11. Besides being a faster means of travelling the world, what features can we expect to see with and from horses? How diverse might they be? Will your encumbrance or stats affect them in any way? And what will happen when a mounted character is attacked? And, aside from Horses, what other beasts may be in store for players as pets (such as the dog at E3)?
Horses are used to get around faster. Ill be honest, we were so excited to do horses in the game, but have actually found that they are useful, but not to the level we expected. Yes, you can ride around faster, and get away from mobs in the wilderness, and such. So they dont provide this overwhelming advantage to you, but theyre just cool. Its something you just want to do in the game. On a pure game design level, they arent some killer feature, but they are fun. You see them for sale, and you just have to have one. Or you sneak into the horse pen at night and steal one. Thats fun regardless of the need to move faster. When people get attacked on them, they either ride away, or get off and fight. Dogs are the only other pet creatures we have but you cant ride those.
12. In what ways will the player be able to physically customize their Oblivion counterpart at character creation?
Its amazing, and mostly done through code that procedurally generates your face. You have sliders to change different parts of your characters face, and it works for every race. So you can age them, change their eyes, nose, mouth, cheekbones, chin, etc. And its not just do you want this nose or this one, its a whole range of possibilities as the face dynamically changes based on your input. Or, you can let the game randomly generate faces for you until you find one you like. We do set limits on what you can do to keep you, or the game, from creating anything grotesque that would keep your face from looking right when youre wearing, say, a helmet. You can also chose a hairstyle, its color, and how long your hair is.
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21. How exactly will the weather system work in terms of detail, immersion and interactivity. Will seasons and storms be included? To what extent will inanimate objects be affected by weather (i.e. combustible objects)? Will it affect Creatures/NPCs/PC?
There are a variety of different types of weather based on the regions in the game. The type of weather you see as you travel around will vary based on these parameters. So, some parts of the world youll be more likely to see rain or a thunderstorm, while in northern parts youre more likely to see snow. There are transition effects so that if its a cloudy day that turns to rain itll feel very natural. All of the trees and grass react dynamically to the weather effects. NPCs in some areas will even take cover and go inside during storms.
