1. When did you start playing Elder Scrolls games, and what drew you toward playing them?

I heard about TES games first when Daggerfall came out. I would have loved to play it, but my PC was too bad back then. So the first time for me was Morrowind, which I only played on Xbox (again - PC too low-end). What really makes a RPG for me is that you can actually roleplay and are not forced into playing someone you don't want to be or doing something you don't want to do. The free world of TES really amazed me and even though I couldn't use any mods on Xbox I still loved Morrowind despite all its flaws. When I read about Oblivion I made sure to have a top-notch gaming machine at the time it came out. It was really that one game that made me buy a new computer.

2. What do you like about being able to mod Elder Scrolls games, and what types of mods do you enjoy making the most?

With the Construction Set and a few basic modelling skills I can make my imagination become (virtual) reality. It's not as hard as making a game from scratch and the results can look very professional. I love walking through my own creations (mainly interested in making architecture and world spaces now) and sometimes I just walk around without a reason even though I have seen everything many, many times already.

3. What mod are you currently working on, if you can share that information?

I'm working on a recreation of the Sheogorad region from Morrowind right now. And did so for the last 5 months. The mod will have a main quest about a secret Dwemer facility which the player will discover in the ruins of Mzuleft. It will give one more possible explanation for the sudden Dwemer extinction. Apart from that there will be sidequests and other things to do. I'm aiming at making a small expansion, about half the size of SI (quests and accessible worldspace size, other content will be even more than SI).

All meshes that can be found in the region will be redone by me for Oblivion, with a higher polycount and highres, normal mapped textures. For architecture and landscape objects that is, I don't plan to do any armors, weapons or creatures for the first release. But fortunately there are already a lot of resources for that and I will include as many high quality custom equipment as I can get permission for.

Currently I have one team member that helps with landscaping, but I hope to attract some more talented modders once I make a WIP thread at the official forums.

Here are a few WIP screenshots of the work done so far:

Dagon Fel (landscape outside unfinished)

Ruins of Nchardahrk

Rotheran (again landscape unfinished)

Sanni

Inside a Dwemer ruin

A forgotten shipwreck

Ruins of Mzuleft

Mushrooms everywhere

Small Velothi village at Ald Redanyia (no doors, lights and decoration yet, not in Morrowind)

4. Of all the mods that you've worked on, which one do you view as your favorite?

I've made a few medium sized mods so far only, but right now it is probably the 'Natural History Museum'. I like collecting things and I think I did a good job on the statue poses. I have a quite large update for it about 50% done, but currently I have no time to finish it. Maybe I can do it inbetween somehow. But my 'legacy' is definitely the mod I'm currently working on. I guess I spent more time on making it already than I did for all my other mods combined.

5. You have worked on a few Unique Landscapes mods, what are the specific types of things that go into making a mod such as that?

One idea in my head and making it look as close as possible in TES afterwards. UL modding is a very basic type of modding as it doesn't require much skill. Only dedication and attention to detail. And not getting bored of placing hundreds or even thousands of objects by hand.

6. What type of modder do you consider yourself; a jack of all trades? Scripter? Modeler?

I'm most definitely a Jack of all trades, but I mainly do models right now. I can't make very complicated scripts like TalkieToaster or Scruggsy, but it's enough for making quests, setting up traps and the like. I'm a visual person, so I wouldn't get the same satisfaction from making something like, for example, Thieves Arsenal as I do from making architecture and other models.

7. How do you view the feedback given to you about your mods? What is the best type of feedback you've recieved? The Worst?

I'm always interested in feedback and I think you can't have a better beta test than thousands of people playing your mod. So the best feedback are bug reports since one person or a small group can't catch all bugs in a large mod.

What annoys me is when people complain about small details they personally don't like and ask me to change them (sometimes even with a lower rating unless I change the details they don't like). Do they send letters to Bethesda because they think the IC tower should be purple and not white? Fortunately that's not very common, most people give constructive feedback or just praise what I've done (hooray!).

8. How do you view Oblivion modding advancing in the future?

As long as TES V isn't coming out (and I don't think it will in a very long time) the modding will improve. If you started modding in 2006 and still do it there is a good chance you know what you're doing. And someday everyone wants to do more than just a simple preconstructed house mod. I don't mind if there aren't 1000 mods coming out a month anymore. If there is one fantastic mod like 'Lost Spires' every three month or so it will keep the community alive. Oblivion is not an out-of-date game despite being two years old. On my overclocked 8800 GTS I can barely play smoothly (40+ FPS for me) on max settings and I haven't seen a RPG that looks better yet. So far there is no RPG that can compare to the do-what-you-want experience Oblivion has either (except for Morrowind of course).

9. Can you give any advice to those interested in taking up modding, or who are beginners?

Don't be scared of anything. You can learn how to model, script and texture quite fast if you really want it. Of course you won't become a Ghogiel or Scruggsy in a few weeks, but you can definitely do a lot more when you take the time to learn something new instead of making requests or using bad looking and time consuming workarounds. The more skill and experience you have, the easier, faster and most importantly less frustrating it will be to hack your ideas into a mod.