We are here today with Bruce Nesmith who is the Director of Design for Bethesda who is prepping the release of the first official expansion pack to the 2006 RPG of the year, Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. The expansion pack, named Shivering Isles, will be out in March 2007 and will ship for Xbox 360 and PC.

On the Xbox: Thank you for taking time out of your day to talk to us, so lets get this started. For the readers who may have been living under a rock can you fill them in on what Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion is about and also what Shivering Isles is about as well.

Bruce Nesmith: Oblivion is an enormous first person fantasy RPG. You can play any type of character you might want, from wizard, to warrior, to thief, or any combination of those. The game takes place in a huge landscape with eight large cities and hundreds of dungeons to explore.

The Shivering Isles is a major expansion for Oblivion. It begins with a rumor of a strange island appearing off the coast of Bravil. When you investigate, you find there is a gateway to the land of the Shivering Isles, a place created and owned by the Daedric prince Sheogorath. It seems he needs a mortal champion to prevent a mysterious, cataclysmic event called the Greymarch.

When you get into the Isles, you will find that everything is new. The plants, the rocks, the creatures, the buildings, even the sky and the water are all new and different from what you experienced in Cyrodiil. The land is split between Mania and Dementia. It is a reflection of Sheogorath’s broken mind. Mania is a land of bright colors and wild growth. Dementia is brooding and dark, filled with rot and disease. Even the weather is different in these two regions. It’s a great setting to adventure in.

OTX: Oblivion was praised for its “do whatever you want” style of gameplay. Has this stayed the same or how have you improved on this type of gameplay, if at all in Shivering Isles?

BN: The Shivering Isles continues in the grand tradition of Oblivion to give you the ability to do whatever you want. We didn’t want to change the fundamental rules of the game for those players that already have characters and want to keep playing with them…so we didn’t.

There are some things that work differently in the Shivering Isles, though. For example, crime and punishment are different. Any bounty that you have in Cyrodiil is ignored in the Shivering Isles, and vice versa. So if you have a large price on your head, you might want to consider vacationing with Sheogorath. If you are caught committing a crime in his lands, you aren’t sent to jail. Instead you are dropped into the bottom of a dungeon, without any of your stuff. You can still choose to sleep it off and get everything back, or you can try and make it out of the dungeon. If you do escape, all is forgiven and your stuff is in a chest by the exit door. You are considered to have served your time.

Players can go to the Shivering Isles at any time, and at any level. You can go there as soon as you escape from the Imperial Sewers, right after character generation. Or you can take your existing character that is level 30 and has shut down the Oblivion gates and solved all of the guild quests. Or anywhere in between. We’ve made sure that the Shivering Isles will accommodate everyone. And, you can go back to Cyrodiil and at any point to go back and resume doing whatever you were doing in Oblivion before you entered Shivering Isles.

OTX: Considering that the area of Shivering Isles is about ¼ the size of the land in Oblivion has it been harder or easier to develop and create new ideas and characters?

BN: A little of both. We had the advantage of a fully functional game in Oblivion. All we had to do was make a new place with new people and new things to do. So in that regard it was easier. In fact, we were able to do most things better. However, we told so many good stories in Oblivion, that it was more of a challenge to find new stories without it feeling like we were repeating ourselves. That part was harder, but we’re pretty please with the results and hope gamers will be too.

OTX: The enemies of Oblivion were some of the things that made the game so interesting, what are the new types of enemies in the land of Shivering Isles? Will there be enemies from Oblivion’s world or will there only be new creatures?

BN: As I said above, everything is new, including the creatures. We wanted all of the Shivering Isles creatures to be memorable. Each has something special about it. There are over a dozen new enemies to fight. Most of them have multiple variations as well.

Since it is an island, there are many more aquatic creatures than there are in Oblivion. Some of them can even regenerate in water. Familiar faces like the Golden Saints and Dark Seducers from Morrowind are featured in the Shivering Isles. There are also many totally new creatures, such as the Gnarls, which are living trees, or the Elytra, which are giant insects reminiscent of preying mantises.

Even the human encounters have some fresh takes. The Zealots and Heretics wear special robes. If you put on these robes, the Zealots and Heretics will think you are just one of them and not attack. Don’t get too close though…if they get a good look at you, they’ll see through the disguise and pounce.

OTX: By the far the entertaining part of Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion was the quests. They were abundant and all very delightful. What type of quests can we expect with the Shivering Isles expansion pack? About how many quests are available in Shivering Isles?

