCs only have a negative view of the character if they transform directly in front of them or are already in wolf form. This truly allows players to feel like a werewolf – a hero by day, a monster by night. A cautious player can complete all the quests in the game while simultaneously terrorizing the populace in their spare time. Cool idea, right?
We also wanted to emphasize that lycanthropy is a curse, not a blessing. The wolf form provides advantages, and to keep the balance, a serious drawback needed to be introduced. The solution was that werewolves cannot use their inventory while in wolf form – in Morrowind, a player's coolness depends on their gear. To survive, a werewolf has to rely on their skills and innate abilities. Additionally, upon transforming into a wolf, the character is overtaken by bloodlust. Their health slowly decreases until they feast on… NPCs. So players must be cautious if dusk finds them somewhere in the wild.
But a werewolf’s life should also be fun. Therefore, their abilities go beyond what’s possible for a regular character. The werewolf’s only weapon is its claws, which deal physical damage to NPCs and creatures, while in "normal" form, fists only harm the opponent's stamina. Werewolves are strong, fast, and agile. They run quickly and leap far, see in the dark, and can detect creatures. And they have amazing dreams – that’s how they receive quests due to their inability to communicate normally with NPCs. Playing as a werewolf should be as different as possible from playing as a regular character and should appeal to players.
Another important step was the various story progression options for a regular character and a werewolf. We wanted the narrative, while remaining the same, to be seen from the points of view of opposite sides of the conflict. In previous quests, we hadn’t done this on such a scale, so we had to work seriously on it. This adds variety to the gameplay, and it makes replaying the game more meaningful. In the end, it all worked out excellently. A decent chunk of the main questline will have players on one of the opposing sides. The events that transpire will not change due to this choice – but there will be an opportunity to observe them from different angles.
To make everything work as intended, we had to use a lot of scripts, and even write a couple of new ones. One of them, which will surely delight modders, is a new function called PlaceAtMe. It works just like PlaceAtPC, but instead of the player, it can be used on the one calling it. This was handy when creating one of the werewolf story quests. I wanted players to be continuously attacked by Skaal warriors (nord natives of the island of Solstheim). But too many enemies would cause FPS to drop. Oh yeah, you could just materialize fighters out of thin air, but I had no desire to show players such a manifestation of their arrival in the world, as that would be, to put it mildly... pathetic. The new function allowed me to create three "teleport points" with activators checking the distance to the player and using PlaceAtMe to spawn a new warrior at the farthest point. I hope the modding community will have fun playing around with this versatile tool.
...And all of this is just a small part of our woes with the programming aspects of werewolves, developing their visuals, animations, and testing. A lot had to be taken into account, starting from how player stats are preserved, how intimidating the werewolf looks, how it swims backward – and ending with the impact of all this on balance. The developers of Bloodmoon had to work hard on these beasts, and we all hope that the result meets the expectations of Morrowind fans.
Of course, werewolves are only part of the Bloodmoon story. There’s also the exploration of a completely new culture, colony building, reading books, gathering components, and finding quests. There are bears and wolves, spriggans and horkers, and a few other dangerous creatures that shall remain unnamed for now. There’s snow and ice, and a couple of new cool spells that you can hurl at someone. If only I knew how else to stuff gray collars and meatballs into the game...
I need to get a better workspace.
Blessing from Surt received, for which I am grateful.