General:Emil Pagliarulo's Posts

Emil Pagliarulo's Posts
Medium/Format	Online Forum
Interviewee(s)	Emil Pagliarulo
Hosted By	Twitter

These are a few notable comments from Emil Pagliarulo on The Elder Scrolls setting. Pagliarulo is known as Dezinuh on Twitter.

Undated

On the lore and fiction of Elder Scrolls, and the nature of half races (circa 2006)

Well, it should be stated that the designers have the UTMOST respect for the lore that's been developed, and we do in fact strive to deviate from it as little as possible. Really, it's the TES lore that makes the game unique, and separates it from your standard LOTR-inspired fantasy universe. What tiehn said has a lot of truth to it; if we adhered too strictly too the lore, places like Solstheim could never have been created. So we created Solstheim, BUT... we also drew from the existing Nord lore and greatly expanded on it. And that's what made Bloodmoon so cool, in my mind. That's always the starting point. Look at what's there, see what's fleshed out and not fleshed out. So a lot of times it's not a matter of changing existing lore, but expanding on it to make it richer. So now Solstheim IS a part of the lore.

For the half-Orc in question in that quest, his is a VERY unique story, and that story is integral to fiction of that quest. So he is certainly the exception, and not the rule. It's not like you'll find Khajiit and Bosmer half-breeds walking the streets. (though Fargoth's bloodline is certainly suspect... hehe).

2016

On Lucien Lachance's inspiration (12-18-2016)

Lucien Lachance in Oblivion was totally inspired by the Emperor's agent from TIE Fighter. Truth!

2021

On Cicero's inspiration (04-02-2021)

Was talking to my dear friend about our favorite [Edgar Allan Poe] works. Hop-Frog has always had a soft spot in my heart. In fact, the character of Cicero in Skyrim was greatly inspired by Hop-Frog.

On the original ending for the Dark Brotherhood questline in Skyrim (10-02-2021)

The Dark Brotherhood questline ends with the player assassinating the Emperor. But it didn’t start out that way… When I first pitched the questline to Todd Howard, I was like, 'And then, at the end… you kill the Emperor’s body double!' He just kind of looked at me. Then he basically said, 'The body double? Lame. If you’re going to kill the Emperor… kill the Emperor.' Never in a million years did I think he would sign off on killing the ACTUAL Emperor of Tamriel. So you do in fact kill the body double… but earlier in the questline. After that, killing the real Emperor is even more meaningful and cool.

2022

On jumping into the Nightmother's Coffin (11-21-2022)

So game devs are now posting confessions and stories here on Twitter, because it's goodbye I guess? I turned 53 today - I'm too old to keep up. But I do have a good Skyrim "smoke and mirrors" story. Spolier incoming for an 11-year-old game...

In the Dark Brotherhood, there comes a point where you have to hide in the Night Mother's coffin. You step in, the door slams behind you, and all goes dark. And then you see the illuminated body of the Night Mother in front of you. Only... it was all faked. 😜

It was pretty late in development, and the animators were slammed, so an animation solution wasn't really viable. I knew it was on me. But the inside of the coffin wasn't playing nice with the player's collision. Sooo...

I force the player into first-person, lock their controls, cut the lights... and play the sound of the coffin closing behind you. But in reality, you're just standing there in the room, right up against the Night Mother. Not locked in the coffin at all. Game dev ftw! 😉

Inspiration behind the Dark Brotherhood's quests (08-30-2022)

Structurally, the Dark Brotherhood in Oblivion was very much inspired by... The Bourne Identity.

On Dark Brotherhood in Skyrim (11-30-2022)

More Dark Brotherhood trivia - I'm actually the voice of both the Black Door and the Sanctuary Guardians. And my own child was the voice of Aventus Aretino (the little boy who summons the Dark Brotherhood) and can still recite the Black Sacrament prayer from memory.

2023

On the inspiration behind the Falmer statue in Irkngthand (05-24-2023)

Today's shirt reminded me of some cool Skyrim trivia I think fans will get a kick out of. So, since I was a kid, I've been kind of obsessed with the cover of the Advanced D&D Players Handbook. I always wanted to pry the eyes out of a statue like that in a video game.