BN: Since the Shivering Isles is a land of madness, every character you encounter is not quite right in the head. This leads to many unusual and interesting situations. For example, there is the Orc that is terrified of cats. Unfortunately for him, he has a Khajiit stalker fan. In one of the other quests, the Duchess of Dementia is convinced someone is out to get her. She loans you her court torturer and sends you out into town to pry information out of the citizens. If you don’t like what they have to say, you can have them tortured until they confess.

There are about 30 new quests. Half of them form the main story line involving Sheogorath and his need for a champion to help him stop the Greymarch. The other half are scattered throughout the land for the player to find.

OTX: As in all RPG games the combat is a huge part of the Elder Scrolls series. Have there been any changes or tweaks to the gameplay for Shivering Isles?

BN: We are very happy with the way combat turned out in Oblivion. Fortunately, there wasn’t a need to make any changes for the Shivering Isles. There are a number of new spells though. During the course of the main quest, Sheogorath will gift the player with a number of special powers. There are also some interesting spells available to buy in the city and of course you can make or buy summoning spells for many of the creatures that appear only in the Shivering Isles.

OTX: Weapons also play a huge part in Oblivion and RPG’s in general. How many, and what types of weapons and armor have you added for Shivering Isles?

BN: We wanted to do something special with weapons and armor. In your adventuring, you will come across Amber and Madness Ore, which you can use to have custom weapons and armor made. There are even special molds that you can find that will let you create enchanted versions. And for those high level characters, the best Armor and Madness items are better than the Daedric stuff you find in Cyrodiil.

On top of this, there are also all sorts of other new weapons and armor. The Golden Saints and Dark Seducers have special armor and weapons that you can acquire. The Grummites have their own weapons and armor as well. There are even some unique items, like Duskfang/Dawnfang…it’s a sword that feeds on souls. Feed it enough, and it gets a boost to its power.

OTX: Many regard the sweeping soundtrack of Oblivion one of the best in recent history. Will there be any addition music added for Shivering Isles or will the music stay the same?

BN: We are very proud of our musical score and the awards it has won. However, we ultimately decided not to add any new music for the Shivering Isles.

OTX: With the recent rule by Microsoft saying that a full 1000-point retail game can add 250 points to it Bethesda announced that you guys were adding achievement points to Shivering Isles. Can you tell us what the achievements will be? How much they will be worth? How many there will be?

BN: We were very excited when Microsoft told us we could add achievement points. As you complete quests for Sheogorath in the main quest, you will move up in rank through the Court of Madness faction. Each time you gain a new rank you will get an achievement. There are 10 ranks you can get, for a total of 250 achievement points.

OTX: Developing a game can take a long time and many resources to complete it. It took you guys 4 years to make Oblivion alone. How long did it take to make Shivering Isles?

BN: We started working on it as soon as Oblivion went gold. We knew from the beginning that we wanted to do something substantial for the expansion, and it takes time to create this much content.

OTX: In Oblivion there was hundreds of NPC’s scattered around each with some personality. With Shivering Isles about how many NPC’s are there? How many voice actors did you use? Are we going to hear any famous voices in Shivering Isles?

BN: Actually, Oblivion had closer to 2000 NPCs, including villains like the bandits and conjurers. There are another 400 or so NPCs added by the Shivering Isles. Some of them are guys you can talk to, some of them, like the Zealots and Heretics, are more interested in slitting your throat. We used about the same number of voice actors as we did in Oblivion, but none of them are famous names.

OTX: I hope you don’t mind us asking some general questions about the game and Bethesda. These are some questions some of the staff members and contributors of On the Xbox formulated.

OTX: Is Bethesda planning any downloadable content after the release of Shivering Isles? Another expansion?

BN: We might do one or two more DLC things like the ones we’ve done before, but we don’t have any more plans for any other expansions or DLC beyond that.

OTX: Does Bethesda have any plans going around for Elder Scrolls 5?

BN: When we’re ready to talk about another Elder Scrolls game, we’ll let folks know. Fallout 3 will be the next big role-playing game we’re going to be talking to folks about.

OTX: For the PC version the content can be bought on a disk but on Xbox 360 it has to be downloaded off the Xbox Live Marketplace. What warranted this decision? Did you guys want to clear a path for other developers to release expansions on the Marketplace?

BN: Certainly we’re excited to be making the expansion available for download, it’s not really something that’s ever been done on a console. But it was a decision that was made for us because the console currently doesn’t support a standalone expansion on a disc like we can do for PC.

OTX: Are there any future patches planned for Oblivion?

BN: We’ll have a new update that will be available right before Shivering Isles comes out. Beyond that, we don’t have any definite plans.

OTX: Thank you very much for taking your time to chat with us today and we hope you have success with Shivering Isles.

BN: Thank you.