Fast forward to Skyrim pre-production. @rpggamedev was set to do the Thieves Guild... and I pounced! I suggested/begged that we should somehow replicate the experience from that cover. Al graciously agreed! And the Blindsighted quest was born! Crazy, huh? 🤓

Get "Kvatch'ed" (08-30-2023)

Fun fact... ever since Oblivion, the term "Kvatch'ed" is sometimes used, internally, to describe either a chunk of gameplay or piece of art (or even a level) that we're going to "blow up" (get rid of for whatever reason). 🤓

On Oblivion's narrative fidelity (08-30-2023)

I remember back when we were developing it, we'd sometimes describe Oblivion as the Lord of the Rings movies, whereas Morrowind was the Lord of the Rings books.

On what Bethesda games do (10-21-2023)

As I've been chilling out on vacation with my wife, post Starfield, I've had a lot of time to think about my time at Bethesda Game Studios, what it means to be a fan of our games, and my own time as a Bethesda fan.

I met a guy recently who said he's been a fan of Bethesda Game Studio's games since Morrowind. We talked a little about what it is to be a Bethesda fan, and that's something that really resonates with me. I remember what it was to be a fan, long before I worked here.

The first Bethesda game that truly grabbed me was 1994's The Elder Scrolls: Arena. I was in college, and my roommate and I played single-player games hotseat style. I remember we had to call Bethesda tech support for help configuring the SMARTDRV memory manager. Crazy.

Then Terminator: Future Shock, TES: Daggerfall, and Terminator: Skynet. Soon after, I became games journalist, and started covering Bethesda titles. I fact, in 1997, in the ultimate surreal prelude to Starfield, I previewed 10th Planet. https://roadtostarfield.blogspot.com/2022/04/preview-10th-planet.html?m=1

So just what is it about Bethesda's games that called to me? That continue to mesmerize fans literally decades later? I have one theory in particular...

For as long as I can remember, Bethesda's titles have been, if nothing else, different. They weren't games to be beaten - they were worlds to live in. Big, ambitious, creative, and offering something I could never get enough of: a first-person perspective.

For me, first-person meant I was IN the game, part of the world itself. Even today, I prefer 1st over 3rd in most games. See, the promise of virtual reality was always more than the headset - it was the idea that we could truly enter a fully-realized artificial world.

That's what Bethesda's games gave me. As as dev, that's exactly what I want to give our fans. In a lot of ways, Starfield was me pushing myself to the limit. Pretty sure every other dev on the team would say the same thing.

Having now had time to properly reflect on Starfield, goddamn am I proud of what we achieved. A new world to live in. A brand new IP. The beginning of a new dream. We pulled it off! A lot of it still feels surreal, to be honest. God, I was stressed for 2 years straight.

Well, I'll tell you one thing about Starfield - the game's reception has reinvigorated my love of world creation and game development. And I'm so honored to be making games for the very studio that showed me, so long ago, what it is to truly enter another world.

2024

Early Bloodmoon Ideas (01-30-2024)

I seemed to have stumbled upon an ancient Bloodmoon treasure trove! Notes, documents, inspirational reference material... Even an old skool vacation request form from more that 20 years ago.

Sorry, can't share official internal documents. But here are some brainstorm notes. 😂

Brainstorm Document 11/5/02

Bloodmoon

• Different Name? Pale moon, Silver moon, Snow moon, Icemoon
• New crossbow - Wood and leather. Aesthetic matches the environment. Bolts are actually thin tree branches with pointed tips. Fletching made of pine needles.
• Endgame glacier access - Opens to the player by some act pf the frost giant. He smashes a hole through the glacier, or throws a giant icicle through it. Something like that. His size would make this plausible.
• Endgame reward - Player gets control of the frost giant's castle and/or minions; player gets control of the werewolves
• Quest idea - Sorcerer's tower of ice
• Quest idea --

well, that Sorcerer's tower of ice idea is so cool

You know, back then I was probably inspired by a necromancer's ice tower concept I had a few years earlier, on Thief 2 Gold.